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Lighting Up Lives: African Women Train as “Barefoot” Solar Engineers

Africa Good News Editor — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:25:00 +0000

An illiterate grandmother from a small village in Malawi, Stella, found it hard to picture what lay ahead when she arrived at the Barefoot College of India.

Six months later she emerged as one of 25 trained African solar technicians, ready to electrify her home village for the first time.

“I never imagined that technical knowledge like this would be open to women who were illiterates, like us,” she reflected at the end of her training in Tilonia, in the state of Rajasthan. “But coming to Tilonia has given us this confidence that we can learn about new things and make our lives better.”

By collaborating with the Barefoot College and its NGO partners, UN Women is supporting a programme to empower marginalized women across the world, and help them start to drive their local green economies.

The programme, running since 2004, teaches engineering skills to illiterate older women from rural communities – a particularly vulnerable group worldwide – before equipping them with solar lamp kits to assemble and install in their own and nearby villages.

During this training session, which ran from September 2011 to the following March, women travelled from across Africa, from countries like Uganda Liberia and South Sudan, to take part. Each were selected or nominated by their local community and supported by a variety of local and international organisations, and in some cases, their governments.

The purpose of the training is to empower the women, many of whom have laboured in agricultural work for most of their lives, to gain a skill more age appropriate, while affording them a new position of respect in their communities.

Bawor Mamma, for example, has spent years recovering from the lingering effects of civil war and economic dislocation in Liberia. At 53 she prefers assembling solar lanterns to the physical strain of farming. “I am not just a farmer like everyone else,” she says with a clear sense of pride. “I am a solar engineer now and I want to electrify my village and other neighbouring villages.”

“What Barefoot College has effectively demonstrated is how the combination of traditional knowledge (barefoot) and demystified modern skills can bring lasting impact and fundamental change when the tools are in the control and ownership of the rural poor,” confirms Dr Bunker Roy, the Director of the Barefoot College.

The women are also supporting a greener form of energy usage. Many live in villages without any electricity at all, where kerosene usage is high. Yet kerosene is not a sustainable resource, nor is it cheap or healthy. Barefoot College estimates that the initiative now saves around 160,000 litres of kerosene a month across South America, Africa and Asia.

To ensure the sustainability of the project, the new technicians are also taught how to train other villagers in the maintenance of these lamps, and encouraged to set up electronics repairs shops, which will generate a regular income.

The programme can be a formidable challenge for the women. “In the beginning, many women face problems, since it is the first time they have left their children and village,” says Leela Devi, a teacher in the solar engineering department. “But we have to be like their sisters, and constantly remind them of the advantages of being here and learning solar engineering.” Their trainers, who mostly speak Hindi, must cut across linguistic and cultural barriers using gestures and signs.

Yet the desire to light up their communities and empower the women in them, has proven a unifying bond. With just six months training in the college, students have shown that they can transcend tremendous barriers, and emerge as self sustaining solar engineers, and change-makers.

Source: United Nations

Banda, Sirleaf Pave Way for More African Female Leaders

Africa Good News Editor — Mon, 07 May 2012 23:59:00 +0000

Joyce Banda’s swearing in as president of Malawi last month made her the second female head of state in Africa - following Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s election victory in Liberia in 2005. Many see this as a key advance for women on a continent that has been dominated by male political figures.

Joyce Banda

John Kapito, chairman of the Malawi Human Rights Commission, has been following Joyce Banda’s career for many years. He watched in 1990 as Banda founded the National Association of Business Women, which provides training and loans to women wanting to start up small-scale businesses.

He also followed the creation of the Joyce Banda Foundation, a charity that helps orphans and low-income children in Malawi get an education. In 1997 Banda was awarded the Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger - conferred by the U.S.-based Hunger Project.

Banda’s slow but steady climb to the top has not been easy. She walked away from an abusive marriage in 1981 at a time when most women stayed in such situations. Much later, as vice president of Malawi and also deputy president of the ruling party, she lost her party position after refusing to support then-president Bingu wa Mutharika in his bid to have his brother take over the presidency.

Becoming president

So, after Mutharika died suddenly at the beginning of April, Vice President Joyce Banda became President Joyce Banda.

Malawi Human Rights Commission chairman Kapito says Banda is a role model for women and the nation as a whole - well able to ensure that the rights of the poor, especially rural women, are respected.

“As a woman I think she has demonstrated that, one, she can be listened to," said Kapito. "She cannot be manipulated quickly. Most of the businesses in Malawi are run by the male, and they are dominated by the male. And that, I think, will be a test where she can put her foot down and say, I would want to transfer all these resources to the rural people, to the poor people in the rural areas.”

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Skip over to the other side of the continent, where Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is enjoying her second term as president of formerly war-torn Liberia.

Ebrahim Faqir, manager for governance at the South African-based Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa, notes that both Presidents Banda and Sirleaf have had strong track records in promoting women’s rights as well as holding positions in the corporate and private sector - skills, knowledge, and experiences that they brought to their presidencies.

President Sirleaf, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011, was an executive in the international banking community and a former economist working for The World Bank and Citibank in Africa.

Like Joyce Banda, Sirleaf has taken heat for some unpopular stances, including a crackdown on corruption, stringent debt-reduction measures, and what some considered an over-reliance on foreign aid.

Living up to hopes

Faqir says he thinks Sirleaf has largely lived up to the great hope that surrounded her 2005 election.

“She instituted a truth and reconciliation commission," said Faqir. "She announced very drastic policy changes - the most key among them free education at least for children up to a certain age. She introduced some kind of policy change for revitalization in the health sector and in the economy, and trying to stem the tide of corruption.”

Faqir says Sirleaf’s and Banda’s successes come at a time when child-rearing and domestic chores still limit many women from pursuing high-level positions in public office - and that a lack of support for women in these areas is a world-wide phenomenon. He says in many parts of Africa, there is still a clash between traditional and modern views of women’s role in public life - but that is changing rapidly.

Role of women in Africa

“There are massive shifts taking place across the African continent," added Faqir. "There is a rise of a civil society, a rise of direct citizen action. And I think much of this does find in evidence an increasing role for women, not just among civil and political actors, but also in the economy.”

In the opinion of Elisha Attai, founder of the African Women in Leadership Organization, the Sirleaf and Banda presidencies highlight qualities inherent in women that seem to suggest they can be better leaders in places like his home country, Nigeria.

“Most of these positions that have done so well - whether in government, whether in national industry - are being manned by women; and you do not have issues," said Attai. "But most of the corrupted offices that we had problems with, are being handled by men. So I just feel naturally a strong woman, who is well-educated, is not really corrupt.”

In addition to possibly being less corrupt, he says he thinks women are less likely to go to war or to get caught up in politically-motivated wrangling.

By Cathy Majtenyi

Source: VOA News

DRC Farmers Reaping Rewards of New Methods

Africa Good News Editor — Mon, 07 May 2012 03:36:00 +0000

Farmers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are embracing a new variety of cassava which, in combination with improved agricultural techniques, easily outperforms yields from other popular types of this important crop.

Cassava is a staple food in many parts of DRC, and farmers disappointed with harvests of the popular F100 variety, which has proved vulnerable to a plant disease called mosaic, have turned to a newer strain with great success.

"We produced 58 tonnes of TME 419 cassava from a two hectare field in 2011," said 27-year-old Romain Twarita. "That's a yield of 29 tonnes per hectare, compared to the 10 or 12 tonnes per hectare of F100 that we harvested in 2010."

Twarita, the coordinator of Action Jeunes Pour le Développement de Nkara (AJDN), an association of 22 young farmers at Nkara, 90 kilometres from Kikwit, the capital of the southwestern DRC province of Bandundu, says the 2011 crop brought in more than 25,000 dollars for AJDN, against 10,000 dollars the year before, and just 3,000 dollars in 2009, the year the association was established.

He said AJDN has also adopted "binage", a new method of hoeing which maximises the benefits of irrigation –"worth two waterings", as Twarita put it. Binage calls for the surface of the soil to be broken up, to allow more rain to soak into it. The young farmers also use compost and manure to enrich the soil with organic and mineral matter.

"The big problem is a shortage of farm implements, and the lack of understanding from landowners who ask so much money for a plot – 40 or 50 dollars for half a hectare, depending on location," he told IPS.

"The cassava is bought from farms here by traders, then sent to the capital, Kinshasa, where it sells fast," said Jacques Mitini, president of the provincial network of small farmers' organisations in Bandundu, which includes 255 smallholder associations, nearly a third of these representing young farmers between the ages of 21 and 33.

In the west of DRC, in Bas-Congo province, the Comité de Développement de Kakongo (CDK) is planting trees to create windbreaks and maintain soil moisture, boosting production of other crops on a three-hectare plot.

"We are using intercropping, that's why there are these wind-breaks of moringa trees which also fertilise the earth without us needing to use chemical fertilisers. Irrigation is also important," said Espérance Nzuzi, president of Force Paysanne du Bas-Congo, a network of 264 smallholder farmers associations, including 87 created by youth.

"The 84 tonnes of TME 419 cassava harvested last year earned us 39,960 dollars, compared to just 6,160 dollars from 14 tonnes of F100 in 2010," said Nzuzi.

On two hectares on the outskirts of Kinshasa, the Congolese capital, another youth association, Jeunes Dynamiques de Malulku (JDM), has also found success with the adoption of new techniques.

"We've only been practicing binage since we started this venture in 2010. We produced 15 tonnes of TME 419 from a single hectare that year, but in 2011 we harvested 28 tonnes from a hectare and a half, applying a little bit of chemical fertiliser," said Anne Mburabata, 32, president of the association.

"Before we started popularising TME 419 cassava, we tested it carefully," said Didier Mboma, who heads the technical innovation service at the Impresa Servizi Coordinati (ISCO), an Italian NGO which is making free cuttings of the new cassava variety available to farmers.

"Since the tests in 2008, we have planted 3,000 cuttings, and we have harvested 30,000."

Mboma said that young farmers are strongly establishing themselves as productive farmers, while contributing to the country's food security.

"Young farmers must move towards professionalisation, and take control of the entire value chain from production, to processing, to marketing," said Dr. Christophe Arthur Mampuya, from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishing and Livestock.

"The TME 419 variety is a high-yielding one. It's also among the best varieties being promoted," he said.

Mampuya said emerging young farmers must also plant woodlots, as adoption of the new cassava variety is scaled up.

"TME 419 is more popular in the west of DRC than in the east, but step by step, the variety could spread across the country," said Paluku Mivimba, president of the National Confederation of Agricultural Producers of Congo.

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

Source: IPS News

Is Kenya Becoming the Economic Heartbeat of Africa?

Africa Good News Editor — Sun, 06 May 2012 14:32:00 +0000

When Kenya’s newly announced geothermal power generation project comes online, it will turn the East African country into an economic powerhouse in the region.

In April, the government launched the Menengai Geothermal Development Project, the first initiative of its newly formed Geothermal Development Company, which has been set up to fast track the development of geothermal resources here.

According to its chief executive officer, Dr. Silas Simiyu, by 2016 the first phase will generate 400 MW, which is enough to light up 500,000 households and run 300,000 small businesses.

"It is situated 180 kilometres northwest of Nairobi, and will have a capacity to produce 1,600 MW of electricity by the time we implement all three phases in 2030," said Simiyu.

According to Nashon Adero, a policy and economic analyst at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, the first phase of the project will have a significant impact on the country as it moves towards industrialisation.

"At the moment, the country consumes 1,600 MW," Adero said. "Four hundred MW is therefore an additional 25 percent. And given that the country has embarked on other ambitious projects of green power generation, such as the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, which will generate an additional 300 MW, Kenya will become an economic giant within the region."

Construction on the Lake Turkana Wind Power project will begin in June, and when completed it will be sub-Saharan Africa’s largest wind farm.

Generally, Kenya is perceived as eastern and central Africa's financial, communication and transportation hub, with the country’s GDP increasing by four to five percent in the last 10 years.

"Kenya’s GDP is currently the largest in the (East African) region given its strong agricultural industry, particularly in tea and coffee production, and floriculture," said Ezekiel Esipisu, Habitat for Humanity’s regional operations manager for East Africa and the Middle East. "This, coupled with investments at the Nairobi Stock Exchange and the manufacturing industry, means that the country is one of the leading economies in Africa."

Esipisu told IPS that the country’s investment in power production would propel economic development further.

"All of Kenya’s neighbours have power deficits. The roadmap towards further power production will definitely boost development. We will see Kenya move closer to industrialisation, and it will become a real economic giant in the region."

About 60 percent of Kenya’s power is hydroelectric, which is generated when falling water from a dam is used to drive turbines. However, the supply is unsteady, as Kenya has been subjected to perennial drought and erratic rainfall. And the power cuts have hampered the country’s growth.

From July to August 2011, the government was forced to implement power rationing after the water levels in the country’s major dams dropped. At the time Kenya was generating about 1,200 MW of power, while demand increased at an average rate of eight percent a year, according to the Ministry of Energy.

The 2011 power cuts reportedly cost the country over 96 million dollars. However, the worst period of power rationing was between 1999 and 2001, which resulted in an estimated loss of four percent of Kenya’s GDP – about 400 million dollars.

"Hydroelectric power generation is solely dependent on climatic conditions," said John Omenge, the chief geologist at Kenya’s Ministry of Energy. "During a drought, for example, the water levels will definitely drop, reducing the amount of power generated.

"Geothermal power generation is therefore the answer. It is one of the most reliable methods of producing electric energy, because such sources are not affected by environmental calamities such as drought," he said.

In volcanically active places like the Rift Valley region, water is pumped down an injection well, and then filtered through the cracks in the hot volcanic rocks. The resultant pressurised steam that is formed is used to drive turbines.

Kenya is the first African country to diversify into geothermal power. The country is already generating 209 MW of electricity from the Olkaria Geothermal Projects, which are located in the Rift Valley and are operated by the Kenya Power Generating Company.

And the Menengai Geothermal Development Project is just a small part of the country’s "Vision 2030", a development blueprint that aims to transform Kenya into an industrialised and middle-income country by 2030 by generating 5,000 MW of electricity from geothermal resources at various sites across the country.

"Power supply is key to any form of development," said Gabriel Negatu, the director of the East Africa Resource Centre at the African Development Bank. The bank is providing funding for the first phase of the Menengai Geothermal Development Project.

"This project is therefore crucial for a country like Kenya because it is becoming the economic heartbeat of the continent. It is due to such high prospects that the regional office for the African Development Bank is now based in Nairobi. Many other organisations are following suit, making the city a regional economic hub," he said.

By Isaiah Esipisu

Source: IPS News

Renewable Energy Potential in Africa

Africa Good News Editor — Sat, 05 May 2012 13:49:00 +0000

The extreme energy poverty in most African countries is a major opportunity for them to leapfrog into electricity via renewable energy technologies indicates Ansgar Kiene, Coordinator of the African Renewable Energy Alliance. Africa’s leapfrog to mobile technology when landlines were constrained provides an example of what could happen with renewable energies.

New Exhibit Shows Africa’s Influence on Diaspora Art in US

Africa Good News Editor — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:53:00 +0000

The West African man is dressed in the khaki uniform and red fez worn by French colonial soldiers of the era. But he wasn’t a French soldier – he was a famous Senegalese dancer based in Paris at the time, Francois Benga.

Now immortalized in James A Porter’s 1935 painting, “Soldado Senegales,” his portrait today hangs among the many art works on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s “African American Art: Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Era and Beyond” exhibit. Though not all of the exhibit’s works claim African influence, the portrait by Porter is one of the many examples of the close relationship between the U.S.-based Harlem Renaissance and the Negritude movement in France.

The Harlem Renaissance, which began in the U.S. around 1919, emerged as a movement to challenge racism and stereotypes through the arts. Just a decade later, Africans living in France, who were influenced by the Harlem Renaissance, developed their own style -- Negritude -- as a way to use art to throw off French colonial racism.

“There’s a very close relationship, because these artists, particularly those who are in France in the 1930s and into the 1940s, were very much connected with what was going on in French art, literature, thought,” said Virginia Mecklenburg, a Senior Curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “The poet Langston Hughes is also talking about things like tradition and heritage and how something that was originally African, how it transforms in a sort of river as it flows into and is the source really for culture in other countries in the diaspora, including in the United States.”

The exhibit’s 100 works - photographs, sculptures and paintings - span a variety of eras and ideas. Mecklenburg said that in two of the self-portraits on display, the artists chose to highlight their African heritage.

Loïs Mailou Jones placed African sculpture in her piece and Malvin Gray Johnson chose to paint African masks next to himself. “These self-portraits are a way of saying who they are as artists as they look out at us, and there are things in the background of their studio rooms that give indications of how they want to identify themselves. In both instances, they want to talk about being African-American in terms of Africa.”

The exhibit will run through September 3 in Washington, and afterward it will travel to additional U.S. venues through 2014.

By Ricci Shyrock

Source: VOA News

Egyption Entrepreneurs Looking for Technology to Spur Economy

Africa Good News Editor — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:17:00 +0000

The Egyptian revolution sent the country’s economy into a tailspin. Egypt was already plagued by high unemployment, particularly among those under the age of 30. Amid ongoing unrest, foreign investors have put projects on hold. Once-reliable industries like tourism are struggling. But several dozen technology entrepreneurs think they have what it takes to spur job creation, despite political uncertainty. They are taking part in a competition sponsored by Google, which will award a $200,000 prize to one business.

In a conference room at the elegant Fairmont Hotel in Cairo, two young men are playing a fierce game of table tennis. Around them, youthful entrepreneurs slouch in bean bag chairs, pecking furiously at their laptops. Hundreds of Egyptians are jammed into small booths around the perimeter of the room. Each one is ready to explain how his or her tech business has the potential to be the next big thing.

"With IntaFeen,you can share your location with friends and family on the go. Whether you are in a restaurant, watching a movie, eating ice cream, in a park, you share this information with your friends and family," said Adel Youssef, the founder and CEO (chief executive officer) of Wireless Stars. He said spent five years working in the United States but moved back to Egypt because he saw unexploited opportunity. He and his team have created a mobile application called IntaFeen. It’s a location-based social network. Users write reviews of restaurants and movies.

They earn “badges” for places where they check in frequently. Youssef says the idea is based on the popular “Foursquare” application, but has a different cultural sensibility. "If you see the badges of Foursquare they are designed for U.S. culture or West culture. My favorite badge is gym rat. A gym rat in the U.S. is someone who is actively working in the gym. If you see someone here and you give him this badge, that is insulting," he said.

About 110,000 people from Egypt to Ghana to Pakistan have downloaded the IntaFeen app.

Organizers say the point of the competition is not just for Egypt’s young techies to show off, but to address one of Egypt’s most pressing problems: unemployment. Egypt’s official unemployment rate is 12-point-4 percent, but many believe it to be much higher. Around 90 percent of the unemployed are young, under the age of 30. But can tech companies really create jobs?

Maha Elbouennein, the head of communications for Google in the Middle East and North Africa, said "These are 50 companies that didn't exist six months ago. In order to be participating in the program, they have to be registered, legal entities. This isn't a business plan competition. So the evidence in itself, that 50 companies exist today that didn't six months ago is evidence enough about how it’s helping the economy and it’s growing. It’s creating jobs."

Elbouennein says, of course, Google has its own financial interests in the region. "Google basically wants people to live on the Internet," he said.

If technology businesses get bigger in Egypt, inevitably, so will Google.

Some of the entrepreneurs have set their sights beyond North Africa and the Middle East. Yasmin Elayat is the CEO of Groupstream, a storytelling platform that lets users interact with one another by adding photos, tweets and blog posts into an online “stream.” Groupstream is going to launch in the United States, first. "The idea started when we noticed that during the Egyptian revolution, Egyptians were documenting our country’s history in real time on social media and Facebook and Twitter and on photos and videos on cell phones and cameras," she said.

Elayat turned that initial spark of an idea into a crowd-sourced documentary project called 18 Days in Egypt. But she says she soon realized that the same technology could be useful for those who did not have anything quite so dramatic as a revolution to document. "It doesn't even have to be news. I see my cousin, she’s like 11 and her whole life is on social media. She doesn't even know what it feels like to hold a photograph anymore," she said.

Google has narrowed a list of 4,000 entrants down to 20 businesses and will pick a winner in May. But win or lose, many of the entrepreneurs share the same hope: that Egypt’s youth, which have been at the forefront of so much political change and upheaval in the last year-and-a-half might now become the leaders of a technological revolution.

By Noel King

Source: VOA News

Famous Actor and Playwright Explores Africa’s Football Fixation

Africa Good News Editor — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:11:00 +0000

The actor saunters onto the stage. His eyes bulge, then dart from side to side, exploring a dark corner as if for a hidden enemy. Then, he smiles. Suddenly, he grimaces; then his lips curl as if in disgust, or contempt.

His audience is on tenterhooks, clearly unsure of what’s going to happen next.

Mpho Osei Tutu is a man of many faces, a man of many personalities. He has to be. In his latest show, Convincing Carlos, he alone plays 12 different characters and uses many different accents to portray them credibly.

“In a way, my transient life so far has prepared me for this because I’ve had the good fortune to live in many different places and to experience many different cultures and people,” Tutu explained.

The actor and writer, the winner of many awards, was born in Paris, France, to a father from Ghana and a mother from Lesotho. Tutu’s lived in both of these countries, as well as Togo and South Africa.

“I consider all of these places to be home for me, although these days I spend more time in Johannesburg because it’s such an important hub of Africa’s TV, film and theater sectors,” he said.

Infatuation

Tutu described Convincing Carlos as a “tragi-comedic reflection” on “one of the craziest times” in Africa’s sporting and cultural history – the build-up to the 2010 football World Cup in South Africa.

His show is grounded in real life events surrounding the South African Football Association’s (SAFA’s) desperate, and ultimately successful, bid to reemploy one of the world’s leading soccer coaches to train South Africa’s team in the World Cup finals.

Brazil’s Carlos Alberto Parreira had quit managing the team, known as Bafana Bafana, in 2008, but SAFA lured him back to South Africa before the finals with promises of massive cash payments.

Tutu said Convincing Carlos is his attempt to explore South Africa’s “infatuation” with Parreira, even though he had only delivered a few good results for Bafana Bafana and had abandoned the team when it needed him most.

Parreira had won the 1994 World Cup coaching Brazil, but his 2010 tenure with Bafana Bafana failed, with South Africa becoming the first host nation in the tournament’s history to be knocked out of the tournament in the first round.

“The absurdity of the whole situation for me felt like a great premise for a comedy,” Tutu said. “Of course, what we got was more than a comedy – it was a real human story about a character and quite tragic in many senses.”

‘Omens’ lead to tragedy

Tutu’s referring to his show’s main character, a South African football fan called Sechaba Mofokeng. Through his words and actions, Tutu satirizes not only Africa’s but also the globe’s obsession with the sport and the lengths that some people are willing to go in order to “win at all costs” in soccer.

In the play, Mofokeng receives several “omens” in nightmares telling him to travel to Brazil to convince Parreira to return to South Africa to coach Bafana Bafana in the 2010 finals. A deranged Mofokeng eventually ends up breaking into the coach’s home in Rio de Janeiro and is deported back to his homeland.

Another of the main characters in Convincing Carlos is Khalo, a struggling writer who tracks Mofokeng down for a book he’s penning about “football fanaticism.” It emerges that the fan’s passion for soccer has cost him his family, friends, job and self-respect.

“That’s the tragedy of this story – that the main character…just completely loses track of all of that stuff that is important in his life, because of his obsession with football,” Tutu told VOA.

‘Ginormous’ football fan

His work is largely fictional, but the actor insisted that the world is filled with millions of people who are “carbon copies” of Sechaba Mofokeng. “There are stories of African football fans, like number one fans of clubs, that have lost their families because of their mad love for football, and these all fed into the Sechaba character.”

“For me that was the tragedy of it,” Tutu continued,” that something as beautiful as the “beautiful game” (as it’s called around the world) can have such tragic things connected to it. What you would think is a game to one person is like life and death to another.”

Tutu maintained that he understands people’s sometimes “over the top” love of football as he, too, is a “ginormous” soccer supporter. “I support France, I support Ghana, I support Lesotho, and when I’m in South Africa I support (Soweto club) Kaizer Chiefs,” he said. “I hardly ever miss games in which these teams are involved.”

Singing show tunes

Critics have praised Tutu for his use of multiple accents and facial expressions in Convincing Carlos. At one point in the show he plays a South African colored, or mixed race, drug courier. The colored dialect is notoriously difficult to imitate, but Tutu managed it with aplomb.

He ascribed his skill at speaking in different accents to his diverse upbringing and the fact that he travels a lot throughout the world. “So I get to hear a lot of different people speaking their languages, and I seem to pick up on the ways in which they speak very quickly.”

Tutu added, “Vocally, as a child, I would always sing show tunes. I would always try and play around with accents. Even then, they seemed to come easily to me.”

But he described doing a one-man show as the hardest thing he’s ever done. “One man on stage…is quite nerve-wracking.”

But, inspired by South African actors and directors Craig Morris and Matthew Ribnick, whom Tutu calls masters of one-man theater, he decided to challenge himself. “A piece of me just wanted to see if I could do it, you know,” he commented. “And then I finally decided on the one-man format because there’s a piece of me in each one of the different characters.”

Tutu said Convincing Carlos works as a one-man show “as it’s ultimately about the journey of one man,” Sechaba Mofokeng.

Tutu acknowledged that his latest work also represented his biggest step so far on his personal journey to fulfill himself as an actor and writer.

By Darren Taylor

Source: VOA News

Kenya's Power Shortage Problem Meets Innovative Finance

Africa Good News Editor — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 02:48:00 +0000

A new era of electricity production and distribution is set to open in Kenya after the World Bank Board of Directors endorsed an innovative way to deploy Bank Group instruments and leverage private sector investment to help meet Kenya’s urgent power generation needs.

The Kenya Private Sector Power Generation Support Project will help bring a reliable power supply to Kenyans in their day-to-day lives, as well as to manufacturing and service companies that help the economy grow and create jobs.

In a country hard-pressed to finance such major infrastructure investments, the key was to mobilize financing from the private sector, initially hesitant to invest in the energy sector in the country. A US$166 million series of Partial Risk Guarantees was put in place to reassure commercial financiers concerned about the state-owned electricity utility and its obligations towards them.

This combination of instruments unlocked a total financing package of US$623 million, including US$357 million in private sector investments and commercial lending.

Mobilizing private sector capital is a major component in the Bank’s Africa strategy for infrastructure. Johannes Zutt, World Bank country director for Kenya, says “the approach used has demonstrated how the Bank Group can leverage its resources and bring much needed private investments in the region, while at the same time paving the way for low carbon development. This approach can be expected to be replicated in other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with well-performing energy sectors.”

For Pankaj Gupta, manager of the Bank’s Financial Solutions Group, the project shows the power of International Development Association (IDA) partial risk guarantees to mobilize private sector financing in difficult markets.

“Our group works with financial market actors every day on structuring deals,” he said, “so we think we have a good understanding of what the private sector is looking for when it considers investing in projects such as this. I’m glad that we’ve been able to work across the Bank Group in a pragmatic and complementary way to bring a consolidated solution to private financiers and investors and, ultimately, to Kenyans who will benefit directly from this project.”

Power solutions

The harmonized project that will now get underway consists of three thermal power generation projects and one geo-thermal project. Kenya has been facing severe power shortages, putting pressure on the country’s economic growth and its efforts to improve the day-to-day lives of Kenyans. Only 25 percent of the population has access to electricity, and rural grid access is only about 5 percent.

Scaling-up access to electricity and ensuring reliable power supply are key elements of Vision 2030, the government’s national development strategy to promote economic development, growth and competitiveness, and create jobs. The government has an ambitious goal: to achieve 40 percent energy access by 2030 by increasing electricity generation capacity to 11,510 MW by then from the current installed capacity of 1,473MW.

In the interim, Kenya plans to add new generation capacity of about 2,000 MW, developed by the public sector as well as by the private sector through Independent Power Producers (IPPs), and utilizing low-carbon resources such as wind and geothermal. Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), the public distribution company, is the key Kenyan institution in the Project. Over the next 12 - 18 months, KPLC expects to contract over 600 MW of new generation capacity through IPPs with financing requirements of almost US$1 billion.

The financing challenge

Mobilizing the resources needed to finance these investments over a short time period was a key issue, especially in the wake of the global economic recession and the financial crisis. The traditional security package offered to IPPs by KPLC was not considered sufficient by investors due to their perception of high political risk.

This was combined with a low risk appetite on the part of project developers and commercial banks. To overcome this challenge, and given the tight macroeconomic environment and debt ceiling agreed upon as part of an IMF program, the Kenyan government approached the Bank to explore alternative options that would address these constraints.

Under the approved structure, IDA will leverage its ongoing sector engagement through the Partial Risk Guarantees. They provide liquidity support to the projects by backstopping three months of KPLC’s ongoing payment obligations. IDA support is complemented by MIGA political risk insurance covering the equity and commercial lending for the projects.

The structure offered was able to provide the necessary comfort to investors and commercial lenders. IFC stepped in to provide long-term financing for two of the four IPPs, funding generally unavailable for long-term infrastructure projects. Moreover, IFC’s engagement reassured and supported South-South investors with an appetite for investments in Africa but with relatively limited structuring and project implementation ability.

Bernard Sheahan, IFC’s director for infrastructure in Africa and Latin America, said working on the initiative was a win-win situation.

"IFC is very pleased to join with our Bank Group partners in supporting these projects,” Sheahan said. “The extensive capital commitments from private investors, lenders, and from the Bank Group reflect the solid and consistent drive of the Government of Kenya for regulatory reform, creating a conducive investment environment, and expanding access to basic services for the people of Kenya."

Edith Quintrell, MIGA’s director of operations, notes MIGA’s longstanding commitment to mobilizing private investment into Kenya’s power sector. “We have been supporting Kenya’s first geothermal independent power plant since 2000. This Bank Group collaboration represents a great step forward in our ability to mobilize even more private investment in infrastructure, and we hope this is the first of many examples.”

The Kenyan government says it intends to use a similar risk mitigation framework deployed in this project towards facilitating additional IPPs, which includes the proposed 300MW Lake Turkana wind project, currently under preparation. As Country Director Zutt notes, “Bank Group engagement has set a new benchmark for long-term commercial financing for infrastructure in Kenya, and more broadly for the region”.

Side Note: The Impact of the Guarantees

With private sector investors concerned about the security of a return on their investments in Kenya's energy infrastructure, the government was struggling to finance the large-scale investments needed.

The World Bank Group was able to encourage the private sector to step up by offering a unique package based on US$166 million in partial risk guarantees.

Those guarantees reassured commercial financiers, who then agreed to invest in the project. Paired with long-term debt and political risk guarantees from the IFC and MIGA, the overall financing package reached US$623 million, more than half of that from the private sector.

The project is benefitting from long-term debt from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and political risk guarantees for commercial financiers from the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), as well.

Source: World Bank

Textiles Help Fight Poverty Among Malian Women

Africa Good News Editor — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 11:29:00 +0000

Hand-dyed polished cotton – called bazin – is the mainstay of Malian fashion.

Popular blind singers Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia extolled the fabric in a song “Beaux dimanches” (“Beautiful Sundays”), on their award-winning 2005 album Dimanche a Bamako.

The song’s scintillating lyrics include the lines: “Sunday in Bamako is the wedding day / Men and women put on their best boubous / The bazins are waiting for you / This is the wedding day.”

It became the hit song on an album that won two prestigious BBC awards the following year, including one for best world music album.

There is an engaging paradox in two blind people singing about the beauty of bazin, and the floral patterns and alluring colours that make young women look so elegant that bachelors hastily vow marriage. Amadou and Mariam are married.

Intensive production process

Hand-dyeing bazin can be labour-intensive for the women who produce it.

First, they import the fabric – mostly white cotton, but sometimes silk or wool – from Germany, the Netherlands or China. Then they cut it to standard sizes.

Next they knot tissues tightly into parts of the fabric so that those parts remain undyed when the cloth is dipped into buckets of pigment and fixative. When the fabric emerges it bears coloured spirals, rings or patterns. So it will have a glittering appearance, it is then soaked in a starch solution and hung on fences to dry.

“To hand-dye a bazin takes a lot of real effort,” says Djénéba Diarra, who lives in Badalabougou West, the neighbourhood in Mali’s capital famous for high-quality dyeing.

Maureen Gosling, a US filmmaker, is collaborating with anthropologist Maxine Downs on a film on bazin called Bamako Chic: Threads of Power, Colour and Culture. According to Downs, the duo wants want to show how “self-empowered African women turned their artistic creativity and resourcefulness into a force for alleviating their own poverty.”

Downs visited Mali several times to meet some of the women in the burgeoning industry.

“When I went to Mali, I was shocked by the women’s resilience, their ability to create something out of nothing. I was instantly impacted by the amount of cloth dyers that I saw,” she told Africa Renewal.

Malians have historically been good at making fabric and used to compete with Yorubas in Nigeria. In the 1960s, when synthetic dyes arrived in West Africa, Malians learned how to use colorants on fabrics to reflect their aesthetic tastes. Nigerians have since established a niche for themselves in embroidery, allowing Malians to claim the bragging rights for high-quality hand-dyed fabrics.

Growing industry

Bazin, Downs elaborates, is not just a fashion statement. The women make a profit. And the industry has turned them into a close-knit social group, with a common socio-economic purpose.

“It is like a collective enterprise, very communal,” she said. “The women work with their children, friends and other family members to dye the fabrics. They hang them on their neighbours’ fences to dry, turning the whole community into a huge advertisement.”

The involvement of textile importers, dye sellers, tailors, bankers and, ultimately, consumers further enlarges the industry.

This is good news for a country ranked by the World Bank as one of the poorest in the world. Life expectancy is just 51 years, while the average gross domestic product per person is $691.

The country ranked 175 out of 187 countries in the UN Development Programme’s 2011 Human Development Index.

The bazin industry is still informal. There is no registration of those involved, according to Hannah Larsson, who has studied textile dyeing in Mali. However, the entrepreneurial successes of the women depend on micro-loans from NGOs such as the US-based Freedom from Hunger.

The group’s Saving for Change programme in Mali, which began in 1989, has so far reached more than 350 000 Malian women, with cumulative financing of nearly $7.5-million.

Some of those women are in the bazin business, according to Christopher Dunford, a senior research fellow with the NGO. The programme provides affordable credit and saving services, while repayment terms are flexible.

To access the loans, Dunford adds, groups of women come together to overcome their limited collateral.

“They are like joint solidarity groups. They vouch for each other and they jointly repay the loans.”

The NGO channels all micro-credit support through local credit institutions, which also help organise the women into groups.

Market risks

As good as the business appears today for Malian women, they fear that a moribund indigenous textile industry could hold back progress.

Mali’s two leading textile companies, Comatex and Batexci, both privately owned, are gasping for breath as they face competition in their own market from cheaper and better products from Europe and Asia.

In addition, depressed world cotton prices have made it difficult for West Africans to compete internationally. Cotton production in Mali declined from 600 000 to 240 000 metric tons between 2004 and 2011, and cotton growers are paid as little as 30 cents per kilogramme.

Less than 2% of Mali’s cotton is processed locally, with the rest exported to developed countries and Asia, where it is processed and resold to dealers, including West Africans.

There are also health and environmental concerns about bazin production.

“The women continue to develop respiratory illnesses,” says Downs. “They are exposed to sulphur that they use to help colours stick to the fabrics.”

The leftover colour baths are discarded in the Niger River, street gutters or soakaway pits in housing areas, causing the “transport of a substantial amount of compounds to surface water and groundwater,” Larsson writes in her study of Malian textile dyeing.

The government’s environmental agency has had little success in dealing with the environmental impact of hand-dyeing.

Sub-regional opportunities

As bazin’s popularity spreads beyond Mali’s borders, the women are motivated to work even harder. Many are already exporting to countries such as Senegal and Nigeria, and more traders from other countries are coming into Mali to make purchases.

“In Mali, you come into the market and you will hear different West African languages,” says Downs.

It makes good business sense to set sights on the enormous West African market of 252-million people. West Africans are proud, traditional dressers. As in other African regions, including Southern Africa, the leaders of Nigeria, Mali, Liberia and other countries often wear traditional attire at official functions, for example.

A variety of fabrics and styles feature regularly at weddings, red carpet events and in African films. At the UN General Assembly in October 2011, Mali’s Prime Minister Cissé Mariam Kaïdama Sidibé was the centre of attention in a flowing bazin.

Increasing demand for bazin has triggered innovation, as Malian women introduce more exotic colours and products of higher quality. But the challenge is that a fast-growing and profitable business may attract people with more interest in profit than quality.

“Why can’t these women just get machines that will support production?” asks Oumar Damba, a Bamako-based fashion designer.

Not so fast, cautions Downs. Machine production may affect the unique character of the bazin designs and, perhaps, the style consciousness of the producers.

“Since the 1960s, there has been the question of whether the hand-dyeing industry can be modernised. It is hard for me to answer that question,” she adds.

As Malian politicians campaign for the April 2012 presidential election, there also seems to be a contest over which one could wear the best bazin on billboards, on posters and even in Facebook pages.

Meanwhile, Malian women are smiling all the way to the bank.

By African Renewal

Leveraging Social Entrepreneurs to Do Business in Africa

Africa Good News Editor — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:15:00 +0000

Africa has a significant contingent of social entrepreneurs making social impact. This same group is also a significant asset for business. Social entrepreneurs understand Africa, and this is something businesses need to enter African markets successfully points out Nassir Katuramu, Program Manager for Venture and Fellowship in East Africa for Ashoka, the pioneering support organization for social entrepreneurs.

There are many definitions of social entrepreneur, but Ashoka defines the role as simply a combination of the words, “social” and “entrepreneur.” In other words, “We’re looking for individuals who have got the characteristics of your typical, leading business entrepreneur: they’re visionary; they are able to mobilize resources; they are creative in the way that they approach challenges; they are able to manage a team and resources; and they’re able to build a system that works on its own. This is what business entrepreneurs are known for,” says Katuramu. “But then when you throw on the social piece, then it changes the context. So, it’s not about the bottom line any more, it’s more about a triple bottom line. It’s about creating social transformation more than it is about making money.“

David Kuria, founder of Ecotact in Nairobi and an Ashoka Fellow, demonstrates his business savvy. Ecotact addresses the social issue of hygiene by providing clean, well-run public toilets. However, users pay a small fee to use the toilets. This fee is affordable for both lower and middle income people.

Since the toilets have been successful and generate traffic flow, Kuria designed the areas to provide other services like shoe-shining stands and cafés. Each toilet complex can bring in multiple streams of revenue while addressing public hygiene and also creating jobs or entrepreneurial opportunities for others. Kuria also generates revenue through advertising and has moved into franchising the model to expand.

One strength social entrepreneurs may have over a normal business entrepreneur is that they understand the importance of creating win-win situations for key stakeholders in the entire value chain and their business models often reflect this. In Kuria’s case, he is providing a service that the City of Nairobi is to provide but has not been able to successfully. So, Kuria partners with the City to service public toilets under their authority, branding both Ecotact and the City. The City is empowered to deliver services through this partnership and improve its image overall. In exchange, Kuria gets key locations around the city.

Another Ashoka Fellow in Kenya, Haron Wachira, is working with rural agricultural communities. Kenya has many processing facilities that are used well below capacity because they cannot get enough agricultural inputs. Wachira guarantees the processing plants a certain amount of inputs from farmers in exchange for ownership in the processing facilities by farmers. Wachira also works with the farmers to make sure they can efficiently produce their crops.

For businesses looking to enter or expand into African markets, social entrepreneurs can serve as key partners. Social entrepreneurs like Wachira and Kuria demonstrate success in implementing market-based, for-profit models. They understand developing products for a market. Through this process, they have gained immense intellectual property about Kenyan markets and have established themselves in the local market. Companies who work with them can find avenues to accelerate market entry and acquire market information more readily. This can translate into reducing costs and minimizing risks.

Traditionally, companies have partnered with social entrepreneurs on their corporate social responsibility programs, but for both companies and social entrepreneurs there is a new movement to partner on profit-making ventures. It is not hard to understand companies tapping into this opportunity, but some find it difficult to understand why social entrepreneurs would choose this route. The simple answer is sustainability.

Katuramu explains, “…we have come from a time where social intervention was purely donor funded to a point in time where, caused by the pressures in the economy, [there is] a cut back on the amount of dollars that are coming in, in terms of donations. So, now that the donor money is shrinking what organizations are having to do is to figure out how to sustain their primarily social goals by integrating within their models a revenue-generating component, so to speak. So that has given birth to what is commonly known as social enterprises. Social enterprises can be profitable, so depending on who is at the helm of a particular social enterprise, it can be designed to make a profit for its owners and shareholders.”

Profit is a means, as is donor-funding, to an end for social enterprises, but it also reduces the reliance on others to financially support the drive for social transformation. Businesses also help social entrepreneurs scale their business models, thereby increasing their potential for social impact.

Ashoka calls these partnerships between business and social entrepreneurs in commercial ventures, “hybrid value chains (HVCs)”. Katuramu says Ashoka has seen the success of HVCs in other global regions but notes they are still looking for firms to latch hold of the idea in Africa.

Leveraging social entrepreneurs to do business in Africa reflects an overall strategy of leveraging networks to do business. Without the right networks, firms will likely find many more challenges which are hard to overcome in Africa. But those who know understand this is true of business anywhere.

Nigeria Gets Its First Porsche Luxury Car Dealership

Africa Good News Editor — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 11:23:00 +0000

Ultra-luxury cars gleam through walls of glass at Porsche’s new dealership, in Lagos, Nigeria.

This is only the second dealership in West Africa for the high-end brand, which sells some models for around $200,000.

Michael Wagner, brand manager for the Lagos branch, says Porsche is a good fit for one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

“Nigeria, as the biggest country in Africa with a population of 150 million and the sixth largest oil producing country, certainly has the earning potential to support - and has an affinity for - luxury brands,” said Wagner.

Protests rocked Nigeria in January after the government announced it was ending a fuel subsidy that kept gas prices under 40 cents a gallon – one of the only ways poor Nigerians benefit from the nation’s vast oil wealth. The demonstrations grew into a movement also focused on the ever-widening gap between Nigeria’s rich and poor.

But the showroom, which opened in mid-March, has gotten a good reception from the public, Wagner said.

“I think if you look at the brands that are driven, Nigeria appreciates top quality brands, considering Nigeria’s one of the largest consumers of the most expensive Champagne and really have a taste for these finer goods, we’re really catering for the market that is already there,” said Wagner.

According to the United Nations, despite Nigeria’s fast-growing economy, 71 percent of the population still live on less than a dollar a day.

The new dealership employs 13 people, though not all of them are Nigerian. Wagner said the Nigerian nationals they have hired are offered an extensive training program and earn salaries that are competitive with what other local companies pay.

“Obviously the history of Nigeria and the unions dictate salary, which is a national issue and is not particular to any particular company,” he added.

Wagner said the dealership’s customers come mostly from the private sector.

“The type of people and customers we’re dealing with are all mainly in private enterprise. They all have their own companies,” he said. “So I think that’s very much different to … some countries where politicians are assumed to be driving expensive motor cars.”

January’s fuel subsidy protests eventually ended after President Goodluck Jonathan agreed to reinstate the subsidy, though at a lower level.

By Ricci Shyrock

Source: VOA News

Waking Up the World Up to Business in the New Africa

Africa Good News Editor — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:24:00 +0000

While Africa is on the move, most of the world slumbers. Why do I say this? In Charlotte, North Carolina, a “new” market for promoting business in Africa, I had the great opportunity to speak about the business potential in Africa on a local radio talk show with Vince Coakley. But I was shocked that the majority of people, who called in, were harsh in their perspectives on Africa, particularly South Africa. This woke me up to how much the world still needed to be awakened to business in the New Africa.

Congolese Town Hopes for Brighter Future With Hydroelectric Dam

Africa Good News Editor — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 01:14:00 +0000

The people of Kananga in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been waiting more than 50 years for a hydroelectric dam to be built near their town.

This month engineers started work at the Katende Falls above Kananga, where expatriates like to call it the biggest city in the world without electricity.

That is not strictly true. However the man in charge of the town, the governor of western Kasai province, Katulondi Kabasu Babu, reckons it probably is the biggest city in Congo that gets all of its electricity from diesel-powered generators.

The current from generators costs up to 10 times more than hydroelectric power so very few of Kananga’s one-and-a-half million inhabitants have electricity.

There have been numerous and lengthy delays in getting this city power from the abundant water in the region. But those problems appear to be over.

Last year India’s Exim Bank and other Indian investors signed a deal to invest $168 million at Katende Falls, with the government pledging $112 million. There is now real commitment to the project, said Governor Kabasu Babu.

“The president Joseph Kabila himself is very committed, determined. He went to that place twice, so he’s determined, and he himself said that the story of Kananga is a very sad story with regard to electricity," Babu said. "But now the president, the government, the Indians, Exim bank they are very committed.”

French energy analyst Benjamin Augé believes the key elements for a successful hydroelectric project are having investors with a long-term objective, and having political will.

Augé said the fact that Indians are investing in several dams in the Congo shows their objective is to export minerals to India, particularly diamonds for their cutting and polishing plants. Because there is significant financial motivation, Augé thinks India will increase investments similar to those China has in the Congo, where they trade infrastructure for minerals, with no finance from the Congolese.

The 64 megawatts of electricity that is expected to be produced at Katende would go some way towards meeting the DRC’s current and future needs.

According to a World Bank report, the country will need to install extra generating capacity of at least 1,000 megawatts to meet domestic demand in the coming decade.

Most of the power from the new hydroelectric dam would be for industrial use but up to 20 megawatts may be for households.

By Nick Long

Source: VOA News

Mobile Phones are Getting Smarter in Rural Africa

Africa Good News Editor — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 01:05:00 +0000

Imagine you are in Yokadouma, a rural community in eastern Cameroonwith little electricity and inaccessible roads. You have an old, inexpensive mobile phone with which you can only make and receive calls. The good news is that it is now possible for that phone to be smarter — to send and receive e-mails, check a Facebook account and chat online, even without internet access.

ForgetMeNot Africa, owned by Lon-Zim and ForgetMeNot Software, developed the Message Optimizer (MO) service in March 2009 to enable telecommunications operators to provide messaging services to customers at no extra cost, without any new applications or phone upgrades. Popular chat services such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Windows Live and Gtalk are all incorporated into the MO.

“Message Optimizer turns every mobile phone into a mobile computing and mobile authentication device,” states ForgetMeNot Africa. The MO allows “more and more of our subscribers to get access to the internet without having to purchase expensive smartphones,” according to Douglas Mboweni, the chief executive officer of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, a mobile network.

How does the MO deliver messages without the internet or a personal computer? First, a mobile phone subscriber sends an SMS to a given short code. The message is received in the mobile company’s message centre, which then forwards to ForgetMeNot Africa’s internet servers. The servers process, route and deliver the message to the subscriber, who can then respond.

Many factors account for why ForgetMeNot Africa’s MO is spreading speedily, especially in rural areas. Africahas about 1 billion people. Some 72 per cent of them live in the countryside, while internet penetration overall is just 11 per cent, largely in urban areas.
Yet mobile phone use is increasing at a fast pace. In Nigeria, for instance, there are about 90 million mobile phone users, while only 12 million people are connected to the internet. By providing low-cost access to people in rural areas, ForgetMeNot Africa aims to capture the huge market of mobile phone users.

The company currently has around 48 million users, having made inroads into east, west, southern and Central Africa. In late 2011, it started targeting 23 million Portuguese-speaking Africans, beginning with 100,000 Cape Verdeans, following collaboration with T-Mais, a mobile company in Cape Verde.

Jeremy George, the chief operating officer of ForgetMeNot Africa, says that the company “can now serve the vast majority of people across the continent, no matter whether they speak English, French or Portuguese.”

On their success so far, Mr. George adds that the company has been able to offer “a new revenue stream from their [mobile companies’] existing subscriber base, while offering customers a unique service.” With every phone becoming smart,Africa’s rural dwellers can proudly now hold aloft their inexpensive phones.

By Kingsley Ighobor

Source: African Renewal

Local Community Involvement and Confidence Key to Business Success in Uganda

Africa Good News Editor — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 18:14:00 +0000

For Derekorp (a Uganda-based food processing company) founder and an EMRC-AfDB Project Incubator Award Winner Derek Kwesiga, getting fruits and vegetables from local farmers not only cuts costs, but is good business. “When you’re starting out a business…you’re trying to keep your costs as little as possible, you have so many things on your mind that a lot of times your immediate community doesn’t really factor into some of the decisions that you make business wise,” he says. “That’s when the…key factors [are] making sure that all of the inputs that we use, all of the raw materials are grown in Uganda. We’re trying to keep the value chain that’s in the country.”

Leveraging Zambia to Do Business in Africa

Africa Good News Editor — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 23:23:00 +0000

Zambia is among the top African countries in which it is easier to do business, according to Greg Marchand, CEO of Gizmos Solutions, an IT consulting and engineering firm in Zambia. It is also expected to be one of the fastest growing countries in the world through 2015. For US firms, there is also the bonus of being able to trade in US dollars.

Lessons in Democracy on South Sudan Airwaves

Africa Good News Editor — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 13:17:00 +0000

It is late afternoon and a group of men and women begin to converge under the shade of a huge mango tree in Yambio town, the capital of South Sudan’s western Equatoria state. The group is not gathering for an ethnic, political or religious meeting. They are here to listen to the radio.

More specifically, they are here to listen to a community-based civic education programme on their local community station called Let’s Talk. It targets communities, and their leaders, to help promote dialogue on South Sudan’s political transition to an independent and democratic country.

And it introduces listeners to civic topics ranging from South Sudan’s transitional legal framework to strategies for combating corruption, and protecting children’s and women’s rights.

The 30-minute programme first hit the airwaves in January 2007 and uses a magazine format that includes drama, group discussions, and interviews to get its message across.

"The drama is used as a teaser segment that weaves rather complex issues or topics into the lives of characters in a fictional South Sudanese town of Jedida in a manner that is simple, humorous and more palatable to the audience. It helps ensure that the audience is entertained and informed about the topic of the day, but on a lighter note with lots of humour," said Rehema Siama, Sudan Radio Service’s (SRS) scriptwriter for the programme.

Let’s Talk was created through a partnership between the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and SRS. It is broadcast in English, Arabic, and the two local languages of Dinka and Nuer. The programme is aired on a host of community radio stations including Sudan Radio Service, Bakhita FM, Radio Emanue, Naath FM and Nhomlau FM.

Today’s broadcast is an old one about defining free and fair elections. However, it has sparked the listeners’ apprehensions about a leader’s responsibilities. In addition to the programme, the NDI organises "listening groups" of ordinary people who gather across the country to listen to the programme and discuss its topics and themes and the impact on their communities, just like the group in Yambio.

"The session is intended to encourage democracy. If you get people together and they are able to tolerate each other’s views we believe it encourages democratic principles. We believe, in this way, people will learn to dialogue rather than to use violence to sort out issues," said James Amuda, a programme officer at NDI.

After the broadcast in Yambio, James Gbakilingba, a listener in the group, talks about his concerns about the right to express one’s political views.

"For me, it is important that we talk to the people about political parties. We need to inform them what the views and objectives of each party are. And we need to inform people that the law allows anybody to belong to a party of his choice," he said.

South Sudan is considered one of the most under-developed places in the world. And given the country’s vastness and biting poverty, coupled with its low level of literacy, radio is the surest way to reach the population.

In a country as remote as South Sudan, where there are only a few paved roads and many places can only be reached by air, and the airwaves, this community radio programme has been a hit.

"I think the Let’s Talk programme played a very instrumental role in the processes that led to the signing of the transitional constitution last July," said Amuda. "We, as an institution working for democracy and good governance in South Sudan, realised that the process went well, but we realised that there was a lack of information among many people in the country about what was going on with the review. So we thought that it was important to inform people about what was happening with the constitutional review process in South Sudan."

The programme is also helping disseminate information on new laws such as the Child and Land Acts. It is helping citizens to understand their roles in an independent country, Amuda said.

NDI has partnered with Free Voice Media to produce a new series of Let’s Talk. Marvis Birungi, a journalist involved in editing the features segment of the new programme, said there is still a need to address the information gap about the processes of democracy.

During last year’s review of South Sudan’s Interim Transitional Constitution, the Let’s Talk programme producers interviewed members of the technical committee to explain the review process and the role of citizens in it.

"So this programme will create awareness about the transitional constitution. Listeners will get to know the contents of that document. In addition, we know that a permanent constitutional review commission for the permanent constitution has been appointed, but the public need to know how they will participate in the review process," Amuda said.

The new series will be piloted before the end of this month on four community radio stations: Radio Emmanuel in Eastern Equatoria state, Good News Radio in Lakes state, Radio Jonglei in Jonglei state, and Bakhita Radio in Central Equatoria state.

It will include a feature story, a short drama, a discussion segment, and a long interview with an expert or somebody who is knowledgeable about the particular topic.

"We know at the moment that the constitution contradicts certain customary laws. For example, the constitution says a woman has the right to have all the wealth of her dead husband but customary laws contradict this. So we will find someone knowledgeable about the constitution and somebody from the community with a cultural perspective, and they will discuss these issues," said Amuda, about the new programme.

By Charlton Doki

Source: IPS News

Palestinian Children Learn the Afro-Brazilian Way

Africa Good News Editor — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:12:00 +0000

Standing under a canopy just inside Jerusalem’s Old City walls, a group of 20 Palestinian children are banging drums, clapping their hands and singing in Portuguese. This is capoeira, the traditional Afro-Brazilian sport that mixes dance, music and martial arts, and it is sweeping through the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

"In capoeira, they can find a safe space where they can resolve their aggression and energy. There is a lot of (learning about) how to be in control of your movements and controlling yourself, expressing yourself and also taking care of the other ones around you," explained Jorge Goia, a Brazilian capoeira trainer who led the class in Jerusalem.

"Because capoeira is a kind of martial art, there is also a big sense of discipline in terms of being part of a group where you have to do things together. I think this, among the boys, has a very strong impact on them," Goai told IPS.

Non-profit organisation Bidna Capoeira (‘We want capoeira’) began offering capoeira classes in March 2011 to children and youth in Palestinian refugee camps throughout the West Bank. Since that time, it is estimated that 800 Palestinian children have taken part in the capoeira programme.

Today, courses take place in the Shuafat and Jalazone refugee camps, in Hebron and Ramallah, and in Jerusalem’s Old City, and the programme continues to promote its goal of empowering Palestinian youth and giving them a healthy, positive outlet for their frustrations.

"Capoeira can be a very powerful tool for children in terms of increasing self-confidence, (and) increasing the sense of belonging to something. Capoeira is played in a group; you need people singing and playing the instruments, so you create this idea that you are part of something and that everybody there is helping each other to develop and learn," Goai said.

Sahar Qawasmeh’s six-year-old son, Ahmad, began capoeira classes in Jerusalem’s Old City in February. "It’s new. He did before lessons in karate and swimming, but for a change, capoeira is nice," Qawasmeh, a resident of Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem, told IPS. "I’ve seen capoeira in some festivals. (Ahmad) gets to use his strength and he likes it."

According to Ilona Kassissieh, Public Information Officer at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides support to Palestinian refugees and partnered with Bidna Capoeira to organise capoeira classes in the West Bank refugee camps, the impact has been clear.

"(The children) have learnt a lot and they have proven that they are very eager and can learn very fast," Kassissieh told IPS. She explained that providing extra-curricular activities to Palestinian children in refugee camps is important since it gives them an opportunity to escape their difficult daily circumstances.

"Refugees in general, and children in particular, are the vulnerable group because they live in very difficult circumstances. The infrastructure does not help children receive the required aspects for a normal standard of living. These kind of extra-curricular activities are always beneficial on a child and leave a positive impact. It creates a certain coping mechanism where children can think outside the box and can put their energies into something they like and would like to learn further," she said.

For Jorge Goai, the history of capoeira as a grassroots movement used by oppressed communities in Brazil offers a direct connection to Palestinians who today are living under Israeli occupation and control.

"Capoeira was developed by slaves in Brazil, so it was created by people who were under oppression and they used capoeira as a way to empower themselves and get self-confidence and cope with all the demands when you are living under oppression," Goai explained.

"The focus is more into escaping, into learning how to face a situation where you are the weak one. You are the one who doesn’t have any kind of gun or weapon, you just have your body, so how can you survive? How can you escape from being oppressed?"

By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours

Source: IPS News

Solar Panels Turning Dirty Water Clean in Angola

Africa Good News Editor — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 06:51:00 +0000

The brightly painted old shipping container with solar panels on its roof and high-specification filtration devices inside looks out of place in this dusty Angolan village of Bom Jesus, 50 kilometres east of the capital Luanda.

But it will soon be providing nearly 20,000 litres a day of clean, drinkable water to the area’s 500 residents who currently rely on dirty supplies from the nearby river.

Designed by Canadian technology company Quest Water Solutions, the stainless steel drinking station called "AQUAtap" is being globally piloted in this Southern African nation with a view, if it is successful, to start manufacturing the systems locally to roll out across the region.

Using solar energy stored in large batteries, water from the River Kwanza, 50 metres away, is processed through sand and other filters. Then UV is used to sterilise the water to World Health Organisation (WHO) drinking standards ready for it to be dispensed out of a stainless steel tap at the front.

"It is really very straightforward and simple," explained Quest’s John Balanko as he gently pushed one of two taps at the front of the block to allow the water to come out into a bottle.

"Yes, it looks a little out of place and rather advanced for here, but it’s not, it’s really quite simple and the beauty is it is very low maintenance.

"The machine itself will only need a service once a month and we are training up some Angolans do be able to do that once we have gone back to Canada."

The stainless steel taps – which dispense a fixed amount of just over one litre per push – and the aluminium platform, have been designed for easy cleaning and there are drains around the edges to collect any spilt water.

Balanko and his business partner Peter Miele, both from Vancouver, have a background in using technology to solve rural water supply issues in Canada.

A chance meeting four years ago with an Angolan resident in Canada, however, gave them a new African focus.

The AQUAtap has been designed specifically for a rural Angolan community where a lack of clean water and limited sanitation is a major contributor to the country’s high childhood mortality rate, which claims one in five youngsters before their fifth birthday.

Since the end of its three-decade civil war in 2002, the Angolan government has spent millions of dollars repairing infrastructure and providing basic services like water to its population of 19 million.

As part of the "Agua para Todas" (Water for All) scheme taps and boreholes have been installed in communities across the country, although according to the government’s own figures, around half the population is still without access to drinking water.

The village chosen by Quest Water Solutions, which was suggested by the municipal authorities, has one of those government-installed taps, but locals, most of whom are subsistence farmers without formal employment, told IPS it had not worked for over a year.

Carlos de Costa Gabriel, 25, welcomed the new machine and made no secret of the fact he wanted a job as its security guard to watch over it at night and prevent the theft of its solar panels.

He said: "We like this project very much. We have been using river water, which causes a lot of problems like vomiting and diarrhoea.

"I have two young girls aged three and five so I am very pleased that now we can get clean water because it will resolve the health problems."

Mother-of-five Joaquina Xavier, 38, added: "We are very grateful for this. At the moment the water we use is so dirty and it is hard work bringing it from the river in buckets.

"The children get sick from the water, and some in my family have died because of this, but this machine, it’s really going to help."

Balanko and Miele are working in conjunction with Angola’s Ministry of Industry, which is in charge of sourcing the equipment for the Agua Para Todas programme.

The device, one of two they shipped to Angola at no cost to the government, is being sold for a once- off fee of 150,000 dollars, which comes with a two-year maintenance guarantee.

"We can’t deny we are a for-profit company with a product to sell," Balanko explained. "But I think you need to be able to make profit so that you can then give back.

"This is a one-off cost for the government, which they will absorb but the villagers will in return get clean, healthy water for at least the next 15 to 20 years.

"It is also very cost-effective in the long-run because our water works out at around 2.30 dollars for 1,000 litres, while at the moment people are paying as much as 30 dollars for 1,000 litres, which is more than 10 times more."

The water from the AQUAtap will be free for the villagers, Balanko explained, a decision taken by the authorities.

The Canadians accept there are risks involved with the fact the water will be free, that the machine might be vandalised, or hijacked by people who want to sell the water commercially.

But they said they hoped the village would take pride in the new device to stop that happening. Balanko said: "Time will tell, but we believe it will be taken care of. We are going to have a security guard here and possibly flood lights for added security.

"We have told the villagers this is their machine and they must take care of it and we have engaged some elders and respected members of the community to help spread that message."

By Louise Redvers

Source: IPS News

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