One of the hallmarks of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s premiership is his commitment to the development of Africa. Since leaving office in 2007, Blair continues his dedication to Africa’s poor through the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI).
In Sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 50 percent of all people live in poverty. Around 239 million Africans face food insecurity and 70 percent do not have electricity.
In 2008, AGI was founded upon a mission to establish enduring governments that will lift impoverished Africans out of poverty.
The AGI team strives to achieve this goal by working with public officials to improve their policies, strategies and capacities to affect change within their respective countries.
Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was elected in 2006, noted, “There you stand, trying to re-build a nation in an environment where everyone wants to see change take place right away…. Only you cannot because the capacity to implement whatever change you have in mind does not exist.”
Liberia is one of six African countries AGI works with. The others are Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Rwanda—where AGI was piloted.
AGI operates by working “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the highest levels of government. With a cornerstone platform of prioritization, planning and performance management, AGI tailors its programs to the specific needs of each country.
In 1994, many Rwandans fled the country or died as a result of genocide. Rwanda felt the devastating effects of the genocide for more than a decade after. In 2008, AGI came to Rwanda to help President Paul Kagame and his government put Rwanda back on a path toward development.
The initiatives AGI undertook in Rwanda were tailored to their Vision 2020 plan. Vision 2020 is the government’s plan to make Rwanda a middle-income country by 2020.
Together the AGI team and the Rwandan government developed the Strategic Capacity Building Initiative (SCBI). The SCBI paired government workers with technical experts to recognize and address the reasons why capacity building in Rwanda failed in the past.
After much research and deliberation, SCBI decided on four measures that would be the key to program implementation in the future.
These measures are priority driven, having government ownership of programs and strategies, focusing on delivery of relevant work in a real context and lastly long-term investment or, in other words, youth involvement.
Phase 1 AGI’s Program
- Phase 1 of the program targeted energy, agriculture, mining and investment.
- In the energy sector, Rwanda quickly took the initiative to become a world example for sustainable development.
- In 2014, Rwanda completed the construction of East Africa’s first large-scale solar power plant.
The process of legal negotiations, considering international guidelines for best practice and leveraging long-term investment leading up to the construction took just seven months—what AGI calls, “lighting-fast by international standards.”
The plant is located about an hour outside of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. Since its implementation just last year, the plant has already produced 8.5 megawatts of electricity.
This replaced expensive and dirty diesel fuel with clean and cheap solar energy which now powers 12,000 homes.
Plans for the future include increasing solar capacity to 250 megawatts, which could power close to 353,000 more homes.
Other successes from the SCBI include increased wages for farmers and a fairer mining industry. Between 2000 and 2010 Rwanda was considered one of the world’s ten fastest growing economies. Since 2007, poverty in Rwanda decreased by nearly 8 percent.
“I set up AGI to help African governments bridge the gap between plans and results, to get from power plans to power plants, from a line in a speech to a line of children outside their new school,” said Blair.
Rwanda’s successes show that it is not corruption, but a need for proper capacity building that hinders development.
The Rwanda government’s eagerness to continue with SCBI and other projects is a testament to Africa’s ability to become a world leader in raising its people out of poverty.
– Celestina Radogno
Sources: Africa Governance Initiative 1, Africa Governance Initiative 2, Africa Governance Initiative 3, Africa Governance Initiative 4, Africa Governance Initiative 5, CIA World Fact Book, Huffington Post, Tony Blair, World Hunger
Photo: Diallo Kenyatta
USAID Grants Palladium Health Policy Plus
USAID tasked Palladium with implementing Health Policy Plus (HP+), which is a five-year $185 million project that focuses on strengthening health policy, financing, governance and advocacy in developing countries.
The initiation of Palladium Health Policy Plus is in perfect timing with the establishment of the new Global Sustainable Health Goal (SDGs).
It directly focuses on Goal 3, which is to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages,” and goal 17: “strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.”
Palladium is greatly experienced in leading initiatives on social and economic development. They have led projects in 84 countries in collaboration with the U.S. Government and World Bank.
Ed Abel, president of Palladium’s U.S. business unit, said: “We are grateful to USAID in recognizing Palladium’s leadership in bringing positive impact to its global effort to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies through health policy and financing.”
HP+ builds upon the previous Health Policy Project (HPP) that ended on Sep. 29, 2015. HPP was active from 2010 to 2015 and was implemented in 48 countries worldwide.
The USAID-funded HP+ was initiated on Aug. 28, 2015. Palladium plans on using the following “four pillars” to achieve success: International Development, Strategy Execution Consulting, Research Development and Training and finally Impact Investing.
These approaches will also take into account gender equality and equity issues, family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH), maternal and child health (MCH) and HIV and AIDS.
Palladium will be working in collaboration with Avenir Health, Futures Group Global Outreach, Plan International USA, Population Reference Bureau, RTI international, The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood and ThinkWell.
Suneeta Sharma, HP+ Director, commented: “We’re looking forward to collaborating with USAID, health ministries and civil society actors worldwide to foster more equitable, sustainable, rights-based health services, supplies and delivery systems using evidence-based approaches for decision making and resource allocation.”
– Marie Helene Ngom
Sources: PRNewswire, Federal Grants, UN Sustainable Development, Palladium
Photo: Rachel Yang
Natural Disaster Education Eases Economic Blow
As El Niño once again stirs the atmosphere. Skiers look forward to a good amount of snow and developing countries anticipate disaster.
El Niño is defined as “above-normal sea surface temperatures in the eastern and central equatorial Pacific Ocean.” It occurs every two to seven years and can last for several months.
When ocean temperatures change, so do wind and precipitation patterns and land temperatures. Some areas receive life-saving rainfall while others experience heavy flooding and droughts. Tropical cyclones and wildfires are also common side-effects.
Countries vulnerable to harsh weather, such as agriculture-based economies and areas with unstable infrastructure, face famine, disease and increased poverty. Economies without the means to make repairs deteriorate further, and families are left homeless and hungry.
This year, as the world faces one of the strongest El Niños in 50 years, USAID is implementing natural disaster education in vulnerable countries. The more prepared a country is to respond to and prevent natural disasters, the quicker its economy can recover.
In New Guinea, where a combination of drought and floods decimated the sweet potato crop and left many without a source of income, USAID is providing agricultural training to make fields more resilient. Techniques such as planting over last season’s crop stubble and using cover crops help the soil retain three times as much moisture.
Latin American meteorologists are learning to use the Flash Flood Guidance System to predict flash floods. Studying rainfall and absorption buys as much as six hours to evacuate people and animals. It’s not a lot of time, but it’s enough to prevent heavy casualties.
As more people move in Nacala, Mozambique, they risk settling in areas that are vulnerable to the climate. Flooding, erosion and water scarcity can damage infrastructure and impede development.
USAID founded the Climate Resilient Infrastructure Services program to educate newcomers about climate vulnerabilities and high-risk areas, as well as teach natural disaster response techniques. Climate change awareness saves a lot of money and prevents future heartache.
Similar to Nacala, Vietnam has begun studying climate change and proper responses. One of its cities, Hue, experiences frequent heavy floods, which encourage extreme poverty and disease.
USAID is helping Hue, and Vietnam in general, to predict flooding and create infrastructure that can withstand heavy water over an extended period of time.
As a result of warnings, communities in Africa organized food, medicine and housing in anticipation of natural disasters and resulting diseases. El Niño is occurring more frequently in Africa, leaving little time for recovery, so food and supply storage is vital.
Families who lose their homes and occupations can utilize the supplies until they regain their livelihood. Instead of dissolving, communities will remain intact and functional and poverty will be kept at bay.
Natural disasters leave thousands dead or impoverished each year, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Natural disaster education saves lives and prevents poverty. Instead of having to rebuild their lives from the ground up, people in developing countries can continue to move forward and improve their situations.
– Sarah Prellwitz
Sources: USAID 1, USAID 2, NOAA, Accuweather, IB Times, Live Science
Photo: Wikimedia
President Xi Jinping Vows to Eradicate Poverty in China
Chinese President Xi Jinping announced during the 2015 Global Poverty Reduction and Development Forum opening presentation that he vows to eradicate poverty in China by 2020.
Over the past 15 years, China has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty.
This impressive feat made them the first developing country to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of halving poverty before the 2015 deadline.
Despite this commendable accomplishment, more than 70 million people in China are still living below the poverty line – earning less than 2,300 yuan annually, which is the equivalent of $362 U.S.
“Despite the achievements, China remains the world’s biggest developing country, and narrowing the urban-rural gap remains a big challenge for us,” said President Xi.
Similar to many countries worldwide, the disparity between the rich and poor in China continues to increase as the world’s second-largest economy slows its pace.
According to President Xi, only 12.3 million Chinese people earned enough money to move above the poverty line in 2014, compared to 43.3 million people in 2011.
In light of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on Oct. 17, the Chinese government will have to lift, on average, 1 million Chinese people out of poverty per month until 2020.
The Chinese government and China’s Office of Poverty Alleviation & Development plan to come up with a string of more effective and targeted measures to achieve the goal, including:
“Chinese government has made great efforts on poverty alleviation. We hope to encourage all sectors of society to participant in the endeavor to lift all rural population out of poverty by 2020,” said Hong Tianyun, head of the Lead Group Office of Poverty Alleviation & Development in China.
– Alexandra Korman
Sources: CCTV, Reuters, The Times of India
Photo: Pixabay
Sustainable Blood Flow in West Africa
Sisu Global Health has developed a device that recycles blood without using electricity for hospitals in developing countries.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “75 countries report collecting fewer than 10 donations per 1,000 population.” The vast majority of these countries are located in Africa.
Not only is blood itself in short supply (and expensive), clean and effective ways to obtain and transmit it are also lacking.
Of the donations low-income countries receive, only 16% are monitored through external quality assessment schemes, says the WHO. This leads to the continued spread of diseases, such as HIV.
In addition, unnecessary and unsafe transfusions run rampant in low-income clinics, creating even more problems.
Fortunately, a hospital in West Africa came up with a blood-collecting technique that would become the inspiration for a revolution in blood technology.
When Carolyn Yarina and Gillian Henker visited the hospital, they saw doctors use a cup to collect and reuse blood from internal bleeding, reports The Baltimore Sun.
Using this idea as a foundation, they created Sisu Global Health, a medical device company for emerging markets.
Their breakthrough technology, called the Hemafuse, is a manual autotransfusion device used to retransfuse a patient’s own blood during an internal hemorrhage, according to their website.
The Hemafuse does not need electricity to run, which makes it the perfect solution for clinics in developing countries.
With such a revolutionary, environmentally-friendly product, Sisu has already attracted attention from big-time investors.
According to The Baltimore Sun, the company has obtained a $100,000 investment from AOL Co-Founder Steve Case, after entering his “Rise of the Rest” startup competition.
Yarina and Henker have stumbled onto an immensely valuable idea here, one that will help ensure blood safety and sustainable blood flow in countries that have a desperate need for plasma.
– Ashley Tressel
Sources: Baltimore Sun, WHO, SISU Global Health, Rise of Rest
Youth Entrepreneurship Forum in Dushanbe
Since independence, the long civil war and recurring natural disasters have led to widespread poverty in Tajikistan. About half of the country’s population is poor and depends on agriculture to survive. The majority of the poor are unemployed, underemployed or self-employed.
On Oct. 12, 2015, a Youth Entrepreneurship Forum took place in Dushanbe with support from the World Bank Group. The goal of the event is to increase awareness of the importance of entrepreneurship for job creation and economic growth and to share ideas about entrepreneurship for youth in Tajikistan.
The World Bank has an active portfolio of 24 projects, including regional projects and Trust Funds. It intends to make a net commitment of U.S. $383 million to support economic growth through private sector development and investments in better public services, such as education, health, municipal services and social protection.
As part of the World Bank Group-financed Central Asia Youth Empowerment and Jobs Project, this event aims to improve the business climate and foster youth entrepreneurship in Tajikistan through improving the capacity of state entities and offering skills training for youth.
The event involved around 200 young entrepreneurs, private companies, civil society organizations, development partners, World Bank Group experts, representatives from the Government of Tajikistan and participants from the Slovak Republic.
At the forum, international and local experts introduced key concepts of entrepreneurship, including how to set up and manage a business, how to make entrepreneurial decisions and identify new business opportunities. Representatives from Tajikistan private companies and the Slovak Republic shared their experience of starting a business and discussed with young entrepreneurs about how entrepreneurship works at the individual and company level.
The forum also includes the discussion on business and entrepreneurship opportunities offered by local and international civil society organizations, development partners and local associations and companies.
In order to put words into action, following the forum, a master class started on October 13 for start-up businesses intending to collect individual business advice from successful entrepreneurs from Tajikistan and the Slovak Republic.
“Young people are eager to work and need good job opportunities. A society that can deliver these opportunities is promoting growth and investing in its welfare,” said Patricia Veevers-Carter, World Bank Country Manager for Tajikistan. “The World Bank Group’s efforts in this area in Tajikistan are going to focus on helping youth develop skills and increase employment opportunities, as well as on assisting the Government in designing policies that help youth thrive.”
This project will benefit the society of Tajikistan with more jobs created by entrepreneurship and improved economy.
– Shengyu Wang
Sources: World Bank, Rural Poverty Photo: DIPNOTE
International Scholarships: Hope for Developing Countries
Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa and education advocate, once stated that “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
It is with this outlook that countries have banded together to make education a priority in developing countries where change is most needed.
Primary education and ensuring that each child has access to it has been a first step, but what next? USAID along with several other countries and organizations have begun expanding their focus on continued education.
On the USAID site, it explains that “higher levels of education can raise developing countries’ productivity significantly. One study shows that an additional year of average secondary or university-level education in a country raises national output by 19 percent.”
The U.N. News Center showed this in its report on economic growth within developing countries. Its feature article shared, “Economic growth alone does not automatically translate into human development progress. [Developing countries] are therefore not just tapping into global trade, but they are also improving health and education services, which have allowed them to sustain their growth.”
Countries such as the U.S., U.K. and Poland have helped to expand educational opportunities through international scholarships.
Go Poland is one project that has helped more than 400 international students continue their education outside of their home country.
On its site, the organization notes that “new scholarship programmes translate into higher numbers of foreigners studying in Poland. Foreign students in Poland acquire expertise which they will be able to use afterwards for the benefit of their home countries.”
The same goals are maintained in all other international scholarships awarded to students from developing countries. It is an investment in the students, developing countries and the world at large.
Future scholarships for 2016 are already being handed out to students in various developing nations. These scholarships provide hope for a better future in countries that still have much room for growth.
– Katherine Martin
Sources: Washington Post, USAID, UN, Polska Pomoc
Photo: Pixabay
Bpeace Aids Entrepreneurs in Historically Violent Communities
Bpeace, short for Business Council for Peace, is an organization comprised of business savvy individuals who have combined their efforts to aid business owners in areas who have suffered from violence and war.
Bpeace volunteers help decrease violence in conflict-ridden communities by accelerating job creation and, in turn, decreasing poverty. They have aided business owners in countries like Rwanda, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Guatemala and more.
Bpeace was founded in 2002 in New York City. Serving as a pro bono management consulting firm, Bpeace helps entrepreneurs scale their businesses, create significant employment for members of their communities and expand the economic power of women.
The founders of Bpeace believe the most efficient way to spread world peace is by creating jobs, and they apply this philosophy to all of their practices. Jobs have a big multiplier effect. This creates local purchasing power, which helps families become sustainable.
Since 2009, Bpeace has held an event called Pedal for Peace that brings together donors and bikers to raise money for local entrepreneurs in developing countries. Participants ride either a sixty-mile or 25-mile race while donating at least $500. Every dollar is donated to families in Afghanistan, El Salvador and Guatemala.
In 2015, Bpeace provided mentoring to over 65 entrepreneurs, with their efforts reaching 2,657 employees. In total, 12,000 families have been positively affected by Bpeace’s effort. Bpeace also assists business owners with finances to keep violence away from their businesses.
Karina Koper, a business owner in Guatemala, uses the financial assistance she receives from Bpeace to pay for her employees to take cabs to and from work to avoid being mugged or assaulted and to pay off gangs from messing with her shops.
Another example of this is Veronica Mejia Handal, a business owner in El Salvador, who received social media marketing training from Bpeace and used her newfound skills to market herself to potential customers around the world.
Today, Bpeace continues to help entrepreneurs, creates jobs and helps end gang violence by spreading employment to constituents of all backgrounds.
– Julia Hettiger
Sources: Fox Business, Bpeace 1, Bpeace 2, Indiegogo
Photo: Pause for Thought
Fighting Malnutrition in Honduras
Honduras is the third poorest nation in the Americas. One-third of the population lives below the poverty line and 1.5 million Hondurans or 20% of the population, face hunger on a daily basis.
However, malnutrition is especially problematic for children.
Fortunately, several organizations are providing funding to the country to alleviate malnutrition.
World Bank and the United Nations
The growing rates of malnutrition in Honduras have prompted the World Bank and the United Nations to act. Currently, the organization is supporting a program called the AIN-C with the United States and investing $20 million into Honduras.
The money will be divided among nearly 1,000 Honduran communities and benefit 16,000 children.
World Food Programme
In addition, the World Food Programme (WFP) implemented the School Meals Programme in Honduras, which has provided 1.2 million children in primary school with food aid.
The program targets the very poorest communities in the country and provides the children with daily meals in order to encourage school enrollment. In addition to the program, the WFP has implemented the Purchase for Progress (P4P) program.
The P4P is a program that buys products from small farmers in order to help support the community. In partnership with other buyers, they have purchased $60 million in food from local Honduran communities.
Hopefully, as the international community continues to support poverty reducing programs in Honduras, the rate of malnutrition will decrease throughout the country.
– Robert Cross
Sources: Hope International, World Bank, World Food Programme
Photo: Wikimedia
What is the Africa Governance Initiative?
One of the hallmarks of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s premiership is his commitment to the development of Africa. Since leaving office in 2007, Blair continues his dedication to Africa’s poor through the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI).
In Sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 50 percent of all people live in poverty. Around 239 million Africans face food insecurity and 70 percent do not have electricity.
In 2008, AGI was founded upon a mission to establish enduring governments that will lift impoverished Africans out of poverty.
The AGI team strives to achieve this goal by working with public officials to improve their policies, strategies and capacities to affect change within their respective countries.
Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was elected in 2006, noted, “There you stand, trying to re-build a nation in an environment where everyone wants to see change take place right away…. Only you cannot because the capacity to implement whatever change you have in mind does not exist.”
Liberia is one of six African countries AGI works with. The others are Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Rwanda—where AGI was piloted.
AGI operates by working “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the highest levels of government. With a cornerstone platform of prioritization, planning and performance management, AGI tailors its programs to the specific needs of each country.
In 1994, many Rwandans fled the country or died as a result of genocide. Rwanda felt the devastating effects of the genocide for more than a decade after. In 2008, AGI came to Rwanda to help President Paul Kagame and his government put Rwanda back on a path toward development.
The initiatives AGI undertook in Rwanda were tailored to their Vision 2020 plan. Vision 2020 is the government’s plan to make Rwanda a middle-income country by 2020.
Together the AGI team and the Rwandan government developed the Strategic Capacity Building Initiative (SCBI). The SCBI paired government workers with technical experts to recognize and address the reasons why capacity building in Rwanda failed in the past.
After much research and deliberation, SCBI decided on four measures that would be the key to program implementation in the future.
These measures are priority driven, having government ownership of programs and strategies, focusing on delivery of relevant work in a real context and lastly long-term investment or, in other words, youth involvement.
Phase 1 AGI’s Program
The process of legal negotiations, considering international guidelines for best practice and leveraging long-term investment leading up to the construction took just seven months—what AGI calls, “lighting-fast by international standards.”
The plant is located about an hour outside of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. Since its implementation just last year, the plant has already produced 8.5 megawatts of electricity.
This replaced expensive and dirty diesel fuel with clean and cheap solar energy which now powers 12,000 homes.
Plans for the future include increasing solar capacity to 250 megawatts, which could power close to 353,000 more homes.
Other successes from the SCBI include increased wages for farmers and a fairer mining industry. Between 2000 and 2010 Rwanda was considered one of the world’s ten fastest growing economies. Since 2007, poverty in Rwanda decreased by nearly 8 percent.
“I set up AGI to help African governments bridge the gap between plans and results, to get from power plans to power plants, from a line in a speech to a line of children outside their new school,” said Blair.
Rwanda’s successes show that it is not corruption, but a need for proper capacity building that hinders development.
The Rwanda government’s eagerness to continue with SCBI and other projects is a testament to Africa’s ability to become a world leader in raising its people out of poverty.
– Celestina Radogno
Sources: Africa Governance Initiative 1, Africa Governance Initiative 2, Africa Governance Initiative 3, Africa Governance Initiative 4, Africa Governance Initiative 5, CIA World Fact Book, Huffington Post, Tony Blair, World Hunger
Photo: Diallo Kenyatta
Creating Ways to Continue Education Despite War and Conflict
Elementary school is a time that is remembered by new backpacks and the smell of fresh pencils and erasers. Small children proudly sport new outfits and seek out new friends in various classes.
This is the idealized picture of what a small proportion of the world’s children is able to enjoy. In war-torn developing countries, though, elementary schools look very different.
A recent article from The Guardian found that “Almost 50 million children and young people living in conflict areas are out of school, more than half of them primary age, and reports of attacks on education are rising.”
Multiple studies done over the years have found that when it comes to war, education is one of the first casualties. War and other such conflicts cause damage to buildings, displaced families, necessary certificates to be lost, and a change in priorities.
While this is often the case, new programs are springing up that provide access to school even amidst such turmoil.
UNICEF, for instance, has been working with the Ministry of Education to find solutions.
In an article focused on Yemen, the UNICEF site stated that they are, “working with the Government to help organize catch-up classes for those who have missed their education and encourage as many children as possible to return to school for the new school year.”
The combined efforts of UNICEF and the Ministry of Education have also worked to help children take exams that were missed due to schools being closed during the fighting.
War Child is another organization that has been working in several war-torn countries to improve education despite war and conflict.
On their site they shared, “In Afghanistan we’re providing education for the street children who use our drop-in-centres. We’ve also opened 20 Early Childhood Development Centres to provide 620 children aged 4-6 with a pre-school education.”
Similar work is being done in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Uganda and Syria.
These programs allow for children to receive the education that is needed to help end the cycle of poverty in these developing nations despite the negative impacts of war.
– Katherine Martin
Sources: The Guardian, UNICEF, War Child
Photo: Google Images