DOHA // This is not your grandfather’s Ramadan.
Thousands of visitors strolled through the Doha Summer Fun Park one evening this week, stopping to nibble on cotton candy and ice cream, check out some Islam-themed television serials or watch their children smash into each other on bumper cars.
Organised each year by the Qatar Tourism Authority, the amusement park is larger than ever in 2010, and starting this year, has been extended to include Ramadan and Eid.
It is all part of a new, more festive commemoration of the holy month.
“When I was little we played simple games for Ramadan, or packed up a picnic and went to the beach,” said Hamad Salman, a Doha native and marketing executive for Qatar Petroleum. He had come to the fun park with his teenage son and daughter for the second time, and planned to come again.
“This is much better,” added Salman, looking around the colourful, brightly lit, 12,000 square metre space, children shouting and laughing as they were spun around, up and down. “All these games and rides make a big difference.”
Droves of Qataris and other Doha residents attend similarly lively affairs late into the night across the city, from malls to hotels to cultural centres. Gondolania, the indoor amusement park at Villaggio mall, has extended its opening hours past 2am, so kids can bowl and ride go-karts and roller coasters late into the night.
Qatar’s only water park is set to open its doors in the coming weeks, and host Ramadan events. Fanar, the Qatar Islamic Cultural Centre, has organised an evening to teach expatriates more about Ramadan and its traditions this weekend.
Doha’s four- and five-star hotels are hosting lavish nightly iftar and suhoor events, some with Egyptian dancers, Lebanese bands, henna tattoos, falconry exhibitions and up to 50 dishes for tasting. As part of its Ramadan celebrations, the W Hotel Doha is giving away airline tickets that enable the holder to fly anywhere in the world on Qatar Airways.
The fun park is one of the more popular events, with some 4,000 nightly visitors to the cavernous Doha Exhibition Centre. “Breaking away from past events, which were held in shopping malls, Doha Summer Fun Park takes full advantage of the space,” said Lahdan al Mohannadi, head of internal exhibitions at the Qatar Tourism Auhtority and lead organiser of the fun park. “In addition, this year the event is free for all.”
Buoyant Arab and carnival music fills the space. At one end is a souk, filled with shops offering Yemeni honey, leather purses, perfumes, jewellery and more. At the other a food court offers doughnuts, hot dogs, pizza, fried chicken, and shawarma. In between are a couple of dozen rides, including a choo-choo train and caterpillar coaster for toddlers, and dodgems, video games and a dozen more active rides for the bigger kids.
The al Mannai brothers – Hamad and Ahmed, 10, and Mohammad, 13 – enjoyed the Tilt-a-Whirl so much they got right back on and did it again. “That was a lot of fun,” said Mohammed as the trio walked away dizzily.
These events, most of which aim to entertain the whole family, may be bringing a sense of community back to Ramadan in Qatar. “We’ve lost some of our traditions, of course,” said Moza al Malki.
A family therapist and commentator, she has seen Ramadan change several times in recent decades, from more to less strict and back again. “But nowadays we are going back to some of these old traditions.”
For the first couple weeks after the fun park opened, on-stage performances included clowns, magic shows and games. Starting with Ramadan, the stage has been re-made into a traditional Qatari house with garden, and programming includes a series of plays, a theatre group performing folklore tales and a Syrian band playing traditional music.
“Several new activities were added to instill traditional values during the holy month,” said Mr al Mohannadi. The fun park and Doha’s Heritage Village are both hosting Garangou (also known as Karankou) events for families.
Garangou is a traditional Gulf children’s festival held on the 14th day of Ramadan. Children will play heritage games and sing traditional songs, along with other activities and competitions.
“We are staying together more, families going out together,” said al Malki. “Also generosity, giving food to our neighbours, this is also returning.”
In Al Mansoura, on the edge of Doha, the W Hotel Doha and the Islamic Bank of Qatar have set up an air-conditioned tent to provide iftar to the underprivileged.
More than 150 male labourers turn up daily to break their fast with dates, laban, fruits, rice, bread, chicken and lamb.
“These are the people that really need the full meal,” said a spokesperson for Islamic Bank of Qatar, which has done the charity tent for three years running. “A lot of the staff from the bank also volunteer – everybody pitches in.”
Back at the Doha Exhibition Centre, Mr Salman watched his children on the City Hopper ride. “Ready to come down yet?” he shouted to his son, whizzing past overhead.
The teenager smiled and shook his head.
------
Ran with photos in the 20 August 2010 The National, www.thenational.ae
Showing posts with label development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label development. Show all posts
8.20.2010
2.27.2009
Is Afghanistan Winnable?
Unwinnable.
That's what some analysts are calling Afghanistan, a label of great concern to the aid community as this war has become largely a hearts-and-minds affair.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton are reviewing the security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to put together a new strategy before the next NATO summit in April.
The picture is not pretty.
Four Americans were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Feb. 24, bringing the coalition death toll to 29 this year – more than double the total killed in the first two months of 2008 and the most since the war began in late 2001. Civilian casualties jumped in the past year, while kidnappings, assassinations and other attacks on the teetering Afghan government increased sharply. The Taliban are now established in 72 percent of the country, up from 54 percent a year ago.
In response, President Obama recently approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops, which will bring the U.S. total to more than 50,000. But the increased military presence is a risky step. More foreign troops are likely to bring more violence, which will lead to an increase in what David Kilcullen calls "accidental guerrillas" or locals who haphazardly take up arms against an invader, as many southern Afghans do when a battle erupts between coalition troops and the Taliban.
Thus in building schools and hospitals, solidifying government institutions and rebuilding infrastructure, successful aid and development efforts are integral to securing and stabilizing Afghanistan. Fortunately, both the European Union and NATO have in the past week intimated their willingness to boost aid.
But making Afghan aid effective has proven to be a near impossibility. Kickbacks, profiteering and all variety of corruption and incompetence are rampant, not only within the Afghan government but also among aid agencies and subcontractors.
Up to $5 billion has already been wasted, even as hundreds of thousands of Afghans are suffering from a severe drought in the north. Further, a lack of oversight and accountability leads to skimming at every level, resulting in failed and faulty projects. Finally, aid workers are increasingly under threat from attacks and kidnappings by al-Qaida, the Taliban and rogue criminals.
A recent study by a collection of U.K. aid agencies and European non-governmental organizations unveiled another problem:
"The deteriorating violence in Afghanistan does not primarily result from poverty, nor will economic incentives buy support for an opposed military presence or government. Following a long history of aid and military intervention, including during the Soviet occupation, Afghans are familiar with and suspicious of 'hearts and minds' strategies. Furthermore, aid represents a small component of most Afghans' coping strategies in times of conflict and transition. Predominant strategies include communal cooperation on rehabilitation and remittances. Interviewees in Paktia and Uruzgan repeatedly argued that security would be more fundamentally linked to improved governance and the removal of unsavory characters from positions of power."
Such perspectives are all the more convincing coming from Afghans themselves, particularly in light of seven years of fitful progress at best. With the emphasis on aid, an effective Afghanistan strategy must:
1. Incorporate clarified and shared goals. As detailed in a recent policy paper from the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the people of Afghanistan – and Pakistan, for that matter – must believe their security and prosperity are the key concern of all aid and military efforts. To that end, the U.S., EU and NATO allies, along with the development community, must iterate a unified plan with achievable targets, and stick to it.
2. Involve less contracting and subcontracting, and greater oversight. Aid agencies and project implementers must take greater control and responsibility for their work – and be held accountable for it. Such adjustments will not be easy, but they are necessary if aid agencies and NGOs are to ultimately succeed in building a more stable society.
3. Focus on governance and local democracy promotion in a few key provinces. Nothing is holding back progress in Afghanistan as much as a lack of national, regional and civic leadership. Civil society organizations, democracy promotion and community involvement need to be cornerstones of regional development strategies in Helmand, Uruzgan and along the border with Pakistan, from provincial to village levels. An underlying cause of Taliban resurgence, for example, is the drug trade, which remains successful mainly because governors and other officials are given near impunity to oversee poppy farming and opium smuggling. Efforts are being made to cut back production and improve security, but aid projects need to work the other end – removing corrupt warlords and putting legitimate, democratically-elected leaders in place.
A majority of Americans still support a renewed effort to salvage Afghanistan, but U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke predicted "a long, difficult struggle" that will be "much tougher than Iraq." It could be considerably longer and more difficult if the international community fails to implement the security and economic development projects that can provide a foundation for stable democratic institutions.
--
Posted to Devex.com on February 27, 2009
That's what some analysts are calling Afghanistan, a label of great concern to the aid community as this war has become largely a hearts-and-minds affair.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton are reviewing the security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to put together a new strategy before the next NATO summit in April.
The picture is not pretty.
Four Americans were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Feb. 24, bringing the coalition death toll to 29 this year – more than double the total killed in the first two months of 2008 and the most since the war began in late 2001. Civilian casualties jumped in the past year, while kidnappings, assassinations and other attacks on the teetering Afghan government increased sharply. The Taliban are now established in 72 percent of the country, up from 54 percent a year ago.
In response, President Obama recently approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops, which will bring the U.S. total to more than 50,000. But the increased military presence is a risky step. More foreign troops are likely to bring more violence, which will lead to an increase in what David Kilcullen calls "accidental guerrillas" or locals who haphazardly take up arms against an invader, as many southern Afghans do when a battle erupts between coalition troops and the Taliban.
Thus in building schools and hospitals, solidifying government institutions and rebuilding infrastructure, successful aid and development efforts are integral to securing and stabilizing Afghanistan. Fortunately, both the European Union and NATO have in the past week intimated their willingness to boost aid.
But making Afghan aid effective has proven to be a near impossibility. Kickbacks, profiteering and all variety of corruption and incompetence are rampant, not only within the Afghan government but also among aid agencies and subcontractors.
Up to $5 billion has already been wasted, even as hundreds of thousands of Afghans are suffering from a severe drought in the north. Further, a lack of oversight and accountability leads to skimming at every level, resulting in failed and faulty projects. Finally, aid workers are increasingly under threat from attacks and kidnappings by al-Qaida, the Taliban and rogue criminals.
A recent study by a collection of U.K. aid agencies and European non-governmental organizations unveiled another problem:
"The deteriorating violence in Afghanistan does not primarily result from poverty, nor will economic incentives buy support for an opposed military presence or government. Following a long history of aid and military intervention, including during the Soviet occupation, Afghans are familiar with and suspicious of 'hearts and minds' strategies. Furthermore, aid represents a small component of most Afghans' coping strategies in times of conflict and transition. Predominant strategies include communal cooperation on rehabilitation and remittances. Interviewees in Paktia and Uruzgan repeatedly argued that security would be more fundamentally linked to improved governance and the removal of unsavory characters from positions of power."
Such perspectives are all the more convincing coming from Afghans themselves, particularly in light of seven years of fitful progress at best. With the emphasis on aid, an effective Afghanistan strategy must:
1. Incorporate clarified and shared goals. As detailed in a recent policy paper from the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the people of Afghanistan – and Pakistan, for that matter – must believe their security and prosperity are the key concern of all aid and military efforts. To that end, the U.S., EU and NATO allies, along with the development community, must iterate a unified plan with achievable targets, and stick to it.
2. Involve less contracting and subcontracting, and greater oversight. Aid agencies and project implementers must take greater control and responsibility for their work – and be held accountable for it. Such adjustments will not be easy, but they are necessary if aid agencies and NGOs are to ultimately succeed in building a more stable society.
3. Focus on governance and local democracy promotion in a few key provinces. Nothing is holding back progress in Afghanistan as much as a lack of national, regional and civic leadership. Civil society organizations, democracy promotion and community involvement need to be cornerstones of regional development strategies in Helmand, Uruzgan and along the border with Pakistan, from provincial to village levels. An underlying cause of Taliban resurgence, for example, is the drug trade, which remains successful mainly because governors and other officials are given near impunity to oversee poppy farming and opium smuggling. Efforts are being made to cut back production and improve security, but aid projects need to work the other end – removing corrupt warlords and putting legitimate, democratically-elected leaders in place.
A majority of Americans still support a renewed effort to salvage Afghanistan, but U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke predicted "a long, difficult struggle" that will be "much tougher than Iraq." It could be considerably longer and more difficult if the international community fails to implement the security and economic development projects that can provide a foundation for stable democratic institutions.
--
Posted to Devex.com on February 27, 2009
10.24.2008
Down But Not Out in Kabul
KABUL, Afghanistan – Skateistan is a media darling. The nonprofit organization teaches young Afghans to skateboard and has been lauded in dozens of major radio, video, print and online outlets across four continents.
Still it teeters on the brink.
"We spent the last few months doing a lot of press and the attention is really great, but the fact is, we're broke," said Director Oliver Percovich in September, sitting on a shabby couch in the sparsely furnished Skateistan headquarters. "Getting funding is not easy, especially when you don't have a great deal of experience at it."
Ever since Percovich and Sharna Nolan, his girlfriend and a fellow Australian, first dropped their skateboards on a Kabul sidewalk in early 2007, they've been swarmed with interest - from local kids, the press and, more recently, potential donors. But turning those good vibes into money - and establishing Skateistan as a stable and valuable organization - has been a stickier proposition.
Dancing with donors
Kabul is home to an estimated 60,000 street kids. Illiteracy is rife, along with crime and drug addiction. In an effort to improve some of those young, precarious lives, Skateistan has been offering free skateboarding lessons several times a week at an empty fountain not far from central Kabul. But no funding and minimal equipment limits what it can do.
Thus Percovish and Nolan are trying to build an indoor skate school that offers free skateboarding and that will expand into personal health education, English-language courses, computer skills classes and arts instruction. The duo prepared a few polished funding proposals and has since mid-2007 been knocking on the doors of nearly every major donor - from the United States and Canada to England, Germany, Australia and several arms of the United Nations.
"Everyone expresses interest," Percovich said. "But when it comes to donating even $10, it's been a lot more difficult."
Nolan has been spearheading Skateistan's fundraising efforts, wielding the knowledge she gained during a year working for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, a think tank, and on a rural project funded by the U.N. Development Program. She put together a proposal requesting $45,000 to build an indoor skate school and submitted it to the U.S. Agency for International Development via a friend - a consultant working under USAID's Assistance to Small and Medium Enterprises Development project. Nolan had come across consultants of ASMED, which funds locally-driven business projects with up to $50,000, while working with UNDP in Herat.
"They have millions and require minimal reporting and supervision, which was perfect for the Afghan management in Skateistan," Nolan said via e-mail from Darwin, Australia, where she is working on a government-backed community water project. "They deliver funds much faster than major donors and can be more flexible in their outlook. The only catch was that they needed an economic component to the proposal which we thought could be filled with merchandising."
Skateistan failed to quickly put together a compelling merchandising component and the proposal was turned down. A representative of USAID, which tends to fund much larger projects, told Devex that Skateistan "doesn't really fit into any of our objectives."
Despite the fact that Percovich and Nolan are Australian, making contact with their own government has been a long, strange trip. In early 2008 they applied for a direct assistance program. Months later they were turned down. Then Percovich, after dozens of calls and e-mails, wrangled a meeting with the Australian consul, who told him the Australian government was considering pitching in - not with money but with free shipping assistance.
Other governments have been more accessible. The Canadian aid arm expressed interest for months without settling on a funding amount. In September the Deutsche Entwicklungsdienst, the German aid agency, expressed its desire to pay the wages of one full-time Skateistan employee. A recent visit to the Norwegian embassy was promising.
"The Norwegian ambassador gave me an hour of his time," said Percovich of a meeting set up with the help of a friend of Nolan's. "That was really fantastic of them. They expressed interest, support, but what that will mean in the future I have no idea."
The Afghan government promised a free plot of land if Skateistan wins funding to build their skate school. In May, Percovich found an ideal spot in Wazir Akhbar Khan, an upscale, heavily patrolled neighborhood popular with embassies and expats. The Afghan government was supportive until August, when they gave the plot to the government of Kuwait.
"I'm guessing they represented a good deal more money than we do," Percovich said.
For the major donors, Nolan believes Skateistan's size has been a disadvantage.
"As there is the same reporting requirements no matter what they give, it's to their advantage to give larger grants rather than smaller ones to save on administrative costs and paperwork," Nolan said. "Two people with big hearts and the support of dozens of kids and the broader community often can't compete against the big giants on paper."
A bit of good news
The tide may be starting to turn. In August and September Skateistan raised nearly 2,000 euros from the sale of skateboarding photos and t-shirts and two fundraisers, one in Germany and another in Australia. More recently a private Austrian donor pledged another 2,000 euros. Weeks later Electronic Arts, the American video game giant, did the same.
As of early October the pledges had yet to arrive.
But donated goods have poured in. An Australian sporting goods firm donated safety equipment. Titus, a chain of sporting goods and skate shops in Germany, will donate to Skateistan all second-hand boards sold by customers to the store from July to November. DHL has pledged $15,000 worth of shipping fees to transport goods from Germany to Afghanistan.
In late September, Percovich began to receive offers of assistance from the type of international NGOs - People in Need and Mercy Corps, namely - that USAID tends to fund. Representatives of both organizations told him they'd help find funders.
And finally, in early October, a breakthrough: the Canadian International Development Agency donated $15,000 and the Norwegian aid arm promised $30,000. Percovich was ecstatic as he left for several charity events in Germany.
"I've learned that the people who've been here three, four or more years are really impressed with what we've done because they know how difficult it is to get anything done here," Percovich said. "It's a matter of getting to the right people and hopefully we'll get there."
Still, total costs have exceeded $15,000 and Skateistan is barely scraping by. A web of charity and Percovich's personal savings keep the organization afloat. Tired of working for no pay, staffers have begun to leave.
"It's not exactly the easiest thing for an Afghan to be a volunteer on this type of project," Percovich said. "The employees we have at the moment - I don't know how long we can keep them without pay."
Costs will rise during the coming Kabul winter. Outdoor skate venues will freeze. And relationships will be strained. One already reached the breaking point: Though they remain friends and working partners, Nolan and Percovich broke off their three-year relationship this summer.
A sustainable vision
Some have questioned Skateistan's sustainability. On this issue, Percovich and Nolan still speak with one voice.
Both admit that the whole plan hinges on building the skate park. Once that's done the school would require about $1,200 per month in donations to operate as they envision. The school would be run by Afghans and a couple international volunteers. Kids would sign up for sessions and borrow equipment, all without charge. They would be required to take care of the space and the equipment, which many already do at the current space, an empty fountain in north Kabul.
"We are confident that the Afghans can manage things pretty much themselves," Nolan said. "A lot will fall on the shoulders of the project volunteers. We have no shortage of students who are keen as mustard to volunteer. The kids already sweep the fountains where we skate and are caring for the boards - it's part of the life skill training."
Percovish and Nolan hope donor interest will at some point come to fruition. Dozens of Afghan students, teachers and artists have offered to help, in various capacities. Photo and t-shirts sales represent a slow-growing revenue stream.
"There are some other ideas for business development but first and foremost is the development of social capital that allows youth in Kabul to create opportunities for themselves and solve their problems," Percovich said. "Money hasn't solved many problems in Afghanistan and it is high time to try another approach. Aid has focused on providing money when a simple link with the right person would have sufficed. Intangible assets in society are frequently ignored or undervalued simply because they are hard to value. They do make a hell of a lot of difference, though."
An uncertain future
Inside a nondescript warehouse in Melbourne, 40 new skateboards, 50 pairs of sneakers and a variety of skating supplies sit shrink-wrapped on a palette because Skateistan cannot afford the $1,200 shipping costs.
On a late afternoon in September, meanwhile, a couple dozen Afghan children made do with torn sandals, no kneepads and two beat-up skateboards. They laughed, smiled and tried out a few new tricks, but some grew frustrated with the long wait for their turn.
Kids drifted off in twos and threes as an egg-shaped, red-orange sun sank low. A couple of girls lingered, one pushing her friend across the sidewalk on a skateboard. "Could I have the board back?" Percovich asked, reaching his hand out.
The girls pushed away from him, laughing. He and an assistant chased them down and gently took the skateboard as the girls whined playfully.
With that, darkness fell on Kabul.
Still it teeters on the brink.
"We spent the last few months doing a lot of press and the attention is really great, but the fact is, we're broke," said Director Oliver Percovich in September, sitting on a shabby couch in the sparsely furnished Skateistan headquarters. "Getting funding is not easy, especially when you don't have a great deal of experience at it."
Ever since Percovich and Sharna Nolan, his girlfriend and a fellow Australian, first dropped their skateboards on a Kabul sidewalk in early 2007, they've been swarmed with interest - from local kids, the press and, more recently, potential donors. But turning those good vibes into money - and establishing Skateistan as a stable and valuable organization - has been a stickier proposition.
Dancing with donors
Kabul is home to an estimated 60,000 street kids. Illiteracy is rife, along with crime and drug addiction. In an effort to improve some of those young, precarious lives, Skateistan has been offering free skateboarding lessons several times a week at an empty fountain not far from central Kabul. But no funding and minimal equipment limits what it can do.
Thus Percovish and Nolan are trying to build an indoor skate school that offers free skateboarding and that will expand into personal health education, English-language courses, computer skills classes and arts instruction. The duo prepared a few polished funding proposals and has since mid-2007 been knocking on the doors of nearly every major donor - from the United States and Canada to England, Germany, Australia and several arms of the United Nations.
"Everyone expresses interest," Percovich said. "But when it comes to donating even $10, it's been a lot more difficult."
Nolan has been spearheading Skateistan's fundraising efforts, wielding the knowledge she gained during a year working for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, a think tank, and on a rural project funded by the U.N. Development Program. She put together a proposal requesting $45,000 to build an indoor skate school and submitted it to the U.S. Agency for International Development via a friend - a consultant working under USAID's Assistance to Small and Medium Enterprises Development project. Nolan had come across consultants of ASMED, which funds locally-driven business projects with up to $50,000, while working with UNDP in Herat.
"They have millions and require minimal reporting and supervision, which was perfect for the Afghan management in Skateistan," Nolan said via e-mail from Darwin, Australia, where she is working on a government-backed community water project. "They deliver funds much faster than major donors and can be more flexible in their outlook. The only catch was that they needed an economic component to the proposal which we thought could be filled with merchandising."
Skateistan failed to quickly put together a compelling merchandising component and the proposal was turned down. A representative of USAID, which tends to fund much larger projects, told Devex that Skateistan "doesn't really fit into any of our objectives."
Despite the fact that Percovich and Nolan are Australian, making contact with their own government has been a long, strange trip. In early 2008 they applied for a direct assistance program. Months later they were turned down. Then Percovich, after dozens of calls and e-mails, wrangled a meeting with the Australian consul, who told him the Australian government was considering pitching in - not with money but with free shipping assistance.
Other governments have been more accessible. The Canadian aid arm expressed interest for months without settling on a funding amount. In September the Deutsche Entwicklungsdienst, the German aid agency, expressed its desire to pay the wages of one full-time Skateistan employee. A recent visit to the Norwegian embassy was promising.
"The Norwegian ambassador gave me an hour of his time," said Percovich of a meeting set up with the help of a friend of Nolan's. "That was really fantastic of them. They expressed interest, support, but what that will mean in the future I have no idea."
The Afghan government promised a free plot of land if Skateistan wins funding to build their skate school. In May, Percovich found an ideal spot in Wazir Akhbar Khan, an upscale, heavily patrolled neighborhood popular with embassies and expats. The Afghan government was supportive until August, when they gave the plot to the government of Kuwait.
"I'm guessing they represented a good deal more money than we do," Percovich said.
For the major donors, Nolan believes Skateistan's size has been a disadvantage.
"As there is the same reporting requirements no matter what they give, it's to their advantage to give larger grants rather than smaller ones to save on administrative costs and paperwork," Nolan said. "Two people with big hearts and the support of dozens of kids and the broader community often can't compete against the big giants on paper."
A bit of good news
The tide may be starting to turn. In August and September Skateistan raised nearly 2,000 euros from the sale of skateboarding photos and t-shirts and two fundraisers, one in Germany and another in Australia. More recently a private Austrian donor pledged another 2,000 euros. Weeks later Electronic Arts, the American video game giant, did the same.
As of early October the pledges had yet to arrive.
But donated goods have poured in. An Australian sporting goods firm donated safety equipment. Titus, a chain of sporting goods and skate shops in Germany, will donate to Skateistan all second-hand boards sold by customers to the store from July to November. DHL has pledged $15,000 worth of shipping fees to transport goods from Germany to Afghanistan.
In late September, Percovich began to receive offers of assistance from the type of international NGOs - People in Need and Mercy Corps, namely - that USAID tends to fund. Representatives of both organizations told him they'd help find funders.
And finally, in early October, a breakthrough: the Canadian International Development Agency donated $15,000 and the Norwegian aid arm promised $30,000. Percovich was ecstatic as he left for several charity events in Germany.
"I've learned that the people who've been here three, four or more years are really impressed with what we've done because they know how difficult it is to get anything done here," Percovich said. "It's a matter of getting to the right people and hopefully we'll get there."
Still, total costs have exceeded $15,000 and Skateistan is barely scraping by. A web of charity and Percovich's personal savings keep the organization afloat. Tired of working for no pay, staffers have begun to leave.
"It's not exactly the easiest thing for an Afghan to be a volunteer on this type of project," Percovich said. "The employees we have at the moment - I don't know how long we can keep them without pay."
Costs will rise during the coming Kabul winter. Outdoor skate venues will freeze. And relationships will be strained. One already reached the breaking point: Though they remain friends and working partners, Nolan and Percovich broke off their three-year relationship this summer.
A sustainable vision
Some have questioned Skateistan's sustainability. On this issue, Percovich and Nolan still speak with one voice.
Both admit that the whole plan hinges on building the skate park. Once that's done the school would require about $1,200 per month in donations to operate as they envision. The school would be run by Afghans and a couple international volunteers. Kids would sign up for sessions and borrow equipment, all without charge. They would be required to take care of the space and the equipment, which many already do at the current space, an empty fountain in north Kabul.
"We are confident that the Afghans can manage things pretty much themselves," Nolan said. "A lot will fall on the shoulders of the project volunteers. We have no shortage of students who are keen as mustard to volunteer. The kids already sweep the fountains where we skate and are caring for the boards - it's part of the life skill training."
Percovish and Nolan hope donor interest will at some point come to fruition. Dozens of Afghan students, teachers and artists have offered to help, in various capacities. Photo and t-shirts sales represent a slow-growing revenue stream.
"There are some other ideas for business development but first and foremost is the development of social capital that allows youth in Kabul to create opportunities for themselves and solve their problems," Percovich said. "Money hasn't solved many problems in Afghanistan and it is high time to try another approach. Aid has focused on providing money when a simple link with the right person would have sufficed. Intangible assets in society are frequently ignored or undervalued simply because they are hard to value. They do make a hell of a lot of difference, though."
An uncertain future
Inside a nondescript warehouse in Melbourne, 40 new skateboards, 50 pairs of sneakers and a variety of skating supplies sit shrink-wrapped on a palette because Skateistan cannot afford the $1,200 shipping costs.
On a late afternoon in September, meanwhile, a couple dozen Afghan children made do with torn sandals, no kneepads and two beat-up skateboards. They laughed, smiled and tried out a few new tricks, but some grew frustrated with the long wait for their turn.
Kids drifted off in twos and threes as an egg-shaped, red-orange sun sank low. A couple of girls lingered, one pushing her friend across the sidewalk on a skateboard. "Could I have the board back?" Percovich asked, reaching his hand out.
The girls pushed away from him, laughing. He and an assistant chased them down and gently took the skateboard as the girls whined playfully.
With that, darkness fell on Kabul.
-- posted on devex.com on October 20.
7.25.2008
Nearing Milestone, the Peace Corps Reaches a Crossroads
In a December 2007 campaign speech Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama offered his solution to the United States’ depressed global stature. “To restore America’s standing I will call on our greatest resource – not our bombs, guns, or dollars – I will call upon our people,” the Illinois senator told a crowd of supporters in Mount Vernon, Iowa. Among his promises was this: “We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011.”
The Peace Corps in middle age is a bit like a late model Studebaker: It’s nice to know it’s still around, embodying the unbounded optimism of a bygone era, but you might not want to look under the hood. A former country director and several returned volunteers have recently done just that, pointing out major flaws in Peace Corps operations and raising serious questions about its effectiveness.
Like any bureaucracy, the Peace Corps is cumbersome; current officials believe laying the groundwork for an expansion could take years. And perhaps most troubling, Obama’s words suggest the program’s focus has shifted from helping the poor to gaining political capital.
A wave crests, slowly
Established in 1961, the Peace Corps was borne of President John F. Kennedy’s desire to employ young, idealistic Americans to help developing countries and foster cross-cultural exchange. Kennedy envisioned sending out 100,000 volunteers every year, and the number zipped to 15,000 by 1966. Then realpolitik intruded – the Vietnam War reversed that growth spurt, beginning a 16-year decline that led to a nadir of 4,600 volunteers in 1982.
A slow climb began under President Ronald Reagan and matured under President George W. Bush, resulting in a slightly more robust Peace Corps today. The 2007 total of 8,079 volunteers is the agency’s highest in nearly four decades. Still, after 47 years, returned volunteers total less than 200,000, a profound disappointment considering Kennedy’s original goal. Further, the Peace Corps’s global and domestic profile remains low.
“It’s a great brand, but the weight of the brand on the world scene is so small it hardly registers,” said Lex Rieffel, an expert in overseas volunteering at the Brookings Institution, an independent think tank based in Washington, D.C. “If this is a brand that is good for America – if only because it’s good for the world – then let’s build on it.”
Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, is spearheading legislative efforts to double the size of the Peace Corps. In summer 2008, the National Peace Corps Association’s More Peace Corps campaign, with a primary goal of doubling the program, hosted events in cities across the country. Kevin Quigley spearheads that campaign and sees a “perfect storm of conditions” buffeting his efforts: a need to improve the United States’ global standing after the bullying Bush years; both major presidential candidates’ stated support for doubling the program size; growing political awareness as a result of the Dodd bill; and widespread desire for reform in the run-up to the 50th anniversary.
“We’re at, I believe, a historic moment,” said Quigley, president of the National Peace Corps Association, an organization of alumni volunteers. “If it’s ever going to happen it’s in the next three to four years.”
For an agency that, after 9/11, had slipped from the American consciousness, the interest is invigorating. “This is a wave that, as I see it, is just in the process of forming,” Rieffel said.
Hitting the wall
The wave may have slowed after Robert Strauss pointed out that the emperor’s clothes were looking rather tattered. In a January 2008 New York Times op-ed the former country director for Cameroon (2002 to 2007) complained that the volunteer selection process was not rigorous enough, that a lack of oversight and management rendered much of the work useless, and that funding shortfalls meant volunteers and staff were inadequately supported. He described how volunteers were constantly mis-assigned – the Peace Corps continued to send volunteers to teach English in Cameroon, for example, even though Cameroonians repeatedly listed English instruction as their lowest priority.
Strauss urged the Peace Corps to seek out and accept only the best and the brightest, to assign volunteers more effectively and to reform before it considered expansion. A few months later he expanded these complaints in an article in Foreign Policy magazine, arguing that the Peace Corps had “never lived up to its purposes or principles.”
Many volunteers relish their volunteer experience and return transformed. Yet others bear out Strauss’s criticisms. The latest edition of Peace Corps’ internal biannual survey found that less than half the volunteers felt their job took advantage of their skills, interests and experiences. Ecuador volunteer Jeffrey Jackson, for instance, left his Peace Corps assignment early because, as he explained on his blog, “in a school of 35 students, with eight qualified teachers and four volunteers, the role of room checks and kitchen governor didn’t seem sufficient for two years of my life and service.”
Often fresh out of college, many volunteers are unprepared for the seriousness of the work. A perusal of Peace Corps volunteer blogs (www.peacecorpsjournals.com) finds volunteers enjoying Carnival in South America, brewing their own beer in Burkina Faso, and tanning on Caribbean beaches.
“Those are not the activities the Peace Corps is hoping for from them,” Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter acknowledged in an e-mail.
For Rieffel, such failures are related to funding and thus inherently political.
“Many of these problems would be easier to solve in the context of a very different foreign policy articulated by a new president and supported by a new Congress,” he said. “The Peace Corps has been fed scraps from the budget for the last 30 years, and that pattern has had the result of putting it inside a protective shell.”
American taxpayers might not consider the Peace Corps’s 2008 budget of $330 million mere scraps. That breaks down to about $40,000 annually per volunteer in the field; volunteers are paid about one-tenth that amount. Supporters say this is only a third the expense of maintaining military, diplomatic and aid personnel working abroad.
While the number of volunteers increased about 30 percent over the past five years, the budget expanded by just more than 10 percent, Strauss pointed out.
“The potential is still there for the Peace Corps to be a wonderful organization and a tremendous American initiative,” Strauss said. “That’s never going to happen as long as people respond to criticism by defending the orthodoxy.”
Mission statements
That orthodoxy is represented by Peace Corps’s three goals: development, cross-cultural exchange and understanding. Strauss sees the cultural exchange aspects as mere icing.
“If you don’t have a cake, there’s not a lot of point in having icing,” he said. “What Peace Corps sells to other countries is that it’s a development organization that’s going to help them with trained personnel; if that’s what the United States is promising, that’s what we should be delivering.”
Peace Corps Deputy Director Jody Olsen has several problems with Strauss’s criticisms. Firstly, host countries are not under the impression that the Peace Corps is primarily a development organization.
“I’ve had those conversations setting up Peace Corps programs with host country ministries,” the former country director for Kazakhstan said. “It’s made clear that we will learn the language, be part of the community, live with host families and we learn from you and bring that back.”
She added that the host countries are aware that a good number of volunteers will be relatively inexperienced. More importantly, said Olsen, Strauss misses the point.
“We have never been and are not seen as nor should be seen as a development agency,” she said, referring to the three goals of Peace Corps work. “It’s the integration of those goals that creates the trust which is where in small-scale ways Peace Corps volunteers make a difference, make a development difference.”
Rieffel called the goals debate narrow-minded.
“A federally funded international volunteer program is going to work best when it doesn’t have arbitrary constraints and defines useful activity broadly,” he said.
But how broadly can one define useful activities when projects involve goal-oriented development funds? The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, for instance, has given the Peace Corps more than $50 million over the past five years. Some of that money has been used in Ethiopia, in fact, where officials recently told Peace Corps Country Director Peter Parr that volunteers sent to work on HIV/AIDS need expertise, not mere zeal.
Fine-tuning the approach
In mid-June, Rieffel and Quigley attended a weekend conference on re-envisioning Peace Corps for its next 50 years. Most attendees – a group that included architects of the program, former directors, analysts, and representatives from non-governmental and nonprofit organizations – agreed that the core idea, while good, needed considerable tweaking.
“We can be a lot more innovative with how the program is run,” said Quigley, who is convinced Peace Corps could expand to 10 or 20 times its current size via partnerships with the aid agencies of other governments, nonprofits and NGOs like World Teach.
“This would allow Peace Corps to experiment in a way that it just hasn’t for years and years,” he said.
That’s news to Olsen, the Peace Corps deputy director.
“Peace Corps already works with many, many NGOs all over the world,” she said. She pointed to Peace Corps volunteers reporting to the local official of the Academy for Education Development as part of an HIV/AIDS project under PEPFAR in Malawi, and estimated that 50 percent of volunteers work with either local NGOs or local offices of international NGOs. “We work with NGOs all the time but the critical element is we work with them in country,” she noted.
The need for innovation remains.
“We can’t only do what Peace Corps has done in the past,” Rieffel said. “There have to be other flavors of Peace Corps service.”
He and Quigley believe the 27-month service requirement should be just one option among several time commitments, that the agency should invite more older volunteers and that it should build a group of experienced aid workers and former volunteers to use in a variety of ways, including more development-oriented work.
Under Tschetter’s leadership, the Peace Corps has made some moves in this direction. His campaign to bring in more older volunteers has proved a quick success – with applications from volunteers aged 50 and over up 65 percent in the past year. His use of Peace Corps Response – which offers four- to six-month tours to returned volunteers – and the creation of an office to perform annual field evaluations that will include effectiveness feedback from host country communities suggest a leaning toward impact-oriented development work.
Volunteer Service Overseas, a British volunteer organization, moved much further in this direction years ago. Today, applicants need to have development experience and are placed in jobs that match their credentials. Service commitments can be anywhere from one month to two years and the emphasis is on combating global poverty, not cultural exchange. As a result, fewer volunteers (1,500 in 2007) work more effectively, and the average age is 41, compared with 27 for the Peace Corps.
Bigger should be better
If the Peace Corps is to double to 16,000 volunteers by 2011, it needs to get moving.
“It would be, I think, a several-year effort,” said Olsen, who has been with the Peace Corps since serving as a volunteer in Tunisia from 1966 to ‘68. She said the various host countries would first need to request the additional volunteers. The Peace Corps would have to prepare, too.
“The proper structures need to be in place to support a doubling in the number of Volunteers,” Director Tschetter said in an e-mail. “We have to maintain the quality of the program and most importantly, the safety and security of the volunteers.”
The demand is there; at least 20 countries have requested new programs, according to the More Peace Corps campaign. Rieffel points out that no volunteers are serving in India, Russia, Brazil or Indonesia – four major developing economies of clear geostrategic significance.
Perceptions of the United States abroad have improved in response to humanitarian relief initiatives, according to a study by Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based nonprofit group whose advisory board includes McCain, the likely Republican presidential candidate. Polling data indicated nearly 60 percent of Indonesians and 75 percent of Pakistanis held a more favorable view of the United States following tsunami and earthquake relief efforts. Like Obama, many believe an expansion of the Peace Corps could further such efforts.
In his first inaugural speech, President Kennedy outlined a rather different vision of the Peace Corps: “To those peoples in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves.”
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Fast factsName: U.S. Peace Corps
Established: 1961
Mission: Help developing countries meet the need for trained men and women and promote understanding between Americans and other peoples.
Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
Budget: $330 milion (2008)
Focus: 36 percent education, 21 percent health
Presence: 74 countries
Volunteers: 200,000 so far, including 8,000 in field
Volunteers characteristics: average age is 27, the oldest is 81, 93 percent are single, 95 percent hold undergraduate degrees
-- posted to devex.com on July 25, 2008
7.21.2008
A Man of the Soil
By David Lepeska
Agronomist Stephen Carr gauges the degree of hunger stalking the Malawian countryside by opening his front door. “In a bad year I have 12 starving people on my doorstep every morning begging for food,” said Carr, who has lived in a cabin on Zomba mountain in southern Malawi since 1989. “This last year I had two old ladies in a month.”
As Carr’s stoop can attest, two bountiful maize harvests have filled stomachs and cupboards across this devastatingly poor sliver of southern Africa. Malawi exported a record 280,000 tons of maize last fall and felt generally flush for the first time in recent memory – a direct result of a bold new government-run fertilizer subsidies program.
Although loathe to take any credit, this humble octogenarian used his intimate knowledge of Malawian smallholder farming, his familiarity with the donor community and his aggressive charm to reduce donor opposition to the subsidies that helped the farmers buy the fertilizer that enriched the soil that grew the maize that overturned received wisdom in Washington.
Stumbling toward success
After graduating from London University in 1952, Carr moved to Sudan and began working with small-scale farmers. Years later Carr moved with his wife to Uganda, where they worked as agricultural missionaries and had two children. “We were extremely happily settled,” said Carr.
So much so that in 1971 he was considering an application for Ugandan citizenship when the Obote government was overthrown. The underlings of new strong-armed dictator Idi Amin Dada learned of Carr’s efforts to relocate locals to more fertile lands. “Without asking anybody they assumed that I was organizing a guerrilla camp to overthrow the government,” he said. “We grabbed our family and we escaped.”
Thus began the institutional mid-section of his career, from agricultural adviser posts with the governments of Sudan and Tanzania to a position with the world’s foremost development institution. “I joined the World Bank almost by accident,” Carr said of his hiring.
In mid-1978 the bank needed someone familiar with southern Sudan, its languages, farming and traditions, and it settled on Carr, who had spent two dozen years living in huts in African villages. “The bank found me moderately useful and so eventually I finished up as principal agriculturalist for all of sub-Saharan Africa,” Carr remembered. He also won the Royal African Society’s medal for “dedicated services to Africa” and became an Officer of the British Empire along the way.
In 1989 Carr approached retirement age in the World Bank and was anxious to get back to village-level work. He had planned to return to Uganda but had second thoughts. “I was sent to Malawi by the bank half a dozen times and encountered the worst poverty, and the most intransigent agricultural problems that I’d seen anywhere on the continent,” he recalled. “I decided I’d be of more use here than Uganda.”
A second career
In Malawi, Carr had a mountain to conquer. “When I came here the opposition to a subsidy by WB and USAID was so strong that it was absolutely like a brick wall,” he said. Although small fertilizer subsidies were offered through the 1980s and into the ‘90s, donors refused to extend the policy and it soon ended.
After attempting several organic soil improvement techniques, Carr started a fertilizer-for-work program. Locals built access roads and implemented irrigation and reforestation projects in return for inputs – mostly fertilizer and seed. Even with support from USAID and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, “it just became apparent at the end of ten years that we were not getting anywhere near the number of people on board, that this was never going to feed the country,” Carr recalled. “So I just switched my efforts.”
That switch occurred just before a devastating harvest in 2005, which prompted newly elected President Bingu wa Mutharika to reinstate and increase fertilizer subsidies despite staunch skepticism from the United States, Britain, and the World Bank. “As long as I’m president,” Mutharika famously declared, “I don’t want to be going to other capitals begging for food.”
The Malawi government turned to Carr to soften the international community’s opposition to Malawi’s fertilizer subsidies. Carr explained to major donors that at current prices the great majority of Malawians had no hope of buying fertilizer and thus little chance of feeding themselves without help.
Constant rejection spurred him on. At one event an American aid official told him the U.S. did not tolerate subsidies. Carr pounced. ”’Would you like to clarify,’” he asked her, ”’that while it’s perfectly alright for yellow, brown, or white people to be subsidized, you will not tolerate subsidies for black people?’” Carr recalled with a laugh. After another speech, a friend approached and told him he liked the subsidies idea but it wasn’t sustainable. “But 800,000 tons of famine relief every year is?” Carr responded.
“What one has to ram home to people is that there is not a third way,” he explained. “You either make inputs available to farmers so that they can grow their own food or you deny them the opportunity of growing enough food for themselves and you have hungry people and you stop them from actually starving by bringing in relief.”
The end of the rainbow
Over time Carr wore the opposition down, and President Mutharika’s subsidy plan went into effect in early 2006 with $8 million from the U.K.’s Department for International Development. The results have been staggering, with corn harvests nearly tripling from 1.2 million metric tons in 2005 to 3.4 million metric tons in 2007. Some, like U.S. ambassador Alan Eastham, believe the bountiful harvests are merely the result of good rains. But eight of the past 20 years witnessed as much precipitation as 2006 and 2007.
According to Carr the reason for success was simple: fertilizer became affordable for a larger portion of the population. The World Bank’s subsidy program of the 1980s and early ‘90s subsidized 35 percent of the fertilizer cost, enabling only the wealthiest quarter of the population to buy fertilizer. The new government-run plan, which subsidizes 70 percent of the cost, is affordable for two-thirds of the populace.
Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, now uses Malawi as Exhibit A in his “aid is good” argument. The country’s success has sparked a reappraisal of the value of farm basics — fertilizer, improved seed, and farmer education — and could ultimately become a tipping point for public support of fertilizer subsidies. Carr believes a few more good years would change donor minds.
Yet hurdles remain. The government has taken a staunch lead role, giving Malawi’s relatively mature private sector minimal involvement. This has meant slower distribution, according to Carr, but could become more problematic in the near future. USAID has demanded a greater role for the private sector as a condition of its acceptance of the subsidy program, which means continued governmental control could jeopardize the program.
Still, Malawi has undergone an economic sea change, as Carr’s empty front stoop can attest. Even more encouraging, a Malawian doctor recently reported an 80 percent drop in seriously malnourished children at his hospital.
Carr is happy to have played a part. “What I have done is act as a midwife,” he said. “It was Malawians did the hard labor.”
-- posted on devex.com on 18 May 2008
Agronomist Stephen Carr gauges the degree of hunger stalking the Malawian countryside by opening his front door. “In a bad year I have 12 starving people on my doorstep every morning begging for food,” said Carr, who has lived in a cabin on Zomba mountain in southern Malawi since 1989. “This last year I had two old ladies in a month.”
As Carr’s stoop can attest, two bountiful maize harvests have filled stomachs and cupboards across this devastatingly poor sliver of southern Africa. Malawi exported a record 280,000 tons of maize last fall and felt generally flush for the first time in recent memory – a direct result of a bold new government-run fertilizer subsidies program.
Although loathe to take any credit, this humble octogenarian used his intimate knowledge of Malawian smallholder farming, his familiarity with the donor community and his aggressive charm to reduce donor opposition to the subsidies that helped the farmers buy the fertilizer that enriched the soil that grew the maize that overturned received wisdom in Washington.
Stumbling toward success
After graduating from London University in 1952, Carr moved to Sudan and began working with small-scale farmers. Years later Carr moved with his wife to Uganda, where they worked as agricultural missionaries and had two children. “We were extremely happily settled,” said Carr.
So much so that in 1971 he was considering an application for Ugandan citizenship when the Obote government was overthrown. The underlings of new strong-armed dictator Idi Amin Dada learned of Carr’s efforts to relocate locals to more fertile lands. “Without asking anybody they assumed that I was organizing a guerrilla camp to overthrow the government,” he said. “We grabbed our family and we escaped.”
Thus began the institutional mid-section of his career, from agricultural adviser posts with the governments of Sudan and Tanzania to a position with the world’s foremost development institution. “I joined the World Bank almost by accident,” Carr said of his hiring.
In mid-1978 the bank needed someone familiar with southern Sudan, its languages, farming and traditions, and it settled on Carr, who had spent two dozen years living in huts in African villages. “The bank found me moderately useful and so eventually I finished up as principal agriculturalist for all of sub-Saharan Africa,” Carr remembered. He also won the Royal African Society’s medal for “dedicated services to Africa” and became an Officer of the British Empire along the way.
In 1989 Carr approached retirement age in the World Bank and was anxious to get back to village-level work. He had planned to return to Uganda but had second thoughts. “I was sent to Malawi by the bank half a dozen times and encountered the worst poverty, and the most intransigent agricultural problems that I’d seen anywhere on the continent,” he recalled. “I decided I’d be of more use here than Uganda.”
A second career
In Malawi, Carr had a mountain to conquer. “When I came here the opposition to a subsidy by WB and USAID was so strong that it was absolutely like a brick wall,” he said. Although small fertilizer subsidies were offered through the 1980s and into the ‘90s, donors refused to extend the policy and it soon ended.
After attempting several organic soil improvement techniques, Carr started a fertilizer-for-work program. Locals built access roads and implemented irrigation and reforestation projects in return for inputs – mostly fertilizer and seed. Even with support from USAID and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, “it just became apparent at the end of ten years that we were not getting anywhere near the number of people on board, that this was never going to feed the country,” Carr recalled. “So I just switched my efforts.”
That switch occurred just before a devastating harvest in 2005, which prompted newly elected President Bingu wa Mutharika to reinstate and increase fertilizer subsidies despite staunch skepticism from the United States, Britain, and the World Bank. “As long as I’m president,” Mutharika famously declared, “I don’t want to be going to other capitals begging for food.”
The Malawi government turned to Carr to soften the international community’s opposition to Malawi’s fertilizer subsidies. Carr explained to major donors that at current prices the great majority of Malawians had no hope of buying fertilizer and thus little chance of feeding themselves without help.
Constant rejection spurred him on. At one event an American aid official told him the U.S. did not tolerate subsidies. Carr pounced. ”’Would you like to clarify,’” he asked her, ”’that while it’s perfectly alright for yellow, brown, or white people to be subsidized, you will not tolerate subsidies for black people?’” Carr recalled with a laugh. After another speech, a friend approached and told him he liked the subsidies idea but it wasn’t sustainable. “But 800,000 tons of famine relief every year is?” Carr responded.
“What one has to ram home to people is that there is not a third way,” he explained. “You either make inputs available to farmers so that they can grow their own food or you deny them the opportunity of growing enough food for themselves and you have hungry people and you stop them from actually starving by bringing in relief.”
The end of the rainbow
Over time Carr wore the opposition down, and President Mutharika’s subsidy plan went into effect in early 2006 with $8 million from the U.K.’s Department for International Development. The results have been staggering, with corn harvests nearly tripling from 1.2 million metric tons in 2005 to 3.4 million metric tons in 2007. Some, like U.S. ambassador Alan Eastham, believe the bountiful harvests are merely the result of good rains. But eight of the past 20 years witnessed as much precipitation as 2006 and 2007.
According to Carr the reason for success was simple: fertilizer became affordable for a larger portion of the population. The World Bank’s subsidy program of the 1980s and early ‘90s subsidized 35 percent of the fertilizer cost, enabling only the wealthiest quarter of the population to buy fertilizer. The new government-run plan, which subsidizes 70 percent of the cost, is affordable for two-thirds of the populace.
Jeffrey Sachs, director of Columbia University’s Earth Institute, now uses Malawi as Exhibit A in his “aid is good” argument. The country’s success has sparked a reappraisal of the value of farm basics — fertilizer, improved seed, and farmer education — and could ultimately become a tipping point for public support of fertilizer subsidies. Carr believes a few more good years would change donor minds.
Yet hurdles remain. The government has taken a staunch lead role, giving Malawi’s relatively mature private sector minimal involvement. This has meant slower distribution, according to Carr, but could become more problematic in the near future. USAID has demanded a greater role for the private sector as a condition of its acceptance of the subsidy program, which means continued governmental control could jeopardize the program.
Still, Malawi has undergone an economic sea change, as Carr’s empty front stoop can attest. Even more encouraging, a Malawian doctor recently reported an 80 percent drop in seriously malnourished children at his hospital.
Carr is happy to have played a part. “What I have done is act as a midwife,” he said. “It was Malawians did the hard labor.”
-- posted on devex.com on 18 May 2008
The Future of Farm Output in Africa and the Promising Case of Malawi
A food crisis grips the planet. Prices of rice, wheat and other essentials skyrocket, leading to food shortage riots in a dozen countries and jolting governments and policymakers to rethink their ideas about commodities markets, biofuels and agricultural production in the developing world. World Bank President Robert Zoellick has said the losses could drop 100 million people back into extreme poverty, wiping out a decade of development gains. World Food Program Executive Director Josette Sheeran has called the crisis “the silent tsunami.”
Within this haystack of gloom shines the needle of Malawi, where a government-led fertilizer subsidies program has produced two bountiful maize harvests, filling stomachs and cupboards across this formerly destitute sliver of southern Africa. Last year Malawi exported 280,000 tons of maize as child malnutrition dropped an impressive 80 percent. And the good times are set to continue. Despite the global economic downturn the International Monetary Fund is forecasting nearly 8 percent growth for Malawi in 2008, as compared to 3.7 percent globally.
The success of Malawi’s subsidy program has overturned conventional donor wisdom and may have set an example for other African nations to follow. As we enter an era of high food prices, increasing Africa’s agricultural production is of greater urgency than ever before.
Few are more familiar with these issues than Uma Lele and Stephen Carr. In separate interviews and an e-mail discussion the duo discussed why the Malawi program worked, what it might mean for the policies of the World Bank and other major donors, and whether Malawi offers a replicable model.
Malawi and the problem of soil infertility
“The world is fed by inorganic fertilizer and good seed, and the only continent where that’s not being used is Africa,” said Carr, the World Bank’s principal agriculturalist for sub-Saharan Africa throughout the 1980s. He has lived in Africa for more than 50 years and was instrumental in getting the Malawi subsidy program off the ground.
Low soil fertility contributes greatly to low agricultural productivity in Africa. China’s farmland boasts 279 kilograms of fertilizer nutrients per hectare. South Asia’s receives 113. Africa, on the other hand, makes due with 6 kilograms, a paltry sum considering only 6 percent of this vast continent's land has high agricultural potential.
“We’ve got to find ways of giving farmers access to fertilizer,” says Carr.
Malawi found a way, with Carr wearing down donor opposition and the government managing a comprehensive plan that covered 70 percent of the price of fertilizer. The impact was immediate and revelatory.
“This program succeeded because it made fertilizer affordable to the majority of the population,” Carr said. Because of import, distribution and marketing costs, Malawi’s pre-subsidy fertilizer is about 40 percent more expensive than that of the United States, and representative of sub-Saharan Africa. “What the 70 percent subsidy has done is bring the Malawian farmer to the same level playing field as the American farmer," he noted.
American farm subsidies have long been a target for critics of Western aid policies. If the United States, European Union and other Western nations removed all domestic subsidies and tariffs on imported cotton, soybeans and other oilseeds, the developing world’s share in these products would jump from its current 50 percent to more than 80 percent, according to some experts. And it’s not only wealthy Western nations that provide farmer hand-outs; India and China spend lavishly to boost production.
African nations are not so flush.
“What are these countries supposed to do when [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] countries are not reducing their subsidies?” wondered Lele. An agricultural economist, she worked at the World Bank for 35 years and has written extensively about funding of farm basics. The United States doles out $5.2 billion every year in direct subsidies to farmers, while fertilizer prices have doubled, even tripled, across much of sub-Saharan Africa in the past six months. “They’re facing a ridiculous world market situation; there isn’t a willingness to recognize the reality," Lele added.
Some experts recommend a policy shift akin to India's Green Revolution in the 1960s. As new high-yield varieties of rice and wheat were introduced, major donors encouraged the Indian government to provide their farmers with essential inputs – seed, fertilizer and credit. The government also set floor prices to ensure farmers a return on investment. The result was a decade of vigorous productivity growth in India, and robust public spending on agriculture across the developing world.
But in the 1980s huge farm surpluses from developed countries depressed prices and slashed farmer's profits. As a result, developing nations cut farm budgets in half between 1980 and 2004. Donor agricultural aid also dropped by half over the same period as production growth dropped two- to three-fold across the developing world.
As donors and governments begin to increase investment in developing world agriculture – part of a post-millennial push to reduce global poverty – the Malawian success story has become Exhibit A for the backers of farm funding.
The World Bank mulls its options
In recent years the World Bank has undergone a transformation far beyond the arrival of Zoellick as a replacement for the disgraced Paul Wolfowitz. As the single largest donor to African agriculture since 1990, the bank remaims integral to the future of farming in Africa. But on fertilizers and farm inputs it’s still dragging its feet.
The most recent edition of the World Bank's annual global review, the World Development Report (WDR), focuses on agriculture and argues that “subsidies must be used with caution,… [and] need to be part of a comprehensive strategy to improve productivity and must have credible exit options.”
However subsides are implemented, Lele believes donors hold far too much sway. “The reality is that donors have much more power in Africa than they did even in the heyday," when policies were much more holistic, she said.
In a December interview with National Public Radio, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the World Bank’s new managing director, acknowledged the bank had pushed political reforms abroad in the past. “The bank has changed dramatically from that period,” she said. Nowadays, “each country should take the lead.”
Carr agrees, in part. “The nature of the bank has changed a great deal,” he said. “With interest rates at up to 75 percent, little government oversight and no smallholder credit, the bank has been driven to get more involved in macro policies.”
These broader policies have led to diminishing returns, according to the latest report from World Bank watchdog the Internal Evaluation Group. It found that the donor community has neglected the agriculture sector and that the World Bank’s strategy for agriculture has increasingly been subsumed within a broader rural focus, limiting its success.
During the 1980s Carr used his technical knowledge on straightforward projects such as smallholder irrigation. “At that time the projects department had virtually nothing to do with policy,” he recalled. “I didn’t have to deal with the organization of whole governments.”
The IEG report found the importance of agriculture had declined, with a subsequent loss of technical skills. The bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department in sub-Saharan Africa had 17 technical workers in 2006, compared with 40 in 1997.
That loss of technical skill can be seen in bank policies that pay little heed to ground realities like widespread hunger. For example, according to the report the bank “appears to have addressed soil fertility more as an environmental than as an agricultural productivity issue.” As food shortages lead to starving and riotous populations across the developing world, that error looms ever larger.
Spending the right way
To feed those masses production must be increased, most likely via aggressive governmental involvement. But public spending on farm inputs such as fertilizer must be done with deliberation and foresight. The WDR warns of the dangers of politicians claiming ownership of the beneficial subsidy program as well as the dependence such programs can create.
Yet Malawi's current administration has taken the lion’s share of the credit for the good harvests resulting from its “boma,” or government, fertilizer – and watched its popularity soar.
What will President Mutharika do now that fertilizer prices have increased by 120 percent across southern Africa? Will he turn to donors he so recently spurned? And what if the price hike forces the discontinuation of the program – will Malawians again go hungry? If they do they will know where to point the finger.
Carr says greater private-sector involvement would have improved procurement and distribution in Malawi. Yet he believes African governments must fund farm basics to “maintain food production aligned with growth.” Risks – such as inadequate oversight, price fluctuation and corruption – will remain, and policies will vary from country to country. Regardless, implementation is paramount. “It depends how effectively the plans are carried out,” he said.
System design will be key, too.
“Developing national systems is very complex,” said Lele, adding that many developing countries require policy advice and help in building reliable institutions. Dedicated people who understand local traditions and farming techniques have to be part of any successful program. "Money is necessary but not sufficient to do those things," she noted.
Furthermore, funding for farm inputs link fertilizer and seed often have less impact today because the structure of international farm markets has fundamentally changed since the Green Revolution. Not only are prices of seed and fertilizer much higher, but credit is less readily available to farmers, particularly during the ongoing global credit crunch. Also, supermarkets account for half of food sales even in developing countries, further reducing farmer control over pricing. India will disburse $37 billion to farmers in fiscal 2008 - $15 billion to cover debt and $22 billion for fertilizer subsidies - an increase of 50 percent and not a scheme to be emulated in sub-Saharan Africa.
Africa’s lack of funding, poor infrastructure and weak public sector and civil society hamper productivity growth. “African countries don’t have the benefit of indigenous volunteer organizations, like India and some other developing nations,” said Lele. “Malawi occurred under very unique circumstances.”
Malawi, floodlit
The IEG report recommended the World Bank and other donors help governments design efficient mechanisms to provide farmers with critical inputs such as fertilizer. Now, into donor laps falls the case of Malawi. In a May op-ed in Time, Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute and author of “The End of Poverty,” urged policymakers "to scale up the dramatic success of Malawi" and create an "international fund based on the Malawi model." He suggested $10 per developed world citizen, or $10 billion total, and argued the fund could fight hunger as the Global Fund battles AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. But could Malawi serve as a model, a tipping point in ending the donor fad against fertilizer subsidies?
Lele is skeptical. “We think it’s a simple idea – fertilizer subsidies – but transportability of the particular design elements of that intervention are so intricate and complex," she said. "This is what often people don’t appreciate and they try to multiply things when it becomes a fad – and then they fail.”
Carr cites Rwanda and Burundi as possible imitators, as well as Tanzania, which recently sent consultants to review Malawi’s program. But he's more concerned about Malawi’s continued success.
“If Malawi’s subsidies become too politicized, or there’s too much corruption, or too inefficient, the international community’s going to say, ‘There you are, this shows that this kind of program cannot be run in Africa,’” he cautioned.
Lele sees no quick fix. "Short-term solutions are necessary in times like today," she acknowledged. "But not sufficient – holistic and long-term approaches with consistent, predictable policies are needed to develop food and agricultural sectors."
Malawi is headed in the right direction. “If we had another two or three really successful years,” said Carr, “it would be very hard for the donor community to go back to famine relief rather than helping people grow their own food.”
-- posted on devex.com on 15 May 2008
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