Agriculture is a key sector of the Rwandan economy and has been growing in the post-genocide reconstruction era. Over 50 percent of the total surface of the country, approximately 1.4 million hectares, is arable land.
Traditionally though, Rwanda has focused on subsistence agriculture. It is one of the Vision 2020 goals for the sector to adapt and grow, moving from a focus on subsistence to a focus on commercial production. This industry growth will also increase household incomes and reduce poverty by up to 50 percent in the next two decades.
Barriers to Growth
For the agricultural sector to grow to its full potential, it must be sustainable. However, there are currently many barriers to sustainable agriculture in Rwanda. These include soil erosion, population pressure and water pollution.
Crops such as cassava are grown all across Rwanda but are more likely to lead to soil erosion. This is exacerbated by frequent field turnover, meaning fields are not left fallow to replenish their nutrients in favor of using them immediately. This yields immediate crops but is not sustainable.
The land has also been degraded by population pressures in both rural and urban areas. More farmers are vying for arable land than the small country of Rwanda can handle. In addition, the fertilizers that some farmers use to protect and extend their crop yields are polluting the country’s water.
Sustainable Solutions
There are many solutions and initiatives that are promoting sustainable agriculture in Rwanda. Sustainable land use management is a key pillar of the Vision 2020 goals. In the Umutara region, a One Cow per Family program has been successful in improving income and nutrition for families by producing and selling milk, but also in providing manure that enhances crop production. In addition, limiting the number of cows per family has reduced overgrazing in the region.
The issue of soil nutrient replacement is being tackled by the government, which has paired with the private sector to subsidize and distribute fertilizer to farmers. It remains to be seen, however, how this increase in the use of fertilizer will impact pollution. The government also promotes techniques such as terracing, which makes more efficient use of the hilly landscape, agroforestry, zero-grazing zones and better irrigation systems to expand the arable land and improve sustainability.
Financing Sustainable Agriculture in Rwanda
Sustainable initiatives cost money, which is a barrier in itself in Rwanda. As a result, outside organizations have stepped in to help finance sustainable agriculture in Rwanda.
The Environmental Resources Management Foundation provided a grant through the Africa Development Promise to support a women’s cooperative in the Bugesera district. The women were subsistence farmers and were suffering from very low crop yields. The grant paid for the installation of a greenhouse with a year-round irrigation system.
Furthermore, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations provides assistance in Rwanda centered on four areas: improving food security and nutrition, sustainably managing resources to increase productivity, private sector investment and collaboration/knowledge sharing.
Finally, the Urwego Opportunity Bank is a Rwandan bank that issues both individual and cooperative loans to farmers. It evaluates the needs of the farmers so it does not issue loans above the amount needed, and it requires proof of the contract with buyers to purchase the harvest. Then it issues loans tailored to farmers’ needs. These loans have financed maize, rice and potato cultivation, cow and milk machine acquisition and transportation to local markets.
As Rwanda’s economy continues to grow, the key may be agriculture, and the key to leveraging agriculture is sustainability. Continued efforts toward improving sustainable agriculture in Rwanda are sure to lead to further economic development in the African nation.
– Olivia Bradley
Photo: Flickr
Sustainable Agriculture in Burkina Faso Improves Steadily
Burkina Faso is a small, landlocked country located in the Sahel region of West Africa and is home to approximately 20.1 million people, 90 percent of whom rely on subsistence farming. Over the past several decades, rapid population growth has caused farmers to expand their cropland, contributing to the overfarming and overgrazing of much of Burkina Faso’s land. Ultimately, land overuse and unsustainable farming practices in conjunction with the effects of climate change has led to widespread land degradation.
Though much of the country’s land had been reduced to desert due to human action and ecological changes, the people have learned to turn conventionally unfruitful areas into arable land. Today, through soil and water conservation, crop diversification and community initiatives, sustainable agriculture in Burkina Faso is spurring economic development and food security for future generations.
Reversing the Ecological Damage
To reverse the “vicious agro-ecological cycle” that the population found themselves in, as the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) describes it, Burkinabe farmers began adopting three sustainable practices to conserve soil and water: zaï, contour stone bunds and demi-lunes.
Zaï is a technique that involves digging small pits to reverse desertification. The pits capture rainfall, manure and organic waste runoff, increasing soil fertility in the otherwise barren land. Contour stone bunds are stone barriers built around and throughout fields along natural contours trap rainfall and prevent soil erosion. Demi-lunes are semi-circle shaped ditches that are lined with cuttings to collect rainwater, nurturing crops planted nearby.
Through these practices and more, sustainable agriculture in Burkina Faso has made farmlands more resistant to drought and effects related to climate change. The restoration of degraded land has also contributed to increased agricultural productivity, according to the ODI.
Projects for Sustainable Agriculture in Burkina Faso
The Burkinabe economy is commodity-based, with cotton being the primary agricultural export. In order to help Burkina Faso diversify its crop exports and improve economic activity, organizations from the global community collaborated with the country on several initiatives. To promote sustainable agriculture in Burkina Faso, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) worked with Burkinabe farmers in five villages between 2002 to 2007 to implement the Integrated Production Systems/Priority Areas for Interdisciplinary Action (PRODS/PAIA) project.
The FAO designed the PRODS/PAIA project to improve productivity and crop diversification by applying conservation agriculture techniques, which include minimal soil disturbance via a strict no-tilling policy, crop diversification, crop rotation and mulch building using residual plant materials and cover crops. The FAO shared these techniques through a social learning process called Farmer Field Schools. Farmers applied conservation agriculture practices, along with pest and production management techniques, at benchmark sites where they discovered improved yields upon experimentation.
Positive Results for a Positive Future
Between the conservation agriculture and Farmer Field Schools initiatives, the PRODS/PAIA project achieved beneficial outcomes in each participating village. Highlights included higher yields related to crop rotation, increased farm incomes and greater competitiveness in domestic markets.
Shortly thereafter, The World Bank embarked on the Agriculture Diversification and Market Development Project (PAFASP) between 2006 and 2017. By providing grants, supporting infrastructure and promoting sustainable agriculture in Burkina Faso, the PAFASP has resulted in the increased agricultural exports and rural incomes of the Burkinabe people.
In light of the progress sustainable agriculture had made in the country, Burkina Faso adopted a National Policy of Sustainable Development, which espouses a commitment to environmental preservation and sustainable practices as a vehicle to accelerated economic growth and improved standards of living. Though there is still work to be done, Burkina Faso is on its way to achieving sustainability, marked by a competitive agricultural market, the conservation of natural resources and lasting food security for its people.
– Chantel Baul
Photo: Flickr
Further Improvements to Women’s Healthcare in Afghanistan
The years of Taliban control have decimated Afghanistan’s healthcare system. Since the Taliban’s fall in 2001, civil wars and internal conflict have made it difficult for the Afghan system to rebound. Almost 800 medical care centers have closed in the past ten years due to strife, and surveys indicate that 40 percent of people living in Afghanistan are unable to access healthcare services. While the struggle for adequate healthcare affects everyone in Afghanistan, it hits women the hardest. In order to strengthen the country’s infrastructure, it is crucial to improve women’s healthcare in Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban, male doctors and nurses were only allowed to touch female patients above their clothing and women were not educated in any facet, especially regarding healthcare practices. While the Taliban has since fallen, these practices still remain ingrained in the culture of Afghanistan. Many people still consider women’s healthcare in Afghanistan the worst worldwide. The projected lifespan for an Afghan woman is about 52 years, which is decades lower than the projected lifespan for a female living in the United States.
The most pressing issue regarding women’s healthcare in Afghanistan consistently remains healthcare during pregnancy and childbirth. Living in one of the most dangerous countries to give birth, around half a million Afghan women die in childbirth every year. This is a result of poor healthcare, a lack of access to healthcare services and a large number of child mothers. Additionally, around 20 percent of women are malnourished, which often results in a premature delivery. The low quality of women’s healthcare in Afghanistan impacts Afghan children as well, and 396 out of 100,000 babies do not survive.
These statistics are incredibly discouraging, but a closer inspection of the numbers can provide much hope for women’s healthcare in Afghanistan. From 2000 to 2010, the death rate of mothers giving birth plummeted from 1,600 deaths per 100,000 births to 327 deaths per 100,000 births. The mortality rate of children under the age of five dropped from 257 deaths per 1,000 children born alive to 97 deaths per 1,000 children born alive. Life expectancy, access to vaccinations and access to clean drinking water has also improved. The statistics are still grim but show substantial progress and encouragement for the healthcare initiatives that have taken place in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban.
There are several reasons for the improvements to Afghanistan’s healthcare system. The government has worked with the European Union, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the World Bank to provide better healthcare to the Afghan people. Through their funding, women’s access to healthcare in Afghanistan has improved substantially from the zero percent that could access it a little over a decade ago.
The Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan has also made significant strides through SEHAT, the System Enhancement for Health Action in Transition. This program trains women to be nurses and midwives, empowering them to serve their community and reducing the number of women who die because their husbands will not let them be treated by male healthcare workers.
Several other organizations have also funded projects to support health in Afghanistan. The Red Cross sponsors clean water and healthy food initiatives throughout rural provinces. UNICEF funds and supports healthcare teams that travel throughout the country in order to provide care for women, particularly those living in rural areas, who cannot travel to a hospital.
It is important to understand that the healthcare crisis in Afghanistan is incredibly real, and action needs to be taken to save the lives of the Afghan people who are dying because of inadequate access to healthcare, a large number of whom are women. However, the progress that has been made in Afghanistan over the last twenty years provides proof that things can and will get better through continued healthcare initiatives.
– Julia McCartney
Photo: Flickr
Sustainable Agriculture in Rwanda Needs Improvement
Traditionally though, Rwanda has focused on subsistence agriculture. It is one of the Vision 2020 goals for the sector to adapt and grow, moving from a focus on subsistence to a focus on commercial production. This industry growth will also increase household incomes and reduce poverty by up to 50 percent in the next two decades.
Barriers to Growth
For the agricultural sector to grow to its full potential, it must be sustainable. However, there are currently many barriers to sustainable agriculture in Rwanda. These include soil erosion, population pressure and water pollution.
Crops such as cassava are grown all across Rwanda but are more likely to lead to soil erosion. This is exacerbated by frequent field turnover, meaning fields are not left fallow to replenish their nutrients in favor of using them immediately. This yields immediate crops but is not sustainable.
The land has also been degraded by population pressures in both rural and urban areas. More farmers are vying for arable land than the small country of Rwanda can handle. In addition, the fertilizers that some farmers use to protect and extend their crop yields are polluting the country’s water.
Sustainable Solutions
There are many solutions and initiatives that are promoting sustainable agriculture in Rwanda. Sustainable land use management is a key pillar of the Vision 2020 goals. In the Umutara region, a One Cow per Family program has been successful in improving income and nutrition for families by producing and selling milk, but also in providing manure that enhances crop production. In addition, limiting the number of cows per family has reduced overgrazing in the region.
The issue of soil nutrient replacement is being tackled by the government, which has paired with the private sector to subsidize and distribute fertilizer to farmers. It remains to be seen, however, how this increase in the use of fertilizer will impact pollution. The government also promotes techniques such as terracing, which makes more efficient use of the hilly landscape, agroforestry, zero-grazing zones and better irrigation systems to expand the arable land and improve sustainability.
Financing Sustainable Agriculture in Rwanda
Sustainable initiatives cost money, which is a barrier in itself in Rwanda. As a result, outside organizations have stepped in to help finance sustainable agriculture in Rwanda.
The Environmental Resources Management Foundation provided a grant through the Africa Development Promise to support a women’s cooperative in the Bugesera district. The women were subsistence farmers and were suffering from very low crop yields. The grant paid for the installation of a greenhouse with a year-round irrigation system.
Furthermore, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations provides assistance in Rwanda centered on four areas: improving food security and nutrition, sustainably managing resources to increase productivity, private sector investment and collaboration/knowledge sharing.
Finally, the Urwego Opportunity Bank is a Rwandan bank that issues both individual and cooperative loans to farmers. It evaluates the needs of the farmers so it does not issue loans above the amount needed, and it requires proof of the contract with buyers to purchase the harvest. Then it issues loans tailored to farmers’ needs. These loans have financed maize, rice and potato cultivation, cow and milk machine acquisition and transportation to local markets.
As Rwanda’s economy continues to grow, the key may be agriculture, and the key to leveraging agriculture is sustainability. Continued efforts toward improving sustainable agriculture in Rwanda are sure to lead to further economic development in the African nation.
– Olivia Bradley
Photo: Flickr
Starting from Scratch: Sustainable Agriculture in Nauru
Unchecked mining left an excessively jagged landscape that was almost useless for plant or food growth. With only 20 percent of land suitable for agricultural use, according to the Commonwealth Network, sustainable agriculture in Nauru became a distant dream. Since the end of the mining boom, the island has made slow progress towards rehabilitating the island for environmental and agricultural purposes. To further these efforts, in 1993 the Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation provided funding for multiple land rehabilitation projects, only of which has been successful thus far.
Due to the lack of any sustainable agriculture in Nauru, 90 percent of the island’s food is imported. Nauru’s strained financial situation makes the high costs of imported food an even greater burden. To make up for these high costs, Nauru imports cheaper, processed food, creating a severe shortage of healthy food in the diets of Nauru’s inhabitants. Increased consumption of unhealthy food led to obesity, in turn causing a rise in non-communicable diseases, threatening the health and lives of the people.
Efforts towards creating sustainable agriculture in Nauru are focused on the essential aspects: energy, water and small crops. Moqua Well, Nauru’s only underground lake, is being used for a solar-powered purification system to deliver drinkable water to the island’s inhabitants.
Buada Lagoon, Nauru’s only surface lake, is surrounded by small crops and domestic gardens, which constitute a large part of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) plan for creating sustainable agriculture in Nauru. These provide the people with small and viable crops, mainly coconuts. Providing food security has proved a challenge; many of the agricultural and farming practices have fallen out of use, leaving the island’s current farmers ignorant of the best systems for crop cultivation.
The FAO provided training for farmers after an insect infestation caused a large decline in coconut production, demonstrating the proper methods for biological control and insect identification. Over 75 percent of Nauruan farmers used pamphlets found in the island’s resource center. Educating the farmers in these matters is the first and most important step towards creating food security and sustainable agriculture in Nauru.
– Kayla Rafkin
Photo: Flickr
Growing Businesses in the Congo
The wars and conflict can generally be traced to political contentions which have then impacted education and business. Many have disagreed on the best path for the country to take, which combined with greed for power has created corrupt governments in the past. While there is still a ways to go before the country will be able to host fair elections, steps have been made to ensure they happen. In December 2016, an agreement was signed stating that President Kabila would not run for a third term (he has been president since 2001) and that time would be allotted for elections to be set up. Originally the new election was supposed to be held in late 2017, but voting was pushed back to December 2018. Although there is fear and frustration related to the delays, the fact that conversation is occurring rather than war is a positive step in the right direction and has in itself created more stability for the country.
Growth in the political sector has equaled, if not been exceeded by growth in the business sector as well. In the past, much of the difficulty of growing businesses in the Congo has been related to unreliable taxes. Jason Stearns, the author of Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, writes in his book, “If you paid all your taxes in the Congo…you would be dishing out 230 percent of your profits.” In other words, the only way to operate a business is to not pay all your taxes. Unfortunately, according to Stearns, the taxes were created by an unhealthy state who used taxes as a means of bribery. Even with government reforms, these taxes are often forgotten about until someone decides to use them take money from a business.
Even with the risk of unknown taxes. there are still growing businesses in the Congo, particularly in the micro-business realm, which does not necessarily require a brick and mortar shop. Now, if someone wants to start a business, they might just need a pan, oil, flour and a box to cook hotcakes and make a living wage as a street vendor. This flexibility helps keep these entrepreneurs from being charged excess taxes and is the cornerstone for turning these micro-businesses into larger businesses in the future.
Investing foreigners might be at higher risk because they will be perceived as having money to spend on taxes. However, foreign investors bring jobs and oftentimes roads to the country, which in the past may have slowed down investors before, but now increasing knowledge of and access to the DRC’s rich mining resources are creating businesses in the Congo, which has brought many Congolese around to accepting involvement in mining.
Changing and simplifying tax laws is a long-term goal that will be one of the keys to creating a stable and growing economy for the DRC. This will reduce the risk of being charged an unforeseen tax or fee and will continue to create growing businesses in the Congo.
– Natasha Komen
Photo: Flickr
Sustainable Agriculture in Suriname Working to Improve Yields
The country’s most important crops, rice and bananas, have become nearly stagnant in terms of yield and are facing major overseas competition, causing high export and transportation costs. Rice, as the essential backbone of sustainable agriculture in Suriname, is a focus of the Anne van Dijk Rice Research Institute (ADRON). In addition to rice production, sustainable agriculture in Suriname can increase its value significantly by developing a framework for organic farms.
Rice Production
Through ADRON, the Ministry of Agriculture developed a system for intensifying rice production, increasing it from 4.1 to 4.7 tons per hectare at one point. However, ADRON’s research on seed breeding and crop productivity only got them so far. Small farmers lack proper education and knowledge of the most effective rice production practices, resulting in only 400 hectares of rice being planted in 2007, as opposed to the expected 1000 hectares.
ADRON has since supported the Seed Growers Association, an extension program for the support of small farmers and providing them with the technology they need to create sustainable agriculture in Suriname. According to the International Institute for Sustainability, world rice production must increase 50 percent by 2025 to accommodate average consumption per capita. Since 2009, rice production has shown an upward trend of above 200,000 tons per year, but ADRON is looking to push it even further with the following programs:
These five ADRON programs will provide the education and technology necessary for the expansion of rice production, as well as an assurance of rice quality that will survive rising competition in the world market.
Organic Farming
Organic farming has become a worldwide trend and highly dynamic market, particularly in Europe, and Suriname is going along with the trend. The Suriname Business Development Center and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) have funded multiple projects for boosting organic farming and sustainable agriculture in Suriname. With funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), UNDP created the GEF Small Grants Programme, allowing Suriname to begin instituting projects involving biodiversity, sustainable land management and non-timber forest products.
Institutions like the Centre for Agricultural Research provide a gateway to the national market for organic food, creating initiatives to capture national interest. Safe farming, an environmentally friendly initiative for the small-holder farmers, is one of many that uses fewer chemicals in their crops.
Sustainable agriculture in Suriname has become a nationwide focus, with support from the government, research institutions and local farmers. They have the means to succeed and they are taking advantage of it.
– Kayla Rafkin
Photo: Flickr
How the US Benefits from Foreign Aid to Uganda
The U.S. international aid budget cuts would severely affect the aid given to Uganda and consequently might hamper Uganda’s development. This is because Uganda’s rapid development is at least partially due to the foreign aid it receives. However, it is in the United States’ interests to continue providing aid to Uganda, because the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Uganda as well.
The rapid poverty rate decline in Uganda is notable: in 2013, the proportion of the population living below the national poverty line declined from 31.1 percent in 2006 to 19.7 percent and the share of people living on $1.90 per day or less dropped from 53.2 percent in 2006 to 34.6 percent in 2013, one of the fastest decreases in sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty reduction among households in agriculture accounts for 79 percent of Uganda’s national poverty reduction from 2006 to 2013. Favorable prices and weather led to the increase in income in the agriculture sector.
Factors that demonstrate market efficiencies, such as investments in infrastructure, economic liberalization and better trade services, lead to favorable prices. Foreign aid, especially from the U.S., has led to the decline in poverty since much of the aid is used to develop agriculture and infrastructure and boost the economy. For instance, Uganda is a part of the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative Feed the Future. Through this initiative, USAID investments focus on three value chains (maize, coffee, and beans) with the greatest market potential, nutritional benefits and income potential for farming households. This has the benefit of transforming subsistence farms into more commercial operations.
Additionally, USAID works to improve farmers’ skills in production, post-harvest handling and storage technologies, all of which increase the likelihood of earning a higher income. This initiative has clearly made a notable impact in the country, as Feed the Future farmers in Uganda earned $97 million from agricultural sales. These numbers show that Uganda benefits immensely from foreign aid. However, other effects such as social capital derived from foreign aid show that the U.S. also benefits from foreign aid to Uganda.
A recent study found that foreign aid has a strong impact on trust among people and can change beliefs and social capital. This study surveyed specific counties in Uganda and found a positive correlation between aid in a county and the subsequent level of trust, which aligns with the hypothesis that foreign aid contributes to an increase in trust. This is significant because trust is considered a “proxy of social capital and determinant of future growth,” meaning it can be converted into conventional economic gains in the future. In this way, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Uganda since it allows the U.S. access to Ugandan domestic and foreign policy, making foreign aid to Uganda an essential foreign policy tool. Moreover, foreign aid helps both the U.S. and Ugandan governments establish a mutually beneficial relationship based on cooperation on a wide range of shared issues.
Also, the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Uganda because, as a nation like Uganda improves economically to become a middle-income country, it becomes a potential market for U.S. companies, thereby creating jobs in the U.S.
In short, there are many ways the U.S. benefits from foreign aid to Uganda. Hence, the recently proposed budget cuts indirectly harm more than they help the U.S. Additionally, Uganda, as one of the poorest nations in the world, still requires foreign aid in order to continue its development. Hopefully, it will continue to fight poverty amid these cuts in foreign aid from the U.S.
– Mehruba Chowdhury
Photo: Flickr
How Credit Access in Bosnia and Herzegovina Impacts the Economy
The economic crisis that began in 2008 continues to affect credit access in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition to causing extended deflation, which hurts small businesses, it also left lending institutions very risk-averse, especially where small and medium-sized enterprises are concerned.
The situation is not all bad. There is an unusually large number of financial institutions in the country and the demand for credit is beginning to increase as the economy grows. This increase in demand is also caused by the growth of many small businesses. Unfortunately, conservative lending practices mean that while it would appear that would-be borrowers have plenty of options, it can still be difficult to get a loan. Additionally, high taxes and complicated regulations mean that there is a large informal sector in the country, further complicating the small business environment. Some of these informal operations are able to undercut their formal counterparts, making competition difficult and hampering people’s ability to get a loan.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is attempting to bring about change. Its Development Credit Authority Loan Guarantee facility backs up to 50 percent of the loan principal for borrowers deemed too risky for a regular loan. USAID is improving credit access in Bosnia and Herzegovina by enabling borrowers to secure financing who would otherwise be rejected.
However, it is important to consider how improving credit access in Bosnia and Herzegovina might have unintended impacts. This growth in access to microloans without broader changes in the macroeconomy has meant that while it is easier to secure financing to start a business, the same cannot be said for securing financing to grow an existing business.
While the international community has stepped in to encourage microloans, they have not done the same to encourage banks to make larger loans available to medium-sized enterprises seeking to grow. While many banks claim to offer this kind of financing, the reality is that many will only lend to the most exceptionally qualified applicants, and even then the rates and terms offered may simply not be feasible for the borrower.
This means that there is an ever-growing cohort of businesses in the country that are too large to benefit from microloans but too small or still too risky to borrow from domestic banks. This is a major hurdle to clear before credit access in Bosnia and Herzegovina can really be said to have improved.
It is also important to consider the impact that improved credit access in Bosnia and Herzegovina may have on education. One recent study found that 16 to 19-year-olds in Bosnia and Herzegovina whose parents received microfinancing for their family businesses were nine percent less likely to be regularly attending school. This figure jumped to 19 percent when the adults in the household had only a primary school education.
This is not to say that improving credit access in Bosnia and Herzegovina for small businesses isn’t a worthy endeavor. It most certainly is, and it can and does lift people out of poverty. However, it is important to also provide continued support and acknowledge the ways that this issue interacts with Bosnia and Herzegovina’s broader economic circumstances to ensure that this money is able to make a real difference.
– Michaela Downey
Photo: Google
Credit Access in El Salvador Growing Among Rural Population
Meanwhile, agriculture, which had fallen off in the 1990s, continues to play an important role in the economy as it employs 25 percent of the country’s labor force. Coffee and sugar, El Salvador’s main exports, account for a significant portion of the agricultural sector. But despite its comfortably high GDP, 32.7 percent of its citizens live in poverty.
A significant obstacle to alleviating poverty is limited credit access in El Salvador. In particular, while banking is common and easy to obtain in larger cities like San Salvador and Santa Ana, the poor, especially in rural areas, have the most difficulty. Of the 40 percent of the population with low income, only 6 percent have accounts at financial institutions. And while access has grown, most banks do not have branches outside of the major cities.
To combat this, in 2013 the World Bank funded and developed a program that, through technical assistance, supported the Salvadoran authorities in developing legal frameworks and financial services. The World Bank team provided a framework for financial correspondents (third parties such as grocery stores and pharmacies) that authorized them to provide basic financial services. As well, the World Bank provided feedback on models of regulation for mobile banking and electronic banking.
Through these efforts, the World Bank was able to legally enact a framework that allowed for those third-party groups to carry out basic financial services. And between December 2013 and May 2014, basic banking transactions through third parties totaled nearly US $45 million. By utilizing technical channels outside of banks themselves, the World Bank has been able to provide credit access in El Salvador for all its citizens.
And in 2010, the International Finance Corporation, which is a part of the World Bank, financed a $30 million project specifically for micro-financing. Based on remittance flow, which accounts for more than $2.8 billion of El Salvador’s GDP, this project will establish a new funding platform for Fedecredito, a cooperative of 55 El Salvador credit unions and banks. Through support from the World Bank, which will grow Fedecredito’s portfolio by up to 25 percent, Fedecredito hopes to use this new structure to give credit to over 30,000 micro-entrepreneurs.
Through these programs, credit access in El Salvador has improved, especially for the rural poor. As these projects continue and El Salvador gains more stability, hopefully, their citizens will have more economic freedom.
– Nick McGuire
Photo: Flickr
Sustainable Agriculture in Uzbekistan Addressing Mistakes of the Past
Cotton – Profit Over Environment
Uzbeki leadership employed poor practices, originally implemented by Soviet leadership in the 1950s, to cultivate the cotton crop through large-scale chemical use, inefficient irrigation systems and poor drainage systems. Each variable contributed to soil degradation and high soil salinity (salt content of the soil).
The higher the soil’s salinity, the harder plants must work to absorb water. Even if the soil is at proper saturation, if the salt content is high enough, plants will wilt or even die from the high expense of energy. The process of diverting water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers that fed the Aral Sea led to the desertification of what was once the fourth largest saline lake in the world. The extremely high concentration of salt in the small body of water left behind affects the soil of its boundaries with a high level of salinity.
The sea is now less than 10 percent of its former size and the eastern basin, which dried up completely, is now known as the Aralkum Desert.
“Modern Slavery”
Further, Uzbekistan employed even poorer labor practices. The cotton industry saw state workers directed away from their occupations during harvest season and out to the fields picking cotton. The practice met the definition of “modern slavery” as outlined by the Global Slavery Index, as the workers received little to no compensation for their extra work and were under the alleged threat of expulsion from their state jobs if they did not participate in the harvest.
Labor and agricultural policies were enforced under the leadership of President Islam Karimov, elected in 1991 after Uzbekistan declared independence from the Soviet Union. Shavkat Mirziyoyev became the nation’s second president in 2016 following the death of Karimov. Mirziyoyev has since publicly denounced the traditional labor practice and initiated reforms across the labor and agriculture sectors.
Time for Crop Diversification
A 2013 study on the possible outcomes of developing land for crops besides cotton found a high potential for more efficient water use, as well as farm income for the area’s dryland citizens. The multiyear study indicated that crop diversification would also assist farmers in wetland areas that will be affected by the climate-driven decline water availability. The article concluded that crop diversification was key to sustainable agriculture in Uzbekistan.
That same year, the World Bank financed the Sustainable Agriculture and Climate Change Mitigation project. The project objectives are to introduce renewable energy and technology for energy efficiency to the agriculture (agribusiness and farms) sector, and to improve the degraded irrigated land and water conservation practices.
The project looks to secure the objectives by implementing three components:
Horticulture Development
In 2014, the Horticulture Development Project initiated the shift in focus from heavily relied-upon exports like cotton to sustainable agriculture in Uzbekistan. By growing its own fruits and vegetables, the nation will realize growth in sector-crossing agribusiness and through its more diverse economy.
The project’s three main components include agricultural support services, access to credit and project management. The World Bank partners with the International Finance Corporation for the project to develop solutions to implementing food safety practices, improving competitiveness, agricultural lending and understanding the supply chain.
Uzbekistan must overcome the inheritance of neglectful policies, rising above the mandates of 1950s Soviet Russia and the heavy-handed culture of the Kamirov-led 1990s and 2000s. Through aid and the drive to emerge victorious, Uzbeki will citizens create sustainable agriculture on their way to creating a fully sustainable nation.
– Jaymie Greenway
Photo: Flickr