Selecting bead-makers for Bead For Life

The great non-profit organization Bead For Life is one that doesn't just give money, but employs women in the under-developed world in hopes that they can become entrepreneurs on their own. The women begin as bead-makers, but after earning some money are encouraged to strike out on their own. Bead For Life has an elaborate screening process that weeds out the women who are unmotivated or unlikely to succeed.

From Forbes Magazine, writer Carol Hymowitz tells us more about the selection process. The jewelry made by these women can be purchased at the Bead For Life website, you can also look for information on how to sell the jewelry yourself.

The nonprofit, like many international aid organizations, understands that one of the best ways to alleviate poverty in developing nations is to help women become entrepreneurs whose incomes can lift the entire family's standard of living. But BeadforLife, which was founded six years ago, also has learned that some women are far more adept at running businesses than others, and that it must identify early on those most likely to succeed if it wants to achieve good results. The group has created an 18-month entrepreneurial program that targets women who are ambitious and innovative and helps them launch profitable ventures.

"Instead of just doling out money, we want to identify women who can use the bead-making skills we teach as a stepping stone to do something more," says Torkin Wakefield, co-executive director of BeadforLife.

Most of the women BeadforLife works with have never held a steady job, had a bank account or completed grammar school. Some have AIDS, malaria or other debilitating diseases, and many have several young children who depend on their care. "We are working with the poorest of the poor," says Rashmi Nakhooda, coordinator of the entrepreneurial program.

But their chances of success depend on the same traits as entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley or Shanghai, Nakhooda adds, namely "having a dream, a focus and being extremely hard-working."

When 96 women showed up for a recent orientation workshop the nonprofit had publicized, they were first given an arithmetic test. "If they can't do simple addition, they can easily incur a loss and not even realize it," says Nakhooda. The test was the simplest hurdle, however. Those who passed were interviewed over the course of several days about their experience, about how they handle conflicts, (such as sorting out quarrels with children) and how they've made life choices. Each was also asked to describe her business goals and how she aimed to achieve them.

"One woman had no idea why she was at the workshop, so we ruled her out. But another who couldn't walk, who was in a wheelchair, was determined to find a way to earn money, so we asked her to stay" says Nakhooda, who moved to Uganda from India 14 years ago and used to teach in a Kampala business school. Over three days, the group of 96 was winnowed down to 50 women.

12 percent of Mozambique population is HIV-positive

From the Voice of America, new statistics on the levels of HIV-AIDS in Mozambique.

A Mozambique government report says nearly 12 percent of the population between the ages of 11 and 49 is infected with the HIV virus or has AIDS.

The survey, Mozambique's first comprehensive report on AIDS, found that women represent the largest number infected by HIV. It says about 13 percent of women in the country are affected compared to about 9 percent of men.

It says the chances of women and the young contracting AIDS is five times greater than an adult male.

The report says Gaza province in southern Mozambique is the worst-hit area of the country.

The French news agency quotes Health Minister Paulo Ivo Garrido as saying the government considers AIDS the number-one threat to the country. He vowed to continue trying to reduce its spread.

The report on AIDS prevalence in Mozambique was assembled from information obtained from blood samples taken from more nearly 17,000 people and interviews in ten provinces last year.

Sub-Saharan Africa is at the center of the global AIDS crisis. More than two-thirds of all people infected with HIV live in the region.

The poor rice production in Myanmar

Myanmar could be one of the worlds biggest exporters of rice, but they are way behind their neighbors Thailand and Vietnam. Many of Myanmar's farmers are drowning in debt, and rice yields are declining. Some of these factors were only made worse by 2008's cyclone.

From the Christian Science Monitor, we learn more about the failing rice production in Myanmar.

The cyclone opened the door to more humanitarian aid for Burma (Myanmar), the poorest country in Southeast Asia. It also led to a rare debate between its military rulers and foreign donors over how to tackle poverty among farmers and fishermen left at the mercy of natural disasters.

The result has been tentative efforts to reform the dismal rice sector and channel more assistance to rural communities. Development experts say much more outside help is needed, including commercial bank loans, to boost productivity and reverse a longtime trend of rice farmers falling into debt and losing their land.

The end goal, say these experts and independent economists, should be a vibrant rice industry that can underpin broader economic growth, as it has in Thailand and Vietnam, the world’s largest rice exporters, a title that Burma last held in the 1930s. By contrast, few buyers snap up Burmese rice, which is grown from low-quality seeds and milled in rusted factories.

“If you want to revitalize the country, you must look at the rural economy,” says Noleen Heyzer, United Nations undersecretary general and head of its Asia headquarters in Bangkok.

At the tumbledown house of Kyaw Myint, the prospects look bleak. He owns 20 acres of rice paddy along the riverbank and has set aside the seeds from his last crop. But he will only plant some of his fields this year because he can’t afford fertilizer, pesticides, or quality seeds. A rice merchant who used to give him credit stopped after the cyclone, and the government agricultural bank will only lend $20 per acre, much less than the $100 or so that a farmer typically spends to produce a crop.

Even if Kyaw Myint, not his real name, did get a loan, he worries that he won’t make enough from his harvest in November, leaving him in hock to creditors. “We’re running in circles,” he says.

25 years after Live Aid

25 years ago a lot of the world's attention was focused on Ethiopia because of a rock concert. Live Aid was a very successful fund raising event that saw the stars of rock and pop gather for one day to play music to help with Ethiopia's famine. To mark the anniversary of the event, there has been some examination on what effects the money raised has had on Ethiopia and its people.

Reporter Peter Gill spent a lot of time reporting in Ethiopia. Gill's new book "Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid," examines the country 25 years later. From the publishers blog, the Oxford Universality Press blog, we see this interview with the BBC reporter.

OUP: What is the situation in Ethiopia now?

PG: In lots of ways, it’s very much better. Up in those former famine lands, there’s been peace for almost 20 years, and there’s been a real drive for development. Even in the harshest conditions and despite the impact of climate change, there are real grounds for optimism. The problem remains that so many Ethiopians – more than three in four of them depend on the land – live on a real knife edge. The population, for instance, has doubled since the big famine. That sort of increase is unsustainable in the long run. And some parts of the country like the South and the Somali Region are subject to terrible food shortages.

OUP: Do you think that other parts of Africa can learn anything from Ethiopia’s experiences?

PG: Despite the challenges that Ethiopia faces, maybe even because of them, I think there are very important lessons for the rest of Africa – and for the rich donors as well. Ethiopia has insisted on charting its own development course over the past 20 years. The country was never colonised and it is not going to accept the dictates of outsiders now. On the face of it, everyone agrees that Africa will only really move when it fully takes charge of its own destiny. On policy matters, Ethiopia keeps showing the way. That’s sometimes uncomfortable for the aid-givers, but they’ve been proved right already in some of the directions they took.

OUP: Is China’s role in Africa broadly negative or positive?

PG: When I started researching this book, I knew only what I’d read about the Chinese in Africa – their rapacious interest in the continent’s natural resources and their relations with some pretty unpleasant regimes. I didn’t frankly think I’d learn much more. What I found was that the Chinese were both helpful and courteous – far more open than I’d expected and far more so than they ever used to be. China has a large and ambitious programme in Ethiopia – infrastructure, telecommunications, trade, aid, there are even teams of Chinese volunteers – and Ethiopia certainly doesn’t fit the pattern of the easily exploited or exploitable. We seem already to acknowledge China’s growing influence around the world. What I’m interested in watching is how China’s approach to raising people out of poverty works in Africa.

Mobile health clinics in East Africa help distribute ARV drugs

From IRIN, a story on bringing AIDS treatment to the people with mobile health clinics in East Africa.

Local East African programmes are discovering the benefits of bringing HIV services closer to rural communities, with mobile drug distribution improving HIV-positive patients' adherence to antiretroviral treatment (ART).

"While there might be health facilities in rural areas, they are normally far flung; by using mobile care and treatment centres, it is easy to reach populations, many of whom are normally too poor to have transport to the established health centres," Waziri Rashid Njau from the Support for International Change (SIC), a local HIV-focused NGO in Tanzania, told IRIN/PlusNews.

"We have used this in northern Tanzania and we have seen reduced cases of loss [of contact with patients] to follow up; local health facilities record higher cases of drop-out amongst patients than we do," he added.

Patients must visit a hospital for their initial diagnosis and ART prescription, and are required to visit the health centre periodically, but in between visits, SIC uses community-based volunteers and trained medical workers to drive around villages refilling prescriptions as well as providing education on condom use and the prevention of opportunistic infections.

SIC in Tanzania reaches nearly 2,500 people with mobile ART clinics and has so far trained around 200 health workers in Babati District in northern Tanzania.

Bridging health system gaps

Tanzania suffers from a critical shortage of medical personnel, so the mobile drug distribution is performing a much-needed function. The Ministry of Health reported in 2007 that the country had 1,339 doctors; many regions have a doctor-to-patient ratio as low as 0.1 to 10,000.

Community drug distribution has also been successful in neighbouring Uganda, where a 2008 study carried out in the eastern district of Tororo by local NGO The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) found that out of 2,115 active clients enrolled for antiretroviral therapy at the community drug distribution points, only 22 - about one percent - were lost to follow up.

In comparison, a 2009 Ugandan study found that about a quarter of HIV-positive patients in clinical settings dropped out of programmes during the clinical assessment stage, even before they were put on ART. One of the main reasons given for not returning to health centres was the high cost of transport.

"Our experience is that it is a lot easier to deal with large numbers of antiretroviral clients with this model… Space at health centres is limited, and it is easy to visit them where they are," said Emmanuel Patta, a field officer with TASO.

TASO has 77 community drug distribution points in Tororo, each catering for an average of 30 antiretroviral therapy clients.

Involving HIV-positive people

"Because follow-up is normally done by people living with HIV themselves, this provides an avenue to use them as a resource in the fight against HIV/AIDS," SIC’s Njau noted.

"You get to create awareness among community members and not only those who are infected, but even those who are not infected or might not know their status," he added. "Through these models, you get an opportunity that is community-owned to reach out to them and create awareness."

At the community drug distribution points, clients have the opportunity to share experiences and support each other on issues related to side effects, adherence, community awareness and stigma, and this also provides an opportunity for optimal use of limited resources.

Challenges

Njau noted that despite efforts to involve people living with HIV in the programme, and to teach their communities to accept them, stigma remained a concern. "Stigma might make these clients not want to go where people will know them ... [They] would rather go far away [for treatment]," he said.

And in many areas poor nutrition remains a challenge to the adherence of clients of community-based drug distribution. "Poverty inhibits good nutrition among many ART clients, which can at times hinder the effectiveness of treatment programmes," Njau said.

Despite the problems, TASO’s Patta said community drug distribution had for the most part worked extremely well and could "work effectively in places that experience shortages of staff and health facilities".

Haitian earthquake serves as an economic equalizer

The Haitian earthquake has become the great economic equalizer. The poorest have received the most attention with aid, while the middle class have had little support. Much of the middle class have been unable to rebuild their houses, as that was where most of their wealth was invested in before the earthquake.

From the Miami Herald, we read more about how the earthquake affected those who were not in poverty.

As walls crumbled and the slums spilled into the streets, the Jan. 12 earthquake became the great equalizer in a society of staggering disparities, forcing the middle class and the most impoverished into the same bucket of despair.

Those who lost the least have received the most help, and those who lost the most have received the least.

"The worst place to be right now in this country is the middle class," said Kesner Pharel, a local economist. "They've invested everything they had in their house and they've lost it all. You have a lower class that didn't have a house, and today they have a tent and say 'better for me.' The top already had money to get back on their feet."

In many cases, post-quake charitable dollars and goods flowing into the country have allowed Haiti's lower class to climb a few rungs up the ladder, bringing a quality of life not known before Jan. 12.

But for the middle class, the disparity is unbearable. The quake that took a government-estimated 300,000 lives not only took their homes and livelihood, it also wiped away social status in a country where that is priceless.

On a hillside one recent Sunday morning, where once comfortable houses made up the middle class Petionville neighborhood of Morne Lazard, homeowners looked at the rubble and told a tale of anger and helplessness.

Almost six months after the quake, Haiti's middle class — lawyers, doctors, receptionists and thousands of public administration employees — have become the new poor in a land of immense poverty. Now, they're homeless and unemployed.

Mostly absent in the homeless camps, they choose instead to sleep in tents in the front yards of their damaged homes, or in neighborhood streets cordoned off with boulders and vehicles.

They're still struggling to come to terms with their tumble from grace.

Money provides little protection against HIV in Africa

From IRIN, a study shows that African people with higher incomes don't always have better access for care against AIDS.

A new study has challenged widely held assumptions about income level in relation to HIV, finding that neither wealth nor poverty are reliable predictors of HIV infection in Africa.

Previously, the argument that poverty drove HIV epidemics was supported by the World Bank and UNAIDS, as well as less reliable authorities like former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who told the International AIDS Conference in Durban in 2000 that the disease was a partner with "poverty, suffering, social disadvantage and inequity".

More recent research suggests that the reality is far more complex. For example, Botswana and South Africa, described as two of the wealthiest countries on the continent, also have among the highest rates of HIV infection.

Nevertheless, the idea that poverty fuels the spread of HIV has persisted as "a very dominant narrative", according to Justin Parkhurst of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Parkhurst analyzed and compared data on HIV and wealth from demographic and health surveys in 12 sub-Saharan African countries with generalized epidemics (national prevalence rates higher than 1 percent); his findings are published in the July issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

He noted that in lower-income countries HIV prevalence tended to rise in tandem with wealth - in Uganda and Cote d'Ivoire, for example, women in the highest income bracket had the highest HIV prevalence.

In countries with a per capita gross domestic product higher than US$2,000, the link between wealth and prevalence was less clear.

Parkhurst also found that the relationship between wealth and HIV changed over time. A survey was conducted In Tanzania in 2003, and another in 2008; in the intervening five-year period, HIV prevalence declined among women in higher income brackets and rose among those in the lower income groups. Among men, prevalence stayed the same in the poorest group but was lower in all other groups, with the biggest declines in the highest income groups.

"HIV spreads through sexual behaviours, and these are social behaviours that change over time and are responsive to outside influences," Parkhurst told IRIN/PlusNews. He compared the way HIV affected different social groups with the way tobacco use and obesity once affected mainly the rich, but were now bigger problems among the poor.

Wealthier people were often harder hit early in an HIV epidemic, probably because of their broader social and sexual networks. "Over time, the wealthy tend to be more educated [about HIV risk] and more likely to think about their future health," said Parkhurst.

However, these trends are by no means universal and the patterns for men and women differ. In Swaziland, for example, which has the highest HIV prevalence of all the countries Parkhurst looked at, there was little evidence of a link between household wealth and individual prevalence.

Know your epidemic

Parkhurst's findings have implications for one-size-fits-all prevention campaigns that do not take into account the complex and changing ways in which wealth, education level and gender can affect risk-taking behaviours.

"We need to educate people [about HIV] in a way that's relevant to their context," he said. "It's about letting local actors to find out what's going to work best. If we try to work out the solution from London ... it's unlikely to work."

Parkhurst said "bottom-up" HIV prevention initiatives targeting the specific lifestyles and risk behaviours of a community were more likely to work. This approach is already catching on, with UNAIDS urging countries to "know your epidemic" and design prevention programmes accordingly.

"Health practitioners know they have to diagnose a problem before they can treat it," he said. "I think the international community is starting to recognize the importance of addressing structural drivers of HIV, not just broadly, but to look at the specifics for specific communities."

African Union report says continent is "winning war on AIDS"

A new report from the African Union says that member states are making strides in defeating AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. The report shows a reduction in new AIDS infections over the last four years. The new report also says that governments have recently increased the amount of money in health budgets.

From the Daily Nation, writer Paul Juma unpacks the report for us.

The report on the AU Conference of Ministers on Health, assessed how the continent was faring on with programmes to increase access to health services.

Dubbed, Five-Year Review of the Abuja call for Accelerated Action Towards Universal Access to HIV/Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria Services by 2010, the report was published ahead of an AU meeting to take place later this month in Uganda.

Malaria deaths had reduced due to artemisin treatment coupled with increased supply of treated nets and indoor residual spray, says the report.

“At the end of 2009, six AU member states had reached the goal of allocating 15 per cent or more of their national budgets to health,” it said on funding.

That goal is among others agreed on by AU health ministers under the Abuja Declaration of 2001 (a set of health goals for African countries) and later the Abuja Call, reached in 2006.

The report, which covered the last four years, also notes that more than half of African countries had allocated at least nine per cent of their national expenditures to health.

Child trafficking dangers in Yemen

From IRIN, a story on child trafficking activities along the Yemen/Saudi Arabia border.

Ali Hassan Salem was 10 when he was trafficked to Saudi Arabia. “When I grew up I did not go to school, but cleaned cars,” he said. Earning very little money in Yemen and having heard of the opportunities in Saudi Arabia, Ali decided to try his luck there.

“No-man’s-land between the borders is a harsh place,” Ali said. “There are wild animals and criminal gangs. I was lucky that nothing happened.”

In Jizan across the border he found work at a construction site. “I didn’t earn much and after expenses for food I only managed to save 200 SAR [US$55],” he said. “It was hard work and the Saudis mistreated us and called us dogs.”

After a month of hard labour and sleeping in an abandoned house with some men from Egypt and Somalia, Ali wanted to go home. “I was scared all the time and I missed my family.”

However, Ali was stopped at the border by Saudi police. “We tried to run away, but we were beaten with belts and batons and I spent three days in a detention centre,” he said.

Today Ali has this advice for any Yemeni children trying to go to Saudi Arabia to find work: “Don’t go. It’s dangerous and many come home damaged.”

However, with growing poverty and a shaky ceasefire in the north, there are fears that child trafficking may increase.

Border patrols

There are no reliable figures on child trafficking from Yemen. The Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour (MOSAL) says the number of children trafficked to Saudi Arabia are down from 900 in 2008 to 602 in 2009 due to awareness campaigns and collaboration between the Yemeni and Saudi authorities.

However, others say the dip in numbers is due to enhanced Saudi border patrols as a result of the conflict in the north. “If the restrictions [on the borders] are lifted the numbers will go up again,” said Jamal al-Haddi of The Charitable Society for Social Welfare (CSSW), a local NGO.

Mona Ali Salem of MOSAL’s Child Labour Unit worries that when internally displaced persons (IDPs) start returning to their homes in Saada, poverty will force many to put their children to work. “I am worried that children will be sent to work in the big cities and Saudi Arabia,” she said.

According to al-Haddi, child trafficking is linked to poverty. “The economic situation is bad in Yemen… Many have lost their homes and livelihoods because of the war [intermittent fighting between government forces and Houthi-led rebels in the north since 2004],” he said.

A 2008 study by CSSW entitled Situation Analysis of Child Trafficking said 70-80 percent of families interviewed sent their children away because of poverty.

“When people return many will have no choice but to send their children to Saudi Arabia or start smuggling. There is no other work,” said al-Haddi. “In many instances they will rely on their children for money.”

Children exploited

Children are both smuggled into Saudi Arabia to find work, and themselves also smuggle goods across the border, al-Haddi said, adding that while there were no accurate figures, it was estimated that two thirds of children living in the border areas of Harradh were involved in smuggling. While adults can face long prison sentences if caught, children do not.

But it is a dangerous business and often leaves children without much of an education in Yemen. “Many children leave school, as they work at night,” said al-Haddi. “Sometimes the Saudi authorities crack down on smuggling. Often children will try to run away, which results in them sometimes being shot at and wounded or killed,” he said.

On a visit to the Yemeni border village of al-Khadour in 2008, al-Haddi was told there were hundreds of children with disabilities as a result of gunshot wounds or having been hit by Saudi border patrol cars whilst trying to flee.

According to a report by CHF International (a US-based NGO working for “long-lasting positive change in low and moderate income communities around the world”), over 60 percent of children who had worked in Saudi Arabia were exposed to physical abuse, and over 10 percent reported sexual abuse. More than 80 percent of children were pushed by their parents into smuggling.

Education aid

To help reduce trafficking, CHF - in cooperation with CSSW, through their Access Plus Programme - is looking to work with five government schools near the three al-Mazraq IDP camps in Haradh District, Hajjah Governorate, to reach IDP children, as well as children vulnerable to trafficking in host communities.

The plan is to provide primary education for at least 2,000 girls and boys aged 6-14, of whom about 70 percent are IDPs and 30 percent local. There are also plans to provide employment for 500 young people aged 13-17, of whom 30 percent are local and 70 percent IDPs, through informal education and vocational training.

To further help curb and counter child trafficking and smuggling, the UN Children’s Fund is assisting Yarmouk Mazraq School (near the three al-Mazraq IDP camps) where some 1,250 IDP children are currently enrolled. The local authorities have enrolled 299 IDP children in other schools in Haradh District.

Another good report on Africa's economy

Another new report gives us good news about the African economy. The African Development Bank says that economic growth on the continent will return to pre-global recession levels. The ADB says that market reforms and strong economic ties to China is helping the continent grow even during the recession.

From this Associated Press article that we found at KAAL, we read more about the good news.

Mthuli Ncube, presenting the annual economic forecast of the multilateral bank dedicated to alleviating poverty and boosting growth in Africa, predicted a 4.5 percent growth rate for the continent’s economies this year. The bank looks ahead to more than 5 percent growth next year, and soon back to the average of about 6 percent Africa enjoyed between 2006 and 2008. Growth was just 2.5 percent last year.

But Ncube says recovery could be threatened if Europe _ to which many African economies are closely linked _ fails to bounce back. Other threats include the possibility of political or social tension and problems created by years of poor investment in infrastructure.

Ncube’s assessment is one of several to take note of how a continent usually associated with poverty and economic collapse has weathered the international crisis.

A report last month from the consulting firm McKinsey & Company concluded that "global business cannot afford to ignore the potential" of Africa, and lauded its governments for acting in recent years "to end political conflicts, improve macroeconomic conditions and create better business climates."

A recent World Bank assessment also concluded Africa was rebounding from the global crisis, and poverty was slowly decreasing after "a decade of improvements in governance, favorable commodity prices, better macroeconomic policies, higher investments in human development, health care and education."

The optimism about Africa comes amid concerns recovery is still fragile in Europe and the United States.

1 million widows in Iraq

The successive wars in Iraq has left the nation with 1 million widows. 100,000 of that total became widows after the US invasion of the country. The many years of war has left the population with too few men for the widows to find new companionship. The struggling Iraqi government is of no help either as it is unable to provide support to all of the women.

From this Associated Press article that we found at the Rock Hill Herald, writer Hamza Hendawi gives us more background on the plight or Iraq's widows.

Nahdah Hameed, the government's point person on women's social affairs, puts the number of widows at about 1 million, and even though the post-invasion violence has wound down, sporadic shootings and bombings continue to widow Iraqi women.

Besides the invasion, this nation of 27 million has gone through the 1980-88 war with Iran, the 1991 Gulf war, and Saddam Hussein's brutal campaigns against the Shiites and Kurds in the 1980s and 1990s.
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The post-2003 widows make a sharp contrast to those who lost husbands in previous wars. Saddam, flush with oil money, lavished plots of land, cars and generous pensions on the widows of the Iraq-Iran war, in which half a million Iraqis and Iranians died.

But the widows of the tens of thousands who died in Saddam's internal wars on Shiites, Kurds and political opponents in general usually were left struggling.

Mubarak and other women's activists say poverty is driving some Iraqi women into prostitution, both in Iraq and in neighboring Jordan and Syria, home to the Arab world's largest Iraqi refugee communities.

"Many of Iraq's neighbors are exploiting Iraqi women," said activist Suzan Kazim Kashkoul.

Also, she and other advocates say, the post-U.S. invasion violence has shrunk the pool of potential husbands for widows as well as single women over 30, and in the sectarian-charged postwar atmosphere, Sunni-Shiite marriages have become rare. The economy is in trouble yet the housing market is hot, making housing unaffordable for many.

A profile of a microcredit worker in Bolivia

The microcredit banks employ hundreds of field workers who work closely with the loan recipients. The attend the meetings of the peer groups of loan recipients and ensure the they are able to pay back the loans. Some microcredit banks even have the field workers help the recipients in other areas of life like health and education.

From Next Billion, we see a profile of one such worker in Bolivia, Justinano Osco.

Justinano Osco drove his dirt bike right into the meeting room where 11 women--members of a communal lending group, or village bank, sat awaiting him. The "room" was an open field in Achocalla, Bolivia. Justiniano is the loan officer who leads the twice-monthly meetings for this village bank, providing trainings, facilitating the loan process and supporting these women who are working to better their lives with the help of microfinance.

I had the opportunity to meet Justiniano-a loan officer with Global Partnerships microfinance partner CRECER-last summer. I was immediately impressed by the respect that Justiniano showed the members of this village bank and the rapport he had with them. He started the meeting off with an icebreaker that involved jumping up and down in place-which led to lots of giggles as the women bounced in their broad skirts, derby hats perched on their heads and long braids flapping at their sides

He then led a participative training on good nutrition, complete with posters of the food pyramid.
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Like many microfinance loan officers, Justiniano has a background that is very similar to the clients that he serves. He grew up in a poor, rural community: His parents were small farmers, working a tiny plot of land with a few animals.

"My childhood was very difficult. I didn't know what shoes were," he explained. He described how he and his clients "share the same culture, the same traditions, the same language." (The entire bank meeting was conducted in Aymara, the indigenous language spoken in this region.)
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Justiniano visits 20 meetings every week, with some requiring a two-and-a-half-hour ride. His dedication to visiting communities in remote regions is typical of micofinance loan officers and reflects a key difference between microfinance institutions and traditional banks. While banks have an office in the city and require you to go to them for service, microfinance organizations are proactive in their outreach, traveling to where their clients live.

Congo Republic relieved of 90 percent of its debt

This week, the Democratic Republic of Congo is celebrating it's fiftieth anniversary of independence. The DRC has also just received some good news from the big lending institutions. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have agreed to relieve the DRC of 90% of it's debt amounting to 12.3 billion dollars.

From the BBC, we learn more about this new reason to celebrate in the Congo.

DR Congo currently pays around $300m (£198m) every year in debt repayments.

The African country has been hard hit by violence and bad governance.

An estimated 5m people died in what was dubbed "Africa's world war" between 1998 and 2003, and areas of the country remain in conflict.

Despite having a multitude of valuable minerals, most of its citizens are poor.
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The country itself is among the group known by the IMF and World Bank as the Highly Indebted Poor Countries.
Continue reading the main story map DR Congo: Celebrating 50 years of chaos

The debt relief plan comes under their initiative to help these countries escape their debts in return for economic and government reforms.

The new debt relief could see as much as 90% of DR Congo's external debt erased, the BBC's Thomas Fessy reports from Kinshasa.

31 million Indonesians below poverty line

Despite a slight decrease, there are still 31 million Indonesians living in poverty. According to the countries Central Statistics Agency, that is still a drop of 1.5 million Indonesians from March of last year. The 31 million people translates to 33 percent of the countries population.

From the Jakarta Post, we read this analysis of the numbers.

However, BPS chief Rusman Heriawan said this year’s figures were less than the reduction witnessed in March last year (down 2.43 million).

“We have seen a reduction in the number of people living below the poverty line, but it wasn’t as big as we had hoped,” Rusman said at his office on Thursday.

He said the reduction was largely a result of improved stability in the market prices of basic foods.

“The bigger reduction in the number of people living in poverty last year was thanks to the direct-cash aid program provided by the government to the poor,” he said.

“Cash aid was very effective in reducing poverty in that period,”
he said.

Between March 2009 and 2010, the total number of poor people in urban areas declined by 0.81 million, more than in rural areas where the total declined 0.69 million, the report says.

Comment: US is behind the rest of the world in social business

A commentary that we found today in the Harvard Business Review echos what we believe to be true just from doing this blog: the US is way behind on social entrepreneurship. It is strange that the country that has led the way in entrepreneurship for many, many years is not successful on creating social business, companies with a goal of achieving the most social good instead of the most profit. In fact, we would guess that many in the US have not even heard of the term.

Thanks to the bloggers at Triple Pundit for drawing our attention to this commentary. Writer Timothy Ogden gives us great social business successes from the rest of the world, and some failures from the US. Ogden is an executive director at Sona Partners.

In 2009, William Kamkwamba, a teenager from Malawi, made the rounds on American talk shows and coauthored a best-selling book. The source of his notoriety? A homemade windmill that provided power and running water for his family. Kamkwamba built it from trash, using an old textbook as his only guide.

In the United States, the idea of deploying small-scale windmills had been abandoned as too expensive and horribly inefficient. In Malawi, a teenager had built one spending less money than the average American eighth-grader's weekly allowance.

Kamkwamba's story points to an unrecognized truth of social entrepreneurship and innovation. The United States isn't a leader; it's a laggard.

Consider some of the most important social innovations of the past 20 years. The modern microfinance industry was pioneered in Bangladesh and has spread to virtually every country in the world. The business model that allowed the near-universal penetration of cellular phones into poor communities was born in Bangladesh, as well.
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So how does the U.S. stack up? Compare the negligible impact of One Laptop Per Child to the pioneering role of GrameenPhone in the global mobile phone revolution and the attendant gains in real income. Meanwhile Voxiva, a U.S.-founded social entrepreneurial firm, offers a complex, proprietary system to gather information from the field — a system that can cost more than $1 million to operate. But Ushahidi boasts a simple, nearly free (I just contributed to the $600 fund needed to deploy Ushahidi in Kyrgyzstan) open-source platform that was up and running in Haiti in less than 48 hours after the earthquake there. Finally, a recent report has shown that the most profitable microfranchise operations all originated in the developing world

Sure, there are examples of impressive and effective American social entrepreneurship. But, as these comparisons make clear, most world-changing innovations aren't coming from the United States.

Why? Well, for one thing, we haven't figured out how to train entrepreneurs successfully. The rates of entrepreneurship (measured by self-employment and age of operating businesses) are lower in the United States than in most other countries (even OECD countries). Despite all the money poured into various entrepreneurship-training programs, the failure rate of U.S. entrepreneurs, social or otherwise, has held largely constant for decades.

Five nation free trade zone in East Africa begins today

As of today, five countries in East Africa began a common free-trade market. Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda will begin to remove all barriers to trade, the process should be fully operational in 2015. Goods will begin to move freely across the region without being stopped for hours even days at national borders.

From the BBC, writer Tim Bowler describes the new economic zone.

Last November, the member states of the East African Community (EAC) signed a common market protocol, aimed at expanding the existing customs union.

All five countries have already adopted a common external tariff, an identical tax applied to imports from outside the bloc, and allowed duty-free regional trade with the exception of Kenya, the largest economy.

As of July, the common market aims to build on this - to enable the free movement of people, capital and services and abolish import duties.

But the EAC's ambitions go beyond pure economics. The hope is that member states will adopt a common currency by 2012, allowing them to move towards a political federation.
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Vimal Shah, is the director of Bidco Oil Refineries, in Kenya, which makes and sells vegetable oils, fats, margarine, soaps across the region.

He says his company will gain from the common market.

"We support farms in Uganda and Tanzania. we buy all of their produce, we process it here in Kenya and then we sell the finished product. So now we will be able do that without any hassles."

Video: MSF treats a measles emergency in Malawi

From Medecins Sans Frontieres, details on a measles outbreak in Malawi.

MSF or Doctors Without Borders, is a humanitarian organization that concentrates on medical services for the under-developed world. You can learn more about the work of MSF by visiting their website.

The child mothers of Uganda

Early childhood abductions and mass rapes have been two of the weapons of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. The Army will kidnap young girls to be made wives to the soldiers, or young boys will stolen away to fight in the army. The girls suffer beatings and rapes by "husbands" who don't love them. The women are forced to bare the children that were conceived by the rapes.

If any of these women are able to leave the Lord's Resistance Army they are not quite accepted by the community. The "rebel children" suffer more taunting and beatings, and are unwanted by anyone but their mothers, even by new husbands. In Uganda, children who are born out of wedlock face a bad social stigma, it is much worse for the children born out of the rebel army.

From CTV, writer Darcy Wintonyk visited Uganda with the Canadian International Development Agency. In this story, Darcy gives a few examples of the kidnapped girls who escaped and went on to improve their lives.

Twenty-eight-year-old Beatrice Akello has been praised for her beauty her entire life. As a child growing up in Atiak, Uganda, elderly women in the village would pinch her smooth cheeks as she walked by, her long silky black hair always tied with bright ribbon. She loved the attention -- until she was abducted by rebels with the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, in 1995.

In captivity in Sudan, she was kept segregated from men until she got her first period at age 13. Then she was forced to marry a 30-year-old rebel. She was the first girl picked from a group of dozens.

"I never loved him," she tells me. "Because I feared for my life I had to accept."

Beatrice was one of seven wives, all physically and emotionally abused at the hands of their husband.

"If I refused to sleep with him he would beat me seriously. Or just rape me. He said I was the most beautiful so he gave me the most attention. I wished I was ugly."

Against her wishes, she would bear two children with him in captivity.

Famished and desperate in the jungle, Beatrice told the commander the women in the village were starving to death. The rebels released her, along with several other child mothers. Her youngest child was two.
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All alone with no income, Beatrice took out a $200 loan from World Vision in 2008 to buy three sewing machines and selected a group of child mothers to start making clothing to generate income so they didn't need to rely on men and could independently support their children.

She now runs the Lacan Pe Nino Child Mother's Association (LPNCA), a school program run from a one-room warehouse that used to store cotton in the 1970s. Of the 21 child mothers, only one says her partner approves.

"I think the men are just jealous," Beatrice says. "We just want to work hard. We missed the chance to go to school. We are finally making a difference in our own lives. Even if it's just a small group at least it's a start."

Video: MSF treating burn victims in Haiti

From Medecins Sans Frontieres, a video showing their work on treating burn victims in Haiti.

MSF or Doctors Without Borders, is a humanitarian organization that concentrates on medical services for the under-developed world. You can learn more about the work of MSF by visiting their website.

US aid effectiveness hampered by lack of transparency

A new report from OXFAM says that the US aid sufferes from a lack of information from both sides, the recipient and the donor. The countries receiving the aid lack info on what the money is for and are unable to plan ahead to spend it wisely. On the flip side, the US often lacks data from the recipient countries on how the money is spent.

The report entitled "Information: Let Countries Know What Donors Are Doing" says that US aid is ineffective because of the lack of data. The report goes on to say that several arms of the government is giving out aid money which could be wasteful and confusing.

From Reuters Alert Net, writer Olesya Dmitracova explains the report further and gives us a couple of examples. OXFAM is an international Non-Governmental Organization that operates advocacy, education and emergency assistance programs to help the poor.

For example, because of insufficient communication with the Afghan government, the United States has funded many schools and health clinics that ended up being used as barns and storage facilities because the Afghan government hadn't planned to support schools and clinics in those locations, the report said.

And in Cambodia, the lack of information on U.S. aid is causing confusion, with civil society groups worrying about what they see as closer ties between the United States and Cambodia's government and some in the government thinking that U.S. aid officials are too close to other organisations.

RIGHT INFORMATION, ON TIME

At a minimum, donors must tell recipient governments how much aid they plan to provide; the purpose of the funds; how, where and when those funds will be delivered; and how the donors will decide whether the money has been put to good use or not, Oxfam said.

The United States does not provide such information systematically, the organisation found.

One reason for this is the fact that U.S. government aid agencies do not have a clear obligation to translate the data they have on aid into information that is useful to recipient countries.

The report recommends expanding relevant U.S. laws to require U.S. government aid agencies to provide the detailed aid information beneficiary nations need.

Moreover, no single U.S. agency has complete knowledge of what the country's many government agencies and programmes, as well as the military, provide in foreign aid.