DAI Success Stories

Local Leaders Influence Key Legislation in Bangladesh

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:54:55 EST

“All politics is local”—the idea that issues affecting local constituencies guide the politicians who wield power in capitals—is a commonplace in U.S. politics. But in Bangladesh, political power has more often been of the trickle-down variety, with the central government in charge of responding to even the smallest local issues. As a result, these local issues too often go unaddressed.

But the country’s approach to local governance is changing. A relatively new organization is uniting local government officials from across the country, and it recently prevented an attempt by the central government to curtail the local authorities’ hard-earned decentralized powers. Instead, the association fought for and won legislation to, for example, award women a specific scope of work in local governments, force federally appointed administrators to meet deadlines involving local projects, and double grants for locally led development.

More than 1,000 chairmen and members of Union Parishads (UPs)—Bangladesh’s lowest level of local government—shaped their political platform in October 2009 at the first Bangladesh Union Parishad Forum (BUPF) convention, in Dhaka. Parliament incorporated their demands in the country’s Local Government (Union Parishad) Act 2009.

“The government must consult BUPF before taking decision on local government,” said BUPF president Md. Mahbubur Rahman Tulu, at the convention organized by the DAI-led Promoting Governance, Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (PROGATI) project, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). “Opinions of the elected local representatives should be given priority to make the UPs more effective and significant, but the bureaucrats are trying to replace public representatives. It must be stopped.”

Among other changes promoted by the BUPF, village courts will be allowed to increase revenue-generating fines for lawbreakers, a citizens’ rights charter will be introduced in each of the hundreds of UPs, and local Ups may gain greater control over the (Dhaka-issued) Annual Development Program.

The convention marked the blossoming of the BUPF—founded in 2003 with help from USAID/Bangladesh—into an influential pressure group. Themed “Strengthening Governance at Grassroots: The Role of Union Parishads,” the meeting drew UP officials from across the country and took place at a critical moment as Parliament considered the pending legislation. Members of Parliament, local government experts, government officials, academics, and representatives from national and international organizations joined the BUPF members to hear recommendations and share best practices of UP governance.

Participants raised issues including local government’s role in the planned digitalization of Bangladesh, female participation in local government and police, and discrepancies between the Bengali and English versions of the national constitution that affect local rule.

To prepare for the convention, BUPF leaders organized six consultative sessions throughout Bangladesh, which generated a position paper for strengthening UPs and enhancing their image, and led to the suggested modifications to the proposed Local Government Act 2009.

The convention received nationwide coverage through 23 print media and eight TV and radio stations. In addition to winning this extensive media coverage, the convention grabbed the attention of key policy makers deliberating the Local Government Act. BUPF representatives met with the Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Land, for example, and later with Syed Ashraful Islam, Honorable Minister for Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives.

Local government appears to be finding its voice in Bangladesh.

Call-In Radio Show Gives Rural Cambodians Access to Information, Expertise

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:25:57 EST

The honey collectors in Koh Kong, Cambodia, were in a sticky situation. Stuck with a large surplus after their main buyer backed out of a deal, they turned to a new radio program for help in liquidating their excess product.

Unleashing the power of radio, the show quickly launched an appeal across Cambodia that led six listeners to step up and buy honey from the distressed cooperative.

The story is emblematic of “Success Starts with You!”, which recently aired its 400^th broadcast connecting rural businesspeople, aspiring entrepreneurs, and government officials with the means to improve their situations. In a country where many people are illiterate and isolated, the radio show is proving a business lifeline.

“Success Starts with You!” is broadcast on 11 FM stations and one AM station throughout 12 Cambodian provinces. It is implemented by Equal Access, a local nongovernmental organization operating under the DAI-managed Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise 2/Business Enabling Environment (MSME2/BEE). Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), MSME2/BEE is a four-year project to make entrepreneurs and provinces more productive and influential, as well as more effective partners with the Royal Government.

“The radio program is a rare opportunity for public sector officials to interact with and get close to their constituents,” said Curtis Hundley, MSME2/BEE’S Chief of Party. “Cambodia has a high rate of illiteracy. In rural areas, up to 60 percent of females cannot read. The radio talk shows offer an anonymous, non-threatening platform for acquiring information and engaging in dialogue.”

Operating in concert with the larger MSME2/BEE project, “Success Starts with You!” is the only business-focused interactive radio program in Cambodia. Each week, the radio team interviews Cambodian businesspeople working in critical value chains. Every other week, phone lines are opened, with listeners encouraged to pose their business questions live on the air to experts and government officers.

Callers and texters in their hundreds have been particularly keen to start or expand swine and fish-farming businesses, two of Cambodia’s food staples. Honey, tourism, and safe drinking water have also been hot topics. Following one live, nationwide program about the importance of clean water, H.E. Ek Sun Chan—Director General of Authority Water Supply for Phnom Penh—phoned in to compliment the program.

“Success Starts with You!” also explores natural resource management and the value of biodiversity, good hygiene, and sanitation. One show responded to the threat of the H1N1 virus by holding a national call-in program with experts from the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and Ministries of Health and Agriculture, who described swine flu symptoms and the best ways to prevent the spread of the disease, and assured anxious listeners that swine flu describes a virus transmitted from human to human—not one transmitted from their livestock.

An average of nine callers per hour are placed on the air, with many more trying to get through but unsuccessful due to time constraints. Callers have also been making requests of MSME2/BEE, asking the project, for example, to provide training on swine and fish farming, work with the government to promote price stability and business sustainability, and generate more programming like “Success Starts with You!”

In combination with the expanding mobile telecommunications infrastructure, radio is proving to be a powerful two-way communications tool in rural Cambodia for publicizing key project activities, themes, and messages to micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises, and communicating with national, provincial, and district government officials.

“Our objective is that within four years, the radio programs will be fully, commercially viable and profitable, and no longer require USAID financial support,” Hundley said.

Grants Program in FATA Supports Local Development Practitioners

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:47:07 EST

Pervasively high youth unemployment, masses of people uprooted by war, and ineffective public institutions make the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of western Pakistan an enormous development challenge. That FATA is a Taliban stronghold, adjacent to the Afghanistan war zone, and a focal point for the war against Islamic extremism also makes it a complex and threatening place to work.

Yet many local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in FATA are doing their best to improve people’s lives. Most are staffed by ordinary, hardworking Pakistanis, but many of these groups—while rich in potential—lack the capacity to make a lasting difference in their communities.

Since March 2009, a grants program directed by the DAI-led FATA Capacity Building Program (FATA CBP) has placed 140 interns from 42 local organizations into two large national NGOs—the National Rural Support Program (NRSP) and the Sungi Development Foundation. These men and women—young professionals, university students, and others—work for eight weeks in NRSP’s and Sungi’s field offices learning the basics of assessing needs, mobilizing communities, implementing small rural infrastructure and income-generation projects, and monitoring and evaluating development programs. Afterward they return to their local NGOs, ready to start working in their own communities by operating health clinics, registering and assisting displaced persons, and fighting for children’s rights and welfare, among other causes.

For example, KAMORE, an NGO founded in 2000, successfully petitioned FATA CBP to sponsor five interns. Located in Bajaur, KAMORE works on humanitarian relief, water and sanitation, education, and community spirit. The internship support came after KAMORE was initially provided in-kind assistance through FATA CBP in the form of computers and office furniture.

“The next step to develop into a more professional organization is the presence of dedicated and well trained staff that could make best use of the facilities availed, and could lead the organization in a more professional way,” KAMORE president, Dr. Abdul Hafeez, wrote in his application. “We believe that in the emerging sociopolitical scenario in FATA, the [NGOs] working in FATA must be provided appropriate professional development opportunities so they could learn and flourish into viable and competent organizations.”

To have their staff join the internship program, applicant NGOs submit a budget and workplan to FATA CBP, along with their organizational objectives, details of completed projects, registration status, and the CVs of key staff members.

Before deployment in the field, interns attend a week of classroom training in Islamabad and Abbotabad, where they are tutored in the principles of participatory development, such as appreciating local knowledge and understanding others’ points of view. The interns, who receive only a modest stipend from FATA CBP, are often already accomplished field workers in their own right, so mentors and mentees share their respective professional viewpoints, with these interactions becoming an integral part of their working experience.

As its name suggests, FATA CBP, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International
Development, is about building capacity, particularly of government institutions and local community service organizations. This entails the development of an organization’s entire institutional environment, including policy, structure, staffing, business processes, and resources.

DAI’s approach to FATA CBP is driven by four main objectives:

Improved processes for strategic planning, especially with the Agencies and Frontier Regions, and with institutional support from the FATA Secretariat and FATA Development Authority.

FATA-led management of monitoring and reporting and communications processes that will indicate whether activities are delivering on-the-ground social and economic development results.

Sustainable systems to support the continuous cycle of strategic planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting, and oversight of development activities, including in Agencies and Frontier Regions.

Reorientation of the current thinking about sustainable development to one that appreciates the value of—and institutes practices of—participatory community development.

For years, mission-driven development practitioners in FATA and the Northwest Frontier Provinces have proudly waved the flags of the local and international organizations for which they work. FATA CBP’s internship program is equally proud to be building the capacity of dedicated Pakistani development interns and the local NGOs dedicated to improving the lives of people in western Pakistan.

Gaza Company Turns Lemons into Emerging Business Opportunity

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:38:07 EST

Since Gaza’s borders were blocked in 2007, most of its 1.5 million residents have been forced to live without simple food items such as ketchup, canned tuna, or chocolate snacks. Previously known for fresh seafood, abundant spices, and overall culinary wealth, Gaza has seen many products disappear from its stores’ shelves. Other products are available in limited quantities, at inflated prices, often smuggled through tunnels along the border.

Imports to Gaza have dropped to only 25 percent of pre-blockade volume, and legal food imports are limited to staples such as flour, rice, and dairy. But with its Mediterranean climate and fertile soil, Gaza grows large quantities of tomatoes and lemons, and this prompted the Gaza Juice Factory (GJF) to create a flavorful business opportunity.

“We had an idea—we could adjust our production lines to make ketchup and preserved lemon juice for kitchen use,” said GJF General Manager Ayed Abu Ramadan. “Before the closure, we used to be export-oriented. Ninety percent of our revenues were generated abroad. We had to focus on the local market and rethink our product range.”

Even with a sound business idea, investing by Gazans remains a daring undertaking. In the beginning of the year, the GJF production facility was damaged in the latest Israeli military incursion, further weakening the company’s productive and financial capacity.

“On our own, we could not have pursued our business development plan—we are glad that the Facility for New Market Development (FNMD) agreed to share the risks with us,” said Mr. Abu Ramadan. FNMD is a grant operation implemented by DAI and funded by the U.K. Department for International Development and World Bank that helps Palestinian companies enter new markets and develop new products.

Operating in an acutely challenging environment, the FNMD is enabling Palestinian men and women to grow their small businesses, create jobs, and reduce poverty. The project provides carefully selected entrepreneurs such as Mr. Abu Ramadan with matching grant funds, business planning assistance, and technical support through a roster of vetted business service providers.

For example, while GJF’s product development could be handled in house, the firm sought external advice on marketing the new products locally—identifying appropriate distribution channels and developing promotional activities to target local consumers.

As a result, FNMD’s nearly 200 client entrepreneurs across the West Bank and Gaza are overcoming security barriers and deep-seated risk-aversion to deliver an array of new products and services.

GJF, which has 18 full-time and 20 part-time staff, formally launched its ketchup and lemon juice products on August 17, 2009, just in time for Ramadan, when Muslim families gather each evening to celebrate together after fasting during the daytime. Posters and brochures were distributed throughout Gaza announcing the two new products, and free samples were distributed to supermarkets, restaurants, grocery stores, and homes. Official distributors sell the ketchup and lemon juice to restaurants and supermarkets, and GJF has also won contracts to supply nongovernmental organizations, governmental institutions, and associations. In the first month since the launch, GJF saw a 15 percent increase in monthly sales.

In the long term, GJF’s new business plan might help the company maintain a competitive edge in the market after restrictions are lifted. While ketchup and lemon juice might be simple food items, its initial success with domestically produced foodstuffs will certainly give the residents of Gaza a much needed taste of success against long odds.

Uzbek Fruit Crops Flourish after Simple Technical Changes

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:28:26 EST

For many people in developing countries, farming is the foundation on which their lives depend. For two young men from eastern Uzbekistan, learning better ways to grow fruit invigorated their farms and, in one case, settled a friendly sibling rivalry.

Tursunali Jorayev’s small vineyard was under-performing, so in 2008 he volunteered for a program through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded AgLinks project, which presented to local farmers a technique using trellises. Mr. Jorayev, a 27-year-old father of three, jumped at the chance to improve his livelihood.

Under the program, AgLinks offered a cost-share arrangement to farmers who established trellises on one hectare of their land. Mr. Jorayev paid for the labor, food, and installation during construction, while AgLinks funded the cement, wire, and transport.

Trellised grapes have advantages over “bush” grapes grown on the ground: their leaves receive more sunlight and air, resulting in greater clusters and fewer rotten grapes and diseases, all of which increase yield. By using trellises, Mr. Jorayev’s vineyard, located in Pop District, Namangan Province, prospered from 2008 to 2009. His yield increased from 3.5 to 8.0 tons, and his income more than tripled from 600,000 to 2.1 million Uzbek soums (US$1,424). Through local dealers he exported 350 kilograms of the “Toyfi” variety to Russia for the first time.

Mr. Jorayev plans to invest in his vineyard, procure new grape varieties, and install trellises on his remaining two hectares. Mr. Jorayev noted the importance of the training programs, as training has been scarce since the former Soviet Union’s collective farm period.

“It is important to have training like the grape best practices, which was very interesting and useful for everybody here,” Mr. Jorayev said. “We learned a lot of useful things—proper watering, fertilizer application, pruning techniques, canopy management.”

Elsewhere in the Ferghana Valley, in the Quvasoy District, Odiljon Rakhimberdiev and his younger brother, Emin, were competing to see who could produce the most fruit.

Odiljon and his four brothers farm 70 hectares as members of the Quvasoy Bekhizor agrifirm. In the competition, Emin, an experienced fruit tree grower, was certain he would win because Odiljon was more experienced in growing wheat and cotton. But Odiljon had a strategy to prove his younger brother wrong.

AgLinks offered interested farmers the chance to host trainings in their orchards in return for technical assistance and equipment, so Odiljon volunteered 0.8 of his 3.5 hectares of fruit trees—mostly plum and peach—for the demonstration.

The pruning training in February 2009 was based on the University of California-Davis techniques for plum and peach trees. These were identified, procured, and adapted to the Uzbek language by USAID, including manuals and demonstration films. Twenty-three people, including Odiljon, attended the two-day, hands-on training that covered orchard establishment, pruning, thinning, and frost control.

The impact was realized during the summer harvest—Odiljon sold 3 tons of peaches from his 0.8 hectare orchard versus the 0.6 tons sold by his younger brother from his 4-hectare orchard. Russian buyers came to Odiljon’s orchard to purchase his 3-ton crop for 1.65 million Uzbek soum (US$1,120), so he didn’t bear the cost of taking his crop to market.

“The crop is very attractive when it is ready to pick, and customers like it because they can see the quality of the fruit immediately,” Odiljon said. “I regret I didn’t prune more trees, but I will certainly do more next year.”

Odiljon has replicated the pruning system with five neighbors on a total of six hectares with similarly impressive results. He has since trained all his orchard workers on the new approach and intends to implement it on his entire orchard of three-year-old trees.

Serbian Teens Learn the Ways of Businesses, Emergency Preparedness

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:18:29 EST

Serbia’s youth have in many ways gotten a raw deal, inheriting a country with limited employment opportunities and still recovering from the conflicts and sanctions of the 1990s. Many young people are more isolated and less worldly than were their parents and grandparents in the former Yugoslavia, who could travel freely and enjoyed luxuries in what was one of the richest nations in the region.

Serbia’s young people know that their economic opportunities are limited; unemployment for youth is about 40 percent, twice that of the rest of the population. This made the 2009 Summer Internship program and Firefighting Youth Camp all the more heartening, as teenagers once disillusioned came away enlightened and hopeful.

“I would recommend this program to everybody,” said Amina Lekpek, who interned at the accounting company Elite in Novi Pazar. “It helps high school students to think about their future, and their job when they finish school, in a more serious and mature manner.”

More than 200 students applied for the internships and 50 were selected as part of an initiative under the Preparedness, Planning and Economic Security Program (PPES), a DAI-led project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The interns brought their youthful energy and curiosity to 38 companies in textiles, construction, food production, and banking, as well as to health institutions and media, in Bujanovac, Presevo, and Novi Pazar.

Seida Djerlek and Melisa Gusinac, both students of the Novi Pazar Textile High School, interned for four weeks at Big Boys Fashion Jeans, a clothing manufacturer.

“We managed to learn a lot in a short time,” Seida said. “We were introduced to the entire process of jeans production—from designing models to the chemical processes applied in this type of industry.”

Big Boys management was pleasantly surprised by their work, and so impressed by a model they had designed, cut out, and sewn that they included it in their regular production line. This model can now be found on the shelves in Novi Pazar shops.

In a recent poll, 72 percent of young people in Serbia said they had no information about employment and education and that one of their major problems when applying for a job was lack of relevant skills and work practice.

“As a parent, I am very pleased that my son got a chance to be a part of this program,” said Mevlida Lekovic of Novi Pazar. “Acquiring work experience like this is an excellent idea for young people who can really have a hard time in getting their first jobs.”

The internships were implemented with the Bujanovac and Presevo Development Agency and Sandzak Economic Development Agency. In 2010, USAID plans to extend its activities and support an internship program for at least 150 high school and university students and unemployed young people.

While youth from the south of the country were interning, 100 teens from the north were learning how to fight fires.

More than 100 young volunteers from 10 Vojvodina municipalities learned how to safeguard their communities during a five-day firefighting youth camp in Kovacica.

Members of the Ministry of Interior’s Sector for Emergency Situations led the theoretical and practical training. The camp’s winning teams from Kovacica, Zitiste, and Zrenjanin split $10,000 worth of equipment for their local communities’ volunteer firefighter associations.

The youth camp, called “Future Vojvodina Firefighters - Kovacica 2009,” raised awareness about the importance of volunteerism in disaster prevention and response. It brought together
Red Cross members, Ministry representatives, and volunteer firefighting associations, along with youth from Backa Topola, Indjija, Kanji

Urban Gardens Rekindle Hope for Thousands in Ethiopia

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

The impact of HIV/AIDS can ripple through entire communities, but so can the positive effects of a successful development program, as a down-on-his-luck father, a bedridden mother, and a young orphan can attest.

Solomon was underemployed and unable to provide for himself, let alone others. He relied on his brothers and friends for food, necessities, and money to send his daughter to school. Now the Awasa, Ethiopia, resident not only cares for his daughter—he also provides for three children orphaned by AIDS.

Solomon turned around his life when he began to grow vegetables using a drip-irrigation system through Urban Gardens for HIV-Affected Women and Children, a DAI-led program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. With mentoring from an Urban Gardens extension officer, he made more than 500 birr (around US$40) off his first harvest.

Every day, 30 or more orphans and caretakers would join Solomon in his garden to work. “Our children were getting better than us at gardening,” Solomon said.

Buoyed by his success, he started a neighborhood group to support others affected by HIV/AIDS and share information on gardening. Impressed neighbors began donating land for him to expand his garden. Solomon then created a savings group to finance a farm to raise cows and sheep, and a pond to raise edible fish. Growing from complete dependence to exemplary leadership, Solomon took the benefits of the Urban Gardens program, magnified them, and is now passing them on throughout his community.

His story is just one of many individual and communal successes emanating from a program that simultaneously improves the food security, incomes, health, and self-sufficiency of the people who participate.

Urban Gardens, which began in 2008, is quadrupling the scope of its predecessor project, serving 24,000 new households with drip-irrigation kits and technical assistance. It trains its beneficiaries on nutrition, food preparation, HIV/AIDS treatment, care for orphans and vulnerable children, and garden-to-market linkages.

Four years ago in Addis Ababa, Tsion’s husband left her after admitting he had contracted HIV. Tsion got tested and learned that she, too, was HIV-positive. She was bedridden for months and tried numerous traditional medicines in an attempt to feel better, but with no effect. Finally, on the advice of a local nurse, she began anti-retroviral therapy (ART).

But ART requires a complementary diet. Without nutritious food in adequate quantities, the side-effects of ART—dizziness and vomiting—can be intolerable, to the point where patients become discouraged and stop taking their pills.

Today, though, Tsion is a strong, healthy, optimistic woman who credits her rebound to participation in the Urban Gardens program. Almost immediately after she began gardening, she felt mental relief simply because her life had purpose once again. “Spending time in my garden relieves my mind … the only time I feel infected is when I take my pills,” Tsion said.

It took time for Tsion to overcome the discrimination she faced in her daily life, but she tackled the problem by holding meetings at a local church to educate the public on HIV/AIDs issues.

Partnering with other landowners, Tsion has gradually increased the size of her garden and the monetary resources available to her. Today she sells sheep at the local market, seedlings to other gardeners, compost to flower shops, and home-baked bread for religious ceremonies, in addition to maintaining her gardens. “These days, there is no problem [with discrimination] around here,” Tsion said. “I am valuable to this community.”

Tsion now sends her three children to school and, perhaps most impressively, pays for her own tuition: 24 years after leaving high school, she is studying law at a local institution and expects to graduate in less than two years.

Birke, a 14-year-old from Awasa, lost both parents to HIV/AIDS. With no relatives able to take her in, she was forced to live on her own in a rented room. She had to pay for her school, food, rent, and other expenses with no outside help.

Birke learned through her school about a program that connects HIV/AIDS-affected people with plots of land. Today, after two years in the Urban Gardens program, she grows a variety of vegetables to sell at the local market. Her drip-irrigation kit feeds her plants with water from a reservoir while she’s at school, enabling Birke to complete her education without worrying about watering her crops.

Birke makes 200 birr from each monthly harvest, enough to pay her rent and other expenses. Birke also enjoys the positive social change her gardening has brought about. Despite her orphan status, she reports, her fellow students are very supportive.

Farm Price Index Expands to Cover Northern, Western Afghanistan

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Farming in Afghanistan means doing business in a climate that can range from dysfunctional to deadly. Years of war and disorder have wrought havoc on the nation’s agricultural markets. Infrastructure such as energy and roads often doesn’t exist, crippling basic commerce and transport.

One glaring breakdown in the agricultural system is the fact that farmers are often cut off from market signals and incentives, and therefore unable to respond to them in terms of production and marketing strategy. For years, they simply have not known how much farmers elsewhere are charging on the open market, or what the market is willing to pay for their products. Such ignorance hinders their competiveness and drives down profitability all along a given value chain.

But the rise of mobile networks—easy to set up compared to landline infrastructure and hence widely available—offers a readily accessible way to deliver data through SMS technology. In 2007, this possibility inspired the creation of TAMAS, a market information system developed by the DAI-led Alternative Development Program-Eastern Region (ADP/E). TAMAS uses mobile phones, radio, and email to deliver farm prices from Kabul, Asadabad, Jalalabad, and Mehtarlam in Afghanistan, as well as Peshawar in Pakistan. Within seconds, farmers can access the prices of dozens of commodities from wheat seeds in Mehtarlam to cauliflower in Kabul and eggs in Jalalabad.

TAMAS proved successful enough that DAI is expanding the system in Afghanistan under ADP/E’s successor program, Incentives Driving Economic Alternatives for the North, East and West (IDEA-NEW), which like ADP/E is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The new system tracks farm prices from the northern and western parts of the country, including from Herat, Baghlan, Badghis, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Kunduz.

As with ADP/E, the system is helping farmers respond to market incentives, make better cropping decisions, and increase their bargaining power. The daily price data enables them to better decide whether to sell products in the local market, add additional transport and packing costs to access higher-value customers in larger cities, or sell to exporters.

IDEA-NEW collaborates with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock to collect, analyze, and disseminate wholesale and retail prices for seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, animal feeds, fruits, vegetables, and meats. A price monitor in each market collects wholesale and retail prices of commodities every morning and sends them to a TAMAS administrator, who receives price reports from all the markets by 8 a.m. It takes about an hour for the administrator to refine and insert the data for subscribers who receive daily prices by email. Others can request the prices through their mobile phones.

Each day, TAMAS receives 60 to 80 price requests through SMS and provides wholesale and retail price data for 65 commodities, including apples, apricots, cabbages, cauliflowers, cucumbers, eggplants, garlic, grapes, green beans, loquats, marrows, okra, onions, plums, pomegranates, peppers, pumpkins, tomatoes, turnips, urea, and wheat.

TAMAS currently reaches 70,000 radio listeners three times per week, plus 2,400 recipients via daily email and on-demand SMS.

Women's Farms Flourish in North Sumatra after Training Takes Root

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Going into debt can be risky business, especially if it is to support a business as challenging as running a small farm. When Mrs. Rossi Sembiring borrowed Rp60 million, or about US$6,300, over two years to operate her citrus farm, success was far from guaranteed.

Like many farmers in the Karo District of North Sumatra, Indonesia, the 48-year-old and her husband, Sunah Ginting, confronted problems inherent to the business: her trees were less productive than expected, her oranges of poorer quality. When the farm failed to provide adequate income, she borrowed from family and banks to stay afloat.

Mrs. Sembiring was persistent, though, and she eventually turned around her operation by educating herself about soil acidity, dolomite and organic fertilizer application, pruning, and pest and disease control. Starting in December 2007, she gained this expertise from classes sponsored by the Agribusiness Market and Support Activity (AMARTA), a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded project implemented by DAI.

In the past year, Mrs. Sembiring harvested an exceptional amount of fruit: five tons from her first harvest, six tons from the second, and 10 tons in the final harvest. Based on the high quality of her produce, she received a premium price of Rp4,000 (40 cents) per kilogram--compared with her previous best price of Rp2,000--and generated Rp88 million ($8,800) in revenue.

Her production costs also decreased dramatically as a result of her training, from Rp40 million ($4,000) to Rp15 million ($1,500) per year, as she reduced her use of inefficient, inorganic agrochemicals. Together with the significant increase in income, Mrs. Sembiring was able to repay all her debts and was encouraged to maintain her 1.5-hectare farm and newly reliable citrus trees.

"I'm free from debts and have a better life," Mrs. Sembiring said. "I hope AMARTA can continue the citrus training program in Tanah [Town] Karo."

Boosting productivity and quality are critical in upgrading agribusiness value chains, and that means enhancing inputs, using the most advanced technology available to farmers, and promoting best agricultural practices from the start. Without these elements at the production level, no amount of downstream effort and expense--in marketing or packaging, for example--will yield higher incomes for Indonesia's farmers.

Mrs. Maria Tarigan, a 50-year-old farmer living in another section of Karo District, was running a household while operating a carrot farm on a 0.5-hectare field, and like Mrs. Sempiring was turning out inadequate quantities of low-grade product. Her maximum production per year was four tons of carrots with an average price of Rp800 (8 cents) per kilogram, which provided her an income of Rp2.2 million ($220) after deducting expenses of Rp1 million ($100).

Since April 2008, AMARTA has supported Mrs. Tarigan's Damai Sejahtera Bunuraya Farmers' Group, training farmers in theory and practice and establishing a group demonstration plot. Mrs. Tarigan immediately applied the lessons from the carrot demonstration plot in her own garden. The result: since implementing AMARTA's recommendations on land and seedling preparation, organic fertilizing and maintenance, and harvesting, Mrs. Tarigan has increased her productivity by 50 percent. She now produces six tons of carrots per year and sells them for Rp1,000 (10 cents) per kilogram. Her net income has increased by 127 percent to Rp5 million ($500), excluding the same Rp1 million ($100) in expenses.

Mrs. Tarigan became an avid supporter of other farmers, sharing techniques and information with them. "I now produce more carrots that are higher quality than what I ever grew before," she says. "My family can now afford to buy more food and my children have new clothes and books to study. [This program has] changed my life, helped my family, and helped farmers in my village."

Cisco Internships Take Hold in Indonesia, Program to Expand

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

While interning for an environmentally friendly furniture company, Irma Susanti designed better ways to track inventory and calculate costs. Maria Tjahyadi, working for a garment retailer, created a plan to sustain operations in the event of a total systems collapse.

As in many emerging and developing economies, businesses in Indonesia are often slow to adopt information technology (IT). This year, a public-private partnership between Cisco and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) brought together tech-savvy Indonesian college students with technologically challenged small businesses. The firms reaped the benefit of young, supple minds applying themselves to practical problems, while the students gained real-world experience.

The result: two universities have announced they will continue the internships indefinitely, almost all the firms said they would participate again, student inquiries about the next round of internships grow daily, and Cisco is so impressed that it may expand the program to universities in Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Susanti and Tjahyadi were among 100 Cisco-trained college students placed in internships by the Industry Attachment Program (IAP), which was designed and managed by USAID'sSENADA project, a DAI-implemented initiative to spur Indonesia's economic growth and employment by improving the competitiveness of labor-intensive light manufacturing industries.

"IAP has given real challenges to students that the classroom cannot," said Paulus Insap Santosa, a senior lecturer at the University of Gajah Mada in Jogyakarta. "This is critical to allowing them to use their knowledge and concepts to develop realistic and workable IT solutions. The program really helps students believe that they have the capacity to find smart and achievable ways to help SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] become more competitive through IT implementation."

The students, all alumni of Cisco's global Network Academy Program, which provides students with advanced training in networking, were placed in 85 businesses. They were charged with bolstering network operations, creating business and technology solutions, and helping sponsoring firms to budget and prioritize IT applications, among other jobs.

Unlike many conventional internships, these students benefited from a steady transfer of skills and tools from both their universities and from technical experts at SENADA and Cisco.

Tjahyadi went to work for Surfer Girl, which produces street wear for girls and has more than 20 stores in Bali and Jakarta. There, she helped Surfer Girl design an IT system for its human resources needs, completed a study on the implementation of a radio frequency identification system, and compiled procedures for an IT disaster recovery plan.

Susanti designed and integrated software that enabled the furniture builder CV Kayu Manis to better manage recycled wood inventories and compute cost of goods sold, both functions critical to operational competitiveness.

The IAP was not without hurdles. Only 61 of the 100 interns completed the rigorous program. Those who dropped out cited difficulties in juggling schoolwork with an internship, or simply in finding transportation to and from work. And then there was the technological knowledge gap: nearly one third of the students said it was hard to communicate IT solutions to their less technologically oriented, more financially conservative bosses.

Many of the students who completed the internship said they better understood how businesses can use IT in their daily operations, including in financial transactions, website development, computer networking, and managing staff and outlet branches. Some said they now have a better grasp of what it means to operate under a budget, navigate company bureaucracy, and work within business processes.

In November 2009, three interns selected as top performers will visit Cisco headquarters in San Jose, California.

"This program has met our expectation by providing hands-on experiences for university students entering the real business world, and also encouraging SMEs to get more connected into the internet for seizing bigger business opportunities," said Kurnijanto E. Sanggono, marketing director for Cisco Indonesia.

Case Study in Containment Speaks to Effective Training, Communication

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

When Mr. Sunar awoke the morning of June 16, 2008, he discovered that all his backyard chickens had died overnight. He quickly surmised what had happened and his conclusion was grim, but he did not panic. He knew what was at stake.

Families throughout Indonesia keep live birds. In metropolises and villages across the sprawling archipelago, chickens and ducks are part of the culture and seemingly everywhere. As a result, there are countless places for the deadly H5N1 virus to emerge and do damage. In fact, it already has.

From July 2005 through 2008, 141 human cases of avian influenza (AI) were confirmed by the Indonesian Ministry of Health, and most of them proved fatal. Many thousands of infected and at-risk birds have had to be culled, adding an economic dimension to the health crisis. So when Mr. Sunar discovered his birds had died, he was understandably scared.

But he was not without help or resources. He had learned through televised public service announcements that sudden death in poultry could signal an outbreak of AI, so he reported what had happened to Mr. Soyfan, his neighborhood representative.

Mr. Sunar and Mr. Soyfan live on the outskirts of Medan, Indonesia's third-most populous city. Well prepared by the information campaign, the two men quickly reported the case to their subdistrict chief, who next contacted the village avian influenza coordinator (VAIC), a local volunteer. The VAIC in turn informed the participatory disease surveillance and response (PDSR) officer of the Medan municipal animal health service, and the work required to contain the outbreak and inform the public was under way.

The information campaign that sparked Mr. Sunar's actions was part of the Community-Based Avian Influenza Control (CBAIC) Project, an initiative funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by DAI. CBAIC was launched in 2006 as part of USAID's strategy for reducing the risk of pandemic flu.

Densely populated with both people and poultry, Indonesia is an ideal incubator for highly pathogenic AI. The virus is already endemic in much of Indonesia and, experts warn, might mutate into a form that passes from human to human, potentially resulting in a worldwide epidemic that could kill thousands or even millions.

The Medan-based PDSR quickly arrived at the home of Mr. Sunar, his wife Siti, and their three children. Rapid testing of the carcasses confirmed that his poultry were indeed victims of H5N1. The district's public health disease surveillance officer was promptly notified of the confirmed AI outbreak, while the VAIC, PDSR, and members of the Indonesian Red Cross carried out intensive culling and disinfection in and around the outbreak area, then canvassed door to door to tell the community what had happened. Simultaneously, the disease surveillance officer looked for any human cases, finding none.

Mr. Sunar's case illustrates how a community-based AI surveillance and response network can operate and how strategic behavior change communication initiatives can "get the word out" to ensure the network is utilized to protect people at the community level and beyond. CBAIC helped form these community-based surveillance and response networks by training the VAICs, who were taught to report suspected AI cases directly to PDSRs, thus linking the surveillance and response elements crucial to the success of the network.

In all, CBAIC has trained 27,000 VAICs and subdistrict coordinators across nine Indonesian provinces. Its mass media campaign, which ran from January to April 2008, reached an estimated 159 million TV viewers and delivered integrated television, radio, and print messages around two key risk-reduction behaviors: reporting suspected AI outbreaks and burning and burying dead poultry.

Combined, these interventions increased Indonesia's AI surveillance and response capacity, providing thousands of communities with the knowledge and tools necessary to prevent and control AI, and ultimately reducing the risk of a pandemic influenza.

New Protected Area Marks Shift in El Salvadors Attitude to Conservation

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

El Salvador is generously endowed with mangrove forests, coral-laden coastline, rich watersheds, and other natural resources. But some of its choicest land and sea has been blighted at the hands of opportunists as well as hard pressed, impoverished citizens.

State-owned mangroves have been razed for farming, cut down for building wood and firewood, and exploited for hunting and poaching. Farmers struggling to eke out a living are selling land to housing developers in areas near sensitive parks, forests, and beaches. The eggs of critically endangered hawksbill turtles are being taken for food.

But the country's attitude toward nature is changing as many of those same local stakeholders are now realizing tangible economic benefits by improving their watershed management and conserving biological resources.

On June 10, 2009, the Government of El Salvador, assisted by DAI's Improved Management and Conservation of Critical Watersheds (IMCCW) project, completed the demarcation of its first Marine Protected Area, the 213-square kilometer Los C'banos reserve. The signature moment came when a fourth 17-foot-tall, yellow polyethylene buoy was anchored off the coast in the Pacific Ocean, officially segregating the newly protected zone.

Although conservation efforts in El Salvador date back to 1940, establishing a protected area was no small task. Most state-owned lands were not legally registered as such. Some parcels within public areas were registered as private lands, and vice versa. Maps were inaccurate and protected areas improperly registered.

IMCCW staff met weekly for a full year with officials from the Salvadoran government to develop practical regulations for protecting natural areas and a comprehensive process for untangling the administrative mess. The team undertook cadastral and legal-status studies of each property and established protocols to deal with problems, creating new legal instruments where necessary and applying existing tools where appropriate.

In December 2007, the Government declared Los C'banos a protected area. To back up this declaration, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded IMCCW provided technical support such as geographic information system charts of the Los C'banos seabed and seven feeder streams emptying into the reserve.

DAI also orchestrated the bidding process and selected partners to carry out the tasks required to mark the territory and secure the buoys. DAI surveyors, working under Ministry of the Environment supervision, marked the boundaries of the land portion, while staff educators, nongovernmental organizations, and local governments trained affected communities on environmental management. Crucially, because any development plan that ignores local livelihoods is bound to invite further depredation of the conserved area, the project teams took steps to boost sustainable local incomes by championing small-scale ecotourism and low-input horticulture.

When it was time to mark the marine boundaries, IMCCW researched national laws, international regulations, technical specifications, oceanographic characteristics, official permits, and bidding procedures. Staff met with fishing cooperatives to ensure they would be able to continue pursuing livelihoods in harmony with the protected area.

Now that the buoys are in place, IMCCW is helping the Ministry of the Environment develop a participatory management plan for artisanal fisheries, land use, ecotourism, and other sustainable activities.

One new business, Los C'banos Tours, is run by local young people trained to offer a variety of touring experiences: snorkeling at the beaches of La Privada and El Amor, diving to see the Sheriff Gone shipwreck, searching for marine life such as hunchback whales, trekking along the protected area, and boating along the coast. These products are marketed through various tourism channels.

Many local farmers are now using their land to grow less destructive, more profitable products such as certified, environmentally friendly coffees and higher-quality fruits and vegetables and using the environmentally sound practices needed to access both domestic and international markets.

Placing the last buoy to mark the boundaries of Los C'banos is a milestone in the effort to preserve El Salvador's natural heritage. Los C'banos sandy shores and volcanic rocks will remain nesting beaches and feeding grounds for the hawksbill turtles "the largest population of hawksbills in the eastern Pacific" while its mangroves are increasingly recognized by ordinary Salvadorans as national jewels of biodiversity.

Afghan Women Lead Expansion of Vegetable Processing Facility

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

For many women in Afghanistan, the barriers to putting food on the table are daunting: inadequate water and electricity services, poorly maintained roads, and minimal government assistance—all compounded by ever-present personal safety concerns—trap many Afghan women in poverty.

This generation of Afghan women—war widows, traumatized teens, and mothers simply holding together their households—also lives under the weight of oppression. Under Taliban rule, women were fired from jobs, removed from schools, forced to cover themselves from head to toe, and in many cases virtually imprisoned, barred from engaging with the outside world. Though the Taliban were driven from power in Kabul in 2001, ultraconservative values still prevail in many areas.

That context makes the success of the Surkhrod Packing Facility, in the Pashtun province of Nangarhar, all the more unlikely. Since 2006, this female-operated facility has grown from a modest vegetable collection center into a vegetable and fruit packing facility, where products are consolidated, graded, sorted, and packed, and then exported to domestic and international buyers. Trained and certified in sanitation, quality control, and food handling, these women operate the only Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)-certified facility in the country.

The rise of the Surkhrod facility, a product of the DAI-led Alternative Development Program/Eastern Region (ADP/E) project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, has coincided with a decline in opium poppy farming in the province.

“Before starting to work here in the pack house, I used to work in poppy fields to support my family,” said Nainuma, a 40-year-old woman worker, through an interpreter. “Initially, I was scared to work here as in our community, women are not supposed to work outside the house. But when I realized that working here is safe for me, I changed my mind.”

The facility processes high-value vegetables including garlic, pepper, squash, chives, carrots, cucumbers, and lettuce for embassies and high-end supermarkets in Kabul and customers in Dubai, marketed through the Eastern Region Wholesalers Association under the Pride of the Eastern Region brand name.

The Surkhrod pack house is just one of the ADP/E initiatives that generate livelihoods for women in Nangarhar and elsewhere in eastern Afghanistan. For example, the program has:

Established 40 women-owned fish farms and 18 greenhouses that grow superior plug seedlings;

Supported small-scale cheese processing units that enable 190 women operators to increase household incomes;

Created the Eastern Region Handicraft Association of 220 women entrepreneurs, in partnership with the Golden Fingers and Afghan Hands organizations;

Trained 2,500 women in livestock husbandry, including animal nutrition, identification and treatment of common diseases, and modern practices to improve productivity; and

Helped 15 Nuristani women being trained as midwifes, who will provide urgently needed maternal health services in their communities.

Although most DAI-assisted businesses in rural Afghanistan are agricultural, ADP/E has also promoted culturally acceptable enterprises outside of agriculture. Nearly 200 such businesses owned and operated by women have been established since 2007 with help from ADP/E’s business mentorship program, which provides training, small grants, monitoring, and technical support. More than 90 percent of these businesses were still running as of June 2009. The enterprises—selected by the women themselves to fill market niches in their communities—include food shops, beauty salons, clothing stores, and bakeries.

ADP/E has also helped women in the eastern provinces expand their markets into the nation’s capital. For a week-long trade fair in Kabul, ADP/E helped women such as Sharifa Jan of Nangarhar by putting on transportation, assisting in craft design, and sharing marketing savvy in the set-up of exhibition booths. High-end retailers visited the booths and quickly began to discuss the feasibility of opening an eastern region handicrafts gallery in Kabul stocked with products from Nangarhar, Laghman, and Kunar provinces.

“I am pleased I got to attend the Kabul exhibit where I got many contacts, received orders from Kabul stores, and learned how quality work is important in the market,” Sharifa Jan said.

Meanwhile, back in Surkhrod, producers are earning an average of $1.70 per kilogram for their products: 25 to 125 percent more than they would from local sales. The facility’s 2008–2009 revenues totaled $510,000, or about $6,500 per week. “Here in the pack house,” Nainuma said, “I was taught new skills and I successfully learned them. In fact, with the establishment of the pack house, I and my family are being supported financially with a reasonable pay of $75 per month.”

Nainuma and her colleagues are now launching an expansion that will grow the facility’s vegetable processing capacity from 1,500 to 10,000 kilograms per day, multiplying the plant’s revenue potential and holding out the promise of sustainability well into the future.

Ho Chi Minh Academy Gets to Grips with the Global Economy

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Only a generation ago, Vietnam was an impoverished, politically and economically isolated country ravaged by war, with its central government struggling to provide basic services or ways for its economy to grow. Today, while still relatively poor, Vietnam ranks among the fastest growing economies in the world, and the country is integrating with global markets, experiencing both the rewards of trade and throes of the global recession.

Vietnam's emerging economists are now asking tough questions: If inflation is bad, why do governments still contribute to it? How does Vietnam benefit from membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO)? If free trade is good, why do some people object to it?

To keep up with the pace of change in this dynamic context, faculty from the Ho Chi Minh Academy of Politics and Public Administration (HCMA) are taking professional education courses provided by the Support for Trade Acceleration II (STAR II) project. The project, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by DAI, began the training in December 2008 with a pilot course on international economic integration at the academy's main campus in Hanoi. It continued in March 2009 with classes on the global recession, followed by programs in April and May in Ho Chi Minh City and Danang, respectively.

The December course drew 52 faculty members from the Academy and its provincial schools. Participants will in turn take what they have learned to train Vietnamese leaders at all government levels and from all parts of the country. The faculty also trains hundreds of officials from Cambodia and Laos each year, so this "train the trainers" course is effectively preparing government leaders throughout the region for a new era of economic integration.

"We have the entire December training course on DVD, and I am exploring the idea of making portions of that available on the web in partnership with a local online training company," said Dan Rathbun, the STAR II Chief of Party. "There's a real hunger for this sort of information, so finding new ways to reach more people, such as with webcasts, is a high priority."

The STAR lecturers, academics, former government officials, and industry practitioners, among the first Westerners to hold forth on international trade and economics at the HCMA, were well received. Balancing theory and practical knowledge, their lectures were interspersed with case studies about WTO tariff rates, question and answer sessions on globalization, and group discussions on policy creation. The participants also dug into the theory of international monetary economics, framed around two in-depth topics: the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 and its impact on Vietnam, and the mini-crisis in Vietnam in the summer of 2008.

In one case study, participants delved into the footwear manufacturing industry and visited the formerly state-owned Ngoc Ha Footwear Company in the Gia Lam District of Hanoi, where they discussed policy issues with the factory manager and saw first-hand how theories of competitiveness apply in practice.

Seeing the 1,200 workers at the factory, whose average salary is $100 per month, reinforced the importance of enhancing Vietnam's competitiveness. Thousands of similarly low-skill, low-wage jobs have already been lost as a result of the global economic recession and competition from China and other low-income countries. Now that Vietnam is a member of the WTO, Vietnamese businesses have access to huge new markets, but they also face new competition. As the participants learned, Vietnam must embrace sweeping reforms if it is to reap the benefits of global economic integration.

Nearly all the participants said their training goals were fulfilled, rated the course as excellent or very good, and recommended that USAID provide more training for the Academy's faculty through STAR II. The project hopes to team with U.S. universities interested in working with the Academy to build capacity on a large scale.

Vietnam in 2001 signed the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement, and in 2007 acceded to the WTO. STAR II supports the development of institutional and administrative systems needed to implement the massive legal and regulatory changes promulgated in recent years in the areas of trade, commercial dispute settlement, intellectual property rights, foreign direct investment, and transparency and the right to appeal.

These reforms are partnered with educational programs that include training for officials, lawyers, judges, and business leaders; academic capacity development and revision of university curricula; and public education campaigns.

Young Albanians Stay Home to Take Family Farming to the Next Level

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Like many young people in Albania, Urim Leka decided to leave the poor, rural place where he was born. Leka’s village of Hysgjokaj, located deep in the south-central part of the country, held no promise for the energetic young man, and even though Leka did not want to leave his family, he did so with his father’s blessing.

In 2000, after studying carpentry in the Albanian capital of Tirana, Leka went to Greece to find work and stayed there for two years doing odd jobs. “It was hard work and I could not earn much,” Leka said. “It was expensive and difficult to do the [immigration] papers. So I returned and decided to work on my own family’s farm.”

Leka’s return pleased his family, but it also changed the way he looked at the family farm. Determined to make it a success, the 25-year-old enrolled in RASTI, an initiative of DAI’s Albanian Agriculture Competitiveness (AAC) Program, to learn alongside other young people how to maximize farm productivity. He now works full time in his own greenhouse on the 2.5-hectare family property, growing cucumbers and other greenhouse vegetables. He views farming as his chosen lifestyle and career.

“I enjoy working in the greenhouse,” Leka said. “It is a job I do for myself and for my family. At the end of the day I am home with my family, friends, and relatives. It is worth investing in my own business.”

RASTI—which stands for Young Agro-Entrepreneurs for Markets and Innovation— trains young Albanian farmers and agribusiness operators, while establishing a network of peers for sharing information. Launched on March 26, the program is covering the Lushnja and Korça regions and will soon operate nationwide.

“I can now use the computer and know some English,” Leka said of his training. “The knowledge I am getting in RASTI is very useful. It is an opportunity to use a new thing helpful in my business. As soon as we have internet in our village, I will practice.”

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, AAC is tackling two systemic issues through programs like RASTI. First, many Albanian farmers, having worked for decades under a controlled economy, are ill equipped to interpret market signals and translate them into business decisions. Second, the exodus of young people has left the land in the hands of an older generation unlikely to embrace and exploit new information technologies.

RASTI engages young men and women in the practice of agriculture as a business—put another way, it makes farming “cool.” RASTI trains them to collect, analyze, and use market information to plan production, conceive business ideas, and translate those ideas into bankable plans.

Partners assisting RASTI include the Albanian Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Protection, and the faculty of economics and agribusiness at the Agriculture University of Tirana. Opportunity Albania, Raiffeisen Bank, and ProCredit Bank are training aspiring farmers, evaluating their business plans, and assisting them in their ventures.

Albania is blessed with a variety of climatic zones, making it possible to grow a diverse assortment of crops, often with two or three plantings a year. Given its port and road infrastructure, Albania can easily move its products to regional and European markets, as well as the Middle East and North Africa.

By engaging the next generation of agribusiness entrepreneurs and teaching them how to operate profitable enterprises, RASTI is upgrading Albania’s value chains and enabling young Albanians to contribute to the development of their country’s agriculture.

Microfinancing Helps Haitian Families Send Kids to School

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Going to school isn’t a birthright in Haiti. Parents must pay up-front for their children to attend school, and if they cannot pay all the fees, their children instead stay home or roam the streets. Even families with sufficient annual income can have trouble raising the lump sum needed to enroll.

As a result, school attendance is unacceptably low in Haiti. Half of Haiti’s children were not attending primary school from 2000 to 2006, according to UNICEF. Many go to school off and on throughout their youth—when their parents can afford to pay—and fall behind in their studies, repeating grades and paying another round of school fees to do so.

In Haiti, it is not unusual to see teenagers learning alongside 8-year-olds, or for young people to go to school for 15 years to earn a sixth-grade education.

Célestin Destin struggled for years to pay his two daughters’ schools fees, but not anymore. This year Mr. Destin borrowed 11,200 gourdes (roughly US$300) from a local caisses populaires, or credit cooperative, to pay for his daughters’ tuition, uniforms, books, and school supplies. Thousands more parents across Haiti will soon be taking advantage of the same opportunity.

Mr. Destin’s loan is part of the “microfinance for education” program developed by DAI under the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Support to Haiti’s Microfinance, Small and Medium Enterprises Sector (Haiti MSME) project, and under USAID/DAI’s predecessor project, the Financial Service Network for Entrepreneurial Empowerment. Led by long-time collaborator Développement International Desjardins (DID), the microfinance for education program was tested as a pilot for three years and included four caisses populaires that financed 1,763 students at 30 schools. The program was especially successful at targeting female students—51 percent were girls—who are often the last to be sent to school and the first to drop out.

“Before this loan, it was very hard for me to pay their school fees because I never had the right quantity of money available at the beginning of the school year,” said Mr. Destin, who operates a small metal workshop. “Now, I can pay my daughters’ school fees in one fell swoop, and I can easily afford my loan payment, because they are due only every two months.”

Lenders reported high loan repayment rates and improved school attendance. The microfinance institutions found that the education loan products helped them to expand their client bases and improve client satisfaction. DID expects loan repayment to improve as the caisses populaires gain experience in marketing the program, developing credit criteria, and managing debt delinquency. Moreover, participating families now have a better grasp of the need to repay loans and manage their cash flow, while partner schools have recognized the importance of offering a better education and improving their monitoring and management skills.

Nationwide replication of the education credit program speaks to its enormous success. USAID’s Haiti MSME, DID, and a major donor, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), have now structured agreements with the Haitian Minister of Education to support the loan program, called Crédit Ecolage, in 35 caisses populaires throughout Haiti.

The national program plans partnerships with 210 additional schools, targeting 45,250 student school years from 2008 to 2014. These children will be able to start school on time, without their families having to de-capitalize household enterprises or turn to predatory lending schemes.

USAID and DAI hope that the success of the program will encourage other microfinance institutions to apply the model and develop their own education credit products. Recently, a small caisse populaire called Mutuelle Croissance Economique—in the southern rural town of Camp Perrin—received USAID support to develop an education lending product based on the Crédit Ecolage approach.

Punjab Legislators Hold First-Ever Pre-Budget Planning Meetings

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Until recently, the vast majority of legislators in Pakistan’s Punjab province received the proposed budget only a day or two before voting on it. It was impossible for them to weigh in during the planning process, or even scrutinize the budget before casting their vote. The wide range of funding needs was not thoroughly addressed. Legislators were forced to vote on a budget that was, to all intents and purposes, a fait accompli.

As a result, government spending was often hasty and poorly planned; for example, each year, toward the June 30 conclusion of the province’s fiscal year, pressure mounted to spend the rupees committed in the budget—simply in order to avoid losing those funds.

But in February 2009, provincial legislators took an important step toward institutionalizing fiscal diligence by holding their first ever pre-budget planning sessions. Many of the province’s 371 legislators met in Lahore, the capital, bringing with them funding requests from their home districts and recommendations for spending priorities in areas such as health, agriculture, law, and infrastructure.

Held at the start of budget planning and four months in advance of the actual vote, the sessions promise to lead to more responsive relationships between the provincial government and the province’s 82 million residents, as well as between legislators and the people who voted them into office.

“The legislators have moved beyond the stage of, ‘So, how much money do I have?’ and toward, ‘How well is the money being spent for my constituents and all the people?’” said Christopher Shields, Chief of Party for the Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Project (PLSP), which helped organize the sessions. PLSP is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by DAI.

Pre-budget planning is part of the greater oversight and accountability agenda being pursued by Pakistani provincial and national legislators in partnership with the PLSP. DAI has developed customized budget analysis tools that enable legislators to substantively review government expenditures and revenues.

“We’re helping lawmakers develop the tools they need to do the job they were elected to do, which is represent the people, as their evolution continues from officeholder to lawmaker and, finally, to parliamentarian,” Shields said.

The Punjab meetings were the latest in a series of initiatives designed to bolster legislative effectiveness in Pakistan from the grassroots up, including women’s caucuses, orientations for new officeholders, internships, upgraded press centers and information technology, and a new Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services, a learning facility in Islamabad.

Afghan Villages Bolstered by Micro-Hydro Power Plant

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Livelihoods do not come easily for those living in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. The few roads are rough and hard to travel, and homes and shops in many villages go dark after sundown for lack of electricity.

Families in eastern Afghanistan have also been forced to live with war. Those in provinces such as Nangarhar, which shares a border with Pakistan and its tribal areas, live each day under the threat of violence.

Prospects are improving, however, for people in the village of Dodarek in Nangarhar's Dare Noor district. A mountain stream runs through the village, and though it is only a few feet wide, its water is powerful. Now, thanks to a DAI-led project, some of the water from the stream flows through a turbine that creates electricity for local homes and shops.

"This project is a blessing to the people of this village," said Mir Alam Khan, the head of Dodarak's tribal shura, or village council. "The economy of the community has improved, and I am sure more significant, positive changes will occur."

On April 6, 2009, members of Dare Noor District Development Assembly, elders of Dodarak village, and representatives from the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Alternative Development Program -- Eastern Region (ADP/E), gathered to open a 60-kilowatt micro-hydro power plant driven by the stream.

Energy harnessed from the stream provides electricity for 150 households in Dodarak, Dodailak, and Gorkhal villages, over an area of 2.5 square kilometers. Families use their new electricity for lighting and for electrical appliances such as refrigerators. The plant also powers six shops that sell food, cold drinks, and other staples.

ADP/E's micro-hydro programs are designed to support broader community and economic growth; in fact, the supplementary benefits are central to the model and provide added value with minimal added cost.

As the Dodarak micro-hydro power plant came together, for example, local residents organized the labor efforts and took a personal stake in the project. They learned the skills needed to maintain the plant while earning money to fuel the local economy. All the while, ADP/E engineers and managers engaged shura members to respond to the community�s interests and needs.

The Dodarak micro-hydro plant cost roughly US$107,000 -- including $17,000 for local labor -- to engineer and build. If designed appropriately, such "run-of-the-river" plants have no adverse impacts on water resources, aquatic life, or the environment. A portion of the water from the stream is diverted through the turbine, and sometimes small water storage areas are needed to ensure consistent flow and power production. Additional micro-hydro plants can be placed up or downstream, harnessing the power of the same water many times over.

"The micro-hydro plant in Dodarak is designed and built in compliance with international standards for micro-hydro power," said Ziauddin Zaib, an engineer and micro-hydro expert in Jalalabad. "I expect the life of the plant to be 40 years."

Electricity is not free, however, and the Community Development Council (CDC) of Dodarak village has implemented a transparent system for managing electricity accounts. Each family pays three Afghanis, and each business five Afghanis, for one kilowatt hour of electricity. The CDC collects the money, which is used to pay the power plant technicians and maintain the plant. If revenue exceeds regular expenses, the CDC can allocate funds for other development projects in the vihoods do not come easily for those living in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. The few roads are rough and hard to travel, and homes and shops in many villages go dark after sundown for lack of electricity.

The plant is designed to expand: it has the capacity to power 600 more households and provide electricity for private sector growth. A strawberry jam factory, flour mill, medium-scale textile factory, and carpentry facility -- each powered by electricity from the stream -- will soon open in Dodarak, creating more than 100 jobs. Shops for sewing and selling ice cream will also open. Indeed, the strategic planning that supported the project has spawned additional business planning and goal setting within Dodarak and nearby communities.
The Dodarak micro-hydro plant cost roughly US$107,000 -- including $17,000 for local labor -- to engineer and build. If designed appropriately, such "run-of-the-river" plants have no adverse impacts on water resources, aquatic life, or the environment. A portion of the water from the stream is diverted through the turbine, and sometimes small water storage areas are needed to ensure consistent flow and power production. Additional micro-hydro plants can be placed up or downstream, harnessing the power of the same water many times over.

About 160 micro-hydro plants have been installed in Afghanistan in recent years. The Dodarak project was conceived by Afghan experts, and after technical feasibility and economic viability surveys, the plant was designed by Afghan engineers working for USAID's ADP/E, then manufactured in Lahore, Pakistan.
"The micro-hydro plant in Dodarak is designed and built in compliance with international standards for micro-hydro power," said Ziauddin Zaib, an engineer and micro-hydro expert in Jalalabad. "I expect the life of the plant to be 40 years."

Burundian Farmers Earn Quality Premiums for Specialty Coffee

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Burundi, one of the poorest countries in the world, was plagued from 1994 until 2005 by a brutal civil war that devastated the country’s one major export—coffee.

Even as the war ended and coffee production rebounded, the coffee cherries and beans continued to be carelessly harvested and processed in the state-run system, resulting in a product of unremarkable quality that brought low prices for the farmers, whose receipts were further diminished by the government’s use of middlemen—brokers and wholesalers—to bring the coffee beans to the market.

Meanwhile, buyers for the world’s burgeoning specialty coffee market, looking for hand-selected beans grown in favorable microclimates, were traveling to neighboring Rwanda and other east African countries, dealing directly with farmers, and paying a good price to bring choice product back to the United States, Europe, and Japan.

Burundi’s coffee industry is finally stepping up to meet international demand, as exemplified in the February 24, 2009 celebration at the Bwayi coffee washing station in Kayanza Province, where more than 3,000 farmers came to collect 21 million Burundian francs (US$17,605) in quality premiums for higher-grade coffee lots developed and sold directly to international buyers.

This marked the first time that Burundian farmers made significant direct sales to specialty market roasters. By doing so, they commanded a higher price for their coffee beans than the price set by Burundi’s regulating body for the coffee industry.

“I used my rebate money to purchase improved seed and fertilizer, and to pay labor costs toward land clearing and planting” for the March-June growing season, said Germain Simbayobewe, president of the Bwayi Cooperative of coffee growers.

Simbayobewe and others in Burundi’s coffee value chain are being assisted by the Burundi Agribusiness Program (BAP), a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded project launched in October 2007 by DAI and implemented with support from Michigan State University.

Other producers who earned a quality premium—additional money for meeting a quality standard—included Bibiane Ntibibuka of Burengo, who used her 28,000 francs to buy a new hoe and seed and put money aside for day labor and mulch; Herman Samandari of Burarana, who purchased clothes for his children and paid their quarterly school fees; and Charles Sindekemwa of Ruvumu, who invested in organic fertilizer for his food crops and vegetable garden.

“Today, the coffee producers who supplied Bwayi in 2008 are better able to pay for field work [day labor] necessary to weed and mulch their plantations because of the quality premium they received,” said Emile Kamwenubusa, BAP’s coffee value chain leader.

To enable entrance into the specialty market, BAP convinced the Burundian government to allow the producers to sell coffee beans directly to specialty coffee buyers. Farmers and others, however, also had to improve the quality of their goods: producers picked coffee cherries only when they were exactly ripe and not overripe, the cherries were washed of their pulp and the resulting beans sorted and dried to precise standards, and beans were shipped and stored quickly to assure freshness and avoid overexposure to heat and humidity.

In the spring and summer of 2008, BAP arranged for coffee buyers to visit Burundian coffee farms and processing sites. This ultimately resulted in sales by the Bwayi Cooperative to Stumptown Coffee Roasters of Portland, Oregon, and Dunn Brothers Roasters of Minneapolis in the United States. Café Imports of Minnesota and Schluter of Switzerland also purchased coffee.

In 2008, Bwayi bought 808.5 metric tons of cherry, which was processed into 169.6 metric tons of parchment. The cooperative sold 52.8 metric tons of green coffee directly to international buyers, which generated the premium for the coffee producers.

Coffee accounts for roughly 80 percent of Burundi’s export earnings, and nearly 1 million people make their living from the crop. When the civil war struck, coffee production dropped from 36,800 metric tons in 1996 to 15,000 metric tons in 2001, and 7,000 metric tons in 2003. Production has since returned to its prewar level.

Burundian farmers certainly have the climate and much of the infrastructure to succeed in the international market. Mild Arabica trees of principally Bourbon and Jackson varieties—introduced decades earlier—grow in volcanic soil on misty, rolling hills in equatorial temperatures. In an effort during the 1980s to spark the industry, the Burundian government planted tens of millions of coffee trees and built 133 coffee washing stations, where the coffee cherries are processed, as well as two modern dry mills.

But the industry never grew beyond producing commercial grade coffee—mandatorily sold at state auction for low prices, with minimal benefit to the producers. The country is now moving toward privatizing its coffee assets, in particular by selling its 133 coffee washing stations, two dry mills, and other holdings.

By introducing quality standards and new processing procedures, linking international buyers to Burundi’s coffee farmers, and persuading Burundi’s state coffee authority to allow further sales of specialty lots, BAP expects more days like February 24, where rural smallholders and other coffee sector actors will reap greater rewards for their efforts.

DAI-Trained Mediator Arbitrates Moroccan Land Dispute

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

In any country, access to a transparent, straightforward, and relatively expeditious system for resolving commercial disputes is a prerequisite for a business environment that will encourage the creation and development of small businesses. Morocco is no different.

For ordinary Moroccans, investing in their nation’s recent property boom was a chance for small investors to compete with established property developers. But when a group of 19 friends jointly purchased a plot of coastal land to build beach cottages, they found they needed help. They could afford the land, but not the cottages. Neither could they afford protracted legal proceedings.

Enter Mr. Hassani, a real estate expert (some names in this story have been changed for legal reasons). Hassani recommended that the group hire a construction firm—the Alami family—to build the cottages and jointly own the property. He then arranged for the contracts to be signed, and submitted his bill.

The Alami family had agreed to give Hassani a share of the land, but refused to follow through on that commitment, alleging that Hassani had not finished his work. Hassani took the case to court, which halted construction until the dispute could be settled.

This left the group of 19 entrepreneurs high and dry: a lawsuit could take years, leaving their investment hanging in the balance. Frustrated, they sought advice from the notary who had originally put their sales contract together. He suggested using an out-of-court technique—mediation—in which a neutral party helps two or more disputing parties negotiate a solution.

Over the past decade, Morocco has undertaken wide-ranging reforms to improve the performance of its judiciary so it is on par with the country’s progress in economic development and foreign investment. Adjudicating and resolving commercial disputes is a key goal of the reforms, designed to improve Morocco’s business climate by bolstering the private sector’s confidence in the enforceability of property rights.

In 2007 and 2008, DAI organized commercial mediation training in Rabat under theImproving the Business Climate in Morocco program, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. The notary in the beachfront transaction, Mr. Taoufik Azzouzi, had successfully completed this training and was ready to take on his first case. Hassani and the Alami family agreed to give it a try.

“It was a challenging first case,” Azzouzi said. “Disputes are always multifaceted, and this case was further complicated by the fact that 19 people were indirectly implicated.”

Because the mediation came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in September 2008, negotiations were held in the evening, after the daylight fast was broken. The timing of the case helped. Whenever emotions threatened to get out of control, Azzouzi found he could get the disputing parties back on track with the simple words: “It’s Ramadan.”

By the end of the sacred month, a solution was found. The Alami family bought Hassani’s share of the land and paid his services rendered; for his part, Hassani withdrew his court petition and claim to the property.

Mediation is not new to Morocco. As in other Islamic cultures, the tradition of using a third party to settle disputes between people or groups has been around for centuries. What is new, however, is a law passed in the Moroccan Parliament in December 2007, institutionalizing mediation as an alternative to the court system. The law legitimized private, out-of-court mediation such as that performed by Mr. Azzouzi and, importantly, ensured the process remained confidential.

Morocco’s first Association of Mediators was born out of the law and the associated DAI-led training. Mohammed Belmahi was named the association’s first president.

“Our mediators are from all professions—from doctors to trade unionists—so we have the expertise to settle all types of disputes that are brought to us,” Belmahi said. “Furthermore, we are from cities throughout Morocco, so potential clients won’t have to look far.”

The beachfront case was the first mediation performed by Azzouzi under the new law, saving the group of 19 friends and the Alami family from a long, expensive legal case. But it won’t be the last that he and others perform. The association plans to offer training for aspiring mediators around the country.

New Schools, Hospital Lay Foundation for Community Recovery in Sri Lanka

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Sri Lanka has been wracked by civil war for more than 20 years. Thousands of people in the eastern half of the country, caught in the middle of fighting between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), have lost their ability to live normal lives. Many abandoned their homes and communities, sometimes never to return.

Compounding the crisis, the December 2004 tsunami devastated much of Sri Lanka’s eastern coastline and further victimized an already beleaguered populace in the Eastern Province.

In July 2008, the government of Sri Lanka regained control of the province and began stabilizing the region; since January 2009, DAI has contributed to that stabilizing mission by breaking ground on eight rehabilitation projects that will strengthen the foundations of hard-hit communities.

Working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and using funding from U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), DAI has begun refurbishing 5 schools in Trincomalee District and 1 hospital and 2 schools in Batticaloa District. Work is scheduled to be finished in July, when the structures will begin welcoming new students, patients, and staff.

USAID/Sri Lanka Mission Director Rebecca Cohn, speaking at a January 12 ceremony at Pulipanjakal School, noted the challenges that local students and teachers there have had to overcome. “This school was heavily damaged by fighting in 2006, leaving the five
classrooms unusable and the school surrounded by landmines,” Cohn said. “The landmines have been cleared, and now it is safe for children to play, but still the school condition is not satisfactory.

“That is why USAID will construct 10 new classrooms, doubling the size of the school. These renovations will create more space, so that students have a clean, safe, and inspiring place to learn each day.”

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Thomas L. Conant, PACOM’s director of strategic planning and policy, made similar observations at the January 16 groundbreaking for Illangaithurai Mugathuvaram School. “Five years ago, this school was the primary place of education for over 700 students from the first to 12th grades, serving a vital role in the prosperity of this community,” Conant said. “Tragically, it suffered first from years of conflict, and then severe damage in the 2004 tsunami so that only seven of its 26 classrooms are fully functional today.

“The Eastern Province has great potential for growth,” Conant continued. “However, to nurture that potential, we need healthy, educated people living in stable communities. We believe that rebuilding these key facilities in small communities is the best way to bring people together to recover from conflict.”

The projects are part of the DAI-implemented Sri Lanka Transition Initiatives Program, which is building support for the peace process among the citizenry and increasing collaboration among diverse groups to set and address priority needs at the local level. To ensure positive results, DAI is fostering community participation and ownership in the construction, and engaging the local and regional government authorities responsible for serving these communities.

Maj. Gen. Conant noted at the January 16 ceremony that the Department of Defense was pleased to use its Overseas Humanitarian Disaster and Civic Aid appropriation for such a peacebuilding project in PACOM’s area of responsibility. “I want to thank the U.S. Agency for International Development and their partners at DAI for implementing this important project, as well as national, provincial, and local government authorities for your collaboration on this project,” Conant said. “Today we are just breaking ground, but thanks to all of our efforts, we can be sure of the successful refurbishment of this school and this community.”

Through its offices in Colombo, Trincomalee, Ampara, Matara, and Batticaloa, SLTI has funded 600 grants worth $30 million. SLTI partners and grantees include local government entities, nongovernmental organizations, community-based organizations and, to a lesser extent, international nongovernmental organizations, chambers of commerce, trader and farmer associations, student groups, and the media.

Some of these partners would not necessarily meet the financial or institutional requirements of other international donors; DAI engages with them in activities that build constituencies for a lasting peace while ensuring compliance with USAID regulations by using an in-kind funding mechanism.

Social Fence Makes for Good Neighbors, Good Policy in Nyika National Park

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Ranging over some 3,200 square kilometers at an elevation 2,500 meters above sea level, Malawi’s Nyika National Park protects an afromontane ecosystem that harbors an amazing array of flora and fauna. But Nyika’s biodiversity, and sacred places such as Mwanda Hill and Kaulime Lake—which for centuries have served as spiritual sanctuaries for the local population—are under threat.

The problem is that hard-pressed local smallholders—many of them physically and culturally displaced by the park’s creation in 1965 and expansion in 1978—have been driven by economic necessity to deplete the park’s natural resources, usually in unsustainable ways. Poaching, deforestation, and uncontrolled forest and grassland fires have taken a heavy toll on Nyika in recent years.

That corrosive dynamic, however, is changing. The U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Community Partnerships for Sustainable Resource Management project (COMPASS)—in partnership with the surrounding communities and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW)—has fashioned a solution that aligns the economic interests of local people with the environmental interests of the area, thereby engaging Nyika’s neighbors as de facto stewards of the park.

This “social fence” allows people once again to enjoy their ancestral heritage, promotes sustainable livelihoods and food security, mitigates climate change, and protects a precious resource. Malawi’s DNPW has embraced the idea that social fences—constructed in cooperation with local residents—are better at conserving the environment than a top-down “fence and fine” approach, especially where funding shortfalls prevent authorities from effectively enforcing protective laws.

Underpinning the new ethos of partnership between local stakeholders and the DNPW is a Resource Use Agreement developed by DAI, which has implemented COMPASS since 1999. A Resource Use Agreement—signed between the government and producers of natural resources-based products—is a legally binding mechanism permitting those producers to enter the park and harvest its resources, while sharing responsibility for management and conservation of the area.

Guided by the Agreement, local people have thrown themselves into the responsible, small-scale commercialization of forest-based products from Nyika. In less than two years, for example, two-thirds of the park has been demarcated as apiaries; some 6,000 honey-producing hives now hang in the park, and the behavior shift that comes with having such a stake in the protected area is striking. Communities increasingly view themselves as partners with the DNPW and share conservation responsibilities. Vandalism has been reduced, poachers are more frequently being arrested, and snares are confiscated by community members themselves. Habitat management efforts such as early burning are carried out in a controlled manner, with local communities and park authorities acting in concert.

As of November 2008, nearly 1,700 households from 221 villages and 142 beekeeping clubs are stewards to Nyika’s apiaries, earning income through their honey and through the carbon credits they generate by avoiding deforestation. Clearly, a community once disconnected from its past has seized the opportunity to protect its future.

DAI-Designed Learning Institute Launched by Pakistan Parliament

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Pakistan has endured political and security turmoil over the past year, notably the return of exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in December 2007.

Since her murder, the country has seen democratic national and provincial legislative elections in February 2008, followed by the ouster of President Pervez Musharraf and the election of President Zadari, Bhutto’s widower.

As the new legislatures have been establishing themselves, the country has faced economic meltdown, a growing terrorist threat, and geopolitical tensions.

Through it all, the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services (PIPS) was taking shape, bent on becoming a learning and service center for Pakistani lawmakers.

After three years of work, that vision is now a reality: in November 2008, the National Assembly passed a bill to establish PIPS as an autonomous body under the funding and leadership of the National Assembly, the Senate, and four Provincial Assemblies. All of Pakistan’s major political parties supported the bill.

The Institute, a project of DAI’s U.S. Agency for International Development(USAID)-fundedPakistan Legislative Strengthening Program (PSLP), has been temporarily housed in Islamabad at the Parliament Lodges, where parliamentarians stay while in the capital.

PIPS’ curriculum has been fine-tuned over the past three years, as more than 4,000 lawmakers and staffers took classes and participated in orientations and workshops developed by PLSP.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan—a country of 173 million situated between Afghanistan, Iran, and India—has 442 national legislators representing four Pakistani provinces, plus territories and tribal areas.

Many of the country’s lawmakers had no political experience before taking office. Yet they are tasked with representing their constituents, molding and enacting good laws, providing oversight and accountability, and managing their offices and staffs.

PIPS provides lawmakers and their staff with a physical site and the human resources to study effective legislating, conduct research, and better prepare for debates and legislative processes. Subjects taught cover many of the prerequisites of effective democracy, including:

• drafting legislation;
• preparing and reviewing budgets;
• serving in provincial governments;
• leading and managing organizations;
• utilizing information technology; and
• resolving conflict.

PLSP is developing further training programs, including courses that address public hearings, committees’ roles in government oversight, and media and broadcast skills.

Recently, PLSP helped secure government land - and another USAID contractor has completed the design - for a $5 million building to house the Institute. PLSP is in the final stages of hiring an Executive Director and continues to refine training curricula, while Parliament is expected soon to activate PIPS’ board of governors and allocate funds for PIPS’ operating budget.

The Institute may also raise funds through donations, endowments, and in-kind donations
from the Provincial Assemblies, making it a true partnership between Pakistan’s national and local political players.

DAI Program Spurs Renaissance of Tourism in Rural Serbia

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Serbia was once visited by thousands of eastern and western Europeans every year. But the wars of the 1990s tore the former Yugoslavia apart and all but erased Serbia as a tourist destination. Even after the conflict came to an end, few tourists came, so little was invested in the travel sector— a sector that has grown rapidly elsewhere in the world.

Today, however, Serbia is beginning to catch up. Along the Lim River that runs through the quiet city of Prijepolje and the surrounding mountains of southwest Serbia, rural residents are welcoming outdoors enthusiasts and taking advantage of the area’s rediscovered natural beauty. Tourism related businesses are slowly but steadily springing
up all around Prijepolje.

“If I only knew that there was a future in this business, I would have invested in accommodations rather than tractors,” joked Ljubinko Tmusic, who has in fact invested a great deal of time and effort into the tourist trade, in his case in scenic Sopotnica.

“Ms. Branka, a mountain climber, brought the first visitors to Sopotnica 12 years ago,” Tmusic explained. “At that time the area was much less developed. Now I have more guests, even international guests.”

Tmusic is one of a new breed of bed-and breakfast operators who have taken advantage
of a grant from the Tourist Organization of Prijepolje, an initiative led by DAI’s Preparedness Planning and Economic Security Program (PPES).

PPES is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The program’s grants have so far helped 13 businesses and Tmusic, in the Prijepolje area, much of the money being used to build new bedrooms and modern bath facilities for tourists.

DAI-organized study tours have taken Prijepoljearea entrepreneurs to visit and learn from successful rural accommodators in other parts of the country. Participating in tourist fairs has given these prospective businesspeople the confidence and resources they need to begin thinking seriously about rural tourism as a means to provide for their families.

Tourism in the area has improved measurably. In the past year, approximately 1,700 people took raft trips down the Lim, a 35 percent increase from 2007. Accommodations operators – mostly local families with an extra room or two – on average experienced 50 more overnight stays in 2008 than in 2007. Some 65 jobs have been created as a direct result, according to the Tourist Organization of Prijepolje.

“Rural tourism in general was nonexistent in Serbia due to the conflict in the region, and only recently has there been resurgence in this type of tourism all throughout Serbia,” said Vladimir Suvakovic, who manages DAI’s Information Team in the country.
“Although we can’t say that our assistance has unequivocally transformed tourism from nothing into something,” said Suvakovic, “our assistance has been instrumental in raising the capacity of private accommodation providers to offer better, more comfortable facilities that have already started to attract more tourists to visit the region.”

Issues of attribution aside, the numbers certainly look good for tourism in Prijepolje. In 2007, there were 26 operators offering 42 beds; in 2008, 50 accommodators are offering 115 beds. More people are stopping in Prijepolje as they pass through town: drivers, including many from Western Europe, stopping at local restaurants on their way to and from Montenegro, have boosted transit tourism revenue by 15 percent compared to 2007.

More than 100 entrepreneurs and tourist operators have attended PPES-sponsored training in a quest to improve their business skills. The Tourist Organization is also working to strengthen tourism associations, of which there are now three (two others are undergoing the registration process).

All told, PPES has provided roughly $310,000 in assistance to businesses and other organizations in Prijepolje, and another $40,000 is allocated for signs and guide posts that will be installed in the coming months to denote key landmarks around the region.

Sogesol Begins Micro Lending in Port-au-Princes Toughest Neighborhood

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

At a meeting in Cité Soleil, Port-au-Prince’s most dangerous slum, an angry resident stood up, grabbed the microphone, and demanded: “When are you donors and others going to do something in Cité Soleil, rather than coming in your armored cars for photo opportunities and then leaving?”

Once a bustling neighborhood of legitimate economic activity, Cité Soleil is now a shantytown, home to most of Haiti’s gangs and epicenter of much of Haiti’s political violence. Police did not even venture inside Cité Soleil until 2006, when a combined United Nations and Haitian militarypolice force re-entered the area to establish the rule of law. Given this somewhat increased stability, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and other donors are seizing the opportunity to invest in the area.

In March 2008, Sogesol, the microfinance subsidiary of Sogebank, opened a full-service branch office on Cité Soleil’s main drag, using grant money administered by DAI’s USAID-funded Haiti/MSME project (Support to Haiti’s Microfinance, Small and Medium Enterprises Sector).

Powered by a single generator, the office is staffed by five employees, led by Branch Manager Yvener Metellus. Six months before opening its office, Sogesol began offering credit to the area, recruiting local resident Simeon Melky as its first credit officer. Melky started out literally on foot, retailing Sogesol microloans door to door. But eventually high demand led Sogesol to open an office there, making Sogesol the first financial institution to return to the troubled neighborhood.

In the first six months or so of operations, the Cité Soleil branch loaned money to 176 clients, with a total outstanding portfolio of roughly 2.5 million Haitian gourds ($67,000) and an average loan size of 14,412 gourdes, or $375. Most clients are female microentrepreneurs who sell food, cosmetics, clothes, drinks, and other basic supplies
from shops or stands.

Some borrowers have even bigger goals. In 1980, Mr. Numa Adner owned a boutique, restaurant, and wholesale outlet in Cité Soleil, but chaos in the following years forced him to abandon these businesses. Learning of Sogesol’s presence in Cité Soleil, he applied for a loan to restart them. Mr. Adner said he was unsure at first, “but the fact that Mr. Melky is a son of the cité” put him at ease. Upon receiving the loan in December 2007, Mr. Adner reopened the boutique and a beverage outlet. He plans to apply for a larger loan to expand these businesses and possibly reopen his restaurant.

By providing people access to financial services, Haiti/MSME improves people’s lives and creates employment. Part of the program targets agricultural enterprises and vulnerable populations, such as women, the rural poor, and those affected by HIV/AIDS. The program is also helping Haiti establish business-friendly banking regulations so potential clients can get loans more easily, with fewer constraints.

Donors are now building roads and markets to reignite Cité Soleil’s licit economy, with the guidance of local leaders. Mr. Adner hopes to see other microfinance institutions enter Cité Soleil. He believes that with sufficient economic activity in Cité Soleil, its port could even reopen. “I hope,” Mr. Adner said, “that Sogesol’s presence in Cité Soleil will contribute to the return of true peace in the cité, its businesses, and its families.”

Seaweed Farmer Uses Loaned Seed, Technical Knowhow to Expand Business

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Seaweed, like other plants, has to be planted. But sometimes it’s not that simple. Offshore conditions fluctuate with the rain, water temperature, and season, and conditions for planting and growing seaweed vary accordingly. Low-income farmers are at the mercy of nature as to whether they have planting materials, which are culled from their previous crops.

A seaweed farmer for eight years, Yusef Rahim—known as Ka’ Ote—knows this challenge all too well. In 2000, Ka’ Ote used his life savings to build a farmhouse on stilts and buy lines, floats, and planting material. His fledgling business barely survived the 2002 season, and he has historically lacked enough planting material to expand the operation, which is part of the Gemar Indah Group in Lemito Bay, Indonesia. By the spring of 2008 he was barely making ends meet.

But in March of that year, DAI’s Agribusiness Market and Support Activity (AMARTA)—a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded program—helped provide planting material to the lead farmer in Gemar Indah to establish a nursery for the group. Ka’ Ote took advantage of the new resource.

In April, the nursery loaned Ka’ Ote 150 kilograms of seaweed planting material to expand his farm. By May, the crop had grown so rapidly that Ka’ Ote was able to repay the loan by providing three more members of his group with a total of 350 kilograms of seed to expand their farms.

Later in May, he attended a technical workshop sponsored by AMARTA. One of the important lessons he learned there was to plant bigger portions of material. Previously, he had used portions of 100 grams; now he is using 150 to 200 grams, which allows the crop to gain weight more rapidly, producing new seed every 25 days.

Ka’ Ote harvested more seaweed: roughly 28 kilograms from 35 meters of line versus the 22 kilograms he previously harvested, worth an additional 72,000 Indonesian rupiah (IDR), or roughly US$8. He also adopted a new method of drying his seaweed, which was introduced in August by AMARTA. Instead of drying the seaweed on a bamboo platform, he now dries his crop directly on the line, which reduces the drying time from three days to two.

Now that he has repaid his loan for seed, Ka’ Ote is selling both planting material and dried seaweed. In July, he sold 400 kilograms of seed to two farmers outside his group at 1,500 IDR per kilo, and 200 kilogram of dried seaweed at 12,000 IDR per kilo. This seaweed, which came from 175 meters of line, earned him 3 million IDR ($326). In 45 days, he will harvest another 350 meters of line.

Using the money he earned, Ka’ Ote was able to pay for his son Imrawan’s wedding. Imrawan currently lives away from his family in Gorontalo, but in a sign of the improving prospects at home, he plans on returning to Lemito to join the growing family business.

Training Videos Reach 10,000 Cocoa Smallholders in Indonesia

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Making best practices come alive and stay alive is one of the enduring challenges for any development project. DAI’s Agribusiness Market and Support Activity (AMARTA) has risen to that challenge by hitting on a message and a readily shared medium that will give its technical assistance to Indonesia’s cocoa farmers resonance for years to come.

Mr. Atto is one of many thousands of smallholder cocoa farmers in Indonesia—the world’s third-largest cocoa producer—who have used four AMARTA-funded training films to increase productivity, improve quality, and earn access to better markets, thereby increasing their income.

Atto, a 39-year-old from West Sulawesi, says the video training will make him more competitive in the region’s cocoa supply chain. “The techniques in the film are simple and easy to apply in my garden,” he said, “particularly the best cocoa cultivation practices and side grafting topics.”

Launched in November 2007, the films—which come in a CD format—were produced by local company Jungle Run Productions. A year after their debut, more than 850 CDs have been requested by and provided to government personnel to aid in their training programs. In total, more than 9,000 CDs have been distributed to national, regional, and local government entities, as well as directly to smallholder farmers.

The films address practical aspects of successful cocoa growing, helping farmers like Mr. Atto, of the Tappang Indah Farmers’ Group in Polewali Mandar District, and Mr. Sulaeman, of the Padakita Farmers’ Group, to increase yields, reduce pests and disease, and provide a more consistent, export-quality product.

“Now we can recognize different cocoa diseases and know how to address them, especially for black pod and trunk kanker,” Sulaeman said.

The videos support the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded project’s broader efforts to strengthen Indonesia’s underperforming cocoa industry—efforts that include:

• Facilitating a relationship with international commodities trader PT Olam Indonesia, which is purchasing export-quality cocoa from small farmers and paying a price incentive for improved quality;
• Arranging cocoa fermenting in Bali through Big Tree Farms, a top-quality processor that will help smallholders access high-value markets;
• Training trainers from the local department of agriculture and other extension personnel to enhance their knowledge of modern cocoa production practices; and
• Establishing a Regional Agribusiness Competitive Alliance in Bali to coordinate cocoa value-chain participants such as input suppliers, banks, food safety specialists, and importers.

Atto is one of 11,650 farmers in AMARTA’s Sulawesi Kakao Alliance to have seen the video. The CDs are also being used for SustaIndonesia Kakao Alliance training in Bali, where 1,000 cocoa farmers in Tabanan District have viewed the four films.

Festivals Get Children in the Habit of Healthy Hand Washing

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

A communications campaign to publicize the potentially lifesaving act of hand-washing has taken on a life of its own in Indonesia, thanks to collaboration between the Indonesian government, DAI’s Environmental Services Program (ESP), and other stakeholders.

Many places in Indonesia—where people often live close to animals—face shortages of clean water and sparse public sanitation services, making hand-washing with soap a critical priority. Shortages of medicine and healthcare providers compound the problem. For those most susceptible to germ-borne sicknesses—young children and the elderly—sicknesses such as diarrhea can be especially debilitating, even deadly.

The Hand Washing With Soap campaign—led by Indonesia’s Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare, with support from UNICEF and the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded ESP—is part of a wide effort to promote better public health. The campaign came alive in May 2007 during a government-supported festival in Jakarta, then spread province by province until tens of thousands of children and parents had
learned why hand-washing is so crucial.

On that May day in Jakarta, the People’s Welfare minister, Aburizal Bakrie, and Gladys Verina, the country’s hand-washing public service spokeswoman, led off by washing their own hands at the foot of the iconic 137-meter-high Monas national monument. More than 2,700 elementary school students from 30 schools in Jakarta, along with their mothers, had assembled for the event, and they took the cue. Beneath two giant tents placed at the foot of the monument, all the children and mothers dunked their hands, lathered with soap, and washed up.

“The prevalence of diarrhea in Indonesia can be reduced by as much as 40 percent through the habit of proper hand washing with soap at five critical times: before meals, after defecation, before handling a baby, after cleaning a child’s bottom, and before preparing meals,” said Bakrie.

Similar hand-washing festivities were performed that day in three other regions in Indonesia. But the Hand Washing With Soap event became more than a one-day spectacle; it turned into a highly visible ongoing collaboration between the government
and schools.

Not to be outdone by the city of Jakarta, for example, Indonesia’s fourth-largest city—
Malang—took up the hand-washing challenge three months later. (In 2005, more than 75,000 cases of diarrhea were reported in Malang.)

At the Malang festival, children from 50 elementary schools came together for a day of
game-playing, sculpting, and other activities that allowed them to get good and dirty. Some 10,000 children with dirty hands and smiling faces stood in the scorching heat along the 1.5-kilometer Ijen road clutching Nuvo soap, clean towels, plastic buckets, and bottles of clean water.

City mayor Peni Suparto then led 7,389 children in a simultaneous cleansing of hands, nearly tripling the previous hand-washing record, set in Sukabumi. “This record breaking actually means more than just numbers,” said the mayor. “It’s about motivating children and parents to live a clean and healthy life.”

Thursday Market Reinvigorates the Center of Bethlehem

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Despite its West Bank location, the holy city of Bethlehem had experienced years of harmony and tourist-friendly prosperity.

Located just six miles south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem is home to numerous churches, monasteries, and other sacred sites around the centrally located Church of the Nativity and the city’s mosque, the Mosque of Omar, on Manger Square.

Despite its relative stability, Bethlehem’s economy took a major hit with the advent of the Second Intifada in 2000. The uprising’s protests, strikes, and attacks prompted a stern Israeli response across the territories. Bethlehem’s economy was one of the casualties.

Freedom of movement ground to a halt when the Israelis built a wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem and set up checkpoints throughout the area. Half of the 98 shops along Star Street, one of Bethlehem’s oldest commercial thoroughfares, went out of business. The street was dying.

But in 2008, Star Street has experienced a rebirth thanks to “Thursday Market,” a daylong celebration of business, commerce, and community that winds along the historic street through the city center.

In January 2008, the Palestinian Enterprise Development (PED) project—a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded initiative implemented by DAI— established the Business Development Center (BDC) through the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Under the BDC program, Star Street is now closed for traffic on Thursdays, the first day of the Palestinians’ Thursday-Friday weekend. Shop owners, merchants, and handicraft and embroidery makers set up kiosks along the street to present and sell their products. Music, cultural events, and children’s activities make for a festive atmosphere.

While it was feared that the first Thursday Market—held on July 24, 2008—could be a nervous and sparsely attended affair, the street was filled by 10 a.m., not by tourists but by the townspeople themselves. The party proved to be far from a one-time affair.

During the inaugural ceremony it was announced that seven new shops had opened since the establishment of the BDC. Through the BDC, PED also helped eight previously closed shops to reopen.

Star Street, which connects the northern and southern parts of old Bethlehem, meanders quietly through its neighborhoods, between the stone facades of beautiful 19th-century buildings. Now the street is teeming with enterprise and activity every Thursday, the residents of Bethlehem once again enjoying their city.

Thursday Market is an example of what can happen when a challenged city works in partnership with its merchants toward a mutually beneficial goal. Parties on all sides hope that the Thursday Market and other initiatives championed by the BDC will help Bethlehem once again attract pilgrims and other visitors from around the world.

DAI Energizes the Dairy Sector in Eastern Sri Lanka

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Every day, 51 year-old Premadasa carries a plastic bottle filled with seven liters of milk to the Kaluthavalai collection point, one of five such collection points established under a DAI initiative to improve the lives of small dairy farmers in conflict-stricken eastern Sri Lanka. Milk is a rewarding business for the Sinhalese farmer. But it wasnï¿½t always this way.

Prior to the initiative, escalating feed costs and the lack of a viable market for small producers left Premadasa and other dairy farmers in the Vellaveli division of Batticaloa district with few livelihood options, leading some to contemplate selling their traditional milking cows for beef. DAIï¿½s comprehensive dairy strengthening project has created new community collection points and a state-of-the-art milk collection and chilling facility, boosting farmersï¿½ confidence in the market and providing them with the training and organizational capacity to grow their traditional dairy practice.

The Vellaveli Dairy Strengthening Project is part of the Sri Lanka Transition Initiatives, a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded program that for five years has focused on promoting good governance, improving local government service delivery, strengthening civil society, and increasing competitiveness and access to economic opportunities in conflict-vulnerable, tsunami- and conflict-affected communities. Partners on the dairy project are World Concernï¿½an international nongovernmental organizationï¿½and Milco, the government-owned dairy production company.

In addition to the 5 collection centers and the central processing facility in Vellaveli, the project has created 11 new Farmer Managed Societies (FMSs)ï¿½representing almost 2,000 farmers from all three major ethnic groups in the districts of Batticaloa and Amparaï¿½and has built 40 household cattle sheds to meet a need identified by member farmers. In less than six months, participating farmers have seen their incomes rise 66 percent, a jump that surprised even those who understand the potential of Sri Lankaï¿½s dairy industry.

The Vellaveli facility was built on the site of a milk chilling center destroyed in the civil conflict. Before the advent of the local collection centers, farmers had to transport their milk up to 20 kilometers, often to be turned away because the old collection center had such limited capacity (the new center has nearly double the previous capacity, holding 7,000 liters). Instead of taking the risk and traveling the great distance, most farmers in those days had little choice but to sell their milk to middlemen who bore the risk and transported their milk. Rising costs forced indebted farmers to accept ruinously low pricesï¿½between 8 and 10 Sri Lankan rupees per literï¿½and expensive loans from the middlemen.

Now these same farmers are selling their product for up to 34 rupees per liter, allowing them to reinvest in cattle and enhance sanitary standards.

With the world price of milk skyrocketing, the government of Sri Lanka sees great promise in the dairy sector. According to the Sri Lankan Ministry of Livestock Development, some 140,000 families in the eastern province engage in some aspect of livestock farming, but poor productivity and a lack of storage facilities have discouraged many farmers from seriously pursuing dairy production. ï¿½Due to poor productivity, small producers often find selling the cows for beef is more profitable,ï¿½ explained A. Wickramanayake of Pelawatte Dairies. But in a country that imports 80 percent of its dairy consumption, milk production offers tremendous untapped potential, especially in the eastern province, with its ample grazing land. USAID, accordingly, has joined the government in prioritizing the dairy sector.

Over and above the impressive boost in income and output for participating farmers, the systems and relationships established between the 11 new FMSs, Milco, and World Concern ensure that this progress will continue into the future. Farmers in these regions have been members of organizations for generations, but they have never had the knowledge, training, and resources afforded them under the recent initiative. And so far, they are responding, producing at levels never before imagined in these areas, in some cases achieving 600 percent increases in production compared to last year. Such success has attracted additional funding from the Canadian International Development Agency, which is working through World Concern to support FMSs created under the DAI project. And World Concern is now replicating the Vellaveli program in the northwestern district of Mannar.

As for Premadasa, he is no longer seeking buyers for his cows. On the contrary, thanks to FMS-discounted feed, basic livestock medicine and knowledge, and ready access to a dependable market, he is looking to expand: ï¿½I have already spoken to the veterinarian surgeon,ï¿½ he said, ï¿½to do the artificial insemination for my cows!ï¿½

In Trincomalee, a New Terminus Offers a New Beginning

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Home to more than 100,000 people, Trincomalee is of historic, cultural, religious, and economic significance to the Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim communities at the heart of Sri Lanka’s civil conflict. The city also boasts one of the world’s deepest natural harbors, renowned for its security in all weathers, which explains its strategic importance to both the Sri Lankan Government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Trincomalee has been embroiled in conflict for decades. Reflecting the dynamics of the country, the situation has fluctuated from periods of relative calm and confidence to extended periods of communal and militarized violence. Abductions, disappearances, and killings have undermined the rule of law and sown fear throughout isolated communities. After the December 2004 tsunami, friction between the Government and the LTTE regarding aid distribution exacerbated pervasive feelings of marginalization.

Such was the state of a city once known as the “City of Peace.”

Against this polarized backdrop, the smallest spark can assume dangerous proportions. That is exactly what happened in May 2005, when a statue of Lord Buddha appeared overnight at Trincomalee’s bus station. In an environment otherwise divided along ethnic lines, Trincomalee’s central bus stand—surrounded by markets and enterprises—was the main hub for everyday interaction among residents of all backgrounds. The movement of people and goods in the district, and the connections with the rest of the country, rely to a large extent on services provided through this transportation nexus, which consequently
plays a pivotal role in Trincomalee’s socioeconomic life.

The statue’s appearance quickly led to violent antagonism among Sinhalese (most of whom are Buddhists), Tamils (mostly Hindus), and Muslims, culminating in a market bombing next to the bus stand in April 2006. As the security situation deteriorated, transport services dwindled. Private bus owners and government-owned services ceased operations. Three-wheeler drivers moved off site, shops closed, and the once vibrant area shut down behind barbed wire and security forces.

As the implementing contractor on the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Sri Lanka Transition Initiative, DAI immediately identified the bus stand as a critical piece of social infrastructure. But reanimating the area and defusing the local tensions, which were being fueled by politically motivated external influences, would not be easy. Widely respected interfaith leaders in the Inter Religious Peace Foundation had already tried to resolve the situation through dialogue, for example, with limited success.

DAI designed a program that would rehabilitate the bus stand and shopping complex. The keystone of the program was a participatory approach that would open lines of communication across cultural, economic, social, and ethnic divides, making the process of rehabilitation just as important as the product. This participatory ethos was incorporated into that process right from the beginning; DAI engaged all conceivable stakeholders in the design of the new facility and even persuaded representatives from central and provincial government—traditionally at odds with each other—to facilitate the planning sessions.

The initial session was fraught with derisive remarks based more on factionalism than any qualified objections to the ideas or proposals at hand. Participants worried, for instance, that development in the area would make the statue a permanent feature. But over time, the discussion became more civil, and the political, economic, and personal conflicts gave way to an agreement that development—if based on joint support from all communities—had the potential to encourage future dialogue over the bus station dispute and other issues.

This interaction during the planning stage eventually transformed the relationships and dynamics in the group, resulting in a consensus on the architectural design and the establishment of a representative committee to monitor progress throughout construction. The final blueprint incorporated suggestions from bus owners, three-wheeler drivers, vendors, and government officials. Police and security forces—another of the stakeholder groups that had to be brought on board—agreed to reduce their presence and remove the barbed wire that had left the station a no-go zone. DAI engaged the interested parties in a campaign to promote awareness of the project, ensure its transparency, and encourage wide support for it as a venture that would benefit all communities.

The construction itself was marred by delays. But the community’s reaction—especially that of the bus owners and vendors who had been temporarily moved to another site—spoke of a growing collective commitment. Despite their hardships, they stood by the project to the end.

In this case, the end is really a beginning. The bus stand and shopping complex were inaugurated on August 11, 2008, and in combination with various other public works implemented by DAI, the facility has changed the face of Trincomalee. The area has once again become the focus of public attention and interaction. Vendors line the streets during temple festivals; sports events on the public grounds are common. Near the bus stand, in an area previously off-limits due to the killing of five Tamil youths in 2006, a Beach Park now hosts hundreds of local residents every day.

The City of Peace is coming back to life.

Green Certification Produces Dramatic Results in Indonesia

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

When DAI’s SENADA program began assisting Indonesian wood furniture companies to
achieve green certification, many participating firms were focused on a simple outcome: more sales at higher prices. If Jawa Furni Lestari—the first such company to secure Verification of Legal Origin (VLO) certification with help from SENADA—is any guide, these companies stand to achieve this goal and much more.

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development,the four-year SENADA initiative seeks to spur Indonesia’s economic growth and boost employment by improving the competitiveness of labor-intensive light manufacturing industries.

Recognizing that Indonesian firms hoping to compete internationally must “go green,”
SENADA has been facilitating the efforts of 40 wood furniture firms in Central and East Java and Yogyakarta to obtain VLO certification (and ultimately full green certification from the Forest Stewardship Council), based on the standards required in target markets such as the United States and European Union. SENADA is collaborating with German technical services firm TÜV Rheinland, the Rainforest Alliance’s smartWood program, and SGS—a Swiss inspection, testing,certification, and verification company—to provide the technical assistance companies require and to serve as third-party certifiers.

The Central Java firm Jawa Furni Lestari, which began work with SENADA in fall 2007, was the first SENADA partner to obtain VLO certification. With its own funds, it hired TÜV to conduct an audit in February and became certified in time to incorporate the certification into its marketing for Jakarta’s International Furniture and Craft Fair (IFFINA) in March 2008.

Results were dramatic. Jawa Furni Lestari drew a far better response from buyers than it had at comparable exhibitions in 2006 and 2007. In 2008, the company secured 48 appointments with buyers, US$560,000 worth of orders (filling an estimated 40 containers), and a minimum of 24 repeat orders. This response compares to a previous
best of 31 buyer appointments, $216,000 in orders (filling 17 containers), and 10 repeat
orders. Moreover, buyer interest in the past was based in large part on low prices; at IFFINA 2008, buyers identified certification as a primary draw.

Jawa Furni Lestari also reports that preparing for the certification audit spurred the company to improve management, production efficiency, knowledge sharing, and marketing strategy—key drivers of competitiveness that will serve the company well as it seeks to grow its business.

That process is well under way. Jawa Furni Lestari is a member of Eco Exotic, a private sector initiative that brings together nine of Indonesia’s leading furniture and home accessories companies, all of which have committed to improve their sustainability
and be more responsible to their employees and communities. Eco Exotic firms will exhibit at the Living Green Pavilion at the Las Vegas Furniture Show from July 28 to August 1, 2008.

Pakistans Parliamentarians Get Ready to Serve Their Country

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Changes are afoot in Pakistan. The dramatic changes ushered in by the historic 2008 legislative elections resulted in a new governing coalition and more than 50 percent turnover in the membership of National Assembly and each of the four Provincial Assemblies. Many Members have never served in parliament or government before.

Anticipating the new political dynamics and the large turnover, the U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Program (PLSP) spent months preparing, testing, and honing curricula for orientation sessions for new Members. The sessions aim to support a smooth transition and foster better, more collaborative governance.

At the first National Assembly orientation, attendees spanned the political spectrum, from the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz to the Muttahida Quami Movement and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azim. The participants, representing constituencies all across Pakistan, were addressed by leading parliamentary figures—including experienced Members and local legal experts—who explained the duties and responsibilities of being a Member.

During the discussion sessions, Members spoke to each other “with respect and optimism, despite the wide political gulf that existed between them,” noted Daud Malik, PLSP’s Representation Advisor. “The members were able to transcend their roles as political party members in order to talk about the issues Pakistan is confronting.” The level of preparation, interaction, and discussion also reflected unprecedented cooperation between the Offices of the Speaker and the Secretariat, the parliaments’ political and bureaucratic arms.

The National Assembly Members gathered at the Pakistan Institute for Parliamentary Services in Islamabad – a new training and research facility supported by PLSP in cooperation with the National Assembly Secretariat. Orientation modules included briefings on parliamentary procedure, government oversight tools, constituency/media relations, and Pakistan’s budgeting process.

But to serve their country well, new Members will need more than these new tools. As one member said, “Our constitution and other rules are good, but the attitude and aim of parliamentarians has seemed very bad in the past. Parliamentarians need a will and spirit to serve the people.” Encouragingly, that commitment to service — and to see parliament as an independent institution — was much in evidence at the PLSP Member orientations. Pakistan’s ability to meet the governance challenges that lie ahead depends on it.

Getting Down to Business With HIV/AIDS

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

In Zambia, more than a million people are living with HIV. The effects of the disease are devastating not only to families and society but also to businesses and the economy, which must cope with absenteeism, increased healthcare costs, and the need to find qualified staff to replace those too ill to work. DAI’s Market Access, Trade, and Enabling Policies Program(MATEP) is using funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to help businesses understand the effects of HIV/AIDS and teach their employees about HIV/AIDS prevention.

MATEP Chief of Party Scott Simons originally planned to engage a traditional HIV/AIDS education organization to deliver these awareness-building programs, but “none were willing to tailor their standard products to the type of activity we felt would be most beneficial to our exporting clients,” he said.

Instead, capitalizing on its existing relationships, MATEP works directly through business associations. With support from DAI’s subsidiary in Johannesburg—ECIAfrica—the program is building the capacity of associations such as the Zambia Export Growers Association and the Hotels and Caterers Association of Zambia to educate their staff and members.

MATEP’s awareness-raising programs train association staff to be Awareness Educators—peer-to-peer trainers who know the facts of HIV/AIDS and how to share prevention messages. Running sessions during lunch and breaks and after business hours, they give their colleagues the opportunity to discuss HIV/AIDS frankly and factually, helping to combat the misinformation prevalent in Zambia.

The Awareness Educators and the MATEP team are gratified by the positive response their work has received from trainees and participating businesses. In fact, demand for the training has surpassed MATEP’s expectations: the program has exceeded the targets set by PEPFAR and has received additional funding to further expand its HIV/AIDS programming.

In two years of PEPFAR funding, MATEP has trained 352 Awareness Educators and delivered HIV/AIDS prevention messages to 50,953 individuals in Zambia. Using the new funding, MATEP has integrated HIV/AIDS prevention sessions into more traditional export promotion workshops. To the chagrin of the export trainers, the HIV/AIDS sessions often garner the most attention and the presenters are often asked to return with an extended HIV/AIDS program.

The effects of HIV/AIDS are felt throughout Zambian society and in ways that are often not recognized. MATEP helps its clients understand both the wide-reaching social and economic impact of the disease and how they can mitigate its consequences.

Teaching Basic Health Care Skills to Those Who Need Them Most

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Excluded from active civic participation for so long, Afghanistan’s women are beginning to take advantage of programs that help them gain more control over their lives.

In Afghanistan, the infant mortality rate is roughly 158 out of 1,000 births, and few women have access to prenatal care. Despite challenges such as a prevailing literacy rate of only 12.6 percent among women, DAI’s Local Governance and Community Development(LGCD) project has started to work with at-risk communities across Afghanistan to give women skills in basic medical care.

Among the Kuchi tribes, for example, access to medical care is limited. Prolonged conflict and years of migration have contributed to deteriorating health conditions, and few Kuchi people have the basic skills to provide even rudimentary care. The U.S. Agency for International Development-funded LGCD has therefore instituted a training program in Khost to teach basic emergency medicine.

The first course drew four women, who—though illiterate—learned how to perform a clinical examination, respond to medical emergencies, conduct laboratory investigations, and perform procedures such as intravenous and inter-muscular injections.

Although the female trainees often were hesitant to participate in class or answer questions, their understanding of the material was demonstrated in clinical work in Khost Provincial Hospital, where doctors were so impressed that they engaged the trainees to assist in the wards.

In Ghazni, where the female literacy rate is only 9 percent, LGCD works with women through an organization called the Afghan Center. Among various courses aimed at developing life skills and improving prospects for income generation is a workshop that teaches basic pre- and post-natal care. Access to prenatal care is severely limited in Ghazni, where only 7 percent of women have a skilled attendant present at the birth of their children. Workshop participants learn proper prenatal nutrition, basic skills in labor and delivery, and the importance of sanitary conditions to prevent infection in mothers and newborns.

Slowly, the Afghan Center’s work is yielding tangible change for women in Ghazni. One of the course participants noted that her husband and father-in-law were initially skeptical of her participation in the health care program. But once they saw the direct benefits of the training, they began to support her. Now they do their best to ensure she can attend all the classes.

Building Up Businesses in Timor-Leste

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

DAI’s long-standing presence in Timor-Leste began only a month after the nation declared its intention to break away from Indonesia in 1999. Managing a program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), DAI provided grants that helped the country recover from serious violence that devastated its public and private infrastructure. DAI’s assistance to Timor-Leste continued through its transition to official statehood in 2002 and beyond.

While USAID’s assistance has evolved to meet the challenges of a country struggling through lingering social tensions, DAI maintains a strong presence managing an array of activities designed to stimulate the private sector, enable greater access to credit, promote entrepreneurship, improve literacy rates, and promote health, among other objectives.

DAI manages two USAID-funded projects in Timor-Leste, the Small Grants Program (SGP) and Dezenvolve Setor Privadu (DSP). SGP was launched in 2004 to provide a flexible funding mechanism to deliver much-needed capital to local communities and businesses in cooperation with other USAID partners, including DSP. Since 2005, DSP has sought to harness the potential of the private sector to raise income and employment levels, particularly in agribusiness, financial services, the business enabling environment, and commercial services. Together, the two projects form a unique partnership that is helping build a viable private sector.

Komar Mendonça, a vegetable wholesaler, is one of the many beneficiaries of this collaboration. The origins of his business reflect both the challenges of thriving in a rural country with limited economic opportunity, on the one hand, and the country’s entrepreneurial spirit, on the other.

In 1997, Mendonça’s parents had scraped together enough money to enroll him in college. The money would cover his initial school fees but not the costs of starting a new life in the capital city, Dili. So after growing up watching local entrepreneurs profit from selling produce in his hometown of Hato Builico, Mendonça decided to use his parents’ money to purchase vegetables that he would try to sell on arrival in Dili.

It was a significant risk and Mendonça initially feared he had made a terrible mistake. But in the end he earned enough to cover his first round of college expenses and buy more vegetables, which became the source of a business that would cover his costs of living throughout college. Mendonça has achieved steady growth ever since, and in 2006 he officially registered his business. The name he picked, Zero Star, was meant to reflect his humble beginnings.

“I didn’t have anything when I started. I only had my initiative,” says Mendonça.

Joint support from SGP and DSP is helping Mendonça take his company to the next level. Expanding beyond his traditional customer base—buyers who sell their goods on stands in outdoor markets—Mendonça has become the nation’s first homegrown vegetable wholesaler to Dili’s emerging supermarkets, supplying broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, coriander, and other items in stores otherwise stocked mostly with imports.

Grants from SGP have paid for two greenhouses and a cold storage truck that will help him preserve more goods to sell at better quality. Additionally, technical assistance provided by DSP has shown him how to improve his business through better packaging, marketing, finance, and other activities. As a result of the joint assistance, Zero Star increased its sales by more than $14,000 per year by early 2008.

DSP’s and SGP’s complementary aspects were evident during a Christmas fair held at the end of 2007. The Alola Foundation, a local nongovernmental organization, used support from the two projects to design and host a craft and local products fair that connected rural enterprises to a sizeable expatriate market in Dili. Artisans, handicrafts makers, and village-level producers from across the country attended the fair to sell goods that ranged from traditional weavings to high-quality coconut oil and dried fruit. The fair generated almost $10,000 in sales, giving the vendors money to reinvest in their businesses. It also gave them an economic boost to make it through the holiday season and start the New Year with cash in hand.

Through these kinds of creative partnerships, DAI continues to build on its history of helping the people of Timor-Leste access economic tools vital to their future.

—By Jeson Ingraham, Marketing and Communications, and Kate Heuisler, SGP Chief of Party

A Green Revolution in Nigeria?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Adopted with assistance from DAI’s Restructured Economic Framework for Openness, Reform and Macroeconomic Stability (REFORMS) project, Nigeria’s National Fertilizer Policy enables substantial reforms in many areas, from private sector production to government subsidies and quality/environmental standards.

The new policy—intended to usher in a market-friendly environment in which improved fertilizer production, access, and quality spark a “green revolution”—could not have come at a more critical time. Nigeria’s soil fertility was plunging, while its food needs continued to grow. Farmers seeking fertilizer found high prices, uncertain supply, adulterated stock, and misinformation about use, leading to health and environmental problems. Subsidies stifled private market channels and fed corruption. Existing policies on these issues were inconsistent or even contradictory.

Although a new, comprehensive fertilizer policy had been prepared, it had stalled by the time the U.S. Agency for International Development launched REFORMS in 2005. Under REFORMS’ leadership—combining coalition building, advocacy events, and technical help—the policy was adopted in only a few months. REFORMS’ support for the Africa Fertilizer Summit in 2006 generated a useful deadline, and with REFORMS’ help, Nigeria played a leadership role at the summit.

In short, REFORMS identified a window of opportunity when others said it could not be done, then took the lead in catalyzing government and civil society to take the vital first step toward transforming agricultural input markets in Nigeria. The project used diverse tools in its efforts:

Coalition building. REFORMS teamed with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD), the International Fertilizer Development Centre, and Nigeria’s agro-input dealer associations on advocacy efforts.

Stakeholder engagement. REFORMS co-sponsored a Fertilizer Stakeholder Consultative Forum and sponsored a National Stakeholders Workshop on fertilizer policy and strategy, attracting hundreds of attendees.

Technical review. REFORMS commissioned reviews of draft policy and technical papers that guided discussions in the Stakeholders Workshop.

Public education. REFORMS commissioned media and event coverage, and hired okada riders (commercial motorcyclists) to distribute handbills and posters for the Workshop.

Event Management. REFORMS helped sponsor and prepare for the Africa Fertilizer Summit.

As FMARD Minister Mallam Adamu Bello notes, the new policy simply “represents the first attempt to synthesize the disparate policies... on fertilizer into a single coherent whole.” Nigerian agriculture must still overcome institutional inertia and other barriers to effective distribution and use of fertilizer. But the adoption of a solid, investor-friendly framework is an excellent start.

Afghans Rebuild Their Country and Their Lives

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

At the end of 2004, Nangarhar Province in eastern Afghanistan was in crisis. After 25 years of war and drought, the countryside and its inhabitants were devastated. The orange and nut orchards not destroyed by the war had fallen to the axes of desperately poor people seeking firewood to survive the winter. Wheat, for centuries the main crop of the region, could not survive once the irrigation systems had been abandoned to decay and to fill with silt. Farmers were left with few crop options.

Opium poppy, however, requires little water. In addition, opium merchants offered cash up front. The production of illicit drugs flourished. In 2004, Afghan opium made up 87 percent of the world’s production and represented 60 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product.

The Government of Afghanistan requested international assistance to help poppy farmers find other ways to generate income. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) responded with the Afghanistan Immediate Needs Program (AINP) in Nangarhar, implemented by DAI. AINP began work in January 2005 to provide immediate employment opportunities for farmers while at the same time rebuilding vital infrastructure.

In early 2005, the situation in Nangarhar began to change. Following the lead of President Karzai, the Governor of Nangarhar convened the province’s elders and held a television news conference to declare an end to opium production. Observers were skeptical, but by April it was clear the strategy had worked—the farmers of Nangarhar had planted wheat, not poppy, in all but a few remote valleys. Formerly the second largest producer of opium in Afghanistan, Nangarhar had reduced its poppy-planted area by 85 percent. By March, thanks in large part to AINP, 10,000 workers were employed every day. By May, cash-for-work projects were operating in all of Nangarhar’s districts, including the isolated districts where no other nongovernmental program was active.

To date, AINP workers have rehabilitated 900 kilometers of small and medium-sized canals. They are making stone flood-protection walls to shield agricultural land and residences and rehabilitating roads to connect villagers to markets and provincial service centers.

AINP is also providing skill-training courses for women and the disabled. One such class teaches dress making and embroidery. After graduating, each participant will be able to sell her products for a 400 percent return on investment. Another course involves processing food—making jam and other preservatives, pickling, and vegetable drying—which significantly increases the value of these products at market.

AINP is a team effort. From the start, it has worked closely with village, district, and provincial councils of elders, or shuras. The shuras nominate local projects, assist in design, allocate the work among villages and subtribes, resolve conflicts, and generally oversee the implementation of each project. Relief International, a humanitarian agency, works closely with DAI to organize 15 percent of AINP’s activities.

Immediate employment is only one aspect of AINP; the long-term impact will come from increased agricultural production, opportunities for returning refugees, better access to markets and services, and marketable skills for women. Participation and support from farmers, village councils, and the provincial government has been so strong that USAID plans to replicate and expand the program.

U.S. Assistance Supports Fast Reaction to Flash Floods in Serbia

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Heavy rains in November 2007 caused flash flooding in southern Serbia, affecting numerous municipalities. The waters washed out bridges and roads, flooded homes and cellars, and posed a serious threat to public health. Drinking water sources and waterworks systems were contaminated and raw sewage inundated streets and homes. It was the worst flooding in the region since 1998.

The hardest hit municipality was Vlasotince (population 33,000), where more than 1,000 households were flooded. Some 200 residents of the Crni Marko settlement, most of them members of the Roma minority, had to be evacuated temporarily to the municipal sports center.

DAI’s Serbia Contingency Planning and Economic Security Program (SCOPES) enables the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to respond rapidly and effectively to such disasters.

But there’s more to SCOPES than simple disaster relief (for which USAID has other, established mechanisms). SCOPES mitigates inter-community conflict and aids communities in conflict management, thereby reducing political instability in “vulnerable areas”—parts of the country with large populations of unemployed displaced persons, youth, and former workers in state-owned enterprises (the unemployment rate in Vlasotince, nearly 50 percent, is more than twice the national average).

Within two days of the flooding, the program team assessed the situation, recommended a course of action for affected municipalities, and identified the goods most needed by the community. To ensure accurate needs assessments and an effective response, SCOPES worked closely with the Serbian Red Cross, local governments and utility companies, the Ministry of Interior’s Sector for Protection and Rescue, and the Ministry of Social Affairs’ Center for Social Work—matching needs against relief supplies delivered by USAID, other donors, and government agencies.

The U.S. Government focused on preventing the infrastructure disaster from becoming a health crisis by helping residents pump out and disinfect their homes, donating a mix of disinfection supplies and pumping equipment that the Red Cross can use in future flood emergencies.

SCOPES swiftly procured local commodities, including 5,500 kilograms of detergent, 800 kg of disinfectant, 12 mud pumps, and 60 disinfectant pumps—all delivered to affected communities by the Serbian Red Cross and the Serbian Ministry of Defense, with a special focus on assisting the most vulnerable families: recipients of social welfare, the elderly, households with children, and people with disabilities and special needs.

Within seven days of the flooding, SCOPES had coordinated a joint effort between USAID and the U.S. Department of Defense/European Command that delivered $55,000 in humanitarian assistance to Vlasotince.

The November floods challenged many communities’ capacity to respond to local emergencies. But those municipalities that had been working with SCOPES and attending its preparedness and planning trainings displayed better communication and response than municipalities that have not participated. For example, the program municipalities of Novi Pazar and Tutin acted quickly, sending out heavy machinery teams to deepen drainage ditches at “hot spots” identified during SCOPES training on risk mapping.

Novi Pazar, in particular, has had persistent problems with flooding in highly populated residential and commercial areas. At 9:00 am on November 26, the municipal disaster management team leader received information that waters were rising. By 9:30 am, the town decided to bulldoze and deepen drainage canals at key points identified in previous floods and ongoing risk assessment.

In Tutin, the Disaster Management Team/Operational Flood Defense Team, including representatives of businesses with heavy equipment, was in constant session and ordered the clearing of riverbeds and buttressing of levees at points previously identified in the risk assessment process. Media advised citizens who detected flooding to call a special phone number. The combination of a standing disaster management body, an updated risk assessment plan, and a well-developed communications system – all elements of SCOPES’ training – prevented damage to persons and property in the municipality.

To date, SCOPES has worked with 29 municipalities. Vlasotince is a candidate for inclusion in the program’s preparedness and planning training in 2008.

Albanian Essential Oils Find New Markets in the United States

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

An Albanian producer, a Belgian buyer, a Vietnamese laboratory, and an American market—it’s a story fit for the era of the global economy, and it comes complete with a happy ending for Albanian essential oil producer Xherdo, which finds itself at the threshold of important new markets in the United States.

Xherdo is on the verge of attaining the annual renewal of organic certification for its essential oils and medicinal plants for 2008, and once that certificate is issued, Xherdo has a buyer ready to place orders. “Organic certification has really opened the door to the U.S. market for us,” said Xherdo’s owner, Xhevit Hysenaj. “I entered the U.S. market in 2007, for the first time, with organically certified essential oils. This year, I would like to add organically certified, value-added medicinal plants to my line of export products.”

DAI has a record of building viable linkages between small producers in developing nations and experienced buyers in international markets. In this case, Xherdo’s buyer connections—and the lessons the company has learned in adapting its products to the U.S. market—were facilitated by DAI’s Enterprise Development and Export Market Services Project (EDEM), a five-year initiative funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Based on interest and support from the Albanian Essence Producers and Cultivators Association, EDEM set up an inward buyer mission with Luc Vossen, Director of the Brussels-based Vossen & Co., an essential oils distributor that specializes in value-added and particularly organic products, but has until now focused mostly on oils from Nepal and Vietnam.

In his December 2007 visit to Albania, Mr. Vossen immersed himself in local production techniques and equipment, export storage and packaging requirements, adherence to organic harvesting and processing principles, and transportation issues. He met with essential oils producers, harvesters, harvest collectors, transportation companies, and a representative of the organic certifying body in Albania, covering issues such as:

Quality standards for both products and packaging;

Transportation requirements and optimal routes to final destinations;

Opportunities to reduce production costs;

Production technology;

Compliance (of both production and harvesting) with organic principles; and

The potential for cultivating other herbs.

Mr. Vossen took more than a dozen oil samples—including sage, thyme, oregano, melissa, rosemary, lavender, juniper, laurel, myrtle, and fir—for testing at Vossen & Co.’s laboratory in Vietnam. With chemical analysis in hand, he should be able to place his first orders early in 2008. For its part, EDEM will continue to assist Xherdo by preparing the first shipments for export and ensuring the quality of products, packaging, and labeling.

Pakistani Provincial Assembly Launches Media Center

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

When the Provincial Assembly of Sindh reconvenes in Karachi after elections slated for February 18, 2008, correspondents covering the provincial legislature will have access to the best press facilities the Sindh Assembly has ever known. In early December 2007, reporters from several major news outlets previewed the new media center, established with the assistance of DAI’s Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Program (PLSP).

PLSP works to strengthen national and provincial legislatures and legislative processes. In any country, effective lawmaking depends on effective scrutiny by an independent media that keeps citizens informed and holds members of parliament publicly accountable for their actions.

The U.S. Agency for International Development-funded PLSP quickly determined that Pakistan’s parliament and provincial assemblies were not equipped to enable journalists to perform this vital function in today’s fast-paced media environment. Reporters lacked the tools—computers, copiers, fax machines, internet connectivity— needed to adequately cover these legislative bodies. Even in the Senate and National Assembly, which does provide some support, desktop computers were limited.

PLSP coordinated closely with the provincial assemblies, all of which are now allocating new space or upgrading existing space for press galleries, with the Sindh facility the first to open. Additionally, PLSP’s IT Specialist worked with the National Assembly and Senate to upgrade the networking capacity in its joint media center.

Sindh’s media center—typical of what is planned for the other assemblies—includes fully integrated desktop computers, with printing, faxing, scanning, and photocopying services that will enable journalists to report on parliament in real time. “The media center will boost prompt coverage of the Assembly sessions and give reporters access to their newspapers,” said Habib Khan Ghori, a senior reporter for DAWN, Pakistan’s premier English-language daily.

“The center has improved prospects for transparency and public participation in tangible ways at the provincial level,” said PLSP Provincial Coordinator Huma Ikramullah, who led the tour of the new media center with Sindh Assembly Secretary Hadi Bux Buriro. The improved working environment will also “serve as a venue for journalists to interact with members to improve the scope of parliamentary reporting.”

The media center complements investments PLSP already has made to upgrade the Sindh Assembly’s infrastructure and support the parliamentary process. These investments began with the Parliamentary Information Technology Resource Center, which provides computer facilities, internet access, and photocopying, printing, faxing, and scanning capabilities so members can better serve constituents.

Palestinian Apprenticeship Program Celebrates 61 More Graduates

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

In the fall of 2007, 61 apprentices graduated from the Palestinian Enterprise Development project’s Employment Generation Program (EGP). Even before the graduation ceremony, 40 of them had been asked for interviews and 20 had been hired.

Those numbers are a tribute to the work of a demand-driven program that provides intensive practical training to recent university graduates—in this case, engineering students—to prepare them for professional positions with private firms. Many such firms in the West Bank have difficulty hiring qualified professional staff and find that recent university graduates lack the practical business skills to complement their academic credentials. Conversely, recent graduates complain that jobs with private sector companies are scarce. EGP bridges that gap.

This particular EGP session, for engineers, was conducted in cooperation with the Industrial Modernization Center (IMC), part of the Palestinian Federation of Industries. The 61 apprentices were selected from a pool of 622 applicants. Each received 160 hours of training in areas including CV writing, business communication, labor law, finance, quality management, statistical quality control, and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP).

“As an engineer, I always thought that finance is not my thing,” said one young apprentice at the end of the program. “Now I see why I need it.”

Crossing many checkpoints each day, engineering graduates traveled from all over the West Bank to get to the training site in Ramallah, where they found a training program that was novel in at least three respects. First, EGP is highly interactive, incorporating case studies, games, and exercises similar to those used at top business schools in the United States. Participants openly debate approaches and solutions to business problems based on real cases. Second, EGP encourages participants to analyze business problems using a holistic approach—going beyond their engineering backgrounds to understand the relationship between operations, marketing, human resources, and finance. Finally, EGP stresses intense relationship building to foster trust between participants and instructors, and to deepen the learning experience.

EGP’s training program with IMC in the West Bank is the seventh of its kind. In cooperation with IMC and six other partners, the program has now graduated more than 500 apprentices who have gone on to apply their enhanced skills in the West Bank workforce.

A Star in the Making in Pakistan's Civil Service

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Fida Hussein grew up in modest circumstances near Larkarna, Pakistan, in one of the poorer rural areas of Sindh province. He was schooled at public university, and his hard work and commitment always marked him out as someone bound to succeed.

But in February 2007, Fida achieved something extraordinary. On Pakistan’s notoriously demanding civil service exam, he received the highest score in his entire recruitment class—indeed the highest score recorded in nearly 20 years.

When he took the exam, Fida was an intern in a program sponsored by the Pakistan Legislative Strengthening Project (PLSP), a two-year parliamentary strengthening effort implemented by DAI and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The parliamentary internship program—jointly overseen by PLSP and the Secretariats of the
Senate of Pakistan and the National Assembly—is designed to support the workings of parliament while building the capacity of intern participants, the next generation of public servants. Twenty-eight young Pakistanis took part, selected from 450 applicants through a competitive process that included interviews by a joint committee of the Secretariats and tests on constitutional knowledge, parliamentary history, and contemporary policy. Similar PLSP internship programs are underway in Balochistan, North West Frontier Province, Punjab, and Sindh assemblies.

In a ceremony recognizing the first 28 program graduates, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob said “the internship program started by USAID/PLSP will go a long way in improving the skills of the young interns.”

Fida’s internship supervisor—Senator Nisar Memon, Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Defense and Defense Production—made a special effort to attend the certificate ceremony as well. He said the internship program was an opportunity for some of the country’s best graduates to serve their nation by supporting the institutions of representative governance.

Fida attributed some of his recent success to his PLSP internship. “USAID gave me the confidence to face the interview panel, it sharpened my skills, it utilized my rusting abilities and energies,” he wrote in a farewell note to the program. “I am very
thankful to [PLSP] for your time-to-time feedback on my assignments and useful suggestions that you gave me. I have learned a lot from the USAID in general and from you in particular.”

PLSP staff appreciated those kind words but were quick to point out that Fida’s performance was largely due to his own hard work. Fida was recruited as one of the first parliamentary interns in spring 2006.

Assigned to the Senate Research Cell, he was quickly transferred to the Committee on Defense and Defense Production, where he prepared briefing papers, research reports, and complex analyses. One of his reports was so impressive the Chair had it circulated outside parliament.

Fida will join the Pakistani Civil Services Academy in September 2007, where he will train for service in the elite Civil Services Group. As the “topper” of the exam, he is allowed to choose his service, and there is a good chance we might one day see Fida in Pakistan’s diplomatic missions—as a result of his internship experience, foreign service is now very much one of his favored options.

Candlenuts Fuel Economic Growth in Timor-Leste

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Hundreds of candlenuts lay drying in the sun at Maria Anglica Freitas’ feet. Long popular in Timor-Leste for cooking, lamp fuel, and medicinal purposes, candlenuts are increasingly sought-after in the region and are now exported to the United States for cosmetic applications. Freitas makes a living collecting the nuts and selling them to the Acelda Company, a local exporter that has recently been able to expand its operations. Acelda offers the best local price for the nut, thanks in part to business training and grants that have enabled the company to improve its financial footing.

“We are happy to sell our candlenut to Acelda because they offer the best price– forty-five cents a kilogram,” Freitas said. “This enables us to send our children to school and cover our basic needs.”

The training and grants in question were provided by the Timor-Leste Small Grants Program (SGP), a four-year initiative funded by the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by DAI. On this grant activity, SGP works in funding partnership with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, the University of Hawaii, local bank Caixa Geral do Depositos, and Timor-Leste’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

In 2006, Acelda received a grant to update its financial and business management systems. Leveraging loans from a local bank, it installed computer systems and SGP partner staff from the University of Hawaii trained factory management on accounting software. In the past, Acelda relied on collecting and exporting raw candlenuts; now the business thrives as a processing plant where collected nuts are filtered, pressed, bottled, and exported. Acelda recently secured a three-year contract with Hawaiian cosmetic manufacturer Oils of Aloha for 150 to 180 barrels of oil per year.

SGP supports businesses, communities, organizations, and government in their efforts to build a stable, economically robust, democratic country. Historically, Timorese entrepreneurship was stifled under Portuguese colonization and Indonesian occupation. Given that 75 percent of Timor-Leste’s residents rely on subsistence agriculture, the need for innovative, alternative sources of income is acute. Most of SGP’s training and grant-making activities focus on USAID’s strategic objective of advancing Timor-Leste’s post-conflict economic development. SGP works with partners to improve literacy, address high unemployment rates (especially among young people), and assist rural schools and training institutions to deliver practical training in marketable skills. SGP works hard to ensure that women receive equal access to grant benefits and that grants are distributed equitably across the country.

As Acelda’s business goes global, local residents are reaping the rewards. “Acelda is contributing to the local community by employing eight staff and buying unprocessed candlenut from local candlenut growers,” said Acelda’s director, Higino da Costa Freitas. Meanwhile, Oil of Aloha has received its first 160 barrels of oil and the buyer has requested an annual increase to 180 barrels per year through 2008.

Debate Camp Builds Students Power to Persuade

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers! Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers! Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers!”

This familiar tongue twister sounds like an odd way to build the foundations of civil discourse, but that’s what 30 university students from across Liberia are doing as—with increasing speed— they practice one of the simpler yet still important aspects of formal debate: the ability to articulate quickly but clearly. With this warm-up exercise, the third and final day of a comprehensive debate camp gets under way.

The camp is designed to build student leaders’ skills and prepare them to train their peers in the art and science of formal persuasive discourse. Organized by the Federation of Liberian Youth—a local nongovernmental organization affiliated with the Ministry of Youth and Sports—the camp receives technical and financial support from the Building Recovery and Reform through Democratic Governance (Liberia-BRDG) project, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of Transition Initiatives.

The Federation and its supporters envisage the camp as a nascent civic forum through which Liberian universities can channel political and social disagreements, discussions, and debates. Liberia’s current generation of university students came of age during a tumultuous civil war period where such fora were virtually nonexistent. Preparing the country’s next generation of leaders is one aspect of Liberia-BRDG, a one-year program of grants and consultancies to the Liberian government and civil society organizations. Its overarching goal is to consolidate the dividends of peace and shore up Liberia’s development path.

Held at the African Methodist Episcopal University in Monrovia, with participants from all six of Liberia’s accredited universities, the camp was facilitated by Chime Asonye, a student and debate coach at the University of Illinois who has trained organizations such as the Chicago Urban Debate League. The Federation of Liberian Youth will continue to work with student leaders and professors from the Liberian universities represented at the camp, building their capacity to coach debate teams, organize tournaments, and judge debates.

Camp organizers hope that in addition to enriching the formal academic education of participants and fostering respect for the underlying structures of civil discourse, future debate activities will engage more and more young people in dialogue on the issues confronting them and their country—and on how to realize the future that lies in their hands to build.

—Jonathan Hill, Project Associate

Artisans and Apprentices Learn Basic Business Skills in Liberia

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

On a sunny Saturday morning in Zwedru, a town of 15,000 in eastern Liberia, 20 small business owners and employees gather for the third day of a business training program. They can afford to take this time off because apprentices will keep their shops running in their absence. In turn, the business owners will train these apprentices in the skills they’re learning from the local nongovernmental organization trainers who run the program.

This is the core of the Rehabilitation of Artisans Program (RAP), part of the Liberia Community Infrastructure Project (LCIP), which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by DAI. By combining artisan business training with apprenticeships, RAP encourages collaboration across vocational and cultural lines, puts people to work, and equips them with marketable skills. Liberians can earn a steady income while providing goods and services to communities ravaged by 14 years of civil strife.

During LCIP’s first two years, 992 apprentices and 25 small businesses graduated from the first phase of RAP. Based on this success, the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID) contributed funds to LCIP to restart the program in Zwedru and in the coastal cities of Buchanan and Cestos. RAP has now diversified to include masonry, baking, auto mechanics, and cosmetics.

The three-day business training session is just one of many in an eight-month program. Trainers from the Agricultural and Industrial Training Bureau (AITB)—an independent Liberian government agency—cover skills including inventory management, pricing, contract fundamentals, personnel management, and accounting.

In addition to attending training, participating business owners are assigned apprentices. Some 216 apprentices were chosen from a large pool of applicants to be assigned to 12 participating enterprises. Paid during the eight months by LCIP, the apprentices provide temporarily “free” labor in exchange for the businesses providing comprehensive skills training. It is envisioned that many apprentices will eventually be hired by the enterprises involved, as happened in LCIP’s first phase (many more started their own businesses).

Initiated after the 2003 peace accord that formally ended the civil war, LCIP has, since March 2004, managed diverse development projects including medical clinic and school rehabilitation, road reconstruction, agribusiness skills development, psychosocial counseling, and community reconciliation.

-Jonathan Hill, Project Associate

Connecting Farmers to Markets in Tanzania

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Nestled among mountain peaks at 5,000 feet, the isolated village of Mgeta produces some of Tanzania’s finest fruits and vegetables. Mgeta’s farmers labor year-round on steep terraces, harvesting top-quality onions, beets, leeks, snow peas, and baby corn, all by hand.

An hour’s drive up a dirt road and miles beyond the last power line, Mgeta’s farmers—lacking the training and resources to sell their products in regional and national markets—have historically been limited to local outlets, which drastically limits their economic horizons. But those farmers are now seeking to expand their sales and establish more stable, predictable, and profitable market linkages with customers such as the Shoprite supermarket chain. With help from the Private Enterprise Support Activities (PESA), they have begun to do just that.

In Mgeta, PESA has assisted some 500 farmers— nearly half of them women—by organizing four farmers’ associations and training members in topics such as improved seed varieties, new cropping techniques, and procedures to maintain product integrity from the field to the marketplace—a critical issue for such isolated producers. The farmers have pooled their resources and now have access to financing through community banks that support the development of new and more profitable markets.

Local farmer Simphrane Mahenge described how he has benefited. “I managed to get technical know-how from PESA and I am now producing vegetables that the market wants. The project taught me how to negotiate and I have made a contract with a broker from Dar es Salaam. With training I received on saving, record keeping, and cash budgeting, I have been able to save more. With this money, I have bought additional land, as well as two dairy goats.”

Now in the final stages of its four-year term, PESA is implemented by DAI and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Supporting micro- and small-enterprise participation in the Tanzanian economy, PESA provides technical training to a range of market participants, from farmers like those in Mgeta to local traders who help make the marketplace more competitive. PESA’s workshops deliver business and technical training in product marketing, market information, and association development.

Assuring the timely delivery of consistent, fresh, and clean produce is a challenge for farmers new to the highly competitive national marketplace. But the persistence of Mgeta’s farmers paid off when their Twighutze Association landed a contract to sell produce to Shoprite, Tanzania’s largest supermarket.

“No one would link us with Shoprite before,” said Association Vice Chairman Venesta Kibua. “But now we’ve learned about quality issues and are working like a family. Shoprite understands we’re small farmers and is working with us gradually as we improve.”

While initial sales are modest, PESA’s technical assistance has helped Mgeta’s farmers establish a reliable supply chain that the farmers use to make weekly deliveries to Shoprite. The skills acquired by Mgeta’s farmers as they work through this seminal contract will be an invaluable foundation on which to build their economic future.

Mayor's Initiative Doubles Tax Base in Macedonian City

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Just one year out of university in Vrapchiste, Macedonia, Mustaf Mustafa hardly expected to be tasked with solving one of the most critical problems facing his local government. But when the mayor called on him to help create a new tax collection database, Mustaf was excited to be part of such a consequential program.

“It was a real challenge,” Mustaf said. “There we were, out in the field, performing such a responsible task. We are grateful that the mayor showed such great confidence in us.”

Previously, property tax collection was administered at the national level, bypassing local budgets. Central to effective local governance, decentralized property tax collection ensures that funds flow directly into the municipal budget and offers a valuable opportunity to increase local autonomy. But creating a tax collection database in Vrapchiste also presented significant logistical challenges. Like most Macedonian communities, Vrapchiste lacked the training and resources to ensure a successful transition.

Mayor Esat Salai and his team of finance specialists received the training they needed at tax administration workshops coordinated by the Make Decentralization Work (MDW) project. Workshops on modern methods helped the team create a tax assessment for each property owner in Vrapchiste and taught the team how to use basic database software to track registration and valuation statistics.

“Attending this workshop was critical,” said Mayor Salai. “We learned how to organize teams and, most importantly, how to identify priorities. The training really hit the target.”

Following the workshops, Mustaf and his colleagues launched an ambitious public awareness campaign. They circulated informational flyers, held community meetings, and went door-to-door collecting tax data. Completed in just two months, the new database contains 6,000 taxpayers, nearly twice as many as the previous, nationally held database. After initial tax bills were sent out, property tax return filing rates exceeded the Macedonian national average within a matter of weeks.

Implemented by DAI and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, MDW is a three-year project that builds local government capacity while supporting Macedonia’s transition from a centralized autocracy to a decentralized democratic state. Administrative and regulatory capacity building are at the heart of MDW’s strategy, and projects are coordinated at national and local levels. MDW also looks to introduce services to local municipalities, focusing on integrated e-government, local economic development, and urban planning.

An effective tax collection system allows municipal government to provide citizens with valuable services and infrastructure, improving their quality of life and the overall effectiveness of local governance. Vrapchiste plans to invest its increased tax revenue in repairing schools, building parks, and improving transportation. With proactive initiative and specialized training, the municipality accomplished an important decentralization goal that will have immediate and long-term impacts.

The Drvar Birthing Centers First Baby Boy

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

In the war-devastated community of Drvar, a new sense of optimism arrived in February, along with the birth of Bozana Damjanovic’s healthy baby boy. The first baby born in the newly reconstructed Drvar Birthing Center, he measured 51 centimeters (20 inches) and weighed in at 3,300 grams (7.3 lbs).

Destroyed along with a third of the town’s buildings during the 1992–1995 war, and left without reconstruction funding, the Birthing Center remained closed for 11 years. Local women were forced to travel 100 kilometers to Livno, the nearest town with appropriate medical facilities. “It is too expensive to travel all the way to Livno, Bozana Damjanovic explained. “It is hard to start this trip on time for the delivery. I heard the last baby was born in a car, and I would not like this to have happened to me.”

Fortunately, thanks in large part to the DAI-implemented Governance Accountability Project(GAP), Bozana and her husband did not have to make the trip to Livno.

Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), GAP works to monitor, evaluate, and enhance local services and related programs through frameworks of good governance.

Beginning in summer 2004, the three-year project quickly helped to create a Community Development Planning Committee in Drvar to encourage citizen involvement in municipal and community affairs. Through a participatory decision-making process, the Committee decided that Drvar’s highest priority was the Birthing Center.

With GAP’s contributions of technical assistance and $40,000, reconstruction of the Birthing Center was completed in 2006. The Center’s four employees have already helped deliver 14 healthy children.

“We have completed one project with GAP, and that is the reconstruction and equipping of the Birthing Center,” said Dr. Knezevic, the Birthing Center’s director. “But we have started another—and a very noble one: delivering babies and starting life in our community.”

In the 1990s, Bozana Damjanovic and her husband were among more than 17,000 local residents who fled Drvar. Since returning in 1998, the couple has found few job opportunities and money is tight, so they were delighted to save the time and expense of the trip to Livno. Bozana said, “Any money that we can save would be better spent on our baby supplies.”

As communities across Bosnia and Herzegovina look to promote stability and re-introduce services—the Damjanovics’ war-damaged home was only recently hooked up to the electric system, for example—GAP’s work in Drvar will be a strong example of the potential inherent in the community and the tangible progress that can be made when effective and participatory governance is brought to bear on social problems.

Agricultural Trade Fair Brings Opportunity to Afghanistan

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

To the casual observer, a donkey dress-up contest may not appear to be an effective economic indicator. However, to thousands of visitors at the first annual Regional Agricultural Trade Fair in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the donkey beauty pageant represents an economy that yields fresh opportunities every day.

Over two days this summer, 11,000 visitors descended upon the newly renovated Jalalabad Exhibition Center, taking in more than 140 stands. Organized by DAI’s Alternative Livelihoods Program for the Eastern Region (ALP/E), the event brought together a range of actors within agricultural value chains. Farmers, farmer associations, input suppliers, research centers, traders, and service providers all turned out to take advantage of this unprecedented business opportunity.

“Never in the history of our country had we had the opportunity to participate in an agricultural festival to show our products, to know what other farmers are doing, and to meet buyers,” said Mohibullah, a local farmer.

Traditional Pashto musicians performed as visitors browsed the stands and exhibitors made new contacts while showing off their products, services, and techniques. Visitors also enjoyed livestock contests, bodybuilder line-ups, and challenges involving feats of strength.

An inclusive event, the Trade Fair shed cultural limitations and featured nine stalls organized and staffed by women entrepreneurs. The women displayed and sold their goods, making practical and symbolic steps in the fight for gender equity.

Many dignitaries attended, including officials from local and regional government, USAID, and the Nangarhar Valley Development Authority (NVDA). “It is a great achievement for the farmers, as they can share their skills and exchange their experiences … I hope in the future we will be able to have more fairs such as this in our region,” said Dr. Mohammad Asif Oazi Zada, the NVDA director .

Launched by DAI in 2005, ALP/E coordinates a comprehensive economic development plan that involves provincial government, trade associations, and local farmers. By creating licit livelihood options, the four-year, USAID-funded project strives to reduce regional dependence on poppy production while promoting broad-based economic development. A key component of the project’s strategy is the introduction of high-value crops that can be sold domestically and internationally. Over one recent four-month period, ALP/E distributed seeds and fertilizers to 90,000 farmers.

More than 50 project staff contributed to make the Regional Agricultural Trade Fair a success: technical staff collaborated with government officials and nongovernmental organizations, infrastructure specialists worked with 80 local laborers to renovate the event site, and operations specialists facilitated transportation, security, and other logistics.

Using Micro-Credit to Preserve Local Identity

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Every June, Corpus Christi festivities take over the small Ecuadorian town of Pujili and residents pour into the streets, parading in a blur of colorful revelry. If local artisan German Olmos has his way, that festive spirit will be exported year-round on the growing wave of regional and international tourism.

For 25 years, German has been replicating scenes from the festival—a blend of indigenous and Spanish Catholic traditions—in his paintings and in crafts such as dolls and decorative masks. Meanwhile, as president of the Pujili Master Artisan Association, he is also the face of the local artisan industry as it pushes for greater recognition.

“We create art using the same techniques, colors, and style that has always been used here—it is ours and we want to maintain it,” German said. “When people consider where to buy this type of artisan product, I want them to think of Pujili.”

A fourth-generation artisan, German learned the trade from his parents, alongside his brother, Diego. The brothers have worked hard, expanding the family business and raising the profile of Pujili’s art—but they have not done it alone. They have relied on small, stable microfinance loans to purchase core materials, open a retail space, and construct a new workshop.

These loans, provided by the CACPECO lending cooperative, are part of a larger project to improve Ecuador’s financial health. Launched in 2001 and implemented by DAI, USAID’s five-year Strengthening Access to Microfinance and Economic Liberalization (SALTO) project supports the expansion of microfinance opportunities. Additionally, the SALTO team works with local government, financial institutions, and nongovernmental organizations on economic reforms that promote broad-based, sustainable economic growth and nurture a lending climate characterized by fair interest rates, loan security, and transparency.

SALTO's microfinance specialists have worked to support the operations of 11 microfinance institutions in Ecuador; in 2005, the portfolios of these assisted institutions increased by an average of 38.8 percent. CACPECO has also focused on extending its reach to women, who have traditionally had difficulty securing loans. In Pujili, for example, 80 percent of CACPECO’s customers are women.

German applauded CACPECO’s work. “These loans are indispensable. Because they are accessible, unlike before, we are now able to borrow money and invest it so that it works for us.”

Thanks to judicious use of the loans, the Olmos brothers have exceeded their production expectations and are well positioned to take advantage of a recent increase in regional tourism. They are hopeful that as business increases, appreciation for their art will spread across the globe, keeping local art alive while creating opportunities for the artisans of tomorrow.

From Fighting To Fish Farming

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

There is a mantra that is recited constantly in the development community: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he feeds himself for a lifetime. Implementing this seemingly simple principle is often tricky, however. Implementing it on a large scale, in a community riven and scarred by years of war, in such a way as to bring that community together and set it back on the path to stability and security was the challenge taken on by the Congo Transition Support Program (CTSP).

It’s a challenge the program and the citizens of Butembo, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), are meeting head on.

After decades of war, the people of Butembo are revitalizing their community through the cultivation of tilapia, a widely farmed fish native to Africa. CTSP’s fish farming initiative offers participants temporary employment as well as the training and resources necessary to begin fish farming on a sustainable basis. The project links a fish culture station—including a research and development center and ponds constructed by ex-combatants—with rural development associations that extend fish culture management techniques and distribute tilapia fingerlings. Full-grown fish will be sold at local markets.

Once a thriving economic, cultural, and social center, Butembo has been devastated by successive wars. After 1986, when conflict in neighboring Uganda spilled into the DRC, Butembo’s booming domestic and export trade in coffee, quinquina bark, and papaine all but disappeared. Militant groups moved into the vacuum and enlisted much of the population, especially disenfranchised young men.

When peace was finally established through the Sun City Agreement of 2003, some 10,000 youths were ensnared in such groups. These leaderless young militants migrated in droves to urban areas, exacerbating the unemployment problem and further straining the social fabric through armed aggression, violent crime, drug abuse, and unsafe sex.

The CTSP grants program was designed to target institutions and needs critical to the resumption of civil society, democratic governance, and activities that provide employment and opportunities in the DRC. Although only a small portion of CTSP, the fish farming initiative has made a positive difference—not only in the lives of ex-combatants directly involved, but also in the Butembo community as a whole. Jobs created by the program provide for the short-term survival of the community, while skills training and resource provision open up longer-term income generating possibilities.

Butembo is back on its feet and working its way back to the social and economic stability it once enjoyed.

Launched in 1997, CTSP is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by DAI.

Baking Their Way Into Business

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

After years of fighting in Liberia’s civil war, Massi Gissi now has “something to hold on to.” Recently trained as a baker, she now dreams of opening her own bakery shop.

Twenty-one-year-old Massi has lived most of her life not knowing whether she would make it through each day. Like many Liberians, she was forced to take up arms for a cause she did not understand. Once the war was over, she struggled to support herself while dealing with the psychological side-effects of her time as a combatant.

Massi’s newfound hope has been kindled by the Liberia Community Infrastructure Project (LCIP), funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and implemented by DAI. Through LCIP, Massi attends counseling sessions to help her cope with her past and learn how to reconcile and live peacefully with former enemies. Along with 60 other women, she is training to become a baker. She will be able to sell her bread—an important staple in the Liberian diet—at local markets.

During 14 years of civil war, many of Liberia’s towns and villages were overrun as residents fled into the forests. The country’s infrastructure was devastated and its citizens left scarred and hopeless. In Bopolu, Massi’s hometown, 1,500 of the 5,000 refugees have returned; two-thirds of those who have returned were armed rebels in the war.

LCIP began in April 2004. Designed as a comprehensive effort to help participants support themsleves and rebuild their communities, its goals are to provide reconciliation and counseling services, create jobs, and offer learning opportunities for ex-combatants and their communities. Projects such as the reconstruction of roads and schools provide temporary employment and help refurbish vital infrastructure. The baking classes are just one of many vocational training options available.

While baking courses may seem to be a small step toward Liberia’s recovery, for participants such as Massi they hold the promise of a bright and promising future.

Date Palm Nurseries Bring Hope to Iraqs Marshdwellers

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Dates have played an important cultural and economic role in Iraq from Sumerian times, more than 5,000 years ago. Yet during the turmoil following the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the failed Shi’a insurrection, the Iraq marshlands and the date palm orchards in the south fell victim to a state-led strategy to persecute the rebellious population by destroying its livelihood. The number of date palms decreased by more than half, and the marsh dwellers suffered from systematic drainage of the marshes. Now the re-establishment of date palm nurseries promises a better and more stable future.

And restoring the date palm industry is more than an economic rebirth for the marshland region. It symbolizes the recovery of Iraq as a nation.

In the spring and fall of 2004, the USAID-funded Iraq Marshlands Restoration Program(IMRP), implemented by DAI, established date palm nurseries in the marshlands region. IMRP staff are working to improve economic and social conditions for the Marsh Arabs and to explore options for restoring roughly 15,000 square kilometers of marshes drained by Saddam Hussein’s regime.

IMRP is introducing profitable and sustainable agricultural opportunities to the region as part of a larger effort to jumpstart the local economy. Date palms are central to this strategy because of their high market value and native presence. The market for dates is strong in Iraq and throughout the Middle East. As production increases, exports will target European, North American, and Japanese markets currently dominated by Israel, Algeria, and Tunisia.

Iraq is home to 629 date varieties, more than any other country. Many are for high-end export and are capable of generating substantial revenues for growers.

During the first round of plantings in spring 2004, 8 date palm nurseries—all but one containing 500 trees of 21 varieties—were established using IMRP funds. Although the usual survival rate for palms in nurseries in 70 percent, attentive care by the growers has resulted in an average survival rate of more than 90 percent. The most valuable variety, bahri, has a survival rate of 100 percent.

Within 3 years of planting, each palm can produce 7 to 10 offshoots that are then cut and planted in new orchards. These new palms will be distributed among the marsh dwellers. Date palms begin to bear fruit at 3 to 5 years and are fully mature at 12, when each tree can produce upwards of 150 pounds of fruit a year.

IMRP’s date palm activity has been successful, but it has not been without conflict—not unexpected given the poverty of the region, the endemic intertribal rivalries, and the importance of the crop. For example, one marshlands sheikh had donated his land for a 1,000 date palm nursery, with plans to divide the anticipated 7,000 offshoots among his tribesmen. When a neighboring tribe learned of the nursery, it threatened to burn all the trees unless it could participate and have a share. A mediator from a third tribe resolved the dispute: in a meeting of all parties, the sheikh agreed to give half the trees to the second tribe to maintain until the offshoots were removed and replanted, while he retained ownership of the original trees. As these date palms grow and produce dates and palm offshoots, there will be opportunities for greater tribal participation.

After the Tsunami, Sri Lankans Band Together to Clean Up Their City

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Southern Province, Sri Lanka – The 40,000 residents of the city of Matara were among the tens of millions directly affected by the tsunami that hit South and Southeast Asia on December 26, 2004. Soon after the initial disaster, Help-O—a local nongovernmental organization using goods and services quickly provided by DAI and funded by USAID—began to coordinate a city-wide cleanup effort to pave the way for long-term rehabilitation.

Help-O is a leading regional humanitarian and development NGO that has the local knowledge and expertise to rebuild lives, but lacks the financial resources to fulfill its potential. As part of its immediate assistance program, USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) has funded Help-O and many similar organizations through the DAI implemented OTI Sri Lanka Program. Having worked in Sri Lanka distributing grants to support peaceful reconciliation since the February 2003 peace accord between the central government and Tamil separatists, DAI staff have an established presence on the ground. They are able to move large amounts of money into the hands of groups like Help-O quickly and safely.

In the coastal city of Matara, an undergraduate student at nearby Ruhunu University—working for Help-O—organized 200 people to implement a comprehensive cleanup. Half were Matara citizens paid for their work; the remainder were volunteers from the university. To further involve community members and extend income-generating opportunities, Help-O paid local women to provide tea for the morning and afternoon breaks—during which time the team congregated to discuss ideas and lessons learned. In the evenings, volunteers relaxed in a more social setting and discussed the future with community members.

At the end of the 10-day program, tangible progress had been made in the restoration of Matara. Arguably as important as these concrete gains, however, was the feeling of progress through action among the volunteers, and the burgeoning sense that as a community they would overcome the disaster. Matara’s mayor said of the Help-O project, “Many people came for cleanup work but just scratched the surface and left—this is the only organization that seems to be doing a proper job.”

In the seven weeks since the tsunami struck Sri Lanka, DAI has cleared more than $1.7 million in 65 new OTI-funded grants to community groups and aid organizations in affected areas. An additional $300,000 worth of grants will be committed by the end of February.

Cutting-Edge Management System Boosts Municipal Governments Efficiency and Accountability

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Baltimore, Maryland, is 4,700 miles from the Serbian cities of Indjija and Paraæin, yet all three cities share the distinction of having implemented CitiStat, an innovative and promising new municipal management system. After decades of inadequate local governance, Indjija’s and Paraæin’s citizens now receive improved services at reduced costs to their local governments.

These dramatic changes originated with a May 2004 trip to Baltimore by Serbian local government officials from the two cities. The trip was organized by the USAID-fundedSerbian Local Government Reform Project (SLGRP), which promotes more effective, accountable, and transparent local government. Implemented by DAI, SLGRP is active in 87 Serbian municipalities.

The CitiStat system was developed in Baltimore to identify and fix problems in local government. It relies on the active participation of citizens, who can report concerns through various channels, and on proactive management by municipal officials, who use a comprehensive data tracking system and then develop and implement timely and effective solutions to identified problems.

Serbian officials met with Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley, attended CitiStat public meetings, and visited local administration departments, then returned home to build their own systems. Goran Ješiæ, the Mayor of Indjija, said his city’s System 48 “is a replication of Baltimore CitiStat with our own ideas. The software and organization of the system are largely ours, while the communication procedure and relations with customers are copied.”

In the few months since System 48’s launch, results are already real and measurable. In Indjija, resident concerns reported to the Citizen Assistance Center’s call center—established in August with a limited IT infrastructure and only one operator—have averaged 450 per month. This call center uses automated routing to make it available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and generates work orders for the appropriate public enterprise or department.

Through System 48, Indjija’s public officials have removed illegal waste dumps, improved electricity fee collection, reorganized city lighting, and instituted an automated public parking system. Parking collection rates have doubled and collections have already exceeded the $34,000 investment cost—reaching $73,000 in the first year alone.

In short, System 48 is improving local governance by enhancing services and cutting operating costs, and it has yet to reach its full potential: the city plans to expand the system to cover additional public enterprises and departments, and will fine-tune its application as Mayor Ješiæ and his city move closer to achieving their goal of efficient and responsive local government.

And the prospect for replicating the system—continuing the evolution from Baltimore to Indjija, Paraæin, and beyond— is promising: at a recent municipal Best Practices Fair, Serbian mayors voted System 48 the most innovative practice of 25 municipal presentations.

Vietnamese Handicrafts Enter the Global Marketplace

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

For more than 1,000 years, residents of the Bat Trang village in northwestern Vietnam have made a living by producing a unique form of ceramics. Today, as Vietnam integrates into the global economy, new opportunities have arisen for expanding ceramics and other home accessory sales. But a lack of external market knowledge, limited product development, and other business constraints mean that sales have yet to take off. Since spring 2004, however, the USAID-funded Vietnam Competitiveness Initiative (VNCI) has worked with local producers to help them seize new trade opportunities.

Implemented by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), VNCI supports economic growth in Vietnam by recommending policy reforms, expanding credit opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises, and supporting the development of targeted sectors—such as the Bat Trang home accessories.

Because of their distinctive qualities and refined production techniques that have evolved generation after generation, VNCI identified these handicrafts as likely to be competitive in the global marketplace, given appropriate temporary support. DAI staff worked to increase the supply of—and demand for—locally produced goods by bringing together a number of producers to form a “cluster” of companies that can work collectively to advance their industry. Although they are traditional competitors, their combined resources and experience allow them to develop an international market for their products where none existed before.

DAI then brought in Ernie Owens, a U.S. ceramics design expert with 40 years of industry experience and extensive contacts among international buyers. Following three visits to the region, Mr. Owens worked with 15 small and medium-sized enterprises from Bat Trang and the nearby Ha Tay province in May 2004 to develop their products—strengthening existing designs and developing new ones.

Following this product development phase and two business workshops attended by 45 local producers (“Building Competitiveness” and “Ten Steps to Export to the U.S.”), Mr. Owens introduced international firms to the local Vietnamese producers. The handicraft producers were able to submit their goods to the largest home furnishing trade show in the United States, in High Point, North Carolina. In total, they exhibited 1,000 samples valued at $7,600, and orders are now coming in from around the world: as of early November, within a few weeks of the show, orders had surpassed $150,000. Randy Nakayama of leading home furnishings company Toyo Trading said, “As a result of our trial experience in Vietnam, I could see purchasing up to $10 million of home accessories products over the next several years!”

Connections made between Vietnamese producers and international buyers have brought immediate economic benefits, and the relationships established will allow these Vietnamese businesses to adapt to evolving market preferences—producing more efficiently and increasing their markets and income over time. As this occurs in Bat Trang, Ha Tay, and throughout Vietnam, VNCI continues its work to support economic growth and international partnerships in Vietnam.

Planting Trees Protects Vital Water Resource in Armenian River Basin

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

After years of deforestation around the Tandzut River in the Debed River Basin of northwestern Armenia, mudflows, erosion, and landslides were becoming increasingly destructive to the region’s economy and environment. In the spring of 2003, a number of local school children planted and then nursed over 2,000 trees on the banks of the river—returning the ecosystem to its natural setting that counters mud and landslide pressures.

This undertaking began with a small grant issued to Vladimir Minasyan, the founder of the Armenian nongovernmental organization “Nature Protection,” by the USAID-funded Water Management in the South Caucasus project. Implemented by Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), this program has worked to improve sustainable water usage coordination and international dialogue in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. While independent nations, they rely on the same river basins. Specifically, the Debed River Basin is used for irrigation, fishing, drinking, and hydroelectric energy production.

One component of the water management program is grant distribution to local individuals and organizations that “increase the effective participation of stakeholders in river basin planning.” With his grant of less than $1,000, Mr. Minasyan organized an ambitious reforestation project on the section of the Tandzut River closest to the city of Vanadzor.

Trees are vital to river ecosystems because their roots create stability underground. When rains come, the rainwater saturates in roots and the firmer soil, keeping dirt from entering the rivers in large amounts. Without them, mudflows enter the rivers, killing fish, causing floods, and making the water undrinkable downriver. Mr. Minasyan’s program responded to the immediate source of the mudslides and floods—deforestation—while simultaneously working toward overcoming its root cause—the lack of public understanding concerning the importance of trees to sustainable and safe water resource use. Approximately 180 students from schools in and around Vanadzor, including the Agricultural College, four public schools, the Polytechnicum College, and Socker School, were organized into student groups and trained in tree planting and nursing methods.

Once trained, these students planted over 2,000 trees between May and July 2003. The students then returned to the basin to make sure that the trees were healthy and growing.

The students, their teachers, and families all learned the importance of trees to the overall river ecosystem. This lesson is vital to the long-term success of the entire river basin project, because once USAID support and the accompanying grants come to an end, it will be up to the communities to provide for the long-term sustainability and protection of the river basin.

Knowledge of the ecosystem and its importance to their economic well-being is a powerful resource in this effort. But arguably more importantly, the trees that protect the river now have roots that lie both in the ground and in the hard work of the community’s future leaders. Based on this connection, USAID and DAI hope that the community will continue to protect the trees from ongoing threats, just as the trees protect the river from erosion.

Simple Irrigation Kits Yield Life-Changing Results

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

As 500 orphaned children gather for another meal at the Holy Cross Parish in Tshabalala, a densely populated suburb of Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, Father Eugene is relieved the parish has recently increased its capacity to feed the children who rely on it.

Roughly 270 kilometers to the east, in the town of Nyamazura, John Matsangura stands amid his garden’s abundant paprika harvest. Since he started farming in 1971, Matsangura has only been able to grow enough subsistence crops to keep his family of six children afloat. Now, however, he produces a more diverse harvest that keeps his family healthier and brings in extra income from the sale of cash crops such as paprika.

The orphans’ welfare, the Matsangura family’s standing, and the well-being of thousands of others in Zimbabwe have improved thanks to a simple $30 drip irrigation kit. Working with 33 local NGOs, DAI has distributed these irrigation kits throughout Zimbabwe and trained farmers in their use. The kit distribution program is a part of Linkages for the Economic Advancement of the Disadvantaged (LEAD), funded by USAID. As of June 2004, 23,000 kits have been distributed to family farmers, religious organizations, and hospitals.

“The drip kit method of irrigating is simple, efficient, and effective,” said Matsangura. “It has helped me to make optimal use of land and water. It will help me grow high-value crops all year round and double my income.”

Such improvements are particularly valuable in Zimbabwe, which faces an HIV/AIDS epidemic, economic weakness, and chronic food shortages. Eighty percent of the country’s residents rely on agriculture for their survival. Because water is the limiting factor to agricultural production in much of the country, these kits make a significant difference. The drip kit uses 50 percent less water than traditional methods of bucket watering, produces better yields, and allows farmers to grow higher-quality crops for consumption and sales.

USAID/Zimbabwe Mission Director Paul Weisenfeld adds, “The drip kit is labor saving; that is, it substantially reduces the amount of time and labor that must be devoted to the hand watering of plots. It’s ideal for those suffering from the effects of HIV/AIDS.”

LEAD runs through March 2006. Through the drip irrigation program and other LEAD projects in Zimbabwe, DAI continues to fulfill its mission of improving people’s lives through innovative and sustainable development programs.

Cutting Red Tape Boosts Small Business in Uganda

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

ENTEBBE, UGANDA – For residents of this city of 90,000 on the northern shores of Lake Victoria, the process of transforming an innovative business idea into reality had always been tedious and expensive. To obtain the necessary trade license, an entrepreneur would have to pay various fees, visit a registrar who reviewed paperwork, receive site visits by a health and safety inspector, and then await final approval from the local chairman. On average, this process took two days and cost a start-up business roughly $30—not a small sum in Uganda. With such regulatory impediments, it was not surprising that job creation and business growth were stifled.

Business and regulatory reform specialists with DAI Europe, a DAI operating company, saw great potential for improving this situation. DAI Europe was contracted by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) to implement the Better Regulatory Project (BRP) to improve the environment for Ugandan entrepreneurs and thereby stimulate job creation and sustained economic growth.

Arriving in Entebbe in February 2002, DAI Europe's advisors first performed an assessment to determine the existing obstacles to starting a business. When they released their findings—an excessive waiting period and high compliance costs—local government officials accepted that the situation was problematic and began working with BRP staff to improve the licensing process. Together, they developed a simplified process that allowed authorities to issue licenses immediately on completion of a registration form and payment of one fee—eliminating additional approvals and an immediate health or safety inspection. Inspectors were then able to focus on high-risk businesses such as pharmacies, medical clinics, restaurants, and food producers. To further aid the local government, DAI Europe's advisors developed a computerized business registry and reporting system, making both enforcement and monitoring much easier.

The project’s results were dramatic. Start-up costs were reduced by 75 percent and registration time was cut to only 30 minutes. Compliance levels increased by more than 20 percent as businesses and entrepreneurs found the time and costs more reasonable. Similarly, although fees were decreased, government revenue actually increased by 40 percent. The local government also attained administrative savings of 25 percent in staff time and 10 percent in financial resources. Beyond these concrete improvements, overall business-government relations improved significantly. Red tape was reduced, thereby reducing opportunities for governmental corruption and private sector evasion. In their place, a new environment of entrepreneurial activity is developing, monitored by a more responsible and respected civil service.

Following this success and similar activities throughout Uganda during the first phase (2000-2003), DFID extended the project for two more years. BRP staff will continue to assist Uganda’s national and local governments to foster a business environment that supports entrepreneurship, while properly monitoring employee and consumer standards.

Building a Market Economy from the Ground Up

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Strength in numbers. That is the lesson the rice farmers of Tanzania’s southwestern Mbarali district have learned. Long at the mercy of local moneylenders who supplied much-needed capital but demanded up to half their crop as repayment, the region’s poor farmers saw little room for economic advancement. As one village elder put it, “We are in a deep hole and don’t know how to climb out.”

But now, with the support of the USAID-funded Private Enterprise Support Activitiesprogram (PESA), the Mbarali farmers are moving toward controlling their own economic futures. Operated by DAI in six regions that account for a third of Tanzania’s population, PESA focuses primarily on association development, encouraging farmers to form producer associations or to strengthen existing groups that pool resources and improve their sales position. The associations also serve as vehicles for DAI-led training in marketing, bargaining, and financial management skills.

In Mbarali, DAI has reached 17 producer associations and farmer networks representing 7,500 households. To reduce their reliance on moneylenders, association members formed 11 savings and credit cooperative societies. Members contribute small amounts—usually $3 to $5 a month—and after six months or so are allowed to take out loans up to three times their deposits (with guarantees from two other coop members). They use the money to buy seeds and invest in their farms.

The groups are also uniting to improve their bargaining power. Eight associations representing 129 producers have agreed to combine their crop yields and seek a long-term, reliable contract. These farmers have also applied new production techniques that have boosted yields and incomes.

With agriculture accounting for 50 percent of gross domestic product and 80 percent of the workforce in Tanzania, what is good for farmers is good for the country. The rice farmers of Mbarali are taking the first steps toward economic liberation. By working together and collectively building their knowledge, they now have the opportunity to use higher incomes to improve their productivity through capital investment, technical training, and innovation—none of which are possible when stuck in the cycle of poverty and debt.

Before the PESA project, farmers did not even know they were part of the private sector or even what that concept meant—rather, they depended on the government for assistance that often never came. Now, PESA empowers them to take development into their own hands by learning how to respond to market forces. As of August 2004, DAI has assisted some 75 start-up and existing associations nationwide to become the pivot point for development. Membership is growing at a rate of 25 to 50 percent per year.

Ultimately, the PESA program is about empowering Tanzanian farmers who work hard but need development assistance to realize their potential. On the ground back in Mbarali, it’s about showing farmers the way out of that deep hole of debt, dependency, and underdevelopment.

You Brought us Back to Life

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

In the southwestern Serbian municipality of Nova Varoš, Public Communal Enterprise “3. septembar” is operating with new energy. Similar to public utilities, Serbian communal enterprises are owned by local governments and provide public services. In this municipality of 20,000, 3. septembar manages the water supply, solid waste removal, central heating, cemeteries, road cleaning, and even bread production. For years, the region’s economic weakness and the enterprise’s institutional limitations caused rising debt, low wages, and inadequate service performance. In late 2002, rate collection stood at merely 27 percent.

It was at this point that DAI’s Communal Enterprise Team—part of the USAID-funded Serbia Local Government Reform Program (SLGRP)—stepped in to transform 3. septembar into a well-managed and sustainable enterprise that is responsive to the community.

Working directly with enterprise employees, the SLGRP team developed and implemented a comprehensive plan to achieve these goals. Transformative actions included increasing the number of fee collectors, collecting up-to-date customer data, making reasonable agreements with violators to partially collect past payments, and creating a collection office to coordinate customer service and issue citations for habitual violators.

These actions achieved immediate results. By early 2003 the collection rate had soared to 84 percent. The enterprise’s improved financial health has allowed it to move toward paying down its debts and building better relationships with its suppliers. In addition, higher wages and elevated employee morale now accompany improved productivity and increased quality of service for the community. Given this swift and impressive turnaround, it is no surprise that Saliha Bijelic, an enterprise lawyer, told SLGRP advisors, “You have brought us back to life.”

The Communal Enterprise Team is just one facet of the five-year project implemented by DAI. The program is operating in 88 Serbian municipalities and is designed to revitalize the deep roots of strong community-based management from within Serbian society to re-establish effective, responsive, and accountable local government.

Realizing that sustainable democratic development cannot be imposed from the outside, 95 percent of DAI’s program staff possess Yugoslav passports, and all projects are coordinated with local governments and civic organizations. Through a combination of local knowledge, DAI’s experienced and innovative international staff, and a comprehensive program agenda, SLGRP is doing its part to shape Serbia’s emerging democracy.

After 45 Years, Romanian Students Finally Get Running Water

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

For the 100 children who live in and around the small, southern Romanian village of Comanca, going to school recently became safer—and more pleasant. Since the village’s five-classroom school was constructed in the early 1960s, it has lacked running water. Children have had to bring water bottles to wash their hands before snack time and after games. To make matters worse, these unsanitary conditions would have caused the school to fail the European Union’s strict membership requirements—forcing the school to shut down so Romania’s proposed 2007 entrance into the EU would not be jeopardized. Something had to be done.

In October 2003, the European Youth Association (EYA), based in the nearby city of Caracal, applied for a grant from the USAID-funded Government Reform and Sustainable Partnerships (GRASP) program to facilitate community-based solutions to local problems. Implemented by DAI, GRASP strengthens local government and civil society across Romania. With the GRASP grant, supported by a local contribution, EYA set out to facilitate various community projects in four local communes. One of these projects was intended to supply water to Comanca’s students and teachers.

In April 2004, about 20 Comanca residents, most of them parents of schoolchildren, gathered in the school yard to start digging a trench for the pipeline that would connect the school building, water supply, and sewage system. While the GRASP grant provided construction materials for the project, labor was entirely supplied by citizen volunteers. With this and other grants, GRASP has provided targeted technical assistance to local governments and community-based organizations such as EYA. Mr. Copilescu, an area local government leader, applauded the program’s achievements, noting, “GRASP [took] the first—and critical—step and showed us that we can do it and it’s better if we do it together. We [the local government] provided money, our citizens donated their time and effort, and we solved a long-standing issue in a very short time.”

After the work was completed, on July 2, 2004, a group of students, parents, teachers, and local officials came together for the official first running of water at the Comanca school. Prior to cutting the ribbon tied across the new stainless-steel sink, Gheorghe Beciu, mayor of the commune, gave a short speech centered on the importance of citizen cooperation. Then, he cut the ribbon, and two of the schoolchildren turned the taps on for the first time. From the group of students attending the ceremony, a voice was heard whispering, “How coooool!”

The process by which Comanca’s water problem was resolved will have lasting benefits for this rural community. One of USAID’s primary goals for GRASP is to “build constituencies for reform from the bottom up.” This story is a prime example of one way to fulfill that goal. With GRASP support, residents worked directly with EYA and the local government to solve their problem quickly. As a result, the relationship between the community and local government was strengthened, and the benefits of cooperation and coordination were made clear. By administering this grant and performing similar work throughout the country, DAI is helping to lay the foundation for sustainable and democratic development in Romania.

Micro-loans Fight Poverty in Rural Haiti

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:24:25 EST

Until recently, Haiti's hillside farmers faced immense obstacles to selling their coffee beans. Regional coffee cooperatives were unable to buy member-produced coffee because they lacked access to credit, forcing farmers to seek buyers in the Dominican Republic. Individual farmers were forced to make this seven-hour cross-border trip on foot with a mule carrying the beans. After paying a tax at the border, the farmers were met with Dominican buyers in a position to offer the lowest of prices: if processing did not begin within 24 hours, the coffee would be worthless. The long trip was difficult, the time away from farming wasteful, and their reliance on Dominican buyers humiliating.

This situation has improved over the last 18 months. USAID's mission in Port au Prince realized that meaningful economic advancement could not occur under the current system. For this reason, DAI staff on the USAID-funded Hillside Agricultural Program (HAP) extended a loan guarantee to a local nongovernmental lending institution, Fonkoze, which covered all loans made to coffee grower associations. Fonkoze has a long history with other DAI programs in Haiti, including the Financial Service Network for Entrepreneurial Empowerment project, which works to expand financial services throughout the country. With this capital, the grower associations have been able to buy farmers' coffee directly and at higher prices than the Dominicans offered and then sell it at reasonable market prices.

The HAP loan guarantee program has facilitated 75 loans with a combined value of over $750,000 as of June 2004. Twenty-eight have been paid back in full, with only one default. Farmer membership in coffee associations is increasing in these remote communities, with one such association increasing its membership by 500 percent. Given Haiti's ongoing political turmoil, food insecurity, and rampant poverty, HAP and Fonkoze's success in developing a new market for credit is particularly significant.

The hillside farmers who benefit from this program, 85 percent of them illiterate, inhabit a remote region, and their grower associations lack any history of financial borrowing. Fonkoze's Director, Anne Hastings, explains that without HAP intervention, it was simply too risky to extend loans to the associations: "We never would have even found these cooperatives high up in the mountains on the border. There is even less chance that we would have made a loan to them."

The HAP-Fonkoze partnership is one component of the project's focus on increasing farmer income through high-value agricultural products that include coffee, mango, cacao, yam, and tropical pumpkin. HAP staff train farmers in the use of appropriate farming technology and sustainable cultivation techniques, supply them with up-to-date market information, and increase micro-investment opportunities. Even small increases in income can permit rural farmers to invest in their farms, live healthier lives, and provide for and educate their children. With this goal in mind, DAI continues its comprehensive approach to poverty alleviation and economic growth among Haiti's hillside farmers.