Bah Humbug! Building progress

Recently, I read an article in the LA Times that argued that Africa is doing just fine thank you very much. All is not doom and gloom because many African countries have good economic growth. The columnist argued that trade, not aid, is what Africa needs. I got impatient at the over-simplification of this discussion. It seems to me that both sides of the Aid vs Trade argument get over-simplified and people end up slanging off at each other.

So, for peace of mind, I turned my thoughts to the School of St Jude. Here is a project that depends on private aid and that makes a material difference to the lives of hundreds of families right now, while providing jobs and educating the future leaders of Tanzania.

How can this country grow without educated professionals? How can people who live in extreme poverty educate their children without the help of others? While Africa has entrepreneurs who are establishing mobile phone networks and selling minerals to China, it doesn’t have any entrepreneurs who are offering affordable (i.e. no cost) education to the poorest of the poor.

Bah Humbug! Leave them to their debates and take a look at this.

Foundations for three girl's houses

These pictures show progress on the building works for the weekday boarding facilities for over 300 boys and girls at the Moshono campus of the School of St Jude.

A foundation to last for generations

Generations of children will use this accommodation. This school will serve the local area through the coming generations of increasing prosperity. Perhaps at some time in the future, families will be able to afford school fees and will not depend on the consciences of people who live far away.

Columns to support the second floor

These buildings are solidly made, using local materials and local labour. This provides employment for people who can take pride in building their own future, while putting food on the table today.

Good, solid foundations and columns

The weekday boarding accommodation will be open by the end of 2007, ready to house children in 2008. What a change that will be for all the children, and the school. Instead of a two-hour trip to school, they will have a five-minute walk. Instead of trying to do secondary school homework in a two-room house with no electricity, they will have comfortable and safe study rooms and dormitories. At weekends they will spend time with their families.

It seems to me that the poverty in Africa is due to large influences, like geography, and systems of government that have not always been very effective, and trade rules that disadvantage some countries. Individuals suffer the effects of these large influences. Now the system is beginning to change and poor people in Tanzania have the hint of a chance of a better life for their children.

With our help, these children can step into a new future where they can contribute to the ongoing growth and development of this very poor country. So, don't get muddled by Trade vs Aid arguments – your support for the School of St Jude has no downside, only benefits at all levels.



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Tanzania recognised for good governance

Jeffrey Sachs has singled out Tanzania as one of the African countries that has benefited in recent years from good governance. He was speaking in connection with a United Nations push for a “Green Revolution” in Africa to help the continent build stable agricultural systems and rescue tens of millions of people from poverty.

The idea of a Green Revolution for Africa, inspired by a similarly named program that helped many Asian countries, especially India, out of underdevelopment in the 1970s, has been championed by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Kofi Annan

At a joint news conference in Geneva, the three U.N. agencies said the African version should not copy the Asian experience but be based on African realities, focusing on small-scale farming and help in empowering women.

Over the past 15 years, according to the FAO, the number of hungry people in Africa has increased by 45 million to a total of 220 million -- around a third of the continent's population and one quarter of the world's under-nourished people.

Yields of maize and other staple cereals in Africa remained at under 1.0 tonne per hectare, about half average yields in Asia and Latin America.

The U.N. agencies said the main causes of food insecurity were weak institutions, insufficient investment in agriculture by national governments and donor countries, a harsh environment made worse by climate change, corruption and mismanagement.

At a separate news conference, the U.N. adviser and U.S. academic Jeffrey Sachs said Ghana, Tanzania, Madagascar and Malawi were among African countries which have benefited from good governance in past years, helping drive economic progress.

Sachs said problems arose because many decision-makers in donor nations "don't know the quality of governance that is emerging in many African countries".

The School of St Jude in northern Tanzania is contributing to the future good government of the country by giving bright children from poor families an excellent education based on good ethical standards. This well-run project is worthy of your support.


African Green Revolution – an excellent online resource about this initiative.




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MDG – Progress

A recent report from the UN shows progress on the Millennium Development Goals.

U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon says recent statistics show the number of extremely poor people living on less than a dollar a day fell to 980 million in 2004. One-and-one-quarter billion people lived in extreme poverty in 1990. He says this achievement has been made despite a sharp increase in the total global population.

The share of children attending primary school has grown from 80 percent in 1990 to 88 percent in 2005," he said. "There has also been strong progress on child mortality because of focused interventions-on measles, TB, dysentery and malaria. I am very encouraged by these statistics.

The report finds South and South East Asia have made the most impressive reductions in extreme poverty. But, the poverty rate in Western Asia has more than doubled.

The report notes some progress is being made in other challenging regions. It says even sub-Saharan Africa is defying all predictions and is doing better than expected in cutting levels of poverty. It says the continent's poverty rate has fallen by nearly six percentage points since 2000.

Despite these gains, it says the poverty gap in sub-Saharan Africa remains the highest in the world. It says Africa urgently needs help in fighting HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, as well as in basic medical care and education.

The U.N. Secretary General accuses developed countries of failing to live up to their commitments to provide adequate funding to help poor countries improve their situations.

The goals are achievable, I think, if countries commit themselves to sound governance and accountability and receive adequate financial and technical assistance from the developed countries. For developed countries, it is also very necessary, desirable to keep their commitment.

Mr. Ban says there has not been any significant increase in Official Development Assistance since 2004. He says that makes it impossible, even for well-governed countries, to meet the Millennium Development Goals. He says the Group of Eight industrialized countries should meet its pledge to double aid to Africa by 2010.

Even with Kevin Rudd's latest promise, Australia falls well behind this. Tanzania is one of the African countries best-placed to benefit from aid – it is stable, well-governed and committed to improving governance even further.

Political promises and memes

You may recall that I have blogged here, here, and here about Australia’s failure to live up to its promises to raise Foreign Aid to 0.7% of GDP. So, you will know that I am pleased to see that Kevin Rudd has announced a timetable for a Labor government to meet this target. He specified 0.5% by 2015-16. It is still a bit vague, but at least he is talking about it!

Kevin Rudd in Darfur, 2006

In an interview on the ABC’s World Today program , Rudd said:

It is in our own interests to tackle poverty in our own region, as part of a wider strategy to deal with the impact of terrorism, climate change pandemics and refugees potentially on Australia.

I have the impression that Rudd is an excellent manager who has a good grasp on the detail of bringing about better practice. He has this to say about helping countries in our region to achieve universal primary education.

For example, in education we would negotiate a timeline to meet a target of universal… truly universal primary education. This in turn will go to the need for comprehensive audits of the state of the region's primary school infrastructure, including the adequacy of teacher training and the adequacy of curricular.

I'm looking forward to fresh approaches to effective government.

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Megan at Imaginif has tagged me in a meme ‘Bloggers for Positive Global Change’. What is a meme? Basically, it is a chain of recommendations – I am tapped on the shoulder by someone, and I then tap others. So, here are some blogs about positive global change that I read.

Ben's Blog – Australian blog mostly about aid and policy.

Realclimate – This is the best resource on the Web for keeping up to date with the views of reputable climate scientists. They have a great summary where they debunk 25 myths about Climate Change.

Next Billion – This blog is about sustainable business models for the world’s poorest people – the next billion people.

Center for Global Development: Views from the Center – This is a group blog that features notes from Nancy Birdsall, her colleagues at the Center for Global Development and others in the development community about new ways to reduce global poverty.



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Rent a Book Fundraiser

Here's my latest scheme! You can download this bookplate and stick it into any of your books. Then you lend the books, sell them, or give them away, and the books becomes a fundraiser for the School of St Jude.



Do you like this idea? Can you add these bookplates to your books? Go here to download the PDF file, then print it out and stick it into any of your books. [Right click the link and choose 'save as' to save the PDF file to your computer.]

Your borrowers can use the ChipIn widget on this blog to donate their book rental fees to the School of St Jude.

Get your books working for you! Better still – get them working to educate bright children from poor families in Tanzania.



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World Economic Forum

We hear a lot about the Web2.0 – the new forms of social interaction online, especially user generated content.

World Economic Forum, 2007 – collage of participatory activities

The World Economic Forum, held in Capetown 13-15 June 2007, has an interesting website that webcasts some of the sessions and allowed people worldwide to contribute questions and comments via a blog and SMS. The Forum included some open sessions where panellists responded to questions sent via the blog or SMS. Check it out here.

This is great! – because it allows everybody to see some of the sessions. Those presentations are no longer just one-day events, limited to Cape Town in June 2007, instead they last as long as the website continues.

I can see this kind of possibility for the School of St Jude. A Friends page could allow worldwide supporters to share photos (via Flickr) and video (via YouTube), to post blog messages or join a discussion board for Q and A.

What do you think? Would you like to be part of something like that? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts.



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Paving and drainage make me happy

My brother in law is a plumber, so I happen to think that drainage is important – and even interesting. So, take a look at this. Our monthly contribution to the School of St Jude has been put to good use!

The playground and path used to flood when it rained

Up until recently, whenever it rained, the area in front of the classrooms has become a quagmire. No amount of gravel or ground leveling could stop this. Of course, the kids didn’t mind, they just splashed through the puddles ruining pairs of shoes, splattering uniforms and trampling mud through the classrooms. But more serious was the problem of the stagnant water providing the perfect breeding ground for the malaria carrying mosquitoes.

And then the School discovered Hans, a Danish man, who has a paving business using local workers and a local product to provide a very professional paving job and the problem is on its way to being solved!

Thorough preparation is the secret to great paving!

As you can see from the photos, not only do the paving stones save a whole lot of shoe leather and cleaning materials but they really look fantastic, too.

Beautiful paving runs beside classrooms, creating a dry zone

In conjunction with the paving, the School now has a very efficient drainage system to remove the water that used to accumulate in the area to a large underground storage tank. The water from this will be used to water gardens and wash buses during the dry season – a huge saving on our precious water supply.

Ooh... look that that lovely snaking drain

Here is the new drain that runs alongside the main entry road. It's big enough to manage the big tropical downpours that are typical in East Africa.

Now THAT’S a drain!

So, as you can see, our donations really help the School in so many ways – the kids and teachers are kept cleaner, drier and healthier; the cleaners’ jobs are less onerous; the environment is kept healthy and clear of mud and the water saving storage tank will make a huge difference to the water supply in the coming months.

If you would like to add your contribution to the School, please visit their website and click on ‘Support us’. Small donations can be made through the ChipIn button at the top of this blog.



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