fairtrade

Apparently the people who first came up with the idea of fairtrade took the idea to banking analysts who laughed at them, saying that it was ridiculous to think that anyone would pay more for coffee, chocolate, etc in order to help some poor farmers in a far away country.

"Britain's most popular chocolate bar, Dairy Milk, is to become Fairtrade certified in Britain and Ireland in a move that will double the amount of cocoa bought from smallholders in the developing world under the sustainable farming scheme."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/mar/04/cadbury-fair-trade-dairy-milk

hope wins over cynicism (again)

Aid = bad ?

Dambisa Moyo is an economist who has worked as a consultant for The World Bank, and as head of economic research and strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa for Goldman Sachs.

She has written a book called "Dead Aid" about the aid industry.

reviews of her book are here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/feb/19/dambisa-moyo-dead-aid-africa

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dambisa-moyo-aid-dependency-blights-africa-the-cure-is-in-the-credit-crisis-could-be-the-cure-1522996.html

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article5674886.ece

Internet access = good ?

"Unicef said that when they set up public computer kiosks with educational material, a cached Wikipedia, basic health information, etc, in villages that the people using them are aged six to 60, but when adding internet connectivity the age range reduces to 14 to 18. They consume porn and it creates an environment unfriendly to others."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/feb/15/this-much-i-know-clay-shirky-technology

Rich countries once used gunboats to seize food. Now they use trade deals

"In a recent report on this pillage, ActionAid shows that fishing families that once ate three times a day are now eating only once or twice. As the price of fish rises, their customers also go hungry. The same thing has happened in all the west African countries with which the EU has maintained fisheries agreements. In return for wretched amounts of foreign exchange, their primary source of protein has been looted."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/26/food.eu

Peter Melchett: Don't believe the GM apologists

Arguments about genetic modification, often wrongly characterised as science versus irrational nature-worshippers, have lost none of their passion.

(article from UK Independent)

Maybe the answer to global warming is genetic modification ?
We can modify ourselves to survive higher (or lower) temperatures, lack of food, rising sea levels.

UK adds to drain on global water sources

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/20/water.food

"Water, or lack of it, has moved rapidly up the agenda for British businesses. A report published today by the environmental group WWF highlights why the issue is suddenly being taken so seriously. UK Water Footprint calculates for the first time how much water British consumers use, not just directly, but also indirectly due to the large volumes required to produce the globally-sourced, all year round foods and textile fibres which we now take for granted. According to WWF, each UK resident uses 4,645 litres of the world's water every day, compared to people in poor countries who subsist on 1,000 litres of "virtual water" a day."

UK ready to scrap killer cluster bombs

Excellent news.
UK ready to scrap killer cluster bombs

Gordon Brown has been getting a hard ride, but if he succeeds in getting these bombs banned then this will be a great achievement.

Britain leads the world in fairtrade

A report in the UK Independent newspaper states that Britons brought almost 30% of the worlds total value of fairtrade goods last year.
Are Brits more ethical/moral than other nationalities? Perhaps there is some truth in the idea of British "fair play" ?

Adidas workers on £11 a week in China

"THE German sportswear giant Adidas has paid a reported £50m to sponsor this summer’s Beijing Olympics with the slogan “Impossible is nothing”.

For the thousands of Chinese workers who earn a basic £11.36 a week making Adidas’s expensive trainers at factories in the industrial city of Fuzhou, one thing does seem impossible: to get fair play."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3646424.ece

corporate responsibility

Workers at Tesco paid just 8p an hour

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/22/ntesco122.xml

The report from the UK Daily Telegraph describes how Tesco exploits its workers in Malaysia.
I have emailed Tesco customer service to ask them for an explanation, and would suggest that other Tesco customers do the same.

Tesco Customer Service [customer.service@tesco.co.uk]

minerals = money

"A disturbing article this week in the FT reports how cassiterite sourced through the use of child and slave labour has made it into the supply chains of global electronic goods manufacturers. Cassiterite is a derivative of tin ore necessarily used in circuitry and its use has, ironically, enabled devices to become more eco friendly. But at what cost?"

http://blogs.zdnet.com/sustainability/?p=114&tag=nl.e622

Africa has wealth, not only in human resources, but in minerals; but this wealth is not used to benefit the people that live there.

Whistle-blower site taken offline

"A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7250916.stm

It's interesting that this site can be taken down, whereas sites that exploit children and show pornographic images aren't.

George Bush: a good man in Africa ???

!They may not be George Bush's natural constituency but Rwanda's prostitutes have good things to say about him. So do poor South Africans abandoned by their quixotic government, and doctors across Africa who otherwise regard the American president as a walking crime against humanity."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/georgebush.usa

The amazing power of money sent home

"It has been known for years that most economic migrants send money home. But a recent study by the United Nations Agriculture Fund shows that these remittances, as they are called, are far more important than was ever thought."

http://money.uk.msn.com/guides/ethical-money/article.aspx?cp-documentid=7414450

Internet 'necessary' to Africa's growth

"A professor whose work in spreading information technology in Africa has been awarded by the Internet Society has hit out at critics who say the continent should focus first on basics like water and sanitation." (BBC News)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7149788.stm

Farmers in Africa, West rethink subsidy

In exchange for foreign aid, debt-saddled African countries agreed to cut subsidies. Less than 4 percent of government spending in sub-Saharan Africa now goes to agriculture.

But without a safety net, a single bad season can bankrupt a farmer, and often does. And without help, African farmers are too poor to pay for the good seed and fertilizer that bring land to life.

There are signs of change. The World Bank is rethinking its stance on subsidies after a scathing internal review last month, and it made agriculture the center of its agenda this year for the first time in more than two decades. About 70 percent of Africans live off the land, and agricultural reform — from seed to market — is the surest way to lift the continent out of poverty.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071209/ap_on_re_af/rethinking_africa_from_the_ground_up

Jeffrey Sachs

"The development community lacks the required ethical and professional standards. I am not suggesting that developent practitioners are corrupt or unethical: such cases are rare. Rather, the development economics community does not take on its work with the sense of responsibilty that the tasks require. Providing economic advice to others requries a profund committment to search for the right answers, not to settle for superficial approaches."

The End of Poverty

Nigeria: Siemens Bribery Scandal - Indicted Men Face the Music

http://allafrica.com/stories/200711191176.html

I found this story to be particularly relevant after my experience of working for GTZ in Abuja.
The GTZ website states that the EoPSD project in Nigeria is funded by "the Bundesministerium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)", i.e. the German Government. In fact, I was told that 60% of the funding is coming from the BMZ, the other 40% is from another source (un-identified). It would be very interesting to establish who is providing the rest of the funding, and whether there is any connection to Siemens.


"Companies cooperating with GTZ for the first time tend to be disappointed with the amount of public-sector money on offer. When asked after the measures are concluded, however, the majority report being positively surprised by the quality of the advice they received and the fact that the "development workers" often had excellent contacts useful for helping the companies get into the market and reduce the risk of their engagement."

http://www.inwent.org/E+Z/content/archive-eng/06-2003/foc_art2.html

mobile phones and entrepreneurship in Africa

"This is the Village Phone-model, which provides a business in a box. With loans, budding entrepreneurs can buy a mobile phone, a car battery to charge it, and a booster antenna that can pick up signals from base stations situated up to 25 kilometres away.

The handset is loaded with software that tracks revenues from every call.

The loan providers, so-called microfinance institutions, take on the task of ordering the equipment and transporting it to those who cannot afford to travel long distances."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7071636.stm

HP helps Africa with recycling standards

An estimated 500 containers of used computer scrap enter Nigeria each month,” says a report from the Basel Action Network, a lobby group specialising in e-waste issues.

http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2199600/hp-helps-africa-recycling-3505547