Social Co-operatives are booming in Guatemala

Social cooperatives are booming in Guatemala, so much so that they make up 22 percent of the gross domestic product. In co-operatives, the workers each have a share in ownership. This gives each person the opportunity build an income not only for themselves but also for others they invite to work with them.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Danilo Valladares tells us about one co-operative that makes artisan jewelry available in markets worldwide.

“Our economic situation improved a great deal because we obtained more income for our families” as a result of setting up a social enterprise, Matilde García, who makes fashion jewellery in the municipality of Pastores, 60 km west of the capital of Guatemala, told IPS.

“Now we send our children to school in the urban area and we can pay for their transport and food,” said this proud mother of three, who gave up working as a domestic employee with a monthly wage of about 40 dollars to set up a small-scale factory of necklaces, bracelets and fashion accessories employing 25 women.

Social entrepreneurship and cooperatives are offering rural families the opportunity to generate income in Guatemala, where 54 percent of the country’s 15 million people live in poverty and 13 percent in extreme poverty, especially in areas where most of the population is indigenous, according to the state National Survey of Living Conditions of 2011.

García’s group is one of 15 firms made up of 350 people, mostly women, who operate in eight of Guatemala’s 22 departments or provinces, making fashion jewellery for the social enterprise Kiej De Los Bosques, which in the Maya Cakchiquel language means “deer of the woods.”

“This is changing entire communities,” said Ligia Chinchilla, head of the Saquil group to which the Kiej De Los Bosques enterprise and the non-governmental Comunidades de la Tierra (Communities of the Earth) belong.

Kiej De Los Bosques is a private company that markets the products manufactured by the women under the Wakami label, while Comunidades de la Tierra develops their capacities and “incubates” them into formal businesses within two years.

“This country’s problems, such as poverty, are very complex, and it is everyone’s job to solve them. That’s why we created this with the goal of increasing incomes in rural areas,” said Chinchilla, one of the three founders of the social enterprise.

Mineral wealth leads to slower economic growth for some African nations

One of the sad paradoxes of Africa's oil producing countries is that there can be great wealth under ground, but very little for the people above it. Oil producing nations can pump a lot of oil, but all of that money never seems to change poverty levels.

A new report from the World Bank shows that economic growth in oil producing nations is actually slower that African countries without it. From the Guardian, writer Mark Tran unpacks the report.

Africa's Pulse, a twice-yearly analysis of Africa's economic prospects, noted that the decline in poverty rates in resource-rich countries has generally lagged behind that of countries without riches in the ground. Some countries, such as Angola, Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon, have witnessed an increase in the percentage of the population living in extreme poverty.

The report confirms the common perception that, to a large extent, the benefits of growth have not reached the poorest segments of society. It raises questions for aid donors and African governments on how to deal with the "resource curse", with strikes in South African mines providing a stark illustration of what is at stake.

"Resource-rich African countries have to make the conscious choice to invest in better health, education, and jobs, and less poverty for their people, because it will not happen automatically when countries strike it rich," said Shantayanan Devarajan, the World Bank's chief economist for Africa, and lead author of Africa's Pulse. "Gabon, for example, with a per-capita income of $10,000 (£6,200) has one of the lowest child immunisation rates in Africa."

How to ensure that natural resources benefit the general population, not just the elite, is a question likely to grow more acute as discoveries of oil, gas and other minerals in African countries are expected to generate considerable wealth in the future.

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Africa's Pulse underlines the continent's heavy dependence on commodities for its recent growth, although domestic demand has played its part. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow at 4.8% in 2012, broadly unchanged from 4.9% growth in 2011, and is largely on track despite setbacks in the global economy. Excluding South Africa, the continent's largest economy, growth in sub-Saharan Africa is forecast to rise to 6%.

While African economies have not been immune to the crisis in the eurozone, the World Bank said consistently high commodity prices and strong export growth in countries with mineral discoveries in recent years have fuelled economic activity and are expected to underpin economic growth for the rest of the year.

Trees and food return to Kenya's Rusinga Island

Agriculture is being forced to adapt to changing weather patterns that bring us more droughts and floods. A lot of that change is beginning in the under-developed nations that have been hit by the severe weather the hardest. Non-Governmental Organizations have been leading the way in teaching small farmers who to adapt.

A story from Reuters Alert Net today shows us some of that change taking place on an island within Kenya's Lake Victoria. The majority of the people of Rusinga Island fished for a living. A problem began to develop for the island when most of the trees were cut down to smoke the fish caught in Lake Victoria. The loss of most of the trees made it impossible to grow any other food on the island.

Writer Pius Sawa tells us how some agricultural concepts borrowed from Australia have helped to grow food on Rusinga Island again.

“You can just see around. We don’t have any trees on the land,” said Evans Odula, the director of Badilisha, a local NGO whose name in Kiswahili means “change.”

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To deal with the worsening problems, Odula now trains farmers in permaculture (permanent agriculture), a concept that originated in Australia.

Odula describes it as “a way of farming where people are able to provide food throughout the year while protecting the environment.”

“We are trying to see people do farming that is eco-friendly and (with) no use of chemicals,” he said. “(We teach) eco-friendly activities that promote good soil, plants and organisms, and biological ways of pest control.”

On the compound where Badilisha trains farmers there are fodder trees, crops, animal sheds and water harvesting tanks. The shade of the trees is cooling and Odula points out the benefits of the lucerne tree.

“It provides shade (as well as) fodder for the animals, and at the same time firewood,” he said.
Shem Orwa Anditi, a member of one of Badilisha’s self-help groups for farmers, now practises permaculture.

“We are growing cabbages, kale and tomatoes,” the 63-year-old said. “We don’t use any chemical fertilizer, just compound manure. We don’t burn anything in the farm. We use (plant waste) for mulching which keeps water in the soil.”

Anditi, a retired civil servant, now is able to grow enough vegetables to sell as well as being able to feed his family.

Ebola outbreak in Uganda has ended

An Ebola virus outbreak in Uganda is now over according to the government's health agency. The spread of Ebola began a couple of months ago and killed 16 people. Officials have not said what started the spread of the disease.

From Reuters Alert Net, writer Elias Biryabarema tells us more about the announcement.

"The Ministry of Health has ... officially declared an end of the Ebola outbreak that broke out in Kibaale district in July. This follows completion of the 42 days of the post-Ebola surveillance countdown period which is a pre-requisite of the World Health Organization," it said in a statement late on Thursday.

Uganda first confirmed the Ebola outbreak on July 28 in Kibaale district, 170 km (100 miles) west of the capital Kampala, on the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo where the virus first emerged in 1976, taking its name from the Ebola River.

Uganda has suffered several Ebola outbreaks before, the biggest in 2000, when 425 people were infected by the virus and more than half of them died.

OXFAM says land "grabbed" by foreign investors could have fed 1 billion people

In the past decade over 261 million acres of farm-able land were scooped up by foreign investors. According to a new report today from OXFAM, most of that land had either sat idle, or is being used to grow crops for bio-fuels. OXFAM says that instead the land could have grown enough food to feed one billion people.

From the Guardian, writer John Vidal tells us more about what is in the report.

In a report, published on Thursday, Oxfam says the global land rush is out of control and urges the World Bank to freeze its investments in large-scale land acquisitions to send a strong signal to global investors to stop "land grabs".

"More than 60% of investments in agricultural land by foreign investors between 2000 and 2010 were in developing countries with serious hunger problems. But two-thirds of those investors plan to export everything they produce on the land. Nearly 60% of the deals have been to grow crops that can be used for biofuels," says the report.

Very few, if any, of these land investments benefit local people or help to fight hunger, says Oxfam. "Instead, the land is either being left idle, as speculators wait for its value to increase … or it is predominantly used to grow crops for export, often for use as biofuels."

The bank has tripled its support for land projects to $6bn-$8bn (£3.7bn-£5bn) a year in the last decade, but no data is available on how much goes to acquisitions, or any links between its lending and conflict.

Since 2008, says Oxfam, 21 formal complaints have been brought by communities affected by World Bank investments, in which they claim that these have violated their land rights.

Oxfam's chief executive, Barbara Stocking, said: "The rush for land is out of control and some of the world's poorest people are suffering hunger, violence and greater poverty as a result. The World Bank is in a unique position to help stop land grabs becoming one of the biggest scandals of the century."

Inflation in South Sudan makes life harder for female farmers

Inflation has been rising rapidly in South Sudan throughout the year. The cause of the inflation is blamed on an oil production shutdown. South Sudan stopped producing oil because of their ongoing conflict with "North" Sudan. This inflation has crippled the ability of South Sudan's poor to earn a decent wage. Pile this on top of floods and drought for the poor farmer.

From this Sudan Tribune article that we found at All Africa, writer Bonifacio Toban Kuich profiles some women trying to earn a wage at a farmers market.   

Rebecca Nyamuoka Kuay a 25-year-old vegetable seller in Kalibalek market says that her small business is helping her family survive, despite high levels of inflation.

Kuay says she and her fellow women often have to sit in the sun, waiting for customers to buy their vegetables.

"Before the prices increase, women use to get 50 SSP per day in the process of selling vegetables. But due to recent inflation women find it hard for 50 SSP to buy 5Kg of sorghum in the market as the market price increase every day", said Kuay.

Kuay called on the government to control the high increases in food prices in the market by limiting taxes on traders so that citizens can afford to eat.

Nyakuoth Kuol walked 20 miles each day to Bentiu town to sell milk in Kalibalek market in order to afford health care for her sick 5-year-old daughter who is in hospital. However, she told Sudan Tribune that thieves stole 200 SSP (approx. $65) while she was selling her milk.

Kuol says she is giving up selling milk in the town after she lost her money.

"I came here yesterday upon my arrive, some guys came and steal my money, I got discourage with the business, my present here was to rise up money, this is really making me very shame as I thought my coming was to solve my problem with my children", Kuol added.

Food prices increased in September

Food prices went up again in September according to the latest survey for the U. N.s Food and Agriculture Organization. Droughts in the U. S. and Russia are to blame for the latest increase. Food prices continue to inch closer to the record levels experienced during the global food crisis of 2008.

From Reuters Alert Net, we read this short summary of the report.

The FAO Food Price Index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 216 points in September, up 3 points from the reading in August, the FAO said in its monthly update.

The rise reflected mainly higher dairy and meat prices, with more contained increases for cereals, it said.

 The Rome-based agency said it had cut its 2012 world cereals output forecast by 0.4 percent to 2.286 billion tonnes from a previous estimate of 2.295 billion tonnes, mainly due to a smaller maize crop in central and southeastern parts of Europe, where yields have been hit by prolonged dry conditions.

Can bus transit cut poverty?

Mega-cities in South America and Africa have many slums that surround the inner-city. People within these slums often have to travel quite a distance to their jobs in more industrial parts of the city. To solve this problem, a few mega-cities have built fast bus systems to get the poor to their jobs at a low cost.

Critics however are questioning the effectiveness of these new transit systems. They have backed up their concerns with some studies showing that the bus lines benefit the middle class instead.

From this IPS story that we found at All Africa, writer Gail Jennings looks into this issue. 

Bus Rapid Transit, sometimes referred to as "rail on road" systems, are high-quality, high-capacity bus systems with their own right-of-way, dedicated bus lanes.

Today the TransMilenio in Bogota, Colombia carries around 1.6 million passengers every day, over 84 kilometres of segregated busway. In Curitiba, Brazil, about 70 percent of commuters use the BRT, and around 30 percent of passengers are "converted" private car users.

It is upon purportedly transformative systems such as these that the cities of Johannesburg, Tshwane and Cape Town in South Africa, Lagos in Nigeria and Nairobi in Kenya have pinned their transport hopes and dreams.

Early phases of multi-million dollar capital projects are operating in Johannesburg and Cape Town, and are set to soon launch in at least four other cities in South Africa.

But while it is too early to draw long-term conclusions about the impact of these transport systems, a number of researchers are asking questions and coming up with some answers about their ability to contribute to national goals of alleviating poverty.

James Chakwizira, a senior researcher in the built infrastructure department at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), told IPS that although these high-quality services do have great potential for addressing public transport challenges within communities, the current initiatives such as Johannesburg's three-year-old system, Rea Vaya, fall short of expectations.

He said because terminal infrastructure developments are located away from the marginal communities' location, people from these areas need to use a minimum of two transport modes in order to access and use the routes.

How does the world best prevent against shocks to food prices?

Food and grain prices hit record highs over the summer. This was helped in part by the drought in the United States.  The record high prices is prompting an emergency meeting of G-20 agricultural ministers to discuss the issue. The cost of food has dropped since the summer. Still, world leaders are debating what should be done to prevent steep price increases for the future.

France proposes returning to a food stockpile system, similar to how the U.S. has "strategic" stockpiles of oil. Other countries in E.U. disagree and say we should concentrate in increasing crop yields.

From Reuters Alert Net, writer Silvia Aloisi looks into this debate.

Building strategic agricultural stocks to curb market volatility, as proposed by France, would not be the most effective way to tame food prices, EU Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said on Monday.

He said what was needed instead was an increase in food production in the world's poorest countries, which remain vulnerable to the threat of a new food crisis despite the recent easing in grain prices from record highs hit this summer.

Last month, French President Francois Hollande launched a global campaign to win support for creating strategic stockpiles of food commodities after a year of drought renewed fears of a new crisis in agricultural supplies.

Paris has also called an emergency meeting of G20 farm ministers for mid-October to discuss ways to curb price volatility.

"I believe it is one of the instruments but it is not the most effective," Piebalgs told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an international cooperation conference in Milan when asked about the French stockpiles proposal.

"The answer to food insecurity is sufficient food production in the world's poorest regions," he said, adding that increasing investments in agriculture was the best way to keep a lid on prices.

"Resilience in farming, access to water, fighting against climate change, crops, access to the markets - it's a lot of elements, one element does not help sufficiently," he said.

A look at the development aid positions of Romney and Obama

Both of the U. S. Presidential candidates spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative last week. Their speeches outlined what their goals for foreign development aid would look like if elected. A look at the positions of each reveals that both candidates have about the same agenda.

Despite what he says about "big government," Romney doesn't want to make major cut backs. Analysts say that the best hope for more foreign development aid is that the same party runs both Congress and the White House. The now Republican controlled Congress whould be more willing to support any programs Romney comes up with, while they would close the pocketbook for anything Obama proposes.

From the U.K. based paper the Guardian, we have this look at the policy positions on each

Obama's White House and executive agencies have been leading initiatives to update US foreign assistance and elevate development policy alongside defence and diplomacy. But his policymakers had a late start.

Obama picked those he wanted to lead on defence and diplomacy – Robert Gates and Hillary Clinton – well before he took office, but it took more than a year to nominate Rajiv Shah for the top job at the US international development agency, USAid, which still has key leadership vacancies. Staffing delays and two development policy reviews – one led by the White House and the other run by the State Department and USAid – consumed the better half of this presidential term.

As a result, the efforts of Obama's administration to improve the US aid architecture and approach, including gathering better data and evidence about what works, are still getting off the ground. Obama's team missed an opportunity to work with members of Congress – under Democratic leadership before the mid-term elections – to legislate changes. His development policymakers see this election as the difference between launching their policy vision, or actually carrying it out.

Romney, who has been silent on these issues until now, is promising a modern but not new foreign aid approach. His plan addresses the same important issues that have driven the development agendas of both Obama and his predecessor, George W Bush.

Romney spoke of three "quite legitimate" but familiar aid objectives during his Clinton Global Initiative remarks on Tuesday. "First, to address humanitarian need. Such is the case with the Pepfar (the President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief), an initiative that has provided medical treatment to millions suffering from HIV and Aids. Second, to foster a substantial US strategic interest, be it military, diplomatic, or economic." The third purpose, Romney said, is "aid that elevates people and brings about lasting change in communities and nations".

Romney's "prosperity pacts" sound a lot like Obama's "partnerships for growth". Both emphasise economic growth and better use of trade policy and private sector investment. Similarly, Obama and Romney both aim to be more selective about where the US gives foreign assistance to spur policy reform and prosperity, not just deliver social services. The US Millennium Challenge Corporation, created by Bush with bipartisan support from Congress, embodies the same principles.

600 million jobs in 15 years!

The World Bank says that the world needs to create 600 million jobs over the next fifteen years. This amount of job creation will be needed to keep the same levels of employment as we have now, and that is not all that high to begin with.

The World Bank focused on jobs in their latest World Development Report. The Bank says that it is not the amount of jobs that matter, but the kinds of jobs. As an example, one can be employed in farming, but it won't help them much if their crops keep getting flooded.

From this Reuters story that we found at the Huffington Post, writer Anna Yukhananov delves into the report deeper.

"It is not just the number of jobs, it is also what people do," said Martin Rama, the director of the World Bank's annual World Development Report. This year, the report focused on how employment impacts overall well-being for societies, looking at examples culled from more than 800 surveys and censuses.

As an example, Rama pointed to Mozambique, where a commodities boom has fueled one of the highest growth rates in sub-Saharan Africa. But more than 80 percent of the country's citizens work in agriculture, where poverty rates remain stubbornly high.

Governments should focus on boosting employment in areas that would have the most positive spillover effects on society as a whole. For example, more jobs for women has been tied to greater investment in education and health, while reducing employment barriers for young men could improve social cohesion.

"Jobs themselves are a driver of development," said Kaushik Basu, who on Monday began his job as World Bank chief economist.

In Tunisia, a high growth rate did not translate into more jobs for young people, as bureaucratic red tape and unequal treatment limited the creation of new businesses. The country erupted into turmoil in 2010, which later sparked revolts across North Africa and the Middle East.

Drought and flooding could lead to bonded labor in Pakistan

When Muhammad Yunus began his micro-credit Grameen Bank in the 1970s it was in response to the unfair practices of moneylenders in his native Pakistan. The moneylenders would loan money to the poor at high interest rates. If the poor couldn't repay, they would become bonded laborers for the moneylenders.

The problem still exists today, but something has since changed to make it harder for the poor to repay... the effects of climate change. The poor farmer would hope that a good crop would give him enough money to repay the loans. Now repeated floods and droughts have doomed more poor farmers into default.

From Reuters Alert Net, writers Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio describe the how the fortunes have changed for many farmers.  

“Because,the agriculture and livestock farming families were still recovering from the heavy damages (caused by last's year's devastating rains) to crops and livestock, this year's drought conditions have multiplied economic and health miseries and sufferings of these pastoral and nomadic families,” said Ali Akbar Rahimo, executive director of the Association for Water, Applied Education and Renewable Energy (AWARE), a not-for-profit local NGO in Tharpakar and adjoining districts.

Tharparkar’s deputy commissioner, Tahir Memon, said this year’s drought has left many families with massive financial losses, particularly if their loans came from private moneylenders.

Generally, farmers procure fertiliser, seed and other farm inputs on credit each year from local moneylenders and sell some of their crops to clear their loans if there are good rains. Those who cannot often default, and many defaulter families end up in bonded labour at brick lins, or working in factories, shops,  or the houses of moneylenders.

Because of the absence of formal government-run lending facilities, most farming families in Tharparkar district are at the mercy of moneylenders, whose inflated interest rates can keep poor families trapped in debt for decades. 

Drought in Tharparker is also worsening health problems in the district, as people and animals too weak to migrate turn to drinking contaminated water, officials said. Pregnant women and young babies are particularly hard hit.

India's landless to march for reform

A massive 200 mile march will protest the conditions of peasant farmers and people without land in India. It is going to be one of the biggest protests in the nation's history. 50,000 people are expected to march into Delhi tomorrow to demand more help from the government.

From the Guardian, writer Jason Burke talks to one of the organizers of the march.  

"Millions of people are living in slums, on railway tracks, under plastic sheets … They should have a piece of land to call their own. Others have to make way for factories, roads, airports, mines. I do not accept industrialisation at this cost," said PV Rajagopal, the veteran activist who leads the Ekhta Parishad organisation behind the march.

Rajagopal and his followers say they are inspired by the example set by Mahatma Gandhi and his ideal of a nation of self-sufficient villages. One aim of the march is to mobilise the hundreds of millions who have not benefited from India's 20-year economic boom. Today is the anniversary of Gandhi's birthday and a national holiday.

However, Gandhi's "vision is being rejected every day in this country", according to Rajagopal, who made his name by persuading bandits in central India to "lay down their arms" in the 1970s.

The march is an embarrassment for the beleaguered Indian government, a fragile coalition led by the Congress party.

Rural voters have traditionally voted for Congress and their support will be crucial in elections due in 2014. In recent years, the poor have increasingly turned to other, often local, parties.

Climate change effects on the ocean's food

We have talked a lot lately about how the effects of climate change is hurting food grown on the ground, but what about the food in the oceans? There is now growing evidence that CO2 emissions are increasing the acidity of the water. This forces the fish to move to cooler waters, and away from the fisherman that live from them.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Stephan Leahy describes this threat to the oceans.

Seafood is a primary source of protein for more than a billion of the poorest people in the world, said Matthew Huelsenbeck, report author and marine scientist at Oceana, an environmental NGO.

“For many island nations like the Maldives, seafood is the cheapest and most readily available source of protein,” Huelsenbeck told IPS.

The Maldives, Togo and Comoros top the list of nations whose food security is threatened by climate change, according to the report, “Ocean-Based Food Security Threatened in a High CO2 World”, which ranks the vulnerabilities of nations. Surprisingly, Iran is fourth on that list. This is the first-ever look at how climate change may affect food security for countries that are dependent on fish and seafood.

The report was released this week at the Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World: Ocean Acidification, where nearly 600 scientists from around the world presented their research.

Rising ocean temperatures are pushing many fish away from the tropics towards the poles where waters are cooler, researchers have documented. And in a well-understood process, human emissions of CO2 have increased the acidity of oceans by 30 percent, threatening fish habitats such as coral reefs and thinning the shells of shellfish like oysters, clams and mussels.

The report examined every country’s exposure to climate change and ocean acidification, its dependence on and consumption of fish and seafood, and its level of adaptive capacity based on several socioeconomic factors, said Huelsenbeck.

The Global Citizen Festival

The new website Global Citizen hosted a music festival in New York's Central Park over the weekend. The Global Citizen Festival's goal was to build awareness of battling poverty world wide. Between sets of music, concert goers heard from celebrities on what is going on in the rest of the world. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, The Black Keys and the Foo Fighters were some of the headliners.

From the New York Times, writer Jon Pareles tells us more about the purpose for the concert.

Global Citizen, the Web site and festival, grew out of the Global Poverty Project, which strives to end extreme poverty: the situation of more than 1.4 billion people trying to subsist on less than $1.25 a day. The Global Poverty Project works with nongovernmental organizations worldwide, spanning education, women’s rights, public health, including providing mosquito nets and malaria treatment as well as training midwives to help eradicate polio in the three countries where it remains endemic. It was noted that Mr. Young is a polio survivor.

Concertgoers received free tickets by enrolling an e-mail address with Global Citizen and then performing certain actions through the Web site, including watching videos, spreading information via social media and doing something for a partner organization.

During equipment changes there were video clips, activists and celebrities — among them Katie Couric, Selena Gomez, Olivia Wilde and Katharine McPhee, as well as the economist Jeffrey D. Sachs — detailing poverty-related death tolls and efforts to change them. The concert’s hosts called for actions like sending a poverty-related tweet to the presidential candidates.

Leaders of organizations from India, Haiti and Somalia got rock-star-size ovations. But the audience was there for the music; Foo Fighters fans started shouting for the band before the Unicef pitch ended.

Half of Yemen is hungry says the WFP

Political instability is to blame for a large precentage of malnurtrition in Yemen. Almost half of all the Yemeni people go hungry according to a new report from the World Food Programme.

The instability began with a revolt against the leadership of Ali Abdullah Saleh a year ago. Saleh still clings to power but it is a weak, as factions of Islamists control outlying parts of the country.

From Reuters Alert Net, writer Andrew Hammond interviewed a spokesman of the World Food Programme about the situation in Yemen.

Forced to import most of its food needs because of a paucity of arable land, Yemen has also suffered from a rise in global food and fuel prices, WFP spokesman Barry Came told Reuters.

"Five million people, or 22 percent of the population, can't feed themselves or buy enough to feed themselves ... These are mostly landless labourers, so they don't grow their own food, and with high food prices they can't buy it either," said Came.

"In addition, there is another five million who are being really hard hit by high food prices and on the edge of being food insecure. So 10 million people in this country go to bed hungry every night."

The number of people receiving daily WFP food rations has risen from 1.2 million in January to over 3.8 million, but poor infrastructure and fear of kidnappings by tribes have complicated the logistics of providing food aid.

"They are really hit by fuel and food price rises ... but there's also political instability, conflict, terrorist activity and huge population displacement," he said. "Without political security and stability you can't solve the problem."

Price for a contraception device to be halved for the developing world

A very big announcement was made at the United Nations Wednesday, one that could make contraceptives for women in the under-developed world a lot cheaper. Progestogen implants will now be available at half price thanks to an aggreement reached by Bayer HealthCare and a purchasing coalition.

From the Huffington Post, we read more about the announcement.

"This is a very big deal, and it will play itself out over and over again in the lives of citizens who will be safe, who will have healthier families and who will live longer lives," Clinton said at the U.N. Wednesday, flanked by the leaders of Norway and Nigeria.

Bayer HealthCare, the maker of the progestogen implants, has agreed to reduce their price by more than half in exchange for a six-year purchasing commitment from a coalition made up of the Norwegian, British, U.S. and Swedish governments, the Clinton Health Access Initiative and The Children's Investment Fund Foundation.

This announcement comes in the wake of a family planning summit in July, during which $4.6 billion was dedicated to family planning.

Growth of African cities beginning to slow

One of the common perceptions about Africa is that the cities are growing out of control. People flee the rural areas because there are more jobs in the city. But recent research is indicating that this growth is starting to slow down, because of a lack of jobs in the urban areas.

From Reuters Alert Net writer Laurie Goering attended a presentation covering the new data.

Contrary to expectations, countries like Ivory Coast, Mali, Zambia and Central African Republic have seen periods in the last 20 years when more city dwellers have moved to rural areas than vice versa, said Deborah Potts, a Kings College London demographer who looks at urbanisation trends in sub-Saharan Africa.

In many parts of the region, “you have tremendous counter-movements out of the cities back to rural areas… because people are finding it really hard to find livelihoods that will sustain them in the cities,” she said during a presentation at the Chatham House think tank in London.

This outwards migration has slowed the expected rate of population growth in some African cities such as Lagos, Potts said. That could have important implications for urban planners and for national preparations to deal with climate change.

The lack of jobs in African cities may also challenge widely held assumptions that rural families hit by increasingly extreme weather will be able to adapt by moving to cities or sending family members to work there.

Farmers affected by worsening droughts may move to towns or cities, Potts said, but “there are no livelihood activities for them and if there are no such activities, they will just be refugees. That’s a different kind of urbanisation.”

In fact, faced with food shortages and weather disasters like flooding, African city dwellers may actually move - temporarily or permanently - to rural areas to try to cope, said Deborah Sporton, an Africa expert and human geography lecturer at Britain’s University of Sheffield.

Some pledges of help from the Clinton Global Initiative

The Clinton Global Initiative is wrapping up its annual conference in New York. Both of the U.S. Presidential candidates spoke at the conference yesterday.

Former President Bill Clinton formed the Initiative because he was frustrated about going to many global summits without anything being done. So Clinton demands a pledge from every conference attendee. The pledge has to be a new program to help the poor or the environment.

From this Reuters story, writer Edith Honan tells us of some of the pledges made this year.  

Clinton spent much of Sunday's session heaping praise on companies' socially responsible practices. Walmart, which has made extensive investments in solar energy at its U.S. stores, and Procter & Gamble, which has pledged to save a child every hour by providing safe drinking water, were lauded for their efforts.

In keeping with this year's theme, "Designing for Impact," participants will discuss ways to provide safe and reliable energy, boost sustainable tourism, promote a greater role for women in society, and guarantee access to food in the face of extreme weather conditions as a result of climate change.

Since the initiative began, more than 2,000 pledges have been made, valued at more than $69 billion, and they have improved the lives of more than 400 million people in 180 countries, Clinton said.

At this year's summit, businessman and philanthropist Tom Golisano pledged $12 million to expand the Special Olympics' health-related services to people with intellectual disabilities.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Suntech Power Holdings Company Limited and the GlobalECHO Foundation have teamed up to install solar panels at the Panzi Hospital - a pioneering facility that treats victims of sexual violence.

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/23/us-usa-clinton-idUSBRE88M07P20120923

Getting around the Taliban ban on vaccines

For a long time the Taliban have imposed a ban against vaccinations. They believed that the vaccinations would leave their young boys impotent. So for many years their children were at grave risk of diseases such as polio, measles, hepatitis and more. 

One local NGO has found a way around the ban, and it began by cooperating with the Islamists. From the Inter Press Service, writer Ashfaq Yusufzai describes the effort.

Earlier this month officials mounted an offensive against the ban. The government enlisted a local NGO, the National Research and Development Foundation, and religious scholars to hold talks with the outlawed jihadist outfit Ansar ul Islam (AI) to negotiate the terms of a vaccination programme.

The NGO began facilitating the vaccination on Sept. 4, an upbeat Dr. Aftab Akbar Durrani, social sector secretary of the FATA, told IPS.

He added that AI’s cooperation had enabled 95 percent of the children in the Tirah area to receive the vaccination.

“It is a major breakthrough, as many (previous) efforts to vaccinate children in the Taliban-controlled areas had failed,” officials told the English-language Dawn newspaper, crediting the organisation with protecting 32,641 children from polio.

Officials added that 11,626 children also received the vaccine against measles, while another 3,889 newborns and month-old infants were vaccinated against five other ailments between Sept. 4 and 6.

“Ansar ul Islam and religious leaders attached to the group understand that the poliovirus can cause lifelong disability so they are ready to support the initiative,” according to officials. Only four families refused to vaccinate their children, but efforts are currently underway to convince them otherwise.

“Ansar ul Islam played a vital role in countering community refusals,” officials told IPS