Ensuring the drought in East Africa is not forgotten

Rachel Berger
February 1st, 2012

I have just returned from 9 days travelling with Grace Mukasa, Director of our East Africa Regional office, to meetings in London, Brussels and Bonn, to ensure that politicians and policy makers are fully aware of the link between changing climate, high greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries, and the dire situation of millions of people, whose livelihoods depend on water and pasture for their livestock.

We had a very lively discussion at an event in the house of Commons on Tuesday, and supportive meetings with MPs Anne Maguire and Martin Horwood. On Wednesday last we held an event with our partners Climate Action Europe, in the European Parliament in Brussels, where a number of MEPs and their staff attended – people who rarely get the chance to hear directly about what is happening on the ground. Later, we had an encouraging meeting from the Director General of the Secretariat for Africa, Caribbean and Pacific, Dr Chambas.

In Bonn we had a fruitful discussion with the German Ministry for Development Cooperation, and a couple of radio interviews with Deutsche Welle. On Monday and Tuesday we attended the third Bonn Development Policy Conference, where the focus was sustainable consumption to ensure sustainable development. Grace spoke in a workshop about education for sustainable development, giving her views on what education should focus on in Africa, to help people adapt to a future with climate change.

It has been great to find so many people interested in our work, and the East African situation, and we have many leads to follow up for future partnerships.

Making Markets Work for the Poor

Simon Trace
January 30th, 2012

Woman selling milk to a collection centre in Nepal

I returned from a visit to our Nepal programme last week and so thought I’d use my next couple of blogs to provide some news from there.

In a previous blog I have talked about our work with dairy farmers in Nepal – helping small farmers increase milk yields through improved animal health and nutrition. In Nepal there is, in theory, a huge opportunity for small farmers to earn income from milk sales as there is a national ‘milk deficit’ with very large quantities of both fresh and powdered milk being imported from India to meet the demand of urban centres.

For increased yields of milk to lead to higher incomes for farmers however, improved technology and technical knowledge is only part of the changes that have to occur. The technical side of ensuring access to improved feedstock, the services of vets, cooling facilities to allow milk from lots of small farms to be bulked up and stored until collection by dairy processors etc is all very important. But often there are other problems in the way market chains work which can prevent small producers from realising the potential value of their produce. That is why Practical Action works not just on the technology but also on making markets work for poor people.

I saw an example of the latter on my first day in Kathmandu, when I attended a seminar on barriers to small holder farmers’ engagement in the dairy market, hosted by Practical Action. It was held under the auspicies of a Practical Action diary project (funded by UK AID) and was part of the process of bringing key market actors from across the dairy market chain together to discuss policy blockages to further expansion of smallholder dairy production. The seminar was attended by about 100 people including small farmers, private sector dairy processors and government officials. The latter included the Minister for Agriculture, the Permanent Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture and the Director General of the Livestock Department of the Ministry of Agriculture. A representative of the UK’s Department for International Develoment was also present as a speaker.

The workshop was good evidence of our Nepal office’s convening power, in this case bringing together and facilitating discussion amongst the whole range of different players that make up the dairy market chain in Nepal. The first part of the morning included speeches by the main guests and a key note speech identifying some of the main problems in the dairy market chain today that hamper dairy businesses from operating efficently and which prevent small farmers from obtaining the best value for their milk. The principle problems listed were: limitations on the ability to improve the quality of livestock (because of an embargo on cross border cattle movement from India and very limited artificial insemination facilities), limited access to credit for small holder farmers, and the depressing effect on supply of the price fixing system used by the Government’s Dairy Development Board.

The meeting went on to 4pm in the afternoon, 3 hours after its due closure time, because of the intense interest of the participants in the discussion. One outcome was that government officials agreed to look into the possibility of an official visit to India to, amongst other things, hold discussions on cross border cattle movement.

This sort of meeting is part of a participatory market mapping and facilitation process that Practical Action has developed over the past few years to help all actors in a market chain better understand how a market works and what could be done differently to improve the value to all participants but, in particular, to make markets work for the poor. For more information see our website at: http://practicalaction.org/markets-2

Poor Peoples Energy Outlook – making friends and influencing people

Margaret Gardner
January 27th, 2012

Earlier in the week I went to the launch of the Poor Peoples Energy Outlook. The report’s produced by Practical Action and the launch was hosted by DFID in their offices in London. I sat next to people from The World Bank, talked to a guy from GIZ (German government), said hello to friends from IBM and chatted to some people from Oxford University.
You get a sense of the gathering.
What struck me was the high regard in which Practical Action’s held and the breath of our energy work. Plus our real efforts to try and make a difference in the world – even if it means moving outside of our comfort zone – in my case talking with posh people! Ill confess to being much more at home chatting with villagers or project workers.
The question some of our supporters may ask is ‘why bother’. The reality is that the UN have launched 2012 as the year of Sustainable Energy for All and at Rio +20 in June the Secretary General will make a call to see this happen. We want to see this succeed but we also want it to build on the lessons we take from our work (it seems silly to have to learn them all over again and a waste of vital development effort) – for example
• The importance of working together with people rather than imposing solutions or dumping kit
• Thinking of energy in a holistic way – for cooking, lighting, clinics, hospitals, powering businesses
• That much as energy is vital – without it sustained poverty reduction is a hundred times more difficult – it isn’t enough on its own you need to think about business, helping people skill up, education and so on
• The vital role small scale renewable solutions can play
• The importance of appropriate finance systems – and for the most vulnerable clever subsidies – so decent energy can be affordable to all

Creating energy access will be one of the great challenges of this century, as we face the reality of climate change there is the opportunity for transformative leadership and transformative energy supply.
But as much as Practical Action can ‘play with the big guys’ our heart and overwhelming focus remains in our projects and with the people in the communities where we work.
“I used to spend all day looking for firewood and cleaning pots and pans. Those days are now gone! Now it’s cheap and easy to cook rice, lentils and vegetables for my seven people family, When my neighbours saw that I had more time for other chores, they decided to install their own biogas plant too!” Mahesh, Nepal
Let’s hope the Secretary Generals call is heeded for Mahesh’s neighbours in Nepal and poor communities around the world.

Everything was in the dark

Philip Corrigan
January 24th, 2012

Yesterday’s launch of the Poor People’s Energy Outlook 2012 began with Stephen O’Brien, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development, briefly describing his journey to Ghana. He explained that when the sun went down, “everything was in the dark”.

His objective is clear; we need to ‘help the poor in developing countries work their way out of poverty’. What Practical Action’s report will do is deepen our understanding of how energy access can do this. His statement that the UK government will be held accountable if progression does not materialise, should be sufficient in believing this campaign will make things happen.

When Mr. O’Brien left, Grace Mukasa, East Africa Regional Director for Practical Action, detailed the importance of energy access. This proved to me just how important some of the projects Philips Lighting have been involved in which have brought lighting to otherwise ‘dark’ places. The effect this has on the community and enterprise and profound.

Simon Trace, CEO of Practical Action, then explained that the definitions and models we have today regarding energy access are not good enough and far from realistic. And this is also what the report hopes to achieve.

‘When there’s a will there’s a way’.

Finally, the ongoing Malawi project was illustrated, which is examining exactly how we can supply an energy access eco system at national level and help move from a project approach to a system basis. And this is where sustainability is really achieved. But first, we need to fully understand a countries policies & regulations, the flows of finance and the gaps and opportunities. From there we can progress.

Does the call for responsible capitalism include responsible technology?

David J. Grimshaw
January 20th, 2012

Unless you have been on a different planet this week you cannot have escaped the rhetoric around responsible capitalism.   If you don’t know what this means try “googling” “responsible capitalism”; I have just tried that and found over 13 million hits, many of them within the last 24 hours.  So certainly we have a public relations success.   Still wondering what the term really means?

The core idea appears to be that fairness matters.   In other words inequalities in society such as high salaries and the bonus culture amongst failing non-profitable banks is being recognised as challenging most people’s concept of fair.   High on the political agenda in the UK is the rhetoric around making markets work for all.   Basic notions of “justice” in most people’s minds is based on equal treatment of people.   Indeed thinkers like Sen go further and claim justice is about what is reasonable.   He further argues against parochialism, saying that we must adress global injustice.

For those who care about equity in the wider world these are exciting times.   But the debate needs to be broader than the somewhat narrow economic definitions of markets and capitalism.   Injustice is something we can come together and fight against.   One of the less obvious sources of injustice in the global society is the way access to technologies is limited.   Among the key questions we need to ask are:

• How do we address technology injustice?
• What is a reasonable and fair access to technologies such as clean water and sanitation?
• How can we deliver access to energy services to more than 1 billion people who lack them by 2020?

Let us know what you think about the technology injustices that are current in our global society.   Join in the conversation…remember we can only change the world one conversation at a time.

Loos and luck

I really need the loo. I’ve been at my desk for well over three hours and so far have filled my body with two cups of tea, one cup of coffee and a fair amount of water too. But I have the misfortune of working on the very top floor of Practical Action’s head office, which means that a trip to the loo involves climbing all the way downstairs. And I’m so engrossed in my work (and also a little lazy – it is Friday, after all) that I really can’t be bothered….

I’m currently writing a proposal to fundraise for a hugely exciting new project that Practical Action is embarking on in Zimbabwe. We’re working with rural communities in the southern provinces of Gwanda and Mwenezi, endeavouring to reach out to 200,000 people to improve their access to clean water, ensure they have adequate sanitation and reduce their health risks from poor hygiene. The figure is massive. 200,000 people is over double the size of my home town!

Most of these people currently live several kilometres away from a safe water supply. The task of collecting water usually falls to women and children who will spend whole days carrying up to 80 litres of water. The journey can be dangerous – these women are vulnerable to mugging and rape; and the water they do collect often isn’t fit for human consumption anyway.

Furthermore, many families in Gwanda and Mwenezi don’t have toilets in their own homes as they can’t afford to build them. This means that people usually just relieve themselves outside in the bush. This morning I’ve read stories from women and girls who describe the complete loss of dignity and embarrassment they feel while doing this, especially when they’re menstruating.

Suddenly my reluctance to walk down a flight of stairs to go to the toilet demonstrates not only laziness, but complete ignorance of how fortunate I am. Wherever I am, it only ever takes me a few minutes to fetch a glass of clean water or go to the loo.

I am lucky. But it shouldn’t be about luck. Having clean water and being able to go the toilet without putting your safety or health at risk are basic human rights to which people everywhere are entitled, whether you live in Warwickshire or Gwanda.

Now I really must go – I’m desperate.

An era of innovation for the poor?

Simon Trace
January 6th, 2012

In the 19th Decmber 2011 issue of the magazine New Statesman, Bill Gates authored an opinion piece on why he believes that “the world is on the cusp of finally unleashing innovation for the poorest”. As evidence he cites a number of examples including the development of new varieties of maize that can be 50% more tolerant of drought, a breakthough last year in the development of a more accurate and simple TB test, the Serum Institute of India releasing a low cost vaccine for meningitis A, and recent examples of technology transfer from Brazil and China.

Bill Gates has, in recent years, consistently raised the issue of a ‘tragic misallocation of resources’ in global technology research and development, complaining in an often referenced TED talk a couple of years ago that more money is spent annually on research a cure for male baldness than for a vacinne for malaria. He is absolutely right to raise this as an issue and a barrier to the poor having access to the technologies they need to achieve a reasonable standard of living.

But the New Statesman article reads as if technological innovation is all that is needed to end poverty (e.g. “Yes we have a global food crisis. But with innovators all over the world focussed on the problem, we also have a good chance to fix it”). But its not. Many of the technologies poor people need already exist, and in some cases have been in existance for centuries. Its their inability to access to them that is the core issue – due to a assortment of barriers ranging from simple affordability, to the poor having no voice in decisions around allocation of investments for basic services.

We need innovation not only in technology itself, but also innovation to over come the social, political and economic barriers that prevent poor people from accessing existing technology and that prevent innovation really focussing on the interests of the poor. So, for example, we need innovation to help utilities in urban centres in the developing world overcome their reluctance to provide water, sanitation and electricity supplies to the residents of informal settlements and shanty towns, which often make up half or more of the population of developing country cities. And, in an era where governments have largely handed over resonsibility for technology R&D to the private sector, we need ways of sponsoring research and innovation into knowledge which cannot be commodified but which is never the less helpful to the fight against poverty – for example research into improving the productivity of traditional agro ecological forms of agriculture.

Like Bill Gates, I too am an optimist. I believe this is possible and that a growing number of people are beginning to understand and respond to the challenge.

Technology everywhere…but will it reach the poor?

David J. Grimshaw
Bourton on Dunsmore, Warwickshire CV23 9, UK, Bourton and Draycote
January 3rd, 2012

As dawn breaks in 2012 we enter the season of technology forecasting.   What will new technologies bring us in 2012 and beyond?  Most of these forecasts seem to dwell on the fortunes of the developed world.   What about the majority of humanity (4 billion people live on less than US$5 per day)?

IBM put forward five forecasts for 2016, (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16302566) one of these is that the digital divide will end.   Whilst it is likely that more people in Asia and Africa will be able to own a cell phone or connect to the Internet it would be stretching credulity to suggest that these same people will have a similar level of affordability of digital technologies as those living in the developed world.   Currently, in India there are 1.2 billion people who are not connected to the Internet.   Most of these people live in rural areas where there may be a lack of ability to pay and a lack of access to electricity.   So the digital divide in terms of affordable, accessible and appropriate devices is unlikely to be at an end by 2016.   More needs to be done on energy access and on education to build the capabilities needed to use the technology.

In remote rural areas of developing countries few people have access to electricity.   So ownership of a mobile phone might be a measure of “connectedness” or even of “progress” but if the phone can only be charged after a walk of 10 kilometres we may argue that there is a lack of appropriate accessible technology.   A second important prediction relates to bio fuel cells (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15305579) reported by the BBC as “power from the people”.   Perhaps that could be re-phrased as “power to the people”.   Yet, in all likelyhood the applications of this new technology will be in medical appliances in developed countries.   What if resources were put into developing this technology as an alternative, local power supply for rural communities in developing countries?

Technology will likely bring much that is new and exciting in 2012 and beyond.   What can we do to increase the probability that these technologies will be applied to real need in developing countries?   We need to work together with scientists to ensure that technologies are accessible, affordable and appropriate to the needs of people.   Only then can we approach a state of technology justice in the world.

Poverty is complex?

Margaret Gardner
January 3rd, 2012

When you see or listen to people who are very poor, poverty is easy to identify. Someone telling you that he and his family lie on the floor in their small shack all day and all night because they have no food and not moving conserves energy, or a woman talking about how desperate she is to have access to a grain mill close at hand so that her daughter doesn’t have to walk for 5 hours each Monday carrying the families main food source to the nearest mill and so misses a fifth of her schooling.

But sometimes poverty is more difficult to see or understand.

I have just started to read the Oxford University and UNDP report the Multidimensional Poverty Index. http://www.ophi.org.uk

This uses three dimensions of poverty and 10 indicators to gauge how poor countries are. The three dimensions are health, education and living standards and the 10 indicators are nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, water electricity, floor and assets. Not too sure about floor – it may mean housing or be a typo – but the others all make sense.

One of the things that struck me but maybe didn’t surprise is that using this measure most poor people now live in middle income countries for example India.

This is true to Practical Action’s experience for example in Peru where there has been strong economic growth but even so major sections of the population continue to live in extreme poverty.

As some of you may know we have started to talk about technology justice – the right of people to access the technology they need for a decent standard of life. The justice part of this aligns well with equity. How can it be right for some people to have so much when others have so little?

The MPI is helpful in setting out what we mean as a world by poverty and conversely what we should aim to deliver to everyone. The question however that remains is how.

I hope and believe that’s where Practical Action comes in.

2012

Margaret Gardner
January 2nd, 2012

Happy New Year.

In 2012 Practical Action will help more than a million poor people around the world, we will help people get the vital technology they need, we will work together with them to ensure solutions are sustainable and we will share stories and the experience from our work as widely as possible so that people can copy everything we do.

Not a New Years resolution but our proven way of working.

Have you seen the Victoria Wood voiced over advert for the Dyson vacuum cleaner ‘protected by over 200 patents’ thats exactly the opposite of our work. We don’t want to keep ideas to ourselves but share so more people can benefit.

2012 is the UN Year of Sustainable Energy for All. We need to share ideas and experience if we are to deliver energy to the nearly 3 billion people without decent access.