http://www.africare.org/news/news_release/2007_1220_Elsha.html
MEDIA CONTACT: Nicole Eley, (202) 328-5362, neley@africare.org
DONOR SPOTLIGHT: Elsha Gives Back
"My hopes and prayers are that someday ... everyone in the world will have the necessary fresh water they need to sustain life."
WASHINGTON, DC, December 20, 2007 — For the past two years, 24-year-old Elsha Stockseth of South Weber, Utah, has used her tech-savvy talents to design and sell holiday cards to her friends and family. All the proceeds from her sales are then donated to support a cause Elsha feels passionately about: clean water in Africa. While many of Elsha's peers share this passion, very few have gone to the lengths Elsha has gone to in creating each card. Below, Elsha tells her story.
ELSHA'S STORY
I am writing to you about a project I did this year and last year to raise money for the African Well Fund (via Africare).
I am 24 years old but only weigh 34 pounds because I have muscular dystrophy. When I was in high school I was able to paint and draw, but in the past few years my arms quit working. My family was able to find a head mouse for me, which is a device that looks like a digital camera that hooks to the top of my notebook computer screen and picks up signal from a reflective dot that I wear on my forehead. I have been able to do my artwork using this device and the Photoshop software.
For the past two years I have designed Christmas cards and sold them to friends and family. Part of the proceeds I collect have been sent to the African Well Fund so I can help people who are less fortunate than me. I believe water is essential in sustaining life and everyone should have access to clean useable water.
I hope my small fforts will aid those who don't have water close by, in obtaining renewable sources of water to make their lives better.
Last year I sold about 1,000 cards and was able to contribute $105 to the African Well Fund. This year I did a little better and sold about 1,600 cards and will be contributing about $450 to the fund. When the printer who is making my cards this year found out about the purpose of my project, he helped by contributing to the cost of the cards and I was able to contribute more money.
I hope to continue this project next year and raise even more money for the people of Africa. My hopes and prayers are that someday we won't have to do this because everyone in the world will have the necessary fresh water they need to sustain life.
—Elsha Stockseth
NOMADS’ DIALOGUE
DEVELOPMENT INSTEAD OF RELIEF
Wendy Wilson,
Why bring African herders, farmers, and artisans from different parts of the continent together?
How can you have a meeting of Maasai, Tuareg, Fulani, and Somali peoples? What would they talk about? Are they literate? What language would they use to communicate with each other? What would such a meeting accomplish? These were some of the questions that inevitably came
to mind when the idea of such a meeting was presented. A meeting of scholars and experts
on African development is natural and expected. A meeting of the beneficiaries of development is a most unusual idea. But it is an idea that grows naturally out of the grassroots philosophy upon which the African Development Foundation (ADF) is built.
http://www.adf.gov/NDfulltext.pdf
December 22, 2007
WHO TELLS THE AFRICAN STORY?
Kwesi W Obeng, Assistant Editor, African Agenda|3/28/2007
The World Social Forum in Nairobi has again highlighted how Africa continues to grapple with its image as far as telling its story and projecting itself are concerned,
writes * Kwesi W. Obeng.
The first to be held in Africa, the 2007 World Social Forum was billed to be the biggest global event to be hosted by the Kenyan capital of Nairobi with an estimated 150,000 people to be in attendance. In the end, however, a little less than half showed up. This in itself could be due to a myriad of factors including the high cost of air travel to and from Africa, general disquiet about the capacity of an African country to host such a big event and insufficient publicity.
Admittedly, the corporate media (ABC, BBC, CNN, etc) of the Western world would not turn its antennae on Africa except for the wars, deprivation, political instability and negative images that lend themselves to the stereotype. For the whole week that the WSF took place in Kenya, not a full report of it was carried by the major world news media. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum (WEF), which the WSF is held in opposition to, had hourly reports even days before it started in some western media. In a media like CNN, it was almost like media blitzkrieg to blot WSF out as though the WEF began almost at the tail end of the WSF they spent their prime time on WEF even as it had not started.
But what about the African media? When a world event like the World Social Forum takes place in Africa and Africa fails to make capital of it to tell her story, something must have gone wrong. Just days before the event, there was hardly much about the WSF even in the local media. By the start of the jamboree on Saturday, January 20, most Nairobians were unaware of the WSF. Coverage in the Kenyan media was at best insignificant. KTN, a leading Kenyan TV station even buried the well attended opening carnival in the middle of it primetime news at 9.00pm local time.
It was not until two days into the forum that Kenyans became aware that their capital was hosting the rest of the world. And by the third day major local newspapers, Daily Nation and The Standard, were beginning to dedicate a page to WSF activities and splashing colourful front page pictures of placard-bearing and chanting participants.
Some blame the organisers for being ‘publicity-shy’, euphemism for not putting sufficient funds in the local media for a sustained media campaign. For some media workers even the nightmare one had to go through at the Media Centre of the WSF was enough disincentive as there were power cuts and frequent internet connectivity breaks that hampered work.
While some of the problems are to do inadequate infrastructure others could be attributed to Africa’s attitude to media. *As Fatma Alloo, herself a journalist and member of the African Social Forum Organizing Committee, points out to Emrakeb Asefa and Diana Mulilo in this interview, it takes more than infrastructure for Africans to tell their own story.
On the role of the media (African) in today’s globalised world, Fatma says: ‘I think the media need to have education on what it means to be globalised. Because in this globalisation world, Africa always gets marginalised. So the media have to learn how to cover stories from the African perspective.’
Is another media possible?
‘Another media is possible. Africa does not have a strong media. I mean look at Europe. It is because they have a strong media that their issues are put at the forefront. Why can’t Africa do the same? We should get our act together and have our own pan-African media which portrays our issues from our perspectives. We owe it to this continent.’
What can a forum like this to address shortcomings like inadequate resources and training to strengthen and empower African media?
It is not only forums like this. It is our governments too. They must be committed to a portrayal of Africa from the African point of view. They cannot continue to NOT be committed. And forums like this are pressure points where we are telling our governments ‘enough is enough.’ Governments have to listen to the voices of the people and the wishes of the people.
The WSF organizing committee publicity machinery was at best inadequate. For instance there were hardly any flyers, banners or billboards advertising WSF in the week leading to event. The 20-minutes taxi ride from Kenyatta Airport to central Nairobi had only one billboard promoting the world event. Taxi and bus drivers, key couriers and sources of information in cities around the world including Nairobi were simply unaware of WSF. The radio stations hardly mentioned WSF.
Inadequate publicity
Put to him about the poor, indeed the lack of an effective media and communications strategy, the chair of the WSF Organising Committee, Prof. Edward Oyugi admitted in part that ‘the communication aspect of the forum was not very effectively managed’. But he flipped the crisis down to a lack of resources. Donors who promised resources either delayed in transferring the funds or tied the money to specific actions, he told African Agenda.
Any wonder WSF fever did not grip the Kenyan public’s imagination until about the last two days of the forum. And these two days witnessed...
to continue reading this, get the latest copy of African Agenda by contacting communications@twnafrica.org
http://www.twnafrica.org/news_detail.asp?twnID=970
The Chief is Dead; Long Live the BBC: Globalization Culture and Democratization in Ghana
By Audrey Gadzekpo
In February 1999 the BBC African Service broke the news about the death of the Asantehene Otumfuo Opoku Ware, II. The Asantehene is the paramount chief of the influential and historically important Ashanti ethnic group and perhaps the most prominent chief in Ghana. The BBC report, which was also available via the internet, upset the Asanteman Council, the governing body of the Ashanti kingdom, compelling them to publicly condemn the news report as having violated an important cultural norm and offended the people of Ashanti. They charged that by reporting the chief's death without first deferring to the Asanteman Council, the BBC had shown disrespect to "time-honored institutions and practices." The local BBC correspondent who had leaked what was considered a secret to the BBC was under siege and had to temporarily go into hiding.
http://192.38.86.252/globandmedia.htm
Africa in Bloom
Led by Uganda, a continent better known for food shortages is becoming the center of an agribusiness boom - with fertile opportunities for entrepreneurs everywhere.
By G. Pascal Zachary, Business 2.0 Magazine, October 2 2006:
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2006/09/01/8384353/index.htm?postversion=2006090812
Thirst For Power
By G. Pascal Zachary
First Published May 2007
Can thousands of small dams solve Africa's power crunch?
http://spectrum.ieee.org/may07/5054
Why Africa Matters
Our charity and compassion aren't nearly enough in dealing with Africa; we should follow our self-interest to create a real and lasting commitment
G. Pascal Zachary, October 15, 2006
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/10/15/ING93LLO351.DTL&hw=pascal+zachary&sn=001&sc=1000
African leaders, de-colonization and the white female
December 9th, 2007
Penguin, the distinguished publisher, plans to release in January an intriguing book, “The Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Kama and His Nation,” about the founding father of Botswana and the English woman he loved, married and spent the rest of his life with. White women marrying Africa leaders was the rage some 40 to 50 years ago, a peculiar sideshow in the “liberation” of African peoples from their colonial masters. The french placed many spies in the bedrooms of prominent African francophones in the 50s and 60s and Ghana’s Nkrumah, though devotedly married to an Egyptian in order to highlight his committment to Pan-Africanism, maintained a close friendship with an English lady. Kama of Botswana, irregardless of his romantic attachments, was a political puppet of the Britain that continued to dominate Botswana long after nominal independence. Franz Fanon, who published his pathbreaking study of inter-racial romance, “Black Sin, White Masks,” in 1952, would have destroyed Kama without breaking a sweat. This is not to imply that post-colonial lackeys were the only African men who wanted to comingle with white women in bed. Even the Congolese tower of black power, Lumumba, in a well documented example, asked the CIA on a visit to Washington to provide him with a blonde prostitute along with his hotel room. The CIA did and he later calmly informed his CIA contact tha he thoroughly enjoyed himself. The prostitute probably did too, though no records exist about her reactions.
http://africaworksgpz.com/2007/12/09/african-leaders-de-colonialization-and-the-role-of-white-women/
nor the ordinary Africans she claims to care about.
A justified termination: Sudan on the brink
December 1st, 2007
I feel sympathy for the British school teacher, Gillian Gibbons, jailed in Sudan for disrespecting the prophet Muhammed. Sudanese jails don’t have a reputation for hospitality. Gibbons’s crime — naming a stuffed animal after the Muslim holy man — seems trivial. The British government is outraged over the jailing, and human-rights activists around the world are understandably disturbed by the sentence. Yet at the risk of appearing uncharitable, I think the Sudanese officials who say they have shown charity towards Ms. Gibbons are making a good point. We are crossing a fault-line between the West and the Rest when it comes to teddy bear named Muhammed. The school teacher was not teaching European kids but rather Muslim children of priviledged Sudanese families. Ms. Gibbons need not possess some unusual knowledge of Sudanese society, or Islamic culture, to know about prohibitions against idolatry. These prohibitions are basic to Islam and a respect for these prohibitions ought to be considered a minimum practice of multi-cultural tolerance. That Ms. Gibbons failed to display minimal respect for Islamic practices in Sudan would seem to be beyond rational debate. The only question is whether she should be punished for her lapse — and how.
My feeling is that dismissal from her teaching post, and deportation, should be sufficient punishment for her mistake. Even devout Muslims in Sudan should not insist on a greater punishment. To give Ms. Gibbons jail time — even 24 hours no less the 15 days given to her by a court in Sudan — is excessive and unjust. Yet the suggestion that Sudan’s officials have no justification in sanctioning Ms. Gibbons isn’t credible either. Ms. Gibbons is not being punished for exercizing her free speech or free expression. She was, after all, a paid employee of a school, and schools everywhere have their own standards. Governments too. It would seem to be much more productive to think of this hapless British school teacher as running afoul of a cultural tripwire that, while trivial, is nonetheless not inconsequential, especially in an African-Muslim society where mores are well established.
Finally, I worry that the over-reaction to the punishment of Ms. Gibbons is fueled by animus towards the Sudanese government — and isn’t a reflection of the case itself. Sudan’s government, through its repressive actions in Darfur and South Sudan over many years, has provoked a good deal of justifiable condemnation from many responsible and informed people. Yet opposition to Sudan’s awful government does not justify insensitivity towards Islam. There must be a way to condemn the Sudanese government for violence against Christian and non-Muslim minorities without defending attacks — witting or unwitting — on core Islamic beliefs.
http://africaworksgpz.com/2007/12/01/a-justified-termination-sudan-on-the-brink/
Addressing corruption in public sector
About the book
Today, citizens everywhere demand greater probity of government officials. The new transparency in domestic and global markets brings corruption more quickly to the public eye. Corruption flourishes where distortions in the policy and regulatory regime provide scope for it, and where institutions of restraint are weak. Corruption lies at the intersection of the public and private sectors. It is a two-way street. Corruption violates the public trust and corrodes social capital. Unchecked, creeping accumulation of seemingly minor infractions can slowly erode political legitimacy to the point where non corrupt officials and members of the public see little point in playing by the rules.
These are some of the conclusions of the book on Institutional Frameworks for Addressing Public Sector Corruption. The book also brings to the fore the analysis of the institutionalized process for addressing public sector corruption in the three selected countries - Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia. The book reveals that anticorruption institutions and institutional arrangements and processes in all the three countries have had a checkered history. The findings also shade light on sobering challenges - while reasonable progress has been made in strengthening capacity to ensure effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability in the management of public finance, the institutional framework for dealing with lapses in the use of public resources is yet to be properly implemented. Common weaknesses that were identified relate to issues of funding, tacit political maneuvers, erratic and turbulent track records, and lack of institutional memory.
Corruption is a multifaceted issue that pervades all aspects of the public and private sectors, and cannot be addressed through legal reforms and enforcements without tackling the underlying causes and incentives for corruption and reducing payoffs (increasing the cost of corruption) to the individual. Although corruption tends to get the most attention, it is a symptom of a more general problem of perverse underlying incentives of the public service. Hence, the need for a holistic review of the national integrity system.
Reducing corruption would thus require a coordinated and comprehensive anticorruption strategy at the national level that would foster private sector competitiveness; empower civil society; and, reform public sector management and finance as well as the political environment for increased transparency and accountability.
Executive Secretary
The African Capacity Building Foundation
P.O. Box 1562, Harare, Zimbabwe, Fax: 263-4-702915, 792894, E-mail: root@acbf-pact.org
AFRICANCROPS.NET
of African Crops and Seed Systems
Biotechnology, Breeding & Seed Systems for African Crops
Sorghum and Millet
Background Information on Pearl Millet
Pearl millet (subsequently referred to herein as simply “millet”) is a crop of vital importance to millions of African families living in semi-arid regions of the continent. Millet is one of the world’s most resilient crops. In many areas where millet is the staple food, nothing else will grow. Several phrases from a recent publication by ICRISAT perhaps sum it up best:
“We are talking about a crop that is virtually unimprovable – a crop that grows where not even weeds can survive. A crop that has been improved by farmers and through natural selection for thousands of years. A crop that produces nourishment from the poorest soils in the driest regions in the hottest climates. A crop that grows straight out of sand dunes. A crop that survives sand storms and flash floods.”
Millet is descended from wild grasses native to the central Saharan plateau region of Niger. From there it spread to east Africa and India, where millet ranks as the fourth most important cereal. In west Africa millet is consumed primarily as a thick porridge, or toh, but it is also milled into flour to prepare breads and cakes. Millet is the most-preferred cereal grain grown in Sahelian countries, Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, and is consumed in preference to sorghum. In northern Nigeria, millet flour is used in making a popular fried cake know as “masa”. Roasted young ears are a popular food for children. While sorghum is perhaps a better-know crop in most of the world, most inhabitants of the Sahel actually prefer to consume millet, a fact which should encourage greater investments in its improvement.
Feeding trials conducted in India have shown that millet is nutritionally superior for human growth to maize and rice. It has slightly higher protein content (average of 16%) than maize and roughly twice the fat content (5-7%) of most maize varieties, and is particularly high in calcium and iron. It has lower levels of fiber and most vitamins, although its vitamin A content is relatively high. One important problem for households which rely on millet as a food staple is its tendency to spoil rapidly (as a result of the fat content) following preparation. As constraints to labor increase in Africa, this constraint is likely to increase in importance, giving rise to the need for alternatives.
Five countries in west Africa (Nigeria, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso and Senegal) produce 85% of the continent’s total millet crop. Sudan accounts for 50% of millet production in eastern and southern Africa. Figure 15 shows the relative importance of millet production in west Africa vs. the other two regions. West Africa is also the only region where millet production has significantly increased over time. However, all of this growth is due to increased area cultivated, and not increased yields. Growth rate of millet yields in SSA during 1985-1994 was 2.3%.
http://www.africancrops.net/rockefeller/crops/millet/index.htm
DECLARATION OF THE FOCUS GROUP ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW
Human Rights, Humanitarian Law and the Rule of Law in Regional Integration
African States and peoples are committed to the promotion and protection of human and peoples’ rights through national, regional and international instruments. The basic foundational values of the African Union are respect for good governance, human and peoples’ rights and the rule of law as contained in Article 4 of the Constitutive Act and the provisions of the NEPAD and CSSDCA. Consequently the constitutional order of the AU must incorporate the African Human and Peoples’ Rights instruments, system and institutions including those relating to the promotion and protection of children’s, women’s and refugees rights and humanitarian laws.
In this regard, the process of strengthening regional integration through the mechanism of transforming the OAU into the AU and the implementation of the regional economic and social plan of action, NEPAD, provides a historic opportunity for African states and peoples to reinforce the African regional human and peoples rights system and make it a necessary and essential resource institution for sustainable development, human security, social justice, and adherence to good governance and the rule of law. In the spirit of genuine ownership by Africans, supported by strategic partnerships with the sub-regional institutions and the UN agencies responsible for the promotion and protection of human rights, refugees and humanitarian affairs, participants at the ADF III have adopted by broad consensus the following key priority issues and areas for immediate attention and action:
- Human rights must be mainstreamed within the sub-regional and regional organisations that make up the building blocks of the African Union with special emphasis on gender and refugee issues. The Regional Economic Communities (RECs), must establish consultative fora and mechanisms to facilitate discourse on Human rights and the rule of law in their member states and adopt a rights-based approach to programming.
- Criteria for continued membership of the African Union should include a commitment to respect human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
- Speedy signing and ratification by all African States of basic international and regional human rights, humanitarian and refugee instruments and their incorporation into national legal systems.
- Immediate ratification of the Protocol on the establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights followed by immediate establishment of the Court.
- Ensure that existing human rights institutions and the proposed African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights form an integral part of the principal constitutional organs of the Constitutive Act of the African Union.
- In view of the limited resources and the need for greater efficiency, there is need to consolidate and rationalise the existing implementation institutions for the various regional human rights instruments. In the process, the African Commission and the consolidated structures must be strengthened by ensuring that the AU gives them the necessary financial, technical and human resources.
- The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights must be given adequate power to observe, monitor and provide adequate indicators which will guide the production of an annual report on the human rights situation in Africa.
- Ensure that in their operation, the African Commission and Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights are composed of experts with professional competence, integrity and independence in accordance with the provisions of the Charter.
- Urge the African Commission and Court on Human and Peoples Rights to prioritise serious and endemic human rights issues and problems, especially those affecting physical integrity, women, children and the youth, refugees and internally displaced persons as well as to take a balanced approach to human rights (economic, social, cultural, civil, political and developmental).
- Demonstrate commitment to the rule of law by ensuring the adoption of national, sub-regional and regional good laws that are effectively implemented without discrimination and selectivity by the national courts, sub-regional courts and the African Court of Justice.
- Assure direct and effective access by people to the human and peoples’ rights adjudication institutions as well as the African Court of Justice and facilitate effective remedies to victims of injustice, human rights violations as well as the violation of humanitarian laws and rights enshrined in other regional and sub-regional legal instruments and policies.
- Encourage and support increased regional co-operation between legislatures, the judiciaries, law enforcement agencies and organs of civil society, particularly in the promotion of human rights, humanitarian law and the rule of law.
- Ensure speedy finalisation, adoption and implementation of the Protocol on Women’s rights.
- Introduce human rights, refugee and humanitarian law as well as peace education at all levels of formal and informal education.
http://www.uneca.org/adfiii/docs/HumanRights_Statement.doc
Africa isn't poor because of corruption
Rudo Kwaramba, July 18, 2005, The Guardian
In the month leading up to the G8, Nigeria revealed that its leaders had stolen $390bn (£222bn) over the last 40 years. It was a shocking admission and provided fuel for those critics who say the African problem is irredeemable largely due to corruption.
On the eve of the G8, President Bush declared there would be no more aid for corrupt regimes but the G8 did commit to increasing aid to $50bn. However, only $20bn of this is new money.
The issue hung heavily over the summit but it is too simplistic to argue Africa is poor because of corruption or that all aid efforts are doomed because of it. The economist Jeffrey Sachs, an adviser to the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, discards the conclusion. The poor are poor, he says, because failing infrastructure, poor energy sources, geographic isolation, disease and natural disasters inevitably conspire to foil progress.
Transparency International ranks Mali fairly high in terms of honesty, yet it is still dirt poor, plagued by flash flooding, earthquakes and an ever-expanding desert. Perversely, there are some countries which have achieved economic growth while still having high levels of corruption. China only ranks slightly better than Mali for corruption and the burgeoning Indian economy ranks well below.
Tony Blair's Commission for Africa report challenges industrialised countries to take responsibility for their role in promoting corruption, such as giving bribes or ignoring corrupt deals. Industrialised countries must work to repatriate money and state assets stolen from the people of Africa by corrupt leaders.
Foreign banks must also be obliged by law to inform on suspicious accounts. Those who give bribes should be dealt with too; foreign firms must be more transparent and those that bribe should be refused export credits.
But African nations must be more accountable for the aid they receive. One significant development has been the progress of the Africa Union in implementing a "peer review" process where countries subject themselves to external audit under the auspices of other African leaders. In Nigeria, the disclosure about corruption only came to the surface because of the government's determination to tackle the issue.
Ghana was among the first to subject itself to this process. Others are set to follow. While the process is voluntary it is the first African initiative of its kind - in the past most such audits have been imposed.
Countries that have tackled corruption should be rewarded but even in less favourable environments aid and debt cancellation initiatives can still be effective. Such resources should in part be channelled into building the very institutions to combat corruption. James Wolfensohn, the former president of the World Bank, recognised this and strengthening institutions and pursuing good governance now accounts for 20% of the bank's lending.
World Vision too pursues the strategy with programmes like that in Cambodia where it helps train police officers in coordination with the national government.
It is also running a demand governance pilot programme in Africa, where people are given the skills and resources to ascertain if their governments are spending what they have pledged on schools, roads or hospitals. A similar scheme is planned in Brazil.
It must also be remembered that debt relief - provided through the World Bank/IMF debt relief programme - has reaped some rewards. Tanzania has harnessed the savings to end school fees for primary school children and expects to achieve universal primary education by 2006. By 2002-2003 there was almost a 50% increase in the number attending primary school since debt relief was granted in 2001.
Corruption is a serious issue but it is not insurmountable and it should not be used as a simplistic excuse to attack policy change aimed at reducing the debt burden and increasing aid to poor countries.
· Rudo Kwaramba is advocacy director of the charity World Vision.
Combating corruption in post-war settings
January 17, 2008, 1 - 2:15pm
Where ODI, 111 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7JD
Note Speaker: Martin Tisné, Programme Director, Tiri
Chair: Alina Rocha Menocal, Research Fellow, Politics and Governance
Attention to corruption has not typically been a programming priority in post-war settings. Between the exigencies of securing peace, responding to humanitarian crises, large-scale public institution-building and economic development, fighting corruption has either been seen as secondary, or as an obstacle to peace. A growing body of national and international policy-makers is now debating how anti-corruption measures in these settings may be most effective. Corruption can be a major destabilising factor, but so can anti-corruption measures gone wrong.
At this ODI event, Martin Tisné from Tiri will review integrity reforms that have been undertaken in post-war settings, put forth some recommendations about those best placed to succeed in these environments, and present an analytical framework that can tip the balance in favour of positive recovery.
Over the past two years, Tiri, an independent non-governmental organisation that works with governments, business and civil society organisations to find practical solutions to making integrity work, has led a team of researchers from eight post-war countries to study factors that may improve the chances for and quality of post-war recovery.
If you would like to attend, please register using ODI's online events booking system at: apps.odi.org.uk….
http://apps.odi.org.uk/events
FINANCIAL TIMES THURSDAY JANUARY 26 2006
SPECIAL REPORT INVESTING IN YOUNG PEOPL E
BUSINESS AND NUTRITION
Hygiene factors create opportunities for private sector
Innovative products and education are being used to address the health needs of young people worldwide – and can generate profits for suppliers, writes Sarah Murray
While young people in developing countries are vulnerable to eases such as HIV/Aids, they are also exposed to health risks arising from micro-nutrient deficiency and lack of hygiene.
Tackling these conditions does not necessarily require expensive drugs. Simple dietary supplements and changing habits have been shown to have a big impact – and here, the corporate sector is stepping in with products that address nutrition and health, while also generating profits.
Diarrhoea alone kills more than 1m children a year, according to Unicef. Yet a World Bank study has shown hand washing with soap and water could reduce diarrhoea-related diseases by almost half.
Armed with this information Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer products group, launched a rural health and hygiene education programme in India. The Swasthya Chetna or “Health Awakening” campaign was a natural one for the company to take on since Lifebuoy, the country’s most popular soap, is sold through Hindustan Lever, the Indian unit of Unilever.
New distribution channels have been developed for the programme, with representatives that are part salespeople, part health workers sent to villages to teach schoolchildren the importance of hand washing with soap.
For the company, the programme not only furthers its corporate responsibility agenda, it also helps build its business by winning new consumers among the estimated 70m people who never use soap. “This will help us grow the soap market in India and at the same time have a positive impact on the health of people living in rural India,” says Harpreet Singh-Tibb, Hindustan Lever Lifebuoy brand manager.
Another problem young people face is lack of access to clean water. Here, several companies have come up with potential solutions, including Procter & Gamble, which makes low-cost water purification sachets.
Connecticut-based KX Industries, which makes carbon filters, is working on a water filter that can be made and sold at low cost in developing countries and turns dirty water into drinking water overnight without chemicals, power or special equipment.
When it comes to nutrition, much can be achieved through food fortification. Vitamin and mineral deficiency affects more than 2bn people worldwide, according to the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (Gain), a Geneva-based foundation, causing birth defects, learning difficulties, weakened immune systems, low work capacity, blindness and death.
Here, too, consumer products companies are attempting to be part of the solution – some through a mixture of philanthropy and business strategy. Tetra Pak, the carton manufacturer, for example, has created a separate entity, the Food for Development Office, through which it provides milk to schoolchildren.
However, companies are also developing models for products and services that, while development is the main agenda, are intended ultimately to be profitable, albeit with short term expectations for returns that are modest. This approach is being taken by Unilever with Annapurna, an iodised salt being sold in India and Ghana that the company hopes will reduce the health problems caused by lack of iodine in the diet. Because iodine is a key micronutrient in the early stages of brain
development, children born to iodine deficient mothers often have a lower IQ, ultimately limiting their potential. Producing and distributing fortified foods, however, is not the only challenge.
In many countries, weak governance means regulations enforcing the fortification of certain foods are not always adhered to – or do not even exist.
Here the private sector can also contribute, says Jane Nelson, director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government. “Another area where business can play a role is getting involved wi th pol icy dialogues that help strengthen the capacity of local governments to bring in regulatory requirements for food fortification.”
Corporate initiatives on micro-nutrients are the kinds of programmes a new organisation, the Business Alliance for Food Fortification, aims to promote – particularly since the Copenhagen Consensus, a group of international economists, deemed the provision of micro-nutrients to be the second most cost-effective solution to development challenges after the control of HIV/Aids.
Launched in October, the alliance – which has funding from the World Bank Institute and Gain and is chaired by Coca-Cola, Danone and Unilever – aims to foster partnerships between companies, non-profit organisations and governments to create long term supplies of fortified foods for the poor that improve health and nutrition and are also commercially viable.
But while partnerships are clearly crucial to the success of initiatives addressing health and nutrition, Stuart Hart, chair of Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University’s Johnson
School of Management, stresses the fact that companies need to work not only with governments and large development agencies but also with small, local organisations.
“The private sector is realising there are significant business opportunities in focusing on how to solve these problems,” he says. “But if you’re going to become indigenous, you need to involve local groups – it’s all about building a local ecosystem of partnerships.” Gavin Neath, chairman of Unilever UK with group responsibility for corporate responsibility, stresses the importance of achieving commercial viability. “Whether it’s iodised salt in Ghana or hand washing in India, these programmes are linked to brands that have a business agenda as their central proposition,” he says.
“We expect to get not just growth but a good return on those products – otherwise these things are simply not sustainable.” Bérangère Magarinos, partnerships manager at Gain agrees. “The real job is to find new markets,” she says. “What’s interesting for us is for companies to make money and be sustainable – we’re not about philanthropy.” Much can be achieved by food fortification but regulations are not always adhered to – or do not even exist.
CHILDREN OF DISASTER
Donors may restrict immediate funding to the basics but youngsters value the return of school uniforms and play, writes Sarah Murray When natural disasters strike orphans are created, children and young people are separated from parents and – as for all victims of disasters – food, water and shelter are all desperately needed.
At the same time, the long term effects of these events can be profound, and agencies and non-profit organisations stress the need for young people to be given a means of making a living as soon as possible so that they themselves can contribute to the recovery process.
The other pressing need for children and young people affected by such events is to regain an element of normality. When visiting regions affected by the Asian tsunami of December 2004, Robert Davies, chief executive of the International Business Leaders’ Forum, was interested to see how much focus was being put on finding school uniforms for children.
Even though their schools had been destroyed or had lost teachers, books and equipment, the schoolchildren wanted to get back into uniforms, he says. “It’s very important for children to come back to some semblance of normal life as quickly as possible.”
Mr Davies also cites the example of a football stadium that was constructed in Phuket, southern Thailand, at a time when people were still living in temporary shel ters. “But the impact of organising facilities for tournaments was enormous,” he says. “So don’t underestimate the power of sport as a way of rehabilitating young people.”
Save the Children has recognised this power and routinely creates what it calls safe play areas in the days immediately after a disaster. This might involve erecting large tents for children staffed by the community or, as was seen in Pakistan, creating small cricket pitches and providing basic sports equipment.
“It all sounds a bit soft but when you see it happening you realise it’s incredibly important,” says Toby Porter, director of emergencies at Save the Children UK. “Because it gives the kids back a bit of normality.”
The United Nations Development Programme is looking at the role sport can play in refugee education, something that is often neglected because of competing demands for humanitarian aid. In partnership with Nike, the US sportswear company, the UNHCR is promoting sport as way of getting more girls in refugee camps in Kenya to participate in education.
Part of Nike’s role in the Together for Girls project, which is focused on camps that are home to thousands of Somalians, was to design
culturally sensitive clothing that young refugee women could wear while playing sports in camp.
The impact of such initiatives demonstrates the importance of local consultation in the aftermath of disaster, whether natural or man made. “There is absolutely a need to talk to young people and families and consult them about what’s being provided,” Mr Davies says.
Too often, vast amounts of toys sent by well-meaning individual donors in the west simply clog up the logistics supply chain and occupy vi tal warehouse space. And donors’ perceptions of what is needed on the ground do not always match the reality.
“What’s interesting is that education is always very much higher on the priorities of affected communities than it is on the list of services provided by the international community,” says Mr Porter. “Donors have a core set of sectors they like to restrict their immediate funding to, such as food, health water and sanitation, all of which are important. But victims themselves often classify schooling as more important.”
Young people also need help to find sustainable livelihoods. This is the motivation behind an initiative launched by the International Youth Foundation in tsunami-affected regions to help rehabilitate young people between the ages of 16 and 24 that have left school and may be out of work.
The idea behind the IYF’s Tsunami Initiative is to find employment opportunities or encourage entrepreneurship by working with the private sector and local training organisations.
Esther Benjamin, vicepresident of the foundation, believes that, given the right tools and knowledge, young people have great potential to contribute to the reconstruction process.
“They have enormous strength and skills, and they have the ability to create opportunities for others in the community,” she says. When visiting the affected regions, the IYF team found
that a lot of attention was being paid to short term needs but there was less of an emphasis on longer term requirements – findings supported by an IBLF report published in December.
The report, Best Intentions, Complex Realities, points out that the huge response provoked by the
tsunami has not been matched by delivery of longterm economic recovery in the region.
“That’s where we chose to focus our work – on longer term employability – to not only engage young people in the rebuilding of their communities but also to improve their prospects,” says Ms
Benjamin. “Because long after the relief agencies have gone, young people are still trying to get on their feet.”
A UNDP initiative can help young business people succeed, writes Sanjay Gandhi Young people represent a great proportion of developing country populations and most of them are growing
up in poverty, without access to needed goods and services, and without sufficient opportunities for employment and building sustainable livelihoods. Indeed, the demand for jobs intensifies each year. Investing in youth is crucial to achieving widespread poverty reduction, one of the aims of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Lasting solutions must be found that will expand and evolve along with the youthful population.
Any investment must be made with a long term view and large, or regenerating, funding pools.
To help harness the power of markets to give youth needed goods and services and livelihood
opportunities, the United Nations Development Programme’s Growing Sustainable Business initiative
works with the private sector to develop business models that can stimulate local development and
entrepreneurship. It is vital that these solutions are profit-seeking, with incentives that justify real private investment and where financial sustainability is embedded in the design.
While markets cannot meet every need, they can stimulate youth entrepreneurship, especially among
small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the main engines of job creation in most developed
economies.
For young people SMEs are crucial. In Kenya, for example, the average age of those working for SMEs is 35 and SMEs employ 72 per cent of the workforce. However, many of these young
entrepreneurs face barriers, including a shortage of capital and skills, and lack of access to markets and basic services.
The Growing Sustainable Business initiative was created to work with businesses, both large and
small, to address these problems, making enablers, including finance, available and helping forge links between small entrepreneurs and broader markets. For the company or investor, it helps to reduce risk by making local connections, co-funding research and feasibility assessments, and helping to build the capacity of entrepreneurs to engage in partnerships as suppliers, distributors or other contributors to the value chain.
The programme operates at country level, focused on local needs and working with local communities,
entrepreneurs and government as well as global private businesses. It is managed by a full-time GSB
“broker” on the ground. For example, in Tanzania, Ericsson developed a business model to deliver telecoms to the rural poor in a country where 90 per cent of the territory and 75 per cent of the population are not reached by telecoms networks. It involved detailed research, interaction
with local regulators, operators and farmers to design a model that suited the beneficiaries and was profitable for Ericsson. Importantly, this initiative has created a platform for a suite of new applications, such as financial services, education and healthcare, to be provided.
It also prepares the ground for the creation of a new market and new entrepreneurs – for biodiesel, an energy source which can be produced locally and used to supply energy for the
network base stations. In Madagascar, BFV-SG (the local subsidiary of Société Générale) worked
through the GSB to develop a joint venture with a microfinance institution to increase access to finance for SMEs, by providing additional capital and sharing credit risk with the local institution.
Similarly, Electricité de France is developing a rural electrification business along with other partners that will provide access to electricity for the Sava region, Madagascar’s most productive vanilla-producing area, as well as for 20 villages that lie in between. Rural electrification rates in Madagascar are below 3 per cent.
The GSB also plays a role in helping local entrepreneurs connect with larger companies through value chains, increasing both the productivity and incomes of the local businesses. In Kenya, Kevian Fruit Juices, a local, family owned juice manufacturer, is working to develop a purchasing
plant in Thika that will create a local market for mangos supplied by smallholder farmers. Farmers
currently leave a significant share of production to rot, due to lack of a local market and local processing for their produce.
SABMiller in Zambia and Unilever in Tanzania are also working with the GSBinitiative on supply chain business models for local farmers – again creating new markets and incomeearning
opportunities.
These new business models – combining technology, local knowledge and relationships – can have a lasting impact in poor communities by contributing to jobs, entrepreneurial opportunities
and key necessities for young people. These kinds of opportunities require markets that
function, which is where the private sector is best placed to play a catalytic role and where links and partnerships between companies and local entrepreneurs can have substantial impact.
The UNDP, through its leadership of the GSB initiative and its brokerage and support roles, works at country level to help make these opportunities happen, to benefit young people and their communities.
Sanjay Gandhi is the global programme manager of the UNDP’s Growing Sustainable Even a building site can be a play area on the Thai coastline BBC Business Initiative. Sport’s role in refugee education is often overlooked because of competing demands for humanitarian aid.
http://www.undp.org/partners/business/gsb/FT_article06.pdf
Urban Agriculture In The Seasonal Tropics Of Central Southern Africa
A Case Study Of Lusaka/Zambia
A.W. Drescher
Introduction
Hunger and malnutrition in the world are increasing not only due to growing population and loss of yield but also caused by the destruction of natural plant resources and loss of food diversity. Past management strategies of Household Food Security often failed because they where based on the "macro-level" (governments, administrations, ministries). Therefore new strategies focus on the "micro-level" like the individual Household (Kampmann, 1992).
http://www.cityfarmer.org/axelB.html#axel
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