Poverty-hit Bangladesh forced into huge fuel price hike

from AFP via Google



DHAKA — Impoverished Bangladesh became the latest victim of surging global crude costs Monday with the government announcing it has been forced to hike state-set fuel prices by between 34 and 66 percent.

Authorities said they had no alternative to the sharp increases because the country could no longer afford to sell petrol, diesel, kerosene and gas at subsidised rates that were set when a barrel of oil cost just 60 dollars.

On Monday, oil was trading close to 144 dollars a barrel.

"Frankly speaking, we had no choice. It was unavoidable," Bangladesh's deputy energy minister M. Tamin told AFP.

"The oil subsidy still accounts for 40 percent of the government's development budget. Imagine a situation where crude oil goes up to 200 dollars a barrel. All development in Bangladesh will stop," he said.

The price rises represent a major blow for the country, one of the world's poorest, where nearly 40 percent of the 144 million population survive on less than a dollar a day.

The country is already suffering from rising food prices, with the price of rice -- a staple in the South Asian nation -- nearly doubling over the past year.

"It's an international crisis. We think rich countries, oil-producing countries and the United Nations should deal with the issue urgently," Tamin said.

Starting Tuesday, the price of diesel and kerosene is to go up by 37.5 percent to 55 taka (80 US cents) per litre (0.26 gallon), while petrol prices will increase by 34 percent to 87 taka per litre, the ministry said.

The price of furnace oil, used in small factories, has been increased by 50 percent, while a cylinder of gas used for cooking will go up by 66 percent.

"The prices of petroleum products have been increased due to the massive increase in global oil prices. It has been putting huge pressure on the government's budget," energy ministry spokesman Afrazur Rahman explained.

"Even with the hike, the government will have to spend 100 billion taka (1.45 billion dollars) as subsidies on fuel" over the next financial year, he said.

The official added that even with the sharp rises, fuel prices in Bangladesh were among the lowest in the region and that state-owned Bangladesh Petroleum will still be selling fuel at a 40 percent loss.

The government last increased fuel prices in April 2007. World crude oil prices have since more than doubled, costing the impoverished country more than one billion dollars in subsidies in the fiscal year that ends on Monday.

Economist Apiur Rahman, the head of Development Coordination -- a Bangladeshi think-thank -- said the global surge and the resulting domestic hike could be catastrophic for millions in the country.

"It's very bad news for the country's farmers, for rural poor, and even middle income people," he said.

"It will drive millions of people into poverty. Inflation will jump immediately. But the government had no choice, its hands were tied. It had to raise prices."

He called on the government to "increase subsidies in other areas" -- such as for staple foods and healthcare -- to lessen the blow to the poor.

Economic development in Bangladesh has taken several blows over the past 18 months, beginning with political instability and the imposition of a state of emergency in January 2007.

It was then hit by highly destructive floods and a massive cyclone the same year.

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Land prolongs poverty's tenure

from the Guardian

Why are so many acres of arable land lying unused in Katine? Richard M Kavuma investigates the controversial issue of land ownership

By Richard M Kavuma

After more than half an hour in animated conversation with John Erupu, a farmer and local councillor in Katine, we agreed that we were friends and he even invited me to visit his village and meet his family.

"By the way, John, since you have 10 acres of land, would you consider selling me one acre?" I suggested. The tone of his voice changed abruptly.

"No," he replied emphatically, "I cannot sell to you because my culture does not accept that. We have to meet as a clan and they listen to the problem I have that is forcing me to sell the land. If they are convinced, they may allow me."

This reminded me of Phoebe Ageo, 35, a leader of one of the farmer groups supported by Amref's Katine Community Partnerships Project. I had met Ageo two months earlier at her home in Adamasiko village. Prosperous by Katine standards, she said one of her constraints was land; she wanted to expand her gardens of cassava and groundnut beyond three acres but could not easily find land. But as I left her homes, I couldn't help but notice large chunks of apparently arable land lying idle nearby.

Erupu and Ageo typify the paradox of land in Katine: so much of it is lying fallow under the watchful eye of its owners – yet there is not enough land for those itching to farm. Some people try to rent land but Erupu says he would not do this as the person renting might misuse it or suddenly try and claim full ownership.

"It is something that is hard for us to understand," says Venansio Tumuhaise, Amref's project officer for livelihoods. "There is a lot of land but those who want to farm cannot touch it. It gets even worse when you find that the same people cannot afford implements like ox-ploughs to till the land."

What harm would it do Erupu, I ask, to sell me one of his five acres of land currently lying unfarmed? "If owners are allowed to sell their land, the next generation will not have anything to inherit. No land should be wasted in this way. It is good to sell only a bit so that any children that are born will get some land," he says.

Under legally recognised land tenure systems, land in the Teso region is held under a strict regime of customary ownership. In some other areas, those who inherit land can give it to other relatives or even sell it off, but not so easily in Teso. Here clans have to approve and, as Erupu said, the committee of his Igwetoma clan could dismiss an application unless it were persuaded by his reasons for wanting to sell.

Ostensibly such a rigid system discourages reckless young men who would otherwise inherit land, refuse to work and survive by selling off parcels of their inheritance to the detriment of their future offspring and other family members.

But while this system ensures that John Erupu has enough land for his children and grandchildren, it will not help Amref's desire to see bumper harvests and better incomes across Katine. Tumuhaise believes it would make business sense for someone who has a lot of idle land, to buy ox-ploughs and oxen and open up larger farms with higher productivity. But under the present land tenure system here, that is far from simple.

Which takes us 350 kilometres to the Ugandan capital, Kampala, where parliament has spent ten years trying to reform the land tenure system in Uganda – with laughable results. According to one researcher, the key principle driving Uganda's land reforms is to make it easy for those who own land to transfer ownership, mortgage it or even sell off the land. That way, landowners could use it to get bank loans for development of the land, and progressive farmers such as Ageo, who need more land, could easily access it.

This is critical to the development of Uganda. With some 80 per cent of the population still living in rural areas, the government has prescribed a steady commercialisation of agriculture as the surefire way out of poverty, but doesn't seem to know how to make the medicine work. One bottleneck is the land-holding system in the rural areas.

A great percentage of land in Uganda – as much as 70 per cent – is owned customarily rather than through the modern legal system, and lawmakers here seem incapable of legislating to make that land marketable.

The latest attempt is the Land (Amendment) Bill 2007, now in parliament, which is seeking to end what government calls "mass evictions" of people by registered owners – but this bill has caused ripples across the country. Critics, including some of Uganda's top lawyers, argue that the thrust of the bill is to make it very difficult for a registered owner of land to evict squatters from it. Although the bill currently targets areas of central and mid-western Uganda, there is fear that its provisions will later have grave consequences for areas in northern and eastern Uganda.

Not surprisingly cultural leaders in Teso have moved swiftly to condemn the bill. "Our position is that this bill is very bad for Teso," said Source Opak, information minister for the Teso cultural institution. "This legislation will simply facilitate grabbing of customary land."

For now though, the Uganda government, eager to push through the law, has mooted amendments to the effect that the more controversial aspects of the bill would not affect areas such as Teso or northern Uganda.

Unfortunately, according to one of Uganda's leading development economists, this spells doom for the agriculture sector in areas such as Katine. Dr Augustus Nuwagaba believes that land in Katine is not regarded as an economic commodity, but a cultural one, hence the difficulties in developing it.
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Small change adds up for philanthropist

from the Chicago Tribune

Fulbright Scholar turned beer vendor takes personal approach to foreign aid

By Ted Gregory

His fellow beer vendors sometimes tease Adam Carter for wearing knee and back braces and an ergonomically designed strap to schlep the Old Style and Budweiser he hawks at Wrigley and U.S. Cellular Fields.

They call him the most accessorized beer vendor, and they notice he is less likely to join them for late-night carousing than he used to be.

But those who know Carter well know his mettle. A Fulbright Scholar with degrees in cultural anthropology and international development, Carter, 33, works as a vendor half the year.

The other half he is an international microphilanthropist trying to save forgotten, impoverished nooks of the world one modest donation at a time.

Carter of Chicago is part of an under-the-radar, altruistic movement that gives small, strategic, direct help to needy people in other countries. It can be $80 to buy kitchen supplies for a Cambodian orphanage, or $2,500 to buy food for a children's center in a Brazilian shantytown. Carter has done both, and more.

Also known as travel philanthropy, his is a simple, personal approach to foreign aid. Donors give Carter and his kindred spirits small donations.

He hands them to a grass-roots group or individual he has identified through his 12 years of extensive travel. Often, he gives his own beer-selling money.

"I could participate in programs that would touch more people," Carter said while strapping on his vendor's gear at a bar a block from Wrigley Field. "I would rather have a more hands-on approach. I would rather have a more direct link to the people I'm helping."

Born in Hinsdale, Carter lived in Wheaton until he was a toddler. After his parents divorced, he lived with his mother in Lincoln Park.

Carter says he was fascinated with National Geographic magazine, an interest both parents encouraged. They also fostered ideals of tolerance and helping others who are less fortunate. His mother was a hospital volunteer.

His father has cooked meals for the homeless for years and, as a younger man, marched in civil rights demonstrations.

About the time he started working at Wrigley Field, Carter chose to study cultural anthropology at the University of Michigan.

"This was a window into the rest of the world," he said.

During college, he studied in Italy, traveled in Europe and took an excursion to Morocco, where he was struck by its exotic culture and its heartbreaking poverty.

"That experience definitely was an eye-opener," he said. "After that, I was like, 'I want to go to Asia. I want to go to Africa. I want to go to South America.' "

As graduation approached, Carter and a childhood friend weren't ready to "lock it in" on a career track, he said. Instead, they embarked on a journey through Asia and the Middle East.

Over the next three years, he spent his springs and summers moving up the vendor chain in Chicago and used those earnings to travel in Africa, India, Mexico and Central America the rest of the year.

Fascinated by these regions' cultural richness but troubled by the poverty, he enrolled in George Washington University's international development program. As a Fulbright Scholar in 2001-02, he studied the effects of Moroccan Immigration in Spain.

About that time, he heard of Backpack Nation, the dream of San Francisco cabdriver and writer Brad Newsham, himself a seasoned traveler.

Saddened and disillusioned by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Newsham wanted "to overwrite that chapter with a better one," he said. His idea was to transform the estimated 2.5 million Western backpackers "into an army of roving ambassadors, emissaries of peace," providing each of them with money to deliver to an individual, family, organization or village.

Newsham launched Backpack Nation in 2002, and the media fanfare helped generate $20,000 in donations.

Carter applied for and received $2,000, which he gave to a children's center that he'd visited in a shantytown on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

The director "started crying and he called me an angel," Carter said. "You talk about an epiphany."

With organizational help from Newsham, Carter continued his philanthropy, as did an acquaintance, Marc Gold, a community college teacher from San Francisco. Gold had started doing microphilanthropy on his own in 1989 and received $2,000 from Backpack Nation.

At one point, Newsham's effort included about 15 ambassadors who distributed small-scale aid to nearly 20 countries, from Russia to Brazil, but, exhausted by the effort, he discontinued Backpack Nation in 2005.

Gold already had formed a philanthropy travel organization called 100 Friends ( www.100friends.com), for which he raised more than $250,000 from 2002 until last year.

Operating at first under the auspices of another group, it became an independent charity in January; Carter is associate director. His blog is www.adrockcarter.blogspot.com.

Travel philanthropy's impact is debatable. Practitioners concede it is tiny compared with the efforts of large aid organizations. And charity watchdog groups caution that they know next to nothing about the concept.

"It's nice, but what they can do is limited," said Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago. "They can point to individual stories, but if you can do it on a bigger scale, you can substantially impact the well-being of a community. I'm not against the idea, I just don't consider it the most effective way of helping."

Gold and Carter contend that larger organizations often are slowed by bureaucracy or err in huge ways—like sending dozens of beds to an orphanage when the cultural norm is for the children to sleep together on the floor.

Small, strategic aid—as when Gold spent $1 for medicine to clear up a severe ear infection for a Tibetan woman and $30 on a hearing aid—can yield a powerful, personal connection, the two men said. It also dramatically changes others' perception of Americans as selfish, they added.

Gold provides a list on the 100 Friends Web site of 166 projects funded with donations, and he has posted several slide shows and video presentations about his work. Carter, who said he has given away about $20,000—mostly in Brazil—since 2005, said he has never received a complaint from a donor.

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G8 leaders to set up task force on food crisis: report

from Maktoob Business

Leaders from the Group of Eight industrial powers will agree to establish a task force at their summit next month to tackle the world food crisis, a report said on Monday.

The group will aim to address the immediate problem of food shortages in poorer countries as well as address longer-term challenges such as boosting food production, the Yomiuri Shimbun said, citing unnamed government sources.

The working group is also expected to discuss removal of export restrictions and directing global food stockpiles to those most in need, the daily said.

The report came after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would press G8 leaders at their July summit in Japan to tackle the world food crisis, as well as climate change and the flagging fight against global poverty.

The G8 is made up of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

G8 leaders are expected to issue a statement on the food crisis at the summit in the northern Japanese resort town of Toyako, senior Japanese official Masaharu Kohno has said.

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High inflation in Asia may hinder the region’s anti-poverty gains

from Media Global

By Shipra Prakash

High inflation in Asia may impede the progress the region has made over the last 20 years and limit gains against poverty, according to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Two thirds of the world’s poor live in Asia. With soaring inflation, it is they who are paying the highest price.

In China, wages cannot keep up with the pace of inflation, and as a consequence living standards have fallen.

The China Labor Bulletin (CLB), an organization that works to solve labor disputes, strikes, and protests, reports that due to increased inflation, Shenzen authorities in July will raise the minimum monthly wage. In Central Shenzhen, the minimum wage will increase by 17.6 percent, from 850 Yuan to 1,000 Yuan, about $145. The minimum wage in suburban areas of the Special Economic Zone will increase by 20 percent, from 750 Yuan to 900 Yuan, about $131. But the CLB stated that “next month’s increase will be barely enough to cover inflation.”

It is not difficult to understand why. With the World Bank forecasting an average consumer price inflation rate of seven percent this year in China, the rise in food and energy prices comes as no surprise.

But inflation is by no means exclusively limited to China. Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia face inflation rates between 7.5 percent and 11 percent. In Vietnam, inflation stands at a staggering 25 percent.

According to the International Monetary Fund, two thirds of the consumer price index in Asia was comprised of foodstuffs in 2007. The figures for 2008 are sure to be of even greater concern.

Inflation in India has reached more than 11 percent. Only a year ago, the figure was 4.28 percent.

This month the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India, government supplementary programs aimed at feeding the poor are under threat because of inflation and food prices.

Madhya Pradesh has the highest levels of child malnutrition in India, and now a bad situation has become worse.

“Due to eroding purchasing power, households will buy less food and spend less on health and education, all resulting in hunger and malnutrition among those who are already vulnerable,” Dr. Suresh Chandra Babu, Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), said in an interview with MediaGlobal.

“Not only will the number of poor increase, the depth of poverty will increase among those who are already poor. Thus the progress made in the past in poverty reduction could be undone,” he added.

Yet India has attempted to secure domestic rice stocks and control food prices. In March of this year, the country raised its minimum price for the export of rice.

India is the second largest rice producer in the world, and countries reliant on imported rice will now have more trouble meeting their needs.

The cyclone that hit Bangladesh last year destroyed nearly all of its rice harvest, and now the country is struggling to overcome rice shortages.

Russia and Argentina, like India, have turned to protectionism to safeguard food supplies for their nationals. Both countries have banned the export of locally produced cereals.

Such protectionism only pushes food prices higher. Still, the blame for the food crisis cannot be solely laid at protectionism’s door.

Rising energy costs have also pushed the price of food up, and an international yelling match has begun between oil producers and consumers over why energy prices are so high.

Saudi Arabia contends that speculation on oil futures, and not insufficient supply, is the reason for high oil prices, while consumers respond that it is the other way around.

Still, Saudi Arabia has announced that it will raise oil quotas to 9.7 million barrels by the end of July, an increase of about 500,000 barrels since May.

But Victor Shum, a Singapore-based energy analyst for Purvin and Gertz, an energy consulting firm, said he believes that increasing oil quotas will have little immediate effect.

“We generally expect it to have a minimal impact on oil pricing in the short term, but long term investment in capacity will help relieve the supply and demand pressure and help lower pricing,” he told MediaGlobal.

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Geldof and Clinton team up for African education project

from the Daily India

London, June 30: Sir Bob Geldof has joined forces with former U.S. president Bill Clinton to launch a 4.7 million pounds campaign for the education of children in Africa.

The pair hopes that the project will provide more access to schools for 1.2 million children in Malawi and Rwanda.

The funds are expected to pay for the building of four new training centres and 4,000 teachers to help give African kids a better start in life.

"We are trying to make a hole in the huge need Rwanda and Malawi have for primary teachers," The Sun quoted Clinton, as saying.

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AU conflict panel warns poverty fuelling separatism wave

from Afriquenligne

Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt - Africa is at risk of more border and poverty-ignited conflicts which will require the African Union (AU) to take urgent steps to save the continent from an escalation, an expert body of the organization has warned.

The Peace and Security Council (PSC) has warned in its report to be presented on Sunday at the AU Summit in Sharm El Sheikh that poverty and deprivation, blamed for the latest conflicts in the archipelago of Comoros and Kenya, are standing in the way for a conflict-free continent.

"Significant progress has been made since the last Assembly as shown by the developments in Burundi, the peace process in Côte d'Ivoire and the re-establishment of authority in the Comorian state of Anjouan," the PSC said in its report.

However, the continental peace and security watchdog, seeking mergers with more powerful institutions across the world, also warned that peace efforts in certain parts of the continent remained deadlocked.

The report, which is due for close scrutiny at a high level segment of the African Union Heads of State Assembly, also warns that even though progress in resolving conflicts was achieved this year, potential for new and open conflicts still remain.

"New tensions have emerged, which if care is not taken, could degenerate into open conflict," the report compiled by the continent's 15-country member peace and security body said.

The report offers a fresh twist to discussions over the formation of a grand government for Africa, which is also slated as a point of discussion during the Summit, which convenes in Sharm El Sheikh 30 June-1 July, to prioritise anti-poverty initiatives.

According to Nobel Peace laureate Wangari Maathai, efforts to establish the grand government of Africa, though absolutely necessary, cannot be realized until the rest of the continent is psyched to reason as Africans, not as members of ethnic groups.

"We have not come out of our own tribalism fears. The leaders are dividing their countries and telling those who are not their tribesmen that their lives are in danger unless they support a tribal position, we need to reason as Africans first," she told PANA.

[comment] Rwanda resurrects prosperity amid imperfect politics

from the Delaware Online

By STEPHEN KINZER

In the dozens of poor countries I've covered as a foreign correspondent, development specialists -- people who run projects aimed at pulling nations out of poverty -- have generally worked hand in hand with human-rights advocates. That makes sense because these two groups are natural allies. Both instinctively support governments that promote freedom and prosperity, and oppose corrupt and repressive ones.

Recently, though, I've been spending time in a country where these two groups are on opposite sides: Rwanda.

No other country's government is so highly praised by development specialists but so roundly condemned by human-rights advocates. In fact, Rwanda's spectacular rebirth since the shocking genocide of 1994 has reignited an old debate about the very nature of human rights, and whether the West's obsession with this concept can undermine innovative solutions to problems that hold entire nations in misery.

Over the last few years, Rwanda has emerged as the most exciting place on Earth for people who dream of ending global poverty. Development specialists are drawn by the dazzlingly original, entrepreneur-driven program that President Paul Kagame is promoting.

One aid administrator told me Rwanda is "the only country on the planet that has a chance of going from absolute poverty to middle income in the space of a generation."

A Harvard Business School report in 2007 found that economic conditions are steadily improving and that the country is "corruption free," "stable with social progress" and possibly on its way to becoming the "Switzerland of Africa."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa calls Rwanda "a miracle unfolding before our very eyes."

All over Africa and beyond, experts are beginning to hope that this country, so devastated by genocide 14 years ago in which more than 800,000 people were killed in 100 days, will give the world a new model for fighting poverty.

During one of my interviews with Kagame, I asked him why, despite decades of study and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, no one has come up with a formula for ending poverty in Africa. He rejected my question.

"Everyone knows how to develop Africa," he said. "The problem is that no one does it."

Kagame's formula, modeled after those that brought rapid development to East Asian countries, is simple and straightforward. First and above all, he believes in security. Under his rule, Rwanda has become the safest country in Africa, where even in the capital people walk alone after dark carrying cash, cell phones and other valuables.

Then comes honest governance. No African government has ever waged the kind of campaign against bribery and influence-peddling that Kagame is leading in Rwanda.

Add education, population control, first-class infrastructure, gender equality, good health care and a strong sense of private initiative, Kagame believes, and prosperity results.

But although diplomats, economists and development experts are full of praise for Kagame and his government -- and many Rwandans share their enthusiasm -- American and European human-rights advocates are less impressed. They point out that Kagame won his last election with 95 percent of the vote and that there is no prospect of anyone defeating him in 2010, when he is expected to be re-elected to a second (and, by law, final) seven-year term.

The European Union judged the last election "not entirely fair," and the U.S. State Department called it "seriously marred."

Human-rights advocates also reject Kagame's view that Rwandans must view themselves only as Rwandans and stop using the words "Hutu" and "Tutsi." He allows people to complain, for example, that the country is ruled by a small clique, but not that it is ruled by a clique of Tutsi. A reporter may assert that Rwandans are miserable, but not that Hutu are miserable. Last year, a journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for writing that "those who killed Hutu are free" because national leaders "think the Hutu who perished are not human beings."

How does Kagame explain such prosecutions, which seem to contradict Western notions of free speech and an unfettered press? He says they are necessary because Rwanda faces another psycho-spiritual challenge that may be more daunting than making a poor country rich. Its population remains deeply divided as a result of factors that led to the 1994 genocide. Kagame considers the limitation on speech essential to prevent another mass murder. His critics call it an unjust, self-serving and dangerous restriction on free speech.

War crimes

Another great debate between Kagame and his critics is over who should be punished for horrific crimes of the 1990s. All agree that those who carried out the genocide must be held accountable. But what about soldiers who fought under Kagame's command, first in the insurgent Rwandan Patriotic Front and then, after victory, in Rwanda's national army? The front may well have committed war crimes during its fight for power. Later in the 1990s, Rwandan troops suppressed a counterinsurgency waged by fighters loyal to the deposed genocidal regime. Many innocent people were killed.

The government's position is that these two sets of crimes -- the genocide and the brutal wars waged afterward -- were totally different and deserve different responses. That is why, as "genocidaires" are being judged and punished, there is no parallel set of trials for those who fought alongside Kagame.

He dismisses calls for such trials as politically motivated efforts to place his liberation army on the same moral plane as mass murderers and so weaken his government's moral authority.

Some human-rights advocates assert that because those being punished for genocidal crimes are Hutu, and most of Kagame's commanders were Tutsi, treating them so differently could stoke resentment and even fuel a future conflict.

There are genuine human-rights concerns in Rwanda. A detailed report by a monitoring group sponsored by the African Union, for example, praised the country for its "dramatic recovery" but found that judicial independence is "compromised" and urged "an opening up of political space for competition of ideas and power." Kagame dismissed it as "simplistic."

When Human Rights Watch listed 20 Rwandans who allegedly died in police custody, he told reporters that anyone making such charges had "probably consumed drugs."

These dismissive responses reflect, among other things, the smoldering contempt that Kagame and his comrades feel for the "international community." Their experience growing up as exiles without anyone lifting a finger to help them return home, and then watching the world (and particularly the United Nations) refuse to step in to stop the 1994 genocide, has given them a deep belief in self-reliance and scorn for outside critics. It's easy for human-rights activists to carp, they say, but those activists do not realize that Rwanda remains an explosive place where a single misstep could set off a tragedy of biblical proportions.

"Ours is not an ordinary situation," Kagame told me. "It has built into me some sort of contempt for people who don't see the situation as it actually is, who don't see the depth and breadth of what we are facing. ... For me, human rights is about everything. Even languishing in poverty as a result of colonization and other situations of the past violated human rights. If you solve that, you resolve the human-rights issue."

A Class Divided-Part I: Poverty and Violence in New Orleans Public Schools

from Red Orbit

By Maloney, Stephen

A TWO-PART SERIES LOOKING AT THE TWO MOST SIGNIFICANT FACTORS INFLUENCING

NEW ORLEANS PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS: POVERTY AND VIOLENCE

When Recovery School District Superintendent Paul Vallas was preparing to take over state-run New Orleans public schools in June 2007, the career educator sought the advice of experienced local leaders on how to approach his new job.

Having run the Chicago and Philadelphia school districts, which have many students living in poverty, Vallas expressed confidence in his ability to handle his new job with former New Orleans Mayor Maurice "Moon" Landrieu.

"I went over to his (Landrieu's) house one night and someone asked me to compare school districts and I talked about the poverty rates being comparable," Vallas said. "Moon turned to me and said, 'There's poverty and then there's Southern poverty -- deep poverty.'"

With more than three quarters of Louisiana's public school students classified as low income, the specter of poverty is casting a dark shadow across the state's educational landscape. Educational leaders say poor economic conditions severely limit student performance, creating a domino effect that can drag down a state or region's economy.

"On every major demographic and educational indicator, low- income students start behind, stay behind and fall behind," said Steve Suitts, Southern Education Foundation vice president. "As a nation, we still haven't really come to grips with this problem and what it means for education."

In the South, the number of low-income students has ballooned in the past four decades: 54 percent of the region's 50.1 million public school students are now classified as low income, according to a new SEF report, "A New Majority, Low Income Students in the South's Public Schools."

According to federal regulations, a family of two with an annual income of less than $14,000 lives below the poverty line and qualities for the free or reduced lunch program.

Low-income students are two to three times as likely to drop out of high school as more affluent students, Suitts said, wreaking havoc on the economy as unskilled dropouts hit the job market.

"There's nothing that will be more decisive in forecasting the economic health of Louisiana and the other Southern states than how well the states meet the challenge of educating this new majority," he said.

Vallas said more than 85 percent of the RSD's student population qualifies for the federal free or reduced lunch program, a major indicator of a student's economic status.

"The higher the concentrations of poverty the greater the challenges," Vallas said. "In part, it certainly puts an added burden on the school systems that do not necessarily have the means to meet that burden."

Addressing the issue of student poverty has been one of the RSD's most important tasks, Vallas said.

The key to winning the battle against poverty in the classroom is early intervention, he said.

"There's no more effective way to attack the challenges of poverty than universal early childhood education," Vallas said.

Providing low-income students with the same level of education as more affluent students has to happen early and that extra effort must be maintained throughout a student's career for the negative effects of poverty to be cancelled out, Suitts said.

One of the underlying problems preventing adequate help from getting to impoverished students is the difficulty teachers can have determining the exact needs of each student, S.J. Green Charter School principal Tony Recasner said.

Ninety-eight percent of Green Charter's 325 students qualify for free lunch, but no two students have the same set of economic challenges to overcome, Recasner said.

"A lot of what happens is a function of the parent, typically a mother," he said. "The child's behavior and achievement in school is largely related to mom's aspirations and mom's circumstances."

A single mother working more than one job to make ends meet will more often than not have difficulty getting her child to school on time every day, resulting in a gap in the student's education, Recasner said.

In addition, the same overworked mother will seldom have time to help her child with homework or with a difficult assignment, further limiting classroom achievement.

"The way we best understand a student's achievement and behavior in school is really by getting as good an understanding as we can of their mother's circumstances," Recasner said. "Socioeconomic status is probably the biggest factor in determining the school success of children."

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NGOs Tell of Japan Aid Inadequacy

from All Africa

The Nation (Nairobi)

By Godffrey Olali
Nairobi

Civil society groups have observed critical gaps in some key deliberations made at the recently concluded Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).

The meeting which took place in Yokohama, Japan, between May 28 and 30, has met stiff criticism from key players, who are afraid that Tokyo might not be at a vantage position to present Africa's problems during next month's G8 summit in Japan.

"Japanese and African civil society have noted with disappointment the omission of civil society as participants in the proposal for the follow -up mechanism," observes Ms Sue Mbaya, an Advocacy director with World Vision, African region.

She cited the trade agenda as a key issue which was not properly tackled during the summit which she attended.

"We did not hear any substantial deliberation or progress on the trade agenda save for few African leaders who insisted on the importance of revisiting the global trade platform," she said.

She urged the organisers to make the necessary amendments and confirm civil society's participation in the follow-up mechanism, adding that lack of address to trade was a major oversight.

Ms Mbaya added that re-distribution of resources was another key aspect which was not given prominence at the summit which was attended African heads of state, including Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki.

"We cannot talk about economic growth without addressing the distribution variable while taking into account the fact that there is already insufficient commitment to make sure the poor are benefiting from growth," she said.

Ms Mbaya observed that until Africa tackles this phenomenon, it will experience increased poverty and unequal levels of development in terms of economic growth.

She added that inequality is on the increase in the continent with countries like Botswana, Namibia and South Africa topping the list of the five most unequal economies in the world, with their economies doing well but the poor not benefiting.

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Store in Grayslake an ethical endeavor

from the Lake County News Sun

Ten Thousand Villages recognized by Forbes magazine

By JUDY MASTERSON

GRAYSLAKE -- One of the most ethical companies in the world is doing business here.

Ten Thousand Villages, which sells handmade gifts, jewelry and home decor crafted by Third World artisans, was recognized earlier this month for its fair trade and sustainable economic and environmental practices by Forbes magazine and the Ethisphere Institute.

The shop at 960 Harris Road, Grayslake, is one of 150 nonprofit Ten Thousand Villages retail stores across the United States. Founded 62 years ago by the Mennonites, the company establishes long-term buying relationships in places where skilled artisans lack economic opportunity. It practices fair-trade compensation practices including cash advances and prompt payments.

"We get to know our artisans on a deeper level -- culturally, socially and emotionally," said Kim Vander Yacht, the Grayslake shop's assistant manager. "We work with them to come to agreement on a fair wage for the products they produce. They tend to undervalue their items. They have no idea what they're worth in the U.S. or Canada."

The company gives its craftspeople 50 percent of payment up front to help finance production. It also pays for shipping. Villages shops keep overhead low with the help of a volunteer work force. The Grayslake shop runs on the efforts of people like Myke Cardosi of Grayslake, a retired credit union vice president.

"I wanted to give back to the world I had taken from for so many years," Cardosi said. "A gift item from Ten Thousand Villages is a gift that gives twice. It's a gift that also helps someone in the world feed their kids, clothe them, educate them, put a roof over their head. We're helping people we've never met but who we know are living in very destitute conditions."

Popular and affordable sale items include those made of recycled newspapers from the Philippines and Vietnam. Artisans wrap sheets of newspaper around single broomstick straws then coil them to make trivets, picture frames, placemats and bowls.

The shop also sells necklaces made out of a seed from a rare tree in Kenya. The seeds, which may only be harvested every other year, are dried then strung on cord made of recycled automobile tires. "Fish" rocks from Vietnam, which bear the imprint of the artisan's thumb, and that are popular choices for paper weights and aquarium decor, are also hot sellers.

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SA must expect Zimbabwean flood

from The Daily News, South Africa

Some 200 000 Zimbabwean refugees are likely to cross into South Africa in the next month or two if it becomes clear that Robert Mugabe will remain in power.

This is according to Braam Hanekom, of Passop (People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression and Poverty), which released a statement on the ramifications of Morgan Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the election.

"We fear that Zimbabweans will flood into South Africa, as never before, resulting in further frustrations among poor South Africans.

"The numbers we can expect, if the Zimbabwean people have no chance of changing their president, will result in massive bloodshed. It is the worst possible time for a drastic increase in migration into South Africa, it will be war," the statement noted.

"Anybody with the capability to walk, swim, beg, or borrow to come to South Africa will," Hanekom also said.

The Cape Times visited the area under the foreshore overpass on Monday where undocumented immigrants have been queuing for the past two weeks to be taken to the Department of Home Affairs.

Zimbabweans there said that they wanted to go home, but couldn't while Mugabe's Zanu-PF was in power.

Calos Mambosasa had spent almost six months waiting for papers from Home Affairs, and still had not received them.

He said that "all his friends" in Zimbabwe wanted to come to South Africa to escape the economic and political troubles, but he wanted to go back.

"If this ruling party's out maybe we can go home. We would like to go home," he said, as other Zimbabweans who had gathered around nodded.

"We don't really believe that Mugabe will concede a defeat," said Bruce Mashinya, another immigrant from Zimbabwe.

Mashinya queued under the overpass for a month before getting papers, which he said was a short time compared with other people.

He left his family behind in Zimbabwe when he came to South Africa in May. He said that they asked him for money so that they could move to South Africa too, but he doesn't have a job yet.

"We are hopeless. (Tsvangirai) has let us down, the only hope is on him," he said.

Then with a smile, he said "But we still love (Zimbabwe) more than South Africa."

Homeless South Africans and victims of xenophobic attacks also stay underneath the overpass, creating a volatile situation, according to a report released last week by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC).


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Bill Gates Parts Ways With Microsoft To Focus On Charity

from Red Orbit

One of the world's most successful software experts is trading computers for philanthropy. Bill Gates announced he is stepping down on Friday from his daily duties at Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), to focus on his $38 billion charitable foundation.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation -- built by his vast fortune-has been around for ten years. Gates is the world's third richest man, and he says with great wealth brings great responsibility.

The 52-year-old will trade a lifetime of developing software for a new role in finding new vaccines or to micro-finance projects in the developing world.

The CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Patty Stonesifer said, Gates won't focus on managing the organization; instead he will hire hundreds of new employees.

"He's clear that he loves the idea that he doesn't have to be the operating leadership," Stonesifer said.

Instead "he wants to do strategy and advocacy," Stonesifer said, which means he will focus on better understanding the problems the foundation is trying to solve. Which could include meeting with the leadership of government, business and non-profit groups in the near future to convince them to spend more money on world health, hunger and poverty.

His wife, Melinda Gates, also plans to spend more time at the foundation; she is currently involved in planning the new building.

As Microsoft's largest shareholder, Gates will remain chairman and work on special technology projects. His 8.7 percent stake in Microsoft is worth about $23 billion.

Gates has been Microsoft's genius programmer, its technology guru, its primary decision maker and its ruthless and competitive leader since the company got its start in 1975. Co-workers say he would famously disappear into the solitude of a country cabin to digest employee-written papers and ponder the future of the industry. Later he would emerge with manifestos, like the 1995 "Internet Tidal Wave" memo, which shifted the focus of the entire company.

Analysts and academics credit Gates for the emergence of software as a moneymaking industry. In the past, it had only been a pastime for hobbyists or a subset of the hardware sector. Gates has built Microsoft into a hugely successful monopoly. The software company has only grown stronger despite major blows in antitrust trials in both the U.S. and Europe.

Gates noticed early on in the PC revolution that software could one day have more potential than hardware. At age 13, he programmed his first computer.

"When I was 19, I caught sight of the future and based my career on what I saw. I turned out to have been right," Gates wrote in his 1995 book "The Road Ahead."

His early friendship with Paul Allen blossomed into the founding of Microsoft. They named the company for its mission of providing microcomputer software.

Gates realized the importance of successful business and charity at an early age. He was born October 28, 1955, the second of three children in a wealthy Seattle family. His father, William Henry Gates Jr., was a partner at one of the city's most powerful law firms, while his late mother, Mary, was an active charity fund-raiser and University of Washington regent.

Teachers at the exclusive Lakeside Preparatory School first introduced him to computers. The teen prodigy soon began programming in BASIC computer language on a primitive ASR-33 Teletype unit.

Gates met Allen at Lakeside. The pair were two years apart in age, but shared a fascination with computers.

"Of course, in those days we were just goofing around, or so we thought," Gates recalled in "The Road Ahead."

During his two years at Harvard, Gates became friends with a Detroit native who shared his love of math and cynical humor. He eventually convinced his classmate, current CEO Steve Ballmer, into leaving business school to join Microsoft.

Gates dropped out of Harvard and relocated with Allen to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they established Microsoft.

In an interview with The Associated Press after he announced his transition, Bill Gates - who dropped out of college to launch Microsoft - talked about his move to spending more time at his Foundation as an opportunity to go back to school.

"There's a lot I don't know and I'm looking forward to learning all about it," he said.

His education will be guided by leaders of each foundation program, who will have more time now to relay to him what the organization has been learning through its research from the American classroom to the African farm.

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[Book Review] Free-market reform in developing nations; Can a deregulated economy really save the Third World?

from The Futurist Magazine

Discovering the root causes of poverty in the Third World and attempting to combat them has become a billion-dollar industry in itself. Yet, according to a recent publication by The Independent Institute, international aid efforts may only serve to hinder rather than encourage economic development.

Lessons from the Poor: Triumph of the Entrepreneurs Spirit chronicles the successes of Third World entrepreneurs who lifted themselves up from poverty and overcame obstacles (particularly the labyrinth of government regulations) to become successful business owners. In his foreword, Florida State University economics professor James D. Gwartney declares that, in order for developing nations to become developed nations, people's "natural tendency to act entrepreneurially--to discover opportunities and better ways of doing things"--must be freely encouraged, without interference from the government.

"When regulations limit trade and require people to get permission from the government in order to start a business and try out an innovative idea, they restrict economic progress," Gwartney writes. "They also restrict basic human rights." The book uses case histories to illustrate the claim that the best possible solution is free-market reform, where the objective is a deregulated entrepreneurial environment in which small businesses are allowed to succeed or fail on their own terms. If the most vital method of reducing poverty in Third World countries is the encouragement of entrepreneurial innovation, then perhaps the best way to encourage it is to remove the governmental obstacles that hinder it. This is laissez-faire economic theory at its best. We can save the world simply by allowing it to save itself. Government red tape, trade regulation, and high taxes distract entrepreneurs from pursuing the traditional business goal of better products at lower prices, and also lead to corruption and economic stagnation. The result is that most citizens remain impoverished.

Editor Alvaro Vargas Llosa, director of the Center on Global Prosperity and a senior fellow at The Independent Institute, points out that, statistically, there is more regulation in poorer countries than in wealthier nations. He suggests establishing looser institutional frameworks in those Third World countries that are "friendly to the process of creating wealth" in order to "harness entrepreneurial activity for the social good." He explains, "Entrepreneurial energy is present in many types of societies, but only in countries with limited government, adherence to the rule of law, and respect for individual rights does this energy foster economic growth."

Vargas Llosa sees entrepreneurship as "a transforming force in the developing world," arguing that other methods, such as foreign aid, simply don't work. He tends to dismiss such concepts as corporate social responsibility, writing, "Many people fail to understand that an entrepreneur who discovers opportunity and transforms resources into wealth provides the most 'social' service possible to the rest of the community, even when that is not the original intention." In other words, successful local entrepreneurs raise the standard of living within the community and provide opportunity to those who live there--and even if those side effects are incidental to the entrepreneurs' goals, they will occur nevertheless. Thus, small local businesses can accomplish what 50 years of foreign aid programs haven't been able to.

Yet, Vargas Llosa's dismissal of foreign aid programs may be overly generalized. For example, there is no real discussion of the burgeoning field of microfinance and of organizations such as the Grameen Bank, Kiva, and the Foundation for International Community Assistance, which provide small loans to Third World entrepreneurs in order to help spur economic growth and alleviate poverty. A growing cadre of economists now view microfinance not as unnecessary market interference, but as a way to create a level playing field.

At any rate, contributors to Lessons from the Poor are generally sanguine about the future. Economists Joshua C. Hall and Russell S. Sobel proclaim that "prosperity is within reach of even the poorest communities of the world."

However, some critics worry that any form of market fundamentalism has the potential to lead to even greater financial inequality. For example, George Soros argues in The Crisis of Global Capitalism (Public Affairs, 1998) that the global capitalist system, characterized by free trade, is disintegrating: "Financial markets are given to excesses.... Instead of acting like a pendulum, financial markets have recently acted more like a wrecking ball, knocking over one economy after another." A free market economy may ultimately lead to societal inequalities, particularly in terms of the distribution of wealth, according to Soros. The question then becomes, would these burgeoning entrepreneurs (who are, after all, acting rationally and in accordance with their self-interest) have a problem with that potential outcome? Soros sees the need for a more sustainable process--a mixed economy--that regulates the global marketplace in ways that truly protect human rights.

Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (Chelsea Green, 2007), takes a similar critical view: "The fundamental way to reduce poverty is to stop creating it, which is what the current inequitable global economy and trading system perpetuates. The numbers from the World Bank, UNDP, and elsewhere report that the gap between rich and poor has kept widening for decades." China's recent economic boom provides an interesting counterexample. "They do not have a 'free' market economy, but instead believe that 'markets are good servants but bad masters,'"Henderson notes.

According to Henderson, "China's regulated markets are patterned more on the European model of the 'social market economy.'" Henderson further points out that, in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis and the collapse of Bear Stearns, even economists on Wall Street (and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, for that matter) "now expect continued government intervention to save deregulated markets from their mistakes.... The European economies are all more regulated than the U.S. economy, and they are doing much better than we are."

Another fear is that a large increase in entrepreneurship in the developing world would not be a sustainable long-term solution in and of itself, and that entrepreneurial growth, left unchecked, would rapidly lead to the further overconsumption of resources and thus to a range of social and environmental ills. Henderson again points to the example of China, which is finally beginning to address the drastic increase in health problems and environmental damage that has occurred since its 1978 economic reforms.

Different times, same mission

from The Columbus Dispatch

After 150 years, the Sisters of Mercy still dedicate their lives to serving the needy

By Meredith Heagney

CINCINNATI -- In 1858, they were a group of 11 young immigrant women who came to America to live in poverty so they could help others who had it even worse.

Today, the local order of the Sisters of Mercy operates a range of services that includes schools, hospitals and countless one-on-one contacts.

The past 150 years haven't changed the order's mission: to serve the poor, sick and uneducated, particularly women and children.

Sister Louise Huitink is one of the sisters carrying on the work of her predecessors. Her specialty is caring for the elderly poor, bringing them groceries, managing their finances and taking them out for their birthdays.

She and the other 261 sisters in the Regional Community of Cincinnati, which covers Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Jamaica, follow the path of those original women who emigrated from Ireland to serve southwestern Ohio.

Today, the sisters sponsor two high schools for girls and a Montessori school, offer job training for formerly homeless women and deliver food and medicine to the elderly poor.

Sisters help low-income people find psychological help and offer transitional housing to women and children in need.

"We're still helping poor women and children," said Sister Elaine Charters, a member of the order for 52 years.

"You just retranslate it for the times," said Sister Kathy Green, an administrator.

Much of the nuns' work has been handed off, by necessity, to laypeople.

In 1961, there were about 800 sisters in the Cincinnati-based regional community, said Sister Marjorie Rudemiller, president. The median age of the remaining nuns is 75. The youngest is 48.

The original members of the order who crossed the ocean were barely more than girls. Many of them never saw their families again after boarding a boat to America.

The 18- and 19-year-olds had been recruited by Sarah Peter, a wealthy Cincinnati woman who had gone abroad to find religious people to serve the city's missionary needs.

The nuns lived in a run-down house with a board set on barrels serving as a kitchen table.

"They were really pioneers, young women of great faith who didn't know where they were going, didn't know where they were going to stay," Green said.

Those early sisters opened a night school for young Irish women and a shelter to keep them from falling into prostitution. They taught them domestic skills so they could work as maids.

In the 1860s, they opened a laundry and paid destitute women to work there. Soon after, four sisters took over an elementary school for girls, laying the groundwork for the many teaching sisters who would come after them.

In 1892, sisters with no medical training opened Mercy Hospital in Hamilton, the forerunner of what is now the 30-hospital Catholic Healthcare Partners. Today's Sisters of Mercy are co-sponsors.

For the order's first century in existence, the sisters opened or staffed 46 schools, one college and eight hospitals. Sisters of Mercy nuns once taught at the now-closed Holy Family elementary and high schools in Franklinton.

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More Debt Relief in Sight for Poorest Nations

from IPS News

By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON - Anti-debt campaigners say legislation passed by a U.S. Congressional committee this week that would expand debt cancellations to an additional 25 poor nations could prove effective in fighting poverty, stopping environmental degradation and easing the traditional strict economic conditions that accompanied loans and often led to economic chaos.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which supervises U.S. funding for international financial institutions, passed the Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation on Tuesday.

The act, known both as the Jubilee Act and the Casey Bill for Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, paves the way for the approval by the full Senate.

Some 25 low-income countries that are not eligible for debt cancellation under current debt-forgiveness initiatives, such as Mongolia and Georgia, stand to benefit from the bill.

The legislation takes the unusual step of instructing U.S. officials at international financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Paris Club of bilateral creditors not to seek to impose the traditional conditions that have often been blamed for economic crises in many developing nations.

Critics say that international financial institutions have typically imposed conditions that were slanted towards multinational companies and local elites. These included user fees for water, sanitation, primary education and health care, including treatment for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Those institutions, with enormous influence on borrowing governments in the most impoverished nations, have also urged the passage of laws undermining workers' ability to organise and deterred government spending on essential healthcare or education expenditures by imposing national budget caps.

The new act takes those institutions to task on a number of other issues, including creditor transparency and responsible lending.

It warns, for example, against pushing poor nations back in the red through new loans. Instead, it says that future external financing needs should be met mainly through grants. It also warns of so-called vulture funds, which have traditionally sought to buy sovereign debt at a discount with the intent to litigate collection at a large profit.

Under the bill, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), a congressional oversight agency, will audit the debt portfolios of previous governments in certain countries, including South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where there are allegations that odious loans were made to the government. The GAO report will be made public in two years.

The act was hailed as "live-saving" and "historic" by anti-debt campaigners who have long argued that debt penalised poor people and increased hunger around the world.

"We are thrilled to see such strong bipartisan support for the Jubilee Act in the Senate Foreign Relations committee," said Neil Watkins, national coordinator of the Jubilee USA Network, a coalition of development groups that is now lobbying for passage of the act by the full Senate.

The bill does require beneficiaries to manage their economies better. Countries receiving debt relief will have to allocate at least 20 percent of their national budget towards poverty-alleviation programmes such as the provision of basic health care, education and clean water services.

The U.S. treasury secretary will certify annually as to how the savings from debt cancellation were used in poor nations.

"In other words, the debt relief cannot go towards benefits for the wealthy elites or unnecessary military expenditures in these nations," said a statement from Senator Casey's office.

Countries that are classified as terrorism sponsors or are engaged in weapons of mass destruction proliferation, or involved in human rights abuses are excluded from benefiting from the bill.

The international debt crisis has made headlines over the past several years with mounting evidence of its impacts on poor families across the globe.

After extensive campaigning by debt activists, the United States and other Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations reached an agreement to cancel 100 percent of the debts owed by eligible poor nations to Paris Club members, the IMF, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) reached an agreement in early 2007 to provide similar treatment.

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UN to press G8 on food crisis, climate change, poverty

from the AFP via Google

UNITED NATIONS, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said Thursday he would press Group of Eight (G8) leaders at their summit in Japan next month to tackle the world food crisis, climate change and the flagging fight against global poverty.

On the eve of his departure on a two-week, three-nation Asian tour, the secretary general said the July 7-9 summit in the northern Japanese resort town of Toyako must face the three inter-related crises which demand "our immediate action."

He said that before departing, he would write to each of the G8 leaders to lay out his concerns about the global food crisis, the need "to act now" on climate change if a deal to cut greenhouse gases is to be reached by the end of next year, and the emergency of development.

"If ever there were a time to act, together as one, it is now," he told a press conference.

Ban said he would appeal to world leaders in Toyako "to deliver on the measures agreed to in Rome earlier this month to end the current food crisis and prevent a recurrence".

These measures include a commitment by nations to remove export restrictions and levies on food commodities and cut agricultural subsidies, particularly in developed countries.

Ban said he would also propose tripling the proportion of Official Development Assistance (ODA) from wealthy nations to developing countries for farm production and rural development.

"To overcome this crisis, we need nothing less than a second, green revolution," he said.

And noting that the international community was falling behind in its goal of achieving the poverty-reduction Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, he said: "If we are to deliver on this promised future, we must take steps today."

On climate change, the UN chief urged stepped-up bargaining to reach a new, historic deal in Copenhagen next year.

The treaty due to be hammered out in the Danish capital in December 2009 is meant to provide an action plan after the Kyoto Protocol's obligations to cut greenhouse gas emissions expire at the end of 2012.

The United States, which snubbed Kyoto, and developing nations, which have no obligations under it, agreed at a conference in December in Bali, Indonesia, to negotiate to craft the next treaty.

Ban said he would press the G8 leaders to agree "short- and medium-term targets" for reducing greenhouse gases.

He added that a fully funded and operational adaptation fund to help the world's most vulnerable nations cope with global warming must be in place by the end of this year.

The UN chief also warned that the combined impact of climate change and of the global food crisis were slowing and in some cases reversing progress made towards achieving the MDGs.

"In Hokkaido (the G8 summit) we must deliver on our commitments," he said.

"I will also seek increased funding for specific programs relating to infant and maternal health, community health projects and disease control, HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases."

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Poverty addressed at forum

from Mid Hudson News

KINGSTON – It is summer and the humidity may be an annoyance. Or thoughts center for some on a vacation.

But winter already has a lot of people thinking about the cost of survival since fuel oil has nearly doubled since last year and the minimum fill-up may approach more than $1,000 for 250 gallons of fuel oil.

“I have greater fear for the coming winter than I have ever had for the people of Ulster County,” said Michael Berg, the executive director of the Family of Woodstock.

He was one of the featured speakers during a panel discussion on poverty in Kingston and Ulster County at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation.

Berg sat on the panel with Rev. Darlene Kelley, of the Clinton Avenue United Methodist Church, which runs a soup kitchen in midtown Kingston, and Roberto Rodriguez, the commissioner of Social Services for Ulster County.

Rodriguez’s department oversees the HEAP program, which helps people with heating assistance. Rodriguez said there’s already been interest from workers, who don’t normally seek this kind of assistance.

“We are looking to what I believe will be a very challenging fall and winter,” said Rodriguez.

“The challenge is that we may have more need than we have allocation for. We’re seeing case loads going up.”

Winter is only one worry. There is also the present, and many Hudson Valley residents have always struggled to meet the region’s escalating housing costs and other necessities like health care – before rising energy costs starting pushing the price of food and commuting through the roof.

“The impact of the cost of housing, utilities, gasoline, the cost of food, and the cost of health care are all hitting at the same time, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of relief coming from the major governments,” said Berg. “We have a lot of people that were rent burdened three years ago. How are they going to survive this year?”

Berg said he saw a 26 percent increase in 2007 for the services of his food pantries, and now he’s very pessimistic about the future.

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Poverty rates in Gaza soars versus WBank - report

from Reuters

By Mohammed Assadi

RAMALLAH, West Bank - The percentage of Gazans living in poverty topped 50 percent in 2007, the highest level recorded, as Israel tightened its blockade of the enclave, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics said on Thursday.

Home to 1.5 million Palestinians, Gaza has been hard hit by Israeli sanctions meant to sideline Hamas Islamists who took over the coastal territory a year ago from more secular Fatah forces loyal to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Statistics Bureau, in an annual report, said 51.8 percent of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in 2007 lived in poverty, versus 47.9 percent in 2006.

In contrast, the poverty rate in the Israeli-occupied West Bank fell to 19.1 percent in 2007, compared with 22 percent a year earlier, due in large part to increased aid flows to the territory, the agency said.

Poverty in the two Palestinian territories taken together rose to 30.3 percent last year, up from 29.8 percent in 2006. The Statistic Bureau said the 2007 poverty rate was the highest level recorded in a decade.

The agency defines any six-member family that earns less than $572 per month -- an amount equal to roughly $3 a day per person -- as below the poverty line. Many international agencies use $2 per day as a measure of poverty.

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Rafters help keep church's Malawian mission afloat

from the Allentown Examiner

Community encouraged to support Allentown Lake events June 26-29
BY JANE MEGGITT Staff Writer

ALLENTOWN - Not many rafts float on Allentown Lake, which makes the one that will be launched on Thursday evening even more special.

Four team members planning a mission to the African nation of Malawi in August will launch the raft to raise awareness about their trip. They plan to spend 72 hours on the lake from June 26-29.

Those interested in learning more about the mission of the Allentown Presbyterian Church can visit the information table that will be set up near the lake. The rafters have also planned a variety of other events to spark community interest and participation, including a wine and cheese tasting at a lake house, music at Pete Sensi Park, a water balloon catapult aimed at the raft and a Sunday morning sunrise worship service.

Allentown's Robert Rhoad, who will float on the raft, said the event aims to raise awareness of the intergenerational team of seven people from the Allentown Presbyterian Church that will depart for Malawi on Aug. 2 and return on Aug. 15. The team members are Rhoad and his father, Ed, and 13-year-old son, Ethan, Ann Darlington, Charlie Lyons-Pardue and Hal Boston and his son, Hal Jr.

"Also, Karen Collins is a member of the team and will be on the raft with us, but is not able to go on the trip with us to Malawi," Rhoad said.

The team going to Africa plans to work with village leaders and members to assess their needs and implement long-term, sustainable programs designed to help address the effects of the crushing poverty that exists in Malawi.

"With the help of the larger Allentown community, we hope to make a difference in the lives of our brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe," Rhoad said.

The mission team will follow the footsteps of the church's pastor, the Rev. Stephen Heinzel-Nelson, and his family, who went to Malawi in January and will remain there through December.

"The Heinzel-Nelsons have been hard at work, developing relationships with local leaders and charitable organizations and determining which programs have proven most successful in helping to alleviate the poverty and other multi-faceted needs that exist in Malawi," Rhoad said.

Located in the southeast quadrant of Africa, Malawi is considered to be one of the four poorest countries in the world, with unemployment estimated at 60 percent or more, nearly half the population surviving on less than $1 per day and approximately 65 percent of the population living below the poverty line, according to Rhoad.

He said the statistics about medical conditions in Malawi are hard to fathom, with the average life expectancy less than 40 years old and more than 13 percent of children not reaching the age of 5. With rampant HIV/AIDS, Malawi has a staggering number of orphans and child-led households. He said there are more than 500,000 children under the age of 14 who are orphaned as a result of their parents dying from HIV/AIDS.

In addition to the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS, Malawi is also plagued by malaria and malnutrition. Throughout Africa, 3,000 people die from malaria every day, which is tragic as the disease can be prevented relatively inexpensively with the use of $10 mosquito nets, he said.

With regard to malnutrition, Rhoad said most Malawians consume about 1,400 calories per day, which is far below the amount necessary for living a normal, healthy life. The resulting malnutrition stunts the growth of children and has other far-reaching impacts on the health and welfare of the Malawian people, he said.

The severe medical issues combined with food insecurity caused by severe economic conditions in Malawi make it extremely difficult for Malawians to pull themselves out of poverty. According to Rhoad, the Allentown Presbyterian Church has a vision to have the Allentown community partnerwith and adopt a Malawi village to provide broad-based
assistance designed to enable the village to lift itself out of poverty.

"We will be partnering with the DevelopmentOffice of the Presbyterian Church in Malawi, and with them have identified a rural village an hour outside of the city of Blantyre, near the town of Zomba, which is currently not receiving outside assistance," he said. "Further meetings with leaders from the village need to occur before our plans are finalized, but we hope that this opportunity will become a reality."

The church intends to provide a variety of forms of aid, including constructing a mission center that will serve as a preschool/ feeding center for orphans and a training center for agricultural and other programs to enhance the food supply for the village. The church would also like to purchase and distribute mosquito nets for children and families, provide funding for fertilizer and seed to enhance next year's harvest, purchase needed materials and supplies for orphanages and the preschool and establish programs to provide sustainable sources of food.

For more information about the Heinzel- Nelson family's mission in Malawi, visit www.apcmalawi.blogspot.com.

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UN says toxic waste exports on the rise

from The Miami Herald

By MICHAEL CASEY
Many poor countries accept toxic waste from abroad, such as old computers, rusted ships and pesticides, in a shortsighted bid to lift themselves out of poverty, despite the dangers to human health and the environment, a U.N. rights official said Thursday.

Okechukwu Ibeanu, a special rapporteur of the Human Rights Council, also told delegates discussing a convention on moving hazardous waste that rich nations must do their part to help developing countries build sustainable and environmentally sound economies.

"Many developing countries, despite sometimes knowing the dangers of the waste, continue to accept hazardous products and toxic waste due to poverty and the quest for development," Ibeanu said.

"Is it worth the short term monetary gain? Is it worth people falling sick ... precious water sources contaminated permanently?" he asked. "I believe that we need to think of a better solution to generate income and development."

Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was created in 1989 as a response to "toxic ships" attempting to offload their cargo in poor nations. With measures allowing countries to ban imports and requiring exporters to gain consent before sending toxic materials abroad, it was seen as the best hope to end the mountains of waste that were reaching poor countries.

But almost two decades later, critics including environmentalists and African nations contend the accord has failed to stem the flow of toxic waste and keep pace with a rapidly changing trade that is increasing global in nature. They contend that insufficient funds, widespread corruption and the absence of the United States as a participant have undermined the pact.

Delegates over the next two days are expected to put forth a number of proposals to strengthen the convention, including a long-standing call to ban the export of hazardous waste, as well as proposals to factor environmental recycling into the mix. Others want to boost funding to the convention's 14 regional centers that provide technical support and training to poor nations.

They also will discuss measures aimed at better regulating the recycling of contaminated old ships, mostly in South Asia, as well as industry-supported guidelines on recycling old phones and computers.

Achim Steiner, executive director for the U.N. Environment Program, acknowledged that the convention has lagged behind the rapidly changing nature of toxic waste. He said the biggest challenge was finding a way to consume waste - the estimated 20 million to 50 million tons of televisions, cell phones, computers and home appliances that are sent to poor nations for recycling.

He said the international community was making progress, noting his agency was drawing up a waste strategy and had recently launched a project to implement a hazardous waste management plan for Abidjan, where a toxic spill in 2006 killed 10 people and sickened tens of thousands.

He also said developed nations had started programs to buy back outdated equipment, and that pressure from Greenpeace and other environmental groups had prompted major electronics and phone companies to start designing more environmentally friendly products.

But many delegates from the developing world want the Basel Convention to go further, arguing the only way to end the trade in toxic waste is with an all-out export ban on such materials.

An amendment calling for a ban was first proposed in 1995, but not enough of the convention's 170 member countries have ratified it.

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Minister opens Combat Poverty event

from The Irish Times

by Jason Michael

Minister for Lifelong Learning Seán Haughey today outlined the Government’s strategy in fighting social and educational disadvantage.

Speaking at the opening of Combat Poverty’s national conference Overcoming Barriers to Educational Disadvantage , he said the Government’s commitment to addressing social exclusion and educational disadvantage is evident in the social partnership agreement, the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion, and the National Development Plan.

“ Towards 2016 and the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion adopt a life-cycle approach in addressing these issues. Working with the social partners the Government has set a number of long-term goals which aim to significantly improve the educational opportunities and outcomes for Irish children over the coming years.”

Outlining a number of key developments aimed at education disadvantage, Mr Haughey said measures such as the National Educational Welfare Board, the National Qualifications framework, and the Leaving Certificate Vocational Programme are aimed at achieving greater levels of inclusiveness and providing for the diversity of pupils in second level schools.

This year, the Government has committed some €800 million on measures to tackle educational disadvantage representing an increase in the order of €70 million on the 2007 figure, Mr Haughey added.

UK minister offers help in poverty reduction

from The Jakarta Post

Desy Nurhayati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Britain's minister for international development, Shahid Malik, paid visits Tuesday to the headquarters of Indonesia's two largest Muslim organizations, Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), to discuss poverty reduction programs.

After a meeting with Muhammadiyah chairman Din Syamsuddin, Malik said the British government had agreed to provide US$150 million assistance for the development of poverty eradication programs in Indonesia over the next three years.

"The UK is obviously a very strong friend of Indonesia, and certainly friendship goes beyond aid and money. But in terms of development assistance over the next three years, we hope to support Indonesia with the $150 million, on priorities set by the Indonesian government. We will just follow and support the strategy," he said.

Malik is the first British-born Muslim to serve in the country's government after being appointed minister of international development by Prime Minister Gordon Brown on July 29 last year.

He is responsible for the work of the British Department of International Development in Asia, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America, including its poverty eradication programs.

"Half of Indonesians earn less than $2 a day, that's quite a big challenge for any country," he said.

"The UK government is committed to achieving the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals), which include halving extreme poverty by 2015. If more religious groups in the world show such commitment, we will certainly see a more rapid movement to achieve the goal."

He said he was encouraged by the participation of Muslim groups in fighting poverty.

Din said Muhammadiyah would expand its collaboration with the British government in various fields, including education, economic empowerment, public health services and culture.

"We have had an MOU with the British government for the past three years, and we will continue this ongoing cooperation," he said.

Malik said issues like maternal healthcare are also fundamental, considering that Indonesia's maternal mortality rate is among the highest in Southeast Asia, and his government expects to see more cooperation on such issues.

Malik, a Sunni Muslim, also expressed his views on the Islamic sect Ahmadiyah, which the Indonesian government has banned from carrying out religious activities.

He said that in the UK, people believed in freedom of expression and religion, and everyone was welcomed to carry out their activities, as long as they did not preach violence.

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Refugee Doctor 'Making a Difference' for Thousands in Burma

from Voice of America

By Luis Ramirez

Part of VOA's new Making a Difference series. Each week, VOA introduces a different individual - famous or lesser-known - working to help others.

Thousands of people flee Burma each year, escaping poverty, oppression, and civil war.The nearest escape for most is Thailand, where they experience both despair and hope. Burmese refugee, Dr.Cynthia Maung, runs a small, modest public health clinic near the border in Thailand, and is making a difference in her community by providing essential services not available to most residents of the poor region.

Mothers line up with children, waiting for immunizations. In another line, couples with newborns wait for documents certifying their children were born in Thailand. The documents take the place of birth certificates Thailand refuses to issue.These people are refugees, and in the eyes of Thailand's authorities, they do not exist.

But to Dr. Cynthia Maung, they do matter. Dr. Cynthia is a Burmese physician and a refugee herself. She makes a difference for thousands of her fellow refugees in Thailand and for many more inside Burma. For example, the Burmese physician founded the Mae Tao Clinic, a safe haven where miracles happen every day.

Dr. Cynthia fled Burma in 1988 following an army crackdown on those who demonstrated for democracy and justice.

"I joined with the demonstration group and then when the military seized power, people started disappearing, or missing, or fled to the border. I myself also decided to come to the border to continue struggling or working for political change," she says.

In a two-room shack, she started doing amputations and delivering babies using instruments sterilized in a rice cooker. Young volunteer medics trained by Dr. Cynthia treat everything from landmine injuries to gastroenteritis.With donations from NGO's and foreign governments, including the United States, Dr. Cynthia's work has a reputation for a making a little money go a long way.One hundred 50 thousand people come here for treatment each year. Those who can, pay under a dollar.

Dr. Cynthia lives in modest quarters next to the clinic. She could have immigrated to the West and be making a huge salary. But for Dr. Cynthia, this is a greater calling.

"When we live here, we are not only treating illnesses, we can also educate young people who can go back and work in their community and who are very willing to promote the health activities in their village. So it is a very good opportunity for young people to give education and to give more hope," she says.

The clinic trains volunteer medics who fan out into the ethnic Karen and other isolated areas of Burma. Some of the volunteers are former patients who, once desperate for help, are now the ones helping. It is they who embody Dr. Cynthia's vision.

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“Ten million malaria patients in Myanmar”

from Radio Netherlands

by an RNW reporter

According to the World Health Organisation, malaria and AIDS are the two most devastating global health problems of our time. Together they cause more than four million deaths a year. They are both diseases of poverty and both of them cause poverty.

However, according to Professor Willem Takken, one of the pre-eminent malaria specialists in the Netherlands, the overall effect of malaria is greater than that of AIDS. This is chiefly because HIV/AIDS has also hit the western world, so there has been a stronger push to come up with successful treatments for the disease, which is not the case for malaria. Professor Takken explains:

"There are five to six million people who get malaria every year. A million die from it every year, but for those who don't, it still makes them seriously ill for a couple of weeks which means that they can't work."

And for people who are living on a daily wage, the loss of a week's wages has a direct impact on the family's food input.

Médecins Sans Frontières
In Myanmar, malaria is cited by medical NGO Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as being the number one cause of death. MSF has been fighting the disease for years in Myanmar where it now has 30 clinics that treat some 200,000 patients. Dr Frank Smithuis, himself a malaria specialist, is MSF Head of Mission in Yangon, the country's capital. He says:

"The WHO says that there are 500,000 malaria patients in Myanmar, but I know for a fact that's not true. I estimate it to be closer to ten million."

Mr Smithuis backs up the enormous discrepancy with the figures of MSF's own centre of operations in Rakhine state.

"Previously the clinics in this area used to see 30 patients a month. Since we started our diagnosis and treatment - which we give at a very low price of about eight cents per treatment - the number of patients seeking help in our clinics has increased 30-50 fold. So we saw the numbers of malaria patients increasing from 30 to 1800 in a month."

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Peters announces $2 billion Pacific aid programme

from the National Business Review, New Zealand

Foreign Minister Winston Peters says New Zealanders have a "clear expectation" that Pacific Island nations will take up the development challenge and do the work needed to lift their citizens out of poverty.

He announced today a Pacific Development Strategy that will deliver $2 billion in aid over eight years.

"This allows us to make a sustainable impact on improving health and education in the Pacific, to address infrastructure gaps and promote economic growth and to improve governance and leadership," he said.

"No one is saying this is going to be easy, nor that New Zealand has all the answers. The challenge is immense, complex and, most of all, long term."

Mr Peters said there was a need to encourage policies and practices which fostered growth and better standards of living.

"It also means preventing corruption, poor governance and conflict which erode development gains."

Mr Peters said economic growth around the region was failing to keep up with population growth.

In some cases, government decision-making was weak in addressing problems and modern practices were not followed.

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U.S. Poor Vulnerable to 'Neglected' Diseases

from WLTX

Tropical diseases that ravage Africa, Asia and Latin America commonly occur among the poor in the USA, leaving thousands of people shattered by debilitating complications including mental retardation, heart disease and epilepsy.

The diseases, caused by chronic viral, bacterial and parasitic infections, disproportionately strike women and children and are largely overlooked by doctors, says author Peter Hotez of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, part of Sabin Vaccine Institute.

Hotez says the diseases go untreated in hundreds of thousands of poor people who live mainly in inner cities, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and the Mexican borderlands.

In many cases, he says, the infections cause disabilities that trap sufferers in lasting poverty. His analysis, called "Neglected Infections of Poverty in the United States," appears in the journal he edits, PloS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

As widespread as the diseases are, few people in middle America have heard of them, and many doctors never think to check for them, says Carlos Franco-Paredes of Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, who was not involved in the analysis.

Franco-Paredes says the effect can be devastating: "If you have these infections as a kid, if you're anemic, your ability to learn when you go to school is affected. If you have these infections on a chronic basis, they can affect your ability to become a productive adult and support your family."

Hotez says it is a "disgrace" that diseases causing so much suffering remain at the bottom of the national health agenda.

"If this were occurring among white mothers in the suburbs, you'd hear a tremendous outcry," says Hotez, a microbiologist at George Washington University.

Franco-Paredes says the remedy may be as simple as screening minorities, immigrants and refugees and making sure doctors can diagnose and treat these ailments.

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Biofuels pushing 30 million into poverty: Oxfam

from Reuters

By Pete Harrison

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Biofuels are responsible for 30 percent of the increase in global food prices, pushing 30 million people worldwide into poverty, aid agency Oxfam said in a report on Wednesday.

The use of biofuels is soaring as developed countries try to reduce their dependence on imported oil and cut emissions of carbon dioxide, but critics say they have led to a shortage of grain, pushing up commodity prices.

"Rich countries' demands for more biofuels in their transport fuels are causing spiraling production and food inflation," said Oxfam biofuel policy adviser Rob Bailey, who wrote the report. "Grain reserves are now at an all-time low."

Oxfam called on rich countries to dismantle subsidies for biofuels and reduce import tariffs.

"Rich countries spent up to $15 billion last year supporting biofuels while blocking cheaper Brazilian ethanol, which is far less damaging for global food security," the report said.

The aid agency also urged rich countries to scrap biofuels targets, including European Union plans to get 10 percent of its transport fuel from renewable sources like biofuels by 2020.

The EU plans strict criteria to ensure biofuels do not do more harm than good. Some member states want targets to be conditional on the commercial availability of second-generation biofuels from farm waste, timber waste and domestic waste.

Oxfam estimates that by 2020, CO2 emissions from land-use change in the palm oil sector may have reached over 3.1 billion tonnes, largely as a result of the EU target -- and it would take over 46 years of biofuel use at 2020 levels to repay this "carbon debt".

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Poverty-stricken western areas most vulnerable to food-price hikes

from IRIN News

KATHMANDU - Worldwide food price hikes are particularly hitting remote villages in western Nepal, the most food-deficit and impoverished part of the country, according to food security experts.

"We can't grow enough food. We have no source of employment. The rising food prices are making our life very difficult,” said Kanchi Biswakarma, a villager from the remote hill district of Jumla, some 700km northwest of the capital, Kathmandu.

Biswakarma said her six-member family could afford only one meal a day. "If we eat in the morning, we have to skip a meal at night," she said.

"My whole family has to work as daily wage labourers to find enough money to buy food," said Maneta Chettri, a villager from the remote Dolpa District. Her children had to drop out of school to help her feed the family.

"The potential food crisis is growing and the number of people vulnerable to food insecurity has doubled in the last six months," WFP Nepal country director Richard Ragan told IRIN.

One of South Asia's poorest nations, Nepal has over eight million people (out of a population of about 28 million) living below the poverty line of US$1 per day. Roughly half of these 8 million are regarded as the extreme poor, who survive on less than 50 US cents a day, according to WFP.

Food insecurity is nothing new to Nepal due to its low agricultural productivity caused by droughts, natural disasters and poor farming practices and technologies, say agriculture specialists.

Less food from India

Nepal has been largely dependent on low-cost rice and vegetables from India. The ban on exports since October 2007 of non-Basmati (cheap) rice from India had caused a huge problem, said Ragan.

According to local traders, India's supplies roughly meet 25 percent of Nepal's food requirements.

The Ministry of Agriculture estimated that the production of summer paddy would be 17 percent higher this year, but it is likely that rice prices will still increase by over 20 percent because of the lack of food imports from India, according to WFP.

The government's Central Bank of Nepal estimated that the price of rice had increased by over 30 percent in the last three months. However, owing to lower incomes, people in remote hilly areas were most exposed to the price hikes.

"I used to pay only Rs 80 [US$ 1.27] for cooking oil and now it costs more than Rs 120 [$1.90]. The cost of rice has increased from Rs 5,000 [$80] to Rs 8,000 [$127] for a 100kg sack. Just imagine our hardship," said Sunita Chettri from Dolpa.

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Food bank use increases

from The Toronto Star

Torontonians' useage of Daily Bread services up 7% from last year, according to program's 2008 report

by Emily Mathieu

Opal Sparks remembers when careful planning and a well-thought-out food budget was all it took to make sure families got enough to eat.

"I wasn't brought up on steak and lobster by any means," said Sparks, who was raised in Toronto but left the city in 1976.

When she returned in 2001, the number of people struggling to make ends meet – and still failing –was shocking. "It's appalling how my city has changed."

Sparks, in her 50s, is a poverty activist and has volunteered with the Daily Bread Food Bank. She is also a client. Sparks is on the Ontario Disability Support Program. She grows her own food to enjoy affordable access to healthy food but sometimes – no matter how careful she is with her budget – struggles to make ends meet.

Today the Daily Bread Food Bank will release the Who's Hungry Report for 2008. The report details food bank use in the GTA between April 2007 and March 2008.

According to the report, the number of people who were assisted through food bank services, sometimes multiple times, across the GTA within that time period was 952,883, or a 5 per cent increase from the previous year.

In Toronto the number of people served by food banks during that period was 799,315, up from 744,232, or an increase of 7 per cent from the previous year.

In the 905 region, the number of people accessing food banks dropped 5 per cent, from 161,311 in 2007 to 153,568 in 2008. The majority of the decrease was in York Region, which can primarily be attributed to a decrease in the number of food banks participating in data collection, according to the report.

Gail Nyberg, executive director of Daily Bread said the increase in the GTA is attributed to the opening of two new food banks in high-need areas, one in Etobicoke and one in Scarborough, during that period. In Toronto a boost in services for existing clients accounted for the increase. But overall there was still about a 2 per cent increase in food bank use across the GTA, she said.

"To see that once again food bank use is increasing is disturbing to me, keeping in mind we are looking at last year," she said.

The increased cost of housing continues to drive food bank use, said Nyberg. Food bank clients use an average of 77 per cent of their income on rent, up from 72 per cent in 2003. Individuals paying more than 50 per cent of their income on rent are considered at danger of becoming homeless, said Nyberg.

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Making a difference in an unfair world

from The Lantern, OSU

Theresa Attalla

Sometimes people just want to be acknowledged for their work.

This is the simple goal of Global Gallery, located 682 N. High St. in the Short North. Established in 1991 by four local area churches, Global Gallery has taken it upon itself to spread the message of fair trade by selling products and educating the community about the importance of fair trade and the cultures it represents.

"The mission of Global Gallery has been an important driving force in my life," said Connie De Jong, arts scholars coordinator at Ohio State and executive director of Global Gallery.

De Jong began as a volunteer worker and fought to keep it open when at one point it was going to close. Now, there are four locations in the Columbus area: Short North, Easton, Yellow Springs and German Village. Boards of directors and local volunteers of the communities support the locations.

How it works at Global Gallery is simple. The gallery follows the fair trade guidelines according to the Fair Trade Federation: create opportunities for economically challenged people, create equal opportunity for gender classes, provide safe working conditions and environmental protection and give payment of full price to the producers of the product.

Global Gallery has been able to develop relationships with markets of countries that are marginalized in typical trading structures. Workers must demonstrate that they are able to meet market requirements for quality, consistency and continuity of supply. In addition, a minimum guaranteed price that covers the cost of production is established and paid to the company beforehand.

"It's an alternative method to conventional trade," said Megan Fitze, current manager of Global Gallery. "Nobody gets cheated."

The store sells items such as coffee, chocolates, jewelry, scarves and CDs of music from around the world. In addition to selling products, Global Gallery does numerous educational programs and activities to promote cultural awareness.

At the German Village coffee shop location, locals are able to listen to live music and practice yoga. At the Easton location, there have been workshops and activities involving paper making and Tibetan Monks.

International Fair Trade Day is another important event for Global Gallery and fair trade where numerous culture representatives come to show off their skills and educate the public.

De Jong and Fitze both have big plans in mind for Global Gallery and fair trade with the idea of expanding and increasing the education about the issue at hand. They said it is also important to them to open additional locations and continue to make a difference in underprivileged countries.

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MPs fear corruption risk from poorly monitored aid

from the Guardian, UK

by Larry Elliott,

Parliament's spending watchdog will warn the government today that lax monitoring of aid spending meant hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money was at risk of corruption or being wasted.

In a report critical of the Department for International Development (DFID), the Commons public accounts committee said monitoring of the £461m sent to governments in 2006-07 had been inadequate.

"Despite spending around one fifth of its bilateral aid in the form of direct payments to the governments of developing countries, DFID does not know how good an instrument this is in reducing poverty," says Edward Leigh MP, chairman of the committee. "Nor does the department know whether such support provides better value for money in reducing poverty than other forms of aid.

"Parliament must be able to come to an informed view on the balance of risk and reward. The countries who receive this financial support often do not have the monitoring systems to check that the funds have gone where they should. And when UK funds are paid directly to developing countries' national systems, the risks of leakage and corruption are often particularly high.

"DFID must give more attention to building accountability within developing countries and to supporting the parliamentary and audit bodies in those countries who can challenge the use of public resources by the ruling party."

Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary, said that budget support was used only if the conditions were right. "It helps developing countries manage their economies and public finances and can deliver significant benefits for poor people, including health, education and water."

The PAC report said that the financial risks of putting funds through weak national systems were often high. "Estimates of leakage and corruption in the use of developing nations' budgets are many times higher than would be acceptable in UK domestic expenditure."

The PAC said there was "insufficient evidence" to come to a balanced judgment on whether budget support was the right approach in the 13 recipient countries. It added that DFID should give its best estimate of the level of corruption, waste and inefficiency, and set out its plans for ensuring the money was well spent.

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Egyptian First Lady unfolds 3-point plan against poverty

from Afriquenligne

Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt - Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak has unveiled a three-point plan, urging Africa to invest in women empowerment through education, equal job opportunities and policies to boost income generation for women.

In her keynote address at a conference here Sunday to track the achievements made in the fight for better economic opportunities for the African women, Mubarak said the gender debate should not be separated from social development.

"Any effective gender strategy must address the root causes of disparities and map out a national master plan with defined budgetary resources that target the special needs of poor women...you may ask why the poor?

"The reason is, it is they who carry the disproportionate burden of the gender inequality," she told fellow gender activists here.

She said African states must urgently narrow the gender gaps in the provision of key services like education, health and offer employment opportunities, to enable them meet the UN poverty goals, which would translate into instant successes against poverty.

According to the Egyptian First Lady, African states might not achieve the commitments made to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), unless they tackled the gender gaps which have been identified in the provision of education and health.

"Women are deeply implicated in each of poverty, illiteracy, ill-health and the environment areas and success in narrowing the gender gap will translate immediately into ra pid gains on all fronts," Mubarak told the activists.

She said institutions must be created to provide incentives for women to broaden their participation in economic, political and social levels.

Egypt, she said, had started the implementation of a national vision, that rested on the three fundamental principles - mainly on the need to expand women's cap a bilities, freedom and dignity, while also emphasising on social protection and sustained empowerment.

She said the government of President Hosni Mubarak was committed to investments in the human capital development through the emphasis on the women's constitutional rights to enjoy the same treatments as men, regardless of their economic stat us.

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[comment] Poverty and Sickness Won't be Cured by Fighting Patents

from the Accra Daily Mail, Ghana

By Franklin Cudjoe

Last month, the World Health Organization's governing body, the World Health Assembly (WHA), formally adopted a set of public policy recommendations for poor governments struggling with disease.

Key among these recommendations was a call to weaken pharmaceutical patents through more liberal use of compulsory licenses, which allow governments to produce generic knock-offs of patent-protected drugs. Behind this call is a belief that patents prevent poor patients from accessing drugs.

But patents aren't pushing up drug prices. Bureaucrats are. Consider the huge tariffs put on imported medicines in the developing world, going as high as 30 percent in some African countries.

What more, prices aren't the reason so many poor patients can't get healthy. Even if you gave them unlimited to access to top-notch pharmaceuticals, most would still be facing substantial health risks every day. They'd still be drinking from polluted rivers. They'd still be relying on defunct medical equipment. They'd still be risking respiratory infections from heating systems run on animal dung. They'd still be living near open sewage systems.

Most poor countries simply don't have the healthcare infrastructure needed to deliver medical services safely and effectively. Hospitals in Africa are notorious for letting newly born babies lie bare on the floor after delivery. Doctors routinely misdiagnose illnesses. And there's a tremendous shortage of qualified medical staff.

The situation only gets worse when you consider that the health insurance systems in the developing world are thoroughly corrupt. One Ghanaian insurance administrator was recently caught making personal purchases with money from clients' accounts.

Compulsory licenses would likely exacerbate the problem of substandard pharmaceuticals in Third World drug markets. Locally produced pharmaceuticals often don't met basic quality and safety standards.
Consider a recent study (which I assisted with) from Africa Fighting Malaria (AFM), a non-profit health advocacy group, published in PLoS ONE, the U.S. Public Library of Science peer-reviewed medical journal.

In a representative sample of anti-malarial drugs sold in six African nations, researchers with AFM found that almost half of the drugs manufactured in Africa failed basic quality tests. The study also found that a third of the drugs sold in Africa were "artemisinin monotherapies," which are single dose malaria treatments that are often ineffective and cause the creation of drug-resistant strains of the disease.

With this trend, Ghana's estimated annual malaria burden of $762 million will only be exacerbated.

Franklin Cudjoe is editor of www.AfricanLiberty.org and executive director of IMANI Center for Policy and Education, a think-tank located in Accra, Ghana. His email is franklin.cudjoe@gmail.com

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City of Cleveland battles poverty, exodus

from the Toledo Blade

Like Toledo, city struggles to map revival

CLEVELAND — Even as chain stores like Ann Taylor are abandoning downtown’s Tower City Center mall, A.J. Ballard has no difficulty selling $35 T-shirts to young shoppers eager to mimic the urban look favored by professional athletes and pop music stars.

“If you have a good concept, you can do phenomenal business here,” said the 28-year-old man from Willoughby, Ohio. He helped develop and now oversees Ideal and two other mall boutiques that have attracted a wide range of shoppers from visiting pro athletes to pop star Miley Cyrus.

Since the 1970s, downtown boosters have expended lots of energy determining what to do with failing retail sites.

Now, they say, their efforts are beginning to show results.

Along famed Euclid Avenue in downtown Cleveland, its downtown portion clogged with the corpses of dead department stores and specialty shops, the transit authority is spending $200 million on beautification and improvements to persuade people to move into lofts and apartments being carved from old stores and offices.

In the depressed Flats District, a riverfront area long popular with young partiers, former hot spots like the House of Brews are being razed to make way for an office tower and specialty retail shops. Accounting firm Ernst & Young has signed on as the office building’s main tenant.

On tightly packed East 4th Street at Euclid, venues including the House of Blues, Pickwick & Frolic Comedy Club, and Wonder Bar are helping draw crowds to the cozy entertainment zone.

And at the Tower City Center, whose fate has been debated since 2002 when anchor store Dillard’s (formerly Higbee’s) closed, local shops like Ideal have replaced some national chains including Abercrombie & Fitch.

Today, the center, a former rail station along downtown’s Public Square, includes 80 specialty stores, an 11-screen theater, and six restaurants that draw brisk crowds on weekdays.

To address complaints about rowdy young people, the mall prohibits unaccompanied minors after 2:30 p.m. and stations security personnel at regular intervals.

On a recent spring day, a guard saw a youth wearing a sweatshirt with the hood up.

“Excuse me!” she exclaimed, pointing to the apparent rule violation. The youth uncovered his head without complaint.

‘Turned the corner’
“We think we have turned the corner and are making good progress,” said chief downtown booster Joseph Marinucci, who is president of the nonprofit Downtown Cleveland Alliance.

Bounded by highways, Lake Erie, and the Cuyahoga River, the sprawling downtown is the center of a 303,000-person municipality long derided as the “mistake on the lake.”
When Ohio’s second-largest city comes up in conversation, somebody invariably spouts off about the day an oil slick caught fire on the river. Never mind that the event lasted 30 minutes and happened nearly 40 years ago.

But like Toledo, Cleveland has struggled with population losses and poverty.

Since the beginning of the decade, the metro area lost 51,000 residents. With slightly fewer than 2.1 million people, it now ranks behind Cincinnati, which has become Ohio’s largest metro area.

And, in the city of Cleveland, 27 percent of people live below the poverty line, making the municipality the fourth poorest in the nation, according to a report last year from the U.S. Census Bureau.

But while many people in the city are struggling, downtown is seeing something of a revival, boosters say.

The population there grew by nearly a third to 9,599 between 1990 and the 2000 Census.

Officials predict that downtown residents will more than double to 20,000 to 25,000 in the next few years.

Nearly 3,000 condos and apartments are under way or have been OK’d for historic-preservation tax credits, which will reduce development costs, said Mr. Marinucci of the Downtown Cleveland Alliance.

On the commercial side, there is demand for at least three new office towers, he added.

Just last month, a Cleveland developer announced he will spend $180 million to erect a 21-story skyscraper at downtown’s Public Square.

“The office market is seeing a resurgence,” agreed David Browning, a downtown expert at CB Richard Ellis in Cleveland.

The overall vacancy rate downtown slipped in late 2007 to just below 18 percent, the lowest in four years, CB Richard Ellis said in a report this year. Vacancies for top-quality space, known as “Class A,” fell below 10 percent.

The improved market helped lead to the construction plans in the Flats District, where developers have announced the first privately financed office tower downtown in nearly two decades, real estate agents said.

Proposals are being considered for a new downtown convention center and a merchandise-mart-like facility for physicians and other medical professionals to purchase medical equipment.

Obstacles remain
Yet obstacles to downtown revitalization remain.

From the beginning of the decade to 2005, 353 businesses left the area around the downtown improvement district, a U.S. Census report last year shows.

The improvement district was established by downtown merchants under Ohio law. The area around the district had 4,069 firms, 8 percent fewer than in 2000.

They employed 115,941 people, or 5 percent fewer than the private-sector’s downtown work force at the start of the decade. The figure doesn’t include government workers.

It is unclear how many people government agencies employ downtown. But U.S. Labor Department reports show that they account for about 155,000 of the 1.1 million workers in metro Cleveland.

Downtown officials concede that the impact of lost businesses and jobs goes beyond those directly affected. For instance, fewer businesses mean fewer janitors and other support personnel.

As many as 10,000 jobs have been lost downtown since 2000, acknowledged Mr. Marinucci, of the Downtown Alliance.

Still, downtown retains four Fortune 500 companies: banks KeyCorp and National City Corp.; paint manufacturer Sherwin-Williams Co.; and Eaton Corp., a parts supplier to the aerospace and auto industries.

And neither job losses nor tougher times have stopped residential developments, said the Downtown Alliance president.

“The question is, ‘Can future deals for future projects get tied up by the national foreclosure crisis?’” Mr. Marinucci asked.

So far, he claimed, there is no sign of that.

Avenue District plan
Projects include the Avenue District, a $300 million collection of townhouses, condos, and retail space planned by Cleveland’s Zaremba Group developers for three city blocks at 12th and St. Clair streets. The project was announced nearly three years ago, but just 10 units of a planned 600 are completed and 72 are under way.

Spokesman Mandy Barney denies the plan is behind schedule.

“A couple years ago, this probably would have been at a faster pace,” she said. “But this project is not affected like our suburban developments. There is still demand for housing to purchase in downtown.”

Future construction, she explained, will depend on “when the market picks up and at what pace.” Most units are priced at $240,000 to $373,000.

When the last Census was conducted in 2000, downtown Cleveland had 3,818 housing units, 3 percent of which were owned by their residents, according to a Brookings Institution study.

Apartments and lofts — either new construction or office and retail conversions — have been added downtown at the rate of about 500 a year, the Downtown Alliance president said.

Despite growth in the housing market, there is skepticism about other downtown projects.

The Euclid Corridor transportation project will include street and sidewalk improvements, new lighting, and a new style of bus service offering faster trips. The project will cover 10 miles from downtown to suburban East Cleveland.

Backers hope the work will attract developers and tenants for the abandoned buildings along Euclid in the downtown area.

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IMF in Poverty Reduction

from All Africa

The Monitor (Kampala)

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved about $1.8m for a poverty reduction facility in Rwanda. This money is usually released after the review of a country's performance under a three-year Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) arrangement.

The PRGF is IMF's concessional facility for low-income countries. It is intended that PRGF-supported programs are based on country-owned poverty reduction strategies adopted in a participatory process involving development partners.

In Rwanda the IMF has just completed its fourth review.

A statement released from the IMF recently said the IMF executive board granted a waiver for the non-observance of a performance criterion on net credit to the government.

The deviation from the target was temporary, resulting from delays in disbursement from a donor and reimbursements in relation to peacekeeping activities. The Board also approved Rwanda's request for a modification of performance criteria for 2008.

Murilo Portugal, Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair of the IMF said that Rwanda's program performance in 2007 was satisfactory, and that the macroeconomic policy implementation was broadly on track.

"Growth was robust and inflation declined to single digits in the second half of the year.

However, inflationary pressures have reemerged recently, spurred by increasing global fuel and food prices and higher transport costs for imports through Kenya," said Mr. Portugal.

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Elderly forced to cut back as cost of gas, groceries increases

from the South Florida Sun Sentinel

By Harriet Johnson Brackey

Mary Manuel, who turned 73 last month, figures it out, ride by ride.

To get to the doctor, she needs $2.50 to take a bus service for seniors and the disabled. Then another $2.50 to ride home. If she needs to see the kidney doctor and the dentist, that's $10. This month, she has appointments with the eye doctor and her primary physician. That's another $10.

Seniors in South Florida, like others, say they're feeling the financial pinch. In response, they are making changes to their spending habits in ways both big and as small as planning ahead for a $10 bus fare. That's exerting pressure on South Florida's economy, which already is reeling from falling home values.

"The Lord bless, I'm able to pay all my bills," Manuel said. "You pay one bill and the next bill comes in, and it has gone up. It won't be 10 cents or 50 cents more, either. And my water bill is terrible. The light bill. Don't say anything about groceries."

Two major forces are squeezing seniors today like a vise grip, said Lynn Reaser, chief economist at Bank of America's Investment Strategies Group. On one side are the Federal Reserve's efforts to rescue the economy by cutting interest rates, which lower the income seniors earn on their savings accounts and from some investments. On the other side is a global surge in commodity prices that is causing food and gasoline prices to spike.

In South Florida, consumer prices are rising faster than any other metro area in the nation.

"Seniors perceive their inflation to be a lot more than everyone else's inflation," Reaser said.

A close look at senior centers and programs catering to seniors in South Florida suggests that plenty of people are pressed for money. It's not just the poor who are hurting, but middle-class seniors have been buffeted by the stock market's rough start this year and dropping interest rates, as well.

At the Area Agency on Aging, Palm Beach/Treasure Coast, there are so many people on the waiting list for low-cost Meals on Wheels home-delivered food that the program would have to nearly double in size to feed them all. And at one satellite office, the most recent data available shows that the amount of federal aid doled out to help people pay their electric bills last October was $19,595, compared to an $8,112 monthly average the year before.

Seniors a key factor

Seniors - and their money - are a huge economic factor in South Florida. One out of five people in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties are age 60 and older. Their spending, from Social Security checks, investment portfolios and pensions, is a foundation of the region's economy.

All consumers, including seniors, are spending less than last year at this time.

Florida's sales tax revenues in February fell almost 13 percent from the month before and are running 7 percent less than in 2007, even though the state's economy, in the first three months of the year, was growing at a 2.7 percent annual pace.

Those paring back spending are at all income levels.

Mary Manuel, of Fort Lauderdale, lives on less than $13,000 a year. But even 96-year-old Mary Walsh, who lives comfortably in the adult community of Century Village in Palm Beach County, is watching her wallet. She's going to cut back on playing bingo from twice a week to just once. Why? The ticket is $7. Walsh remembers watching people turned out of their homes in Brooklyn in 1932 during the Great Depression.

She mentions that, to point out: "I know how to save."

And that's the paradox. Even well-to-do seniors say they are spending less. Those whose income is low are simply going without. Most are somewhere in between.

They are like Jeanne Green, 72, a retired administrative assistant who lives in Pembroke Pines: "I've cut a little here and there, she said. "Now I don't have any extra money at the end of the month. But I'm getting by OK."

At least on paper, most South Florida seniors are not poor. Nine out of 10 in South Florida are not living in poverty, according to federal poverty standards and statistics from the Florida Department of Elder Affairs. Poverty among the elderly has been on a downtrend for more than 40 years. Nationwide, the proportion of children younger than under 18 living in poverty is twice the rate for seniors, according to Census Bureau statistics.

Groceries are the one consumer expense that seems to prickle seniors the most. The cost of dairy products rose 13.4 percent last year. Cereal and bakery products in March were 13.3 percent more expensive than the year before. And overall, food price increases last year were at the fastest pace in almost three decades.

"At Easter and at Passover, we were waiting for the price of eggs to go down," said Edith Lederberg, executive director of the Aging and Disability Resource Center of Broward County. "It did not happen this year. They stayed up. That was hard on anyone trying to bake a Passover cake that requires six eggs per cake."

Budget out of line

Making a budget work is difficult for all families. For seniors, the challenge can be especially complicated, because a personal budget made five or 15 years ago can't keep up with gasoline that costs almost $4 a gallon.

Or consider the situation facing someone retired for 30 years, like Irving Kessler, 92, of Delray Beach. Faced with his litany of costs, Kessler took out a reverse mortgage to make ends meet. A reverse mortgage is a loan available only to those 62 and older. It allows seniors to receive monthly payments based on their equity in their the homes. When the senior dies or moves out, the house is usually sold to repay the debt.

He and other seniors are proud of their ability to cope with tough economic times. Those who have been lifelong savers say they know how to live on less than their income. They point out that they don't need to buy expensive clothes to wear to work. They don't commute to an office, so they can cut back on driving when gas prices are high. Vacations can be shorter or skipped altogether.

Besides having more flexibility than those in the work force, retirees have a certain amount of insulation from economic fluctuations. For instance, those who are retired don't have to worry when companies start cutting jobs.

And their incomes keep rising, because Social Security retirement benefits are adjusted annually for inflation. Of course, some of the annual increase is offset by higher costs for goods and rising premiums for health insurance through Medicare that seniors must pay. Social Security benefits account for about 40 percent of seniors income, says the Social Security Administration.

For many seniors, surviving financially comes down to a question of tactics. They start with a laser-like focus on their personal budgets. That means attacking even the smallest cost increase.

At Century Village in West Palm Beach, an umbrella group of civic organizations that represents 7,854 condos mostly owned by senior citizens is trying to negotiate a lower cost for switching the community's cable service to digital. Comcast says that switch will add $3 a month per cable box to a resident's bill.

Pat Soderholm, 72, of Davie, says she picked up some good information at Christian Community Church in Tamarac, which just finished a five-sermon series about personal finance. One thing she's doing now: Carrying a list, on index cards, of everything she needs to have in the kitchen when she goes shopping. It helps her to buy only what she needs.

"I used to stop and pick up something and come out with $50 worth of stuff," she said.

For other seniors, the goal is not to reduce spending but to protect their investments and try to increase the income they get from their portfolios.

Stephen Blum, 60, a semi-retired advertising executive in Delray Beach, fears what's going to happen when he has to roll over his certificates of deposit in August. He has watched the prime rate drop from 8.25 percent a year ago to 5 percent today, thanks to seven cuts in short-term rates by the Federal Reserve Board.

"I'm asking every single person I meet what their strategy is going to be," Blum said. "I think we'll just hunker down for now."

That means putting off a vacation to Europe, he said.

The Fed's goal has been to shore up the softening economy and seniors have a stake in that, too.

"As long as companies pay the dividends, that's what we need to live on," said Walter Clifton, who lives in the Whisper Walk adult community west of Boca Raton, where he says many neighbors have pensions, so they feel insulated from the economy's swings.


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Villaraigosa criticizes Bush administration record on poverty

from the Los Angeles Times

Addressing the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Miami, he calls on the next president to raise funding for preschool programs and offer additional low-income tax credits.
By Phil Willon

MIAMI -- — After a rough year marked by budget headaches and marital woes, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa strode back into the warm glow of the national spotlight this weekend and used it to urge the presidential candidates to reinvigorate federal anti-poverty programs.

Villaraigosa, speaking to hundreds of city leaders at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in South Florida, on Sunday criticized the Bush administration for neglecting the nation's poor and called on the next president to increase funding for preschool programs and offer additional low-income tax credits.

"As mayors, we see a financial disaster coming. We see homes in our communities with 'bank owned' signs right next to the picket fence," Villaraigosa said. "We're seeing what happens when a generation of policy-makers accept the conventional wisdom that it's political suicide to talk about waging another war on poverty. The result, we have the worst poverty rate for children in the industrialized world."

The mayor's address on poverty capped a three-day trip to Miami laden with schmoozing and politics.

On Saturday, Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama met with Villaraigosa and three other influential Democratic mayors who had been strong backers of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primary, asking for their support -- and received Villaraigosa's enthusiastic endorsement.

Villaraigosa also netted a bundle of contributions for his mayoral reelection campaign at a private fundraiser Saturday night hosted by Bernard Klepach, chairman and chief executive of an airport concession company. The event was held at Klepach's home on South Florida's posh Indian Creek Island.

Last year, Villaraigosa hosted the mayors conference in Los Angeles at a tumultuous time for both him and the city.

The month before the conference, the national airwaves were filled with pictures of Los Angeles Police Department officers beating demonstrators and journalists in MacArthur Park during a May Day immigrant rights rally. Villaraigosa also had separated from his wife of 20 years, admitting later to an extramarital affair with a Telemundo anchorwoman.

Villaraigosa, in an interview this weekend, said during his toughest days in office he tried to stay focused on the two things that mattered most: his children and his job as mayor. He also was quick to list his accomplishments during his three years as mayor: putting more police officers on the street; doing more to aid the homeless than was done in the previous decade; fixing potholes and addressing traffic; and dealing with tight budget times in a fair, measured way.

"As mayor you don't have the luxury of being an ideologue. People want you to get things done, and they want you to work across the political spectrum to get things done," he said.

At the Florida conference, Alameda Mayor Beverly Johnson said she wished Villaraigosa and California's other big-city mayors would become more involved with the Conference of Mayors to ensure that issues facing the state are addressed. Still, Villaraigosa was greeted warmly by most of his peers, as well as former President Clinton, who addressed the conference shortly after Villaraigosa.

"Mayors are in the public eye every day, there are moments of great difficultly and moments of great success," said Mayor David Cicilline of Providence, R.I. "But I think people judge mayors on the quality of the work being done . . . and he's accomplished much."

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Professor Reveals Latest Plant That Eradicates Mosquito

from All Africa

Daily Trust (Abuja)

By Abubakar Yakubu

The economic value of a plant called Cactus Opuntia (Ficus indica) was over the weekend in Abuja disclosed by Professor IK Aduba, who said it can fight the scourge of malaria as well as combat desertification, alleviate poverty, hunger and enhance better livelihood for man and livestock.

The professor also called on frontline buffer states of Nigeria to combat desertification and global warming through the plant.

"From the numerous pads being produced by this plant, the sap from the pads was used in 1911 by an American, Luther Burbank in Central Africa to smother the mosquito larvae found in exposed stagnant water bodies and environment," he stated

He said the effect lasted for 12 months, adding that the research report can be expanded and developed for commercial uses in Nigeria to fight the scourge of malaria.

"This bio- technology based on Cactus Opuntia is effective for the remedial impacts of the degraded landscapes of the frontline states, so as to revive agricultural and other socio- economic activities to create development, alleviate poverty and enhance better living conditions for the people," he added.

He said the plant has other potentialities apart from combating desertification, adding that the pads are of superior biomass for livestock feed, medicaments and biogas for cooking when dried.

"The fruits are delicious and nutritiously used for the production of confectioneries, solid food and cosmetics that can be exported to neighbouring countries," he explained.

School Documentary to Air on HBO

WMAR

The law is called No Child Left Behind, but anyone who claims it's living up to its billing probably hasn't spent much time at Frederick Douglass High School.

Veteran documentary filmmakers Alan and Susan Raymond did, gathering footage at the historic west Baltimore school during the 2004-05 school year. What they saw left them certain that for inner-city schools to succeed, they need more than standardized tests that measure students' reading and math skills.

Their film, "Hard Times at Douglass High: A No Child Left Behind Report Card," premieres Monday on HBO. The Raymonds won an Academy Award for best documentary feature for 1993's "I Am a Promise: The Children of Stanton Elementary School," shot at a school in north Philadelphia.

They decided to revisit urban education in the wake of No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration's signature education policy that took effect in 2002.

"We realized that this was a very profound piece of policy that was going to change the face of public education in America and that we should go back and look at what's happening," Susan Raymond said. "These are the children who are going to be left behind."

With their unvarnished observations of life inside Douglass' walls, the Raymonds capture the myriad challenges of educating children in impoverished urban neighborhoods. Students show up at school but never report for class, instead roaming the halls.

Teachers complain they can't assign homework because they don't have enough textbooks for students to take home. And the principal labors under the knowledge that if test scores don't improve, she'll be replaced.

Established in 1883 as the Colored High and Training School, Douglass is the nation's second-oldest high school built specifically for African-Americans. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is among the alumni.

Yet today, more than 50 years after Marshall successfully argued the case that desegregated the nation's schools, the student body at Douglass remains almost entirely black.

Moreover, because the middle class has long since abandoned west Baltimore, the majority of students at Douglass live in poverty. Two-parent households are rare. "I can't name one person that lives in a house with their mother and their father," a 16-year-old student named Sharnae says in the documentary.

The Raymonds, who got their start with the groundbreaking 1973 PBS documentary series "An American Family," chose Douglass in part because of its history and in part because the principal at the time, Isabelle Grant, was accommodating. The husband-and-wife team, plus a sound recordist, were given unfettered access.

The filmmakers captured fights in the hallways. They watched as teachers struggled to maintain discipline, then vented to each other about the lack of resources. And they were in the locker room after Douglass' basketball team was knocked out of the state playoffs.

In one of many wrenching moments, an English teacher, Mr. McDermott, gets fed up and resigns in the middle of the school year. "Teaching becomes secondary, and discipline is the main thing that goes on," he says. "I don't feel like I'm making a difference anymore."

The film finds rays of hope. Douglass has a well-run music production program, a flourishing debate team and a spirited marching band, and some of the school's best students channel their energy into these outlets. And at the end of the 2004-05 school year, Douglass graduated 200 students -- its largest graduating
class in 10 years.

Fifty of them went to college. But the story didn't end there. The school continued to fall distressingly short of No Child Left Behind benchmarks. In 2006, 24.4 percent of Douglass students were found to be proficient in reading, while math proficiency was just 11.4 percent.

While those numbers represented an improvement over the previous year, they weren't enough to save Grant's job. The principal was forced to retire. Grant said it was an "impossible task" to meet the proficiency standards, in part because Douglass began the school year shown in the film with two-thirds of its teachers not considered highly qualified.

"It is utterly impossible to have youngsters pass a test when you do not have qualified teachers in those testing areas," Grant said. Plus, "the class size at the beginning of the school year was huge. There were 40 to 50 kids in a class. ... We didn't have the appropriate funding from the federal government, nor the state."

At least in the short term, the removal of Grant didn't produce the desired results. Scores in the four subjects tested by the state were down in 2007, as was proficiency in reading. Math proficiency remained stagnant. And the graduation rate declined from 56 percent to 43.4 percent.

Principal Clark Montgomery was installed for the 2007-08 school year. While test scores for the recently concluded year are not yet available, Montgomery is confident more students passed. During his first year, Montgomery said, Douglass improved attendance and graduation rates, added more advanced classes and boosted its retention rate for ninth-graders to about 75 percent.

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Poverty drives 2 Pinoys -- one a former OFW -- to succeed

from ABS CBN

Poverty deprives people of the simplest, most basic things – food, clothing, shelter, safe drinking water, even education. But hundreds of opportunities for change may be lurking behind such misery.

Take the case of two inspiring entrepreneurs – Rey Calooy and Cherry Yack Sr. – who both made poverty their driving force to succeed in life.

Cherry Yack Sr., 44, worked in a rattan factory in Cebu from 1984 to 1991 until he decided to go to Malaysia in search of greener pastures.

There, he worked as a bulldozer operator for seven years. He was earning P20,000 a month and remitted half his salary to his wife back home. The rest was barely adequate for Cherry’s monthly expenses.

His earnings failed to give his family in the Philippines a comfortable life. In 1999, he returned home after realizing that the amount he was earning did not compensate for the sacrifice of being away from family.

They then settled in Zamboanga, his hometown, and put up a fish-drying business.

Unfortunately, the business did not thrive and it further depleted their scarce savings.

Cherry and family decided to close it down and set up a cassava cake business instead.

Cherry, who serves as the "chemist" in the business, started with a single oven.

In a year’s time, the business started to pick up and as it prospered, Cherry and family were able to buy their own house in Consolacion, Cebu in 2003.

Year 2004, meantime, proved to be a challenging year for Cherry’s business, following the mass food poisoning in Bohol after residents ate cassava.

The event adversely affected Cherry’s sales as clients either returned his products or stopped placing orders for his cassava cake.

With this setback, Cherry had to reduce the number of workers as he couldn’t afford to pay their salaries due to loss of income.

Cherry also thought of closing down the business and look for another job to sustain his family’s needs.

But he and his wife are strong believers in the power of prayer.

They decided to temporarily stop baking cassava cakes and introduce an alternative product – banana cake. Soon enough, they were getting quite a number of orders again.

Two years after, Cherry brought back his cassava cake with a new, improved taste. His customers began patronizing again his original product and his business began to thrive once more.

To date, Cherry delivers orders daily to the University of Cebu (UC) branches, South Western University, San Jose University, San Carlos University, Mandaue Market, and to numerous canteens and restaurants in Danao and Cebu City.

The innovator

Rey Calooy came from a poor family in Libagon, Southern Leyte.

A graduate of Bachelor of Science in Accountancy from the University of Cebu, Rey early on showed his entrepreneurial skills when he sold bookmarkers made out of used carton, greeting cards out of recycled paper, and other homemade recycled goods to his schoolmates just to make money.

Now, Rey’s innovative mind has gone a long way.

He is the brains behind the innovation and technological breakthrough of ginger tea powder (with anti-cancer compounds), squash pancit canton (the idea came to him when typhoon "Besing" struck the towns of Southern Leyte in 1984 and Rey’s family had nothing to eat except the squash that his father planted), and Rhea laundry soap which uses cooking oil as the main ingredient.

Rey developed the idea of making soap out of used oil when he was looking for a product that is highly marketable and inexpensive.

Not only are Rey’s products marketable, his innovations have surprisingly helped the field of agriculture as well.

More farmers are now encouraged to plant squash and ginger so they can become suppliers for Rey’s Ginger Tea Powder and Squash Pancit Canton.

Rey also does toll packing of coffee, non-dairy cream and refined and brown sugar, which are being supplied to all branches of the famous Starbucks Coffee. Now very successful in his businesses, Rey dreams that someday the Philippines would become a nation of entrepreneurs.

Cherry and Rey are two of the Most Inspiring Cebuano Entrepreneurs to be recognized on June 20 at the Go Negosyo sa Cebu, to be held at the Cebu International Convention Center.

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Anti-poverty activist arrested at city hall

from The Toronto Star

John Spears
Paul Moloney

Police arrested an activist with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty this morning as he tried to enter Toronto City Hall to talk to Mayor David Miller.

Gaeten Heroux was detained when he tried to go into the building after being served with a notice of trespass by security staff.

The notice said Heroux was barred both from the building and from Nathan Phillips Square, where about two dozen anti-poverty activitists had gathered for breakfast in advance of a council meeting this morning.

Heroux spoke outside to reporters and demonstrators, saying he wanted to speak to Miller about the city's treatment of the homeless.

However, when he tried to enter city hall, he was handcuffed by Toronto police and taken to a police car.

Other demonstrators then entered the building, going to the mayor's office before making their way to the council chamber, where they demanded to be heard at a two-day meeting that was just getting underway at about 10:30 a.m.
Council speaker Sandra Bussin immediately recessed the meeting. Councillors filed out of the chamber, leaving it to the protestors.

Protester A. J. Withers claimed that police have been hassling homeless people.

"It’s shameful," Withers said. "People are suffering. You can do something today. You can tell the cops to stop harassing people on the street for being poor.”

“Bring in more beds,” she added. “You can do this today and you’re choosing not to.”

After security announced over the public address system that protesters risked removal or arrest, Ontario Coalition Against Poverty spokesperson John Clarke indicated that protestors would leave.

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Oxfam Book Calls for Urgent Action on Poverty

from the Voice of America

By Tendai Maphosa

Oxfam on Monday published a book warning that the food and fuel price hikes have signaled the start of a new age of scarcity which could drag millions of people further into poverty. It urges immediate action to tackle the huge inequalities that prevent poor people from having access to resources such as food fuel and water. For VOA, Tendai Maphosa has more from London.

From Power to Poverty calls for urgent action to address the gap between the world's rich and poor. Duncan Green, the book's author, spoke to VOA.

"The comparison would be with the U.S. in the Depression or with Europe after the Second World War where you had the New Deal, you had the creation of welfare states," he explained. "We need some level of political inspiration like that on a global scale if we are actually going to get through this century without catastrophic damage to the climate, and without continued and deepening instability and violence."

Green said the gap between the wealthy and poor has been growing at a fast pace recently. He said the income of the world's 500 richest billionaires exceeding that of the world's 416 million poverty stricken is a sign that there is a need to redistribute the world's resources.

Green says the countries that have been successful in narrowing the gap have had two things in common.

"They have had effective states which have actually managed the economy, managed security, delivered for the national developments and they have also had active citizens," he said. "So, the book argues for this combination of active citizens and effective states as the key place where development happens."

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Making homes affordable in Mumbai

from the Toronto Star

Marc and Craig Kielburger

Walking through the slums of Mumbai is never easy. Rows on rows of corrugated tin shacks line the narrow streets, most of them rusted and seemingly on the verge of collapse.

Outside, upwards of a million other people too poor even for a shack live on the street among piles of garbage. There are so many of them that the sidewalks are nearly impassable.

They exist in the shadows of the Mumbai's apartment buildings, some glitzy enough to rival the famous addresses of Manhattan both in luxury and price. Others are more run-of-the-mill but still cost thousands of dollars a month just to rent.

Such is life in India's financial capital, where skyrocketing real estate prices have created two worlds in this city of 14 million people. Space now goes for a premium there as villagers continue to pour into a city that struggles to fit them all, making Mumbai among the most expensive places in the world to live.

But many in the city remain desperately poor, unable to afford a decent place to call home. Half the city's population still lives in slums, without proper access to water, health care or sanitation. They continue to live in squalor, untouched by India's economic success.

Housing prices there are usually directly quoted by size and can range anywhere from $25 to $2,000 a square foot, with even the most basic accommodation costing around $15,000. That's a hefty pricetag in a country where 80 per cent of people live on less than a dollar a day.

Despite this widespread poverty, huge real estate deals continue to make headlines. Last month Bollywood star Vinod Khanna set a national record by purchasing a three-bedroom apartment in South Mumbai for a staggering $25,000 per square foot. In other words, each floor tile cost him more than a mid-sized car.

Even the national government, which usually downplays India's economic disparity, acknowledges the housing shortfall and admits the entire country is in need of 25 million more homes. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty has vowed to act, but progress is slow.

That is why the private sector is stepping up. The Monitor Group, a global management consulting firm, is leading the push for affordable housing. They've discovered that even with Mumbai's real estate boom, inexpensive housing can still be made appealing for investors if done properly.

"We started looking at development and realized there is an opportunity for market-based solutions for social change," explains Ashish Karamchandani, CEO of Monitor's India office.

Banks and developers have long been wary of investing in low-income housing, worried they would not be able to sell many units. But by encouraging Indian companies to allow stable payroll deductions from their employees, while helping to finance loans through microcredit institutions, Monitor has found a way to ensure that even much of the city's poor can afford to buy a property.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are children's rights activists and co-founded Free The Children, which is active in the developing world. Online: Craig and Marc Kielburger discuss global issues every Monday in the World & Comment section. Take part in the discussion online at thestar.com/globalvoices.

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Shortages, Prices Hit California Food Banks as Schools Recess

from Bloomberg

By Ryan Flinn

Turning dozens of hungry children away from a free meals program wasn't how Vince Harper wanted to start the summer.

Harper oversees a program in Santa Rosa, California, that provides food to kids during schools' summer recess. More than 90 lined up at a community center on June 9, the first day of the service. Only 50 meals were available.

``It's a terrible feeling,'' said Harper, 41, director of youth and neighborhood services for the Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County. ``You have to tell them to come back tomorrow, and hopefully they will.''

As California schools let out this month, food banks in the state face record demand for free meals from families pressed by food price inflation and economic hardship.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties has requested extra donations, saying 115,000 children may go hungry in the region. The San Francisco Food Bank has been forced to find new sources to distribute enough food for 66,000 meals a day, a 16 percent increase from last year.

``There are some kids this summer that might not have enough food because they're not getting meals at school,'' said Marguerite Nowak, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Food Bank.

In California, a state with 36.5 million residents, food banks serve about 5 million people per month, said Jessica Bartholow of the California Association of Food Banks.

Some food banks say they are having trouble meeting demand because of a 59 percent drop in goods provided by the federal government, forcing them to buy more food while prices are rising. Manufacturing efficiencies also have decreased the amount of surplus and defective products typically donated by companies, food bank employees say.

Graduation Ceremony

In Kettleman City, California, about halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, kindergarteners took a break from their June 6 graduation ceremony to go to a food bank.

``They walked across the street in their Sunday best to get food from us so they could eat that weekend,'' said Dana Wilkie, president of Community Food Bank in Fresno.

Californians are being squeezed by the nation's highest gas prices, averaging $4.609 a gallon for regular unleaded, some of the country's most expensive housing markets and an unemployment rate of 6.8 percent, fifth highest in the country.

Restrictive Policies

The state also has one of the country's most restrictive food stamp policies, excluding those with more than $2,000 in savings. That means residents with retirement or education funds must cash out to qualify. About half the people otherwise eligible for food stamps don't receive them, Bartholow said.

The increase in demand has led to longer lines at food banks. ``Sometimes we had to wait an hour,'' said Melinda Thornton, 36, who was eating a meal of pasta with ham, peas, bread and broccoli with her husband, Michael, last week at St. Anthony Foundation's dining room in San Francisco.

The line outside wrapped around the block and has grown since Thornton first started coming in December, she said in an interview at the facility.

The federal government has reduced donations to California food banks by 59 percent, to 30.9 million meals last year from 75.7 million in 2002, according to the California Association of Food Banks.

``People used to get two bags of groceries for the month; now, four to six cans,'' said David Goodman, 44, executive director of Redwood Empire Food Bank in Santa Rosa.

Dwindling Donations

In a survey by America's Second Harvest, a national hunger relief organization, the Food Bank for Monterey County in Salinas, California, reported a 63 percent jump in clients during the past four months, while distributing six items per bag compared to the 18 it used to provide.

There is so much empty space in the Fresno Community Food Bank's distribution center ``you could drive a truck through it,'' Wilkie said.

Albert Cabarloc, 59, said he worries about whether the groceries he receives from a food bank in Oakland will be sufficient for him and his 13 year-old daughter, who had received free meals at school.

Cabarloc said he receives about $11,100 in disability payments for a degenerative back condition; after gas, rent and other bills, he and his daughter each have 75 cents to spend per meal, he said.

``We have enough to get us by for the next couple of days,'' said Cabarloc. ``But she's eating, she's growing.''

Rising food, fuel and labor costs forced a Meals on Wheels program in San Joaquin County to close this month. San Francisco's Haight Ashbury Food Program also shut down.

Relief may come later this year, when the new federal farm bill increases the amount of savings individuals may have while qualifying for food stamps. State representatives have also proposed legislation to ease restrictions.

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Study shows US charitable donations steady in 2007 despite economic crisis

from PR Inside

NEW YORK (AP) - Americans gave to charities last year at about the same rate they did the previous year, holding steady on their donations in the face of a housing-market meltdown and a crisis in credit, a study released Monday showed.

But soaring gasoline and food prices have been added to the economic worries
this year, which may lead to a drop in giving, nonprofit groups and fundraisers say.
Donations by Americans to charities remained at 2.2 percent of gross domestic product in 2007, according to the yearly study from the philanthropy-tracking Giving USA Foundation.

The study shows that charitable giving in 2007, measured as a percentage of GDP, matched giving levels in 2006 and from 2002 to 2004. Giving was boosted in 2005 by aid for victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the Asian tsunami.

After a strong start last year, stock market trouble combined with the housing and credit downturns put a drag on charitable contributions for the balance of the year.
«The year started out to be a good year, then the economy started to get really shaky in the fall, and that's when a majority of people start to do their year-end giving,» said Edith Falk, chief executive of nonprofit consultant Campbell & Co.

The 2007 contribution total _ including donations from individuals and corporations _ was estimated to be $306.39 billion and had risen by an inflation-adjusted rise of 1 percent. The Giving USA report is researched and written by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Aggregate personal income rose 3.3 percent last year, but giving as a percentage of that stayed at 2 percent, the same as in 2006.

«I think people are naturally worried,» said Del Martin, chairwoman of Giving USA. She said smaller nonprofits are most vulnerable, but that if gas prices continue their march upward, then individual donors will cut back and the entire nonprofit sector will suffer.

Individual giving, which accounts for the biggest chunk of total donations, dropped by 0.1 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis in 2007 to an estimated $229.03 billion. Corporate giving also fell as companies pulled back, and the total dropped to $15.69 billion, or 0.9 percent lower when adjusted for inflation.

Marcia Mintz, chief development officer of Valley of the Sun United Way in Phoenix, said she is starting the year «cautiously optimistic» about the fundraising environment.

To counteract any potential drop-off, Mintz said the group's strategy in tough times is to ask wealthier donors to step up their contributions.

Jeffrey J. Bentley, executive director of the Kansas City Ballet, said he fears the current economic slowdown will affect all nonprofit fundraising this year.

«I think this perceived economic malaise is different, because the issues are so much in everybody's face,» he said. «You can't drive down a street without seeing what gas prices are today, you can't pick up a newspaper without seeing housing prices, you can't buy a house without realizing there's a credit crunch here.

«I can't imagine that we are not going to be really hard-pressed to maintain any kind of forward movement,» he said about this year. «It scares me. I wish it weren't true.
Giving to foundations fell by an inflation-adjusted 11.9 percent to $27.73 billion.

The drop was likely exacerbated by a higher-than-average total for foundation gifts in 2006, when Warren Buffett gave part of his fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Poverty line to be adjusted

from The New Straits Times

The national poverty line will be adjusted, taking into account current inflation rate.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator Datuk Amirsham Abdul Aziz said this was because the national poverty line currently in use had not taken into account the knock-on effect of the recent oil price increase.

“The government is aware of the effects of inflation and price hike of goods on household expenditure. The poverty line will be updated from time to time, taking into account the current inflation,” he said in reply to Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim (PKR-Bandar Tun Razak) in the Dewan Rakyat here today.

Abdul Khalid had asked whether the government was aware that the national poverty line currently in use was too low and illogical to fend for a family, and asked the government to give the percentage of poor households in each state if the minimum monthly household income were to be raised to RM1,500.

Currently, the national poverty line is based on the minimum monthly household income of RM753. It is defined as the income that enables a household to meet its basic needs in terms of food and not food that enables each member to function in society.
Amirsham said if the national poverty line was raised to RM1,500 as proposed by Abdul Khalid, poor households would make up about 24.3 percent of the total number of households.

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World Stars Set for Thisday Music and Fashion Festival

from All Africa

This Day (Lagos)

By Yusuph Olaniyonu
Lagos

This year's edition of the THISDAY Music and Fashion Festival which would be staged across three continents from July 11 has received the endorsement of international music, fashion and cultural icons who praised it as the most significant effort made to get global solutions for the problems of Africa.

A statement issued in London at the weekend by organisers of the festival stated that some of the international and African stars who have signed on to feature in the festival to be held in Abuja, Lagos, Washington and London are Jay-Z, Usher, Mary J. Blige, Chris Brown, Rihanna, Fat Joe, Naomi Campbell, Oluchi, Tyson Beckford and Yousou N'Dour.

Others who will feature on the World-class festival aimed at promoting massive international investments in infrastructure and microfinance in Africa are Liya, Kebede, Alex Wek, Ozwald Boateng, Chris Aire, 9ice and Shank.

The theme of the festival is "Africa Rising" and will be used to project positive images of Africa by showcasing the renaissance of Africa's music, fashion and the arts.

Giving her endorsement to the festival and its objective, World renowned model, Naomi Campbell praised the chairman and editor-in-chief of THISDAY, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena for developing the vision to use culture and music to promote the best of Africa and sending the right signal on how the world community can partner with Africa to solve the continent's problems.

"It is fantastic that THISDAY and Mr Obaigbena are helping improve the positive awareness of Africa as too many people have stereotypical and negative views of the Continent. He obviously had a remarkable vision, a real passion and a special message... The more I found out about his mission to promote positivity and understanding, the more I wanted to be involved going forward with the 'Africa Rising' Festival," Campbell said.

Also, Ozwald Boateng, the renowned coutorier, said the festival would provide the best forum to positively project Africa's image and tell the world that Africa is not about poverty and war but that with good investments channelled into creating business opportunities and rebuilding infrastructure, Africa would take its rightful place in the world community.

Said Boateng: "I'm very proud to be a part of this exciting moment. We have all come together in a celebration of culture and art, helping to bring Africa's attention to the international community. We no longer have to see the same message of poverty and war, but we can show case the best of Africa's talent to help drive the message home that Africa is on its way up and encourage other continents to build bridges and ensure Africa achieves its rightful place in the world's economies by, rebuilding infrastructure and creating businesses that transform the lives of Africans."

Obaigbena also commented that the festival would demonstrate that the real problem of Africa is lack of social and physical infrastructure and that what Africa desires is deployment of investment in infrastructure and microfinance in order to rebuild the continent.

"Right now the international community seems to be dealing with the symptoms not the problems of Africa. The symptoms are poverty and disease, but the problem is lack of social and physical infrastructure. This initiative is to highlight the need to focus sustainable solutions on the problems through massive investment in infrastructure and microfinance in order to rebuild Africa from the ground up. Europe is what it is today because after World War II the 'Marshall Plan' took hold. It did not deal with poverty, it focused on rebuilding Europe, " Obaigbena said.

The festival will take off in Abuja on July 11 and will move on to Lagos on July 13. It will also hold in Washington DC on August 1st while the grand finale will hold in London on October 14.

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Reinventing Rwanda

from the Los Angeles Times

There's a new promise of prosperity. So why are human rights advocates unhappy?
By Stephen Kinzer

In the dozens of poor countries I've covered as a foreign correspondent, development specialists -- people who run projects aimed at pulling nations out of poverty -- have generally worked hand in hand with human rights advocates. That makes sense because these two groups are natural allies. Both instinctively support governments that promote freedom and prosperity and oppose corrupt and repressive ones.

Recently, though, I've been spending time in a country where these two groups are on opposite sides: Rwanda. No other country's government is so highly praised by development specialists but also so roundly condemned by human rights advocates. In fact, Rwanda's spectacular rebirth since the shocking genocide of 1994 has reignited an old debate about the very nature of human rights -- and about whether the West's obsession with this concept can undermine innovative solutions to problems that hold entire nations in misery.

Over the last few years, Rwanda has emerged as the most exciting place on Earth for people whose dream is to end global poverty. Development specialists are flooding in, drawn by the dazzlingly original, entrepreneur-driven program that President Paul Kagame is promoting. One aid administrator told me that Rwanda is "the only country on the planet that has a chance of going from absolute poverty to middle income in the space of a generation." A Harvard Business School report last year found that economic conditions are steadily improving and that the country is "corruption free," "stable with social progress" and possibly on its way to becoming the "Switzerland of Africa."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa calls Rwanda "a miracle unfolding before our very eyes." All over Africa and beyond, experts are beginning to hope that this country, so devastated by the genocide 14 years ago in which more than 800,000 people were killed in 100 days, will give the world a new model for fighting poverty.

During one of my interviews with Kagame, I asked him why, despite decades of study and the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, no one has come up with a formula for ending poverty in Africa. He rejected the premise of my question. "Everyone knows how to develop Africa," he said. "The problem is that no one does it."

Kagame's formula, modeled after those that brought rapid development to East Asian countries, is simple and straightforward. First and above all, he believes in security; under his rule, Rwanda has become the safest country in Africa, a place where even in the capital people walk alone after dark carrying cash, cellphones and other valuables.

Then comes honest governance; no African government has ever waged the kind of campaign against bribery and influence-peddling that Kagame is leading in Rwanda. Add education, population control, first-class infrastructure, gender equality, good healthcare and a strong sense of private initiative, Kagame believes, and the result is prosperity.

But although diplomats, economists and development experts are full of praise for Kagame and his government -- and many Rwandans share their enthusiasm -- American and European human rights advocates are less impressed. They point out that Kagame won his last election with 95% of the vote and that there is no prospect of anyone defeating him in 2010, when he is expected to be reelected to a second (and, by law, final) seven-year term. The European Union judged the last election "not entirely fair," and the U.S. State Department called it "seriously marred."

Human rights advocates also reject Kagame's view that Rwandans must view themselves only as Rwandans and stop using the words "Hutu" and "Tutsi." He allows people to complain, for example, that the country is ruled by a small clique, but not that it is ruled by a small clique of Tutsi. A reporter may assert that Rwandans are miserable, but not that Hutu are miserable. Last year, a journalist was sentenced to a year in prison for writing that "those who killed Hutu are free" because national leaders "think the Hutu who perished are not human beings."

How does Kagame explain such prosecutions, which seem to contradict Western notions of free speech and an unfettered press? He says they are necessary because Rwanda faces another challenge, a psycho-spiritual one that may be even more daunting than making a poor country rich. Its population remains deeply divided as a result of factors that led to the 1994 genocide. Kagame considers the limitation on speech essential to prevent another explosion of mass murder. His critics call it an unjust, self-serving and dangerous restriction on free speech.

Another great debate between Kagame and his critics is over the question of who should be punished for horrific crimes of the 1990s. All agree that those who carried out the genocide must be held accountable. But what about soldiers who fought under Kagame's command, first in the insurgent Rwandan Patriotic Front and then, after victory, in Rwanda's national army? The front may well have committed war crimes during its fight for power. Later in the 1990s, Rwandan troops suppressed a counterinsurgency waged by fighters loyal to the deposed genocidal regime. Many innocent people were killed.

The government's position is that these two sets of crimes -- the genocide and the brutal wars waged afterward -- were totally different and deserve different responses. That is why, as genocidaires are being judged and punished, there is no parallel set of trials for those who fought alongside Kagame. He dismisses calls for such trials as politically motivated efforts to place his liberation army on the same moral plane as mass murderers and thereby weaken his government's moral authority.

Some human rights advocates, though, assert that because those being punished for genocidal crimes are Hutu, and most of Kagame's commanders were Tutsi, treating them so differently could stoke resentment and even fuel a future conflict.

There are genuine human rights concerns in Rwanda. A detailed report by a monitoring group sponsored by the African Union, for example, praised the country for its "dramatic recovery" but also found that judicial independence is "compromised" and urged "an opening up of political space for competition of ideas and power." Kagame dismissed the report as "simplistic" and based on "generic and oversimplified modes of analysis." When Human Rights Watch listed 20 Rwandans who allegedly died in police custody, he told reporters that anyone making such charges had "probably consumed drugs."

These dismissive responses reflect, among other things, the smoldering contempt that Kagame and his comrades feel for the "international community." Their experience -- growing up as exiles without anyone lifting a finger to help them return home, and then watching the world (and particularly the United Nations) refuse to step in to stop the 1994 genocide -- has given them a deep belief in self-reliance and boundless scorn for outside critics. It's easy for human rights activists to carp, they say, but those activists do not realize that Rwanda remains an explosive place where a single misstep could set off a tragedy of biblical proportions.

"Ours is not an ordinary situation," Kagame told me. "It has built into me some sort of contempt for people who don't see the situation as it actually is, who don't see the depth and breadth of what we are facing. ... For me, human rights is about everything. Even languishing in poverty as a result of colonization and other situations of the past violated human rights. If you solve that, you resolve the human rights issue."

During the pre-Kagame era, Rwanda experimented with competitive politics only once, in 1993-94. That experiment culminated in genocide. It is not surprising, therefore, that most Rwandans today are more eager for security, food, jobs and medicine than for a political system that would guarantee unfettered freedom and fully competitive elections. Only that kind of system, however, meets the one-size-fits-all standard of some human rights groups.

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Ghana among countries to halve poverty – UNDP

from Modern Ghana

By GNA

Accra – Dr. Daouda Toure, UNDP Resident Representative in Ghana, on Friday noted that Ghana would be among the very first African countries that have achieved the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty.

He, however, pointed out that there were other goals such as high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, among others, which were still high in the country and there was the need to take steps to achieve those targets by 2015. The MDGs were signed by 189 countries in September 2000.

The Millennium Development Goals are a set of objectives set by the United Nations to help all peoples in the world to live with minimum dignity.

Dr. Toure was speaking at the launch of the Global Monitoring Report, 2008 on the theme: “MDGs and the Environment – Agenda for Inclusive and Sustainable Development,” organized by the Christian Council of Ghana in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund, The United Nations Development Programme and the World Bank, Ghana Office.

The programme brought together policy makers, civil society groups and individuals to dialogue about development and its relation to the environment.

Dr. Toure said there was the need for policy makers and advocacy groups to relate the MDGs to the needs and priorities of the local communities, adding, “localize the goals” to suit the needs of the people.

He also noted that Ghana was one of the 10 pilot countries that the World Bank, IMF, African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Union and the UN used to test government structure and to look at areas where there was the need to seal loopholes.
Responding to questions that the level of awareness about the MDGs among the populace was low, Dr Toure said the MDGs was not supposed to be a slogan that people would recite but how they related to them.

He stressed that the MDGs were only a minimal package that the world owed to humanity.

Ms. Punam Chuhan-Pole, Economist at the World Bank, who launched the report, said Ghana was on track to achieve the goals of gender equality and access to water and there was the need for a good investment climate.

She said the world was on track to achieve the poverty reduction and gender parity goals but there were also serious shortfalls in the areas of nutrition, education, health and sanitation goals.

“Africa lags behind on all the MDGs; South Asia on most human development goals,” she said, and expressed hope that most MDGs were still achievable in most countries.
Ms Chuhan-Pole noted that, it was critical that developing countries managed their natural resources well since most of them depended such resources.

She suggested an increase in agricultural production in Africa as a way to achieve growth.

She further pointed out that one-third of the developing world’s population representing about 1.6 billion people did not have access to electricity and noted that even though aid to Africa had risen, it was mostly in the form of debt relief.
“The time to act is now,” she said, and reminded the people that it was only a few years to 2015.

Mrs Bernice Sam, National Programmes Coordinator for Women in Law and Development in Africa, a non-governmental organization of women lawyers, said achieving the MDGs was everybody’s business and called on individuals as well as government officials to make efforts to help achieve the goals by 2015.

Mr Arnold McIntyre, IMF Resident Representative, noted that it was important for countries to understand what international cooperation meant for them.

Professor Kwaku Appiah-Adu, Head of Policy Coordination, Monitoring and Evaluation and the Director of Governance Project at the Office of the President, said government was doing all it could to ensure that Ghana achieved the MDGs.

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[comment] As Food Prices Rise, Backyard Plots Thicken

from Red Orbit

By MJ ANDERSEN

MY NEIGHBOR called to say that she was through with tomatoes. Had I seen the paper? The city was raising water rates. She had hoped to grow tomatoes and zucchini in her backyard plot this year, but who could afford the watering? What sense would it make?

I pretended I knew all about the rate hike, which I did, in a vague, headline way. But the details, I found out later, were surprisingly grim: Water was going up 12 percent, sewer rates 19 percent. I thought of what my mom used to say, at parades or in stores or on car trips: Just hold it.

As for tomatoes. Lately, the news has been full of stories about people growing their own food, to offset climbing prices at the store. It seems we are all going to be tilling the median strips, tending lettuces in container gardens, starting seedlings on every sill. But if my neighbor is any bellwether, the movement is already in trouble.

Home gardeners may have to march on Washington and demand what farmers everywhere demand: a subsidy.

Still, most Americans are lucky. Many parts of the world face food shortages, in a complex crisis that has been building for a while.

Recent riots over the high cost of rice in Haiti are just the beginning. World Bank President Robert Zoellick has noted that some 30 countries could face similar upheaval.

Americans are used to paying relatively little for what they eat. But in much of the developing world, families may allot up to three- quarters of their budgets to food.

For many years, the World Bank and other do-good organizations discouraged developing nations from putting much effort into agriculture. Reasoning from classic economic principles, they figured these countries would be better off relying on trade to reduce poverty.

Why grow wheat when, say, Kansas can do it so well and so cheaply (never mind government subsidies)? Send the world colorful woven goods or electronic thingamabobs in exchange.

Now, many nations that once did a fair job of feeding themselves can barely rustle up a snack.

Haiti, for example, once produced nearly all the rice it needed. Then cheaper imported rice started flooding in. Haitian farmers could not compete.

Several factors drive the food price explosion. They include droughts, which have dampened supply; soaring demand in India and China, where economic growth has expanded incomes; higher costs for the energy needed to produce crops; and the diversion of some crops to make ethanol.

None of this is about to change.

Anxious nations are starting to promote local agriculture, with policies both good and bad. Help buying fertilizer, or better seeds, is good. But protective tariffs, for instance, may just end up raising prices.

There is evidence now that, contrary to past thinking, developing a nation's agricultural sector is a pretty good way of cutting poverty. So aid strategies should change.

But imbedded in the immediate crisis is a bigger debate. Food is different from widgets. A special shame comes with not being able to feed oneself; if you doubt it, ask an American mom who is down at the food bank collecting staples.

Economists rarely take pride into account, but it can matter greatly when it comes to trade.

Just as more nations now would like to be energy-secure, more would like to be food-secure, dependent on no one else for the essentials of life. They see trade as a sucker's game.

Free trade, which economists say distributes the most stuff to the most people most efficiently, cannot flourish amid this kind of mistrust.

But there is more. The classic economic model for trade depends on what the author Wendell Berry calls a "mentality of exploitation." We need a new model that allows for sustainability.

Growing more of our food locally may be less efficient. But it is often kinder to the planet, and more healthful. (Tainted spinach and tomatoes have been one cost of large-scale, industrial farming practices.)

Himself a farmer, Berry has long argued that we should have more farms rather than fewer, with more people working the land. His arguments apply in Malawi and Mexico as well as here at home.

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Q&A: Ethiopia's Urban Poor Cannot Afford To Eat

from IPS News

nterview with Abera Tola, Director of Oxfam's Horn of Africa regional office

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, a nation of 80 million people, has been the site of famine and drought throughout its tumultuous history. Arising from a myriad of causes and often shepherded along by political instability, the country's 1984-85 famine, for example, left over a million dead and served as the impetus for the fund-raising concerts of Live Aid in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Today, Ethiopia once again stands at the brink of a substantial food crisis, with the Word Food Program currently estimating that, of Ethiopia's 80 million citizens, 3.4 million will need emergency food relief from July to September. This is in addition to the 8 million currently receiving assistance. UNICEF has asserted that the country's food shortage this year is the most severe since 2003, when droughts forced 13.2 million people to seek emergency food aid.

IPS correspondent Michael Deibert sat down in Addis Ababa with Abera Tola, Director of the Horn of Africa Regional Office of Oxfam America, to hear his insights as to Ethiopia's latest food crisis.

IPS: Could you describe the current food crisis in Ethiopia?

ABERA TOLA: We have a food shortage, a drought and a famine, all of which are different things. Nationally, we have a food shortage in Ethiopia, which the drought has also exacerbated.

During the harvest time in January and February, the price of maize was only 180 birr ($1 is worth roughly ten Ethiopian birr), but now it is 500 birr. And teff ( a type of grain used to make Ethiopia's distinctive spongy injera bread),was 400 birr in February, and now it is 1000 birr. Who can afford that? This is the big question now.

If you go to Oxfam program areas, you can see that the farmers are ok, at least they have grain and they have something to eat stored away, they can have a surplus to send to the market. But the most affected in this country are really the urban poor, more than the rural poor. The urban poor have to have an income in order to buy grain, but that income is not there. In the city of Addis Ababa, around 4 million people, more than 80 percent, live on less than $1 per day. How can they afford food?

We have seen the government effort distributing maize at a lower price, around 300 birr, but we believe that more has to be done to support the poor.

IPS: How would you characterize the Ethiopian government's efforts thus far in the face of this crisis?

AT: Some actions taken, such as not allowing export of grain, might have helped. Again, you have some maize and wheat in government stores, which they are distributing. There are efforts, these efforts are really appreciated, but more has to be done. More policies have to come out related to food shortage issues. We have arable land in Ethiopia, but what is not there is investment, particularly in the areas of infrastructure. There are no roads, no electricity and investors are not willing to go and do farming. investors are not encouraged to come to Ethiopia and engage in the agricultural sector.

IPS: Hunger is obviously a recurring theme of life in Ethiopia. What do you think are the underlying, fundamental causes of that?

AT: We have to have good polices, strategies to really tackle poverty in Ethiopia. We are living in an area of cyclical drought and food shortages, every year. Last year, we at Oxfam raised $3 million, and the year before we raised the same amount of money, and we are doing that with meagre resources. If there was a government strategy that would address the root causes, we would be more than happy to collaborate with the government.

IPS: Why aren't rural farmers producing food the way they did before?

There are a lot of issues within that. They are producing, but a farmer who owns 2 or 3 hectares produces 20 quintals of teff (1 quintal is equivalent to 100 kilograms), as you can imagine the household in Ethiopia is about 6 or 7. To sustain his household the farmer needs more than half of that. What he can bring to the market is about 5 quintals.

Now, he will not bring the whole 5 quintals to the market at the same time because he has to speculate. Of course there are some social factors which push him to sell during the harvest time. He has to pay for his fertilizer, he has to send his children to school and buy uniforms and exercise books, but after that he will try and keep the rest and wait for the market. And thus the price goes up.

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Author shares secrets of childhood poverty

from the Muskegon Chronicle

By Susan Harrison Wolffis

or years, Jeannette Walls carried a secret, buried deep in her heart, hidden from view.

To the outside world, she was a highly successful journalist who wrote for the New York Magazine, Esquire and USA Today. She had her own column on MSNBC.com and was a regular guest on The Today Show, CNN and PrimeTimeLive.

Tall, elegant, television thin, she was a striking figure, someone who stood out from the rest of the Park Avenue crowd where she lived and worked in New York City.

But she had a secret she didn't dare tell.

Walls grew up mired in abject poverty, always hungry, her family usually a half-step ahead of the bill collectors -- and if they did have a roof over their collective heads, the house never had running water, a working bathroom or heat.

"I had no doubt that I'd be fired from my job, lose what friends I had, lose everything if people found out ... if they knew I was poor white trash," Walls said Thursday night to a capacity crowd of 400 at the Dogwood Center for Performing Arts in Fremont.

Walls, who is the author of the wildly successful book, "The Glass Castle," was the guest speaker at the Fremont Area Community Foundation's Speaker Series.

"I'm just a girl with a story," she told them.

And what a story it is.

"The Glass Castle" has been on The New York Times bestseller list for two years and has sold more than two million copies. It's been translated into 16 languages and is being made into a film by Paramount.

"It stuns me," she said. "I'm overwhelmed."

Walls managed to escape her home life, make it to college and find a career in journalism in New York City -- but one night, on her way to "a fancy outing," she looked out the window of her limousine and saw a bag lady, rummaging through a trash bin, looking for food or some cast-off treasure.

That bag lady was Walls' mother.

Walls ordered the driver to turn around and return to her Park Avenue apartment before her mother could look up and recognize her.

"The emotion that seized me was shame," Walls said. "Now I realize what a knuckle head I was. ... I think: What kind of monster was I as her daughter?"

Walls' parents had followed her -- and her three siblings -- to New York City years earlier. Even though Walls had offered help, housing, whatever they needed to better their lives, her parents chose to live in an abandoned building and forage for food and possessions by going through other people's trash.

That night in the taxi, Walls' secret was too heavy a burden to carry alone. She told her future husband, John Taylor, who urged her first to talk about her past, then to write about it.

"He completely pulled this story from me," she said in an interview before the speech.

One day, Walls met with her mother in a coffee shop and broached the subject of writing a book. She asked her mom what she should do; what she should write.

"Tell the truth," her mother said.

The hypocrisy of the conversation wasn't lost on her, Walls said. In plain language, she was an on-air gossip columnist for MSNBC, plus she wrote a column called "Scoop" for eight years. In 2000, she wrote "Dish," a book about celebrity gossip.

There she was, she said, "digging up stuff on Lindsay Lohan and I was hiding," she said. "I felt like a fraud."

As she started to write her story, not as fiction as she first attempted, but as a "story about a girl believing her dad," Walls came face to face with the cruelest piece of her past.

"Isolation of shame," she said. "If you keep secrets, they haunt you, but if you get them out, they're just something that happened."

Walls spoke Thursday night without notes, speaking at what can only be described as warp speed, slipping in and out of the West Virginia accent of her youth and the affected Park Avenue tone of her young adulthood -- and somehow finding humor in the most harrowing details of her childhood.

"sometimes truth is much more complicated than fiction," she said.

Walls has been on a nonstop speaking tour since "Glass Castle" was published in 2005. Last year, she had 91 speaking engagements. Her speech in Fremont was her 27th and final appearance of 2008, she said. She is headed home to northern Virginia where she and her husband -- and her mother -- now live.

Everywhere she goes, people urge her to write more about her adult years, more about how she ended up at Barnard College and working in television in New York City. During an interview Thursday, she confessed she'd written several chapters on her adulthood for "The Glass Castle" but they'd "fallen flat."

"There's no more to tell," she said.

Walls was inspired to start her new writing project when members of a book club told her they "understood her father," a brilliant alcoholic who "bequeathed" his children their own stars in the sky as Christmas presents when he had no money for gifts.

He promised his daughter that one day he'd build her a glass castle in the desert where they would live -- hence the name of the book, even if "alcoholism and other things got in the way of it being built," Walls said.

"But we don't understand your mother at all," the book club members told Walls.

When Walls was growing up, her mother would rather paint or read than find something for her children to eat. In one especially startling incident, Walls wrote about a time she and her siblings hadn't had anything to eat for several days -- and discovered their mother was eating chocolate candy bars she'd hidden from them.

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EU Renews Its Intentions

from IPS News

By David Cronin

BRUSSELS, European Union governments have resolved to ensure that international objectives on reducing extreme poverty are realised, but have backed away from devising concrete plans for increasing the amount of aid that they give to poor countries.

During a summit in Brussels Jun. 19-20, the EU's presidents and prime ministers agreed an 'agenda for action' against poverty. The summit reiterated their commitment to devoting 0.56 percent of their collective national income to development aid by 2010, rising to 0.7 percent by 2015. As a result, aid should double to 66 billion euros (103 billion dollars) within the next two years, with half of the increase going to Africa.

The leaders also said that all of the EU's 27 governments are "encouraged to establish their indicative timetables", outlining how they plan to make good on pledges that most of them signed up to in 2005.

Anti-poverty activists argued, however, that the 'agenda for action' was too weak and that explicit legally binding programmes for boosting aid are needed. Concord, a group that binds together most of the well-known aid agencies in Europe, complained that far from increasing aid, several EU governments cut the amount they gave to the poor over the past year. Without a dramatic improvement, the EU is likely to provide 75 billion dollars less in aid than it had promised between 2005 and 2010, the group estimates.

"A number of European governments have shown real commitment to keeping their promises on aid by setting timetables on how it should be delivered," said Jasmine Burnley, a spokeswoman for Concord. "But the majority are dragging their feet. This lack of commitment from some is pulling down the performance of Europe as a whole and compromising the EU's credibility on development."

The EU's leaders argued that the United Nations Millennium Development Goals for dramatically reducing the most extreme forms of poverty by 2015 can be attained in all of the world's regions "provided that concerted action is taken immediately and in a sustained manner."

Kumi Naidoo, chairman of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty suggested, though, that the EU had produced little more than a political statement, which may yield few tangible results.

"The agenda for action was designed to demonstrate Europe's leadership on poverty reduction," he said. "But the absence of annual timetables to guarantee timely aid provision really weakens it. We know that a lack of predictability in aid flows can severely impact on the poor by making it impossible for governments to pay teachers, nurses and other vital professionals."

In an analysis published this week, Debt AIDS Trade Africa (DATA), an organisation led by the Irish rock star Bono, berated three of the four European members of the Group of Eight (G8) top industrialised countries for not honouring pledges that they made during a summit at the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005. Of the four -- Italy, Germany, France and Britain -- only Britain appears likely to come close to meeting its targets for 2010.

Pledges made to Africa are being broken, the organisation suggested. France's assistance to sub-Saharan Africa fell by 66 million dollars between 2006 and last year, for example.

Desmond Tutu, the South African bishop and Nobel Peace Prize winner, wrote the introduction to the DATA study, stating: "Intentions are one thing, follow through is another, and I am deeply worried that France, Germany and Italy are not going to keep the promises they made to Africa in 2005, because then all of Europe will be behind."

Even though EU governments implied that the fight against global poverty should be considered an urgent matter, this and all other issues on their summit agenda were eclipsed by Ireland's rejection of the Lisbon treaty a week earlier.

Because all 27 countries have to ratify the treaty before it can have legal effect, the vote against the treaty in the Irish referendum has called its future into question.

EU governments stated that despite the Irish 'No', the ratification process should continue in other member states. So far, 19 national parliaments have approved the treaty. Ireland was the only country to directly ask its voters their opinion about it.

Nonetheless, the leaders acknowledged that the treaty is in difficulty in the Czech Republic, as well as in Ireland. Ratification has been postponed in Prague because the country's Senate has asked for a court ruling on whether or not it complies with the national constitution.

And while Britain become the 19th country to endorse it via parliament this week, a High Court judge has called on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government to delay on formally ratifying it until a legal bid designed to force a referendum is assessed. The bid has been mounted by businessman and supporter of the opposition Conservative Party, Stuart Wheeler.
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Real food crisis is not about prices

from Business Day

The world’s hungriest people are the rural poor who starve even when prices are low, writes ROBERT PAARLBERG

THE price of many basic foodstuffs has surged in the past six months. High import prices, on top of high fuel prices, place an acute economic squeeze on urban consumers in developing countries that depend heavily on the world market. In Haiti, Egypt, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Ethiopia, the urban poor have been taking to the streets.

Yet it is a mistake to see high prices as a proxy for actual hunger. Most of the world’s hungry citizens do not get their food from the world market and most who rely on the world market are not poor or vulnerable to hunger.

In south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, hunger levels are twice as high as in the developing countries of east Asia and four times as high as in Latin America. Yet these two hungry regions import very little food from the world market.

Sub-Saharan African countries take only 16% of their total grain consumption from the world market and less than 10% of total calorie consumption. So, fluctuations in international prices will have little effect in this hungry region.

Countries deep in poverty rely very little on food imports in part because they lack foreign exchange or simple purchasing power, but also because they consider the world market to be unstable and unreliable — and the current price spike illustrates why.

In poor countries, roughly 850-million people are chronically malnourished, even when world market prices are low. Most of the hungry are rural dwellers, far from grain import terminals. They can fall victim to hunger due to any number of local circumstances, including low farming productivity, illiteracy, poor health or low status linked to caste, ethnicity and gender — or all of the above.

In sub-Saharan Africa in 2005, a year when food was cheap on the international market, 23 out of 37 countries were consuming less than their nutritional requirements and one-third of all citizens were malnourished.

There are notable exceptions to this disconnect between world hunger and world markets. Countries like Eritrea, Liberia, Haiti, Burundi and Zimbabwe depend on grain imports for more than 40% of consumption and have average diets of less than 2200 calories a day, so in these countries, higher world prices will cause more actual hunger.

But in most of the developing countries that are heavily dependent on imports, diets are not so poor. In north Africa, while roughly half of all essential food items are imported, the average diet is well above 3000 calories a day, so high import prices will bring an income squeeze and perhaps even riots, but little real hunger.

The international response to the current crisis has focused on urban dwellers because they make more political noise and are within easy reach of news cameras, but the real world food crisis is mostly found in the countryside.

More than 60% of all Africans live and work in impoverished rural communities — starving for lack of any modern investments. The average African smallholder farmer is a woman who works constantly, yet earns only about $1 a day. This is because she does not plant any modern seed varieties, applies no nitrogen fertiliser to replace soil nutrients and has no irrigation (only 4% of farmland in Africa is irrigated). African farmers use hand tools because they have no access to modern machinery or electrical power. Their animals are diseased and weak because they have no access to veterinary medicine.

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Bad governance, poverty fuelling displacement - UNHCR official

from Afriquenligne

Nairobi, Kenya - Apart from conflict, other key factors fuelling displace ment of people in the world are poverty, bad governance and scarce resources, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said here Friday.

Guterres, in Kenya on a tour that has seen him meet refugees and Kenyan Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), says the UN refugee agency, formed in 1951, has see n changes in factors contributing to displacement of persons.

The agency was with the specific mandate of protecting and finding solutions for Europeans uprooted in the aftermath of the Second World War.

That was then, but in a message to the world as the globe marked the World Refugee Day, Guterres said new challenges such as the recent fuel and food shortages, have had an immediate and dramatic effect on the poor and dispossessed.

"Conflict today may be motivated by politics, but looking deeper, it can also be about climate change leading to competition for scarce resources," he said.

He said extreme price increases had generated instability and conflict in many places, with the very real potential of triggering more displacements.

"These new challenges make it all the more important that we find ways to address the increasingly complex root causes of displacement," he said.

At the UN refugee agency, the focus is on protecting the rights and well-being of refugees.

"This includes ensuring that those fleeing violence and persecution are given access to safety and life-saving assistance, as well as long-term support during exile and eventual durable solutions for them to be able to rebuild their lives," he said.

But the UN refugee chief was rather disturbed to note that the agency's work was becoming increasingly difficult in many parts of the world.

He said "In some countries, efforts to control illegal migration are failing to make a proper distinction between those who choose to move and those who are forced to flee because of persecution and violence.

"And too often, refugees are turned away at the borders of countries where they had hoped to find safety and asylum."

He noted that asylum and immigration issues were not always addressed in a rational, equitable or effective manner.

"And people in wealthy countries should be aware that most of the world's refugees are found in the developing world, and some of the largest migratory movement stake place within the South," he said.

Many developing countries, more so in Africa which is home to many refugees, have shown enormous generosity in accepting refugees and deserve much more support a nd solidarity.

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'I am Powerful' Brings Resources, Hope to Women.(

from NPR

CHERYL CORLEY, host:

We've just heard about the initiative that students are taking to help other young people around the world. And now we want to bring you a story about adults who are making a difference in the lives of other adults, as well as children.

And to do so, we're touching base again with Sheila Johnson and Dr. Helene Gayle. They were with us a year ago on Tell Me More to talk about their "I Am Powerful" campaign. It's an effort to help some of the world's most vulnerable citizens, women. More than 70 percent of the poorest people on the planet are women and children.

Sheila Johnson is the co-founder of Black Entertainment Television. She's also president of the Washington Mystics, a women's professional basketball team. And Helene Gayle is president and CEO of CARE, an international aid organization. And they join us now in the studio. Welcome.

Ms. SHEILA JOHNSON (Co-founder, Black Entertainment TV; President, Washington Mystics): Thank you, Cheryl. It's great to be here.

Dr. HELENE GAYLE (President and CEO, CARE): And thank you. This is a real pleasure.

CORLEY: Sheila Johnson, last year at this time, you had agreed to donate four million dollars to CARE's "I Am Powerful Campaign" to match contributions over the next two years, and it was supposed to encourage, as I understand it, at least three million women to join you to fight global poverty. And I was wondering whether you were able to secure the matching funds.

Ms. JOHNSON: Not only did we secure the matching funds and we got all the women involved, we actually matched the funds in eight months.

Dr. GAYLE: Yeah.

CORLEY: Wow.

Ms. JOHNSON: Yes. So we've done it, and we're still raising money, which is very exciting.

CORLEY: So how much exactly was raised?

Ms. JOHNSON: Well, as of two months ago we were at the 10-million-dollar mark.

CORLEY: You exceeded your goal?

Ms. JOHNSON: We exceeded our goal.

CORLEY: Dr. Gayle, how will those funds be used?

Dr. GAYLE: Well, those funds will be used in our programs that try to empower poor communities and giving them the skills they need to change their lives. So there are programs like reducing the risk that a woman will die in childbirth, or giving a young girl an opportunity to get educated who wouldn't have otherwise, or helping to make small loans so that women and men can start small businesses that will allow them to have extra resources for their families. ..TEXT: CORLEY: I would like you both to talk about your travels just a little bit. Together you've been to Guatemala, to Tanzania, Ecuador. I was wondering, Dr. Gayle, what's been the reaction in those countries to the "I Am Powerful" campaign?

Dr. GAYLE: Well, I think when we come together, myself and Sheila Johnson, and particularly with Sheila, who is an incredibly successful businesswoman here in this country. When they see somebody like her coming to hear about their lives and to show that she cares, it means a great deal. We have had women along the way who have asked her, seeing her as a role model, somebody who juggles a family, a career, being a businesswoman, you know, and they want to know how she does it.

CORLEY: Sheila Johnson, yeah.

Ms. JOHNSON: And I have to also say that not only hopefullythat I'm giving them something, they're giving back to me also. I mean, I'm seeing some incredible women who are just literally changing their communities in really big ways. There's one woman in an African-Ecuadorian village by the name of Betty(ph) who is just marvelous. She has so many skills out there and so many things that she can do. ..TEXT: CORLEY: So what was she doing specifically that really impressed you?

Ms. JOHNSON: Well, it was really how she was really trying to galvanize her community, to get the other women to believe in their own abilities and what they could do. And one of the things that she said just before we left that village, she says, you know, for so many times I've been told that I must stand behind a man. And she looked at all of us at CARE, the women out there, and she says, for the first time in my life, I now know I can stand behind a woman.

CORLEY: If you're just joining us, I'm Cheryl Corley. I'm speaking with Sheila Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television and president of the Washington Mystics, and Dr. Helene Gayle, president and CEO of CARE, about their campaign, "I am Powerful." And remember, you can always tell us more. We want to know what you're doing to help others. Do you travel abroad to help other countries, or do you contribute through your local church or synagogue or mosque? Go to our blog at npr.org/TellMeMore or call our comment line at 202-842-3522.

Dr. Gayle, I was wondering, on behalf of the campaign, are your efforts culturally different here in the United States than they are in other countries? I ask because I was reading about the approach you took in Afghanistan, where you were trying to keep schools open there.

Dr. GAYLE: Well, the campaign itself is a campaign primarily in this country to increase the connectedness between women in this country to the issues of poor women around the world. So "I am Powerful" is a communication campaign. And the tagline on it says, she has the power to change your world. You have the power to help her do it. That's somewhat distinct from the programs that we do in the countries in which we work, and we're in seventy countries around the world. And we've put a real focus on trying to empower women and girls because they're disproportionately impacted by poverty.

Seventy percent of people living in extreme poverty are women and girls. But we also know, through our sixty-plus years of work, that if you change the lives of women and girls, you have the best chance of having a sustainable impact on whole communities. You can't move forward if you have fifty percent of your potential left behind, if you will. And we also do know that women, when they have access to resources, they put them back into the families, have adequate nutrition, is that they get their children immunized. So we know that by investing in women and girls, you have that opportunity of having long-lasting change with whole communities.

CORLEY: Well, you're both here, of course, for the two-day national conference that CARE is holding in Washington this week. Dr. Gayle, what do you hope to accomplish?

Dr. GAYLE: What this conference is, is an annual conference when volunteers - not people who work for CARE, but volunteers - come together, they pay their own way to come to Washington to learn about the issues related to global poverty. And then they go and lobby their Congress people about issues that relate to the global poor. So it's really a chance to have the voices of the voiceless be heard.

This year, we're focusing on three issues. One is global climate change and the impact that it's having. The issue of violence against women, and then third is looking at the issue of hunger and reducing food insecurity around the world that has been highlighted because of the rising food prices but has been a long-term and long-standing issue before that.

CORLEY: How many people are going to be a part of it?

Dr. GAYLE: We estimate this year about five hundred people. And just to put that in context, six years ago when this conference first started, we had eighteen people. We have - our youngest participant is nine years old, and the oldest is ninety-one. So this is a wide range of the American people who are coming to speak truth to power and talk about the issues of global poverty.

CORLEY: Miss Johnson, I was wondering what you hope to accomplish at the conference.

Ms. JOHNSON: I'm really trying to start training leaders who can join CARE and join this movement. We have students from Parsons School of Design who are over there. They're trying to help women to better design their own designs so that they can be more marketable. We have product merchandising students over there. We have interior and architectural design students that are going to help with housing, that can build more sustainable housing for them. ..TEXT: We take for granted in this country things that we do have. And one of the reasons why I've sent these Jackie Robinson students over there is so they can see what's really going on globally, to get more of a global perspective, so that they can then bring those lessons back to help others, and we can start strengthening these young people to become leaders.

CORLEY: Well, I won't hold it against you that the Mystics beat the Chicago Sky the other day.

Ms. JOHNSON: Listen, we had to win a game. I mean, we have been struggling.

CORLEY: But I wanted to ask you a little bit, too, about the documentary. It's a new feature-length documentary called "A Powerful Noise." And you've accomplished so much in your life, entrepreneur, a sports team owner, philanthropist. What's it like now to consider yourself a filmmaker?

Ms. JOHNSON: I have to say it's probably one of the most exciting pieces of my life that has, you know, been put before me. Because we are, you know, really able to communicate the work that we're really trying to do. I'm not calling it a CARE film, but it's about women. It's about three women. We shot in Vietnam, Mali, and Bosnia. Vietnam to deal with the HIV/AIDS issue, which people have forgotten. And Mali is the education issue. Mali's one of the poorest countries in the world. And women, through education, we can keep them out of sexual trafficking. And Bosnia is really about economic empowerment.

Ossining teen takes on poverty

from Lower Hudson dot com

Kevin Zawacki

OSSINING - When asked on a college application what he felt strongly about, Ossining High School senior Omar Herrera thought of some of the people struggling to live and get by in one of the wealthiest places in America.

"The issue of poverty leapt to mind," explained Herrera. "Many don't realize that, according to the Westchester Food Bank, an estimated 200,000 people are hungry in Westchester County."

Herrera, who is working as summer intern for state Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, D-Ossining, had those thoughts in mind when he decided to organize a community forum on poverty. He promoted the Wednesday night event by sending fliers home to every parent in the Ossining public schools, putting up posters throughout the village and speaking about it the Sunday before to the congregations at St. Ann's Church and First Presbyterian Church.

The forum drew about 30 people to the Joseph G. Caputo Community Center in Broadway to discuss the implications of being poor in an affluent suburb.

"People don't want to talk about poverty," said Westchester County Legislator William Burton, D-Ossining. "But one out of every five people goes to bed hungry in this county."

Burton was among seven panelists who explored the connections between poverty and the economy, government, education, and religion.

The majority of the discussion revolved around the elusive pursuit of affordable housing.

"Safe, decent, affordable housing lays the foundation for a family's economic security," said Reggie Bush, president of Ossining's Interfaith Council for Action. "But families with income below the poverty level can't afford that."

Bush drew parallels between homeownership and educational success, civic involvement, and health. He also noted several obstacles that prevent residents from obtaining affordable housing, including a lack of rent caps and poor advertising.

Charlie Knight, area director for Ossining's Community Action Program, elaborated on the subject.

"Ossining needs more than affordable housing - it needs low-income housing," she said. "Only then can we help people become self-sufficient."

The panel also focused on the relationship between poverty and education. Angela White, Ossining schools assistant superintendent for elementary education, stressed the importance of education.

White noted that teachers should begin to tune into children's economic problems and encourage them to overcome those obstacles.

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Mighty river powers up remote village

from the Inquirer

Rita Festin
Philippine Daily Inquirer

TOBOSO, Negros Occidental--"Isn't this the worst road that you have ever traveled on?" Mayor Evelio Valencia told officials of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Japanese embassy when they arrived in far-flung Sitio Vergara in Bug-ang, his town's most neglected barangay (village) because of its inaccessibility.

The isolation of the barangay is understandable. No well-meaning vehicle owner would want to subject his vehicle to the kind of roads that Toboso is known for, made worse by the regular afternoon downpours. Its rocky terrain and clay-like soil will either pierce or sink tires easily. Six inches of grass grows in the middle of the road for pedestrians to step on to avoid mud and puddles. It takes half a day for farmers to bring down on foot one or two sacks of their produce all the way to the barangay-proper six kilometers down, while renting a carabao would cost P300. More often than not, farmers would just leave behind their produce to rot at home if they are not sold. Hence, residents are cut off from economic activity and remain poor.

Next to rehabilitated roads, residents yearn for electricity to improve their lives. The local electric utility Central Negros Electric Cooperative (Ceneco) could not connect them to the grid due to high cost and lack of economic activity. Thus, when ADB, through its Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction, came in and proposed a micro hydro power plant for sitios Vergara and Magtuod, it was a dream come true. But the dream took a long time to materialize.

The project was not readily accepted by residents, most of whom could not believe that such a major project would be set up in their remote barangay, without any strings attached, nor was it a loan requiring any payback. One version even says the project was a smokescreen for a treasure hunting expedition in Dalinson River.

Giovanni Templado, chairman of Barangay Bug-ang, led the nonbelievers. "Hindi ako naniniwala kasi maraming palpak na co-op e. Ngayon, totoo na. Nagpasalamat ako. (At first, I did not believe in it because there are so many failed cooperatives. Now, I can see that it is for real. And I am so grateful.)"

It took Winrock International, the project's implementing agency, a couple of years and many meetings and dialogue until some residents finally embraced the project, that they would be provided electricity and livelihood as well. They also had to be trained to form and manage their own cooperative to run the project under the name Vergara Magtuod Development Cooperative or Vemadeco which now has over 100 members consisting of farmers and hacienda workers. Thus, when the power plant was finally commissioned on May 30, it was a cause for celebration comparable to a feast, with fireworks in the middle of the day, loud dance music blaring from a karaoke machine, and a roasted pork especially fattened and seasoned with lemongrass served as the main course. Residents dedicated and sang a song to the tune of "Mamang Sorbetero" in gratitude. Overwhelmed by the outpouring, the Japanese official belted out the theme song from the popular Japanese cartoon series "Voltes V" to the crowd's glee.

The project, dubbed "Renew Negros," is an innovative poverty reduction project to pilot renewable energy and livelihood development in poor off-grid rural communities. There will be 11 renewably energy systems built, consisting of micro hydro power plants, solar/biomass hybrid systems, and hydraulic ram pump systems. The three micro hydro power plants will have an aggregate output of 85 kW that will run rice and corn mills and energize 500 homes.

Besides the micro hydro power plant in Toboso, another 32 kW micro-hydro power plant, with a project cost of P7.6 million, was commissioned in Sitio Balea, Barangay Laga-an, Municipality of Calatrava. In August, the 21 kW micro-hydro power plant in Barangay Baclao will likewise be commissioned. The two solar/biomass hybrid systems in Molocaboc and Sipaway islands will have a drying capacity of 100 kilos of marine products per day, creating a ready market for the fish catch for the fishermen in the two communities. The hydraulic ram pumps will benefit 360 families in six sitios who will have a daily water supply of almost 500,000 liters for household and school use and to irrigate farms.

An important component of the project besides the renewable energy project is the provision for livelihood activities, under a microcredit fund known as "Renew Fund" to be managed by the Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation. It will provide residents up to P5,000 in loans for electricity connection and livelihood development to purchase fertilizer, carabao, etc. at very low interest rates and a flexible repayment schedule.

Gov. Isidro Zayco has been pushing for the building of hydroelectric plants. There is an energy shortage in this province, resulting in rotating power outages which have already damaged household appliances and electrical equipment. Since the province is endowed with seven large rivers and abundant rains even during summer, it has a huge potential for hydroelectric power. There is so much rain that it is easy to plant "tubo" which produces sugar, hence the town's name "Toboso."

In Toboso town, they used to rely on kerosene, batteries, candles, and traditional biomass fuel for their electricity. Now, with the commissioning of the P7.4 million 32 kW micro-hydro power plant tapping the Dalinson River, households can use CFC light bulbs at night so that students can study and housewives can perform chores without inhaling toxic fumes from kerosene lamps. The grain mill operation will boost the production of rice and corn in the area, reduce the cost of processing and milling in nearby communities, and ensure better market and price for their produce. All these at only a cost of P5.50 per kWh, which is cheaper than the cost of buying kerosene which is P44 per liter, or almost P200 in monthly savings per average household. With the improved disposable income, and the availability of group funds, some members can now engage in backyard livestock raising.

At the inauguration rites, ADB principal energy specialist Yongping Zhai acknowledged the people behind the project, from the Japanese government who funded it, the Department of Energy who is the executing agency, and Winrock International who implemented it. "But even with the equipment, with all the expertise we have, we cannot do it without you. Thanks to you, we have been able to achieve it," he told Vemadeco members and residents who had gathered for the commissioning ceremony.

"What makes this project even more remarkable than just another energy project is that it is environment-friendly to nature," Kohei Noda, financial attaché of the Japanese embassy

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Call for unified fight to end global poverty

from the Edinburgh News

SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki today urged world leaders to end the divide between rich and poor in the "global village" at the start of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

More than 100 world leaders - with the notable exception of US President George W Bush - are meeting for ten days to find ways of helping millions of people out of poverty without poisoning the planet.

Mr Mbeki opened the World Summit on Sustainable Development today in the Sandton convention centre.

There was a heavy police presence outside to shield delegates from crowds of demonstrators and sprawling, crime-ridden slums.

It is hoped the Summit will lead to agreements which will help more than one billion people without access to clean water and more than two billion without proper sanitation.

It also aims to develop specific plans for expanding the poor’s access to electricity and health care, to reverse the degradation of agricultural land, protect the global environment, save fish stocks and fight Aids.

Mr Mbeki told delegates at the opening session of the World Summit on Sustainable Development today: "A global human society based on poverty for many and prosperity for a few, is unsustainable.

"The world has grown into a global village. The survival of everybody in this village demands that we develop a universal consensus to act together to ensure there is no longer any river that divides our common habitat into poor and wealthy parts."

He said the world clearly agreed that international solidarity was needed to fight poverty and inequality and called for real results from the Summit.

"The peoples of the world expect that this summit will live up to its promise of being a fitting culmination to a decade of hope," Mr Mbeki said.

At a colourful ceremony last night, Mr Mbeki said there was now a common need to end the "global apartheid".

He added: "Out of Johannesburg and out of Africa must emerge something that takes the world forward. We have no choice but to unite in action to ensure the triumph of the vision of sustainable development. Together, we will win. "

Summit Secretary-General Nitin Desai stressed the final documents must contain specific timetables and targets.

Mr Desai lamented the "implementation gap" between the commitments made at the 1992 Earth Summit and the world’s lack of action toward achieving those environmental and development goals.

Poverty and ill health continued as does global climate change and environmental degradation, he said. "We must have this sense that we have no time to lose."

President Bush’s failure to attend has led critics to further question the commitment of the world’s only superpower and biggest polluter to the green agenda first agreed at Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

"(The United States) can be a catalyst for positive action or a constraint on international co-operation," said Achim Steiner, director general of The World Conservation Union, or IUCN.

US officials have said Mr Bush is too busy to attend the summit.

Washington is leading resistance to demands from developing countries for concrete commitments to higher aid payments and more access to Western import markets, but says it is keen to promote worthy projects in partnership with private enterprise.

Head of the US delegation, Assistant Secretary of State John Turner, said he was "feeling positive" about recent progress. But he also played down the importance of the summit’s final documents, saying they were secondary to the "really historic opportunity" the summit offers to launch "results-oriented projects".

Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said yesterday: "It’s true that the American Government is not doing as much as we would all like , but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of people in America who take these issues as seriously as they deserve."

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Guest speaker gives update on Habitat's work in Argentina

from the Pocono Record

By Andrew Scott

In a country where four out of every 10 families are forced to live on less than $50 a month in one-room tin shacks and children miss school after it rains because the dirt roads are too muddy to walk on, how do people find hope for the future?

One way is through building new homes for themselves, with the help of small no-interest loans and learning to keep and maintain their homes and budget both for living expenses and paying back those loans. Those payments go to help other families build homes.

Habitat for Humanity's sister affiliate in Argentina has been giving people in that country the opportunity to do all this since 2004.

"It boosts self-esteem when people can say, 'Now I'm not so poor because I can help another family,'" Ana Cutts, national director of Habitat for Humanity Argentina, told members of the Monroe County Habitat for Humanity affiliate during a Thursday visit at East Stroudsburg United Methodist Church.

This was Cutts' first visit to the sponsoring affiliate in Monroe County, which tithes donations it receives to the Argentina affiliate.

Founded in the U.S. in the 1970s, Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization, helps struggling, low-income families build affordable housing for themselves. Families are given loans which, when paid back, go into a fund to help other families build affordable homes.

Habitat now has affiliates in Third World countries such as Argentina, where the work it does is most needed. Affiliates function on community donations and, if in poorer countries, tithes from sponsoring sister affiliates.

Cutts on Thursday presented a certificate of appreciation to Douglas Freeman, president of the Monroe County affiliate.

"Argentina is a country of contrasts, rich vs. poor," Cutts said. "The poverty is growing and worsening (especially in light of crises like the devaluing of the country's currency in 2001 and the current farmers' strike). Families living in shacks eat at soup kitchens, churches or wherever else they can find food.

"Out of all the Latin American countries, Argentina has the third-highest need for adequate housing for its poor," she said, showing a short film featuring families' grateful reactions to Habitat's work there.

Habitat provides families with small loans, each ranging from $1,000 to $1,500, and has each family take part in building their new home. One-room tin shacks are replaced by one- or two-bedroom homes, built from square-meter concrete panels, with kitchens and dining and living rooms.

Habitat's More Than Houses program teaches families:

* Financial literacy, which involves budgeting and deciding what expenses (such as toys or snacks) to cut.
* Legal literacy to avoid mistakes like signing away home ownership.
* "Little Bricks," an effort that lets the children do presentations on what they've learned about the responsibilities of having a new home.

So far, Habitat has helped 397 families in Argentina and plans to help even more, Cutts said.

The other benefit is building relations between the families and Habitat volunteers from the U.S. helping them.

"People in Argentina tend to have a negative view of Americans," Cutts said. "But when they see these Americans coming there to help them, they connect with them as fellow human beings, regardless of whatever their politics may be.

"This goes hand in hand with changing Argentina's view of its poor," she said. "Not all poor people are criminals. Many obey the law, have jobs and do the best they can to raise their children to have morals and values, despite the conditions under which they live."

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Refugee reunions come at cost

from the Age

by Brendan Nicholson

THOUSANDS of refugees are living in poverty in Australia because of a system that obliges them to pay air fares for family members to follow them here.

Research conducted in Victoria for the Refugee Council of Australia says many are suffering from malnutrition and living in overcrowded and stressful conditions as they battle to raise the money for air fares. Some are homeless.

The council says up to 7000 of the more than 13,000 refugees who come to Australia under the special humanitarian program are sponsored or "proposed" by someone here who pays their air fare and helps them settle.

More come to Victoria than to any other state and most of the proposers are former refugees themselves.

The council says that while some proposers receive interest-free loans to cover the cost of air fares, most borrow money from "informal sources" — "in some cases with excessively high interest rates and short repayment periods".

"The desire to access funds as quickly and easily as possible once the visas have been issued has made proposers vulnerable to exploitative loan arrangements," says the report, Who bears the cost of our humanitarian program?Sometimes families are split because of long delays in raising loans, the research found.

In most cases where the proposer was not a spouse or a child of those being brought in, the debt was transferred to the new arrival.

Burdened by the debt, many were unable to afford their own accommodation and were forced to live with their sponsor, often in overcrowded conditions, until the loan was paid off.

"This placed significant strain on the relationship between the proposer and the new entrant resulting in some cases in the relationship breaking down at a crucial stage in the new entrant's settlement process," the report says.

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Study outlines plight of the working poor

from the York Dispatch

by KATHY STEVENS

A biennial study released Wednesday highlights the plight of low- to middle-income individuals in York County and statewide who in many cases live a paycheck away from financial trouble.

These families often earn a couple of hundred dollars more than federal eligibility requirements allow, resulting in a gap in services that could make the difference in economic prosperity, said Marianne Bellesorte, senior policy analyst for PathWays PA, a Philadelphia-based agency that serves women, children and families.

In York County, for example, a bare-bones budget -- which is the minimum amount of money needed to survive -- is $17,780 per year for a single adult.

Families comprising two adults and two children -- one preschooler and one of school age -- must earn $48,304 annually to cover the minimum expenses including food, taxes, health care, child care, and mortgage or rent, according to the study.

These amounts are more than 200 percent of the federal poverty guideline, which for most services is the cutoff for assistance, Bellesorte said.

The goal: Backers of the study -- the Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania 2008 -- have called on legislators and advocates to use the financial information gathered this year as a gauge to better serve a growing number of working poor.

The goal is to aid legislators, work-force investment boards, industry partnerships and career centers in training and counseling customers to better enable them to obtain education or skills training so they become or remain economically self-sufficient -- meaning not reliant on government subsidies or assistance.

The study was prepared for PathWays PA with contributions from the state Department of Labor and Industry, the University of Washington, the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania and numerous advocates.

"The study offers the most bare-bones budgets for self-sufficiency," Bellesorte said. "The budgets don't include credit card debt, student loans or high mortgage payments, but the minimum that people need to earn to survive."

Diana Pearce developed the self-sufficiency standard in 1977. The standard is a realistic gauge of what it costs to live by taking into account the true cost of living from one county to another, and one state to the next, according to Pearce, Bellesorte and others involved in the study now available in 35 states.

Child-care factor: The most troublesome finding for families is the ever-increasing need and cost for child care ,which accounts for one-third of the total budget, according to the study.

In York County, a single parent of one preschooler pays about $566 monthly; a single parent of an infant and preschooler pays $1,127, which is the same price a two-parent household would pay for two children.

Add one more child to the mix, and the cost increases to $1,610, according to the sixth edition study. These days, that is among the greatest expenses for parents and one that often prevents them from working outside the home because wages earned barely cover child care costs.

The federal poverty guideline, implemented in 1965, is an across-the-board assessment of cost. The federal guidelines allot 30 percent of the family budget for food versus the 10 percent the study shows families actually spend on food.

But the guideline also doesn't account for transportation costs that minimally comprise about 10 percent of the budget, according to the study. That amount allows for five 20-mile commutes and one trip to a grocery store each week, a monthly vehicle payment, and insurance, Pearce said.

The Self-Sufficiency Study, which lists the true costs of living in each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties, is available online at www.pathwayspa.org. The biennial study was complied for Philadelphia-based PathWays PA through a cooperative effort of the Department of Labor and Industry, United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania and the University of Washington and numerous advocates.

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Full bellies, hungry minds

from ODE Magazine

In India, a group of monks feeds nearly a million kids a day, proving there is such a thing as a free lunch.
Tijn Touber

He’s in the Netherlands fundraising for new trucks and food processors, but in no time—and who could blame him?—finds himself addicted to the typically Dutch cookie treat stroopwafels. Chitranga Chaitanya Das—better known as CC Das—has already mastered the pronunciation (STROHP-wah-fuls) and will travel today to Gouda, the birthplace of this sugary treat, to place an order. Then it will simply be a matter of time before many thousands of Indian schoolchildren can enjoy stroopwafels as a dessert after their daily meal of soup, rice, three vegetables, chapatis and yogurt.

This is the constant occupation of the Hindu Hare Krishna monk: ensuring all those hungry children from his native India are fed. He and his Akshaya Patra Foundation now deliver 850,000 free meals to some 5,000 schools six days a week. Insiders at the United Nations World Food Programme consider his work among the most successful projects, and students of the prestigious Harvard Business School were full of praise for his organization in a study they conducted. The foundation’s annual accounts are audited (free) by KPMG, which concluded that for every dollar that comes in, an impressive 90 cents is used to buy food. The rest goes to overhead, including truck drivers and gasoline, but excluding management salaries—since these don’t exist.

It all started in the Bangalore Hare Krishna temple in southern India, explains Das as he sits—a dish of stroopwafels within reach—to explain how he unleashed a small revolution eight years ago. Das, part of the local monk community, looks back: “One day we were sitting with a couple of monks talking about how wonderful it is that we can give something tasty to the thousands of people who come to the temple each week, as is the tradition in India. But, we said, what about all those people who aren’t able to come to the temple? Can we give them something too?”

That question stirred up a variety of responses. The monks wanted to give food to the local people, but if they were to distribute it on the street, they were concerned people would become lazy and dependent, which would only serve to sustain poverty. One of the monks had read in a UN report that some 45 million Indian children rarely go to school because their parents would rather keep them at home to work on the land or beg on the street. In certain parts of India, poverty is considered a fate simply to be endured. “The children who do go to school,” Das explains, “must often leave at noon because they are so hungry they cannot concentrate. Poor children rarely eat breakfast.”

Then the monks came up with the idea. It occurred to them that they could double the impact if they brought food to the schools: Children would become stronger, smarter and healthier, and the schools would no longer be deserted, enabling India to develop.

They started their first experiment in 2000. Fifteen hundred children from schools around the temple were provided with fresh lunches, prepared by 30 monks in the temple using vegetables from their own garden. The agreement: Anyone at school gets a free lunch. The result: Children who had never gone to school suddenly started to come. The news spread like wildfire and it wasn’t long before other schools came knocking at the monks’ door.

“We were working like crazy,” Das remembers. Within the Hare Krishna movement, he’d already raised considerable funds for a cultural centre; this time, he collected private donations both in India and abroad and looked for sponsors from the business community. And he was successful. In the second year, the number of daily lunches reached 30,000. An impressive figure, but Das clearly remembers, “That meant we had to cut over 5,000 kilos (11,000 pounds) of vegetables a day. It got to the point that we had to start cutting vegetables the day before. But that wasn’t prudent given the high temperatures in our state. When you prepare food in India, you can’t be careful enough.”

At that point, many others would have decided enough was enough, but Das persisted. Thus began his search for the most efficient kitchen. He bought new machines for cutting vegetables, cleaning rice and processing enormous amounts of food quickly and hygienically. The foundation now runs three industrial kitchens in India valued at some $2 million each. The kitchens were designed to be as automated as possible to minimize the need for human involvement. The pans are so big they can easily accommodate a sack of rice.

“Now we can cook enough rice for 1,000 children in 15 minutes,” Das says, bursting with pride. “In an hour, we can make 10,000 chapatis. In six hours, we can prepare 250,000 meals. We process 100,000 kilos (220,000 pounds) of rice and lentils a day. That’s unheard of in India.”

The scope of his work continues to expand. This summer Das expects to be preparing a million meals a day. With a mischievous look he says, “We really want to get into The Guinness Book of Records.”

The impact of the monks’ work hasn’t gone unnoticed. There’s been a considerable increase in the number of children sent to school in the areas where Akshaya Patra is active. And in a 2006 study, U.S. research bureau ACNielsen showed the health of children improves at schools where the kids get a free, fresh meal. Their grades shoot up: boys’ results increased by 14 percent and girls’ by as much as 34 percent.

As a result of lobbying efforts by Das—who as program director handles planning, management and financing—a law has been introduced requiring schools in India to provide lunch. A few states, including Orissa, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, have chosen to give money to the monks to provide the meals. The kitchens have been equipped to allow for local differences in taste; vegetables and dairy products are purchased at local markets.

Although most of the attention and resources go to the mammoth kitchens, Akshaya Patra has also set up smaller kitchens in the poorest areas that are primarily home to tribal communities. Five hundred school lunches a day are made there. “In those areas, no one was going to school, not even the teachers,” says Das. “Most people had no idea what day of the week it was. That’s changing now.”

In these regions, the place of women in society has increased since they started working in the kitchens. “It is not unusual for women to be physically abused by their husbands,” Das explains, frowning. “Because the 700 women we have working for us feed 1,000 children, their status and self-esteem have increased.”

The organization as a whole currently numbers 86 monks and more than 2,500 paid staff. “But the entire process is supervised by the monks,” Das emphasizes as he munches the last stroopwafel. “Which makes sense. After all, who else would be crazy enough to get up every day at 2:30 a.m. to work in the kitchen?”

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Allanblackia - A New Link Between Rural Poverty Reduction and Forest Conservation

from All Africa

Public Agenda (Accra)

By Ama Kudom-Agyemang

Thanks to the NOVELLA Africa Project, the Allanblackia plant has now gained the prominence it deserves, as an economic tree with great potential to reduce poverty, particularly in rural communities where it occurs.

It is one of the wild plant species, from whose seeds, oil is extracted by local communities for various purposes such as producing local soap and for cooking. But in the case of the latter, other nut oil (particularly palm kernel oil) is mixed with it to make it more acceptable. It used to be un-popular among local communities because of the perception that the oil was inferior in quality to other locally found fat producing crops.

The good news is that oil from the species may be used as a substitute for palm oil to produce commercial products such as margarine and soaps. Research conducted by Unilever indicates that Allanblackia oil has a higher melting point and congeals easily at room temperature. Its special fatty acid composition (of roughly 60% stearic and 35% oleic acids) gives it unique physical and nutritional properties, and a great potential for use in manufacturing novel products.

The Allanblackia is a typical tropical rain forest belt tree species, most often found occurring in the same areas where cocoa thrives. Thus, Allanblackia is commonly found in the Western, Central, Eastern and Ashanti regions, and possibly in parts of the Brong-Ahafo.

In 2002, the Novella Initiative was born by four core partners namely Unilever, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Netherlands Development Organisation (SNV) and the World Agro-forestry Centre (ICRAF). The aim was to purposely improve the sustainable development of the Allanblackia plant through the implementation of the NOVELLA Africa Project in Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The main target and beneficiary groups of the project were the rural poor communities, who collected and sold Allanblackia seeds for processing into oil. Other beneficiaries at the local levels included small scale private sector companies, haulage contractors, nurserymen, input suppliers and millers. Thus right from its onset, the project identified various employment avenues for local people that were not too capital intensive and rather required diligence on one hand and a team work spirit on the other.

It had a national focus, which was to develop a new export commodity which will add further value to the country's national resources, reduce poverty and ensure sustainable forest management.

The global aim of the NOVELLA Africa Project was to ensure that supply of edible oil or edible oil based products was from sustainable sources and that it would help conserve the tropical forests of Africa. The trust was to address concerns raised by international consumers about the likely environmental and socio-economic impacts of such a project.

The main concern for the environmentalists was that the project did not in any way alter the balance in nature, in view of the magnitude of the collection of seeds involved. Even though the seeds of Allanblackia are not suitable for human consumption, they form part of major stable foods of some animals in the wild, which in turn form a vital part of the bush meat chain.

Another unique Public Private Partnership was formed in Ghana to assist and facilitate the implementation of the project. Members were the IUCN, Unilever, the International Tree Seed Centre (ITSC), ICRAF, Forestry Research Institute of Ghana (FORIG), SNV and Novel Ghana.

The primary goal of this particular partnership was to ensure the success of the novelty project from seed collection by local communities through processing to marketing, by investigating and promoting aspects related to its social acceptability, environmental sustainability and financial viability. Its ultimate objective was to secure the commercial viability of the extraction and uses of the Allanblackia fruit.

Through the partnership, the "Allanblackia: Standard Setting and Sustainable Supply Chain Management Project," was also initiated with the IUCN as the main implementer through its local partners in Ghana including the USAID funded Technoserve, FORIG and the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA). Funding was provided by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) of Switzerland.

In an interview, the IUCN Co-ordinator for the project, Mr. Samuel Kofi Nyame, explained that "it was launched in March 2005 to compliment the efforts of the Novella Project." He said the main goals of the project, which will officially end in June 2008, were to develop guidelines to direct activities in all parts of the Allanblackia supply chain, to ensure that the supply chain is managed in a sustainable way, and t ascertain that local actors in Ghana have the capacity to ntually take over the supply chain.

According to Mr. Nyame "initial activities essentially investigated the socio-economic, ecological and species related impacts of the commercialization of Allanblackia." He said this was to enable them put in place measures that will ensure sustainable harvesting as well as the equitable sharing of benefits among stakeholders.

Asked if environmental concerns have been well catered for in the implementation process, Mr. Nyame, who is also a conservation expert said one activity being implemented under the project, is "Forest Landscape Restoration." He stressed that "Allanblackia provides a unique opportunity to use a native tree species with environmental and economic benefits to restore degraded forest landscapes in Ghana."

Mr. Nyame recalled that Ghana like many tropical countries, experienced a period of exotic species plantations resulting in negative consequences for local biodiversity and livelihoods. He was optimistic that the use of the Allanblackia tree in the "Forest Landscape Restoration Project will yield positive environmental and socio-economic results.

The thick and hard bark of the Allanblackia tree makes it relatively resistant against forest fires. The species is consequently valued by communities in the semi-deciduous forest landscapes for its capacity to reduce the risk of fires. Also, Allanblackia casts only a minimal shade with its narrow crown and is relatively difficult to eliminate as it sprouts easily. Smallholder involvement in Allanblackia planting can help enhance the integrity of forest landscapes even as incorporating the species into farming systems will contribute to improved landscape connectivity.

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Women's low pay 'behind poverty'

from the BBC

Tackling the low pay of women is the key to ending child poverty in the UK, according to the TUC.

A third of women in work earn less than £100 a week, but the figure falls to 14% for men, the TUC says.

The government has pledged to halve child poverty by 2010 and end it a decade later.

But the latest figures showed that the number of children living in poverty rose for a second year to 2.9 million, before housing costs, in 2006-2007.

The main measure of relative poverty used by the government is the number of people living in households with income 60% below the median household, with the poverty line adjusted for family size.

Mothers 'trapped'

Research by the TUC, the End Child Poverty coalition and the Fawcett Society said that women's low pay had "huge implications" for their children's living standards.

POVERTY LINE (WEEKLY INCOME BEFORE HOUSING COSTS)
Couple, two children aged 5 and 14 - £346
Lone parent, two children aged 5 and 14 - £271
Childless couple - £226
Single individual - £151
Source: DWP

Half of all the child poor lived in working households, the report said. Women in Britain were more likely to be poor than others in Europe from the moment they conceived.

The TUC said that mothers were being trapped in part-time, low-paid jobs. More than 75% of part-time workers were female.

The gender pay gap for full-time workers was 17.2%, with the average hourly wage for men at £14.98 compared with £12.40 for women.

Action needed

"As 40% of households are now headed by single mothers, this has concerning implications for tackling child poverty," said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber.

"It is vital the government tackles low pay and takes action to stop discrimination against mothers now."

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Wined, sealed and delivered

from the Journal Live

by Jane Hall, The Journal

TWO North East restaurants are showing that a commitment to Fairtrade and support for local producers can be a recipe for success.

Owners of modern Northumbrian restaurant Grainger Rooms and popular Fairtrade eatery The Open Kitchen, Chris Slaughter and Chris Jewitt, have joined forces to show that dining out does not need to be an ethical minefield.

The two Newcastle-based businesses, which already stock a high amount of goods sourced from producers in the third world as well as from within this region, will be among the first restaurants in the North East to stock new to the market Fairtrade Merlot Reserve and Sauvignon Blanc by Chilean company Lautaro.

Owner and head chef of Grainger Rooms, Chris Slaughter, said: “Supporting Fairtrade producers like Lautaro makes sense, not just in terms of the high quality of the product, but also in terms of what this business can mean for the farmers responsible for producing it.”

Restaurants stocking out-of-season produce has recently come under scrutiny following comments made by TV chef Gordon Ramsay.

Last month the celebrity chef said restaurants should be fined for using the likes of asparagus in December and Kenyan strawberries in March – both are in-season in the UK now. This claim has serious implications for Fairtrade, but the two Chrises argue this does not, and should not, be an either or situation.

Co-owner of The Open Kitchen and chair of Newcastle’s Fairtrade Partnership, Chris Jewitt, said: “It’s important people start to realise eating with a conscience can be done in a varied and responsible way that doesn’t mean choosing just one to support.

“Finding a happy medium between helping to make poverty history by supporting Fairtrade and cutting food miles and improving the local economy through support for local producers – as championed by The Journal’s buy local, use local, eat local Taste Campaign – is becoming essential in today’s market.”

Chris opened Fairtrade eatery The Open Kitchen in Gosforth with business partner Andreas Korovessis in 2003. He recently moved to sister restaurant Grainger Rooms, which champions on its menu producers located within a 20 mile radius of the restaurant opposite Newcastle’s Laing Art Gallery.

Chris Slaughter, said: “Here at Grainger Rooms we feel very strongly about supporting local producers in Northumberland and serving up a menu which reflects seasonality.

“Sistering The Open Kitchen makes sense ethically as we are each taking on one another’s characteristics in sourcing our produce, with Grainger Rooms using more Fairtrade and The Open Kitchen sourcing many ingredients locally.” Currently Grainger Rooms relies upon Fairtrade producers for things like sugar, coffee, spices, herbs, and beer and will also be selling Lautaro wine later this year.

“At Grainger Rooms we welcome the diversity of produce offered by Fairtrade producers, particularly for things that are not available in this country.” Lautaro is a co-operative of 16 small-scale vine farmers around the town of Sagrada Familia, in the Curico Valley area of Chile at the foot of the Andes, 200km south of the capital Santiago.

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Columbus' need for food aid outpaces other Ohio cities'

from the Columbus Dispatch

By Catherine Candisky

Demand for help putting food on the table has grown faster in the Columbus area during the past year than any other metropolitan region of the state.

The number of people receiving food stamps and public assistance is up 9.4 percent in the central Ohio area from a year ago.

Statewide, enrollment in the two tax-funded programs increased 7.3 percent between May 2007 and May 2008, according to state statistics compiled by Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

“Ohio families are struggling to pay their housing costs, fill their gas tanks and put food on their tables," Brown said. “It's alarming that the number of Ohio families in need of food assistance has risen so rapidly in the past year.”

Brown, who has been visiting food pantries across the state, said many of the families seeking help work full time or hold two or more part-time jobs but still struggle to feed their children.

“All the trends are going the wrong way — more unemployment, more stagnant wages, higher costs of fuel, higher costs of food.”

Those who not too long ago were donating, or even volunteering, at food pantries now are in need themselves, Brown added.

The increased demand in the Columbus area — which included Franklin County and 18 surrounding counties — outpaced metropolitan areas of Cleveland, Cincinnati, Dayton and Toledo.

The Dayton area had the second-highest increase over the past year with a 9.2 percent jump, while demand was up 6 percent in the Cleveland area, the lowest in the state, according to statistics provided by Brown.

While the statistics are alarming, they are not surprising considering the increase in the number of Ohioans living below the federal poverty level, currently set at $21,200 a year for a family of four.

Between 1970 and 2004, Ohio's population increased 8 percent while the percentage of Ohioans living in poverty jumped 43 percent. About 14 percent of Ohioans have incomes at or below the poverty level and about a third earn less than 200 percent of the poverty level, an amount many economists view as necessary for a family to be self-sufficient.

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Poverty seen through the eyes of the poor

from the Chronicle Journal

By PETER BURKOWSKI

For those viewing a new photo exhibit, seeing is understanding.

The display, “Poverty in Thunder Bay: This is Reality”, is a collection of “photovoice” pieces by seven Thunder Bay residents living in poverty.

Co-ordinated by the Thunder Bay Economic Justice Committee), it consists of 25 photographs with accompanying text, intended to show poverty from the perspective of those experiencing it.

“I just want people to realize that (poverty) is here, and that we have to do something about it,” event co-ordinator Karli Brotchie said Thursday.

The participants were issued disposable cameras and given roughly three months to submit between three and five images.

The display was inspired by a similar project undertaken previously by committee partner the Canadian Mental Health Association.

The subject matter of the photos varies from scenes of nature, to close-up still lifes, to shots of urban decay.

The results were surprising – even to those involved.

“I think a lot of these people coming into the project weren‘t aware that they had an artistic side,” said Brotchie, “and through this they realized they really do have some skill.”

One of the photovoice artists was Tracy Hurlbert.

“I took pictures of . . . hearing aid batteries and food, because often I have to choose between hearing and eating,” said Hurlbert.

She learned about the project through friends, and was immediately interested in helping to raise awareness about how poverty affects her and many others in the city.

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'We Must Minimise Increase in Urban Poverty and Squalor'

from All Africa

Daily Trust (Abuja)

The rapid urban migration which has increased with the growth of our population in the last few years now poses fresh challenges to government and other stakeholders in the housing sector.

These challenges which include but not limited to declining infrastructure, non adherence to town planning and building regulations, lack of access to basic health facilities, poor sanitation and environmental pollution call for new strategies.

Chief Chuka Odom, at the occasion of the rapid urban sector profiling for sustainability (RUSPS) training for the preparation of structure plans for three cities, held in Anambra State in November 2007, said one of such strategies is to develop new urban centers and aggressive urban renewal schemes.

'We must find a way to minimise the increasing urban poverty and squalor which has increased crime rates in our cities. The target should be simple. Clean and affordable urban housing for the low income group. It is a tested and proven strategy which has brought sustainable growth and development to countries like China, India and of late, Indonesia,' the minister said.

At the African Ministers' Conference on Housing and Urban Development held in Durban, South Africa in 2005, part of the declaration was that in Africa, rapid population growth has been accompanied by rapid urbanization. The pace of socio-economic development in urban centres has not been matched by parallel development of infrastructure and social service facilities. In some cities, the population living in slum areas reaches more than 60 per cent. Consequently, the majority of the populations in some of the African cities live in abject poverty, illiteracy and in poor housing conditions.

In the next 30 years, Africa's population will double from 888 million in 2005, to 1.77 billion. During the same period, the urban population will increase from 353 million, which is 39.7 percent, to 748 million inhabitants at the rate of 4 to 5 percent per annum. In the next 30 years, roughly 400 million people will be added to the urban population. As highlighted in the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the process of urbanization is intrinsic to economic and social development.

In 2001, about 61 percent of all African urban residents lived in slums, with 54 percent of these in sub-Saharan Africa and 7 percent in Northern Africa. Even more notable is the slum incidence in sub- Saharan Africa, where 71.9 percent of the urban populations currently live in informal settlements. In addition to the situation above, 57 percent requires access to improved sanitation and 43 percent to improved sources of water.

Rural-urban migration is a key component of urban population growth. Other factors in Africa contributing to this migration are civil wars and natural disasters such as drought and flooding. Urban areas have become the refuge for populations driven out of their homes because of fighting. Refugee camps which are located near towns for ease of access to emergency assistance, have become permanent features in the human settlements of the Great Lakes Region in Central Africa and several West African countries. Twenty million refugees are in need of protection and assistance right now. An additional 25 million are currently displaced within their own countries as a result of violence and human rights abuses.

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Reducing child poverty urged as health priority

from The Toronto Star

by Joanna Smith

Ottawa–Reducing child poverty will benefit the health of all Canadians, the country's chief public health officer recommended in his first annual report on the physical and mental well-being of the population.

"Every dollar spent in ensuring a healthy start in the early years will reduce the long-term costs associated with health care, addictions, crime, unemployment and welfare," Dr. David Butler-Jones wrote in his report on the state of public health in Canada.

Tabled on Wednesday by Conservative MP Steven Fletcher, parliamentary secretary for health, the report highlights the role economic, social and environmental factors play in physical and mental health.

"While some health challenges can be related to our genetic makeup, evidence shows that Canadians with adequate shelter, a safe and secure food supply, access to education, employment and sufficient income for basic needs, adopt healthier behaviours and have better health," Butler-Jones wrote in the introduction.

"I would argue that a society is only as healthy as the least healthy among us."

Reducing child poverty was one of his major recommendations for moving forward.

He said that to tackle child poverty, Canada should examine: income-redistribution policies; healthy early learning and childhood development and other levels of education; targeted interventions to support children in low-income families and "collective contributions" to alleviate child poverty.

The report also suggested adopting programs "with proven success in reducing child poverty rates."

It highlighted Pathways to Education – a support program for at-risk and disadvantaged youth in the Regent Park area of Toronto that reduced school dropout rates from 56 per cent to 10 per cent in that neighbourhood – as a program that should be adopted nationwide.

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Feeding Ohio families

from the Wapak Daily News

Senator’s report shows more people need federal, state assistance

By WILLIAM LANEY

The number of Ohioans qualifying for a federally funded summer nutrition program has increased greatly in the past year, a U.S. legislator says, but only slightly more than 10 percent from the Buckeye State are taking advantage of the food assistance initiative.

“I have just issued a report and all the current trends are going the wrong way — there is more unemployment, more stagnant wages, higher cost for fuel, higher cost for food — and people are living with more expenses and no pay increases,” U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Mansfield, said Wednesday in a teleconference about a reason for the increase in those seeking assistance. “We have learned much of that is concentrated among the very young, almost half of Ohioans in poverty are under 24 years old, and that is where we have the opportunity.”

Brown released a report Wednesday from data compiled by the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services which showed nearly 1 in 10 Ohioans receive food stamps, and the number of Ohio recipients of food assistance — public and private — increased by more than 7 percent statewide in 2008. The major metropolitan areas of Cincinnati,
Columbus, Dayton and Toledo reported increases of 8.49 percent, 9.35 percent, 9.21 percent and 8.86 percent, respectively, from May 2007 to May 2008 in the number of people requiring food and nutrition assistance.

Auglaize County, which is grouped with cities in the Dayton region, saw a 25.31 percent increase from May 2007 to May 2008, with 2,515 seeking assistance in May 2008, and increase of more than 500 people than the 2,007 people in May 2007.
Surrounding counties in the Dayton region reported increases, too. Logan County reported an increase of 12.87 percent, Mercer County reported an increase of 4.86 percent and Shelby County reported a 6.22 percent increase.

Allen County reported a 3.7 percent increase. In May 2007, 9,137 people were eligible for assistance and in May 2008, 9,475 people were eligible.

Brown’s report also showed Ohio’s population increased 8 percent between 1970 and 2006, while the percentage of Ohioans living in poverty increased by 43 percent. The federal poverty level is currently set at $21,200 per year for a family of four.
A family of four qualifies for assistance if they earn less than $27,560 per year, or 130 percent of the federal poverty level.

“It’s alarming that the number of Ohio families in need of food assistance has risen so rapidly in the past year,” Brown said. “We must provide immediate resources to families in need, particularly children that depend on the school lunch program for nutritious meals.”

Brown said of the approximately 500,000 children eligible for free or reduced lunches during the school year continued to be eligible for food and nutritional assistance during the summer months.

Children are eligible for as many as two free meals each day, but only 57,000 children, slightly more than 10 percent, take advantage of the program.

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Talking to community about poverty

from Inside Toronto

Series of meetings held locally as part of province-wide campaign
BY CLARK KIM

Three community consultations were held locally this week as part of a province-wide campaign to tackle poverty.

York South-Weston MPP Laura Albanese hosted the first two sessions on Monday, June 16 where local residents, social agency representatives and politicians attended to provide their input.

"The aim is to hear from everyone," said Albanese, noting a special cabinet committee on poverty reduction chaired by Deb Matthews, Ontario Minister of Children and Youth, has been formed to focus on this particular issue. "Minister Matthews and the committee will be travelling across the province to hear from a wide range of people and consult with them to figure out the best way to reduce poverty."

A public meeting was held Wednesday, June 18 at York Memorial Collegiate Institute - one of two community consultations taking place in Toronto with Matthews in attendance as well as representatives from various social organizations.

That meeting was closed to the media.

But about 35 people came out to the afternoon session on Monday, consisting mostly of members from local community groups including the Learning Enrichment Foundation, Macaulay Child Development Centre and Faith Sanctuary Church.

The attendees were divided into smaller focus groups and were asked to answer questions, which include:

* How can we improve opportunities for children living in poverty with existing resources?

* What new ideas could be incorporated into the existing supports that would increase opportunities for children living in poverty?

* What are the long-term goals for improving opportunity with respect to groups other than children?

* What measures will best show progress in improving opportunity for Ontarians living in poverty?

Peter Frampton, executive director of the Learning Enrichment Foundation, noted the province should assist local organizations that have been working with low-income families for many years.

"We know what works in the community. We actually have been quite good at moving people out of poverty but we could do quite more," said Frampton, asking the province to enhance the investments made into existing programs. "Fund what works and not necessarily what's new."

Some possible indicators to mark progress in reducing poverty suggested at the meeting included a 50 per cent reduction in the demand for food banks, increased family income level and higher employment rate.

Just looking at the employment rate could be misleading since people with two or three jobs would all be listed as employed, noted Weston resident Mike Sullivan.

More higher-quality jobs are needed with an increase in the minimum wage, Sullivan said.

Another concern is the government seems to be focused on how to use existing resources for its poverty reduction plan, added Sullivan, implying the province isn't prepared to spend more money.

Residents can still provide input online by visiting www.ontario.ca/GrowingStronger

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Wava Challenges Churches On Poverty

from All Africa

Byline: Mathias Mazinga

Kampala, - GORDON Wavamunno, the honorary counsel to Hungary, has asked church leaders to start poverty eradication programmes for their followers.

Wavamunno, also the chairman of Wavah Group of Companies, said although the churches had made a significant contribution in education and health, the abject poverty and rampant immorality required them to go back to the springboard. This, he said, would ensure that Ugandans attain better standards of living.

Wavamunno discouraged dependency on foreign aid, arguing that church leaders could use the local resources to improve the quality of life of their flocks.

"You can use what you have, or what is within your means to improve the living standards of your people," he said.

"The Good Samaritan in the Bible, for example, did not have to go to the bank when he found a victim of assault.

"He just used his personal resources to help the victim," Wavamunno advised.

He was recently addressing delegates of the Uganda Joint Christian Council (UJCC) at their plenary at the Pope Paul Memorial Hotel, Lubaga, Kampala.

The meeting was held under the theme: "Building the Church's economic capacity to serve."

UJCC is an umbrella organisation that brings together the Catholic, Anglican and Orthodox churches.

Report puts spotlight on state's working poor

from the Jersey Journal

By SUSAN K. LIVIO

TRENTON - One of every five New Jersey families does not earn enough to afford the basic necessities - housing, food and child care - though most households have at least one breadwinner, according to a study released yesterday.

The report by the Poverty Research Institute highlighted the characteristics of these 500,000 households to debunk stereotypes about the poor and encourage lawmakers to fund more effective programs. The study found 85 percent of these families had at least one person working, although not everyone held full-time or year-round employment. Only 6 percent of them received welfare.

"Public policy is horribly out of touch with what real people have to face in terms of their economic reality," said Melville Miller, president of Legal Services of New Jersey, which founded the Poverty Research Institute.

Serena Rice, the poverty institute's managing director, said lawmakers could close the income gap by raising the minimum wage of $7.15 to $8.50 and allowing it to rise with future inflation. They could raise the child care subsidies and make them available to more parents.

"Government has to get back in touch with the people it is serving," Miller said. "Those in dire situations are not being helped, even though the vast majority are working."

Speaking at a Statehouse news conference, Gwendolyn Wilson, 33, of Toms River, said her family falls into this category, even though she and her husband hold associate's degrees and work full-time to raise their four sons.

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CROSS proposes North Main homeless shelter

from the Shelbyville Times Gazette

By John I. Carney

A house and lot at 262 North Main St., jointly owned by the city and county, may become a volunteer-run homeless shelter and child care center, using surplus Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers which have been cleared following a recent formaldehyde scare.

Carl Bailey appeared before Bedford County Board of Commissioners' courthouse and county property committee on Tuesday to discuss his proposal for Community Religious Outreach Social Services and request the use of the house.

The committee voted to pass the request on to the full commission, but wants to make sure that any lease agreement holds the county harmless from liability arising from the use of the property.

Bailey said the current economic conditions and a decline in charitable giving and social service agency budgets have made it more difficult to respond to individuals and families in need. He said CROSS will be a way for the county's faith community to come together and meet such needs.

Bailey said the shelter would house homeless families for up to 30 days and would provide child care for up to 90 days, so that even after a family moved out of the shelter they could use the child care facility while establishing themselves in new jobs or living quarters.

Bailey said the lack of affordable low-income child care is a major contributor to poverty. There would be one paid employee, but the facility would be primarily operated by volunteers and financial contributions from area churches. Bailey has been discussing a funding formula with area churches based on a specific amount per church member per month.

Bailey said he is not asking for any financial support from city or county government -- both of which are expecting budget cuts in the current year. His written proposal indicates that city and county funding would be "limited to assistance with fixed operating costs, i.e., insurance, utilities and facility maintenance," but he told the Times-Gazette on Wednesday that the written proposal was out of date and that he was no longer planning to ask for government financial support for those issues. Instead, that would become a part of the budget to be funded by church contributions.

Bailey said a board of community leaders is now being assembled so that the group can organize.

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[comment] Wheels versus welfare

from the Los Angeles Times

Having a car shouldn't keep needy families from receiving assistance.
By Rourke O'Brien

With falling home prices, rising food and fuel costs and an unemployment rate well above the national average, the current economic downturn may push already vulnerable California families to the brink of financial destitution. Thousands of people may turn to welfare for support in the coming months. That's OK -- that's the purpose of temporary assistance. It's not as if this is the money-for-nothing welfare of the early 1990s; these folks are required to start looking for work the second they land on the rolls. Yet to qualify for assistance, many families may be forced to give up the most effective tool they have in the fight against poverty and unemployment: their car.

To be eligible for temporary cash assistance -- known as CalWORKS in California -- families must prove that they are both income and asset poor. To qualify for assistance, a single parent with two children, for example, can't earn more than about $12,000 a year or have more than $2,000 in other resources. In addition, the total fair-market value of all vehicles owned by a household cannot exceed $4,650 -- a figure that hasn't changed in more than a decade. In real terms, that means even a 10-year-old Honda Civic with 100,000 miles could disqualify a family from public assistance.

California is one of three states with such a restrictive vehicle limit -- Texas and Idaho are the others. Nationally, 12 states exclude all household vehicles when determining a family's eligibility for cash assistance; another 15 exclude at least one vehicle. Most other states exclude about $10,000 of the net or equity value of the vehicle; California's $4,650 limit counts the car's fair market value. This means that families may be deemed ineligible even if they still owe $5,500 on their $6,000 car.

The connection between car ownership and employment is clear. It's not very surprising that having a reliable automobile reduces absences from work and helps give workers access to a wider range of jobs and better-paying ones. This is especially true in a region as spread out as Southern California. A 2000 report by the County of Los Angeles -- the most recent data available -- found that 64% of welfare-to-work job seekers who had unlimited access to a car were gainfully employed, compared with only 44% of those who relied on public transit or ride-sharing. Another study -- of welfare recipients in Tennessee -- found that having a car leads to better-paying jobs, more hours worked and an increased probability of leaving welfare.

With the relationship between car ownership and employment so clearly documented, California should be working hard to provide low-income families access to a reliable car. And, in some areas, they do get help. Sacramento County, for example, is authorized to purchase 50 vehicles a year for county welfare recipients who lack access to public transit. If we're helping some families buy a car, wouldn't it make sense, then, to let people who have cars keep them?

And instead of investigating someone who owns a 10-year-old Honda, shouldn't district attorneys and others be concentrating their time and resources going after more costly types of fraud, such as identity theft? And shouldn't caseworkers spend more time connecting a family to vital social services than verifying the worth of its 2002 Toyota Corolla?

The County Welfare Directors Assn. thinks so, and that's why it's supporting AB 2368, a bill championed by Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (D-Sylmar) -- and sponsored by the New America Foundation -- that would exclude household vehicles from consideration when determining eligibility for CalWORKS. The Assembly passed the bill and has sent it to the state Senate.
Link to full article. May expire in future.

Catholic bishops urge G8 to recommit to reducing global poverty, tackling climate change

from Ekklesia

By agency reporter

In the run up to the G8 summit in Japan, presidents of nine Catholic Bishops’ Conferences have called on G8 nations to honour their commitments to reduce global poverty and tackle climate change.

In a letter to the G8 leaders, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal Keith O’Brien along with the other seven presidents of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences in G8 countries called for the promises made at Gleneagles in 2005 and in Heiligendamn in 2007 to be reaffirmed and built upon.

Responding to the letter Prime Minister Gordon Brown today (Thursday) praised the Catholic Church for its outstanding leadership in tackling global poverty and climate change as he called for a re-doubling of efforts across the world to address these issues.

In 2005, the world’s richest countries promised to spend an additional $50 billion per year on development assistance by 2010, with half that amount going to Africa. The Catholic leaders stress that these commitments must be met “and additional commitments should be made in the areas of health care, education and humanitarian aid.”

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said: “Our religious and moral commitment to protect human life and promote human dignity moves us to be particularly concerned for the poorest and most vulnerable members of the human family, especially those in developing countries. The experience of the Catholic Church in serving the needs of poor communities leads us to applaud the forthcoming G8 Summit’s focus on development and Africa.

“The forthcoming Summit will explore many issues of critical importance to human life and dignity. We all pray that your meeting will be blessed by a spirit of collaboration that enables you to advance the global common good by taking concrete measures to reduce poverty and address climate change.”

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “The Catholic Church’s outstanding leadership on global poverty and climate change has been enormously important in mobilising millions of people to demand change. Their letter today to G8 leaders rightly calls for G8 countries to honour the promises made to the poorest in the world. As we build momentum to the G8 and the UN Millennium Goal Summit we must redouble our efforts to make progress on both poverty and climate change.”

The Catholic leaders argue that urgent action is needed to tackle the global food crisis – made all the more imperative by the impact of HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases. They asked for the G8 leaders to consider proposals that mitigate the impact of the world food crisis on poor communities, increase health and education spending, and move towards just world trade policies that respect the dignity of the human person in their working life. At the heart of this approach and to ensure the long-term success of these measures, the poor need to be empowered to be drivers of their own development.

Link to full article.May expire in future.

[comment] Africa at the crossroads as food crisis threatens hard-won gains

from the Daily Dispatch

Graça Machel

THE factors behind the global food crisis may be complex, but its effect is simple in its brutality. The worst-affected countries are those that need to import agricultural produce, and the hardest-hit people are those who spend the largest proportion of their incomes on food. It is therefore the poorest people in the poorest countries who are feeling the brunt of this catastrophe.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation notes that 21 of the 37 countries worst-affected by high food prices are in Africa.

This week, the Africa Progress Panel produced its inaugural report on the state of Africa, assessing the state of the continent’s development and identifying the challenges that threaten progress.

Chaired by Kofi Annan and including leaders, development experts and high- profile campaigners, the panel was established to focus world leaders on their commitments to Africa.

The report calls for immediate steps to tackle the food crisis. The food supply must be increased by increasing financial assistance to the governments of affected countries and aid agencies. All countries must make every effort to increase the quantity of food on international markets so that the World Food Programme, relief organisations and individual governments are able to buy food.

If the scale of the emergency is not acknowledged, or the response is delayed, we will see an increase in hunger and malnutrition. The cost of food will not only be gauged in the wheat or rice price, but also in the rising number of infant and child deaths across Africa.

What gives this call to action added resonance is the fact that Africa has in the past few years been making real, tangible progress. Gross domestic product per capita across Africa has risen steadily since 1994. On the most recent International Monetary Fund estimates, the rate of growth reached 6.6percent last year, exceeding the Middle East and Latin America. The number of people living in poverty has levelled off in the past few years, and Africa’s poverty rate has declined almost six percentage points since 2000. There have also been significant improvements in health and education, with infant and child mortality declining in many parts of Africa.

These hard-fought gains are now at risk. The panel’s report shows the food crisis threatens to destroy years, if not decades, of economic progress in Africa, as 100million people could be pushed back into absolute poverty. For me, this is where the real tragedy lies. The very people who have fought against the odds, harnessed their talents to better their lives, and dared hope their children would continue the journey could see their efforts reduced to nothing.

The panel is thus calling for more than immediate outside aid to alleviate problems of high food prices. As Africans, we must take responsibility for the fundamental, structural problems with agricultural productivity on our continent. With the lowest use of fertilisers in the world, the average grain yield in Africa is less than one ton a hectare, equivalent to just 25percent of the global average. Our population has increased, yet African agricultural yields have stagnated since the early 1960s.

We must therefore raise agricultural productivity and increase food output. This includes reforming outdated policies and investing in key inputs such as fertiliser, improved seeds, effective management of water and new crop varieties, and linking farmers to markets via investments in basic infrastructure. In short, Africa needs a green revolution.

If the challenge seems daunting, there is some comfort in knowing the expertise and the experience exist. With appropriate technology and support, for example, Malawi has gone from experiencing serious food shortages to becoming both self-reliant and a net exporter of food. The key is to build on this success and replicate it.

It is no coincidence the Africa Progress Panel has published its report just ahead of the European Council summit in Brussels and a few weeks ahead of the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Hokkaido, Japan. Our report shows G8 commitments to double assistance to Africa by 2010 – agreed at Gleneagles in 2005 – are badly off track. With a shortfall of R320billion in aid, G8 states must urgently address the deficits against their targets, set clear delivery timetables and increase transparency to improve aid quality. The crisis has put a clear premium on the G8 delivering its original pledges.

Graça Machel is a member of the Africa Progress Panel. The panel’s full report can be read on www.africaprogresspanel.org. This article first appeared in Business Day

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GM crops 'not key to food crisis'

from Ananova

The global food crisis has reignited the row over genetically modified crops after a Government minister said the UK should consider whether GM could help address spiralling prices.

Green groups reacted angrily to comments by Environment Minister Phil Woolas that there was "a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis".

Friends of the Earth said the Government had been seriously misled if it thought GM crops were going to stop the food crisis, as they did not increase yield or tackle hunger or poverty.

And Greenpeace accused the biotech industry of "abusing the misery of millions of hungry people" by trying to promote its products as a solution to rising food prices.

The new row over GM's role in tackling hunger came as details of an upcoming report into the indirect impacts of biofuels were leaked to the Guardian, suggesting "green" fuels have played a significant part in driving up global food prices.

Environmentalists and aid agencies have warned of the impact on the world's poor of rising food prices, caused in part by biofuels which can compete with food for land - but have said GM is not the answer to the crisis.

According to reports, Mr Woolas held talks on Wednesday with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group formed in 2000 to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture.

2 of 3 struggling to survive in capital of glitz, glamour

from the Los Angeles Daily News

Poverty a reality for most in county
By Susan Abram

PACOIMA — Hollywood may be known as home to the rich and famous, but two out of three people in Los Angeles County struggle to get by, and their ranks are swelling.

"We're the entertainment capital of the world, but we're also the capital of the working poor," said Kafi Blumenfield, president of the Los-Angeles based Liberty Hill Foundation.

Blumenfield joined more than 150 community leaders, social-service providers and policymakers Wednesday in a daylong, first-of-its-kind brainstorming conference on poverty in the San Fernando Valley.

"Two out of three people don't have enough to meet their basic needs," said Blumenfield, whose organization helps secure grants for social services.

The goal of Wednesday's gathering was to help agencies make maximum use of resources and find better ways to help the working poor, people on fixed incomes and the homeless.

"I think there is a perception in Los Angeles that the Valley is middle class and well off, but there are pockets of poverty," said Marianne Haver Hill, executive director for Meet Each Need With Dignity. MEND, the largest anti-poverty agency in the Valley, hosted the conference.

"We're seeing a mix of people," Hill said. "We're seeing people who have lost jobs, those on fixed incomes, and some who pay rent but are suddenly homeless because their own landlords are losing the property because of the mortgage crisis.

"We're seeing people who are shell-shocked, because they have never had to ask for food before," Hill said.

Hill said MEND distributes 40 percent more food boxes from its Pacoima center than it did a year ago, and its list of people newly in need of food is up by 83 percent.

In Los Angeles County, costs have increased by 15 percent for food, 12 percent for child care, and 31 percent for health care in the past five years, according to data provided by the Insight Center for Community Economic Development.

A one-adult family with two children one a preschooler and one in school requires at least $45,000 a year to meet all basic needs, according to the organization's data.

City officials approved a plan last month to look at causes and potential solutions to poverty in Los Angeles.

The goal is to develop a full-scale action proposal.

"The myth is that people in poverty remain poor, but for many, it's temporary," said Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcón. "The myth about poverty is if you have a job, you are not poor."

Alarcón, who chaired a similar panel when he was a state senator, created the ad hoc Committee on Poverty, which will lead in drafting the proposal.

He and others said they hope the panel will be able to develop a master plan on a variety of issues. The conference helps to expose those needs, he and others said.

"I think it's important to have this event because it gives us a chance to come and think together about poverty and to brainstorm," said Thomas Backer, executive director for Valley Nonprofit Resources. His organization, launched last year, aims to link 4,000 nonprofit agencies to share resources and information.

But even social-service agencies themselves are affected by the soaring costs of gas and food, the slump in the housing market and government budget deficits.

Many continue to look for ways to stretch donated dollars as their client base increases and buying power diminishes.

There was advice at the conference on how agencies can get local and federal grants and how the poor can use free legal services to get health care. Those who were once poor are more likely to volunteer for others in hard times, many said.

Link to a bar graph that shows the percent of people in poverty in Southern California

Profile Stresses Negative Impact of Poverty

from New Era

By Anna Ingwafa

ONGWEDIVA

The Poverty Profile launched last week by Oshana Region at Ongwediva presented undisputed evidence of how poverty negatively impacts on regional development, based on a village level participatory poverty assessment.

The poverty profile aims to bring together the voices, experiences and perspectives of poor men and women residing in Oshana.

The Oshana Participatory Poverty Assessment was undertaken from January 2005 to March 2006 following the completion of a two-week fieldwork exercise in six villages and informal settlements drawn from six constituencies in the region.

The villages are Omakulukuma informal settlement in Ondangwa Constituency, Okamukwa in Okaku Constituency, Omukandu in Uukwiyu Constituency, Ongenga in Okatjali Constituency, Onaushe in Uuvudhiya Constituency and Uupindi informal settlement in Oshakati West Constituency.

The research found that participants from the six different participating communities identified problems that needed urgent attention.

Poor health services ranked the highest. “There are currently no clinics in or nearby any villages. In some instances, there are clinics within walking distance, but most are between ten and twenty kilometers away.

These distances are extremely far for ill persons to walk,” says the report.
“During the rainy season because of flooding, it becomes difficult for them to reach many villages. The problem is compounded because this is at a time when risks of contraction of illness such as malaria are higher,” the report added.

Poor road infrastructure came second in the participatory assessment as participants complained about the absence of tarred or good gravel roads to and in villages.

All villagers depended on these roads to reach schools, clinics, churches, pension pay-out points, relatives and shops. It was reported that most existing roads consist of sandy tracks and paths and travel becomes extremely difficult during the rainy season because of flooding and the numerous Oshanas in the region.

HIV/Aids, unemployment, poor education, alcohol abuse, lack of sanitation, hunger, lack of land/poor soils, lack of electricity and poor police services are some of the problems in Oshana that need urgent attention.

On a positive note, the research found that 97.4 percent of households in Oshana have access to safe drinking water and only 2.6 percent of the region’s population relies on water resources that are unsafe, compared to its neighboring Omusati Region where access to safe drinking water is a major challenge.

Despite the challenges the region faces, Oshana Governor Clemens Kashuupulwa at the launch singled out that his region has strived to uplift the economic status of its inhabitants to meet its development goals of job creation.

“Also, great successes were made to promote the welfare of the region’s people. It has registered more than 9 000 children orphaned as a result of HIV/Aids and under 14 years who lost one parent, and more than 1000 who lost both parents, for social grants,” he said.

The governor noted that the region is committed to create awareness to reduce HIV/Aids.

The poverty profile action plan has identified possible ways to improve the situation so as to create favourable conditions that aim to reduce poverty in the region and thereby to work toward the attainment of the economic goal – the utilization of national resources to improve food security and livelihoods by promoting sustainable land management practices, tourism, agriculture, forestry, trade and industrial development.

Kashuupulwa stressed that as stakeholders in the development process of Oshana: “We are here to share the way out to reduce poverty in our region and to rededicate ourselves to the implementation of our development goal to achieve our objectives, the development of our region in general so as to improve the living standard of our people.”

[comment] Power v poverty

from the New Statesman

by Duncan Green

Privatisation, free trade and market forces . . . the rich world insists poor states play by our rules. But they don't work. Time to let countries determine their own destinies?

The global food price crisis is exposing frightening levels of vulnerability in poor nations around the world. Yet these are countries into which the rich world, for half a century or more, has diverted hundreds of billions of dollars of humanitarian aid in pursuit of the high ideal of ending poverty. It is a good moment to take stock and ask what went wrong.

Compare two of the most vulnerable economies, Haiti and Botswana. In Haiti, spiralling food prices have in recent months prompted widespread rioting, claiming the lives of six people and forcing the resignation of the prime minister. This unrest has set back the search for political stability in an archetypal "fragile state". No such riots have occurred in the Southern African nation of Botswana. In a country that imports 90 per cent of its food, soaring prices have undoubtedly hurt the poor, but the state has the money and capacity to help them cope.

Why does Haiti sink while Botswana swims? A landlocked state with a small population and an arid landscape, Botswana has a high dependence on diamonds - the very "curse of wealth" that has destabilised many other African countries. At independence in 1966, it had just two secondary schools and 12km of paved road, and relied on the UK for half of government revenues. Botswana ought to be a basket case.

But Botswana has become Africa's most enduring success story. Its GDP per capita has risen a hundredfold since independence. Over the past three decades it has been the world's fastest-growing economy. It negotiated hard-fought deals for its diamonds with De Beers and used the royalties well. It has throughout remained one of sub-Saharan Africa's few non-racial democracies, despite being bordered (and occasionally invaded) by racist regimes in South Africa and Rhodesia.

The secret of Botswana's success lies in politics. The country's elite come from a single dominant ethnic group (the Batswana) whose governance systems, emphasising broad consultation and consensus-building, emerged largely unscathed from colonialism. Botswana's leading human rights activist calls it "gentle authoritarianism". The government broke every rule in the so-called Washington consensus, setting up state-owned companies, nationalising mineral rights and steering the economy via six-year national development plans. "We are a free-market economy that does everything by planning," one local academic told me, laughing.

In the second half of the 20th century, dozens of developing countries emulated Botswana's success and achieved similar growth rates. "Getting the politics right" was key for them all. These countries have built effective states that guarantee the rule of law, ensure a healthy and educated population, control their national territories and create a positive environment for investment, growth and trade. For many, the growth spurt began with the redistribution of land and other assets.

This story bears little relation to the cruder theories of development advanced by rich-country governments or, for that matter, some NGOs. Yet, getting the politics right really can "make poverty history". Aid alone cannot.

In many countries the state remains a work in progress and the rosy picture is not without flaws. Power battles and shifting alliances mean reverses are frequent. Raw power and gangsterism prevail in states that are more master than servant to their citizens. In his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, written at the onset of the Cold War, George Orwell portrayed a totalitarian state built around the cult of Big Brother: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - for ever." In the 20th century, some 170 million people were killed by their own governments, four times the number killed in wars between nations. But the worse deprivation and suffering now are not Orwellian in nature. They exist where states are weak: half of all children who die before the age of five live in states defined as "fragile".

Fixing this is not easy, but it can be done. Some states once branded as "failing" provide evidence. Malaysia went within a few decades from a post-independence meltdown of ethnic rioting to an industrial powerhouse. The economist Ha-Joon Chang points to his own country, South Korea, from where, in the 1960s, government officials were sent by the World Bank to Pakistan and the Philippines to "learn about good governance". The pupil swiftly outstripped the master.

If you define development merely as rising GDP per capita, then the story almost ends there - effective states create the basis for rapid growth. But development, parti cularly tackling poverty, is about far more than that. When the World Bank, in an unprecedented exercise, asked 64,000 poor people around the world about their lives, what emerged was a complex and human account of poverty, encompassing issues that are often ignored in the academic literature: the importance of being able to give one's children a good start in life, the mental anguish that poverty brings. The overall conclusion was that, "again and again, powerlessness seems to be at the core of the bad life".

Tackling such powerlessness is not just about election campaigns and government. Building "power within" - for example, women's assertiveness to insist on their right not to be beaten in the home - and "power with" - in the form of collective organisation - is essential to achieving the wider empowerment that transforms politics and societies.

In 1900, New Zealand was the only country with a government elected by all its adult citizens. By the end of the century, despite severe reversals, including fascism and communism, and succeeding waves of military coups against elected governments, there were ostensibly 120 electoral democracies in place. Democracies are often flawed and, as we have seen in several African countries, progress is reversible, but the overall trend remains positive.

Successful transformations

Effective states in east Asia and elsewhere have typically taken off under autocracies. In Latin America, active social movements and political organisations have rarely been accompanied by effective states. Does this mean active citizenship and efficient governments are mutually exclusive? Happily, the evidence suggests that the "Asian values" argument for benign dictatorship, once espoused by leaders in Singapore and Mal aysia, is wrong. A recent survey by the Harvard economist Dani Rodrik found that democracies produce more predictable long-run growth rates, greater short-term stability and more equality, and are better able to handle economic shocks.

Many of the countries that have had active citizens and been run efficiently have already ceased to be poor and disappeared off the development radar. Some of the most successful transformations in the past century, such as those of Sweden and Finland, have been triggered by social pacts within a democracy, showing what the combination of activism and good government can achieve.

Yet, though this combination is at the heart of development, it is seldom acknowledged in debates about the "development industry", typified by international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. Here, economic policy is king, and politics is often seen as an irritating process through which unworthy individuals use their power to unravel the plans of wise economists. "Getting the prices right" requires the state to get out of economic management, freeing the stage for the true heroes of development: the entrepreneurs.

It hasn't worked. The retreat of the state in Latin America, once a faithful devotee of Washington consensus prescriptions, failed to lead to lasting progress. Meanwhile, countries such as China and Vietnam, which maintained a central role for the state, prospered.

The importance of politics in development will only grow. The world is entering a new age of scarcity, in which food, water and carbon are rationed, either explicitly, through regulation, or implicitly, by price. In this environment, conflicts over access to basic resources are bound to intensify. Politics and power will decide who gets what.

All this poses challenges to the $100bn global development industry. Official donors such as the UK's Department for International Development are trying to reassess their thinking to understand better the role of politics in development. But they face a dilemma: any outside body, especially a government institution, interferes with domestic politics in developing countries at its peril. To get round this, there is always a temptation to turn political issues into technical ones - for example, by focusing on "governance" or "institution-building". But, by failing to confront issues of power, such approaches often give rise to the same frustrations as those that focus on economic policy: why won't these countries do what's good for them?

Duncan Green is the author of "From Poverty to Power", published by Oxfam on 23 June

Program to help poor pay for heat may be cut

from The Providence Journal

By Timothy C. Barmann

At a time when Rhode Islanders are facing record-high energy prices, the General Assembly is poised to eliminate a law that was established to help the poorest low-income families pay their utility bills.

The House of Representatives today was scheduled to consider the state budget bill, which contains a provision that repeals the “affordable energy” legislation passed in 2006.

The reason: the state simply cannot afford the program, according to Rep. Steven M. Costantino, chairman of the House Finance Committee, which recommended the action.

“Unfortunately, we could no longer afford this tax credit,” he said in a statement, responding to The Journal’s request for comment.

“We had to spread the pain throughout the budget and this was one of the many items that we were able to