Africa

Somaliland is not a UN recognised nation but this has not stopped four men attempting to develop a national football set-up.

Students at Umbili Girls concrete during class; they are some of the over 200 girls attending the school. Photo: O. Headon/IOM 2018

By International Organization for Migration
South Sudan, Nov 19 2018 (IOM)

When Deputy Principal Rose was a student, there was a week every month that she dreaded: the period every twenty-eight days or so when she had her period. A keen student with an innate love of learning, she loathed this forced truancy.

Without menstrual management support, Rose could see no other option but to wait out her period at home.

From her office in the school, Deputy Principal Rose explains how she saw history repeating itself across generations when it came to menstrual management. Photo: O. Headon/IOM 2018

Two thousand and five — the year the war for independence from Sudan ended — was the year Rose finished her studies. She graduated from university in Khartoum and returned to her hometown of Wau, now in South Sudan. There, she became a teacher and later the Deputy Principal of the 200-pupil strong Mbili Girls Secondary School, known locally as “Umbili Girls”.

Many of the girls in Rose’s school face the same issues she did back in her own schooldays.

Geography class at Umbili Girls, where IOM water, sanitation and hygiene teams support students. Photo: O. Headon/IOM

One student at the school said that when she starts menstruating, she would “ask the teacher for permission to go home.” And then, she would stay put for a day or so until her period was no longer so heavy, making it possible to go back to school.

“When I’m at home, I cannot read or study because I have domestic work to do,” said another girl student. She continued on to say that if she asks for time off from household chores, then she will not be given money for candles, further hindering her studies. All her classmates agreed that when they have access to basic hygiene products like pads, soap and buckets, they can stay in school during their periods.

One of the over 200 girl students at Umbili Girls in Wau, South Sudan. Photo: O. Headon/IOM 2018

“Before, there was no proper place to wash pads, so the teachers and I would have to send girls home,” said Deputy Principal Rose. A non-governmental organization (NGO) constructed a private room at the school for girl students to wash or change their sanitary products.

With training and support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the school set up a student hygiene club. The club helps students promote simple but vital hygiene practices throughout the school. As part of its activities, IOM held menstrual management training for girl students and distributed dignity kits. The kits included reusable pads, underwear, soap, a kanga (multi-purpose material, typically used as clothing), and a solar torch to help the girls easily read at night.

“There is more awareness today and teachers can offer help,” said Rose, more optimistic about the current situation for girls, who experience their periods at school. Such kits not only help girls stay in school but go through their monthly cycle with more dignity.

Deputy Principal Rose is optimistic for the future but knows her girls have many challenges ahead of them. Photo: O. Headon/IOM 2018

Another challenge the students were facing was the lack of latrines. There was only one functioning latrine at the school.

Umbili Girls was originally a girls’ school with 207 students but, due to the lack of teachers in Wau, two or three schools were temporarily combined for Senior Four (the final stage of secondary school) classes. Umbili Girls was the largest and most strategically located of the schools, which means that, for the moment, boys are part of the student body. This made the latrine situation for the pupils even worse; now boy and girl students and men and women teachers were relying on one latrine during school hours. Many of the girls were not comfortable with this arrangement.

Earlier this year, IOM’s water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) team assessed the sanitation situation in multiple schools in Wau, comparing the state of each school’s latrines and the number of people who used them. Umbili Girls was deemed to a priority with far more than 200 people with access to only one functioning latrine. The WASH team verified with Wau’s Directorate for Education to ensure that no other organization had plans to support the school in this way, avoiding duplication of work.

Assistant Engineer Grace Keji speaks with labourers as they work on the latrine rehabilitation. Photo: O. Headon/IOM 2018

Employing local labourers, IOM engineers oversaw the rehabilitation of a block of latrines (eight stances), which had fallen into disrepair, forcing the school population to share what was meant to be the teachers’ latrine.

“During our assessment, we made sure that the existing latrines could be rehabilitated; we checked that the pits were ok and how many metres were left before they would become full,” said Grace Keji, IOM South Sudan Assistant WASH Engineer. “Then, we used the assessment report to prepare a Bills of Quantity (BoQ), which is a list detailing the materials, like cement, needed for the rehabilitation. Following procurement of the materials, we got to work fixing the floors, walls, roof and ventilation. We also constructed three handwashing facilities, which are vital, as good handwashing practices play a key role in reducing diarrhoeal diseases,” added Keji.

Assistant Engineer Grace Keji explains how the privacy wall is being constructed. Photo: O. Headon/IOM 2018

The team also constructed a privacy wall around the teachers’ latrine, as everyone was using it during the rehabilitation works. Now, there is a specific latrine stance for people living with disabilities, one for women teachers and six for girl students — all in the rehabilitated block. And there is another existing stance located away from the girls and women’s latrines, used only by men teachers and boy students. This is a temporary arrangement until more teachers can be hired in the boma [administrative division] and the boys can go back to their own school. But while they are attending Umbili Girls, the hygiene club has capitalized on their presence and engaged them in activities.

The latrines and handwashing facilities were completed in September and officially handed over to the community. Representatives from IOM, Wau’s Directorate for Education, the school administration and school hygiene club attended the handover ceremony. IOM also supplied the school with cleaning supplies.

The completed rehabilitation of Umbili Girls latrines. Photo: O. Headon/IOM 2018

Following, the completion of the latrines, IOM turned its attention to the school’s inadequate borehole. During the following month of October, IOM finished the rehabilitation of the borehole, ensuring there was access to clean and safe water at the school.

According to UNICEF, the “current trend in female enrolment [in South Sudan] is particularly disconcerting with the Gender Parity Index (GPI) going from 0.75 at primary to 0.57 at the secondary level.” GPI is a socioeconomic index measuring the relative access to education of girls and boys.

Helping young girls feel comfortable enough to stay in school is extremely important.

As one of the students said, “We must study to become independent because there are certain things you must do for yourself,” and as another said, “School is very important because it makes you mentally happy. When you study, life becomes easier; you can work hard for what you want.”

Girls take a break in between lessons at Umbili Girls. Photo: O. Headon/IOM 2018

IOM’s support to Umbili Girls in Wau was funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of the “Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Response and Prevention of Gender Based Violence (GBV)” project.

The post Stopping History from Repeating Itself appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Until now, the East African nation has relied on the Navy to protect its waters.

Cameroon boss Clarence Seedorf's first visit to Milton Keynes sees his new side face Brazil at Stadium MK as he looks to build a new career as a coach.

Protesters gather at a candlelight vigil in New Delhi. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By Rangita de Silva de Alwis
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 2018 (IPS)

“From the tuk tuk drivers in Cambodia… to the school children in South Africa, women and men and girls and boys are taking a stand to prevent violence against women,” says Executive Director of UN Women and Under Secretary General Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

On November 19, the UN marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women at the Trusteeship Council Chambers at the UN Headquarters. It also commemorates the UN Secretary-General’s UNiTE Campaign to End Violence against Women.

One of the unique features of the commemoration is the UN’s commitment to the role of law enforcement in ending violence against women and girls in private and public spaces. This local-to-global focus at the UN will bring critical perspectives from the UN, Member States, and including for the first time, a local law enforcement agency – the New York Police Department (NYPD).

The “violence against women” movement is perhaps the greatest success story of international mobilization. However over 35 percent of women across the world face violence during their life in what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls a “global health problem of epidemic proportions.”

Over one billion women experience gender – based violence in the world. Under Secretary General Mlambo-Ngcuka has pointed out that given the magnitude of this pandemic, if it was a disease, governments and scientists would be marshalling every resource to address it.

According to research led by a group of scholars at Stanford and Oxford universities, domestic violence costs 25 times more than conflict and violent extremism and exhausts 5.2 percent of global GDP.

Despite the stark and unyielding statistics, around the world, a new energy is bringing renewed commitments from heads of state and government leaders to address the different faces of violence against women.

Eighteen years ago, when I partnered with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on a study on domestic violence in the outskirts of Beijing, violence against women in the domestic sphere was recognized only in terms of loss of limb or eyesight.

The broadening categories of domestic violence including the recognition of economic abuse as a category of violence is part of a second generation of domestic violence laws and is in full compliance with international norms such as the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (DEVAW).

Earlier in the year, Theresa May wrote to the Guardian, “Not all abusive behavior is physical. Controlling, manipulative and verbally abusive behavior ruins lives and means thousands end up isolated, living in fear. So, for the first time, the bill will provide a statutory definition of domestic abuse that includes economic abuse, alongside other non-physical abuse.”

While older laws on gender -based violence focused on punishment, the new crop of laws focus broadly on punishment and prevention.

For example, the newly passed “anti-violence against women” law in Tunisia (2017) makes it easier to prosecute domestic abuse, and it imposes penalties for sexual harassment in public spaces. Most importantly it calls for children to be educated in schools about human rights.

Another phenomenon of this “second generation” of gender-based violence laws is a heightened recognition of a victim- centered approach and the costs of violence on the survivor, in terms of physical, economic, psychological, social and familial.

Earlier in the year, New Zealand passed legislation granting victims of domestic violence 10 days paid leave to allow them to leave their partners, find new homes and protect themselves and their children. Family violence in New Zealand is estimated to cost the country between NZ$4.1bn and $7bn a year.

One of the critical components of the UNiTe campaign is the recognition that violence against women does not take place in a vacuum. As Secretary General Antonio Gutteres has confirmed: “Violence against women is fundamentally about power. It will only end when gender equality and the full empowerment of women will be a reality.”

Mlambo- Ngcuka harnesses the full panoply of international commitments in their full majestic entirety, including the recognition that gender parity and women’s leadership is critical to UNiTe campaign to end violence against women.

In doing so she marshals international norms, from General Recommendation 12 and 19 of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the DEVAW and the Security Council Resolution 1325 and its progeny as normative and constitutive in combating violence against women.

From the HeforShe movement, which calls for male leadership in advancing women’s equality, Mlambo-Ngcuka is putting in motion a broader bedrock of structures to combat violence against women in order to address the root causes of gender inequality.

On November 19, we come together at an extraordinary moment of unprecedented momentum built by the #MeToo movement towards empowering women and achieving gender equality across the board and across the globe.

As envisioned 70 years ago, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) recognized that “contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind…” More must be done to recognize that these barbarous acts take place not only battlefields, but within hallowed halls of power, in the classrooms, in workplaces, including the paddy fields, and in our homes.

As stated in the UDHR, the commitment to end violence against women is a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations. This common standard transcends culture, tradition, power or politics.

*Along with Richard Liu of MSNBC, Rangita de Silva de Alwis will be moderating the UN’s Commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women at the UN Trusteeship Council on November 19.

The post UN Commemorates International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Rangita de Silva de Alwis* is Associate Dean of International Affairs at the University of Pennsylvania Law School & Special Adviser to the President of Wellesley College on Women’s Leadership.

The post UN Commemorates International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Bristol Bisons's Kenneth Macharia says he will suffer violence if he is forced to return to Kenya.

By Danielle Gibson
LONDON, Nov 19 2018 (IPS)

New York Times bestselling author Jeetendr Sehdev believes that chief marketing officers need to start thinking differently about the younger generations they’re struggling to engage with.

Ahead of his keynote, ‘Human 2.0: Sacrifice Everything If You Believe In Something’, at The Future of Marketing on November 22, Sehdev chats to The Drum about his book ‘The Kim Kardashian Principle’, how the Nike Colin Kaepernick campaign implemented his rules to create their success and why brands should embrace the hate from social media.

(Photo/Jeetendr Sehdev by Kimo Lauer)

An era of unrest and unease – this is the new reality for brands and businesses. Does that mean businesses now need to learn new rules for branding?

You bet. Anyone who’s serious about competing in this new reality needs to recognise that there are new rules of the game. In fact, there are six of them that I sum up in a framework called S.E.L.F.I.E. in my book The Kim Kardashian Principle.

Are there any examples of who’s doing it well?

I would have to say the Nike and Colin Kaepernick campaign. The media reported on how Nike had applied the rules of The Kim Kardashian Principle to create the breakthrough campaign. And how their headline ‘Believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything’ was inspired by one of my branding rules ‘sacrifice everything to believe in something’. Given it’s become one of the most talked about advertising campaigns in recent history, and generated $163.5 million worth of brand exposure, I would say Nike followed the new rules well.

Every single business is talking about being authentic and driving some sort of purpose. There is so much noise. What piece of advice would you would give to marketers, when trying to connect with consumers?

Yes, but every single business is talking about being authentic by striving to be perfect, and that’s a problem. Which brand, CEO, organization or individual today can claim the mantel of perfection anyways? What’s right for one consumer might not be right for another – as marketers we need to respect that.

My definition of authenticity has always been about focusing on what you believe and what you want to create regardless of the blowback. It’s not about living up to other people’s standards but living up to your own standards, and that requires tons of courage. It’s about breaking through by becoming your own champion.

In today’s world where consumers have finely-tuned authenticity detectors and value those who march to their own drum beat, The Kim Kardashian Principle is the only definition of authenticity that’s going to get you noticed.

What is that one thing that CMOs should change when doing business in this changing world?

CMOs have to start thinking differently about the younger generations they’re struggling to engage. It’s easy to demean and degrade others for being different. Narcissistic, lazy, entitled, stupid… How many times have we heard millennials and generation Z being labelled that way? You don’t like the fact that a YouTuber promoted himself to fame by playing video games, made $15 million on his latest endorsement deal, brought some followers to big himself up? It doesn’t matter.

Instead of playing the moral police, look at ways to empathize with a new generation with a different value system. What drives them to do what they do? Understand it, empathize with it. It’s especially important for us because we’re in the business of building emotional connections. That’s the value of a brand, right?

You talk about breaking rules, what are the risks CMOs need to be aware of when considering “bold and dynamic” messaging? How should you balance risks and failures in this increasingly connected world?

It’s no secret that the largest most sophisticated brands are struggling to engage younger audiences today. The biggest risk CMOs will take today is not taking enough risks! Traditional marketing tactics are no longer working, the competition is too intense, audiences are too savvy. Hiding your true opinions as an organization – from social to political to financial to environmental – in an attempt to cater to the lowest common denominator is just not a viable option for brands anymore. Younger audiences are value-driven, and they want to engage with brands that have similar values… so, you’ve no longer have a choice but to show your true values.

When it comes to brands or celebrities, in terms of influence, what can the two learn from each other?

So much. New world leaders like Kim Kardashian can teach brands how to cultivate develop and lead a new generation of consumers. Any brand that is serious about engaging their audiences needs to be paying close attention to Kim.

Talk us through the top two key themes that will ignite brands in the future?

First off, hate is a status symbol. If you’re not being hated you’re not in the game. There’s no avoiding hate with social media. Everybody has a platform to voice their opinions now, besides I’m a big believer that everybody has both a right to their opinion and to be heard. You’re not going to please everybody and any attempts to cater to the lowest common denominator will only be seen as inauthentic. So, embrace the hate and learn to love it.

Secondly, it’s not about creating fans but fanatics. Those who have blind faith and are willing to see through to the intention of your idea. That’s a much deeper level of emotional bonding that brands will need to achieve in order to compete and fend off future competition.

‘Business as usual’ doesn’t cut it anymore. Transformations are radically altering our lives, making it more daunting than ever to make a positive impact on our wellbeing, our productivity, and our world. How should we manage this challenge?

Don’t resist it. Embrace it. Run with it. Even if you don’t fully understand it. With greater innovation has also come greater levels of forgiveness from audiences if your idea, product or service doesn’t quite work out.

Sehdev will attend The Future of Marketing on November 22. You can purchase tickets for the event at The Crystal, London here.

This story was originally published by The Drum.

The post ‘Hate Is a Status Symbol. If You’re Not Being Hated You’re Not in the Game’ Says Celebrity Branding Guru Jeetendr Sehdev appeared first on Inter Press Service.

People at Gasi Beach in Kwale County, on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast, wait for fishermen to buy their daily catch. Demand for fish in Kenya is on the rise courtesy of fast population growth of around three percent per year and increased awareness of the nutritional value of fish. Credit: Diana Wanyonyi/IPS

By Justus Wanzala
KISUMU/VIHIGA, Kenya, Nov 19 2018 (IPS)

Despite the humid late October midday weather in Kisumu County near the shores of Lake Victoria, Jane Kisia is busy walking around her fish ponds feeding her fish. As she rhythmically throws handfuls of pellets into the ponds, located within her homestead, the fish ravenously gobble them up.

Kisia, a retired teacher, has been rearing fish for six years. In 2016 she was enlisted in the Kenya Market-led Aquaculture Programme (KMAP), to boost aquaculture and protect Lake Victoria’s dwindling stocks. KMAP, which runs from 2016-2019, is a programme by Farm Africa, a charity organisation. It covers 14 counties in Kenya’s central and Lake Victoria regions.

“KMAP has been providing training on aquaculture which has enabled me to harness the sector’s opportunities,” Kisia tells IPS.

Aside from just the training, KMAP has also given her a valuable link to traders. “When my fish mature, buyers are just a phone call away,” says Kisia.

In her five ponds, she rears Tilapia and some Catfish. She harvests them twice a year and makes between Kenya Shillings 150,000 – 200,000 (USD 1,500 -2000).

Demand for fish in Kenya is on the rise courtesy of fast population growth of around three percent per year and increased awareness of the nutritional value of fish.

Unfortunately, the country’s fish production is heavily reliant on wild fish caught in its lakes whose stocks are sharply declining. The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics in April reported that over the last five years fish landed, including from lakes, marine source and fish farming, has declined from over 163,000 tons in 2013 to 135,000 tons last year. This has led to scarcity and high costs.

The scenario is unfolding despite the country having over 1.14 million hectares of land ideal for aquaculture as per the 2017 Aquaculture Report of the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI).

Not even a government programme to boost the aquaculture sector that saw 48,000 fish ponds across the country almost a decade ago solved the problem of low fish supply. This is because the programme had only shown people how to dig ponds and stock them with fingerlings. While a few training sessions were held, the beneficiaries of those programmes were largely left to themselves.

An integrated fish and poultry rearing system. Poultry houses are built above fish ponds for chicken droppings to supplement feeds. NGO Farm Africa, are training rural farmers in Kenya’s 14 counties on how to start their own fish farms. The country’s fish production is heavily reliant on wild fish caught in its lakes whose stocks are sharply declining. Credit: Justus Wanzala/IPS

Teddy Nyanapa, Farm Africa’s coordinator, tells IPS they empower rural farmers through closely engaging with them, monitoring their progress, providing technical expertise, advice on markets and natural resources preservation. He adds that they also lobby for an improved legislative environment for the sector.The Sustainable Blue Economy Conference
The first global Sustainable Blue Economy Conference will be held in Nairobi, Kenya from Nov. 26 to 28 and is being co-hosted with Canada and Japan. The aim of the conference is learn how to build a blue economy that harnesses the potential of the world’s oceans and waterbodies in order to improve the lives of all. 

Nyanapa explains that the programme encompasses all players in the fish value chain. These include farmers, feed manufacturers and fish traders.

He says apart from fish husbandry practices, farmers are also trained on book keeping and financial matters. They have enlisted some 1,100 farmers.

Each of the 14 counties has agents who assist farmers in adhering to best practices. “The agents are aquaculture extensionists, mostly recent graduates from colleges, for we need personnel to promote aquaculture adoption with zeal,” Nyanapa tells IPS. This level of engagement is believed to be the reason for the success of this project.

He observes that fingerlings are in low supply, stating that there are only 12 official hatcheries in Kenya.

KMAP works with three large capacity feed manufacturers. They have been trained on feed quality standards and palpability.

Nyanapa laments that there is no standard size for juvenile fish sold to farmers, with some sold so small that they rarely survive, which causes losses.

He agrees with the three farmers that the cost of feed is a huge challenge, as it can account for 70 percent of the farming costs.

“We rely on commercial feeds which are costly, yet sometimes quality is poor and supply inconsistent,” explains Kisia.

At Ebenezer Children’s Home and Life Centre, a boarding school for both primary and secondary school children, KMAP is working with its management on an aquaculture initiative for nutrition and commercial purposes.

Martha Achieng, a teacher/farm manager at Ebenezer Children’s Home and Life Centre, which is also based in Kisumu County, says they started aquaculture in 2012.

“The initial aim was to rear fish for food, given that some of the children are living with HIV/AIDS, but after our first harvest we sold the surplus and made Kenya Shillings 200,000 (2,000 USD) and realised it is a lucrative venture,” Achieng tells IPS.

The centre which has some 1,000 pupils, has six ponds stocked with Tilapia and Catfish.

Achieng says that since wild fish stocks are dwindling, the government should subsidise the costs borne by aquaculture farmers.

“There is need for a shift in policy by curbing Chinese fish imports and lowering the cost of inputs to tap the huge potential of aquaculture,” she adds.

Locally there has been much controversy about Kenya’s importation of fish from China, which was used to fill the gap as the country’s own fish stocks have declined. According to United Nations commercial data, in 2017 Kenya imported USD 21 million of fish from China.

However, this October, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta proposed banning these imports that were competing with the livelihoods of local fishers.

But some local fish farmers under KMAP are opting to go large scale, thereby marginally increasing the local supply of fish.

Stephen Lukorito, a Farm Africa agent in neighbouring Vihiga County, says there are some 100 fish farmers in the county. He says the potential for aquaculture is huge.

Beauty Farm in Vihiga County has five ponds that serve as a training centre for youth keen on practicing aquaculture.

Wilson Ananda, the farm manager, tells IPS that the demand for fish in the area is so huge that every time they harvest, the whole catch is bought by local community members.

Also in Vihiga County, a farm run by a company called Bunyore Riverside Development (BRAD) rears over 19,000 fish in six ponds of 60 x 30 metres. It has an integrated fish and poultry rearing system. Poultry houses are built above fish ponds and chicken droppings create algae in the water, on which the fish feed.

Emmanuel Simiyu, BRAD’s manager, says they supply their fish to hotels, restaurants, schools and hospitals. He adds that they face a challenge of ready supply of fingerlings and will soon venture into their production.

Other organisations have partnered with KMAP to offer support on hatcheries management, monitoring and evaluation, while some like the World Fish Centre provide advice on suitability of various fish species in different ecological zones.

And training has been extended to government fisheries officers: 28 have been trained in the Lake Victoria region on modern aquaculture technologies.

Some farmers are also selected and trained as peer mentors.

Nyanapa says that before the project closes they want to mobilise farmers to work in clusters or groups to purchase inputs and access markets and finance.

Ultimately there is the hope that the fish farms will remain a thriving success once the project has ended. It brings Kenya one step closer to increasing its own production of fish.

 

Related Articles

• Kenya Looks to Lead the Way in Developing the Blue Economy’s Potential
• Q&A: All Sustainable Development Goals Relate in Some Way to the Oceans
• Seychelles Issues World’s First Blue Bond to Fund Fisheries Projects

The post Improved Husbandry Practices Boosts Aquaculture in Kenya appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Five of the countries who have qualified for next year's Nations Cup finals will continue preparations with friendly internationals on Tuesday.

Employees of Africa’s Talking, a platform for software developers, working at their desks in Nairobi, Kenya on February 13, 2018. Credit: Dominic Chavez/International Finance Corporation

By Anna Shen
NEW YORK, Nov 19 2018 (IPS)

Global poverty is undoubtedly the most critical economic and moral challenge of the 21st century. While economists debate how to raise up the world’s poorest – the more than 800 million people living on less than US$1.25 a day.– entrepreneurs are spurring innovation and growth in emerging markets.

However, to truly enable economic activity, governments must work diligently with entrepreneurs and the venture capital class to build ecosystems.

What is most exciting is a spate of new companies outside of the obvious BRIC countries in diverse geographies – from the Philippines to Peru, to Hangzhou to Lagos – that are unleashing home grown innovation, creating efficiencies and solving local problems.

Many of the start-ups are tackling challenges felt most keenly among the poor: access to health care, education, finance and markets among them.

The Center for American Entrepreneurship reports that venture capital (VC) — the funding source for many of the world’s start-up companies — hit an all-time high of USD$171 billion in 2017. In the past three years, start-ups in Beijing have raised $72.8 billion, almost as much as those in San Francisco ($81.8 billion).

Talent is everywhere, and it is hungry. California’s Silicon Valley has Facebook, Google, and Apple. But unicorns are elsewhere: China has Didi and Xiaomi, India has Hike, and Nigeria has Jumia.

Finally, even Silicon Valley is taking note. Headlines such as the New York Times proclaim: “Silicon Valley is Over, Says Silicon Valley,” or Forbes: “Is Silicon Valley Losing Its Luster?” Venture capitalists usually refuse to consider companies outside the Bay area. As one VC proclaimed, “If I can’t ride my bike to meet the founders, I won’t invest,” speaking to the Valley’s freewheeling hippy-esque culture.

Anna Shen

However, those in the know of global innovation say investors who remain local will lose out if they stay in the comfort zone of their own California bubble. At IFC’s recent Venture Capital in Emerging Markets conference in San Francisco, attendees predicted the dramatic rise of VC activity in Africa in the next five years, and Latin America in three.

At Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in Singapore earlier this month, the talk was that Asian cities are now top challengers for domination by US venture capital firms. In a report “The Rise of the Global Startup City” by the Center for American Entrepreneurship, authors Ian Hathaway and Richard Florida state that: “The geography of start-up activity and venture capital investment is undergoing a rapid and profound period of globalization.”

The idea that successful start-ups must launch and scale in Silicon Valley — or in another major U.S. city — no longer holds true.” Increasingly, the world’s entrepreneurs can stay home to raise capital for their companies.

Most importantly is the profound contribution of local high-tech sectors on economic activity. For every single high-tech job created in the U.S. and Europe, 4.3 other jobs are created, said Hathaway.

While numbers in emerging markets are more difficult to come by, he noted: “I can only imagine that the impacts are far greater because the there is much more runway to grow.” New tech start-ups spur competition, productivity, and create jobs. Entrepreneurs launch new products, adopt cutting-edge technology and open new markets. The result: sustainable economic development.

“There are huge efficiency gains as the digitalization of the global economy has a huge impact in developing markets,” said Nikunj Jinsi, Global Head of the International Finance Corporation’s $1BN venture capital fund, which includes investments in health, education, transportation, and energy. He noted that in China IFC invested in the “Uber for trucks,” which consolidated a fractured industry that accounts for 15 to 20 percent of China’s GDP. The exponential effect is tremendous.

People often don’t focus on the multiplier effects of start-ups. “In Silicon Valley it’s called the PayPal effect – when companies succeed, they spin out dozens, even hundreds of entrepreneurs who know now how it is done. It is a flywheel of economic growth,” said Christopher M. Schroeder, co-founder of venture firm Next Billion Ventures.

In emerging markets, much of the capital is concentrated within a few families. But VC is an interesting way of injecting new capital into industries because it rewards entrepreneurs. It has a huge role to play in emerging markets because access to capital is limited and access to capital that will take risks is even more so.

“For GDP to grow in emerging markets, small business needs to grow and technology is a way to do this, said Paul Santos, Managing Partner of cross-border firm Wavemaker Partners, which invests in early stage start-ups in Southeast Asia.

The role of the public sector cannot be underestimated. “Governments must stimulate and build ecosystems and enabling environments, and this includes mentorship. They can do a lot, and provide tailored solutions,” said IFC’s Jinsi.

Entrepreneurs can go only so far without government intervention and support in the forms of incubators, accelerators, rule of law and other legal and support structures that encourage entrepreneurship. Risk taking must be nurtured, along with education.

Starting a company is challenging in any market, but for emerging markets there is often no community, and failure and experimentation are frowned upon, not celebrated. Funding is much more difficult to come by.

Governments are launching new initiatives to spur innovation. In Lebanon, the government allocated $400 million to support local venture capital funds. Similar initiatives are happening in Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, and elsewhere.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Startup India, a campaign by Indian Prime Minister, aims to promote promising companies. From Africa to Asia to Latin America, governments are pitching in.

However, if governments do not do enough in a concerted manner to build ecosystems that empower entrepreneurs to create companies, jobs and opportunities for poor people in the developing world, the world will see greater conflict, as millions in the world live in fragility and conflict, and have no hope of creating a better life.

These jobs are critical to seeing fulfilment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, especially of Goal #8, which is decent work and economic growth. Speed and skill are key.

The post Venture Capital Can Turbo Charge Growth in Emerging Markets appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Anna Shen is an international consultant for the United Nations, an entrepreneur, and advisor to start ups around the world

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Children need support and guidance at a very early stage from their homes and communities | Photo courtesy: Meraki

By Seemant Dadwal
NEW DELHI, Nov 19 2018 (IPS)

Neha is a first-generation learner. Her mother, Hema, a maid, wants her only daughter to grow up to become a government servant. This, according to her, will give her family security, stable water and electricity connections, and also an attached toilet, apart from a better living environment.

The odds though, are stacked against Neha given the inter-generational nature of poverty, and the poor developmental outcomes that families like hers face. Unsurprisingly, despite Hema’s high aspirations, Neha isn’t performing well in school. She faces issues that most first generational learners face—poor academic achievement, an inferiority complex, lack of initiative, maladjustment, and an underdeveloped personality[1]. Their poor performance in school is usually caused by an array of issues: lack of motivation, lack of support at home, their work outside home for income generation, being some examples.

“Whatever I do, she just isn’t able to cope. One day I got so angry that I tore her copy and threw it in the dustbin. Then I realised that it wasn’t Neha I was angry at. It was I who had failed her. I don’t know what else to do apart from sending my child to school”, contemplates Hema.

It is parental commitment to schooling that keeps children in schools, even at the cost of additional debts and hardships. But more often than not, surrounded by insurmountable odds, parents give up.
A majority of classrooms in more than eight lakh primary schools in India face this situation on a day to day basis. To do justice to the needs of these children: teachers and the school system need parents to be able partners. But parents like Hema, often find the environment at school completely alien. This presents a significant barrier in their communication with the school.

The attitude of schools and teachers (who are usually educated, and from a higher caste and class) sometimes makes it even more difficult for them to approach school. Therefore, in most cases, the partnerships between schools and families are deeply fractured.

Parents, disheartened by their own inadequacy and financial stress, are ill-equipped to adequately support their children and therefore end up making poor decisions. It is parental commitment to schooling that keeps children in schools, even at the cost of additional debts and hardships[2]. But more often than not, surrounded by insurmountable odds, parents give up.

This is one of key reasons why children from low-income disadvantaged backgrounds underachieve, drop out, or do poorly academically.

 

The children’s home environment works against them

A child’s brain is built (not born) via a complex interplay of thousands of neural connections that are shaped by experience and environment. These connections shape the way children grow, learn, and flourish. Most children in disadvantaged communities are deprived of conditions that fuel these connections i.e. appropriate nutrition, protection from violence and abuse, responsive care giving, and availability of learning opportunities.

Non-availability of positive conditions can cause a lifetime of health and productivity issues including reduction in adult earnings by upto 25 percent. Simply put, the cumulative burden of poverty, neglect, and violence is astronomically larger than what most children, like Neha, can overcome.

They need support and guidance at a very early stage from their homes and communities. Our focus, therefore, has to be to provide a supportive environment and develop the capabilities of parents, like Hema, who can help children face these challenges before they enter school.

 

There is no support system for low-income parents

In most cases, low-income families are faced with a rather debilitating crisis of care. They’re usually trapped between the need of providing care for their children and the necessity of earning an income to support them.

Lack of quality daycare or pre-schools facilities, coupled with unsafe neighbourhoods that are not ideal for raising children, further exacerbate the issues of early childcare.

In contrast, middle- and higher-income parents, although confronted with their own unique challenges of raising children, are still much better equipped to setup quality proxies (pre-schools, child care facilities) to compensate for their lack of time, if at all. Additionally, they usually have easy access to, and support from teachers—during and beyond school hours—through informal networks as well as formal structures such as parent-teacher associations.

Low-income parents have been either unwilling or unable to participate in these rigid traditional parent involvement modes. They are, therefore in comparison, doubly disadvantaged—they lack the support structures that are available to higher-income households while also carrying an additional burden of leading lives characterised by financial and emotional stress.

It is therefore crucial that they have access to programmes focused on improving parent abilities to tackle adversity, reduce neglect, provide early learning experiences, and responsive relationships with their children.

Science has undeniably established the importance and urgency of investment in early childhood care and education as a way to improve outcomes later in life. It is also important to note that without this investment, interventions that seek to improve learning outcomes later in a child’s life are likely to hit a wall.

 

A skill building session for parents | Photo courtesy: Meraki

 

Building parent capabilities is non-negotiable

We know that the abilities of adults to tackle these challenges can be built over time. But from my experience at Meraki,  it cannot be done via the traditional mode of giving information or advice to people who need active skill building.

To cater to the challenges and needs of low-income India, we need multiple early stage interventions focused on parents of very young children (especially 0-6 years of age).

Examples of such interventions can be those that focus on reducing neglect, improving parent-child relationships, improving parenting practices and mental health of parent caregivers, and capacity building to help build stable and caring environments at home.

From our experience, such skill building requires patience, longer term orientation as well as an intervention that uses principles of andragogy to engage with adults who haven’t been in a formal learning environment before.

Building long term capacity of parents to support their children will nudge the entire education system towards better outcomes. But the educational paradigm, in this case, needs to accommodate a slightly different view: to educate children let’s start with parents.

 

[1] Ghosh, S. (2014). The silent exclusion of first generation learners from  educational scenario – A profile from Puncha Block of purulia District, West Bengal. International Journal of Developmental Research, 804-811

[2] Jha, J., & Dhir, J. (2002). Elementary Education for the Poorest and other Deprived Groups.New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research

 

Seemant Dadwal is an educator and founder of Meraki. He started Meraki with his Teach for India colleague, Ghazal Gulati. An IIM Bangalore graduate, Seemant started Meraki with a deep appreciation for his parent’s struggles, who took bold decisions to ensure a better future for him, and as a culmination of his learnings from half-a-decade of work in the education sector. Meraki imagines a more equitable world where all parents, irrespective of their socio-economic or educational backgrounds, are able to provide quality early childhood education and care to their children. Over the past 2 years, they have partnered with South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and the Delhi government, to reach out to more than 1000 low-income families.

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

The post Educating Children Starts With Parents appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Parents from low-income families often struggle to find the time to support their children, are alienated from educational systems themselves, and lack access to the networks that middle- and higher-income parents have.

The post Educating Children Starts With Parents appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Education CS Amina Mohamed chats with form four candidates of Mama Ngina Secondary School a few minutes before KCSE exams. Credit: Standard

By Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 19 2018 (IPS)

That almost one in five Kenyan teenage girls is a mother represents not only a huge cost to the health sector, but also a betrayal of potential on a shocking scale.

November 20, 2018 marks International Children’s Day. Perhaps a day we should use to reflect on a national crisis of underage pregnancies that confronts us.

Recent media reports of the high number of girls failing to sit their final secondary school examinations (KSCE) only reveal the extent to which we have continued to sweep under the carpet candid discussions about adolescent sexuality.

Kenya’s Education Cabinet Secretary, Amina Mohamed said that the country must confront this worrying trend. “We must have this conversation. We cannot bury our heads in the sand. It is happening to our children, our sisters, and even our young brothers. We will deal with it or it will not go away”. No doubt CS Mohamed has a tough job ahead.

Consider this. Statistics from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) indicate that between June 2016 and July 2017, 378,397 adolescents in Kenya aged 10 to 19 got pregnant.

The carpet’s edges are now too frayed to conceal our failure to act; we no longer can afford the blissful pretence about sexual activity among our teenagers. Nor can the responsibility for decisive solutions be shunted around.

Numerous studies have documented the fact that a high number of teens are already sexually active. These young girls are part of the four in ten women in Kenya aged between 15 and 49 who have unintended pregnancies. There can be no illusions about what they need: accurate, up-to-date information and access to effective contraception.

It is time to take a wholesome picture of the social and economic price society is paying when 15 percent of its teenage girls become pregnant. For virtually all of them – and statistics say majority are from poor families – it means an end to any dreams of coming out of poverty because they cannot continue with education.

Complications during pregnancy are the second cause of death for 15 to 19-year-old girls, therefore it means their already poor families have additional health care costs to meet. Children born to such young mothers are more prone to physical and cognitive development.

The overall effect is a perpetuation of the cycle of poverty that brings personal catastrophe while weakening social and economic development and adding strain to already stretched medical services.

In reproductive health, as in most things, knowledge is power. But across sub-Saharan Africa too many teenage girls lack knowledge of their bodies, their contraceptive options, and their rights. The notion of rights is central.

As the UNFPA report The Power of Choice states, in countries where rights to health, education and opportunity prevail, fertility rates tend to be lower. Through exercising their wider rights, people exercise choice about the timing and number of their children.

The 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 2014 that shows girls who have completed secondary education have an average of three children in their lifetimes compared to an average 6.5 for those with no education. Additionally, around 60% of girls who have completed primary and secondary school use some form of modern contraception compared to only 15% of those with no education.

That almost one in five Kenyan teenage girls is a mother represents not only a huge cost to the health sector, but also a betrayal of potential on a shocking scale.

“The girl child in this country is under threat from all manner of vices, including early pregnancy and female genital mutilation and many other kinds of nonsense that affect our communities. These things have no basis for the development of our country” said the Deputy President of Kenya, William Ruto.

The underlying drivers of teenage pregnancy are complex and include gender inequality, child marriage, poverty, sexual violence, and poor education and job opportunities. To be successful, efforts to reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy must address all these elements through comprehensive programmes of behaviour change, social and economic development, health and sex education, reproductive rights, and gender equality.

Crucially, such efforts must also include boys and men, whose attitude to girls and women underpin many pervasive social problems in Kenya and across the world.

Reproductive rights and health are also central to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal 3 on ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being for all ages.

As the UN family in Kenya we are working in partnership with government, civil society, religious and youth groups to extend access to sexual and reproductive health information, counselling and services for young people. We intend to step this up.

Three years ago, Kenya launched the Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy. Unless bold decisions are made to implement that policy, pregnancies among our youth will continue to be a wrecking ball to the national development agenda particularly the Big Four and the SDGs.

In order for every girl to achieve her full human potential, how can the entire country be engaged to initiate a change in mindset in Kenya? How can a national conversation on this subject be leveraged into national action?

The post Teenage Pregnancy in Kenya: A Crisis of Health, Education and Opportunity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya.

The post Teenage Pregnancy in Kenya: A Crisis of Health, Education and Opportunity appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Mireya Noa and Marciano Calamato are a couple who have a farm in Cuba's only semiarid zone, in the eastern province of Guantánamo. Thanks to the trees they planted, they were able to shade areas of the land, cool things down and counteract the strong evaporation of water from the soil in this coastal and semi-desert eco-region. Credit: Ivet González/IPS

By Ivet González
SAN ANTONIO DEL SUR, Cuba, Nov 19 2018 (IPS)

At a brisk pace, Marciano Calamato and Mireya Noa walk along the dry, yellow soil of their farm, where they even manage to grow onions in Cuba’s unique semi-arid eastern region.

The region, which has a particularly sensitive ecosystem due to the large number of endemic species, covers 1,752 square kilometers in the southern part of the province of Guantánamo. It is the only semi-arid ecoregion in this Caribbean island nation, and is a world rarity because it is a coastal desert on a relatively large island like Cuba, according to experts.

“It’s difficult, you have to make a great effort. We implement irrigation systems and maintain a well from which we pump to a water tank, and from there to the area of the crops,” explained Calamato, a farmer who in 2008 was granted the 12.4-hectare La Cúrbana farm in usufruct."This is an atypical municipality, with many risks of disasters from drought, coastal flooding from high tides, high-intensity hurricanes and even tsunamis." -- Tania Hernández

As in the rest of the province, one of the least developed in the country, the population of 25,796 inhabitants of the municipality of San Antonio del Sur depends almost exclusively on agriculture, which represents a challenge in the local semi-desert ecozone.

“I participate in everything from planting to putting organic matter around the plant. We have harvested very large onions, beans, tomatoes, beets, cucumbers. Everything we plant grows well, as long as it has water,” Noa said, discussing how they manage their nutrient-poor soils.

The leafy canopies of fruit trees and drought-resistant species provide shade in the centre of La Cúrbana, where the small rustic wooden house of Calamato and Noa is located, along with a greenhouse, water tanks for human consumption, a storehouse for household goods and corrals for 40 head of goats and more than 20 barnyard fowl.

La Cúrbana, where the family grows crops on a small scale, and which is self-sufficient in animal feed, also has small livestock – the type of farm recommended by experts in agriculture in a semi-arid ecosystem.

“The farms down here are very focused on animal production, small livestock, which is the most suitable for this land. And there are alternatives for achieving self-sufficiency, that is, for family self-consumption and animal feed,” said geographer Ricardo Delgado.

He forms part of the coordinating committee for the project “Ponte Alerta Caribe: Harmonising risk management strategies and tools with an inclusive approach in the Caribbean”, which is being implemented in Cuba and the Dominican Republic until early 2019, in order to strengthen national and regional institutional capacities.

The project is executed by the international organisations Oxfam, based in the UK, and Humanity and Inclusion, based in Canada, and has funding from the Directorate General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations.

Agricultural worker Abigail Castro points to where the sea is, from the La Fortuna farm in the municipality of San Antonio del Sur, Guantánamo province in eastern Cuba, which has a unique semiarid coastal ecosystem. Credit: Ivet González/IPS

Among its diverse actions in Cuba is strengthening drought resilience in San Antonio del Sur, IPS learned during several tours of farms seeking to adapt to climate change in this municipality, where this reporter spoke to farmers, specialists and authorities in the area.

Ponte Alerta strengthened the Guantánamo meteorological centre to process drought data and equipped it with portable weather stations for distribution on some farms and the data processing system. It also supported the adaptation of a drought resilience tool to the coastal conditions in the municipality.

“This is the most disadvantaged part of the municipality’s land. But La Cúrbana is a very good experience of a farm that has adapted to these conditions,” said geologist Yusmira Savón, who has participated in several projects involving efforts to adapt to drought in the area.

A cocktail of agroecological techniques, water management, soil management, productive reconversion, resilience to drought and the use of renewable energies make up the formula prescribed by experts to farmers in a municipality that reports a very low average annual rainfall, less than 200 millimeters.

“The soils of the semiarid ecosystem in San Antonio del Sur have exploitable qualities from a chemical point of view, because they are loose soils that are prepared and, with the help of organic matter and water, can be farmed with a certain margin of profitability,” said agronomist Loexys Rodríguez.

The expert warned about changes that affect the eco-region, such as the one degree Celsius increase in the current temperature with respect to the average recorded between 1980 and 2010, and changes in rain intensity and seasonal rainfall variability.

All of these factors increase drought-related problems and put pressure on the area’s productive sector, where environmental authorities are also implementing programmes to combat deforestation and desertification.

Just nine meters from the sea, Abigail Castro is working on the La Fortuna farm, which on six hectares produces more than 46 tons a year of various crops such as onions, tomatoes, beans, yucca, melons, plantains (cooking bananas) and beans (Phaseolus vulgaris).

Marciano Calamato stands next to the well and water tank on his farm, which enable him to irrigate his crops at least once a day, in Cuba’s only semi-desert zone, in San Antonio del Sur, a municipality in southeast Cuba. Credit: Ivet González/IPS

“We have a natural windbreak to protect the crops from strong sea winds,” he said proudly.

Castro said: “We don’t have coastal flooding from high tides here, but the river does flood everything when there are cyclones, and we remain incommunicado. The people are evacuated to the town and we take the animals to the mountains,” he said, explaining how the local farmers face climatic events, the most serious in recent times being Hurricane Matthew, which hit the eastern part of the island in 2016.

In La Fortuna, the shiny green crops contrast with the dry soil and the scorching sun. “The problem along the coast is drought, which is very bad, but here the crops suffer fewer pests,” said José Luis Rustán, who in 2008 was granted use of this land, where weeds used to rule.

“In addition to ensuring irrigation, we apply a lot of organic matter. I produce it myself: I use manure from the corrals and I make compost and green fertiliser. I’ve also used bat guano,” said the farmer, who has developed his farm with his own means.

For his part, agronomist Yandy Leyva, who works on the La Piedra farm, where sheeps are raised for meat, and who takes part in Ponte Alerta Caribe, recommended greater use of efficient microorganisms (biofertilisers) by farms in the semiarid ecosystem, where he believes they could even be sold.

He also lamented the fact that the irrigation systems available to the farmers are very old, “and are flood irrigation systems, which wash away and degrade the land.”

“We have to take measures like dams and soil cover and increase the density of crops in order to mitigate this problem,” he said.

Other national and international cooperation projects in the semiarid region promote the use of renewable energies and the planting of species adapted to this ecosystem, which contribute to reforestation and create jobs.

These species include the neem tree (Azadirachta indica), which originates in India and is mainly used to make fertilisers, and jatropha (Jatropha curcas), which is used to produce biodiesel.

“This is an atypical municipality, with many risks of disasters from drought, coastal flooding from high tides, high-intensity hurricanes and even tsunamis,” said Tania Hernández, vice president for local government risk management.

And like the rest of the Cuban municipalities, San Antonio del Sur aspires to strengthen food security. “We are 100 percent self-sufficient in tubers and vegetables, but other items have to be imported,” said the official.

Related Articles

• Four-Year Drought Forces Cuba to Find Ways to Build Resilience
• Strengthening Cuban Coastal Landscape in the Face of Climate Change

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