Prayers for rain

I crave sunshine. I think it comes from being born just after Midsummer. I feel at my happiest when sitting in dappled sunlight, underneath the promise of a cloudless blue sky.

So the last three weeks of constant rain, and the forecast of the wettest and coldest May for many years, fill me with melancholy.

Yet in spite of the current weather, we are in a time of drought, and counties up and down the UK face hosepipe bans until the end of this year at least.

It’s strange to be in drought during a time of so much rain. I was in Kenya during the drought in the Horn of Africa last summer. It was the worst that the region had witnessed for 60 years. The red flesh of the earth was barren, the empty river beds like bloodless veins. Cattle carcasses littered the horizon, and the wind carried the pungent smell of death.

One woman I met told me that she prayed for rain every single day, a prayer for rain to comfort the earth, to bring food and hope and life.

So today – even though the rain makes me crave tea and hobnobs and an old film and bed – I am remembering that woman, and her prayers for rain. I am reminding myself to be grateful for it.

There’s another drought this year in the African Sahel, which comprises Chad, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and northern Senegal. A toxic combination of low rainfall, high food prices, entrenched poverty and regional conflict means that 13 million people are at risk of malnutrition and starvation.

Those 13 million mums, dads, children and grandparents are probably praying for rain too.

We are so lucky we don’t have to.

Unlike some larger NGOS, Practical Action is not an aid agency, and we do not deliver emergency relief. Instead, we believe passionately that it is only through long-term development work using appropriate technology that poor and vulnerable communities can become more resilient, and the desperate tragedy of drought and famine can be avoided. You can support our work here.

Justice for the have nots

When I am not working at Practical Action’s headquarters in rural Warwickshire, I spend my time with my friends in Notting Hill in London. Yesterday, after a yoga class and a cup of coffee, I walked home, along Ledbury Road, one of Notting Hill’s most famous thoroughfares. It was a glorious springy sunshiney morning, much longed for after two weeks of seemingly endless rain. Towards one end of the road are huge white Victorian villas, with spring blossoms veiling the balconies and graceful Greek columns framing impressive porches. As the road progresses, the white elegance fades into brown dinginess. The other end of the road is home to council estate flats: small and drab. I smile at two little girls hopscotching in a yard that’s around 10 foot by 10 foot.

One of London’s greatest qualities is its diversity, yet all I could see during my walk along Ledbury Road was the injustice of the ‘haves and the have nots’.  This phrase – ‘the haves and the have nots’ was one I heard lots during my trip to Practical Action’s work in Kenya in August 2011.

While travelling to a project in the informal settlements outside Kisumu city in western Kenya, my colleagues pointed out the narrow road which divided the ‘have nots’ from the ‘haves’. All that separated the people without life’s essentials: food, water, sanitation, shelter, energy, health care, education, a livelihood, from the people who had them, was a mere dirt track.

Walking along Ledbury Road yesterday was a useful reminder that sometimes the physical distance between those who have enough and those who don’t is negligible. But bridging that gap can seem an insurmountable task.

Technology Justice is one movement that is needed to help with this challenge. At Practical Action, we envisage a world where there is a balance between meeting the practical needs of people with less, while satiating the technological appetites of those with more. A world where all people, regardless of geography or wealth, can choose and use the technologies that will help them to live the life they value, without compromising the ability of others and future generations to do the same. A just, fair and equitable world, with a smaller gap between the people who have lots and those who have less. Technology Justice isn’t really about technology, it’s about people – and doing what is right.

What is water worth?

Amanda Ross
April 5th, 2012

It rained all day here in Warwickshire yesterday, but one of the top stories on the news was the hosepipe ban in the south and east of England. We take an instant supply of clean water for granted, because most of the time we have more than enough rain in the UK. How would we feel if we had to carry every drop into our homes ourselves? I for one would think twice before taking a bath!

In the Mukuru settlement in Nairobi, Kenya, residents pay more than 5 times as much for water as we do in the UK – and they don’t have the luxury of a piped supply into the home. Water has to be collected in containers from a communal tap – often some distance away. And, in times of scarcity, water prices inevitably rocket. In many rural areas of Africa, women and children walk for miles to collect water from wells.

In the UK we struggle to reduce our use of water and government water saving advice mainly covers non essential activity such as washing the car and watering the garden.

In contrast, according to this article, Kashmiri children resort to shaving their heads when water is short so that their hair doesn’t appear unkempt. I can’t see this being a popular piece of government advice here!

Practical Action has innovative ways of helping people gain access to clean water. By developing a partnership between local people and the utility company, improved access to clean water has been achieved for many thousands in the Mukuru settlement. Restricting our supply may help us to appreciate just how good (and comparatively cheap) our water is and encourage us to do a bit more to help the 1.3 billion people who lack access to safe water.

Walking for water made its mark

Gemma Hume
March 22nd, 2012

I’ve never entertained the idea of getting a tattoo…until last year, at the age of 33, when I went to Mandera in north east Kenya during the height of the drought.

What I saw there shocked me.

People walking an average of 20 miles a day in 40°C just to go and fetch water. And this journey is one fraught with danger. Water is in such short supply that violence regularly breaks out at the few remaining wells – with many innocent women and children wounded or killed.

Most of the time, the water they get isn’t even clean. It’s water like this from a polluted, dirty, hand-dug well that’s infested with all kinds of visible things…worms, tadpoles, bugs:

Unsafe water like this kills 4,000 children every day…and it will continue. With climate change, the incidence of drought is increasing. People will continue to take desperate measures to get water – any water.

Practical Action is reducing the trek that people have to make to fetch water by rehabilitating shallow wells dug into seasonal river beds and building sand filters to purify the water further.

I spoke to Nadifa at one of the rehabilitated shallow wells who said she now only has to walk two kilometres to fetch water and feels much safer.

“The well helps my family so much. The water is good because it is fresh. I can drink it and use it for my cooking”.

This month, the UN announced that the international target to halve the number of people who do not have access to safe drinking water has been met, five years before the 2015 deadline.

Yet 783 million people still live without safe water.

Today, Thursday 22 March, is World Water Day – a day of the year when we spotlight the global safe water and sanitation issue and the collective efforts underway to get solutions to those struggling and in need.

The issue has made a permanent impression on me. So, here it is:

It’s my own way of honouring a cause that is close to my heart. Any nervousness or reasons to not get it done are easily overcome by the reminder that at the end of the day, I have clean water to drink.

What has made a permanent impression on you?

A very happy International Women’s Day!

Margaret Gardner
March 8th, 2012

I asked my colleague Grace Mukasa in Kenya what she would celebrate today, she said

‘In East Africa I would celebrate the work of younger women, those still of reproductive age, who are often too overloaded with pregnancy, childcare and family welfare to have even a little time to rest or look after themselves. The younger women who lose out on so much opportunity because they are so busy looking after others. The period in life where husbands and relatives combine to control your mobility because of fear of adultery. The young women who have no older daughters or daughters-in-law to delegate to! It’s a day to celebrate their resilience. It’s an opportunity to look forward to the day they will know they have the abilities; the family, community and government support; and the means to use opportunities to improve their wellbeing.’

 
I’m with Grace – let’s celebrate resilience and the day when young women in East Africa can take opportunity.

Power to the people?

katiewelford
Kisumu, Kenya, Kisumu
February 27th, 2012

I have always thought of electricity pylons as giants walking across the land. I am not sure I have ever thought where they are going, just that they look like they have a sense of purpose.

Visiting a rural charcoal producer in Bondo district, western Kenya, made me think again about where these metal giants were off to. They walk through rural Kenya, but they do not stop there. They are striding along to towns and cities where people who can afford to pay for grid electricity access welcome them home.

Households in the countryside sit underneath electricity lines, but they do not benefit from them, relying instead on charcoal for cooking their food, and candles or kerosene for lighting.

Another thought struck me, though, as I stared up at this powerline: Is this energy access? And if so, for who? When it comes to collecting data, the terms ‘access to energy’ or ‘energy access’ are hard to pin down, and there is not one single definition. A government employee may pass through this village and, seeing the electricity lines, record them as having ‘access to energy’- the connection is possible, but, given the costs involved for these households, certainly not probable.

This is the main issue with using supply side data- you can count all the available pylons and the megawatts of electricity running through them until the cows come home, but if people can’t access it, then it’s just numbers really, isn’t it?

With the Poor people’s energy outlook reports 2010 and 2012, Practical Action has proposed a way of measuring energy access from the other perspective. They look at whether someone actually has a light source, and if so, the quality of that source. They measure what people really cook on, and how they keep their food cool. All of this can build up a more genuine picture of how poor people use energy, rather than if they have the potential to do so.

Half of humanity, 3 billion people, cook on traditional fuels every day, and their energy needs are not going to be met through connections to the grid any time soon.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Practical Action has shown for over four decades that off-grid sustainable solutions are possible to provide households with an energy supply.

However, we can’t do it alone. That’s why we campaign for Energy for All by 2030 with a broad network of civil society organisations. Why we have released the Poor people’s energy outlook report 2012. Why we have asked all of you to Make Your Point.

So what are you waiting for? Join us.

Food… as if people and the planet mattered

Patrick Mulvany
February 27th, 2012

In the mists of the Kenyan highlands where tea bushes cling to steep slopes, women farmers provide good food for their families and communities with a surplus for the market. In the county of Kiambu, women, taking a lead from their late and beloved leader Wangari Maathai , the recently deceased Nobel Laureate environmentalist, in whose honour they planted a tree of remembrance, keep their diverse, productive and nutritious fields bursting with many food plants, bushes and trees. Their soils, enriched by the manure of their cows, goats and poultry, exude fertility. Their fields harvesting rain supplemented by water from wells provide a cornucopia of grain, fruit and vegetables. This is the central core of their food web extended by exchanges with neighbours and nearby communities and family members in town, with some food sold and purchased in the local market.

The good news is that this is the majority food system – not giant supermarkets chained to industrial commodity production that is destroying livelihoods, local markets and the environment. Most food in the world – more than 70% – is grown, harvested and consumed locally.

It is provided usually by women who are small-scale food producers – farmers, livestock keepers, fishers, urban gardeners and others – much of it, like the Kenyan farmers I visited, produced without chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These inventive and skilful people know how to produce good, healthy food for their families, communities and, especially local, markets. They can secure our future food if their production systems can be supported and protected and if they are decisively involved in setting priorities for resource use, research, extension, investment and markets – a message that needs to be broadcast to decision makers who are gathering throughout the coming year to determine the priorities for food production and nutrition , responses to climate change and the governance of the planet’s environment .

Food production practices need to recycle nutrients and protect natural resources rather than rely on fossil fuel dependent inputs that undermine long term productivity. These practices of small-scale farmers and livestock keepers enable them to develop resilient and biodiverse seeds and livestock breeds adapted to the local environment which, when used more widely, have been shown to increase overall yields in degraded systems by 50-200% . These are the practices developed and nurtured by small-scale food providers like the women of Kiambu. They and the many hundreds of millions of other small-scale food providers, including farmers, pastoralists, artisanal fishers and urban gardeners, on whom we depend for our food, need to have decisive input into setting priorities for resource use, research, extension, investment and markets, if sustained increases in food production are to be achieved.

Achieving this requires convincing decision makers at all levels that small-scale food providers are the guardians of our food system. Decision makers are often driven by the mantra that food production must increase dramatically to fulfil the needs of the billion who are currently malnourished and sustain 9 billion people by 2050 and to do so on limited land and water resources while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and dependence on increasingly scarce fossil fuels. Therefore they are erroneously persuaded to back ‘ sustainable intensification ‘ of industrial production as a priority.

What those who make decisions about our food system need to understand is that there is enough food in the world for everybody and much more could be readily provided using the existing skills of small-scale food providers. It is poverty that causes hunger not lack of production. In order to make the food system less dysfunctional, a more systemic change in production and power relations is required, with more equitable distribution of food produced as locally as possible.

The food system needs to be securely based on small-scale ecological practices, which have higher productivity in the long term, as confirmed by the groundbreaking international agriculture assessment, IAASTD , to which Practical Action contributed significantly. The needed increase in production will not be achieved, equitably and sustainably, if food production continues to depend on resource depleting technologies that are promoted by global agribusinesses for universal application. Specific attention, research and action needs to be paid to the resilient forms of production, practised by small-scale food providers, that work with nature to raise productivity while restoring degraded resources.

Yet these small-scale providers of the world’s food are under massive threat from the avarice of agribusiness corporations that are intent on capturing their markets, livelihoods and resources. Over many years, however, their organisations, especially our ally La Via Campesina , have shown how these threats can be mitigated and what changes in policy are necessary to secure future food supplies – all summarised in their food sovereignty policy framework .

The food sovereignty approach to providing good, local food in ecologically and socially sustainable ways is the type of proposal that Schumacher would have supported, as new economics foundation fellow, Andrew Simms , said in an interview published in the Summer 2011 issue of Practical Action’s newsletter Small World :

“The food sovereignty movement, for example, is an ideal manifestation of everything Schumacher believed in. It is a model of how you would apply Schumacher’s notions of subsidiarity and appropriateness of scale to the food system. Food sovereignty, with its focus on local food needs and making sure these are compatible with local ecosystems, is a living vehicle of the ideas and insights of Schumacher.”

We support this approach, as summarised in our policy narrative , which shows how Practical Action’s values – justice, sustainability, diversity, democracy, and empowerment – describe the fundamental components that need to be in place to realise our vision of an equitable food system. These values allow us to analyse systematically the current state of global and local food systems, establishing the extent to which they contribute to the realisation of this vision.

In the same way, we can better understand how it is that the food and agriculture system is failing. By identifying where it is that the food system falls short of these values, it becomes possible to ascertain the changes that are necessary at all levels if we are to move closer to the vision of world in which the right of people to sufficient food and to food sovereignty is realised in ways that also protect the environment on which we all depend.

We are committed to realising this vision – to develop a food system as if people and the planet mattered – a system that emulates the good work of the women of Kiambu.

Patrick Mulvany, Senior Policy Adviser to Practical Action,
Kiambu, Kenya

ENDNOTES

This is an extended version of an article published in Practical Action’s newsletter Small World , Issue number 53, Spring 2012

See tribute to Wangari Maathai http://practicalaction.org/blog/news/wangari-maathai-an-inspiration/

See ‘Who will feed us?’ www.etcgroup.org/upload/publication/pdf_file/ETC_Who_Will_Feed_Us.pdf

See website of the Civil Society Mechanism of the UN Committee on World Food Security www.cso4cfs.org/

See paper on the links between climate change and agriculture www.econexus.info/publication/agriculture-and-climate-change-real-problems-false-solutions

See Civil Society joint statement on the key agricultural issues to be considered at the Rio+20 conference www.timetoactrio20.org/en/

See Report of Oliver De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Agro-ecology and the Right to Food , which reveals that small-scale sustainable farming would even double food production within five to 10 years in places where most hungry people on the planet live. www.srfood.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/1174-report-agroecology-and-the-right-to-food

See reflection on the Beddington Foresight Report on global food and farming practicalaction.org/blog/news/contribution-to-the-westminster-forum-on-food-and-nutrition/

IAASTD, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, is the groundbreaking international scientific assessment to which Practical Action contributed significantly. Practical Action was one of the six NGO members of the governing bureau of the assessment which reported in 2008. See www.iaastd.net and www.ukfg.org.uk/agriculture_crossroads/ for details

Even in the 1970s Schumacher had already declared that “present-day industrial society everywhere shows this evil characteristic of incessantly stimulating greed, envy, and avarice.” See: Modern Industry in the Light of the Gospel , b y E. F. Schumacher http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/content/schumacher-modern-industry

See the website of the International Farmers’ Movement www.viacampesina.org/

See UK Food Group publication Securing Future Food: towards ecological food provision www.ukfg.org.uk/ecological_food_provision.php

See the Synthesis Report of the Nyéléni 2007: Forum for Food Sovereignty www.nyeleni.org/IMG/pdf/31Mar2007NyeleniSynthesisReport-en.pdf

See full interview with Andrew Simms of the new economics foundation practicalaction.org/andrewsimms

See Practical Action’s policy narrative on Food and Agriculture practicalaction.org/food-and-agriculture-policy-narrative

Now that’s razor sharp!

katiewelford
Bondo, Kenya, Bondo
February 14th, 2012

I’m lucky enough to be in Kisumu, Kenya at the moment for some PISCES project meetings (more on that in later posts). Today we went to a small town called Bondo to do some research on the charcoal markets and the challenges involved in producing this vital energy source sustainably.

We met a feisty group of young women who sell charcoal in the town market. During the rainy season, it is harder to make charcoal and transport it to town, so these women can struggle to buy any off the transporters and sell it for profit.

In order to combat this, as well as some of the other ups and downs that go with being self-employed, they have set up the Charcoal Sellers Bondo, a 17 member collective of men and women who transport and sell charcoal in the town. If someone doesn’t have any cash due to a sudden shortfall, then the rest of the group can help out, and they hope to put some money into a storage facility so that they can store charcoal in the dry season and sell it in leaner times.

It’s not rocket science, but helping to organise markets more effectively is so essential to their incomes, and something we work on at Practical Action. We left the ladies with a joke about the fact that many of them are unmarried or divorced, so they look after their charcoal better in the absence of a man- we all agreed the charcoal was probably better behaved anyway!

Just as we were about to head out of town, we saw a touch of genius. A gentleman riding a bike, but rather than heading down the street, he was stationary, and using the mechanical power to spin a stone that he was using to sharpen knives. Judging by this photo, you can see he was a bit of a poser, but I would be more than smug with myself if I had cornered that market. What a simple, brilliant use of an everyday technology.

What a brilliant day. Thanks Bondo!

Climate change should be prioritized by the media as a critical concern

Noelina Nabwile
Nairobi, Kenya, Nairobi
December 19th, 2011

As Kenya prepares for the first general elections in 2012 under the new Constitution, the media’s focus has been on politics. While this is important, the media should not forget other critical and pressing issues that need urgent attention. As agenda setters and opinion shapers, the media should not be swayed by politicians and their aggressive campaigns to get votes and gain favor among the electorate.

Climate change is one key issue that the media should focus on. The Horn of Africa experienced the worst famine in four decades this year and people are still reeling under its effects. It is laudable that the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern Africa (COMESA) and Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) launched a joint five-year programme on climate change adaptation and mitigation in early December, 2011. Aimed at addressing the impacts of climate change in the EAC, COMESA and SADC region through successful adaptation and mitigation actions to enhance economic and social resilience, member states need to urgently create policies to implement the programme. It is worth noting that the EAC has taken the lead and established the Climate Change Fund and the Climate Change Coordination Unit.

The media should come in to set the agenda and shape public opinion on climate change. For starters, the media needs to raise awareness about the impacts of climate change among the citizenry, development partners, the private sector and the government. Secondly, the media should provide a platform upon which the citizenry can engage the government on climate change, demanding and claiming their rights to cushion them from climate change impacts such as the famine and floods. Last but not least, the media should find a way of generating debate among key stakeholders on climate change including the government, development partners, the private sector, the civil society and the citizenry

The impacts of climate change and the need for urgent attention cannot be overemphasized. According to a report by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) (Climate Change: Impacts, Vulnerabilities and Adaptation in Developing Countries) the impacts of climate change in Africa are many. In regard to water, many countries will face water stress with 75-220 million people facing severe water shortages by 2020. In as far as agriculture and food security are concerned, agricultural production will be severely compromised due to uncertainty about what and when to plant as weather patterns will be unpredictable. Worse still, the report predicts that yields from rain-fed crops could be halved by 2020 in some countries with net revenues from crops falling by 90% by 2100. Last but not least, an increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events, including droughts and floods are likely to occur.

Given that Africa and East Africa in particular have low adaptive capacity to both climate variability and climate change, it is important that the mass media use their power to help address these issues. This is urgent and important because the situation is exacerbated by the existing challenges including endemic widespread poverty, limited access to capital, including markets, infrastructure and technology, complex disasters and conflicts.

People help the people

I have always been a Christmassy person. One of my friends calls me her Christmas friend for my propensity to tie bows and ribbons on everything all year long.

I think it’s the twinkle I love: the glisten of decorations and the golden glow of fairy lights. In the depths of darkest winter, the whole of life somehow seems more sparkly.

And I love Christmas foods; mountains of rich, boozy mince pies and heart-warming vats of cinnamon-scented mulled wine. I love the first deep breath of a fragrant Christmas tree, and the sweet tanginess of a freshly peeled tangerine fished from my stocking on Christmas morning.

And I love being with my family. Admittedly it’s not always peaceful or perfect, but there is always a great deal of jolliness.

But mostly I love the feeling of love that seems to infuse every heart in the world.

I am approaching Christmas 2011 with more sadness and a little less joy than usual though. It has been a year of loss for me and for my family; the loss of loved ones.

When I think of the people I have lost – whether through death or by other means – I remember the women who I met in Africa this summer. Most of them had suffered loss too – the loss of their husbands or their children. I spoke to one mother in Mandera county who had walked for 10 days from Somalia to find food and water in neighbouring Kenya. She carried her two year old son on her back for the entire journey. And then he died of malnutrition the day after she reached help.

I think about that woman and I wonder what she is doing now. It’s raining in Mandera at the moment – the longed-for rains, thankfully, have come. Is she still in Kenya? Or has she returned to her village in Somalia? Has she found her husband? Are the rest of her children healthy, or has she lost more? Has she been able to find enough food to sustain her family? I hope with every molecule of my body that she is safe and well, and that her family is thriving.

Christmas inspires both gratitude for what we already have and sparks a certain greater openness to generosity, kindness and compassion. Charles Dickens wrote in the most festive of novels, ‘A Christmas Carol’, that Christmas is “a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable pleasant time: the only time…in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.’

As I prepare to leave my desk for two whole weeks of festive celebration, my heart is with all the people I met when I was in Africa, and for every vulnerable, forgotten, underprivileged woman, man and child around the world. As the embers of 2011 settle and the bright lights of 2012 beckon, I am sending them all of my love and good wishes.

Next year I hope we can all do more to help build a fairer world, one which is free from poverty and injustice.  Two billion people live in abject poverty, with less than 80 pence a day. That’s two billion too many. People, please help the people.

Thank you – and happy Christmas.