The following statements were taken from the IPC web site and quoted without editing. There is much more informaion on the IPC web site, and I have only quoted it in part to illustrate some of the points that I consider to be significant.
What is Food Sovereignty ?
"Food Sovereignty is the RIGHT of peoples, communities, and countries to define their own agricultural, labour, fishing, food and land policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate to their unique circumstances. It includes the true right to food and to produce food, which means that all people have the right to safe, nutritious and culturally appropriate food and to food-producing resources and the ability to sustain themselves and their societies."
What is IPC ?
"The IPC is a global network of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and Social Movements concerned with food sovereignty issues and programs. It includes social organizations representing small-scale farmers, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, pastoralists, agricultural workers' trade unions; sub-regional/regional CSOs which act as regional focal points; CSOs and networks with particular expertise in lobbying and advocacy which act as thematic focal points.
"The IPC serves as a facilitation mechanism for the dialogue between Social movements/CSOs and the UN agencies dealing with food and agriculture. In particular, the IPC facilitated the participation of CSOs to the World Food Summit, the World Food Summit: five years later and the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development"
======================================
WHO WE ARE
"The International NGO/CSO Planning Committee - IPC is a global network of NGOs/CSOs concerned with food sovereignty issues and programs. It includes social organizations representing small farmers, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, agricultural workers' trade unions; sub-regional/regional NGOs/CSOs which act as regional focal points; and NGO networks with particular expertise and a long history of lobbying and action and advocacy on issues related to food sovereignty and agriculture, which act as thematic focal points.
"Many of these civil society actors have been engaged in global networking on these issues since the time of the NGO Forum organized in parallel to the World Food Summit (WFS) of 1996. The WFS was the most important international conference on the '90s focusing specifically on food security and, as such, it gave expression to one of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), which now provide a basis for the international community's development agenda.
"Thanks to a process which has developed over the past seven years, these NGOs/CSOs have increasingly achieved an effective presence in the work of relevant international organizations on a platform of food sovereignty, right to food, and food sovereignty. The two NGO/CSO Fora organized in Rome in 1996 and 2002 in parallel to the WFS and the WFS:fyl, based on the principles of civil society self-organization and autonomy, have made a particularly important contribution to strengthening civil society networking and impact.
"The process of organization for the 2002 Forum, which benefited from the support of the FAO, involved thematic reflection and decentralized discussions at national and regional levels over a period of two and a half years. It has led to the development of an innovative mechanism for interaction on issues of food sovereignty between the NGOs/CSOs and social movements, on the one hand, and, on the other, governments and international institutions. Particular attention has been given to FAO initially. This was due to need to mobilize for the WFS:fyl and in view of FAO's role within the UN system as focal point for food sovereignty in the follow-up to the WFS and the implementation of the MDGs.
"Other international organizations targeted in the recommendations of the 2002 NGO/CSO Forum for Food Sovereignty include IFAD, WFP, the World Bank and the WTO. At the same time, the decentralized process of debate over many months which culminated in the Forum helped NGOs/CSOs to engage - often for the first time - in debate on food sovereignty issues with their governments at national, sub-regional and regional levels.
"The IPC is not a centralized structure claiming to represent its members. Instead, its legitimacy is based on its ability to bring to the attention of its interlocutors the concerns and the battles which a broad diversity of civil society organizations are conducting daily in their field work and their advocacy at local, regional and global levels. It serves as a mechanism for diffusion of information and training on issues regarding food sovereignty and food sovereignty. It promotes fora in which NGOs/CSOs and social movements involved in food and agriculture issues can debate, articulate their positions and build their relationships at national, regional and global levels. It reinforces the effectiveness of civil society lobbying by strengthening their capacities for analysis and alliances. It facilitates dialogue and debate between civil society actors, governments and other stakeholders at all levels."
Visit the IPC site for more information.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
CENTRE SONGHAI - Help For The Farmers
While the contents of this post was lifted in its entirety from the web site of Songhai Centere it was taken from different pages in the web site to give the reader a broad scope of the organization's activities in a very short space.
In the early 1980's, a small group of people led by Father Godfrey Nzamujo determined that the level of development in Africa was grossly insufficient and sought to restore dignity to the African people. The result was the creation of the Songhai Center. Named after the famed 15th-century Malian empire,
Songhai is a center for training, for production, research and development of sustainable agricultural practices. The movement seeks to augment the standard of living of Africa's populations using the following methods for the creation of viable agricultural enterprises:
Through the use of local resources, traditional and modern methods;
Through the hybridization of traditional and modern agricultural practices;
Through the instruction and implementation of effective management;
Through the encouragement of individual and communal responsibility and initiatives;
Through the inclusion of diverse opinions.
The ambition of Songhai is to foster an environment of creativity and innovation and as a result, reestablish a stable African society. Songhai draws inspiration from "the Timbuctu effect" - Pride, progress and effective result-, by clearly emphasizing all the advantages Africa offers. Citizens can therefore benefit from globalization rather than be excluded from it or solely bear the weight of its effects.
RESSOURCES
Funds are collected from the sale of Songhai's own products as well as grants from various partners. Most of Songhai's resources are used to finance production activities while a small portion is allocated to administrative expenses. The ongoing objective is to attain 100% financial independence.
Songhai is an institution which seeks to exist via its own efforts and which finances its programs primarily from revenues generated by its own activities. In addition to the internally generated funds, several partners support many of Songhai's investment projects. They include the following organizations:
USAID (United States Agency for International Development) - principal partner
Songhai Support Group (California)
UNDP , HCR, (United Nations Agencies)
RABOBANK Foundation ( The Netherlands)
Accion Verapaz (Spain)
SID (Society for International Development)
IDRC (International Development Research Centre)
Coopération Française (France)
CCFD (Comité Catholique contre la Faim et pour le Développement - Catholic Commission against Hunger and for Development) (France)
Electriciens du Monde (France),
OXFAM Quebec
Songhai France, bringing together several support associations in France (Solidarité Songhai, Songhai-Chasselay, Collecte pour les jeunes installés -Collection for young farmers -, the Parish of Froissy-St, André...) and the governments of Benin
SONGHAI SOME FACTS AND FIGURES
More than 400 students in training in the centers located in Porto Novo, Savalou, Parakou, and Kinwedji for an 18-month training period.
More than 250 farms established in all the regions and managed by the young people trained in Benin; they are brought together under a Network involving local coordinating units.
More than 300 participants from various countries and from all walks of life take part each year in short-term training programs
More than 150 permanent staff, facilitators, technicians and administrators
More than 4,000 visitors every year.
More than 40 partners from public and private institutions, NGOs, associations, universities, and international institutions like USAID and UNDP.
TRAINING PRODUCTION RESEARCH MECHANIZATION TELECENTER PRODUCTS & SERVICES
For agriculture to become a viable force of development, it must be extensive and holistic, going beyond purely agricultural knowledge (integrated production - animal husbandry, fish farming, appropriate technologies) and include education in management, organization, and planning.
In pursuing these goals, Songhai is involved in various activities, highlighting sectors leading up to and resulting from agricultural production.
Its principal activities are completely inter-related. They are as follows:
The objectives of the agricultural production are as follows:
Promote the integrated system of agricultural production (diversification).
Manage the production units with a goal of making them profitable as well as remaining conscious of the environment.
Improve the productivity of production units (training given by Songhai cannot be credible if it is not validated on the field via profitability and research).
Supervise the student farmers and trainees.
Provide agricultural services for the installed farmers and the Songhai centers (ex. production of seeds and materials).
BIOGAS
To put the finishing touches on the practice of integration and bring together all the sectors, a biogas production system was established. Methane is produced from animal excrement, plant wastes, and sewage water (from showers and toilets). This is used as a source of energy. Today, the methane from the system feeds the kitchens of the student farmers' canteen and the center's restaurants.
THE GREEN METHOD OF WATER PURIFICATION
As a method for refining polluted water, the green method of purification
consists of purifying water by planting aquatic plants such as water hyacinth, water lettuce, and a fern called azolla. These plants have the tendency to absorb organic materials, which are suspended in water. After running through a certain number of basins where the plants are cultivated, the water, which is now sufficiently filtered, can be used again for fish farming
Centre Songhai
In the early 1980's, a small group of people led by Father Godfrey Nzamujo determined that the level of development in Africa was grossly insufficient and sought to restore dignity to the African people. The result was the creation of the Songhai Center. Named after the famed 15th-century Malian empire,
Songhai is a center for training, for production, research and development of sustainable agricultural practices. The movement seeks to augment the standard of living of Africa's populations using the following methods for the creation of viable agricultural enterprises:
Through the use of local resources, traditional and modern methods;
Through the hybridization of traditional and modern agricultural practices;
Through the instruction and implementation of effective management;
Through the encouragement of individual and communal responsibility and initiatives;
Through the inclusion of diverse opinions.
The ambition of Songhai is to foster an environment of creativity and innovation and as a result, reestablish a stable African society. Songhai draws inspiration from "the Timbuctu effect" - Pride, progress and effective result-, by clearly emphasizing all the advantages Africa offers. Citizens can therefore benefit from globalization rather than be excluded from it or solely bear the weight of its effects.
RESSOURCES
Funds are collected from the sale of Songhai's own products as well as grants from various partners. Most of Songhai's resources are used to finance production activities while a small portion is allocated to administrative expenses. The ongoing objective is to attain 100% financial independence.
Songhai is an institution which seeks to exist via its own efforts and which finances its programs primarily from revenues generated by its own activities. In addition to the internally generated funds, several partners support many of Songhai's investment projects. They include the following organizations:
USAID (United States Agency for International Development) - principal partner
Songhai Support Group (California)
UNDP , HCR, (United Nations Agencies)
RABOBANK Foundation ( The Netherlands)
Accion Verapaz (Spain)
SID (Society for International Development)
IDRC (International Development Research Centre)
Coopération Française (France)
CCFD (Comité Catholique contre la Faim et pour le Développement - Catholic Commission against Hunger and for Development) (France)
Electriciens du Monde (France),
OXFAM Quebec
Songhai France, bringing together several support associations in France (Solidarité Songhai, Songhai-Chasselay, Collecte pour les jeunes installés -Collection for young farmers -, the Parish of Froissy-St, André...) and the governments of Benin
SONGHAI SOME FACTS AND FIGURES
More than 400 students in training in the centers located in Porto Novo, Savalou, Parakou, and Kinwedji for an 18-month training period.
More than 250 farms established in all the regions and managed by the young people trained in Benin; they are brought together under a Network involving local coordinating units.
More than 300 participants from various countries and from all walks of life take part each year in short-term training programs
More than 150 permanent staff, facilitators, technicians and administrators
More than 4,000 visitors every year.
More than 40 partners from public and private institutions, NGOs, associations, universities, and international institutions like USAID and UNDP.
TRAINING PRODUCTION RESEARCH MECHANIZATION TELECENTER PRODUCTS & SERVICES
For agriculture to become a viable force of development, it must be extensive and holistic, going beyond purely agricultural knowledge (integrated production - animal husbandry, fish farming, appropriate technologies) and include education in management, organization, and planning.
In pursuing these goals, Songhai is involved in various activities, highlighting sectors leading up to and resulting from agricultural production.
Its principal activities are completely inter-related. They are as follows:
The objectives of the agricultural production are as follows:
Promote the integrated system of agricultural production (diversification).
Manage the production units with a goal of making them profitable as well as remaining conscious of the environment.
Improve the productivity of production units (training given by Songhai cannot be credible if it is not validated on the field via profitability and research).
Supervise the student farmers and trainees.
Provide agricultural services for the installed farmers and the Songhai centers (ex. production of seeds and materials).
BIOGAS
To put the finishing touches on the practice of integration and bring together all the sectors, a biogas production system was established. Methane is produced from animal excrement, plant wastes, and sewage water (from showers and toilets). This is used as a source of energy. Today, the methane from the system feeds the kitchens of the student farmers' canteen and the center's restaurants.
THE GREEN METHOD OF WATER PURIFICATION
As a method for refining polluted water, the green method of purification
consists of purifying water by planting aquatic plants such as water hyacinth, water lettuce, and a fern called azolla. These plants have the tendency to absorb organic materials, which are suspended in water. After running through a certain number of basins where the plants are cultivated, the water, which is now sufficiently filtered, can be used again for fish farming
Centre Songhai
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Action Aid – Maintaining Focus
While much of the world has been fixated on the violence that followed flawed elections in Keny’s presidential elections in December of 2007, hard working NGOs have been able to keep a focus on other problems in the country as well.
Below is a report published by ActionAid on February 29, 2008 trying to raise awareness about a drought that is threatening lives in of people as well as livestock in Kenya.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenya’s pastoralist communities in crisis
29 February 2008
Drought threatens North Eastern Province and areas of the southern Coast region.
“Pastoralist people are facing crisis in Kenya’s North Eastern Province (bordering Somalia) and in some neighbouring districts of Coast province, because of drought and the consequent pressure on grazing land warns ActionAid.
Enrico Eminae, ActionAid’s coordinator in North Eastern Province warned that 35,000 pastoralists in Takaba district are already at risk.
He said: "People in over 28 trading centres in Takaba are relying on water delivered in trucks because shallow wells and water pans have dried up.
"For pastoralist communities in particular, lack of water signals hunger because their livestock, their only source of food and income, are at much greater risk. “It also triggers conflict over resources as different clans crisscross each other’s territory in search of pasture and water."
Current flashpoints
In Sericho, the Ewaso Ngiro flood plains have dried up with the river receding to about 100km upstream. Communities have to rely on shallow wells dug into the now dry riverbed.
The situation in Takaba is even more fragile as pastoralists congregate around Takaba town with their livestock in search of water.• Conflict has occurred in the villages of Darwed, Didkuro and Wangaidahan as pastoralists move in search of alternative livelihoods.
In Tana River and Ganze (Coast Region), pastoralists are also on the move. Grazing and water areas are diminishing fast and resources are overstretched.
Enrico Eminae concluded: "Animals' health is deteriorating fast. If the long rains fail in March there could well be a crisis. Even if rain falls, the pastoralists' situation is now so fragile, that flash floods could easily compromise the survival of their animals."
http://www.actionaid.org.uk/100002/about_us.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No one would argue that the post election violence in Kenya was not an extremely news story and it deserved the degree of attention that it received from the global media. Unfortunately, much of the media attention contained elements of distortion that placed an unwarranted amount of blame for the violence in the early days on ethnic strife. Now that the sensational “photo ops” are no longer in abundance, many of the journalists who were hanging on every new development in that story have left Kenya in search of newer sensational stories.
This pattern of behavior by the major press outlets in the western world make it difficult for organizations like ActionAid to educate the world about other problems that need to be addressed as well; and they are reduced to releasing their own statements about matters of life and death that don’t make it to the major newspapers and television broadcasts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACTIONAID
Who They Are:
In their own words: "ActionAid is a unique partnership of people who are fighting for a world without poverty, in which every person can exercise their right to a life of dignity. We work with poor and marginalised people to help eradicate poverty by overcoming the injustice and inequity that cause it."
How They work
“We work with poor and marginalised communities to help them recognise, promote and secure their basic rights, and control their own development.”
Their Strategy
“In 2005, ActionAid agreed a new international strategy, Rights to end poverty, which sets clear and ambitious priorities to guide our staff and partners over the next five years. Our strategy tackles head-on the unacceptable truth that poverty and injustice remain deeply entrenched in many parts of the globe.
If we are to fulfil our mission to eradicate poverty and injustice, we must take sides with poor and excluded people and communities and help them to secure their rights.
Women’s rights and gender equality offer the key to poverty reduction and achieving them is a central focus of our strategy.
We will bring greater focus and depth while continuing to work on the areas of education, food and HIV and AIDS.
To these we have added new priorities, developing our policy and programme work on human security in situations of violent conflict and emergencies, and on democracy and governance.
Strategic priorities:
women’s rights
the right to education
the right to food
the right to human security in conflict and emergencies
the right to life and dignity in the face of HIV and AIDS
the right to just and democratic governance
The strategy provides clear direction for organising and governing the growing ActionAid family and its relationships with the outside world. It sets out how we will make ourselves more accountable, both to the poor and excluded people with whom we work and to our supporters and funders.”
ACTIONAID
Below is a report published by ActionAid on February 29, 2008 trying to raise awareness about a drought that is threatening lives in of people as well as livestock in Kenya.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenya’s pastoralist communities in crisis
29 February 2008
Drought threatens North Eastern Province and areas of the southern Coast region.
“Pastoralist people are facing crisis in Kenya’s North Eastern Province (bordering Somalia) and in some neighbouring districts of Coast province, because of drought and the consequent pressure on grazing land warns ActionAid.
Enrico Eminae, ActionAid’s coordinator in North Eastern Province warned that 35,000 pastoralists in Takaba district are already at risk.
He said: "People in over 28 trading centres in Takaba are relying on water delivered in trucks because shallow wells and water pans have dried up.
"For pastoralist communities in particular, lack of water signals hunger because their livestock, their only source of food and income, are at much greater risk. “It also triggers conflict over resources as different clans crisscross each other’s territory in search of pasture and water."
Current flashpoints
In Sericho, the Ewaso Ngiro flood plains have dried up with the river receding to about 100km upstream. Communities have to rely on shallow wells dug into the now dry riverbed.
The situation in Takaba is even more fragile as pastoralists congregate around Takaba town with their livestock in search of water.• Conflict has occurred in the villages of Darwed, Didkuro and Wangaidahan as pastoralists move in search of alternative livelihoods.
In Tana River and Ganze (Coast Region), pastoralists are also on the move. Grazing and water areas are diminishing fast and resources are overstretched.
Enrico Eminae concluded: "Animals' health is deteriorating fast. If the long rains fail in March there could well be a crisis. Even if rain falls, the pastoralists' situation is now so fragile, that flash floods could easily compromise the survival of their animals."
http://www.actionaid.org.uk/100002/about_us.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No one would argue that the post election violence in Kenya was not an extremely news story and it deserved the degree of attention that it received from the global media. Unfortunately, much of the media attention contained elements of distortion that placed an unwarranted amount of blame for the violence in the early days on ethnic strife. Now that the sensational “photo ops” are no longer in abundance, many of the journalists who were hanging on every new development in that story have left Kenya in search of newer sensational stories.
This pattern of behavior by the major press outlets in the western world make it difficult for organizations like ActionAid to educate the world about other problems that need to be addressed as well; and they are reduced to releasing their own statements about matters of life and death that don’t make it to the major newspapers and television broadcasts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ACTIONAID
Who They Are:
In their own words: "ActionAid is a unique partnership of people who are fighting for a world without poverty, in which every person can exercise their right to a life of dignity. We work with poor and marginalised people to help eradicate poverty by overcoming the injustice and inequity that cause it."
How They work
“We work with poor and marginalised communities to help them recognise, promote and secure their basic rights, and control their own development.”
Their Strategy
“In 2005, ActionAid agreed a new international strategy, Rights to end poverty, which sets clear and ambitious priorities to guide our staff and partners over the next five years. Our strategy tackles head-on the unacceptable truth that poverty and injustice remain deeply entrenched in many parts of the globe.
If we are to fulfil our mission to eradicate poverty and injustice, we must take sides with poor and excluded people and communities and help them to secure their rights.
Women’s rights and gender equality offer the key to poverty reduction and achieving them is a central focus of our strategy.
We will bring greater focus and depth while continuing to work on the areas of education, food and HIV and AIDS.
To these we have added new priorities, developing our policy and programme work on human security in situations of violent conflict and emergencies, and on democracy and governance.
Strategic priorities:
women’s rights
the right to education
the right to food
the right to human security in conflict and emergencies
the right to life and dignity in the face of HIV and AIDS
the right to just and democratic governance
The strategy provides clear direction for organising and governing the growing ActionAid family and its relationships with the outside world. It sets out how we will make ourselves more accountable, both to the poor and excluded people with whom we work and to our supporters and funders.”
ACTIONAID
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Top 10 Open Source Tools for eActivism
This article is a bit dated, but the information is still valuable. Open source software is a valuable tool for the aware NGO manager. This article was found at the “Designing for Civil Society Blog” which reported the article from : “Steven Clift's excellent “Democracies Online Newswire”.”
Top 10 Open Source Tools for eActivism
by Dan Bashaw & Mike Gifford Jan 7, 2004
People have been trying to use the web to create change from its conception. Along with the rest of the Internet community, activist focus has moved away from producing static content to building on- line communities. There are a number of Application Service Providers (ASPs) providing external eActivist applications that can be integrated with the look and feel of an organization's existing web site, but we will not be evaluating ASPs in this article. Instead, we want to discuss eActivist applications that can be run from the same server as the organization's existing website. Furthermore, we will be looking at Free Software applications that can be downloaded, modified, and distributed by the users of the software.
Broadly speaking, the eActivist applications described below can be categorized as either informational, aiding in efficiently spreading your message, or actionable, allowing your users to act on their information and understanding of issues. Although the distinction can be useful in deciding which tool to use, many applications have now evolved to include elements of both.
The first five applications examined are primarily informational: four are tools for building web sites, and have considerable overlap in core features, though each has different strengths, weaknesses, and appropriate uses. The fifth focuses on eNewsletters.
We have provided just a brief sketch of the functionality of each application. Describing the type of interaction they allow and with whom. Outlining their key strengths and weaknesses as we see them. Providing some activists tips for their use and providing an example.
We feature one example, but have also listed alternatives which are worth considering.
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1. ActionApps (On-line Magazine/Content Sharing) “http://www.apc.org/actionapps/”
Interaction: Minimal interaction between visitors & content authors
Strength: Publishing Control & Extensive Cross Site/Server Publishing Permissions. A good publishing tool.
Weaknesses: Often too big & cumbersome for organizations that don't need this type of control.
Activist Tips: Some organizations may want to share content between other related organizations. Set up within the Association of Progressive Computing, this model made a lot of sense to member organizations which already had close associations. Some coalitions are using this type of permission based content sharing to maintain an issue related site which is fed by a number of member organizations.
Example: http://www.rabble.ca/
Alternatives: slashForums, Blogs, Back-End and Active (below) can all provide content non-interactive content publishing.
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2. PostNuke (Slash Forums/Portals) “http://www.postnuke.com/”
Interaction: Plenty of opportunities for users to submit stories, links, & comments for publishing on the site. Dialogue is usually shaped through a response to an article posted by the editorial team.
Strengths: Lots of add on modules, often installed with a web hosts default control panel.
Weaknesses: Many slash sites are hard to modify to look like anything but a slash site. Content becomes stale very quickly and daily posts are almost required.
Activist Tips: Selecting the right modules for your site is the key to using any of the 'slash' content management systems. Pick the features (i.e. polls, surveys, galleries, calendars, forums, etc.) that your site needs, and keep it simple by not offering those that don't forward your goals. It is also important to watch the activity in different modules to see which ones are being used.
In terms of keeping your site fresh, the authoring environment is key to creating a site that is easily maintained. Look for authoring tools that will allow your authors to style their own text easily and quickly. A system that is too obscure or complex will not be used.
Example: http://www.canadiandemocraticmovement.ca/
Alternatives: The listings in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/) link to demos of many portal systems, including postNuke (http://www.postnuke.com/) , and Plone (http://www.plone.org/).
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3. Drupal (Blogs) “http://drupal.org/”
Interaction: Lots of user interaction & interaction between related Drupal sites. Extensive use of RSS feed publishing & aggregating.
Strengths: Informal, newsy, often personal. There are a lot of folks who are bloggers or participate in blog culture.
Weaknesses: Like other news focused sites, if it isn't updated regularly, it becomes stale very quickly.
Activist Tips: For activist organizations, the blog format can be a great way to humanize messages on an ongoing topic or a developing campaign. Because *blog=personal* to the reader, campaign blogs have a 'note from a friend' feel to them -- much more personal than the same information presented in a web news or magazine framework. When using blogs, consider having a single 'voice' or a small group of voices do all posts, to reinforce the personal flavour of the blog.
As well consider displaying the blog's 'RSS feed' (Headline, annotation and link of each blog entry) into the sidebar of your organizational web site and your email campaigns, to extend this personal voice further.
Example: http://www.blogforamerica.com/ (likely not using drupal)
Alternatives: Also consider Geeklog (http://www.geeklog.net/index.php), and the various blogs listed under the 'Blogs' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
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4. Active (News Posting) “http://www.active.org.au/doc/”
Interaction: Terrific news contributions.
Strengths: It is a great way to gather news from an event or a community. One of the best tools for posting/displaying multi-media.
Weaknesses: Like other news sites, they can grow stale quickly. As well, due to the open publishing nature of Active, editorial control over the Newswire is weak. It is almost impossible to totally control the content of the site.
Activist Tips: Indymedia sites running Active first came into prominence during the Seattle anti-globalization protests in 1999, where the ability to post news rapidly from the streets to the web was critical to getting the story out. Active is ideal for an action-oriented situation, where information is posted in real-time and contextualized on-the- fly by volunteer editors.
However -- it is not as good an ongoing publishing system choice for an activist organization with a controlled editorial workflow. Because Active allows any member of the public to post directly to an unmoderated Newswire, it can leave an organization open to potential legal and 'staying on message' problems if the Newswire is not closely monitored. If tighter editorial and user control are important to your organization ActiveApps, postNuke and Drupal (all noted above) are alternatives.
Example: http://www.indymedia.org/ (The umbrella site for over 80 Indymedia sites) and http://portland.indymedia.org/ (A typical Active site showing the Newswire in the righthand sidebar).
Alternatives: Variations on the PHP-based Active (http://www.active.org.au/doc/) include MiR (http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/MiR), a Java implemetation, and IMCSlash (http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/ImcSlash), written in Perl.
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5. phpList (eNewsletters) “http://www.phplist.com/”
Interaction: It's entirely one way, but it gives the user the opportunity to indicate what they want to subscribe to. It also provides an opportunity to gather other information about your site's visitors.
Strengths: It is easy to set up and provides an easy way to encourage other participants to come back to your site. Users can provide their interests & geographic location to allow users to get more targeted eNewsletters.
Weaknesses: There are a lot of options and it may take a bit of time to learn how to use it, particularly if you are only sending out eNewsletters every couple of months.
Tips: Plan to write a eNewsletter once every month or two, more if your campaign is very active. Make sure that you write the eNewsletter to be short and easy to scan. Provide a title, short abstract an a link to an article on your website with the full story. Text is generally preferred by users and easier to be forwarded on in email & included in other forums. Always ask your subscribers to forward this message on to their friends. When referring to a URL, make sure to include the "http://"
Example: http://www.learningpartnership.org/phplist/?p=subscribe&id=4
Alternatives: Mailman (http://www.list.org/), Sympa (http://www.sympa.org/) and other mailing list managers also allow one-way 'broadcast' lists. Also consider LetterIT (http://otterware.net/index.php?id=scripte&sid=letteritm)
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The remaining five eActivist applications examined below are broadly 'actionables' involving peer-to-peer (Forums, eCards, Wikis), peer-to-Pol (ePetitions), and peer-to-pole (eLeaflets/ePosters) communications.
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6. phpBB (Forums) “http://www.phpBB.com/”
Interaction: It's all interaction. Discussions take place in forums and users contribute all of the content.
Strengths: It's a commonly understood format so it is easy for new people to start participating. The ability to have restricted forums is also useful for some organizations.
Weaknesses: It may need to be moderated, or at least monitored so that you are familiar with what is being posted. Also, it may take some time to get people using/posting to the forum.
Activist Tips: Bulletin boards or on-line forums predate the Internet and are one of the most understood forms of web dialogues, and training time for most is minimal. It is a good environment for brainstorming or allowing folks to vent their concerns. Many forums allow for moderation so that inappropriate posts can be adjusted, but this takes time as does building an active, constructive climate for exchanging ideas.
If a forum is little-used, consider replacing it with either a mailing list like Mailman (http://www.list.org/), or a simpler bulletin board system like wwwBoard (http://www.scriptarchive.com/wwwboard.html) which shows all posts in a 'tree view' on a single page. Both of these alternatives will encourage more participation in low-traffic situations.
Example: http://www.gwbush.com/forum/ (Not using phpBB)
Alternatives: Also consider the forums listed under the 'Forums' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
----
7. WebCards (eCards/email2friends) “http://webcards.sourceforge.net/”
Interaction: Limited opportunity to send a message to a friend. Essentially an advanced email2friend form.
Strengths: By using innovative images you can encourage folks to spread the word more about your campaign. Like blogs, people that use webcards will use them a lot and come back when they can.
Weaknesses: When was the last time you were really influenced by a postcard?
Activist Tips: eCards are a 'semi-viral' marketing technique -- they cannot escape and circulate independently of your organization, as an email can, so you maintain control over the organizational image projected by your eCards.
* Humour will often work well with eCards, as more users will be likely to pass along a humorous message than a less evocative one.
* In order to keep your activist message clear for for the recipient of the eCard, you can include your headline and other key text directly into the eCard image.
Example: http://www.savebiogems.org/postcard.asp (not using webcards)
Alternatives: Website Gizmos http://www.bitesizeinc.net/index.php/gizmos.html, Send Card http://www.sendcard.org/ or see http://www.hotscripts.com/
----
8. TWiki (Wiki/Group Documentation) “http://www.twiki.org/”
Interaction: Total, but focused on creating more static documentation by the community
Strengths: It's a great web based collaboration platform. The ability to create common documents & review changes makes this application quite powerful for community groups.
Weaknesses: Wiki markup isn't consistent, it takes a bit of training for folks to get used to, editorial rights can be abused.
Activist Tips: Wiki webs are great tools for collaborative writing when your goal is to ultimately have a static or slowly-evolving document for internal use or public display: policy and procedures, grant proposals, reports can all be built effectively in a Wiki, with each contributor working in their own time on the single live document. As Wikis support roll-back to previous versions of pages, editorial control can be maintained while allowing freedom to each contributor.
Wikis can also serve as a shared brainstorming and notebook tool for activist groups -- though the fact that wiki information is not 'pushed' to users desktops requires that users building a project must intentionally visit and contribute to the Wiki. Twiki, which supports RSS feeds, can push notification of page changes to users, encouraging participation.
New users will need to be given a brief introduction to using Wiki, to give them familiarity with adding pages, editing content, and basic text styling, to ensure that they are comfortable in the Wiki environment.
As an example of how far groups can go in using Wiki as a writing tool, look at the multi-lingual Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org).
Example: http://thor.acedragon.co.uk/biconwiki/ (not using twiki)
Alternatives: Also consider the forums listed under the 'Wiki' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
----
9. Back-End (eActions/ePetitions) “http://www.back-end.org/”
Interaction: It's a focused level of interaction, but asks permission to contact folks in the future.
Strengths: People are comfortable giving a minor level of support to an organizations cause through Petitions & eActions.
Weaknesses: They are most useful if there are multiple campaigns or opportunities for people to start becoming more educated & aware. The flexibility of Back-End makes it more time consuming to customize.
Activist Tips: Keep the text of the ePetition or eAction short & easy to read. Make sure to have links to other information about the campaign on your site that people can read up on if they are interested. Make sure that you ask for permission from your supporters to contact them. People like seeing other people's comments, so if possible display the and the number of signatories.
Example: http://www.fairvotecanada.org/petition.php/
Alternatives: simpetition ~PostNuke module http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpetition/
----
10. FPDF (eLeaflets/ePosters) (Dynamic PDF/Graphic Generation) “http://www.fpdf.org/”
Interaction: Simple off the web interaction. Allowing folks to download & print off posters, petitions, stickers and brochures customized online for their local campaigns.
Strengths: Good control over printed output, not dependent on the user's browser capabilities or Operating System.
Weaknesses: Introduces an additional server-side technology to accomplish PDF generation, which could have server performance impacts.
Activist Tips: If you want to be able to take your message to the streets and extend your brand to support local activists. Target specific communities on the fly with a customized pamphlet.
Example: http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=37844
Alternatives: For some applications, CSS2 stylesheets (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/) can be used to print simple dynamic content such as handbills. R&OS have produced a PDF class (http://www.ros.co.nz/pdf/) and there are a number of other graphic/pdf modification tools which are being developed.
----
Of course, in the rapidly evolving world of eActivism, any list of 10 anythings will have at least 11 members by the time it is completed! Emerging technologies that might be applied to eActivism include: RSS feeds, Friendster, cellphone texting, cam-phones, and audio blogs. Any of these may inspire or connect to Open Source applications. Older technologies such as chat and Internet telephony may also spring back onto the stage as activist solutions.
As well, the convergence of existing tools often leads to new solutions. We've selected TikiWiki, a tool that blends Wiki and Portal features, to round out our list of ten eActivist applications with its eleventh member.
----
11. TikiWiki “http://www.tikiwiki.org/”
Interaction: TikiWiki is a content management system for writers. It supports wikiwiki web pages, blogs, CMS news article publishing, discussion forums, a directory of links, a calendar, RSS newsfeeds, user-designed databases for tracking contacts/events, and many other things as lots of people added code to the product over the last year.
Strengths: A 'swiss army knife' tool with a massive feature set!
Weaknesses: make sure to use the latest version of TikiWiki (1.1.1 or higher)for improved speed over earlier, slower builds. TikiWiki shares the relatively rigid 'portal' look of phpNuke and other slashForum applications.
Activist Tips: Use the collaborative capabilities of TikiWiki to work with a dispersed group of authors on keeping the site's formal content fresh. Use the built-in blogs, chat forums and image galleries to build community interaction. The combination plays to TikiWiki's strengths as a multifunction tool for building a site that is both informational and actionable.
Example: http://www.greens-in.org/
Alternatives: Other general content management frameworks, such as Geeklog (http://www.geeklog.net/index.php) and Typo3 (http://www.typo3.org) also take the fusion approach -- but none include the Wiki capabilities of TikiWiki.
Dan & Mike would like to thank David Newman his contribution to this section.
----
Sorting them out
There are a number of ways to compare eActivist applications as an aid in deciding which to consider for your organization.
We have plotted these tools on the Surman-o-graph, (an emerging standard in analyzing civil society communications) clustering them in the Formal/Centralized and Informal/Distributed quadrants:
http://www.openconcept.ca/images/surman-o-graph_web.gif
In deciding which specific tool to apply to your eActivist problems, consider the following questions:
* Does the tool do what I need 'out-of-the-box', or will it need to be customized?
* Is the user interface simple for the people who will be working with the application?
* Is there reasonable documentation and support? Does the support forum handle newbie questions well?
* Does the tool use technologies and languages we are already familiar with?
* Is there an on-line demo my users can play around with to see if the tool 'feels right' to them?
* Is the tool's programming team actively developing and maintaining the tool?
* Is the tool one of the more popular ones in it's category?
A yes to a majority of these questions is a sign that you've may have the right application for your eActivist job.
There are a lot of Open Source tools out there which you can employ for your campaigns. We have tried to list some of the ones which we feel are the most useful in the fall of 2003. Like the Internet as a whole, Open Source projects tend to evolve quickly and new initiatives are popping up all of the time. The challenge for anyone putting together an activist web site will be in blending these and other tools into a seamless user interface. Customizing and adapting any software to meet your needs can be time consuming, but often the development communities behind these Open Source projects can help point you in the right direction. Most Open Source projects also have web developers who can be hired to modify the code that they have developed. Any customized code can be brought back into the core of the project so that it can benefit the whole community.
Bios
Dan Bashaw - dbashaw@telus.net
Dan works as a web developer for TM Newmedia, a Victoria BC eLearning and web development company, is an activist with the Victoria Independent Media Center, and is working on a project to to create CommunityPipe, a free and easily replicated open source hosting service for small-scale community and activist web sites.
Mike Gifford - mike@openconcept.ca / “http://www.openconcept.ca”
Mike is the president of OpenConcept Consulting, Open Source Web Applications for Social Change. OpenConcept is the lead developer of Back-End.org CMS.
* Many of these applications will run on both proprietary & non-priorietary Operating Systems, however, you will have to check with your web host to determine if you have the software which is required.
Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: clift@publicus.net Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - M: +1.612.203.5181
Join my Democracies Online Newswire: http://e-democracy.org/do My blogging experiment: http://travelscoops.com
*** Past Messages, Discussion “http://e-democracy.org/do”
To subscribe, e-mail: listserv@tc.umn.edu Message body: SUB DO-WIRE
To UNSUBSCRIBE instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE
Please send submissions to: clift@publicus.net
Update
Dot Org media offer a very useful evaluation of “Using Open Source Software in your Nonprofit Organisation”.
Top 10 Open Source Tools for eActivism
by Dan Bashaw & Mike Gifford Jan 7, 2004
People have been trying to use the web to create change from its conception. Along with the rest of the Internet community, activist focus has moved away from producing static content to building on- line communities. There are a number of Application Service Providers (ASPs) providing external eActivist applications that can be integrated with the look and feel of an organization's existing web site, but we will not be evaluating ASPs in this article. Instead, we want to discuss eActivist applications that can be run from the same server as the organization's existing website. Furthermore, we will be looking at Free Software applications that can be downloaded, modified, and distributed by the users of the software.
Broadly speaking, the eActivist applications described below can be categorized as either informational, aiding in efficiently spreading your message, or actionable, allowing your users to act on their information and understanding of issues. Although the distinction can be useful in deciding which tool to use, many applications have now evolved to include elements of both.
The first five applications examined are primarily informational: four are tools for building web sites, and have considerable overlap in core features, though each has different strengths, weaknesses, and appropriate uses. The fifth focuses on eNewsletters.
We have provided just a brief sketch of the functionality of each application. Describing the type of interaction they allow and with whom. Outlining their key strengths and weaknesses as we see them. Providing some activists tips for their use and providing an example.
We feature one example, but have also listed alternatives which are worth considering.
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1. ActionApps (On-line Magazine/Content Sharing) “http://www.apc.org/actionapps/”
Interaction: Minimal interaction between visitors & content authors
Strength: Publishing Control & Extensive Cross Site/Server Publishing Permissions. A good publishing tool.
Weaknesses: Often too big & cumbersome for organizations that don't need this type of control.
Activist Tips: Some organizations may want to share content between other related organizations. Set up within the Association of Progressive Computing, this model made a lot of sense to member organizations which already had close associations. Some coalitions are using this type of permission based content sharing to maintain an issue related site which is fed by a number of member organizations.
Example: http://www.rabble.ca/
Alternatives: slashForums, Blogs, Back-End and Active (below) can all provide content non-interactive content publishing.
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2. PostNuke (Slash Forums/Portals) “http://www.postnuke.com/”
Interaction: Plenty of opportunities for users to submit stories, links, & comments for publishing on the site. Dialogue is usually shaped through a response to an article posted by the editorial team.
Strengths: Lots of add on modules, often installed with a web hosts default control panel.
Weaknesses: Many slash sites are hard to modify to look like anything but a slash site. Content becomes stale very quickly and daily posts are almost required.
Activist Tips: Selecting the right modules for your site is the key to using any of the 'slash' content management systems. Pick the features (i.e. polls, surveys, galleries, calendars, forums, etc.) that your site needs, and keep it simple by not offering those that don't forward your goals. It is also important to watch the activity in different modules to see which ones are being used.
In terms of keeping your site fresh, the authoring environment is key to creating a site that is easily maintained. Look for authoring tools that will allow your authors to style their own text easily and quickly. A system that is too obscure or complex will not be used.
Example: http://www.canadiandemocraticmovement.ca/
Alternatives: The listings in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/) link to demos of many portal systems, including postNuke (http://www.postnuke.com/) , and Plone (http://www.plone.org/).
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3. Drupal (Blogs) “http://drupal.org/”
Interaction: Lots of user interaction & interaction between related Drupal sites. Extensive use of RSS feed publishing & aggregating.
Strengths: Informal, newsy, often personal. There are a lot of folks who are bloggers or participate in blog culture.
Weaknesses: Like other news focused sites, if it isn't updated regularly, it becomes stale very quickly.
Activist Tips: For activist organizations, the blog format can be a great way to humanize messages on an ongoing topic or a developing campaign. Because *blog=personal* to the reader, campaign blogs have a 'note from a friend' feel to them -- much more personal than the same information presented in a web news or magazine framework. When using blogs, consider having a single 'voice' or a small group of voices do all posts, to reinforce the personal flavour of the blog.
As well consider displaying the blog's 'RSS feed' (Headline, annotation and link of each blog entry) into the sidebar of your organizational web site and your email campaigns, to extend this personal voice further.
Example: http://www.blogforamerica.com/ (likely not using drupal)
Alternatives: Also consider Geeklog (http://www.geeklog.net/index.php), and the various blogs listed under the 'Blogs' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
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4. Active (News Posting) “http://www.active.org.au/doc/”
Interaction: Terrific news contributions.
Strengths: It is a great way to gather news from an event or a community. One of the best tools for posting/displaying multi-media.
Weaknesses: Like other news sites, they can grow stale quickly. As well, due to the open publishing nature of Active, editorial control over the Newswire is weak. It is almost impossible to totally control the content of the site.
Activist Tips: Indymedia sites running Active first came into prominence during the Seattle anti-globalization protests in 1999, where the ability to post news rapidly from the streets to the web was critical to getting the story out. Active is ideal for an action-oriented situation, where information is posted in real-time and contextualized on-the- fly by volunteer editors.
However -- it is not as good an ongoing publishing system choice for an activist organization with a controlled editorial workflow. Because Active allows any member of the public to post directly to an unmoderated Newswire, it can leave an organization open to potential legal and 'staying on message' problems if the Newswire is not closely monitored. If tighter editorial and user control are important to your organization ActiveApps, postNuke and Drupal (all noted above) are alternatives.
Example: http://www.indymedia.org/ (The umbrella site for over 80 Indymedia sites) and http://portland.indymedia.org/ (A typical Active site showing the Newswire in the righthand sidebar).
Alternatives: Variations on the PHP-based Active (http://www.active.org.au/doc/) include MiR (http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/MiR), a Java implemetation, and IMCSlash (http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Devel/ImcSlash), written in Perl.
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5. phpList (eNewsletters) “http://www.phplist.com/”
Interaction: It's entirely one way, but it gives the user the opportunity to indicate what they want to subscribe to. It also provides an opportunity to gather other information about your site's visitors.
Strengths: It is easy to set up and provides an easy way to encourage other participants to come back to your site. Users can provide their interests & geographic location to allow users to get more targeted eNewsletters.
Weaknesses: There are a lot of options and it may take a bit of time to learn how to use it, particularly if you are only sending out eNewsletters every couple of months.
Tips: Plan to write a eNewsletter once every month or two, more if your campaign is very active. Make sure that you write the eNewsletter to be short and easy to scan. Provide a title, short abstract an a link to an article on your website with the full story. Text is generally preferred by users and easier to be forwarded on in email & included in other forums. Always ask your subscribers to forward this message on to their friends. When referring to a URL, make sure to include the "http://"
Example: http://www.learningpartnership.org/phplist/?p=subscribe&id=4
Alternatives: Mailman (http://www.list.org/), Sympa (http://www.sympa.org/) and other mailing list managers also allow one-way 'broadcast' lists. Also consider LetterIT (http://otterware.net/index.php?id=scripte&sid=letteritm)
----
The remaining five eActivist applications examined below are broadly 'actionables' involving peer-to-peer (Forums, eCards, Wikis), peer-to-Pol (ePetitions), and peer-to-pole (eLeaflets/ePosters) communications.
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6. phpBB (Forums) “http://www.phpBB.com/”
Interaction: It's all interaction. Discussions take place in forums and users contribute all of the content.
Strengths: It's a commonly understood format so it is easy for new people to start participating. The ability to have restricted forums is also useful for some organizations.
Weaknesses: It may need to be moderated, or at least monitored so that you are familiar with what is being posted. Also, it may take some time to get people using/posting to the forum.
Activist Tips: Bulletin boards or on-line forums predate the Internet and are one of the most understood forms of web dialogues, and training time for most is minimal. It is a good environment for brainstorming or allowing folks to vent their concerns. Many forums allow for moderation so that inappropriate posts can be adjusted, but this takes time as does building an active, constructive climate for exchanging ideas.
If a forum is little-used, consider replacing it with either a mailing list like Mailman (http://www.list.org/), or a simpler bulletin board system like wwwBoard (http://www.scriptarchive.com/wwwboard.html) which shows all posts in a 'tree view' on a single page. Both of these alternatives will encourage more participation in low-traffic situations.
Example: http://www.gwbush.com/forum/ (Not using phpBB)
Alternatives: Also consider the forums listed under the 'Forums' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
----
7. WebCards (eCards/email2friends) “http://webcards.sourceforge.net/”
Interaction: Limited opportunity to send a message to a friend. Essentially an advanced email2friend form.
Strengths: By using innovative images you can encourage folks to spread the word more about your campaign. Like blogs, people that use webcards will use them a lot and come back when they can.
Weaknesses: When was the last time you were really influenced by a postcard?
Activist Tips: eCards are a 'semi-viral' marketing technique -- they cannot escape and circulate independently of your organization, as an email can, so you maintain control over the organizational image projected by your eCards.
* Humour will often work well with eCards, as more users will be likely to pass along a humorous message than a less evocative one.
* In order to keep your activist message clear for for the recipient of the eCard, you can include your headline and other key text directly into the eCard image.
Example: http://www.savebiogems.org/postcard.asp (not using webcards)
Alternatives: Website Gizmos http://www.bitesizeinc.net/index.php/gizmos.html, Send Card http://www.sendcard.org/ or see http://www.hotscripts.com/
----
8. TWiki (Wiki/Group Documentation) “http://www.twiki.org/”
Interaction: Total, but focused on creating more static documentation by the community
Strengths: It's a great web based collaboration platform. The ability to create common documents & review changes makes this application quite powerful for community groups.
Weaknesses: Wiki markup isn't consistent, it takes a bit of training for folks to get used to, editorial rights can be abused.
Activist Tips: Wiki webs are great tools for collaborative writing when your goal is to ultimately have a static or slowly-evolving document for internal use or public display: policy and procedures, grant proposals, reports can all be built effectively in a Wiki, with each contributor working in their own time on the single live document. As Wikis support roll-back to previous versions of pages, editorial control can be maintained while allowing freedom to each contributor.
Wikis can also serve as a shared brainstorming and notebook tool for activist groups -- though the fact that wiki information is not 'pushed' to users desktops requires that users building a project must intentionally visit and contribute to the Wiki. Twiki, which supports RSS feeds, can push notification of page changes to users, encouraging participation.
New users will need to be given a brief introduction to using Wiki, to give them familiarity with adding pages, editing content, and basic text styling, to ensure that they are comfortable in the Wiki environment.
As an example of how far groups can go in using Wiki as a writing tool, look at the multi-lingual Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org).
Example: http://thor.acedragon.co.uk/biconwiki/ (not using twiki)
Alternatives: Also consider the forums listed under the 'Wiki' heading in the left hand sidebar at Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/).
----
9. Back-End (eActions/ePetitions) “http://www.back-end.org/”
Interaction: It's a focused level of interaction, but asks permission to contact folks in the future.
Strengths: People are comfortable giving a minor level of support to an organizations cause through Petitions & eActions.
Weaknesses: They are most useful if there are multiple campaigns or opportunities for people to start becoming more educated & aware. The flexibility of Back-End makes it more time consuming to customize.
Activist Tips: Keep the text of the ePetition or eAction short & easy to read. Make sure to have links to other information about the campaign on your site that people can read up on if they are interested. Make sure that you ask for permission from your supporters to contact them. People like seeing other people's comments, so if possible display the and the number of signatories.
Example: http://www.fairvotecanada.org/petition.php/
Alternatives: simpetition ~PostNuke module http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpetition/
----
10. FPDF (eLeaflets/ePosters) (Dynamic PDF/Graphic Generation) “http://www.fpdf.org/”
Interaction: Simple off the web interaction. Allowing folks to download & print off posters, petitions, stickers and brochures customized online for their local campaigns.
Strengths: Good control over printed output, not dependent on the user's browser capabilities or Operating System.
Weaknesses: Introduces an additional server-side technology to accomplish PDF generation, which could have server performance impacts.
Activist Tips: If you want to be able to take your message to the streets and extend your brand to support local activists. Target specific communities on the fly with a customized pamphlet.
Example: http://www.afgha.com/?af=article&sid=37844
Alternatives: For some applications, CSS2 stylesheets (http://www.alistapart.com/articles/goingtoprint/) can be used to print simple dynamic content such as handbills. R&OS have produced a PDF class (http://www.ros.co.nz/pdf/) and there are a number of other graphic/pdf modification tools which are being developed.
----
Of course, in the rapidly evolving world of eActivism, any list of 10 anythings will have at least 11 members by the time it is completed! Emerging technologies that might be applied to eActivism include: RSS feeds, Friendster, cellphone texting, cam-phones, and audio blogs. Any of these may inspire or connect to Open Source applications. Older technologies such as chat and Internet telephony may also spring back onto the stage as activist solutions.
As well, the convergence of existing tools often leads to new solutions. We've selected TikiWiki, a tool that blends Wiki and Portal features, to round out our list of ten eActivist applications with its eleventh member.
----
11. TikiWiki “http://www.tikiwiki.org/”
Interaction: TikiWiki is a content management system for writers. It supports wikiwiki web pages, blogs, CMS news article publishing, discussion forums, a directory of links, a calendar, RSS newsfeeds, user-designed databases for tracking contacts/events, and many other things as lots of people added code to the product over the last year.
Strengths: A 'swiss army knife' tool with a massive feature set!
Weaknesses: make sure to use the latest version of TikiWiki (1.1.1 or higher)for improved speed over earlier, slower builds. TikiWiki shares the relatively rigid 'portal' look of phpNuke and other slashForum applications.
Activist Tips: Use the collaborative capabilities of TikiWiki to work with a dispersed group of authors on keeping the site's formal content fresh. Use the built-in blogs, chat forums and image galleries to build community interaction. The combination plays to TikiWiki's strengths as a multifunction tool for building a site that is both informational and actionable.
Example: http://www.greens-in.org/
Alternatives: Other general content management frameworks, such as Geeklog (http://www.geeklog.net/index.php) and Typo3 (http://www.typo3.org) also take the fusion approach -- but none include the Wiki capabilities of TikiWiki.
Dan & Mike would like to thank David Newman his contribution to this section.
----
Sorting them out
There are a number of ways to compare eActivist applications as an aid in deciding which to consider for your organization.
We have plotted these tools on the Surman-o-graph, (an emerging standard in analyzing civil society communications) clustering them in the Formal/Centralized and Informal/Distributed quadrants:
http://www.openconcept.ca/images/surman-o-graph_web.gif
In deciding which specific tool to apply to your eActivist problems, consider the following questions:
* Does the tool do what I need 'out-of-the-box', or will it need to be customized?
* Is the user interface simple for the people who will be working with the application?
* Is there reasonable documentation and support? Does the support forum handle newbie questions well?
* Does the tool use technologies and languages we are already familiar with?
* Is there an on-line demo my users can play around with to see if the tool 'feels right' to them?
* Is the tool's programming team actively developing and maintaining the tool?
* Is the tool one of the more popular ones in it's category?
A yes to a majority of these questions is a sign that you've may have the right application for your eActivist job.
There are a lot of Open Source tools out there which you can employ for your campaigns. We have tried to list some of the ones which we feel are the most useful in the fall of 2003. Like the Internet as a whole, Open Source projects tend to evolve quickly and new initiatives are popping up all of the time. The challenge for anyone putting together an activist web site will be in blending these and other tools into a seamless user interface. Customizing and adapting any software to meet your needs can be time consuming, but often the development communities behind these Open Source projects can help point you in the right direction. Most Open Source projects also have web developers who can be hired to modify the code that they have developed. Any customized code can be brought back into the core of the project so that it can benefit the whole community.
Bios
Dan Bashaw - dbashaw@telus.net
Dan works as a web developer for TM Newmedia, a Victoria BC eLearning and web development company, is an activist with the Victoria Independent Media Center, and is working on a project to to create CommunityPipe, a free and easily replicated open source hosting service for small-scale community and activist web sites.
Mike Gifford - mike@openconcept.ca / “http://www.openconcept.ca”
Mike is the president of OpenConcept Consulting, Open Source Web Applications for Social Change. OpenConcept is the lead developer of Back-End.org CMS.
* Many of these applications will run on both proprietary & non-priorietary Operating Systems, however, you will have to check with your web host to determine if you have the software which is required.
Steven L. Clift - W: http://www.publicus.net Minneapolis - - - E: clift@publicus.net Minnesota - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - - M: +1.612.203.5181
Join my Democracies Online Newswire: http://e-democracy.org/do My blogging experiment: http://travelscoops.com
*** Past Messages, Discussion “http://e-democracy.org/do”
To subscribe, e-mail: listserv@tc.umn.edu Message body: SUB DO-WIRE
To UNSUBSCRIBE instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE
Please send submissions to: clift@publicus.net
Update
Dot Org media offer a very useful evaluation of “Using Open Source Software in your Nonprofit Organisation”.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A Resources For Strengthing NGOs
The organization featured here, Africa Media Online, is a commercial enterprise, but their website points out many aspects that are important to having a presence in the digital age. Even though NGOs may think that they do not have a “product” for sale; nonetheless, they have the task of selling themselves as a responsible organization with valid and important goals. Because of this, they need to have access to images and they should be able to ensure that the images that they produce get the widest possible dissimination.
Too many NGOs are languishing in the “backwaters” of cyberspace, getting too few “hits” or no hits at all. Professional assistance, such as that provided by a company such as African Media Online can help to get an NGO’s message out to the broader world and create and foster a more professional appearance. This is not and advertisement for Africa Media Online, but an illustration of what type of resources are available to help grow NGOs as organizations.
Below is the text of Africa Media Online’s “About Us” webpage on its website
Africa Media Online is a technological bridge enabling you to get your collections to a global audience. We provide online media library systems, professional digitisation services, digital imaging training for professionals, and access to a worldwide audience.
What type of organisation is Africa Media Online and who owns it?
Africa Media Online Pty. (Ltd.) is a private company registered in South Africa. As such it is required to undergo an independent audit on an annual basis. Africa Media Online is also 100% African owned. The company’s majority shareholding is controlled by a black empowerment company, Kabusha Technology Investments Pty. (Ltd.). Minor shares are also owned by the Larsen Family Trust and Dr Rouen Bruni. In view of its shareholding Africa Media Online is considered by the South African Department of Trade and Industry to be a black owned company and an HDI.
A brief history of Africa Media Online
Africa Media Online was founded in March 2000 by journalist and photographer, David Larsen, with designer and internet entrepreneur, Paul De Villiers. Africa Media Online was a Joint Venture between their respective closed corporations, The Media Bank and The Blue Box respectively. In 2002 Africa Media Online became a more formal entity when it became a closed corporation.
Initially Africa Media Online was a technology company developing an online media library system called MEMAT as well as a picture library which matured with the launch of africanpictures.net in 2004. In October 2004 David Larsen left freelance journalism and photography to concentrate full time on Africa Media Online. In 2005 africanpictures.net joined the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA) and later that year launched a high end scanning operation and a professional keywording service, as well as professional training in digital imaging with Graeme Cookson.
In 2006 Larsen bought De Villiers’ shares and became sole owner. In 2007 he managed to attract investment from Dr Rouen Bruni and Kabusha Technology Investments Pty. (Ltd.) and the closed corporation was transformed into a limited company. The directors of the company are now Executive Chairman, Sandile Swana, and Director, David Larsen. In 2006 Africa Media Online initiated the founding of the Digitise Africa Trust to assist with digitisation projects and training initiatives that require initial funding to get going.
Our vision is to enable Africans to tell Africa’s story. In the "Information Society," if we are to create some semblance of global information democracy, it is important that Africans are heard from their perspective. We work with media organisations, media professionals, corporates and business entities, museums, archives, libraries, galleries, government institutions and others to enable Africans to:
1. Digitise their media collections,
2. Retain ownership of their media collections,
3. Grant secure, efficient and cost effective access to those collections,
4. Where appropriate, to present those collections to a global audience, and
5. Where appropriate, to earn an income from the sale of use rights to those collections.
What we do toward this end is:
Training: Africa Media Online runs masterclasses specifically geared at working professionals so that you can compete in the global information economy and build collections that will last for generations. We draw on leading digital imaging consultants from around the world giving African institutions exposure to the cutting edge of the global industry. more…
Scanning: With a specific focus on whole collections, Africa Media Online’s Digitisation Service has developed systems to efficiently digitize large numbers of pictures, moving images, sound, documents, illustrations and objects at archival quality and relatively low cost. more…
Retouching: While preservation concerns are prime when digitising, there will be a certain number of images that will be needed for promotional materials, use in exhibits, and used by publishing markets. These should be cleaned and colour corrected. Africa Media Online’s ImagePerfect service brings the best out of your images using experienced staff and the right tools. more…
Metadata Capture: Capturing quality metadata about an object is as vital as digitising the object in the first place. Africa Media Online’s MetadataCapture service enables the capture of comprehensive metadata in conformity with world standards such as Dublin Core. Our online systems enable subject experts to contribute and act as editors. more…
Keywording: Keywording is the essential ingredient for granting access to your collections by the public, researchers, and your own staff. Africa Media Online’s professional KeywordingService will ensure consistent quality across your collection. The service uses a controlled vocabulary specifically designed for the keywording of collections allowing for intelligent search functionality. more…
Archiving: In spite of being digitized, the original object retains its status as the original, and needs to be preserved for many reasons. After scanning Africa Media Online works with your collection managers to store your collection in archival quality preservation materials.
Storing: Digital files can be lost far more easily than they are created. Africa Media Online’s expertise in this area is available to museums and archives that have work digitised by us. In addition Africa Media Online’s online system serves as a secure backup for your valuable files.
Hosting: Secure online access to your collections in a “virtual museum” is not only valuable to your staff and colleagues, but also to a global audience. Africa Media Online’s Media Management Technology (MEMAT) makes this a reality on your own web site. You can load images remotely, search your collections, create slide shows, and even manage the sale of use rights. more…
Marketing: Having secure online access to your collections has potential to greatly increase the number of visitors coming through your doors. Africa Media Online’s MEMAT online collection management system can capture and manage both actual and virtual visitors to your institution and can send graphically rich emails directly off the site to interested persons around the world. In addition there is the opportunity for appropriate parts of your collections to be represented on africanpictures.net, where our staff actively market them to appropriate publishing markets around the world. more…
Selling: In the information economy, media collections are gaining commercial value for media markets. Whether material is needed for a television documentary or for a book, institutions safeguarding public and private heritage assets need the capability to manage and sell use rights without losing control. Calculating usage rates, taking payments, and delivering invoices and legally binding contracts which limit use, is all automated on your MEMAT system. And if your work is represented on africanpictures.net, our sales and accounting staff handle africanpictures.net sales to select markets for you.
Too many NGOs are languishing in the “backwaters” of cyberspace, getting too few “hits” or no hits at all. Professional assistance, such as that provided by a company such as African Media Online can help to get an NGO’s message out to the broader world and create and foster a more professional appearance. This is not and advertisement for Africa Media Online, but an illustration of what type of resources are available to help grow NGOs as organizations.
Below is the text of Africa Media Online’s “About Us” webpage on its website
Africa Media Online is a technological bridge enabling you to get your collections to a global audience. We provide online media library systems, professional digitisation services, digital imaging training for professionals, and access to a worldwide audience.
What type of organisation is Africa Media Online and who owns it?
Africa Media Online Pty. (Ltd.) is a private company registered in South Africa. As such it is required to undergo an independent audit on an annual basis. Africa Media Online is also 100% African owned. The company’s majority shareholding is controlled by a black empowerment company, Kabusha Technology Investments Pty. (Ltd.). Minor shares are also owned by the Larsen Family Trust and Dr Rouen Bruni. In view of its shareholding Africa Media Online is considered by the South African Department of Trade and Industry to be a black owned company and an HDI.
A brief history of Africa Media Online
Africa Media Online was founded in March 2000 by journalist and photographer, David Larsen, with designer and internet entrepreneur, Paul De Villiers. Africa Media Online was a Joint Venture between their respective closed corporations, The Media Bank and The Blue Box respectively. In 2002 Africa Media Online became a more formal entity when it became a closed corporation.
Initially Africa Media Online was a technology company developing an online media library system called MEMAT as well as a picture library which matured with the launch of africanpictures.net in 2004. In October 2004 David Larsen left freelance journalism and photography to concentrate full time on Africa Media Online. In 2005 africanpictures.net joined the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies (BAPLA) and later that year launched a high end scanning operation and a professional keywording service, as well as professional training in digital imaging with Graeme Cookson.
In 2006 Larsen bought De Villiers’ shares and became sole owner. In 2007 he managed to attract investment from Dr Rouen Bruni and Kabusha Technology Investments Pty. (Ltd.) and the closed corporation was transformed into a limited company. The directors of the company are now Executive Chairman, Sandile Swana, and Director, David Larsen. In 2006 Africa Media Online initiated the founding of the Digitise Africa Trust to assist with digitisation projects and training initiatives that require initial funding to get going.
Our vision is to enable Africans to tell Africa’s story. In the "Information Society," if we are to create some semblance of global information democracy, it is important that Africans are heard from their perspective. We work with media organisations, media professionals, corporates and business entities, museums, archives, libraries, galleries, government institutions and others to enable Africans to:
1. Digitise their media collections,
2. Retain ownership of their media collections,
3. Grant secure, efficient and cost effective access to those collections,
4. Where appropriate, to present those collections to a global audience, and
5. Where appropriate, to earn an income from the sale of use rights to those collections.
What we do toward this end is:
Training: Africa Media Online runs masterclasses specifically geared at working professionals so that you can compete in the global information economy and build collections that will last for generations. We draw on leading digital imaging consultants from around the world giving African institutions exposure to the cutting edge of the global industry. more…
Scanning: With a specific focus on whole collections, Africa Media Online’s Digitisation Service has developed systems to efficiently digitize large numbers of pictures, moving images, sound, documents, illustrations and objects at archival quality and relatively low cost. more…
Retouching: While preservation concerns are prime when digitising, there will be a certain number of images that will be needed for promotional materials, use in exhibits, and used by publishing markets. These should be cleaned and colour corrected. Africa Media Online’s ImagePerfect service brings the best out of your images using experienced staff and the right tools. more…
Metadata Capture: Capturing quality metadata about an object is as vital as digitising the object in the first place. Africa Media Online’s MetadataCapture service enables the capture of comprehensive metadata in conformity with world standards such as Dublin Core. Our online systems enable subject experts to contribute and act as editors. more…
Keywording: Keywording is the essential ingredient for granting access to your collections by the public, researchers, and your own staff. Africa Media Online’s professional KeywordingService will ensure consistent quality across your collection. The service uses a controlled vocabulary specifically designed for the keywording of collections allowing for intelligent search functionality. more…
Archiving: In spite of being digitized, the original object retains its status as the original, and needs to be preserved for many reasons. After scanning Africa Media Online works with your collection managers to store your collection in archival quality preservation materials.
Storing: Digital files can be lost far more easily than they are created. Africa Media Online’s expertise in this area is available to museums and archives that have work digitised by us. In addition Africa Media Online’s online system serves as a secure backup for your valuable files.
Hosting: Secure online access to your collections in a “virtual museum” is not only valuable to your staff and colleagues, but also to a global audience. Africa Media Online’s Media Management Technology (MEMAT) makes this a reality on your own web site. You can load images remotely, search your collections, create slide shows, and even manage the sale of use rights. more…
Marketing: Having secure online access to your collections has potential to greatly increase the number of visitors coming through your doors. Africa Media Online’s MEMAT online collection management system can capture and manage both actual and virtual visitors to your institution and can send graphically rich emails directly off the site to interested persons around the world. In addition there is the opportunity for appropriate parts of your collections to be represented on africanpictures.net, where our staff actively market them to appropriate publishing markets around the world. more…
Selling: In the information economy, media collections are gaining commercial value for media markets. Whether material is needed for a television documentary or for a book, institutions safeguarding public and private heritage assets need the capability to manage and sell use rights without losing control. Calculating usage rates, taking payments, and delivering invoices and legally binding contracts which limit use, is all automated on your MEMAT system. And if your work is represented on africanpictures.net, our sales and accounting staff handle africanpictures.net sales to select markets for you.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
A Great Read by AfricaFiles’ “At Issue Ezine”
Most of the readers of this blog are probably familiar with AfricaFiles . And for those of you who are not, “AfricaFiles” as it states on its own website, “is a network of volunteers committed to promoting African perspectives and alternative analyses for human rights and economic justice in Africa.”
One of AfricaFiles’s projects is the “At Issue Ezine .” The purpose of At Issue it “to publish well-researched, provocative and insightful original articles on important current themes in sub-Saharan Africa.” While At Issue was launched in February 2005 it has “roots” that go back through other publications for several years. The At Issue Editorial Committee of AfricaFiles, was the core group that got the ball rolling in 2005.
The Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa ’s newsletter entitled the “TCLSAC Report ” that was published from 1977 to 1984 was the oldest of the publications from which At Issue began to evolve. In 1985, and for the following 15 years, TCLSAC published the “Southern Africa Report” (SAR) that was a full hard copy magazine, which replaced the TCLSAC Report. When TCLSAC published its last issue of SAR in October of 2000 it was replaced with the AfricaFiles website.
In May of 2003 “At Issue Forum ” a section of AfricaFiles began publishing original timely articles and formed an electronically based bridge back to the previous publications such as SAR. The editors of At Issue Ezine operate as a collective of volunteers and they have no paid staff. In 2004, the editors began work to launch a “proper ezine” and At Issue Ezine rolled out in 2005. “
In its seventh volume, At Issue Ezine is focusing on the ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF AFRICAN WOMEN and the volume will be published from January through April of 2008. The first article, an editorial by Anene Ejikeme Anene Ejikeme: "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN" is already posted and can be found at: http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp . This blogger thinks that "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN" is a well thought out and well written editorial that deserves widespread readership. And if it is an indication of things to come, Volume Seven of At Issue Ezine will provide a good deal of worthwhile reading this winter and into the coming spring. In fact, you may wish to browse the archives of AfricaFiles and At Issue Ezine for other very informative articles as well.
EDITORIAL: "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN"
At Issue Ezine
AfricaFiles
One of AfricaFiles’s projects is the “At Issue Ezine .” The purpose of At Issue it “to publish well-researched, provocative and insightful original articles on important current themes in sub-Saharan Africa.” While At Issue was launched in February 2005 it has “roots” that go back through other publications for several years. The At Issue Editorial Committee of AfricaFiles, was the core group that got the ball rolling in 2005.
The Toronto Committee for the Liberation of Southern Africa ’s newsletter entitled the “TCLSAC Report ” that was published from 1977 to 1984 was the oldest of the publications from which At Issue began to evolve. In 1985, and for the following 15 years, TCLSAC published the “Southern Africa Report” (SAR) that was a full hard copy magazine, which replaced the TCLSAC Report. When TCLSAC published its last issue of SAR in October of 2000 it was replaced with the AfricaFiles website.
In May of 2003 “At Issue Forum ” a section of AfricaFiles began publishing original timely articles and formed an electronically based bridge back to the previous publications such as SAR. The editors of At Issue Ezine operate as a collective of volunteers and they have no paid staff. In 2004, the editors began work to launch a “proper ezine” and At Issue Ezine rolled out in 2005. “
In its seventh volume, At Issue Ezine is focusing on the ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT OF AFRICAN WOMEN and the volume will be published from January through April of 2008. The first article, an editorial by Anene Ejikeme Anene Ejikeme: "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN" is already posted and can be found at: http://www.africafiles.org/atissueezine.asp . This blogger thinks that "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN" is a well thought out and well written editorial that deserves widespread readership. And if it is an indication of things to come, Volume Seven of At Issue Ezine will provide a good deal of worthwhile reading this winter and into the coming spring. In fact, you may wish to browse the archives of AfricaFiles and At Issue Ezine for other very informative articles as well.
EDITORIAL: "LET THE WOMEN SPEAK! AND LISTEN"
At Issue Ezine
AfricaFiles
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
RED AFRO-VENEZUELA
I apologize for any errors in translating a portion of the text below from Spanish to English and I welcome and corrections that might be suggested.
The words below were taken from the web site of "Red Afro-Venezuela" and state the nature of the organization and its objectives. The link for Red Afro-Venezuela is posted at the end of this article.
The Bolivarian constitution of Venezuela has sought to introduce a process of restructuring the Republic through deep social transformations that will establish a democratic, sovereign, responsible, multi-ethnic and pluricultural society, comprised of men and women who have a strong interest of their national community while maintaining humanistic values as well as national identity ".
It is indeed in this framework of institutional transformation that the Afro organizations began several years ago to look for recognition in cultural, social, legal, educational and agricultural spheres to stimulate the social inclusion of the Afro-Venezuelan populations and to eradicate their systemic exclusion that was the norm in years past.
For this it was necessary, as one of the essential elements, to organize a network of organizations of the different Afro-Venezuelans communities being considered the following ones:
OBJECTIVES
- To be included in the processes of participation in the different local, regional and national plans as it establishes the national constitution.
- To promote through activism the allocation of investment resources in the respective communities.
- To contribute to the protection of the Cultural and Natural Patrimony of the Afro-Venezuelan communities in the form of sustainable development.
- To foment the local, regional and national organization of the Afro-Venezuelan communities for their inclusion in national programs and projects in accordance with Articles 185 and 182 of the Bolivarian Constitution and referred as the Councils of Public Planning.
- To fight openly against any form of racial discrimination and to put in practice the plan of action of the World-wide Conference Against the Racism (Surafrica 2001) signed by our country
--------------------------------------------------
Below is a letter to African American Organizations from the Afro Venezuelan Network that is a shining example of how members of the African Diaspora should call upon one another to solve our common problems. The letter was delivered to TransAfrica Forum and is posted at their web site.
Communications such as this should be circulated throughout the African communities so that they can strengthen our solidarity.
--------------------------------------------------
July 2004
Afro Venezuelan Network Letter to African American Organizations
In the name of the Afro Venezuelan Network, a group of thirty community-based organizations from eight Venezuelan states, we call on you, our sister organizations of African Americans, to ask that you stand in solidarity with us so that we can end the climate of violence perpetuated against the Venezuelan democratic process. This violence is being provoked by anti-democratic sectors in our country that actively participated in the coup d'etat of April 11, 2002. A number of these coup leaders, supporters and endorsers have been financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which receives your tax dollars from the United States Congress. Even today, the NED is being used as a channel to fund those who participated in, or endorsed the coup, as well as the oil manager's strike that paralyzed our national economy shortly thereafter.
As citizens of the United States you are in a position to demand that your country not intervene in Venezuela's political process. This is why we ask that you do all you can to ensure that Members of Congress (including our Afro-American brothers and sisters in that body) maintain a heightened scrutiny of how the NED uses its money.
Since 1999, the most socially and ethnically marginalized sectors of Venezuela-- the poor, the indigenous and peoples of African descent have been able to actively participate in the country's social transformation, working together to create public policies that are eradicating the fatal cycle of poverty, and leading to redistribution of land, the elimination of illiteracy and increased access to healthcare. As well, there has been a solidifying of the struggle against racism and racial discrimination.
This has been possible through the process of participatory democracy that began in 1999, and which has suffered an ongoing threat from anti-constitutional sectors that do not respect the rules of democratic participation. Instead they promote ongoing violence using the national and international mass media.
African American brothers and sisters, Afro Latinos and Afro Latinas, Venezuela is at a crucial moment in our democratic history. Venezuela (and its process of participatory democracy) represents--even with its faults--a model of progress for thousands of those living without hope. Though it is up to those of us in Venezuela to decide our future and our fate, you can enter into this struggle with us, by doing what you can do in your country, to ensure that Venezuela's right to determine its political direction is respected without any U.S. interference, or intervention directly or indirectly. This is a right that is due to any and all sovereign peoples.
With the pride of our Afro Venezuelan heritage, and the guidance of our ancestors,
Jorge Veloz
Coordinator General
Nirva Camacho
Coordinator of Institutional Relations
Jesus Chucho Garcia
Coordinator of International Relations
This letter may be seen at its original TransAfrica Forum site .
The RED AFRO-VENEZUELA web site is in Spanish, but it can be translated using " Bable Fish" or some other Translation program.
The words below were taken from the web site of "Red Afro-Venezuela" and state the nature of the organization and its objectives. The link for Red Afro-Venezuela is posted at the end of this article.
The Bolivarian constitution of Venezuela has sought to introduce a process of restructuring the Republic through deep social transformations that will establish a democratic, sovereign, responsible, multi-ethnic and pluricultural society, comprised of men and women who have a strong interest of their national community while maintaining humanistic values as well as national identity ".
It is indeed in this framework of institutional transformation that the Afro organizations began several years ago to look for recognition in cultural, social, legal, educational and agricultural spheres to stimulate the social inclusion of the Afro-Venezuelan populations and to eradicate their systemic exclusion that was the norm in years past.
For this it was necessary, as one of the essential elements, to organize a network of organizations of the different Afro-Venezuelans communities being considered the following ones:
OBJECTIVES
- To be included in the processes of participation in the different local, regional and national plans as it establishes the national constitution.
- To promote through activism the allocation of investment resources in the respective communities.
- To contribute to the protection of the Cultural and Natural Patrimony of the Afro-Venezuelan communities in the form of sustainable development.
- To foment the local, regional and national organization of the Afro-Venezuelan communities for their inclusion in national programs and projects in accordance with Articles 185 and 182 of the Bolivarian Constitution and referred as the Councils of Public Planning.
- To fight openly against any form of racial discrimination and to put in practice the plan of action of the World-wide Conference Against the Racism (Surafrica 2001) signed by our country
--------------------------------------------------
Below is a letter to African American Organizations from the Afro Venezuelan Network that is a shining example of how members of the African Diaspora should call upon one another to solve our common problems. The letter was delivered to TransAfrica Forum and is posted at their web site.
Communications such as this should be circulated throughout the African communities so that they can strengthen our solidarity.
--------------------------------------------------
July 2004
Afro Venezuelan Network Letter to African American Organizations
In the name of the Afro Venezuelan Network, a group of thirty community-based organizations from eight Venezuelan states, we call on you, our sister organizations of African Americans, to ask that you stand in solidarity with us so that we can end the climate of violence perpetuated against the Venezuelan democratic process. This violence is being provoked by anti-democratic sectors in our country that actively participated in the coup d'etat of April 11, 2002. A number of these coup leaders, supporters and endorsers have been financed through the National Endowment for Democracy, which receives your tax dollars from the United States Congress. Even today, the NED is being used as a channel to fund those who participated in, or endorsed the coup, as well as the oil manager's strike that paralyzed our national economy shortly thereafter.
As citizens of the United States you are in a position to demand that your country not intervene in Venezuela's political process. This is why we ask that you do all you can to ensure that Members of Congress (including our Afro-American brothers and sisters in that body) maintain a heightened scrutiny of how the NED uses its money.
Since 1999, the most socially and ethnically marginalized sectors of Venezuela-- the poor, the indigenous and peoples of African descent have been able to actively participate in the country's social transformation, working together to create public policies that are eradicating the fatal cycle of poverty, and leading to redistribution of land, the elimination of illiteracy and increased access to healthcare. As well, there has been a solidifying of the struggle against racism and racial discrimination.
This has been possible through the process of participatory democracy that began in 1999, and which has suffered an ongoing threat from anti-constitutional sectors that do not respect the rules of democratic participation. Instead they promote ongoing violence using the national and international mass media.
African American brothers and sisters, Afro Latinos and Afro Latinas, Venezuela is at a crucial moment in our democratic history. Venezuela (and its process of participatory democracy) represents--even with its faults--a model of progress for thousands of those living without hope. Though it is up to those of us in Venezuela to decide our future and our fate, you can enter into this struggle with us, by doing what you can do in your country, to ensure that Venezuela's right to determine its political direction is respected without any U.S. interference, or intervention directly or indirectly. This is a right that is due to any and all sovereign peoples.
With the pride of our Afro Venezuelan heritage, and the guidance of our ancestors,
Jorge Veloz
Coordinator General
Nirva Camacho
Coordinator of Institutional Relations
Jesus Chucho Garcia
Coordinator of International Relations
This letter may be seen at its original TransAfrica Forum site .
The RED AFRO-VENEZUELA web site is in Spanish, but it can be translated using " Bable Fish" or some other Translation program.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
UNITED NATIONS ONLINE VOLUNTEERING SERVICE
Many NGOs are constantly looking for assistance to help them carry out the numerous and varied tasks necessary to accomplish their charitable goals. Quite often skilled volunteer help can not be found nearby – particularly in rural areas. One answer to this dilemma is to enlist the aid of Online Volunteers. I have written about online volunteering in the past and now I would like to pass along some tips from the United Nations Online Volunteering service that can help NGO decide if the United Nations Online Volunteering service is for them. The United Nations Online Volunteering service can be found at the end of this post.
-----------------------
O nline Volunteers undertake a variety of assignments for development organizations through this Online Volunteering service: translations, research, web design, data analysis, database construction, proposal writing, editing articles, online mentoring, publication design, moderating an online discussion group, or any other services that can be done through computer networks.
Online Volunteering provides development organizations with new volunteers, new and additional talent and skills, and a more diverse volunteer-base. It can also help promote your organization and its mission to a much broader audience. United Nations Online Volunteering service See the benefits of online volunteering .
This Online Volunteering service is unique in that it provides not only the largest database of Online Volunteering opportunities, but is also the only web site and matching service devoted to Online Volunteering to support the work of development organizations worldwide.
Who can host Online Volunteers via this service?
Any non-profit organizations actively working in or for developing countries. The first step is that you will need to join and then register your organization as a Group. Once your organization has been approved, you will be able to post Online Volunteering assignments.
Before you start posting assignments, make sure you are ready to host an Online Volunteer!
There are lots of preparations to make before you begin recruiting Online Volunteers. Make sure your organization is Ready to Host Online Volunteers. This evaluation can help you put the systems in place to get Online Volunteers in action for your organization right away!
Examples of Assignments
What can Online Volunteers do for your organization? Find ideas on the Examples of Assignments page, or by browsing through the list of currently open Online Volunteering opportunities posted by other organizations.
Basics: Recruiting and Involving an Online Volunteer
After your organization has registered, what's next? We offer complete details on how your organization can create Online Volunteering assignments, how your organization will receive applications, how to respond to candidates, how to orient new Online Volunteers into your organization, and the role the UN Volunteers program plays after you recruit an Online Volunteer.
How do you manage Online Volunteers?
There are many simple things you can do to ensure success in your involvement of Online Volunteers. Our service offers a growing list of suggestions and guidelines to help.
What about security and privacy?
We offer tips on how to ensure security and privacy in your interactions with Online Volunteers, for both your organization and individual volunteers. Also, be aware that there are fixed regulations about handling personal data, anti-virus software, etc., that both you and your Online Volunteer have to agree upon.
United Nations Online Volunteering service information for Hosting Organizations
-----------------------
O nline Volunteers undertake a variety of assignments for development organizations through this Online Volunteering service: translations, research, web design, data analysis, database construction, proposal writing, editing articles, online mentoring, publication design, moderating an online discussion group, or any other services that can be done through computer networks.
Online Volunteering provides development organizations with new volunteers, new and additional talent and skills, and a more diverse volunteer-base. It can also help promote your organization and its mission to a much broader audience. United Nations Online Volunteering service See the benefits of online volunteering .
This Online Volunteering service is unique in that it provides not only the largest database of Online Volunteering opportunities, but is also the only web site and matching service devoted to Online Volunteering to support the work of development organizations worldwide.
Who can host Online Volunteers via this service?
Any non-profit organizations actively working in or for developing countries. The first step is that you will need to join and then register your organization as a Group. Once your organization has been approved, you will be able to post Online Volunteering assignments.
Before you start posting assignments, make sure you are ready to host an Online Volunteer!
There are lots of preparations to make before you begin recruiting Online Volunteers. Make sure your organization is Ready to Host Online Volunteers. This evaluation can help you put the systems in place to get Online Volunteers in action for your organization right away!
Examples of Assignments
What can Online Volunteers do for your organization? Find ideas on the Examples of Assignments page, or by browsing through the list of currently open Online Volunteering opportunities posted by other organizations.
Basics: Recruiting and Involving an Online Volunteer
After your organization has registered, what's next? We offer complete details on how your organization can create Online Volunteering assignments, how your organization will receive applications, how to respond to candidates, how to orient new Online Volunteers into your organization, and the role the UN Volunteers program plays after you recruit an Online Volunteer.
How do you manage Online Volunteers?
There are many simple things you can do to ensure success in your involvement of Online Volunteers. Our service offers a growing list of suggestions and guidelines to help.
What about security and privacy?
We offer tips on how to ensure security and privacy in your interactions with Online Volunteers, for both your organization and individual volunteers. Also, be aware that there are fixed regulations about handling personal data, anti-virus software, etc., that both you and your Online Volunteer have to agree upon.
United Nations Online Volunteering service information for Hosting Organizations
Friday, December 28, 2007
FORGE – ANOTHER TESTIMENT TO WHAT COMMITTED YOUTH CAN DO
Here is another of my favorite stories. I like this type of story because it concerns young people taking the lead and taking charge in making the world a better place.
FORGE Founder & Executive Director Kjerstin Erickson grew up working in community service. She has worked as a peer educator, a mentor for troubled youth, a liaison for the deaf, a representative of the California Youth Council, a Chair of her County’s Youth Volunteer Corps, and a program participant of Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.
As a junior in high school, Kjerstin traveled with her family to Kenya for a photo safari. The glaring lack of basic resources inspired Kjerstin to focus her humanitarian efforts on Africa.
In 2001, Kjerstin entered Stanford and began pursuit of a degree in Public Policy and African Studies.
In July of 2003, FORGE Founder and Executive Director Kjerstin Erickson was one of eleven Stanford University students to travel to Botswana to work in the Dukwi Refugee Camp as a pilot project for the World Refugee Academy. Touched and inspired by the refugees she met from all across the African continent, Kjerstin came to see refugees as a neglected solution to many of the issues that plague sub-Saharan Africa.
Immediately following her summer as a leader of the World Refugee Academy Pilot project, Kjerstin embarked on the SS Universe Explorer to circumnavigate the globe through the study abroad program, Semester at Sea. Tanzania was one of the nine countries on the Semester at Sea Fall 2003 itinerary and, after developing a passion for refugee issues in Botswana, Kjerstin wanted to provide an opportunity for other Semester at Sea students to do the same. Since safaris were the only trip options offered by Semester at Sea, Kjerstin organized a trip for students to visit a refugee camp. Under her leadership, a group of 18 students traveled to the town of Kigoma on the western boarder of Tanzania. There, they met with refugees, orphans, health officials, and local aid workers in an attempt to understand the capacity of non-governmental institutions to affect change in a foreign environment.
When they returned to the ship, this group of 18 students committed themselves to raising awareness about refugee issues. Soon, the shipboard community was abuzz and inspired. Their passion and desire to contribute was palpable. Not wanting to see such incredible energy to go waste, Kjerstin set out to create a mechanism to harness this potential. Given her previous experience working in refugee camps, Kjerstin recognized that a similar organization could be created on a much larger scale.
Thus, the idea for FORGE began to develop. Applications were put out, and, after a lengthy interview and decision process, the pioneering 25 members of the first FORGE team were selected.
It soon became clear that FORGE was something special. After creating their own micro-service projects, raising over $80,000 USD, and meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Rudd Lubbers, it was obvious that the FORGE team members were more than average college students - they were ambassadors to the world.
As FORGE grew in numbers, so it grew in impact. Now going into its fourth year of operation, FORGE has brought 100 ‘Project Facilitators’ to Africa, served communities of over 70,000 refugees, and implemented more than 60 community development projects. And FORGE is still young.
In 2008, FORGE is embarking on a new project model that transfers Project Facilitator responsibilities directly into the hands of refugee leaders within the communities where FORGE works. From 2008 forwards, all FORGE projects will be designed and implemented by the communities themselves. FORGE is confident that this model will bring a new level of impact and provide an even stronger foundation for the future prosperity of the African continent.
Forge also has a Newsletter and you can subscribe here .
-------------------------------
One of FORGE’s program is a very successful microfinance program. Below is how FORGE describes how this program got started.
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program represents FORGE’s Microfinance division. In its first year of existence, it has provided loans to 112 individuals, allowing them to transform their lives through economic self-sufficiency.
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program is very different from traditional microfinance initiatives. Instead of simply giving and recollecting loans, the FORGE Micro-Finance Program ensures that all of its loan recipients are fully prepared to start a small business. Before receiving their loan, all loan recipients must go through a two month training process. The educational curriculum was developed in conjunction with highly experienced academics and is taught by FORGE’s exceptionally talented and well-trained refugee staff. The curriculum focuses on entrepreneurship, business principles, accounting skills, all specially-tailored to the African refugee small business setting.
With hundreds of new loans in the works for 2007, the positive impact of the FORGE Micro-Finance Program is expanding quickly. The FORGE Micro-Finance Program, led by International Relations Director Esther Chou (FORGE Meheba ’05), Communications Director Nayeli Vivanco (FORGE Meheba ’06), and Operations Director Pete D’Aleo (FORGE Meheba ’06), is on the rise.
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program began when Esther Chou, a FORGE Meheba 2005 veteran, returned to Zambia in late 2005 in order to investigate the best ways to implement an entrepreneurship & micro-finance initiative in Meheba. From Zambia, Esther worked closely with Nayeli Vivanco and Pete D’Aleo to design business skills curriculum and a loan model that best suited the community of Meheba. Their work was guided by the expertise and support of Northeastern University Executive Professor Dennis Shaughnessy.
Upon arriving in Meheba, Nayeli & Pete immediately got to work with Esther, to build a the FORGE Micro-Finance Program office and select a staff. Over the next few weeks, the three directors carefully trained the staff and opened the institute to enrollment.
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program’s students and loan-seekers proved to be a huge success. The FORGE Micro-Finance Program’s loan repayment rate stands at 94%.
Currently, all three FORGE Micro-Finance Program directors are refining the FORGE Micro-Finance Program model, marketing the program, and raising the funds necessary to expand classes and loans further into the future. For more information on the FORGE Micro-Finance Program please click here .
Hopefully, FORGE’s story will inspire all of those who have an interest in making the world a better place.
FORGE
FORGE Founder & Executive Director Kjerstin Erickson grew up working in community service. She has worked as a peer educator, a mentor for troubled youth, a liaison for the deaf, a representative of the California Youth Council, a Chair of her County’s Youth Volunteer Corps, and a program participant of Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.
As a junior in high school, Kjerstin traveled with her family to Kenya for a photo safari. The glaring lack of basic resources inspired Kjerstin to focus her humanitarian efforts on Africa.
In 2001, Kjerstin entered Stanford and began pursuit of a degree in Public Policy and African Studies.
In July of 2003, FORGE Founder and Executive Director Kjerstin Erickson was one of eleven Stanford University students to travel to Botswana to work in the Dukwi Refugee Camp as a pilot project for the World Refugee Academy. Touched and inspired by the refugees she met from all across the African continent, Kjerstin came to see refugees as a neglected solution to many of the issues that plague sub-Saharan Africa.
Immediately following her summer as a leader of the World Refugee Academy Pilot project, Kjerstin embarked on the SS Universe Explorer to circumnavigate the globe through the study abroad program, Semester at Sea. Tanzania was one of the nine countries on the Semester at Sea Fall 2003 itinerary and, after developing a passion for refugee issues in Botswana, Kjerstin wanted to provide an opportunity for other Semester at Sea students to do the same. Since safaris were the only trip options offered by Semester at Sea, Kjerstin organized a trip for students to visit a refugee camp. Under her leadership, a group of 18 students traveled to the town of Kigoma on the western boarder of Tanzania. There, they met with refugees, orphans, health officials, and local aid workers in an attempt to understand the capacity of non-governmental institutions to affect change in a foreign environment.
When they returned to the ship, this group of 18 students committed themselves to raising awareness about refugee issues. Soon, the shipboard community was abuzz and inspired. Their passion and desire to contribute was palpable. Not wanting to see such incredible energy to go waste, Kjerstin set out to create a mechanism to harness this potential. Given her previous experience working in refugee camps, Kjerstin recognized that a similar organization could be created on a much larger scale.
Thus, the idea for FORGE began to develop. Applications were put out, and, after a lengthy interview and decision process, the pioneering 25 members of the first FORGE team were selected.
It soon became clear that FORGE was something special. After creating their own micro-service projects, raising over $80,000 USD, and meeting with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Rudd Lubbers, it was obvious that the FORGE team members were more than average college students - they were ambassadors to the world.
As FORGE grew in numbers, so it grew in impact. Now going into its fourth year of operation, FORGE has brought 100 ‘Project Facilitators’ to Africa, served communities of over 70,000 refugees, and implemented more than 60 community development projects. And FORGE is still young.
In 2008, FORGE is embarking on a new project model that transfers Project Facilitator responsibilities directly into the hands of refugee leaders within the communities where FORGE works. From 2008 forwards, all FORGE projects will be designed and implemented by the communities themselves. FORGE is confident that this model will bring a new level of impact and provide an even stronger foundation for the future prosperity of the African continent.
Forge also has a Newsletter and you can subscribe here .
-------------------------------
One of FORGE’s program is a very successful microfinance program. Below is how FORGE describes how this program got started.
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program represents FORGE’s Microfinance division. In its first year of existence, it has provided loans to 112 individuals, allowing them to transform their lives through economic self-sufficiency.
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program is very different from traditional microfinance initiatives. Instead of simply giving and recollecting loans, the FORGE Micro-Finance Program ensures that all of its loan recipients are fully prepared to start a small business. Before receiving their loan, all loan recipients must go through a two month training process. The educational curriculum was developed in conjunction with highly experienced academics and is taught by FORGE’s exceptionally talented and well-trained refugee staff. The curriculum focuses on entrepreneurship, business principles, accounting skills, all specially-tailored to the African refugee small business setting.
With hundreds of new loans in the works for 2007, the positive impact of the FORGE Micro-Finance Program is expanding quickly. The FORGE Micro-Finance Program, led by International Relations Director Esther Chou (FORGE Meheba ’05), Communications Director Nayeli Vivanco (FORGE Meheba ’06), and Operations Director Pete D’Aleo (FORGE Meheba ’06), is on the rise.
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program began when Esther Chou, a FORGE Meheba 2005 veteran, returned to Zambia in late 2005 in order to investigate the best ways to implement an entrepreneurship & micro-finance initiative in Meheba. From Zambia, Esther worked closely with Nayeli Vivanco and Pete D’Aleo to design business skills curriculum and a loan model that best suited the community of Meheba. Their work was guided by the expertise and support of Northeastern University Executive Professor Dennis Shaughnessy.
Upon arriving in Meheba, Nayeli & Pete immediately got to work with Esther, to build a the FORGE Micro-Finance Program office and select a staff. Over the next few weeks, the three directors carefully trained the staff and opened the institute to enrollment.
The FORGE Micro-Finance Program’s students and loan-seekers proved to be a huge success. The FORGE Micro-Finance Program’s loan repayment rate stands at 94%.
Currently, all three FORGE Micro-Finance Program directors are refining the FORGE Micro-Finance Program model, marketing the program, and raising the funds necessary to expand classes and loans further into the future. For more information on the FORGE Micro-Finance Program please click here .
Hopefully, FORGE’s story will inspire all of those who have an interest in making the world a better place.
FORGE
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Liberia’s Digital Bridge Project benefited from Members of the Nigeria Diaspora
This article is taken from the a press release dated April 27, 2007 issued by Sockets Works Global and can be found at: this link . The Digital Bridge Project is a wonderful example of how Africans can utilize each other and their resources to benefit one another.
----------------
“The Digital Bridge Project, which aims to close the digital divide in Liberian universities, made its public debut on Friday, April 27th at the main campus of the University of Liberia when President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf inaugurated the state-of-the-art SocketWorks Limited (SocketWorks) computer laboratory.
Said President Johnson Sirleaf, ‘The digital center is as a result of hard work, partnership and dedication on the part of a lot of people. It is my belief that ICT can help Liberia leap frog in its efforts of poverty reduction and accelerate our transition into a prosperous nation.’
Completed in less than four months, the laboratory includes 200 computers with access to a university intranet, research databases, and a VSAT internet connection. SocketWorks’ CEO Aloy Chife unveiled the facility and demonstrated its capabilities as students amassed outside waiting for entrance. He detailed how students can now register for courses, get assignments, and pay fees online, as well as have access to the same libraries and research facilities as students in the United States. Previously, University of Liberia students had a small library of books over 20years old; now they have instant access to the digital archives of the Library of Congress and MIT. Research databases now housed within the University include some 3 million volumes.
“Our aim for the multi-media PC laboratory at the University of Liberia (the “Liberia DigitalBridge” project) is to partner with Liberia to accelerate its transition to a knowledge-based society in which the currency of exchange is information,” Chife said of the project. “And while some would argue that improvements in higher education should not outweigh more basic development needs like roads, water, and infrastructure, the University of Liberia students have higher expectations of themselves and their government,” continued Chife. The launch demonstration was completed with two live lectures delivered from the University of Maryland in the United States. This “distance learning” capability is a key part of building the capacity of the University of Liberia, and is facilitated by WorldSpace. When Chife told the guests that Liberian students would now have access to the same quality of education as students at MIT, the room broke out in spontaneous applause.
SocketWorks was founded by Dr. Aloy Chife in 2002 upon his disengagement from Apple Computers, Inc, where he was a Director and Business Chief Information Officer. SocketWorks Limited is a software and outsourcing company that aims to provide packaged ICT solutions to its clients. In the education market, it has developed proprietary software (trademarked CollegePortal) which helps universities automate their processes (e.g. student admissions and registration, course selection, course management, exam management, and facility management)that are currently done manually, and also provides internet access that would not otherwise be available. Dr. Chife, like many of SocketWorks’ officers, is part of the Nigerian Diaspora. SocketWorks utilizes a business model to transform universities in developing countries and does this through student subscription fees. Universities stuck in a paper age are brought into the21st century through IT, hardware, software and at times, infrastructure solutions. Administrators are connected to teachers, teachers to students, students to information, and parents to the universities. The program costs the participating universities nothing to implement and the schools get an on-going revenue stream to upgrade their ICT program from the student subscription fees. The program started in Nigeria and now has contracts at 52 Nigerian universities. In Nigeria, students pay as little at $25.00 per year. The first successful export of the model was to Sierra Leone. These services are making an enormous difference in Nigeria and across Africa in countries that otherwise have no ICT systems. From a one-man shop, SocketWorks has grown to become an employer of over 300 people in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Uganda, and its products impact the lives of thousands of African Students. It is also expanding operations in Asia and is expected to be up and running in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka by April. Its institutional investors and shareholders include the World Bank (IFC) and Zenith Bank Plc (the largest Bank in Nigeria). In post-conflict Liberia, where students cannot absorb a fee increase for education, SocketWorks is self-funding the initial investment and seeking support from the World Bank to subsidize the student subscription fees. This is the first time SocketWorks is changing its business model to accommodate donor subsidies. SocketWorks has trained a local staff to manage the Liberian facility and administer the data, drawing their personnel from students in the University of Liberia system. And although four months seems a short time to reconstruct and renovate the building for computer facility(including a generator, air conditioning, and a VSAT link), design and install the hardware and software package, train the staff, and digitize the records of all 19,000 University of Liberia students, faculty, and staff, SocketWorks felt that the short time frame for implementation proves their commitment to providing world-class solutions to institutions of higher education in Africa. When the official inauguration of the facility was completed by President Sirleaf, she left the facility and spoke with the hundreds of students waiting to gain access. “This facility is for you,” she said. “Be sure that you take care of it, and protect it, because it is your education and your future.” The computer lab was then flooded with eager students
---------------------------------------
More information on both the Digital Bridge Institute and SocketWorks can be found at the links below.
DIGITAL BRIDGE INSTITUTE
SOCKETWORKS
----------------
“The Digital Bridge Project, which aims to close the digital divide in Liberian universities, made its public debut on Friday, April 27th at the main campus of the University of Liberia when President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf inaugurated the state-of-the-art SocketWorks Limited (SocketWorks) computer laboratory.
Said President Johnson Sirleaf, ‘The digital center is as a result of hard work, partnership and dedication on the part of a lot of people. It is my belief that ICT can help Liberia leap frog in its efforts of poverty reduction and accelerate our transition into a prosperous nation.’
Completed in less than four months, the laboratory includes 200 computers with access to a university intranet, research databases, and a VSAT internet connection. SocketWorks’ CEO Aloy Chife unveiled the facility and demonstrated its capabilities as students amassed outside waiting for entrance. He detailed how students can now register for courses, get assignments, and pay fees online, as well as have access to the same libraries and research facilities as students in the United States. Previously, University of Liberia students had a small library of books over 20years old; now they have instant access to the digital archives of the Library of Congress and MIT. Research databases now housed within the University include some 3 million volumes.
“Our aim for the multi-media PC laboratory at the University of Liberia (the “Liberia DigitalBridge” project) is to partner with Liberia to accelerate its transition to a knowledge-based society in which the currency of exchange is information,” Chife said of the project. “And while some would argue that improvements in higher education should not outweigh more basic development needs like roads, water, and infrastructure, the University of Liberia students have higher expectations of themselves and their government,” continued Chife. The launch demonstration was completed with two live lectures delivered from the University of Maryland in the United States. This “distance learning” capability is a key part of building the capacity of the University of Liberia, and is facilitated by WorldSpace. When Chife told the guests that Liberian students would now have access to the same quality of education as students at MIT, the room broke out in spontaneous applause.
SocketWorks was founded by Dr. Aloy Chife in 2002 upon his disengagement from Apple Computers, Inc, where he was a Director and Business Chief Information Officer. SocketWorks Limited is a software and outsourcing company that aims to provide packaged ICT solutions to its clients. In the education market, it has developed proprietary software (trademarked CollegePortal) which helps universities automate their processes (e.g. student admissions and registration, course selection, course management, exam management, and facility management)that are currently done manually, and also provides internet access that would not otherwise be available. Dr. Chife, like many of SocketWorks’ officers, is part of the Nigerian Diaspora. SocketWorks utilizes a business model to transform universities in developing countries and does this through student subscription fees. Universities stuck in a paper age are brought into the21st century through IT, hardware, software and at times, infrastructure solutions. Administrators are connected to teachers, teachers to students, students to information, and parents to the universities. The program costs the participating universities nothing to implement and the schools get an on-going revenue stream to upgrade their ICT program from the student subscription fees. The program started in Nigeria and now has contracts at 52 Nigerian universities. In Nigeria, students pay as little at $25.00 per year. The first successful export of the model was to Sierra Leone. These services are making an enormous difference in Nigeria and across Africa in countries that otherwise have no ICT systems. From a one-man shop, SocketWorks has grown to become an employer of over 300 people in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Uganda, and its products impact the lives of thousands of African Students. It is also expanding operations in Asia and is expected to be up and running in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka by April. Its institutional investors and shareholders include the World Bank (IFC) and Zenith Bank Plc (the largest Bank in Nigeria). In post-conflict Liberia, where students cannot absorb a fee increase for education, SocketWorks is self-funding the initial investment and seeking support from the World Bank to subsidize the student subscription fees. This is the first time SocketWorks is changing its business model to accommodate donor subsidies. SocketWorks has trained a local staff to manage the Liberian facility and administer the data, drawing their personnel from students in the University of Liberia system. And although four months seems a short time to reconstruct and renovate the building for computer facility(including a generator, air conditioning, and a VSAT link), design and install the hardware and software package, train the staff, and digitize the records of all 19,000 University of Liberia students, faculty, and staff, SocketWorks felt that the short time frame for implementation proves their commitment to providing world-class solutions to institutions of higher education in Africa. When the official inauguration of the facility was completed by President Sirleaf, she left the facility and spoke with the hundreds of students waiting to gain access. “This facility is for you,” she said. “Be sure that you take care of it, and protect it, because it is your education and your future.” The computer lab was then flooded with eager students
---------------------------------------
More information on both the Digital Bridge Institute and SocketWorks can be found at the links below.
DIGITAL BRIDGE INSTITUTE
SOCKETWORKS
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
A new Green Revolution for Africa?
article is taken from the web site of GRAIN an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity based on people's control over genetic resources and local knowledge. It is a long read, but the information is well worth knowing. The footnotes may be found at the original site, whose link is at the end of this post.
For some time now, there's been talk of a new Green Revolution for Africa – because "Africa missed the first Green Revolution" or because "the first Green Revolution missed Africa". Now a new project, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is trying to put the concept into operation. This paper aims to describe what a Green Revolution really signifies, why such projects haven't worked before and why AGRA won't work either, in order to help people trying to take positions at the local, national and regional levels.
Proponents of the Green Revolution call it a strategy to fight hunger in the world – bringing together international scientific research and the widespread dissemination of so called improved plant varieties in developing countries. The model was put forward in the 1950s by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations as a way to thwart the menace of the "red revolution": the expansion of communism in poor countries. Starting in Mexico, the Philippines and India, the new varieties of wheat, rice and maize quickly spread through the tropics to replace farmers' varieties. But these varieties only produced the desired 'high yielding' results if there was irrigation, mechanisation, and plenty of chemical fertilisers (the real key) and pesticides.
The consequence of this effort has indeed been an increase in yields for specific crops and in specific countries – at least for their irrigated, fertile and flat land areas. For example, under the programme, India increased its wheat production ten-fold and its rice production three-fold. Norman Borlaug, regarded as one of the fathers of the Green Revolution, went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his contributions.
But beyond the yield gains, there were many costs – economic, agricultural and social. The use of large amounts of water, fertilisers and chemical pesticides impoverished soils, leaving them less fertile and highly polluted. Local biodiversity was drastically reduced, bringing farmers under the dependence of pesticide manufacturers and outside seed suppliers. The profound cultural and economic changes wrought by the Green Revolution produced a massive rural exodus, and, with it, a profound loss of traditional knowledge and skills. For most farmers, any early profits were soon converted into debts, with many farmers, unable to repay their debts, taking their own lives.
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Why was the first Green Revolution ignored by the Africans?
Between 1960 and 1970, Africa was busy managing its newly acquired independence, and had not been incorporated into the design of the initial Green Revolution projects. Family farming was still the norm in Africa, and formal research was carried out by the agricultural research systems of the colonial powers. In French-speaking African countries, the French agricultural research institutes, such as IRAT, ORSTOM and CIRAD[2] were very active. These institutions gave priority to cash crops for export to the North: coffee and cocoa in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire; cotton in the north of Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad; groundnuts in Senegal; and palm oil in southern Benin. Often, the colonial powers had to use force to eject the farmers off their land and impose their varieties and agricultural systems. Even after independence, local food crops continued to be marginalised by scientific research for a decade or so.
Then, research institutes such as the IITA (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria) and ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics, Mali) parachuted into Africa to develop Green Revolution-style programmes for some of the continent's food crops. But they did not take into account the realities on the ground and few of these "improved varieties" were accepted by African farmers and consumers. The Green Revolution is based on a scientific reductionism, which has resulted in monocultures, the use of chemical inputs (such as fertilisers and pesticides) and inappropriate mechanisation. This is alien to Africa's peasant farming systems which pursues a more holistic approach to agriculture in which crops are combined with livestock, organic manure is used, soils are looked after, and there is a deep respect for the wider environment.
The CGIAR has spent a good half of its budget on Africa in the last few decades, but the Green Revolution has never taken root. Now, with an influx of dollars from Bill Gates, Rockefeller and other United States donors, many of the same organisations that led the first effort are going to try again. They are calling themselves the 'Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa', AGRA for short, and they are in the process of putting their new plan into motion.
AGRA: training for what?
AGRA says its main objective is to help Africa to increase productivity for a number of major food crops – much like what was envisioned with the initial Green Revolution programmes.[3] And once again, this is supposed to be done through Western-style plant breeding at the national agricultural research institutes. The difference being that this time a new crop of plant breeders will be trained in Africa itself, as opposed to being trained at universities in the North – though Cornell University, the central institution of the early Green Revolution programmes, will be there to oversee the training.
In January 2008, a first set of agricultural breeders in West and Central Africa will start their training at the University of Ghana, where the new the West African Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) will be based. Students will work on maize, cassava, sorghum, millet, tomatoes, cowpeas and other plants important to the African diet. This project is funded to the tune of US$ 4.9 million (more than 24 billion CFA francs) from AGRA. It seeks to train 40 students for a period of 5 years, starting in January 2008, with 8 students enrolled each year. Likewise, the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa, home to the Rockefeller Foundation's African Centre for Crop Improvement (ACCI), will train 120 breeders over the next ten years through an AGRA grant of US$ 8.1 million.
Not only will the plant breeders be trained in technology, but they will also be taught to lobby. At a recent meeting of maize breeders from Southern and Eastern Africa, governments were urged to fast-track permits for growing new varieties of crops. Or in the words of Jane Ininda, programme officer with AGRA, "To be able to make new improved varieties available to farmers to increase their yields and improve their standards of living, countries must put in place regulatory systems that can quickly test and allow an influx of new commercial varieties."[4] AGRA is using its considerable political power to convince African governments to put in place policies and systems that will ensure the smooth running of agribusiness.[5] The consequences of fast tracking seeds on to the market mean that plants are not adequately tested in local conditions. The farmer is therefore taking the all risks of crop failure whereas the company is assured of a quick financial return.
Agro-dealers: the shortest route to the farmers
In addition to training, another bottleneck to the successful establishment of the Green Revolution, as perceived by AGRA, is getting the new seeds to farmers. The solution proposed by AGRA is to build an infrastructure that facilitates the development of private seed companies. This is something that the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Bank have been trying to do for some time now, with little success.
One of AGRA's first steps is therefore to set up networks of "agro-dealers", to sell seeds, pesticides and fertilisers. AGRA has already hired a US NGO called Citizens' Network for Foreign Affairs to carry out this work in Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. So far this US NGO has received around $14 million in grants – by far the largest recipient of AGRA funds to date. To supply the dealers, AGRA's donors are also funding private seed companies. The Rockefeller Foundation is a leading investor in African Agricultural Capital, a venture capital investment fund that invests in and partly controls several small African seed companies, which are also supported by AGRA.[6] AGRA will certainly try to help develop markets with small farmers, which have so far been limited by the stubborn resilience of traditional seed systems that have always supplied African farmers with high-quality, affordable, locally adapted and culturally acceptable seeds.
Meanwhile, in French-speaking Africa, AGRA is funding national agricultural research in Mali through research activities conducted at the Institute of Rural Economy (IER) on maize, sorghum and rice. An amount of US$ 555,000 (nearly three billion CFA francs) has been awarded to IER from 2007 to 2010, and a sum of US$ 208,000 (more than a billion CFA francs) has been awarded to the Faso Kaba organisation for the dissemination of improved varieties[7].
The logic here is staggering. The idea is to fund public breeders to develop new varieties (as the private sector does not want to do this), to fund private companies to sell these to farmers, and to provide credit to farmers for the purchase of these seeds (because otherwise they cannot pay for them). AGRA is all about creating an effective demand for its own product, prescribing a model of development that is not able to survive on its own.
Kenya – AGRA in practice.
Farmers in Western Kenya have been receiving 6000 Kenyan shillings (Sh), US$ 92, in vouchers from the government which enables them to buy seeds, fertiliser, and pesticides. The government also provides extension services to oversee the correct use of these inputs. The money has come from AGRA who have provided US$ 4.5 million (Sh 294 million). A group called Agricultural Market Development Trust (Agmark), is implementing the programme and the plan is to expand it to 30 districts in Kenya.[8] The Sasakawa Global 2000 programme, a precurser to AGRA, initially worked with individual farmers. Farmers however were not very consistent in paying back loans or acquiring inputs and it is estimated that 60% of new agro-dealer businesses did not survive. To solve this problem and create group pressure, it was decided to only work with farmers as groups, and this approach is now common for these programmes. In each village there is a programme coordinator who is paid five bags of maize by each farmer and the coordinator collectively sells the bags and uses the money to buy inputs for the next season.[9] According to AGRA this makes the project sustainable. But in reality the only sustainable part of this project is that it ensures the agrodealer has a consistent market. [10]
Meanwhile, the farmer has little choice. This system gives farmers little freedom to decide what they want to plant and when they want to plant it, they cannot use the knowledge they have accumulated over years, they cannot respond to weather changes and other changes in their environment. Once the donors stop subsidising, farmers will be left with an impoverished soil and no seed. The old Green Revolution game continues.
Towards the industrialisation of Africa's agriculture
Whether it is the new Green Revolution or the old, the first losers are farmers, especially small farmers. AGRA sets out to replace the seeds that African farmers have carefully developed for their farms and cultures, with varieties suited to industrial monocultures. Such seeds will pave the way for the industrialisation of African food crops, opening the door to large agribusiness to come in and dominate.
IITA, for instance, one of AGRA's main partners, has already changed the focus of its work from peasant farming to the development of the industrial production and processing of cassava, perhaps the region's most important staple crop. Speaking to one of Nigeria's daily newspapers, IITA's Director of Research and Development explained that "there is a need to encourage farmers to go on large-scale farming instead of subsistence agriculture."[11]
The problem, at least for the IITA, is that their varieties have never really been suited to small-scale farming. IITA may have always portrayed its development of varieties resistant to Cassava Mosaic Virus (CMD) as a big success, but in practice farmers have generally preferred their local varieties. One recent survey of Ugandan farmers, found that more than three-quarters of those surveyed who were growing IITA varieties said that they were not superior to local varieties.[12] Another study of farmers in Ghana said that farmers there were not growing IITA varieties because they were prioritising "agronomic considerations" – meaning yield, eating quality, etc. In Benin, where farmers grow over 350 local varieties of cassava, only 13% of farmers grow IITA varieties. In Kenya and Tanzania, few farmers grow IITA varieties, despite the heavily-funded USAID programmes to promote them, and Tanzanian farmers report that they don't see any difference in CMD resistance between the local and IITA varieties. Even in IITA's home base of Nigeria, the local varieties dominate.[13]
What is most disturbing about IITA's new push to industrial cassava production and processing – funded by the Nigerian government, Shell Oil, USAID, the Rockefeller Foundation, and certainly AGRA in the near future – is that its success depends on reducing the market price for cassava, which is currently seen as too high to make it attractive as an export crop for transnational food and agrofuel corporations. In other words, the current cassava market works quite well – farmers get paid a decent price for supplying high-quality cassava to local food markets, where the need is greatest. It only doesn't work for big agribusiness, which, as far as farming goes, can't compete with the small-scale farmers, and, as far as the markets go, can't access cheap cassava because it refuses to pay the price that Nigerian consumers will. Here is a stark example of what African farmers can expect from the new Green Revolution.
Co-opting NGOs and farmers organisations
AGRA and its partners are creating other problems for Africa as well, by co-opting NGOs to help create the markets it needs. The money enticement is very real and the public relations is effective and deceptive. The potential is there for AGRA to generate divisions between NGOs, CSOs and farmers groups all working for sustainable agriculture, as the level of analysis of the impact of such a top-down agenda differs. For example, in Africa most NGOs that promote agriculture that is sustainable and farmer-led, have taken a stand against GM crops because of its obvious negative impact on farmers in Africa. Yet AGRA is as big a threat to farmers as are GM crops. But AGRA's approach is more insidious and the pot of money is very large. Therefore there is a risk that organisations working with farmers that previously stood united against GMOs, may now work with AGRA. Such NGO collaboration has already started happening. In Kenya, for example, SACRED Africa, a member of the sustainable agriculture network, is managing field trials for AGRA.[14] In another example in Kenya, StrigAway maize, a variety patented by BASF, one of the biggest agrochemical companies in the world is brought to farmers by an impressive marketing system, which co-opts public institutions, NGOs and farmer associations. StrigAway maize, a herbicide resistant seed created by mutagenesis breeding, holds many risks for farmers. To ensure compliance, farmers have to be trained and closely monitored and this is done by NGOs. The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) negotiates with the seed companies and public institutions on behalf of BASF, initially providing free seed to open up markets. It works through a network of 12 NGOs and 4 farmer associations to market the technology on behalf of BASF and to train and monitor farmers. [15]
No GMOs?
At the launch of AGRA, its promoters were quick to point out that AGRA would not use genetically modified (GM) crops. Well, for now. At the third general meeting of collaborators of AGRA's programme on “Biotech, Breeding and Seed systems for African Crops”, a number of presentations of research and trials of GM crops were included.[16] It is therefore difficult to take seriously the claim that AGRA is not about GM seeds. Every single funder behind AGRA, Rockefeller and Gates included, are already pushing GM technology into Africa. But they have realised that the AGRA initiative would be easier to promote without including GM crops or seeds. The strategy is undoubtedly to bring it in later, once the programme is established and farmers have already switched to new seeds. Furthermore, most countries in Africa still do not have biosafety legislation in place, so it does not make sense to focus on GM crops now, but rather on harmonising policies, making sure approval times for crops are faster and building the infrastructure to ensure the rapid introduction of GM crops.
Undermining food sovereignty
The vast majority of Africans consume what they produce, despite international trade. Africa is characterised by its cultural diversity, which makes up its wealth. By ignoring the first Green Revolution, Africans have demonstrated to the world that they have understood that this revolution would kill their cultural diversity and their agriculture. In view of all that has been said, there are large contradictions between the model promoted by AGRA and the vision of food sovereignty for Africa. Over time, the African farmers have created a rich and dynamic agriculture which was gravely wounded by the continent's history over the last few centuries and, now, by the domineering multinationals and their allies to extract the remaining resources and knowledge. Programmes such as AGRA, and other so-called "technical" programmes, that ignore the social, economic and political realities of Africa, are unable to make a positive contribution. If African farmers are organised, if they rediscover and value their cultures and their knowledge, this is where Africa will have its real strength for change.
With climate change and the advance of the desert on the continent, it is appropriate to think about food sovereignty. Diverse agro-ecological practices exist in all African countries, but are not always known due to the oral nature of the cultures, which is common across the continent. To provide an alternative to AGRA, it is important to promote these local agro-ecological practices, and to work with farmers to improve them, at the local, national and regional level. At stake is the survival of future generations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOX: The other AGRA: Sasakawa Global 2000
Sasakawa Global (SG) 2000, is a project funded by the Nippon Foundation and led by Norman Borlaug and has been operational since the 1990s. It mainly works through governments, using government extension services and by influencing policies. SG 2000 assists with credit for hybrid seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. The project has been praised for higher yields in good rainfall years (as long as the credit is made available) but this industrialisation of agriculture has also been deeply criticised for creating dependency on foreign imports of seed and fertiliser, its reliance on mechanisation which requires land consolidation. In Africa, as in Asia, the Green Revolution has forced many farmers off the land as it has a high social, environmental and financial cost.[17] .
Ethiopia: feeding the hungry?
In the 1990s, Norman Borlaug and Jimmy Carter visited Ethiopia and convinced the government to support the introduction of hybrid seeds and fertilisers, and to liberalise the markets. This was done with the support of Sasakawa Global 2000, and there followed a decade of global initiatives supporting agricultural production, though this was coupled with the withdrawal of state support for agriculture. Under pressure from international lenders and aid donors, the government deregulated the seed sector and grain markets and left it to the private sector. With the bumper harvest in 2001, the markets could not cope and prices collapsed.[18] Ethiopia was dumped into yet another famine despite increasing national agricultural production and farmers were left in debt and many lost their land.
Ghana: forcing farmers into bankruptcy
The SG 2000 project in Ghana also proved not to be sustainable. At the beginning, the Ghanaian government provided the services of its extension officers to manage the delivery of inputs, pesticides and seeds and they also collected loans from the farmers. The credit was provided by SG 2000. Yields went up, in some cases three times the national average, but maize yields only increased by 26%. Of course farmers had to forego their own seed and cropping systems.
Supporting this approach of privatisation of agricultural inputs and markets, structural reforms were implemented in Ghana in the 1980’s and in 1989 the parastatal Ghana Seed Company was closed and national seed policy called for the development of a private seed sector. Markets and credit were liberalised with interest rates going up to 40%. The SG 2000 project was ready to take off. However, as soon as the project was scaled-up (it moved beyond just being a demonstration project) only 44% of the farmers were able to repay their loans. The Ghana Development Bank was then persuaded to give loans to 20 000 farmers. Still the recovery of loans from farmers was only 45%. After this, it was decided that government extension officers should not be responsible for loan recovery or input distribution. SG 2000 initiated the development of a network of private seed producers and input dealers and scaled down the project. Monsanto became involved in promoting conservation tillage and of course Roundup Ready use.
The next strategy in this experiment was to use social pressure and a new credit scheme was designed, working with farmers associations, rather than individual farmers. An evaluation of the project concludes that the focus was too narrow, focusing only on maize, and the project was unable to adjust to changing markets and government policies. For example farmers were not presented with a range of options and the recommended use of fertiliser was the same for everyone. Another common problem with this kind of approach to farming is that farmers produce a glut of one crop, in this case maize, which they cannot sell or have to sell below cost. When conservation tillage was introduced by Monsanto, the use of herbicide pushed the costs of inputs up to US$ 120 per hectare, forcing farmers to borrow with an interest rate of 30 - 40%. [19] Once SG 2000 stopped providing credit, the use of fertilisers by farmers dropped, and the project ceased. The evaluation concludes that the project was insensitive to "smallholders' resource endowment and risk capacity". SG 2000 spent US$20 million over 17 years in Ghana. The project in Ghana ended in 2003 but the focus is now on Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali and Uganda.
----------------------------------
A new Green Revolution for Africa?
GRAIN
For some time now, there's been talk of a new Green Revolution for Africa – because "Africa missed the first Green Revolution" or because "the first Green Revolution missed Africa". Now a new project, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), is trying to put the concept into operation. This paper aims to describe what a Green Revolution really signifies, why such projects haven't worked before and why AGRA won't work either, in order to help people trying to take positions at the local, national and regional levels.
Proponents of the Green Revolution call it a strategy to fight hunger in the world – bringing together international scientific research and the widespread dissemination of so called improved plant varieties in developing countries. The model was put forward in the 1950s by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations as a way to thwart the menace of the "red revolution": the expansion of communism in poor countries. Starting in Mexico, the Philippines and India, the new varieties of wheat, rice and maize quickly spread through the tropics to replace farmers' varieties. But these varieties only produced the desired 'high yielding' results if there was irrigation, mechanisation, and plenty of chemical fertilisers (the real key) and pesticides.
The consequence of this effort has indeed been an increase in yields for specific crops and in specific countries – at least for their irrigated, fertile and flat land areas. For example, under the programme, India increased its wheat production ten-fold and its rice production three-fold. Norman Borlaug, regarded as one of the fathers of the Green Revolution, went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his contributions.
But beyond the yield gains, there were many costs – economic, agricultural and social. The use of large amounts of water, fertilisers and chemical pesticides impoverished soils, leaving them less fertile and highly polluted. Local biodiversity was drastically reduced, bringing farmers under the dependence of pesticide manufacturers and outside seed suppliers. The profound cultural and economic changes wrought by the Green Revolution produced a massive rural exodus, and, with it, a profound loss of traditional knowledge and skills. For most farmers, any early profits were soon converted into debts, with many farmers, unable to repay their debts, taking their own lives.
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Why was the first Green Revolution ignored by the Africans?
Between 1960 and 1970, Africa was busy managing its newly acquired independence, and had not been incorporated into the design of the initial Green Revolution projects. Family farming was still the norm in Africa, and formal research was carried out by the agricultural research systems of the colonial powers. In French-speaking African countries, the French agricultural research institutes, such as IRAT, ORSTOM and CIRAD[2] were very active. These institutions gave priority to cash crops for export to the North: coffee and cocoa in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire; cotton in the north of Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad; groundnuts in Senegal; and palm oil in southern Benin. Often, the colonial powers had to use force to eject the farmers off their land and impose their varieties and agricultural systems. Even after independence, local food crops continued to be marginalised by scientific research for a decade or so.
Then, research institutes such as the IITA (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Nigeria) and ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics, Mali) parachuted into Africa to develop Green Revolution-style programmes for some of the continent's food crops. But they did not take into account the realities on the ground and few of these "improved varieties" were accepted by African farmers and consumers. The Green Revolution is based on a scientific reductionism, which has resulted in monocultures, the use of chemical inputs (such as fertilisers and pesticides) and inappropriate mechanisation. This is alien to Africa's peasant farming systems which pursues a more holistic approach to agriculture in which crops are combined with livestock, organic manure is used, soils are looked after, and there is a deep respect for the wider environment.
The CGIAR has spent a good half of its budget on Africa in the last few decades, but the Green Revolution has never taken root. Now, with an influx of dollars from Bill Gates, Rockefeller and other United States donors, many of the same organisations that led the first effort are going to try again. They are calling themselves the 'Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa', AGRA for short, and they are in the process of putting their new plan into motion.
AGRA: training for what?
AGRA says its main objective is to help Africa to increase productivity for a number of major food crops – much like what was envisioned with the initial Green Revolution programmes.[3] And once again, this is supposed to be done through Western-style plant breeding at the national agricultural research institutes. The difference being that this time a new crop of plant breeders will be trained in Africa itself, as opposed to being trained at universities in the North – though Cornell University, the central institution of the early Green Revolution programmes, will be there to oversee the training.
In January 2008, a first set of agricultural breeders in West and Central Africa will start their training at the University of Ghana, where the new the West African Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) will be based. Students will work on maize, cassava, sorghum, millet, tomatoes, cowpeas and other plants important to the African diet. This project is funded to the tune of US$ 4.9 million (more than 24 billion CFA francs) from AGRA. It seeks to train 40 students for a period of 5 years, starting in January 2008, with 8 students enrolled each year. Likewise, the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa, home to the Rockefeller Foundation's African Centre for Crop Improvement (ACCI), will train 120 breeders over the next ten years through an AGRA grant of US$ 8.1 million.
Not only will the plant breeders be trained in technology, but they will also be taught to lobby. At a recent meeting of maize breeders from Southern and Eastern Africa, governments were urged to fast-track permits for growing new varieties of crops. Or in the words of Jane Ininda, programme officer with AGRA, "To be able to make new improved varieties available to farmers to increase their yields and improve their standards of living, countries must put in place regulatory systems that can quickly test and allow an influx of new commercial varieties."[4] AGRA is using its considerable political power to convince African governments to put in place policies and systems that will ensure the smooth running of agribusiness.[5] The consequences of fast tracking seeds on to the market mean that plants are not adequately tested in local conditions. The farmer is therefore taking the all risks of crop failure whereas the company is assured of a quick financial return.
Agro-dealers: the shortest route to the farmers
In addition to training, another bottleneck to the successful establishment of the Green Revolution, as perceived by AGRA, is getting the new seeds to farmers. The solution proposed by AGRA is to build an infrastructure that facilitates the development of private seed companies. This is something that the Rockefeller Foundation and the World Bank have been trying to do for some time now, with little success.
One of AGRA's first steps is therefore to set up networks of "agro-dealers", to sell seeds, pesticides and fertilisers. AGRA has already hired a US NGO called Citizens' Network for Foreign Affairs to carry out this work in Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. So far this US NGO has received around $14 million in grants – by far the largest recipient of AGRA funds to date. To supply the dealers, AGRA's donors are also funding private seed companies. The Rockefeller Foundation is a leading investor in African Agricultural Capital, a venture capital investment fund that invests in and partly controls several small African seed companies, which are also supported by AGRA.[6] AGRA will certainly try to help develop markets with small farmers, which have so far been limited by the stubborn resilience of traditional seed systems that have always supplied African farmers with high-quality, affordable, locally adapted and culturally acceptable seeds.
Meanwhile, in French-speaking Africa, AGRA is funding national agricultural research in Mali through research activities conducted at the Institute of Rural Economy (IER) on maize, sorghum and rice. An amount of US$ 555,000 (nearly three billion CFA francs) has been awarded to IER from 2007 to 2010, and a sum of US$ 208,000 (more than a billion CFA francs) has been awarded to the Faso Kaba organisation for the dissemination of improved varieties[7].
The logic here is staggering. The idea is to fund public breeders to develop new varieties (as the private sector does not want to do this), to fund private companies to sell these to farmers, and to provide credit to farmers for the purchase of these seeds (because otherwise they cannot pay for them). AGRA is all about creating an effective demand for its own product, prescribing a model of development that is not able to survive on its own.
Kenya – AGRA in practice.
Farmers in Western Kenya have been receiving 6000 Kenyan shillings (Sh), US$ 92, in vouchers from the government which enables them to buy seeds, fertiliser, and pesticides. The government also provides extension services to oversee the correct use of these inputs. The money has come from AGRA who have provided US$ 4.5 million (Sh 294 million). A group called Agricultural Market Development Trust (Agmark), is implementing the programme and the plan is to expand it to 30 districts in Kenya.[8] The Sasakawa Global 2000 programme, a precurser to AGRA, initially worked with individual farmers. Farmers however were not very consistent in paying back loans or acquiring inputs and it is estimated that 60% of new agro-dealer businesses did not survive. To solve this problem and create group pressure, it was decided to only work with farmers as groups, and this approach is now common for these programmes. In each village there is a programme coordinator who is paid five bags of maize by each farmer and the coordinator collectively sells the bags and uses the money to buy inputs for the next season.[9] According to AGRA this makes the project sustainable. But in reality the only sustainable part of this project is that it ensures the agrodealer has a consistent market. [10]
Meanwhile, the farmer has little choice. This system gives farmers little freedom to decide what they want to plant and when they want to plant it, they cannot use the knowledge they have accumulated over years, they cannot respond to weather changes and other changes in their environment. Once the donors stop subsidising, farmers will be left with an impoverished soil and no seed. The old Green Revolution game continues.
Towards the industrialisation of Africa's agriculture
Whether it is the new Green Revolution or the old, the first losers are farmers, especially small farmers. AGRA sets out to replace the seeds that African farmers have carefully developed for their farms and cultures, with varieties suited to industrial monocultures. Such seeds will pave the way for the industrialisation of African food crops, opening the door to large agribusiness to come in and dominate.
IITA, for instance, one of AGRA's main partners, has already changed the focus of its work from peasant farming to the development of the industrial production and processing of cassava, perhaps the region's most important staple crop. Speaking to one of Nigeria's daily newspapers, IITA's Director of Research and Development explained that "there is a need to encourage farmers to go on large-scale farming instead of subsistence agriculture."[11]
The problem, at least for the IITA, is that their varieties have never really been suited to small-scale farming. IITA may have always portrayed its development of varieties resistant to Cassava Mosaic Virus (CMD) as a big success, but in practice farmers have generally preferred their local varieties. One recent survey of Ugandan farmers, found that more than three-quarters of those surveyed who were growing IITA varieties said that they were not superior to local varieties.[12] Another study of farmers in Ghana said that farmers there were not growing IITA varieties because they were prioritising "agronomic considerations" – meaning yield, eating quality, etc. In Benin, where farmers grow over 350 local varieties of cassava, only 13% of farmers grow IITA varieties. In Kenya and Tanzania, few farmers grow IITA varieties, despite the heavily-funded USAID programmes to promote them, and Tanzanian farmers report that they don't see any difference in CMD resistance between the local and IITA varieties. Even in IITA's home base of Nigeria, the local varieties dominate.[13]
What is most disturbing about IITA's new push to industrial cassava production and processing – funded by the Nigerian government, Shell Oil, USAID, the Rockefeller Foundation, and certainly AGRA in the near future – is that its success depends on reducing the market price for cassava, which is currently seen as too high to make it attractive as an export crop for transnational food and agrofuel corporations. In other words, the current cassava market works quite well – farmers get paid a decent price for supplying high-quality cassava to local food markets, where the need is greatest. It only doesn't work for big agribusiness, which, as far as farming goes, can't compete with the small-scale farmers, and, as far as the markets go, can't access cheap cassava because it refuses to pay the price that Nigerian consumers will. Here is a stark example of what African farmers can expect from the new Green Revolution.
Co-opting NGOs and farmers organisations
AGRA and its partners are creating other problems for Africa as well, by co-opting NGOs to help create the markets it needs. The money enticement is very real and the public relations is effective and deceptive. The potential is there for AGRA to generate divisions between NGOs, CSOs and farmers groups all working for sustainable agriculture, as the level of analysis of the impact of such a top-down agenda differs. For example, in Africa most NGOs that promote agriculture that is sustainable and farmer-led, have taken a stand against GM crops because of its obvious negative impact on farmers in Africa. Yet AGRA is as big a threat to farmers as are GM crops. But AGRA's approach is more insidious and the pot of money is very large. Therefore there is a risk that organisations working with farmers that previously stood united against GMOs, may now work with AGRA. Such NGO collaboration has already started happening. In Kenya, for example, SACRED Africa, a member of the sustainable agriculture network, is managing field trials for AGRA.[14] In another example in Kenya, StrigAway maize, a variety patented by BASF, one of the biggest agrochemical companies in the world is brought to farmers by an impressive marketing system, which co-opts public institutions, NGOs and farmer associations. StrigAway maize, a herbicide resistant seed created by mutagenesis breeding, holds many risks for farmers. To ensure compliance, farmers have to be trained and closely monitored and this is done by NGOs. The African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) negotiates with the seed companies and public institutions on behalf of BASF, initially providing free seed to open up markets. It works through a network of 12 NGOs and 4 farmer associations to market the technology on behalf of BASF and to train and monitor farmers. [15]
No GMOs?
At the launch of AGRA, its promoters were quick to point out that AGRA would not use genetically modified (GM) crops. Well, for now. At the third general meeting of collaborators of AGRA's programme on “Biotech, Breeding and Seed systems for African Crops”, a number of presentations of research and trials of GM crops were included.[16] It is therefore difficult to take seriously the claim that AGRA is not about GM seeds. Every single funder behind AGRA, Rockefeller and Gates included, are already pushing GM technology into Africa. But they have realised that the AGRA initiative would be easier to promote without including GM crops or seeds. The strategy is undoubtedly to bring it in later, once the programme is established and farmers have already switched to new seeds. Furthermore, most countries in Africa still do not have biosafety legislation in place, so it does not make sense to focus on GM crops now, but rather on harmonising policies, making sure approval times for crops are faster and building the infrastructure to ensure the rapid introduction of GM crops.
Undermining food sovereignty
The vast majority of Africans consume what they produce, despite international trade. Africa is characterised by its cultural diversity, which makes up its wealth. By ignoring the first Green Revolution, Africans have demonstrated to the world that they have understood that this revolution would kill their cultural diversity and their agriculture. In view of all that has been said, there are large contradictions between the model promoted by AGRA and the vision of food sovereignty for Africa. Over time, the African farmers have created a rich and dynamic agriculture which was gravely wounded by the continent's history over the last few centuries and, now, by the domineering multinationals and their allies to extract the remaining resources and knowledge. Programmes such as AGRA, and other so-called "technical" programmes, that ignore the social, economic and political realities of Africa, are unable to make a positive contribution. If African farmers are organised, if they rediscover and value their cultures and their knowledge, this is where Africa will have its real strength for change.
With climate change and the advance of the desert on the continent, it is appropriate to think about food sovereignty. Diverse agro-ecological practices exist in all African countries, but are not always known due to the oral nature of the cultures, which is common across the continent. To provide an alternative to AGRA, it is important to promote these local agro-ecological practices, and to work with farmers to improve them, at the local, national and regional level. At stake is the survival of future generations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOX: The other AGRA: Sasakawa Global 2000
Sasakawa Global (SG) 2000, is a project funded by the Nippon Foundation and led by Norman Borlaug and has been operational since the 1990s. It mainly works through governments, using government extension services and by influencing policies. SG 2000 assists with credit for hybrid seeds, fertilisers and pesticides. The project has been praised for higher yields in good rainfall years (as long as the credit is made available) but this industrialisation of agriculture has also been deeply criticised for creating dependency on foreign imports of seed and fertiliser, its reliance on mechanisation which requires land consolidation. In Africa, as in Asia, the Green Revolution has forced many farmers off the land as it has a high social, environmental and financial cost.[17] .
Ethiopia: feeding the hungry?
In the 1990s, Norman Borlaug and Jimmy Carter visited Ethiopia and convinced the government to support the introduction of hybrid seeds and fertilisers, and to liberalise the markets. This was done with the support of Sasakawa Global 2000, and there followed a decade of global initiatives supporting agricultural production, though this was coupled with the withdrawal of state support for agriculture. Under pressure from international lenders and aid donors, the government deregulated the seed sector and grain markets and left it to the private sector. With the bumper harvest in 2001, the markets could not cope and prices collapsed.[18] Ethiopia was dumped into yet another famine despite increasing national agricultural production and farmers were left in debt and many lost their land.
Ghana: forcing farmers into bankruptcy
The SG 2000 project in Ghana also proved not to be sustainable. At the beginning, the Ghanaian government provided the services of its extension officers to manage the delivery of inputs, pesticides and seeds and they also collected loans from the farmers. The credit was provided by SG 2000. Yields went up, in some cases three times the national average, but maize yields only increased by 26%. Of course farmers had to forego their own seed and cropping systems.
Supporting this approach of privatisation of agricultural inputs and markets, structural reforms were implemented in Ghana in the 1980’s and in 1989 the parastatal Ghana Seed Company was closed and national seed policy called for the development of a private seed sector. Markets and credit were liberalised with interest rates going up to 40%. The SG 2000 project was ready to take off. However, as soon as the project was scaled-up (it moved beyond just being a demonstration project) only 44% of the farmers were able to repay their loans. The Ghana Development Bank was then persuaded to give loans to 20 000 farmers. Still the recovery of loans from farmers was only 45%. After this, it was decided that government extension officers should not be responsible for loan recovery or input distribution. SG 2000 initiated the development of a network of private seed producers and input dealers and scaled down the project. Monsanto became involved in promoting conservation tillage and of course Roundup Ready use.
The next strategy in this experiment was to use social pressure and a new credit scheme was designed, working with farmers associations, rather than individual farmers. An evaluation of the project concludes that the focus was too narrow, focusing only on maize, and the project was unable to adjust to changing markets and government policies. For example farmers were not presented with a range of options and the recommended use of fertiliser was the same for everyone. Another common problem with this kind of approach to farming is that farmers produce a glut of one crop, in this case maize, which they cannot sell or have to sell below cost. When conservation tillage was introduced by Monsanto, the use of herbicide pushed the costs of inputs up to US$ 120 per hectare, forcing farmers to borrow with an interest rate of 30 - 40%. [19] Once SG 2000 stopped providing credit, the use of fertilisers by farmers dropped, and the project ceased. The evaluation concludes that the project was insensitive to "smallholders' resource endowment and risk capacity". SG 2000 spent US$20 million over 17 years in Ghana. The project in Ghana ended in 2003 but the focus is now on Ethiopia, Nigeria, Mali and Uganda.
----------------------------------
A new Green Revolution for Africa?
GRAIN
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