When it comes to environmental preservation, plastic represents a huge global problem. The average American or European throws away 100 kilograms of plastic per year, as reported by the Worldwatch Institute in 2015. The plastic waste issue not only affects the environment but also increases poverty. Fortunately, initiatives all around the world are trying to fight plastic pollution by promoting recycling while also reducing poverty by building houses made of plastic.
Conceptos Plasticos
This Bogota-based company produces low-cost houses made of plastic; each one averages around 430 square feet. Since 2010, Conceptos Plasticos has been building temporary and permanent homes, shelters, classrooms, community rooms and other buildings in Colombia.
Founded by Colombian architect Oscar Mendez, the company transforms the recycled plastic into Lego-like bricks that are easy to assemble and contain additives that make them resistant to fire and earthquakes. Its clients are the government, non-governmental organizations, foundations and private companies, who pay for housing solutions in the communities where the houses are built. Each house costs the equivalent of $130 per square meter.
Conceptos Plasticos provides the materials to be used by the communities and gives people training on how to build the houses. A home for a single family is built by four people with no experience in construction and takes only five days to be built. In 2015, the Colombian startup helped build a shelter for 42 families displaced by the violence in Guapi, Cauca, recycling a total of 120 tons of plastic.
EcoDom’s Innovative Houses Made of Plastic
In Mexico, every year 800,000 tons of plastic waste is produced and only 15 percent is recycled. To minimize this problem, Carlos Daniel Gonzalez founded the Mexican startup EcoDom, which means “Eco House”. The company recycles everything from soda bottles to toys and turns it into material to build houses made of plastic. It works with local trash collectors in Puebla to achieve its goals of reducing plastic waste as well as improving Mexico’s economy through affordable housing.
EcoDom turns plastic, as well as cardboard, into four different products to structure a house: thermal wall, concrete roofing, thermal roofing and structural beams. Weekly, the company recycles 15,000 kg of solid waste and turns it into 1,200 prefabricated walls, flooring and structural roofing.
EcoDom is helping reduce the number of Mexican people living in poverty, which currently stands at 63 million. So far, the startup has built more than 500 houses out of recycled plastic at a cost of less than $300 each.
Fundación Eco-Inclusion
The Eco-Inclusion Foundation is an Argentinian network of NGOs that manufactures ecological bricks made of plastic. Founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Leandro Miguez, Leandro Lima, and Fabio Saieg, the organization works to reduce plastic waste and have a social impact by building houses out of the recycled plastic.
Eco-Inclusion has 45 plastic collecting spots in four cities. They turn every 20 plastic bottles into one brick and can produce 20 bricks in one hour. The plastic bricks have the same characteristics as a regular brick. They are also light, insulating and are made with a production process that does not damage the environment.
The bricks, built in partnership with Ceve-Conicet, are used to build community spaces that help the most impoverished people of Argentina. Right now, with the help of volunteers, the trio of entrepreneurs is building a dining hall and bathroom for an Argentinian soccer club, attended by hundreds of children.
If more people support these projects, two huge global issues can be minimized: plastic waste and poverty. It is a way of both helping the environment and improving people’s living conditions.
– Júlia Ledur
Photo: Flickr
The Cholera Crisis of 2018
Disease Basics
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), cholera is caused by toxigenic Vibrio Cholerae, which leads to the acute bacterial intestinal infection. Symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea and, in severe cases, collapse and shock. Fatalities occur in approximately 25 to 50 percent of all cases. While cholera is uncommon in the U.S. and other developed nations, cases have been increasing around the world since 2005. The CDC classifies the magnitude of cholera outbreaks as a pandemic that has persisted for over four decades in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Saltwater is the natural source where Vibrio Cholerae originates and may be passed on to humans by ingesting anything from infected water, like shellfish, crab and shrimp. The risk is heightened when any of these foods are undercooked or consumed raw. Cholera can be passed through the drinking water supply as well, which is a common form of transmission.
The Cholera Crisis
A cholera crisis occurred in February 2018 in Uganda, resulting in 700 reported cases and 27 deaths. In Malawi, an outbreak in April affected 893 individuals and caused 30 deaths. A recent outbreak has occurred in Yemen as well. The total number of cholera cases in Yemen over the past year is estimated to be 1,090,280 with 2,275 deaths. This means one out of every five people infected with cholera died last year in Yemen. In addition, Haiti has reported 432 cases of cholera this past year, with four deaths resulting from the disease.
Progressive Efforts
While contemplating the statistics shared in regard to the cholera crisis, it is important to think about what solutions are available to prevent this destructive disease from spreading and to know what actions are being taken to assist those who are suffering. The most obvious solution to a cholera crisis is to offer aid in the form of clean water solutions so potable water can be readily available to all.
The U.N. has made remarkable progress in its efforts to make clean water available to everyone around the world. More specifically, its efforts are known as the Water for Life International Decade for Action and took place during 2005-2015. As a result of this initiative, 1.3 billion people were provided with clean drinking water. It is estimated that there are still 2.5 billion people who drink contaminated water.
Improved sanitation practices and adequate facilities is also a dire need. The U.N. reports that there are currently 2.3 billion people worldwide who are without access to basic sanitation facilities, such as toilets. The two concurrent issues of lack of sanitation facilities and a lack of clean water interplay to cause illness amongst many in the form of communicable diseases passed through to the residents of poverty-stricken areas. As a result, approximately 1.5 million children die from related illnesses.
Efforts to help can generate a return on investment for those in developed nations. Research has shown that every U.S. dollar spent on improved sanitation generates a return of $9. World Water Day on March 22 and World Toilet Day on Nov. 19 are international observance days set aside to raise awareness of these issues.
– Bridget Rice
Photo: Flickr
10 Facts About Poverty in Karachi
Karachi is Pakistan’s largest city and is the capital of the Sindh province located in southern Pakistan. Karachi is home to a major seaport on the shores of the Arabian Sea as well as massive commercial and industrial infrastructure. Increased development of air travel, in addition to the foreign traffic maintained by the commercial and financial industries, has made this city important to the overall economy in Pakistan. Regardless of these achievements, the city still faces poverty, which these facts about poverty in Karachi will illuminate.
Facts About Poverty in Karachi
In his paper “Genesis of Urban Poverty”, Tasneem Siddiqui writes: “Poverty was not just about money. It is about access to power. It is deprivation not only in economic terms, but also at the social and political level.” The people of Karachi face this lack of access on a daily basis, one of the driving facts about poverty in Karachi.
The emphasis on business and finance in the city in order to better benefit Pakistan’s foreign affairs has harmed the local community. In doing so, there is a large gap in the socioeconomic ranks. Initiatives like UNDP’s program work to make the best of the given situation; however, until the governing authorities rectify the social and physical injustices, the citizens of Karachi will continue to suffer from this gap.
– Emma Fellows
Photo: Flickr
Reforms Focus on Girls’ Education in Egypt
Education is key to the empowerment of women, and everyone should be able to access it. Egypt is one country that shows that it believes in that statement. There has been excellent progress towards closing the gender gap when it comes to boys’ and girls’ education in Egypt.
Egypt has the largest education system in Africa and it has grown exponentially since the 1990s. In 2012, about 95 percent of children between the ages of six and 18 were enrolled in school. This is a significant difference from another African country, South Africa. In the same year, South Africa had an enrollment rate of around 65 percent for boys and girls of the same age group.
Increased Spending Results in Increased Equality
The government of Egypt has shown more interest in the education system in the past few years and has worked to improve the system, especially for women and girls. Significantly more government funding has been used over the past decades to increase the accessibility of girls’ education in Egypt. A total of 11.1 percent was spent on education in the 2016/17 fiscal year and was projected to rise by nearly 5 percent the following year.
Over the past 20 years, girls’ enrollment in school has risen greatly. According to Egypt Demographic and Health Surveys, as of 2014, 92 percent of girls living in urban areas were attending primary school and 71 percent of girls were attending secondary school. These rates are very similar to the percentage of boys enrolled in the same age groups. This is a significant change because in the past, girls were not given nearly the same opportunity to achieve an education as boys.
While access has generally improved for girls’ education in Egypt, inequalities remain widespread. Girls’ school enrollment has risen significantly over the past few decades, but the problem that remains is the dropout rate. About 71 percent of men completed schooling up to the secondary level, while only 68 percent of girls completed the same grades. This is in part due to the rates of poverty in many areas of Egypt. Another issue with girls’ education is that families with multiple children often send only the boys to school because that is all the family can afford. Girls who stay at home have lower literacy and completion rates.
Local and International Groups Target Girls’ Education in Egypt
In 2001, the National Council on Childhood and Motherhood began a program called the Girls’ Education Initiative. The program was created to address the need for girls’ education in Egypt, especially in its poorest areas. The project urges communities to come together and buy into the project by donating land and volunteering to work in schools. This is a way to bring communities together for a cause they can all support and relate to.
The United States Agency for International Development, along with the government of Egypt, encourage access to education for girls starting at the primary level. In secondary education, USAID very much supports girls’ participation in STEM education. In addition, the government of Egypt, along with other programs and agencies, is working tirelessly to ensure that someday every child, boy or girl, will have access to the same education and the same opportunities.
Together, these groups have shown over the past several decades that they have been able to improve the quality of education for girls and will not stop until every girl can hold up her diploma with pride. There are many other countries struggling to close the education inequality gap and Egypt is a prime example that has shown that it can be done.
– Allisa Rumreich
Photo: Flickr
Vast Improvements in Nigeria’s Water Quality
In Nigeria, more than 70 million people do not have access to safe drinking water, more than 110 million do not have access to proper sanitation, and 124,000 children under the age of five die every year from waterborne diseases such as diarrhea. Despite the circumstances, there have been steps towards improvements in Nigeria’s water quality.
Effects of Unsafe Water Are Far-Reaching
Unsafe drinking water can cause many health problems, from cognitive deficits and malnutrition to respiratory disease. These consequences do not stop here; children miss school and adults miss work, creating further social problems for the population. According to UNICEF, women and girls in Nigeria are affected more often than men due to the fact that in Nigeria, women are the main carriers of water. The distances that women need to travel to collect and carry the water is vast, and this can have large effects on health and quality of life for these individuals.
Rural areas struggle to access safe drinking water even more than urban areas. Nigeria’s population is rapidly increasing. Within one decade, Nigeria saw a population increase of approximately 60 million people. Water infrastructure is overloaded, rural populations are being cut off, and without funding, water infrastructure in Nigeria is unable to support the population without substantial and prompt upgrades.
Government Unveils New Water Quality Standards
But not all is bleak. Vast improvements in Nigeria’s water quality have been made. Africa’s biggest economy released a plan in March 2018 that outlined standards for water quality in the nation. In conjunction with foreign aid, steps have been taken to improve its water quality. The Nigerian government has established a Nigerian Standard for Drinking Water Quality that is based on a collaborative multi-agency approach in order to get the perspective of many different stakeholders. Some of the standards in this plan include limits on hazardous water contaminants and national guidelines for mandatory limits that designate safe water.
The Water and Sanitation Program, a subset of the World Bank Group’s Water Global Practice, identified that the main challenge to financing a proper safe water supply is a lack of funding. This is where foreign aid comes in. Organizations such as UNICEF are bringing in foreign aid to support water goals and implementing educational programs to help the Nigerian population identify and cultivate safe drinking water.
Past Decade Has Seen Improvements in Nigeria’s Water Quality
Are these campaigns and goals working? From 2010 until 2015, the WHO estimates that consistent access to safely managed drinking water has risen from 17 percent to 19 percent. In the same timeframe, data shows that the percentage of Nigerians with access to at least basic safe drinking water has risen from 46 percent to 67 percent. Growth is occurring and hopefully will continue due to the efforts of both the Nigerian government and foreign aid collaborators.
These improvements in Nigeria’s water quality could have further widespread effects on the Nigerian population. The Nigerian minister of water resources, Suleiman Adamu, said that waterborne diseases are a huge burden on national health care delivery. These improvements in Nigerian water quality could influence improvements in other areas, such as healthcare in the region.
There is hope on the horizon, and while there is still a problem, there is also an opportunity for growth and improvement. Nigeria is moving towards a better tomorrow.
– Katherine Kirker
Photo: Flickr
Girls’ Education in El Salvador Becomes a National Priority
Despite past cultural demands, girls’ education in El Salvador now equals that of their male counterparts with the support of hard-working mothers and USAID’s commitments under the Alliance for Prosperity Plan.
Cultural Shifts Improving Girls’ Education in El Salvador
For many years, women in El Salvador have been relegated to domestic roles. Young girls were often pulled out of school to assist with household tasks while boys continued on, pursuing an education that was more culturally valued. However, women are becoming increasingly more educated. Each generation of girls stays in school longer than their mothers, often because of their mother’s commitment to providing them with an education. Overwhelmingly, women express a desire for their daughters to have as much schooling as possible. This shift is evidence of changing cultural values, moving away from traditional gender roles to a climate that allows women to pursue things outside of domestic life.
According to an October 2015 study conducted by UNICEF, girls are actually more likely to finish primary school, with 86 percent of girls finishing as compared to 81 percent of boys. Additionally, 31,000 boys of primary school age do not attend school in contrast with 27,000 girls, a clear flip from the typical gender norms that once opposed girls’ education in El Salvador. Furthermore, the gross enrollment rate for secondary schools is 71 percent for girls and 70 percent for boys. Girls’ education in El Salvador is rising to a level that usurps their male equivalents.
This upswing is partially due to the Law of Equality, Fairness and the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women passed in March 2011 at the urging of many women’s rights groups. The bill addressed El Salvador’s need to provide equitable education for girls, as well as the gender wage gap.
Challenges Remain for All El Salvadorian Children
Fabiola Rivas, an El Salvadorian native currently attending university in the United States, told The Borgen Project that the major challenges to improving education in El Salvador are not related to gender. “Good opportunities for education in El Salvador really depend on the family’s income. The problem with El Salvador’s education is that public schools do not provide good quality education. Regardless if you are a boy or a girl, the amount of information you are being taught and the quality of it is not good enough to go to college.”
Rivas acknowledges that her educational path is an uncommon one, having been able to attend a private school in El Salvador before obtaining a full scholarship in the United States. In fact, the majority of youth in El Salvador, male and female alike, do not attend school past sixth grade. At the transition to middle school, half of students drop out, and then another half of the remaining students drop out at the start of high school. Unlike the American education system, which is organized, typically good quality, and free, good schools in El Salvador are too expensive for the average citizen to afford.
USAID Programs Focus on Most Vulnerable Populations
In advocating for the goals of the Alliance for Prosperity Plan and the U.S. Strategy of Engagement in Central America, USAID has implemented programs in El Salvador to combat these startling dropout numbers. USAID programs concentrate on developing high-quality education and trade skills programs in areas of low economic efficiency with the hope of creating a more competitive workforce to spur on fiscal growth. This, coupled with USAID’s efforts to offer advanced certification courses for teachers, continues to increase the quality of education in El Salvador.
These programs also focus on keeping children in school and out of gangs, which typically recruit students that are vulnerable to dropping out. Currently, El Salvador has astonishingly high rates of crime and gang violence. The longer kids can be motivated to stay in school, the more likely it is that these rates can and will be diminished.
Salvador Sanchez Ceren, a former school teacher and the current president of El Salvador, promised in his inaugural address in 2014 that education would be one of the top priorities of his administration. Although girls’ education in El Salvador encountered many gender-biased problems in the past, today all the children of El Salvador, regardless of gender, must face the same issues.
– Sarah Dean
Photo: Flickr
A $500 Million Project Aims to Bring Learning Back to Egypt
Egypt, a North African country with more than 99 million people and a steadily increasing poverty rate, is currently suffering from an overpopulated and severely underfunded education system. However, recent news suggests that the country will be implementing new reform efforts for a better education system. On April 21, 2018, it was announced that a $500 million project aims to bring learning back to Egypt. The Supporting Egypt Education Reform Project, signed by The World Bank and Egypt, aims to bring learning back to the public school classroom and improve teaching conditions in Egypt’s public education system. The project’s intent is to improve teaching and learning conditions in Egypt’s currently poor public education infrastructure.
Egypt’s Educational Decline
Egypt has not always faced an urgency to improve the country’s quality of education. In the 1950s, Egypt was considered a popular country for young people in search of an education, and during this time President Gamal Abdel Nasser established free, national schools with instruction in Arabic. Students traveled from dozens of nearby countries to obtain a quality education at Cairo University or at al-Azhar University, the world’s second oldest surviving degree-granting institute.
However, in the 1980s, Egypt’s public education system took a turn for the worse due to a growing population and little reform, leading to extreme overcrowding and underfunding of the country’s schools and universities. In 2011, following the overthrow of Egypt’s long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak, hundreds of thousands of Egyptian youths took to the streets demanding public school and university change. However, seven years later, educational reform has been slow-moving, resulting in a still struggling education system, despite the few improvements made.
Currently, some of the main problems students in Egypt’s public schools face include:
Additionally, most students in Egypt’s public schools have to take private tutoring classes after school because the education available in their school is so poor that sufficient knowledge and success are not assured.
The Need to Bring Learning Back to Egypt
In 2016, 14.3 million people, or 20.1 percent of Egypt’s population, were illiterate. Females made up 9.1 million of that number, amounting to 26 percent of Egypt’s female population, compared to only 14.4 percent of men. Illiteracy makes it harder to rise out of poverty, as a lack of education can pass down through families, reducing the chance that anyone in the family will be able to pull themselves out of poverty.
However, Egypt’s education system is planned to receive an upgrade that can help decrease the country’s illiteracy rate. In support of improving Egypt’s education system, The World Bank and Egypt’s five-year, $500 million project aims to bring learning back to Egypt and intends to widen access to quality kindergarten for around 500,000 children and train 500,000 teachers and education officials, all while equipping 1.5 million students and teachers with modern technology. Also, a new student assessment and examinations system will be utilized for more than two million Egyptian students.
This $500 million project aims to bring learning back to Egypt in several ways, including improvements in access to and the quality of early childhood education, implementation of a credible student assessment and examination system, enhancements to the size of teaching staffs and the application of digital learning resources.
The World Bank is a global partnership that helps developing countries find solutions to the toughest global and local development challenges.
– Natalie Shaw
Photo: Flickr
The Water Project: How Poor Water Quality Impacts Kenyan Girls
The average American family uses roughly 552 gallons of water each day, while the average African family uses about five gallons of water per day. Girls in the sub-Saharan country of Kenya are robbed of their right to receive an education due to water scarcity.
Education Delayed Due to Water Scarcity
The literacy rate of females over the age of 15 in Kenya was 74 percent in 2016. The Education Policy and Data Center reported that 88 percent of children between the ages of six and 13 attend primary school; however, the report notes that many of the children attending primary school are outside of the official age range, meaning they are not attending school often enough to stay on schedule with the curriculum.
Instead of attending school, many girls spend their time carrying a 40-pound water can full of dirty water from sources miles away from their homes. This exhausting task leaves many girls unable to receive a formal education. Even if a girl is not burdened by the responsibility of journeying for hours to fetch water for her family, if schools cannot provide water, they are unable to run their programs.
How Does The Water Project Make a Difference?
The Borgen Project spoke with Lisa Sullivan, the director of marketing and communications at The Water Project, who provided insight into just how monumental of a difference it makes when clean water is readily accessible to girls.
The Water Project is a nonprofit organization located in Concord, New Hampshire that provides reliable water projects to communities in sub-Saharan Africa. In western Kenya, The Water Project sponsors a community-led organization that is represented by a powerful, strong Kenyan woman named Catherine Chepkemoi. This woman works for empowerment in Kenya, specifically for younger girls, by teaching them about hygiene and water sanitation.
Sullivan stated, “These women are essentially cultivating future women leaders. When they are not gathering water, they are able to stay in class and compete with the boys.”
The organization spends time in western Kenya, addressing water quality by installing rain tanks at schools and protecting springs. Eastern Kenya is constantly in a drought; the region once had four rainy seasons a year, but is now down to one. With such limited rainfall, the organization provides water for people to use for bathing and sanitation.
Improvements in Water and Education Have Wide-Ranging Effects
The Water Project website reports that “for every 10 percent increase in women’s literacy, a country’s whole economy can grow by up to 0.3 percent.” Women can increase economic growth because they tend to invest in their own communities. Women will invest in their children’s education because they aspire to send them to schools and college.
Sullivan points out that “once you bring in water, now not only are they eating healthy, they are not spending their money on medical bills, which allows them to save their money and place it back into their communities.”
If a community in Kenya invests in an irrigation pump, it will allow them to sell more goods, generate more income and expand the opportunity for families to send their children to college–all because of access to clean water.
The Water Project is supporting an agent of change for Kenyan women and girls. It continues to reinforce female empowerment and furnish clean water. Kenyan girls now have a better chance to gain an education and participate in the development of their country.
– Angelina Gillispie
Photo: Flickr
Three Companies Building Houses Made of Plastic
When it comes to environmental preservation, plastic represents a huge global problem. The average American or European throws away 100 kilograms of plastic per year, as reported by the Worldwatch Institute in 2015. The plastic waste issue not only affects the environment but also increases poverty. Fortunately, initiatives all around the world are trying to fight plastic pollution by promoting recycling while also reducing poverty by building houses made of plastic.
Conceptos Plasticos
This Bogota-based company produces low-cost houses made of plastic; each one averages around 430 square feet. Since 2010, Conceptos Plasticos has been building temporary and permanent homes, shelters, classrooms, community rooms and other buildings in Colombia.
Founded by Colombian architect Oscar Mendez, the company transforms the recycled plastic into Lego-like bricks that are easy to assemble and contain additives that make them resistant to fire and earthquakes. Its clients are the government, non-governmental organizations, foundations and private companies, who pay for housing solutions in the communities where the houses are built. Each house costs the equivalent of $130 per square meter.
Conceptos Plasticos provides the materials to be used by the communities and gives people training on how to build the houses. A home for a single family is built by four people with no experience in construction and takes only five days to be built. In 2015, the Colombian startup helped build a shelter for 42 families displaced by the violence in Guapi, Cauca, recycling a total of 120 tons of plastic.
EcoDom’s Innovative Houses Made of Plastic
In Mexico, every year 800,000 tons of plastic waste is produced and only 15 percent is recycled. To minimize this problem, Carlos Daniel Gonzalez founded the Mexican startup EcoDom, which means “Eco House”. The company recycles everything from soda bottles to toys and turns it into material to build houses made of plastic. It works with local trash collectors in Puebla to achieve its goals of reducing plastic waste as well as improving Mexico’s economy through affordable housing.
EcoDom turns plastic, as well as cardboard, into four different products to structure a house: thermal wall, concrete roofing, thermal roofing and structural beams. Weekly, the company recycles 15,000 kg of solid waste and turns it into 1,200 prefabricated walls, flooring and structural roofing.
EcoDom is helping reduce the number of Mexican people living in poverty, which currently stands at 63 million. So far, the startup has built more than 500 houses out of recycled plastic at a cost of less than $300 each.
Fundación Eco-Inclusion
The Eco-Inclusion Foundation is an Argentinian network of NGOs that manufactures ecological bricks made of plastic. Founded in 2014 by entrepreneurs Leandro Miguez, Leandro Lima, and Fabio Saieg, the organization works to reduce plastic waste and have a social impact by building houses out of the recycled plastic.
Eco-Inclusion has 45 plastic collecting spots in four cities. They turn every 20 plastic bottles into one brick and can produce 20 bricks in one hour. The plastic bricks have the same characteristics as a regular brick. They are also light, insulating and are made with a production process that does not damage the environment.
The bricks, built in partnership with Ceve-Conicet, are used to build community spaces that help the most impoverished people of Argentina. Right now, with the help of volunteers, the trio of entrepreneurs is building a dining hall and bathroom for an Argentinian soccer club, attended by hundreds of children.
If more people support these projects, two huge global issues can be minimized: plastic waste and poverty. It is a way of both helping the environment and improving people’s living conditions.
– Júlia Ledur
Photo: Flickr
A Roof, A Skill, A Market: Transforming Infrastructure in Burkina Faso
The modern materials used in its place, such as imported wood and corrugated iron, are unhealthy to live in, poorly insulated and unaffordable in a country where 44 percent of people live on less than $1.90 a day and the majority are subsistence farmers.
Ancient Architecture Updated to Create Affordable Homes
But strides have been made in tackling this crisis by the multi-award winning Nubian Vault Association (AVN) under its multifaceted A Roof, A Skill, A Market program. AVN was founded in 2000 by Seri Youlou, a farmer and native of Sahel, and French mason Thomas Grainer.
The first part of the program refers to the building of nubian vaults, an architectural style developed 3,500 years ago in Egypt, that utilize locally produced adobe bricks and are much more affordable, ecological and durable. Not only are they are 50-60 percent cheaper than comparable concrete structures, but nubian vaults are expected to last 50 years or longer as opposed to the seven to 10-year lifespan of houses built out of concrete and corrugated iron roofing.
The influx of this new infrastructure in Burkina Faso is especially beneficial because it continually generates a multitude of new jobs. Cohorts of locals gain new skills as they are trained as masons to build these homes. As the majority of these builders in Sahel are otherwise seasonal farmers with little income security, this opportunity is crucial in providing additional revenue.
Mason Training Diversifies Economic Opportunities for Farmers
The benefits received are not solely monetary. Two to three-day conferences are held at the start and end of each construction season that all AVN masons are welcome to attend. They function as networking events where masons can make contacts and share experiences as well as extended educational spaces with workshops on how to run a small business and be a successful entrepreneur.
This additional training is especially important because of AVN’s ultimate goal of creating autonomous local markets that are not dependent on external cash flow in order to perpetuate this model’s long-term sustainability. After picking a project site, AVN recruits an individual as an ambassador to find new customers within a 100km radius of the project. New customers are then connected with masons who are paid directly by the client.
The builders themselves can also find new patrons, which as of 2013 made up 35 percent of the new client base. This indirect facilitation role fostered by AVN is both important in creating community empowerment and independence. Grainer commented: “Our work expands on the famous saying: we teach a man to fish; we teach him how to mend the nets; we teach him how to sell the fish.”
The Growth of Infrastructure in Burkina Faso and the Sahel
This success is not just limited to the market and infrastructure in Burkina Faso, but has expanded to other African communities as well. More than 2,000 homes and commercial/community buildings have been built as part of the program, which have benefited roughly 25,000 people and reduced 65,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions across Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin, Senegal and Ghana.
When projects expand into new territories, established masons from one country sometimes travel to another to train new apprentices. This strengthens ties across communities and has created a pan-African community of roughly 732 masons to date that has generated a total of $2.6 million for local economies.
The tremendous and multifaceted global impact that AVN has had through A Roof, A Skill, A Market program would not have occurred without the original collaboration between Youlou and Grainer. Together, they forged a creative solution that provides affordable and sustainable housing, increased income stability and economic development across entire communities. Their partnership demonstrates the importance of collaborative global development in creating new ways of living together that build a better future for everyone.
– Emily Bender
Photo: Flickr
USAID Initiative Powering Africa Through Global Partnerships
Two out of three people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity. With better access to electricity, Africans will have the opportunity to grow socially and economically. Power Africa, a five-year initiative launched by former president Barack Obama, aims to increase access to reliable, affordable and sustainable power in Africa and in turn support Africa’s economic growth.
The initiative is powering Africa by facilitating the cooperation of governments around the world, the private sector and technical and legal experts to increase Africans’ access to power by using the natural resources of the sun, wind, streams, lakes and natural gas.
Powering Africa Key to the Continent’s Economic Development
Access to electricity is an opportunity for economic and social growth. Power Africa aims to generate 30,000 more megawatts of electricity and electrify another 60 million homes and businesses. Since 2013, Power Africa has closed 90 power transactions valued at more than $14.5 billion, which are expected to generate more than 7,500 megawatts of power in sub-Saharan Africa.
Although 7,500 megawatts seems minuscule compared to the goal of more than 30,000 megawatts, Power Africa’s deal tracking tool application is publicly tracking 440 transactions totaling 33,444 megawatts, and it is internally tracking 800 transactions that have the potential to add another 75,000 megawatts. Additionally, it has facilitated more than 10 million electrical connections, bringing electricity to more than 50 million people.
Power Africa is connecting homes and businesses through off-grid and small-scale renewable power projects. Beyond the Grid, a sub-initiative launched in June 2014, is powering Africa by working to unlock investment and growth in off-grid energy and electricity access projects across the African continent. Power Africa has funded off-grid companies and projects that have enabled tens of millions of people to gain access to electricity for the first time.
Power Africa’s Reach Extends to Many Aspects of the Global Economy
Power Africa also focuses on the role of women in Africa’s power sector. The USAID 2017 Power Africa Report revealed the correlation between workforce diversity and performance and showed that companies that invest in women outperform their peers. Power Africa strives to promote gender equality and female empowerment by supporting projects, programs and policies that promote the engagement of both men and women in sub-Saharan Africa.
Additionally, Power Africa is one of the largest public-private partnerships in history, with more than $54 billion in commitments and more than 150 public and private sector partners. While it strives to power Africa by sustaining economic growth, it also provides economic opportunities for American taxpayers, workers and businesses. As the five-year initiative came to a close, USAID Administrator Mark Green announced Power Africa 2.0, a continuation of the original Power Africa.
Green stated, “Under Power Africa 2.0, we will be expanding beyond our previous targets of increased energy generation and access and looking to make gains in the areas of distribution and transmission. And perhaps most importantly, we will be taking on the enabling environments that allow private enterprise to grow and thoroughly flourish.”
In its next phase, this initiative powering Africa will focus on improving environments and making sure utilities are stable. It will also target U.S. outreach to help U.S. companies see the opportunities that exist in Africa.
– Anne-Marie Maher
Photo: Flickr