Making the Millenium Development Goals Happen

21 Comments

• Cameroon is commonly called Africa in miniature and this very true. I am a Cameroonian Rural Development Consultant.

  YES poverty can be reduced in Cameroon. What do I do to help this come to an end!

  I help rural farmers acquire improved seeds for the main staple of their area. It is a great wander to see how their production doubles and in a few farming seasons some actually move from pure subsisting farming to selling some foodstuff.

  Here it must be said that there are many research work on seeds in Cameroon but the rural massive are still very much not completely aware of. In Cameroon there are many treaties that can positively affect crop production but the dissemination of this is a problem.

  I encourage women to have assets to land for farming and give them the tools that they can use to acquire their own land. This has not been very easy and there are still some administrative red tapes.

  As an Agronomist with the Government I am also working on a French sponsored program called AFOP (Support Program for the Reform of Agricultural Training in Cameroon) Here I do everything that the technical capabilities of the farmers should be upgraded and the farming population should include more young people. I must say here that agricultural development cannot be complete in Cameroon without the State subsidizing inputs and clearing most of the complicated control on our highways.

  Posted by AZEH MUMA, Cameroon June 14, 2010 @ 4:10 pm

• 

  Our NGO is currently providing technical and skills training services in coconut-producing countries, with focus on the integrated processing of coconuts. The primary objective is to train coconut farmers - traditionally among the poorest in these countries - to expand and diversify their product base as a means to increase, and to sustain, their primary source of income - in other words, to demonstrate why and how the coconut tree is known as THE TREE OF LIFE.

  In many of these countries, coconuts are used primarily to produce copra (dried coconut meat) that is processed into coconut oil. The husks, shells, water, and the residue of the coconut meat are discarded. It is our task to demonstrate that these "waste byproducts" are, in fact, tremendous sources of income. For example, the husks become fiber (for doormats, geotextiles for soil erosion control) and peat (for planting medium, mulch, fertilizer, mosquito coils); the shells are converted into charcoal of the highest efficiency (thus providing an alternative feedstock that reduces the need to cut down trees, thereby curbing deforestation); the water into vinegar, the meat residue into coconut flour or, as we demonstrated in Liberia, into protein-rich COCO BURGERS.

  Yet another high-value coconut byproduct is COCONUT SUGAR, the low-glycemic index/low sucrose alternative to cane sugar that is currently making its mark in many health food stores in the U.S.

  Along the way, we have branched out into manually producing "green charcoal" out of leaves, twigs, rice hulls, coconut palm fronds (using cassava or corn starch as binder), especially as charcoal production has traditionally been based on wood from forest trees.

  SRE is determined to show that the bottom-up approach to rural income-generation and alternative fuels is THE KEY to poverty reduction.

  Posted by Perla Manapol, Sustainable Rural Enterprise (SRE), Philippines - Southeast Asia June 14, 2010 @ 4:24 pm

• Remake of Haiti agriculture is priority.

  The need to resettle a large part of the population is evident that we will need to work with the farmers in Haiti countryside-- it is a unique opportunity to use investment in agriculture as a resettlement anchor and source of revenue.

  Our group has been working with one community in the Northern part of Haiti (water filtration, and aquaculture)

  We bring in agronomist from abroad to assess the soil for nutrient.

  This assessment is done for the use of land as it relates to land capabiltity.

  We also built three artesian well in the community and use a filtration system, then we sell this back to the community where its thriving.

  It was imperative for our group to work on rebuilding the water systems in Haiti after the quake since this poor community did not have any access to drinking water, along the way we now have access to drinking water and filtration. A new aquaculture is on its way as a new project, that will be a second source of income for this community beside water filtration.

  Posted by Mia Pean/ CEO and Founder, Development Communautaire Haitiano-American Foundation Inc, Haiti/ Baudin Cap-Haitien June 15, 2010 @ 4:21 pm

• Educating children and supporting the rural community 70 miles west of Port-au-Prince where the population has increased almost 30% since the quake is our priority.

  We see agriculture as important as health, education, nutrition, water and sanitation. Post quake we sent a 40 ft shipping container filled with medical supplies and other essential needs. The container will now be used by a World Food Program project to make sure women and infants are adequately nourished.

  Our next shipment will focus on tools and other materials related to building schools, homes, and water projects, as well as sustainable gardens and restoring the environment.

  Our visit in early August will help determine the focus of our future efforts.

  Posted by Chuck Woolery, Gethesemane Scholarship Institute of Fond Des Blancs, Haiti June 16, 2010 @ 5:23 pm

• The fertiliser subsidy programme in Malawi has greatly transformed the lives of small scale farmers in Malawi from food deficit to food sufficient. This is a good lesson for many African countries if they are to achieve MDG goal 1.

  There is therefore need for G8 countries to continue supporting Malawi and other African countries to ensure food security at household level.

  Posted by Ian Chingwalu, Department of Human Resource Management and Development, Malawi June 18, 2010 @ 7:24 am

• 

  Projet "Initiatives de developpement local à Ganki", les actions:

  - Cloture de 860 ha de terrains agricoles;

  - Installation de pompes solaires pour l'eau et assainissement;

  - Assistance à l'élevage;

  - Activités géneratrices de revenu;

  - Promotion de l'aviculture;

  - Formation des affriculteurs.

  Posted by Accastello Pier Giorgio, Cooperazione Internazionale Sud Sud, Mauritanie June 24, 2010 @ 3:24 am

• Small and Marginal Farmers are the target group in Grameen Intel eKutir Project in Orissa.All the necessary advises are being given in an entrepreneural approach on an ICT Platform.It has really impacted the life and livelihood of the small and marginal farmers

  Posted by Krishna Mishra, eKutir, India June 24, 2010 @ 7:43 am

• 

  Supporting Mercy Corps in implementing a Phoenix Fund grant “Sustainable Development of Smallholder Dairy and Crop Businesses in Upper Sindh” Theiri District in the Southern region of Sukkur in Pakistan. The grant is designed to assist local small farmers, including a component to assist the beneficiaries to identify access to formal financial channels, offering an alternative to high cost middlemen (“artie”). At present, the Project covers 500 households across 3 villages, affecting 4500 individuals including family members. Pilot project aims at achieved through increasing integrated agriculture (livestock/crop) productivity and improving the economic performance of the dairy/wheat value chain in which smallholder farmers will integrate and benefit. Although the amount limits the scope of activity, team was showing sufficient impact and raise awareness, a lesson for donor and Government having spend billions of ruppes without much to show for small farmers economic uplift. It a good model model being implemented with stakeholders ownership in a cost effective way. The assistance is based on the lesson that rural poverty cannot be reduced as envisaged in millinium development goal unless small and landless farmers are not linked to the market. This cannot happen unless innovative package that supports knowledge, credit and links to market for this ignored but huge number of population. The feed back received from beneficiary is very encouraging, they feel that contrary to high publicized Govt supported programme, they are receiving practical advice that are solving simple problems in cost effective way. They extensively talked simple intervention like providing good feed and water already enhancing their productivity. The programe is being linked to most feasible financial institutions in the around village area and markets can improve their incomes and provide enhanced services that they are not receiving today. Small farmers see this assistance as very useful in improving their livelihood and wanted this programme be replicated on a larger scale.

  

  Posted by Mahmood Ahmad, Mercy Corps , Asia, Middle East and Central Asia June 26, 2010 @ 11:37 pm

• Drudgery Relief – Tractor Roundup International (TRI)

  Following up on an earlier comment is appears highly unlikely that Millennium Development Goals will be meet without some fundamental adjustments in the approach to rural poverty alleviation. If anyone took the time to verify the contention in the previous posting concerning the 40 year oversight, and look at the calorie energy balance for smallholders, it would become apparent that the first thing that needs to be done is a massive effort at drudgery relief. If we are, however unintentionally expecting, smallholder producers to exert more caloric energy than they have access to (2000 available up to 5000 required), then most development project emphasizing manual labor will not get off the ground. The available calories will only allow a few hours of diligent field work a day and prolong the overall time it takes to accomplish task well past the acceptable period to take advantage of agronomic promotions.

  If this is the case, it is very difficult to project how a family or community working only with hoes and other hand tools will ever get out of poverty. Also, any introduced value chain enterprises can only be done by substituting the value chain commodity for an already established commodity, most likely a subsistence commodity and thus risk food security. To correct this, the emphasis for future development projects lies in concentrating on substantial drudgery relief. This can only be done with a major emphasis on providing smallholders with access to contract mechanization at least for basic land preparation. Once that is done it might be possible for the rest of the agronomic activities to proceed manually. Is there any other possibility?

  The problem is the development community appears reluctant to endorse mechanization for smallholder communities, considering the maintenance of tractor beyond their capacity. Perhaps, the community is remembering the serious problems with public sector mechanization units of the past. That should be avoided in favor of individually owned tractors. Please discard the idea that it possible to improve the energy efficiency of hand tools sufficiently to make an impact. We are dealing with a 60% caloric deficit. With the development community reluctant to get involved India is trying to fill the void with their FarmTrac tractors. These are basically Ford knock-offs but are experience serious problems with durability from weak construction.

  My solution, and what I am trying to organize under the name Tractor Round-up International (TRI), is to look at how to get used tractor delivered to Africa where they can be reconditioned and sold to individual within smallholder communities. The basic idea is to:

  1. find reconditionable 65 to 80 hp tractors in the US or other developed country,

  2. have them donated against a charity tax write-off,

  3. inspected to see what the reconditioning needs are,

  4. disassembled sufficiently to be loaded 3 per 40 ft. container,

  5. add the necessary spare parts to fully recondition them,

  6. send them to a technical vocational training organization in Africa, such as Don Basco that has an established auto mechanics vocational training program,

  7. recondition the tractors to provide an additional 7000 to 10,000 operating hours,

  8. and sell them to individuals within smallholder communities.

  The expected final price would be about US$ 12,000 per unit. A price considered appropriate by someone that could seriously consider purchasing one. Since we are dealing with tractors as a mechanical machine they have to go to individuals, as when under joint ownership, such as public mechanization unit or even farmer cooperatives, the total operating hours before being survey out use are cut to 1/3rd the listed hours, from the 10,000 hr designed service life to a lucky 3,000 hrs. It is expected that the individuals buying the tractors will either not be farmers or will quickly drift out of full time farming in favor of full time contract tillage supporting their neighbors. In the USA the Future Farmers of American (FFA), the secondary school vocational agriculture program, appears highly interested in assisting with the collection and dissembling.

  The USA base does handicap the project to some degree as a European base would be preferred. This would allow a larger percent of the tractors to be Massy-Ferguson’s, which is the most popular tractor in Africa.

  Does this appear a reasonable approach, along with some other indirect means of reducing drudgery, such as village grain mills, and domestic water supplies? Some web pages for consideration:

  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/CalorieEnergyBalance.htm.

  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/UsedTractors.htm

  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/Symbiotic.htm

  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/IndirectEnhancements.htm

  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/DomesticWater.htm

  Posted by Richard Tinsley, Colorado State University - Emeritus, Africa June 28, 2010 @ 10:03 am

• Report the Business Parameters for Development Cooperatives – The Scandal of Development

  This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day

  - William Shakespeare

  As reported in the previous section of this forum, in order to reach the Millennium Development Goals there is a need to take a closer look at the fundamental cooperative business model being imposed on smallholder to make certain that it is competitive and sustainable beyond any donor assistance and facilitation. It will be impossible to meet the Millennium Development Goals with projects that only attract a small minority of the potential beneficiaries, and even then they divert a majority of the committed commodities away from the cooperative to the private traders; the cooperative is presumable protecting them from. It is recognized that the cooperative model was developed more from a social science perspective then a business perspective, but when it starts to provide business services, it has to be competitive within the business world, and usually the model is administratively too cumbersome to competitive under the overall economic environment associated with most developing countries. While the social activities can be important and make for good publicity, it is the business aspects that will allow the project to be sustained once donor assistance ends. However, rarely in any project reporting are the basic business parameters objectively and fully included. These would include:

  1. The sustainable competitive advantage of the cooperative in providing the services, and extending the accounting all the way to the farm gate, rather than stopping at the cooperative, which de facto allocates the overhead costs as a financial benefit to the members. That is highly deceptive.

  2. The sustainable overhead cost for operating the cooperative after external facilitation ends,

  3. The percent of the community participating in the program. Perhaps not necessary for the cooperative to be a success but essential for meeting Millennium Development Goals.

  4. The degree the members are diverting commodities committed according to the by-laws to the cooperative to the private traders. Stop blaming the farmers for not honoring their contracts, look at the model relative to their needs, would you honor the contract or follow the farmers in an astute business decision to take their business elsewhere?

  5. The total market share the cooperative is handling?

  6. The payment of promised dividends or at least a projection as to when they will be paid.

  7. The number of similar development cooperatives that have survived for 2 or more years after external assistance ends.

  Why these essential business parameters are omitted from the project reporting process is interesting. Perhaps the result would be too embarrassing? Ultimately, the lack of including these parameters is an indication that across the board, all donors, all countries, the development community has virtually no commitment to assisting the smallholder, despite the rhetoric to the contrary. The commitment is virtually 100% to the imposed mechanism by which the farmers are to be assisted. That is regardless of desire of the members for immediate cash settlements; the desire to hold commodities in kind as long as possible; or other concerns where cooperative interests may be inconsistent with the smallholder needs and desires. If there was any sincere commitment to assist the smallholders, these questions would be the first answered, the weakness of the cooperative mechanism would be identified a couple decades ago, addressed, so the smallholders would have programs that were effective in meeting their needs, and the Millennium Development Goals would have at least a chance of being met. This is really a major scandal that an evaluation of the business parameter will clear show!! Please! Please take a closer look, make the necessary fundamental adjustment to the programs, and don’t make class action litigation the only means of bring about the necessary changes. Well intended people could get seriously hurt! Below are some web pages that expand on the comments above.

  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/Cooperatives.htm http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/InformationRequest-.htm http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/DeceptiveReporting.htm

  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/DevelopmentProcess.htm

  http://lamar.colostate.edu/~rtinsley/Hierarchy.htm

  Posted by Richard Tinsley, Colorado State University - Emeritus, Africa June 28, 2010 @ 10:05 am

• there should be more images

  Posted by namra rana, india July 4, 2010 @ 12:17 am

• 

  Delayed Posting of Comments

  Hi Everyone,

  I wanted to let you know about a new procedure for posting

  comments on the site. We are now screening comments from new users.

  If you are joining our conversation for the first time, your comment may take a little while to be posted. Once your first comment is screened, you will be able to post without delay.

  Devex apologizes for any inconveniences this may cause in keeping the dialogue going. For any further questions or concerns, feel free to email us at: moderator@devex.com.

  Regards,

  Oliver

  Devex Moderator

  Posted by Oliver Subasinghe, Devex Moderator July 18, 2010 @ 6:20 pm

• As i earlier stated political corruption is the main challenge! farm inputs like ox-ploughs, seeds and tractors are given to pro-government supporters in the case of a country like uganda and this makes the minority rich become more richer ,the cost of the basic neccesities like sugar, soap cooking oil among others is incredibly not affordable by a common man ,the price of farm inputs is apallingly too low and farmers cannot reap enough from their produce coupled with inflation rates country like uganda may not realise the dream of MDGs .

  Posted by kalibongo Robert, Lira united journalist Association [LUJA]., Uganda Northern Province. July 30, 2010 @ 2:35 am

• As journalists we are trying to sensitise the local community on the challenges of MDGs especially on areas of martenal health and HIV/AIDS but the major challenge is reaching the rural people.

  Posted by kalibongo Robert, Lira united journalist Association [LUJA]., Uganda Northern Province. July 30, 2010 @ 2:43 am

• 

  The Bahamas and the Caribbean are essentially small farmer localties. In recent years,small farmers have been adversely affected by national and global policies which have endangered small scale farming.

  Some of these policies are related to Market Access resulting from commodities which are highly subsidized entering local markets and destabilizing these markets in most Caribbean states. This has t created competitiveness issues for small farmers.In far too many instances, small farmers leave the rural areas for urban centres because they are unable to compete with cheap, highly subsidized food commodities.

  Posted by Godfrey Eneas, Agro-Consultant Services, The Bahamas/Caribbean October 7, 2010 @ 7:13 pm

• 

  Lets show the way.Yes,we can eradicate poverty.This can happen through doing the small things that bring positive transformation in life among the poor.We need to reach the most marginalized communities and identify those income generating activities that we can boost them on.Through training and capacity building,i have seen CHANGE.And i am convinced that if we work hard with love for each other,then Sustainable Development will be achieved.Socio-economic development should be done Bottom-up.Lets all go to the grass-roots and start work.Water,Education,Agriculture are Key!We welcome those who share common goal with us to join us in Kenya and lets do community development in order to eradicate poverty.Remember that if we empower women,we will win.

  Joseph.

  Founder/Executive Director

  THE MUINDE KAVIRI FOUNDATION

  www.muindekavirifoundation.org

  

  Posted by Joseph, The Muinde Kaviri Foundation, Kenya October 21, 2010 @ 2:51 pm

• 

  To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger we must think alternative approaches and solutions based on local demand, develop on a participatory manner. With strong believe Technology/solutions within the community, by the community and for the community same as the democratic principal of the great president Abraham Lincoln. To do this we just need to consider the followings so far;

  1. Create fuller access for the resource poor communities to the common property natural resources, supported by ear marked policy

  2. Low cost Innovations and appropriate technology (based on Schumacher's philosophy Small is beautiful" which is affordable and accessible by the large segment of the resource poor in the world.

  3. Promotion of community based service system for self-employment and for sustainability.

  4. Capacity and skills for the school dropout adolescent boy and girls to cope with the situations, who lead the coming decades and eras.

  5. Undertake comprehensive approach to address basic needs of the HHs and community for growth and development.

  The Photograph is only the example out of many innovative solutions i.e. sand bar cropping, floating garden, cage fishery, rang of small enterprise options, rural resettlement and disaster risk reduction model, development of basic services and facilities run by Practical Action in NW Bangladesh.

  Photo with example of benefit by the use of barren lands for the river eroded landless households in NW Bangladesh.

  1327 farmers have produced around 33,000 Mt of pumpkins worth around 5million pound based on urban market value of the product from unfertile river basin during the dry season in 4 years period 2005-2008 in NW Bangladesh. Now it is scaling up another 4 districts with the financial assistance of DfID and GoB shiree project.

  

  Posted by Nazmul Chowdhury, Practical Action, Bangladesh November 2, 2010 @ 9:37 pm

• 

  Floating gardens, Farming on flood.

  An innovative solution for resource poor in NW Bangladesh and future hope to cope with the changing climate.

  

  Posted by Nazmul Chowdhury, Practical Action , Bangladesh November 2, 2010 @ 9:46 pm

• 

  Nutritional access for resource poor and additional income by using low cost technology.

  

  Posted by Nazmul Chowdhury, Practical Action, Bangladesh November 2, 2010 @ 9:54 pm

• 

  Family nutrition, who has no capability to buy fish from market

  

  Posted by Nazmul Chowdhury, Practical Action November 2, 2010 @ 9:57 pm

• [...] ‘To eradicate extreme poverty and hunger we must think of alternative approaches and solutions based on local demand, developed in a participatory manner…’ Nazmul Chowdhury, Practical Action [...]

  Posted by Making the Millennium Development Goals HAPPEN | NEW IPC-IG Press Room January 19, 2011 @ 11:57 am