Dear Bono....

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Over the past few decades, America's wealth has been consolidated in the hands of an ever-shrinking group of people. Today, in fact, almost 85% of the country's wealth is held by a mere 20% of its citizens. Yet for many of these super-wealthy Americans, philanthropy has become increasingly important.

Just as the first gilded age led men like Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie to stunning acts of generosity, today's new gilded age is inspiring some of America's richest citizens to donate staggering sums of money.

Over the past few decades, America's wealth has been consolidated in the hands of an ever-shrinking group of people. Today, in fact, almost 85% of the country's wealth is held by a mere 20% of its citizens. Yet for many of these super-wealthy Americans, philanthropy has become increasingly important.

Just as the first gilded age led men like Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie to stunning acts of generosity, today's new gilded age is inspiring some of America's richest citizens to donate staggering sums of money.

Going Into the Philanthropy Business: Bill Gates and Warren Buffett
Once America's top tech magnate, Bill Gates has emerged as its foremost philanthropist. The Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder and his wife Melinda have pledged half of their $54 billion fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which fights extreme poverty around the world and funds educational initiatives in the U.S. In many ways, the foundation reflects the business style that Gates has employed throughout his career: Led by an idiosyncratic-yet-logical list of guiding principles, it focuses on the transformative power of technology. And, like Microsoft, it also benefits from Gates' famously hands-on style: In 2006, he stepped down from his position at Microsoft to run the charity full-time.

The Gates Foundation has become the largest charitable foundation in the world, and one of the most transparent. Part of that is due to famed investor Warren Buffett, who pledged $37 billion to the group in 2006. Just as Gates' philanthropy reflects his professional style, so does Buffett's. As the famed investor announced, he was following the same strategy that informed his investing: "finding good organizations with talented managers and backing them." And, just as Berkshire-Hathaway remains involved with the companies that it buys, Buffett is actively involving himself with the foundation and sits on its board of trustees.

Gates and Buffett have also taken a leadership role among large-scale philanthropists with their promotion of The Giving Pledge. A campaign to convince America's (and, eventually, the world's) wealthiest individuals to give half their money to charitable causes, the group has already received pledges from 59of America's most famous moguls, including George Lucas, Larry Ellison, David Rockefeller and Ted Turner.

 

Streamlining Philanthropy: The Berber Family

In 2000, when Philip Berber sold his company, CyBerCorp, to Charles Schwab for $488 million, the Irish-born philanthropist and his wife set aside $100 million to fund their own charity, A Glimmer of Hope. Tasked with "lifting women and children out of extreme poverty in rural Ethiopia," the group has built almost 200 health clinics, dug thousands of wells, funded hundreds of education projects, and has extended millions of dollars in microloans.

Several other charities help the rural poor in Ethiopia, but the Berbers decided to launch their own group when they realized that overhead and salaries eat up a large portion of the funds that most charities collect. To streamline the donation process, A Glimmer of Hope's administration costs are entirely funded by the Berbers, and the group emphasizes that 100% of all gifts go directly toward helping Ethiopia's rural poor.

Going Into the Charity Business: Stanley and Fiona Druckenmiller

The Berbers aren't the only wealthy people who have turned philanthropy into a family business. Stanley Druckenmiller, founder of investment fund Duquesne Capital, used $705 million of his personal fortune to fund the Druckenmiller Foundation, a family-run charity that supports education, medical research and antipoverty causes. Among other gifts, the Druckenmillers have donated $146 million to fund a neuroscience institute at New York University's Langone Medical Center, and have given $25 million to the Harlem Children's Zone. In 2010, Druckenmiller closed his hedge fund and announced that he planned to devote his energies to running his charity.

Political Machine: The Koch Brothers

The sons of oilman Fred Koch, Charles and David Koch transformed Koch Industries from a $70 million company to one with $100 billion in revenue. Now ranked as the fifth and sixth wealthiest people in America, the Kochs have become quite active in philanthropy. David has given more than $600 million to arts, education and medical research charities. He is especially active in New York's cultural community, donating $100 million to the renovation of Lincoln Center and a further $10 million for the fountains at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Staunch libertarians, both brothers have contributed to a host of right-wing political groups, including the Cato Institute which Charles founded, Americans for Prosperity, and George Mason University's Mercatus Center. In 1980, David ran for President on the Libertarian ticket; since then, the brothers have limited their political involvement to major financial gifts, often to small-government candidates, including Massachusetts Senatorial candidate Scott Brown and Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker. They also fund several organizations that work to block environmental legislation, a move that is hardly surprising, given Koch Industries' position as one of the top 10 air polluters in the United States, according to the Political Economy Research Institute.

Putting Your Money Where Your Name Is: Stephen A. Schwarzman

Sometimes, giving comes with strings attached. When hedge fund billionaire Stephen A. Schwarzman donated $100 million to the New York Public Library, the venerable institution rewarded him by renaming its main branch in his honor. In the process, they carved his name in five separate locations on the building. By comparison, the names of the library's three founders -- Samuel J. Tilden, John Jacob Astor and James Lenox -- are only featured once on the building.

Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group has had a fraught relationship with philanthropy. Despite his considerable wealth, he has had a hard time entering the social ranks of the super-wealthy. One reason may be the perception that his charitable offerings have often come with many conditions. Before the library gift, Schwarzman agreed to give $17 million to his alma mater, Yale, in return for which the university agreed to name a freshman dorm after him. Yale later refused the gift when Schwarzman refused to give the money outright, instead offering to give $17 million worth of shares in Blackstone.

The Daily Finance

by Bruce Watson

Photo: Getty Images

Friday, March 25, 2011

Soldiers at the 66 Artillery Regiment (Volta Barracks) have declared every Wednesday a "farming day" to revive farming activities in the Regiment and help ensure food security in the country.

This is to promote agriculture and also help the country achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) one, which is about eradicating extreme poverty and hunger by 2015.

Captain Elvis Amponsah Asamoah, Officer in charge of Agricultural activities at the Regiment, disclosed this at a brief re-launch of Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) Agricultural Policy in the Barracks on Friday.

He said the soldiers would spend good time on the farm every Wednesday, sometimes with their families.

Captain Asamoah said, "The focus is to engage in practical agriculture with the view to increase production in local staples, commercial co-operations, plants and livestock".

"It is worth noting that it will also offer practical lessons and training to prepare troops for their future engagement as commercial farmers or backyard gardeners during retirement", he added.

Captain Asamoah said though the Regiment already had a kraal of 292 cattle,  Mango and Teak plantations and was involved in fish farming, it was re-securing an abandoned 50 acre farmland at Sokode, near Ho.

"We have a new impetus and will go all out to boost food and meat output with the ultimate goal of reducing hunger and poverty," he said.

Captain Asamoah said the venture would call for the assistance of agricultural extension officers, veterinary officers and practitioners in the field of production and marketing and urged such practitioners to collaborate with the Regiment.

The GAF Agriculture policy envisages food cropping, cash cropping, animal rearing, fish farming and afforestation.

It also focuses on food processing ventures such as gari, oil and rice, fruit juice extraction, fish preservation and meat among others.

There will be a GAF Agricultural Fair at the end of every farming season to award hard working garrisons, groups and individuals.

Ghana News Agency

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Due to extreme poverty, over 3,250 children are working in houses and eating houses in the eastern province without attending schools. These children come from families affected by military conflict and natural disaster, according to Provincial Education Minister Mr.Wimalaweera Dissanayake.

About 49,000 women have lost their husbands due to arrests, killing and abductions by armed groups and the Sri Lanka Army (SLA).

Of these, about 30,000 women are less than 25-years old, according to the report of a Non-International Organization (NGO).

However, the Deputy Minister for Child Care and Women Affairs M.L.A.M. Hisbullah has said he had taken steps to provide livelihood assistance to these widows. But such assistance has not yet reached the war affected Tamil people in Tamil areas.

India and UN that are said to be financing such projects have not conducted any survey or released any report.

Dry ration relief issued by the World Food programme (WFP) of the UN to students has been stopped for the last four months. Hence the attendance of students in schools has dropped, according to reports of school and education authorities.

TamilNET

Friday, March 18, 2011

Many of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are likely to be missed in most regions of the developing world unless there is a ”major push forward” by developing countries and the international community, according to Roeland van de Geer, the EU ambassador to South Africa.

Van de Geer told a meeting of European and South African legislators this week that although some progress had been made, the pace of progress was not sufficient to deal with the negative impact of a nu
mber of factors.

“The financial and economic crisis pushed around another 50 million into extreme poverty in 2009 and in the same year the number of undernourished people could have topped the 1 billion mark,” he said.

The MDGs represent targets for eight economic and social development priorities that were established at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. The targets, which are to be met by 2015, include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, reduced child mortality, improved maternal health, lower HIV/Aids and malaria infection and more environmental sustainability.

He said that while some progress had been made, “old and new challenges threaten to further retard progress in some areas or even undo successes achieved so far”.

The new challenges he referred to were an increase in political violence, the financial crisis, and climate change.

He told the legislators that South Africa had shown compelling progress in the areas of poverty reduction and primary education, but was lagging behind on the health priorities.

Trevor Manuel, the National Planning Minister, told the meeting that “despite the adequate allocation of funding, we fail to deliver quality services to especially the poor”.

He said that it was important to “ask ourselves what do we measure in regard to the MDGs? Does what we measure provide us with the basis of understanding improvements in the lives of the poor?”

If the instrument of measurement was the auditor-general’s report and a clean audit was cause for celebration, it was important to realise “we know nothing about the quality of the service or the impact of these resources on the lives of the poor”.

Manuel said while South Africa had not only met many MDG targets but even exceeded them, the reality for people on the ground was different.

“We have met the target for enrolment ratios for primary education of 99.4 percent, but this does not measure the quality of the education being received, the numbers of days that teachers are in the classrooms, or the number of children who will still be in the system after five years.”

And despite spending about 6 percent of gross domestic product on the education system, South Africa was among the bottom quartile of performers on the continent. He said South Africa performed poorly even in terms of its own standards.

He stressed the need for Parliament and the legislatures to hold the executive to account.

“The tool is not simply how much funds have been allocated, but rather what it bought and more importantly, whether in spending the funds, we have actually addressed the ‘unfreedoms’ that come with poverty.

“Have we invested correctly to ensure not only that children have access to school but that the quality of that education changes their lives and brings with it opportunities and the freedom of choice?

“Have we invested correctly to ensure that going to a state health facility does not become a gamble with one’s life but rather what it was meant to be, the basic right to health care?”

by Ann Crotty

Independent Online 

Friday, March 18, 2011

Corn has soared 52% the past 12 months. Sugar’s up 60%. Soybeans have jumped 41%. And wheat costs 24% more than it did a year ago.

For about 44 million people — roughly the population of the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago metropolitan areas combined — the rise in food prices means a descent into extreme poverty and hunger, according to the World Bank.

The surge in food prices has many causes. Rising population. Speculators. Soaring oil prices. Trade policies. And, ironically, improved standards of living in emerging nations.

By itself, the soaring cost of food didn’t cause the political unrest in the Middle Eastand elsewhere. Those tensions have been building for a long time. But higher food prices amplify those tensions.

“It exposes the underlying inequalities and issues related to the standard of living that boil beneath the surface,” says Tony Crescenzi, portfolio manager at Pimco.

What goes up

You’re paying about 6.8% more for that steak than you did a year ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Fruits and veggies are up about 4.3%.

In the U.S., the effect of higher food prices has been modest. U.S. consumers spend about 9% of their income on food, and another 3% for dining out.

And raw materials prices are just one facet of many factoring into the cost of our food. The farm value of food — what goes to the farmer — is about 19% of the cost in the U.S., according to the US Department of Agriculture. The rest goes to labor, packaging, transportation, energy and corporate profits.

In many emerging markets, however, 50% or more of a family budget goes toward food — not because food is so expensive, but because income is so low. Kick up the price of wheat or rice or corn, and you’re spelling the difference between having two meals a day or one.

“For many people who spend two-thirds or three-quarters of their income on food, even small price increases disrupt normal routine,” says Hassan Zaman, lead economist for the World Bank in poverty reduction and equity. “They start sacrificing non-food items, such as clothing, and then start eating less.”

Hunger and desperation

Because many emerging markets have high unemployment, one result is a large number of unemployed men desperate for ways to feed their families. When Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in Tunisia in December, it wasn’t because he was yearning to vote. It was because he couldn’t feed his family and police had confiscated the fruits and vegetables he was trying to sell.

The World Bank’s food index has soared 29% from its level last January and is just 3% below its 2008 peak. An above-average African harvest and a stable rice market have prevented the current food crisis from exceeding 2008, the World Bank says.

What’s causing rising food prices:

Speculation. Economists downplay the role of the futures market and speculators in driving up food prices.

Futures contracts have a limited life, and when they expire, they equal the current spot price. Short-term price spikes driven by speculation “will play itself out,” says Dan Seiver, economist in the finance department of San Diego State University.

But short-term or not, speculative spikes can have a big impact. “If you’re starving, the short run is pretty interesting,” says Paul Kleindorfer, professor of sustainable development at INSEAD, a business university based in Fontainbleau, France.

Energy. You need energy to make fertilizer, drive tractors and take food to market. More important, however, a great deal of land is now being planted for corn that will be made into ethanol.

“As energy prices go up, so do the incentives to produce ethanol,” says the World Bank’s Zaman. “The past three years, the percentage of the U.S. corn crop that has gone to ethanol has gone from 31% in 2008 to more than 40% projected in the 2010-2011 growing season.”

And the more land that goes to corn, the less land there is planted with other crops. The U.S. had 63.2 million acres planted in wheat in 2008, says the Department of Agriculture. That fell to 53.6 million acres in 2010. Corn acreage rose from 86 million acres to 88.2 million in the same period.

Trade restrictions. When crops fail — or fall below expectations — countries often ban exports. “That drives up prices immediately,” says San Diego State’s Seiver. Russia, for example, imposed an export ban on wheat in August after drought and fires devastated the wheat crop. Prices shot to a two-year high.

Affluence. In China and India, among other countries, the economies have been booming and people have grown wealthier. As a result, they’re eating better, which drives up the cost of food. “Per-capita calorie consumption quintupled from 1961 to 2007,” says Juerg Trueb, managing director for Swiss Re. And as affluence rises, so does demand for meat — the production of which increases demand for corn and other feeds.

Population. All other things being equal, a rising population increases demand for food. The world population is now 6.8 billion, more than double the 3 billion in 1960.

What’s being done

Aid for hunger relief is unlikely to grow this year, at least from the United States, which is worried about cutting its budget deficit. A Jan. 31 USA TODAY/Gallup poll found that 59% of respondents favored cutting foreign aid, which is just 1% of the U.S. budget.

Of course, rising demand should bring more supply, says Pimco’s Crescenzi. “High levels of pricing is good in terms of investment in supply,” says Crescenzi. “Just as rises in the price of oil leads to increased drilling and a higher rig count.”

Technology may help, too: The Green Revolution in better seeds and farming techniques hasn’t reached all parts of the world yet, says San Diego State’s Seiver. But much of the progress from the Green Revolution came from government-sponsored nonprofit organizations, entities that will probably see reduced funding as nations fret about debt.

As prices rise and hunger grows, people start to think of Thomas Malthus, the early 19th-century scholar who proposed that eventually, the world population will exceed the Earth’s ability to feed everyone. That point hasn’t been reached, Seiver says. When food shortages loom, Malthusians come out of the woodwork, he says: “I’m a food optimist. We’re capable of feeding people with better seed, reduced waste and improved technology. But it’s a long, slow process.”

by John Waggoner

USA Today

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A film highlighting global poverty will be

screened in Cardiff later this month.

1.4 billion reasons is billed as an “interactive pre
sentation and thought-provoking journey that explores how we can see an end of extreme poverty within our lifetime.”

The screening will be held at Cardiff Students’ Union on Park Place in the Anuerin Bevan Room.

The event starts at 7pm on Friday 25th March and anyone interested in attending is asked to email galeS2@cardiff.ac.uk or sign up on Facebook.

The screening comes after it was reported child poverty in Wales was exposed as the UK's worst by Save The Children.

Watch a clip of 1.4 billion Reasons here:

Wales Online

Monday, March 14, 2011

President Juan Manuel Santos will present on Monday the government's National Plan for Social Prosperity, an initiative aimed at eliminating extreme poverty in Colombia.

Santos will make the presentation in Quibdo, Choco, one of the poorest areas of the country, Caracol Radio reports.
Speaking to RCN Radio, the director of government aid agency Social Action, Diego Molano, said that the goal is to utilize various strategies to bring more than 1.5 million Colombians out of extreme poverty over the next four years.

Currently there are 2.8 million Colombians living in extreme poverty while the national figure for all those below or on the poverty line is around seven million. This accounts for approximately 16% of the population, a figure the government wants to see reduced to 9% in the coming years.

Based on the World Bank's poverty line, people who live on less than $1.25 per day are considered to live in extreme poverty.

Colombia currently also has one of the worst Gini coefficients in the world at 0.578, El Tiempo reported Saturday.

This figure measures income distribution on a scale of 0>1, where the closer the figure is to 0, the more equal a society is.

by Edward Fox

Columbia Reports

Monday, March 14, 2011

Noted economists and analysts yesterday urged the critics of microcredit, including the government, not to underrate the contribution of microfinance institutions that help lift millions out of poverty.

Their calls came from a roundtable discussion on microcredit and poverty alleviation, organised by the country's most-circulated national daily Prothom Alo at its office in Dhaka.

The sector that lends funds to more than two crore families across the country has been passing through one of its toughest periods in its history, as the critics continue to rap it for high interest rates and question its effectiveness in alleviating poverty. Besides, microcredit pioneer Prof Muhammad Yunus is continuing his fight in court against a government move to remove him from the Grameen Bank he founded three decades ago.

“Microcredit creates an opportunity to enable people to graduate out of extreme poverty," said economist Prof Rehman Sobhan. "We should fix what would be our direction from here. This is a 30-year-old sector and a lot of significant changes have taken place.”

Sobhan said there is a large section of the population, who are willing to pay loans at the market interest rates, but nobody is lending them. “They are repaying, but the formal financial sector is not giving them credit."

MA Baqui Khalily, a professor of finance at Dhaka University, said the MFI sector is going through a crisis. "We are scared, as the sector might collapse.” He said the government had never sat with the sector to discuss its achievements and set a course of action to create a long-term impact.

"The sector has employed more than two lakh people directly and has 77,000 branches across the country. We have to preserve this vast network and help it grow," he said.

The analyst said the industry could reach a break-even point, if it charged a 23 percent interest rate. The industry has been running in an unregulated manner for long, he added. "Grameen Bank however is the most efficient MFI in Bangladesh."

Khalily urged the government not to do anything in haste, creating panic among depositors, some of whom have reportedly withdrawn their savings from Grameen Bank.

MM Akash, a professor of economics at Dhaka University, said the government has given different facilities to different MFIs creating a mess in the industry. "We have to correct it."

Former Bangladesh Bank governor Salehuddin Ahmed said the tendency of some MFIs to move into commercialisation has damaged the sector. "We have to be careful about an

y hasty commercialisation."

According to Ahmed, service charges in Bangladesh are the lowest. "Still, we have to bring them to a tolerable level. The sector should be brought under regulations,” he said.

Syed M Hashemi, director of Brac Development Institute at Brac University, said MFIs in the country charge one of the lowest interest rates in the world. "We have to look at whether there exists any coercive method in realising loans.”

SR Osmani, a professor of economics at the University of Ulster, said: "Microcredit is not the only agent to alleviate poverty. It can play a supplementary role in the efforts of the government and NGOs."

Sajjad Zohir, director of Economic Research Group, said: "You cannot think about a microcredit organisation by separating microcredit from it."

Former caretaker government adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman said poverty alleviation is a real life process and microcredit is a ladder. “But it is not the case that microcredit will eradicate poverty.” It is not true either that microcredit has done nothing to ease poverty, he added.

Binayak Sen, research director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), said microcredit trades on trust. "They disburse over Tk 17,000 crore in a year in a disciplined manner, which is quite significant in a country which is riddled with corruption."

The Daily Star

Monday, March 14, 2011

Increasing food and oil prices are making life miserable for millions of people. According to our World Bank estimates, the food price hike since last July has already pushed another 44 million people around the globe into extreme poverty -- those living on less than US $1.25 a day. But beyond these latest shocks, the truth is that poverty reduction overall had continued in most countries, even after the financial, food and fuel crises of 2008-2009.

In 1981, for instance, the percentage of the world population living below $1.25 a day was 52 percent. By 2005, that rate had more than halved to 25 percent. However, a growing concern is that climate change could slow or possibly even reverse progress in poverty reduction. Why? Because most developing countries are highly dependent on agriculture and natural resources. And also because poor countries lack sufficient financial and technical capacities to manage climate change.

For example, climate change may have a negative effect on agricultural productivity, particularly in tropical regions, and also affect poor people's livelihood through its effects on health, access to water and natural resources, homes, and infrastructure.

So as long as we are unable to measure the poverty impact of climate change, we run the risk of either overestimating or underestimating the resources that will be needed to face it. So that's why at the World Bank we are exploring new approaches to measure how current climate variability affects poverty, as my colleagues do in this week's Economic Premise. According to the poverty impacts on climate change, different estimates project the poverty increase between 9 and 10 million people by 2055, as the result of climate change.

These numbers might not seem like much, considering the catastrophic scenarios that have been portrayed by some. But climate change will indeed slow the pace of global poverty reduction. And much of the poverty expected to occur will be concentrated in Africa and South Asia. In addition, the "modest" numbers of the poverty increases mentioned above correspond to baseline scenarios -- they could be much higher if more extreme climate change damage occurs. So in light of all of this, more efforts have to go into measuring the poverty impacts of climate change better. Otherwise, we will certainly pay the consequences.

by Otaviano Canuto

Vice President of Poverty Reduction at The World Bank

Saturday, March 12, 2011

011

In the 1970s, three out of four Bangladeshis lived in poverty and the country was considered a test case for development. Rapid population growth, frequent natural disasters, and low economic growth throughout the 1980s suggested that a large number of households would remain trapped in chronic poverty.

Defying this outlook, Bangladesh began experiencing more sustained economic growth since the 1990s, which was accompanied by impressive poverty reduction. For example, in 1991-92, about 60% of the population was below the poverty line and around 50% was below the extreme poverty line. By 2005, those figures had gone down to 40% and 25% respectively.

The Bangladesh economy began experiencing structural changes in the 1990s following trade liberalisation and domestic market reforms. In urban areas, private sector growth and employment were spurred by rapid growth in garments exports while rural areas benefited from the deregulation of agriculture markets, boosting agricultural production. At the same time, relatively higher paying rural non-farm opportunities increased and the labour force slowly began to shift away from agriculture.

All in all, declining population growth rates, improved human capital, improved infrastructure, mainly in the form of more extensive road communications networks, and increased foreign remittance have been put forth as factors explaining Bangladesh's enhanced growth and declining poverty.

But what was the contribution of microfinance to this impressive performance? It is impossible to put an exact number but we can look at some published evidence to get a sense of where micro-credit is making a difference and where it may not be. The World Bank's 2008 Poverty Assessment has two findings in this context.

First, PKSF programme coverage data suggest that since 2000 microfinance has expanded more in areas that were poorer, presumably because the better-off geographical areas were covered in the previous decade. Secondly, the report shows that the reduction in poverty in rural Bangladesh has been much more in upazilas where microfinance membership increased more rapidly, after accounting for other factors which drive poverty reduction. There are other published papers which go beyond the geographical variation of microfinance coverage and effects.

Two well known studies assess short and medium-term microfinance impacts from the borrowers' point of view, using repeated household surveys carried out in rural Bangladesh. Using nationally representative data, their findings suggest that poverty reduction among the borrowers due to microfinance is 1.6 percentage points per year. Moreover, microfinance programmes have spillover effects on the non-borrowers -- their poverty level goes down by 0.3 percentage point a year.

Even without the income gains, the poor may still benefit from microcredit services if it helps them withstand income and non-income shocks such as an economic disaster resulting from the sudden death of a productive family member, the loss of an economic asset, or natural disasters. Without some form of insurance (either public or private), the poor may not be able to smooth consumption during those disasters, which may lead to sharp cut-backs in essential food and non-food expenditures.

Several studies confirm that micro-credit programmes help households partially insure against shocks so that they effectively play an important "safety net" role. One carefully designed study finds that microcredit borrowers are about 50% less prone to consumption fluctuation than their counterpart non-member poor households in Bangladesh.

Clearly, further innovations are required to strengthen this crucial risk-reduction role, and in general to offer flexible financial services catering to different types of poor households, in particular for the extreme-poor. One example is a micro-finance programme known as PRIME, implemented by PKSF, which offers a flexible repayment schedule and consumption smoothing, as well as production loans. As a result, a recent evaluation shows that PRIME is more effective than regular microfinance in reaching the ultra-poor, as well as the seasonal-poor.

The discussion on the impact of microcredit would be incomplete without referring to the broader package of interventions that are provided with it. MFIs in Bangladesh vary significantly in terms of their noncredit services though they typically include training, related business development services and social messages on education, health and civic rights. One published paper finds that these noncredit interventions raise self-employment profits in rural Bangladesh by 125% while the combined impact of credit and noncredit interventions on self-employment profits is 175%.

The impact evaluation literature on micro-finance in Bangladesh also contains some cautionary notes. For example, it is clear that not all borrowers benefit equally as it depends on their local economic environment, their entrepreneurial ability and the extent their income sources are diversified. A few studies also show that microcredit does little to change gender inequities by limiting female control over loans.

However, on balance there is more evidence suggesting that microcredit does influence gender relations positively. Most published papers show that access to microcredit leads to women taking a greater role in household decision making, having a greater access to financial, economic and social resources and having greater mobility in Bangladesh. .

It is clear that microfinance can protect households from shocks, contribute to changing societal norms about the role of women in society and lead to some households moving out of poverty. Overall, it has played its part in the impressive progress Bangladesh has made in poverty reduction over the past two decades. Clearly, not everyone utilises loans productively, and there is a risk of falling into over-indebtedness. So, the role of microfinance should be strengthened through further innovations which take into account these pitfalls.

Finally, microfinance is not a panacea and will clearly not eliminate all poverty in any country. Thus, the potential of microfinance can be best exploited by recognising the lessons from careful impact evaluation studies, strengthening programmes on the basis of this research and field experience, and by incorporating micro-finance programmess into Bangladesh's overall poverty-reduction strategy.

by Shahid Khandker and Hassan Zaman

The Daily Star

Photo by Louise Kennerley

Friday, March 11, 2011

Friday, March 11, 2011

Development is accelerated when a country is ab
le to use its own resources effectively and efficiently. When foreign companies and governments conspire to prevent this happening, justice is not being served.

That is why the decision by the UK government, with France and Germany, to support reform of obscure European Union rules on financial reporting on oil, gas and mineral companies will have such far-reaching consequences. In Uganda, campaigners for greater transparency and accountability in the oil industry are already preparing for the day when they will have access to all legal payments made by oil companies to their government. In a letter sent on Thursday to David Cameron, over 200 of these activists make clear why this is so important, saying, "the only losers would be those who plan to steal the revenue".

Last year civil society in many resource-rich developing countries celebrated as the US passed the Dodd-Frank Act, which contained the first ever "publish what you pay" law. This means that from April all companies listed on the New York stock exchange will have to report their payments to the governments of the countries where they operate, and even break down the payments to the level of individual projects. This will empower millions of people by giving them access to the information they need to hold their leaders accountable, demanding greater social and economic results, and reducing levels of corruption.

However, Uganda – which has large untapped oil reserves – will not see the benefits of the US law since the companies operating here are all listed on European stock exchanges. Tullow Oil, for example, is registered in the UK. Uganda is the perfect example of why European leaders need to swiftly implement these reforms. In his 10 minute-rule bill last week Anas Sarwar MP highlighted this by referring to the Ugandan shadow finance minister's recent video message calling for UK leadership.

It is estimated that at peak production the oil reserves in Uganda will generate $2bn a year in revenue. To put this in context, the last national budget is $3bn billion, and $1.7bn has been coming from foreign aid. Clearly this oil money has the potential to drive economic development in Uganda, yet the early signs are not promising.

The production sharing agreements between Kampala and the oil companies have been kept secret by the Ugandan government despite repeated attempts by MPs, journalists and activists to access the contracts. A section of one of the agreements, which was leaked by a whistleblower, showed that the terms were not consistent with international norms as the government claims.

Currently, there is no provision in place for publishing the payments received once production begins. Ugandans are nervously looking across to neighbours in the Democratic Republic of Congo and wondering if they are heading down the same road, where natural resources have been a curse rather than a blessing.

Of course, transparency itself cannot deliver perfect oil governance – it is a means to an end. It is vital that once published, the information is used in the right way. Those working to improve aid transparency have voiced some concern that people in developing countries do not feel sufficient ownership over aid to hold donors and governments to account, even with greater transparency.

Natural resources do not suffer that problem. Citizens are demanding their fair share of what they know to be theirs. Civil society, supported by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative is tooling up to provide the checks and balances on government. The Ugandan activists are clear: "We stand ready to hold our leaders accountable, but we require your support to do so even more."

The importance of extractive industries to African development cannot be understated. In 2008, exports of oil, gas and minerals from Africa were worth about nine times the value of international aid to the continent ($393bn v $44bn), and over 10 times the value of exports of agricultural produce ($37.9bn). Yet most of Africa's natural resources remain in the ground.The economist Paul Collier estimates that only a fifth of sub-soil assets have been discovered in sub-Saharan Africa.

In Uganda, where over 7 million people still live in extreme poverty, harnessing the newfound oil wealth is a one-off opportunity to accelerate social and economic development at a previously unthinkable rate. With transparency and accountability acting as a vaccine against corruption and poor leadership, the new revenue has the potential to lift the country to middle-income status. Europe must do all it can to empower the people of Uganda to make sure this happens.

by Winnie Ngabiiwe and Joe Powell

THE GUARDIAN

Photo: Fishermen near an oil rig on the edge of Lake Albert in western Uganda. by Xan Rice

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The event attracted 200 students interested in learning how to stamp out poverty worldwide.

Roughly 200 Pepperdine University students convened inside the campus' Elkins Auditorium on Monday night for a presentation by the Global Poverty Project, an organization devoted to "making poverty history" by raising awareness of the 1.4 billion people worldwide going hungry, and by galvanizing college youth to help end extreme poverty. One in seven people goes hungry, even though the capacity exists to feed every human one and half times over.

Jessica Mason, one of the nonprofit's student "road scholars," hosted the event. She led the one-hour program, which included film clips to illustrate her points.

"The world's poorest poor are people just like us," Mason told her audience, before recounting a terrifying personal experience in 2008 while in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Riots had broken out after an alleged rigged election, and Mason and her party were trapped among angry, violent demonstrators.

"We went to bed that night hearing the sound of gunfire," she recalled of the time, which quickly escalated into "a seriously unsafe situation."

Despite the ugly experience, Mason told her peers, "I understood their anger at the government that kept stealing from them and electing the same regime."

Governmental corruption, in fact, along with a lack of resources and absent trade and manufacturing opportunities, are what Mason identified as barriers in the war against poverty, keeping people down in Third World countries.

With the extreme poor subsisting on less than $1.25 a day, "what happens if a member of your family gets sick?" Mason asked rhetorically, regarding choosing between eating and seeking medical attention. "This is a real challenge faced by people around the world," she said.

Mason delivered a lecture rife with "Yes, We Can!"-sized optimism, underscoring that change is possible. When a cholera epidemic rose out of the Thames River in 1850, killing tens of thousands of Londoners, it resulted in the invention of the first sewer system. She credited the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for reducing malaria and HIV cases in Africa. As one young woman, Andrea Choi, pointed out on film, South Korea transformed itself "from an aid-recipient country to an aid-giving country," today self-relying on exports from native companies like Samsung, Hyundai and Kia, and affording her generation opportunities that her ancestors never had.

"It is possible to see a complete change," Choi said.

The rosiest statistic: since 1982, the percentage of world poverty has dropped from 52 percent to 25 percent. A solution is within our reach, Mason repeated. She then asked the audience for ideas on how to stamp out extreme poverty.

Amanda Jacobi suggested providing countries that do not have stability with financial aid.

Eric Cox and Bradley Smith brought up a "universal education system," as Cox put it, "Not only [a physical] class but a [web] camera [allowing] other children to log in."

Another audience member said, "Africa has more resources than other countries but the people there don't have control of most of their resources ... it comes down to the leadership."

Mason urged students not to be complacent. Education is the key, she said, and transparency must be demanded of politicians and corporations, or else corruption can happen in plain sight.

Case in point: the son of the ruler of Equatorial Guinea, who technically draws a $48,000 annual salary, purchased a palatial $35-million home right here in Malibu, and has recently ordered a $380 million yacht. Mason said that French and English banks were complicit in transferring his funds to the U.S., and young people need to be aware of and protest such graft.

Started in 2008 in Australia by CEO Hugh Evans, Global Poverty Project opened an office in the United Kingdom before taking its message out to the world.

Prior to Monday's event, Global Poverty campaign manager Bobby Bailey and volunteer Whitney Lopez discussed the awareness campaign.

Bailey works with eight staff members and volunteer "road scholars," coordinating between the nonprofit's El Segundo office and its main U.S. outpost in New York's Greenwich Village.

"The students are saying, 'We've been involved since we've been young,'" Bailey said. "'We want to know what the bigger picture is in foreign development.' They're waking up to the fact that systems are broken, and we're pouring money into them."

Students are heartened that Global Poverty is not merely about "opening our wallets and giving money," he said. "It's about the way we treat the world."

"We're starting a campaign called, 'Live Below the Line,'" Lopez said, "challenging people to live on $1.50 a day for five days."

"This is one of those ongoing things," Bailey added. "Right now, we're doing a spring tour of 100 schools and campuses across the nation."

Following Monday's Elkins Auditorium program, the organization's "Live Below the Line" campaign will travel to colleges and festivals in Seattle, New Orleans, Houston, Philadelphia, New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Boston and Atlanta.

"People don't realize the United Nations has been wanting to [end poverty] since 2000," Lopez said. "We're helping bring [the message] across the United States."

In many ways, Lopez, 20, is your typical Pepperdine student: a Salt Lake City native paying her bills by working at Malibu Health Center and as a Red Bull girl. But the double major, studying philosophy and sports medicine, has also taken the extra step of getting involved. For Lopez, the most fulfilling part has been, she said, "Seeing the impact it has on anyone who watches the presentation."

The presentation counts as one of the "convocations," Lopez said, "messages that empower service and leadership in a global perspective" that Pepperdine requires its students attend. (Technically, Pepperdine counted Monday night's event as a double convocation for its curriculum.)

"We're required to go to 14 of those a semester. I got the idea to open it up to the Malibu community. As Pepperdine students, we often feel isolated from the Malibu community."

She spread awareness of the event at local coffeehouses and reached out to local media to discuss the organization and its mission-a mission jibing with her own.

"I always have been seeking justice..." Lopez said. "There's extreme poverty [but] we can actually end that."

Bailey praised the efforts of Lopez and other students in advancing Global Poverty's message.

"They have a pulse...on the culture and can really inform us on what's relevant to them," he said. "It's nothing without the university students."

More information on the Global Poverty Project can be obtained online at globalpovertyproject.com

by Michael Aushenker
The Malibu Times

Photo by Michael Aushenker/TMT

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Close to 45 percent of Peruvian children and adolescents between birth and age 17 live in poverty, with 19 percent growing up in conditions of extreme poverty, according to a recent report on the state of childhood presented by UNICEF.

The numbers, despite their severity, are encouraging. Between 2006 and 2009, the poverty level among Peru’s total population dropped from 45 to 35 percent, while the percentage of those living in extreme poverty improved from 16 to 12 percent.

But when the levels are examined with respect to children specifically, the numbers go up, showing the vulnerability of this sector of the population.

According to Paul Martin, UNICEF representative in Peru, the advances in the fight against poverty have been significant and there are indicators that Peru has managed impressive achievements in recent years. For example, 25 percent of children and adolescents suffered from chronic malnutrition in 2000, while in 2009 the number had fallen to 18 percent.

“The numbers are there and they show good work, but the incoming government will need to invest more and more in children’s issues, as well as build networks that include other institutions. No government has eradicated poverty without the support of civil society,” he said.

Martin asserted that the report should serve as a base for the government’s plans, not only for national candidates, but also for regional administrations that have recently taken office.

If there is one thing that all the current presidential candidates agree on, it’s the need to diminish levels of poverty and extreme poverty. How to go about doing it is what is up for debate.

Living in Peru

Photo: UNICEF ambassador Danny Glover on a visit to children in Ucayali in October 2010. UNICEF

Tuesday, March 1, 2011 

The government is expected to freeze the level of assistance given to India at £295m ($480m) a year. But why does a nuclear power with its own space programme need British aid?

In a widely-signalled move, it is anticipated that International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell will announce the amount of aid given to India will be maintained at 2009/10 levels.

But the decision has attracted criticism from newspapers and politicians who say the UK taxpayer does not need to donate to a state that is itself a foreign aid donor, which is classified by the World Bank as a middle income country (MIC) and whose economy is growing at nearly 10% a year.

However, advocates of aid say a third of the planet's population who are below the World Bank's extreme poverty line live in India. They also argue half of all children in the country are malnourished and it does not have the tax base to eliminate poverty though internal wealth redistribution.

Andy Sumner of the Institute of Development Studies says: "If UK aid was reduced, there is no guarantee that the funding to the poorest states where most of India's chronically poor live would be topped up by the Indian government."

Although the Department for International Development's budget has been unaffected by the government's spending cuts programme, the UK is expected to stop direct aid to 16 countries, including Russia, China, Vietnam, Serbia and Iraq.

The decision to exclude India from this list has provoked attacks from those sceptical about whether this increasingly important economic power is really a worthy recipient of development cash.

Indeed, there is little doubt the nation is experiencing a boom. Its economy is expected to grow by 9% in 2012, social spending funds are also set to increase by 17% and in 2009 it was upgraded by the World Bank from "poor" to an MIC.

The Indian military has conducted nuclear tests, the country operates its own space programme and, according to Forbes magazine, it has more billionaires than the UK.

Moreover, India is itself a foreign aid donor, providing more than £300m ($500m) to poorer countries in 2008.

Conservative MP Philip Davies argues the decision to continue funding the country is indefensible at a time when the British taxpayers are experiencing a spending squeeze of their own.

"India spends £36bn a year on defence and £750m a year on its space programme," he says. "What's more, India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. It's completely unjustifiable, especially at this time."

However, supporters of the continued aid insist this argument ignores India's massive inequalities.

Its middle-income status, they say, is irrelevant, given that 72% of world's poorest people - defined by the World Bank as those earning less than $1.25 (77p) a day - live in MICs.

Indeed, India has more people in poverty than the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Its per capita gross national income in 2009 was £725 ($1,180) compared with £25,509 ($41,520) in the UK.

Additionally, the sheer number of people in poverty in India means that it is crucial to achieving the UK's international poverty reduction targets, ministers say.

Mr Mitchell told the BBC's Politics Show that if the government were to meet its eight millennium development goals
- including eradicating extreme hunger and reduce child mortality - it would have to "operate where poverty is greatest".

Moreover, although the country may have a small super-rich elite and a growing middle class, its capacity for wealth redistribution remains limited according to a 2009 World Bank report. It found that even a 100% marginal tax rate on Indian earnings would only plug 20% of its aggregate poverty gap.

"The case for continued UK aid to India is about a third of all the world's poor who live there," says Dr Sumner. "These 450 million poor people are often lower caste and very marginalised."

The debate is sure to continue. But given that the Indian government has debated whether it wants to continue receiving UK aid, the final word on the matter may not come from British shores.

BBC News Magazine

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Nuru International is a U.S.-based social venture that equips the poor living in remote, rural areas to end extreme poverty in their communities. Nuru is using innovative new technologies for mobile banking to increase access to basic financial services for rural households living in extreme poverty in Kuria, Kenya. The organization is working with Mifos cloud-based MIS and M-PESA mobile money transfer services to create a viable solution to some of the issues that persist in providing financial services in rural areas.

"One of the biggest problems we face when it comes to finance and banking for the extreme rural poor is how to disburse loans and payments to our farmers, we don't want to give large amounts of cash to them because they have to cover long distances on foot, have no secure place to keep the cash, and robbery and theft are real concerns." - Vivian Lu, Community Economic Development Program Manager.

Nuru's micrifinance program has helped extend the reach of mobile money in rural Kenya. The combined technologies of Mifos and M-PESA have helped to create a branchless banking structure, allowing Nuru savings members in remote areas of Kenya access to some of the basic financial services that traditional banks offer. M-PESA is a mobile phone based money transfer service offered through Safaricom, allowing users to transfer money to other users, pay bills, and purchase air time. The service has great potential to be leveraged in mobile banking, allowing people to complete basic financial transactions without needing to visit a physical bank. Mifos is developing integration with M-PESA and allows Nuru an affordable way to scale. Because it's a cloud-based application, Nuru can access it from mobile phones and netbooks, improving their reach in rural areas.

Nuru recognizes the importance of savings as a critical and often overlooked component to economic growth in rural areas. The Community Economic Development model is a savings-led program that offers financial training. Nuru members are trained in the fundamentals of financial planning, budgeting, saving, and responsible loan management, before they are eligible to apply for individual loans.

The San Francisco Chronicle

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The head of the World Bank says a sharp rise in food prices has pushed 44 million people into extreme poverty. World Bank President Robert Zoellick is calling on the Group of 20 leading and emerging economies to put food first on its agenda.

The World Bank's latest food price index is just three percent below its 2008 peak. Wheat and maize prices have gone up about 75 percent since last June. According to report, wheat increased 54 percent in Kyrgyzstan, 45 percent in Bangladesh, 37 percent in Tajikistan, 33 percent in Mongolia, 31 percent in Sri Lanka, 19 percent in Afghanistan and 16 percent in both Sudan and Pakistan.

According to Zoellick, high and volatile food prices are a key challenge in the developing world, where the most vulnerable people spend more than half their income on food.

"Even before these latest price hikes, there were already more than 900 million people going hungry each day," he says. "Now, with an estimated 44 million more people living in extreme poverty, it shows this year is shaping up to be a very tough year for the chronically malnourished."

This year is not as bad as 2008, when prices hit record highs. That's because grain stocks are somewhat larger, maize harvests in Africa were good, and rice prices have not risen as much as other grains. But Zoellick says the upcoming growing season will be especially important.

"We already are in stress points in a number of markets. If this trend continues, if we don't get a relief on the weather side, then I foresee conditions getting worse. And, mistaken policy actions such as export bans and other types of price controls will just exacerbate the problem."

Last summer, Russia banned wheat exports after a major drought. Rice export bans were blamed for worsening price spikes in 2007 and 2008 that led to some food riots.

Speaking ahead of this week's G-20 finance ministers meeting in Paris, Zoellick discourages export bans and called for a global code of conduct that would at least exempt humanitarian shipments from restrictions.

He believes high and unstable prices are likely to be a long-term trend, in part because of the rising demand for biofuels and the growing appetite for meat in developing countries.

"What we're now seeing is a trend punctuated by some great volatility," says Zoellick, "and the poor and vulnerable have got no cushion when the prices spike."

To help offset the problem, he's calling for global action to provide better safety nets for pregnant women and young children and to improve developing-world farmers' access to better seeds, fertilizer and markets.

REUTERS

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

THE Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that all 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organisations have agreed to acheive by the year 2015. They include eradicating extreme poverty, reducing child mortality, fighting disease epidemics like AIDS, and developing a partnership for development.

The aim of the MDGs was to encourage development by improving social and economic conditions in the world's developing  countries. Established in the year 2000, the MDGs became a paramount feature in poor and developing economies in the world, especially in Nigeria. However, one issue that has remained an obstacle in the efforts to achieving the MDGs objectives not only in Nigeria, but globally, is the dreaded HIV/AIDS pandemic. Available results of researches so far conducted, particularly in Nigeria, has shown that it is affecting key macro-sectors of the economy such as education, agriculture and industry and in the process, poses strong challenges on human development.

The United Nation Children fund (UNICEF) office in Nigeria, according to its statistics, revealed that at the end of 2008, about 2.95 million Nigerians made up of male - 1.23 million, female - 1.72 million were infected with the HIV virus and that about 280,000 people; male-123,000, female - 157,000, have so far died of AIDS. Young people between 15 – 24 years continue to be the age group mostly affected by the epidemic. While the national HIV prevalence in 2008 was 4.6 per cent, age specific prevalence among young people 15 – 19 years and 20 – 24 years was 3.3 per cent and 4.6 per cent respectively.

It was, therefore, in view of these alarming statistics that the National HIV & AIDS Policy 2010 -2015, the HIV/AIDS National Strategic Framework for Action on HIV and AIDS 2010 - 2015 and the National HIV/AIDS Prevention Plan 2010-2012 identified young people as a key target group for intervention, while the Federal Government and the UNICEF country programme 2009 – 2012 also identified young people as both right holders and duty bearers in the control of the AIDS pandemic.

The obligations towards promoting a HIV/AIDS free generation had previously been explored through several youth–focused initiatives for both in-school and out-of-school individuals,  which in response to the need to intensify prevention efforts, the Children and AIDS Section, UNICEF Nigeria, was funded by Starwood UK to pilot a HIV prevention intervention with young people. Titled, "Intensifying HIV prevention with out-of-school young people", this project was conceptualised to focus on using radio drama programs and sports to provide comprehensive HIV prevention information, life skills and referral for services too hard to reach regarding out-of-school young people in four states namely, Gombe, Kaduna, Cross River and Akwa-Ibom States.

Speaking to the journalists during the programme, the Project Co-ordinator, Mr. Paul Banbe, said that the intervention will complement and build upon current national efforts on HIV/AIDS prevention among adolescents through the National Youth Service Corps Scheme (NYSC) and supported by UNICEF CIDA and other partners in Nigeria.

He added that educational entertainment through drama and screen plays has been shown to be an effective medium for HIV education in African settings. Educational entertainment is the process of purposively designing and implementing a media message both to entertain and educate, in order to increase audience members’ knowledge about an issue, thereby creating favourable attitudes and ultimately, change behaviourial patterns.

Paul Banbe also said that educational entertainment comes in many forms including serial drama broadcasts on TV and radio, cartoons, interactive talk shows etc. It allows the audience to make decisions on their own without being preached to while framing messages in popular entertaining format. This helps create an environment where people of all ages can carry on conversations about topics discussed in the latest episode of their favourite educational entertainment program.

The co-ordinator further said that this has been found to have a wide range of public acceptance and the ability to reach several audiences adding that it promotes interpersonal and group communication, thereby enhancing learning and behaviour change.

He said that the justification through the trend of the HIV prevalence of adolescents and young people of between 15-24 years; 1/4 of the national population had declined from 6.0 per cent in 2001 to 4.2 per cent in 2008 and came below the national value for the first time in 2005. He stressed that  Nigeria, in 2008, had the 3rd highest number of young people living with virus globally, with the AIDS orphans with a population of 2.23million.

The Federal Government, organised United Nation Children Fund Country Programme 2009-2012 with the aim to reach at least 40 per cent of the adolescent and young people between 15-24 years with HIV prevention, information, life skills and referrals to youth friendly health service providers by the end of 2012. For the purpose of contributing to the national development goals and the MDGs, this proposal was developed to key into the UNICEF OSY project.

Speaking in Gombe during the launching of a training for drama scripting and production on HIV/AIDS to about 30 youths from Kaduna and Gombe States, the Communication Officer (Media and External Relations) of UNICEF Bauchi D Field Office, Mr. Samuel Kaalu, explained that the project which is part of the on-going National HIV Peer education project with NYSC would cover about 80,000 out-of-school youths from Gombe, Kaduna, Cross-River and Akwa-Ibom.

He said that the key partners for the project within state teams were the SACA/State prevention Technical Working Group, CSOs, community structures, adding that the intervention would contribute to the achievement of the goal of the UNICEF Nigeria of reaching at least 40 per cent of adolescent and young people with comprehensive knowledge on HIV/AIDS prevention by 2012.

Mr Kaalu said that the government of the four project states would coordinate and mobilise support for youth focused outreach activities for HIV prevention and life skills promotion by end of 2011, adding that the major stakeholders in the four states including 200 YFHS service providers would use evidence from action research on HIV and AIDS intervention.

The Nigerian Tribune 

by Isaac Shobayo

Photo: Some youths from Kaduna and Gombe states during a drama training session on HIV prevention

Monday, February 14, 2011

Since the current media revolution in Nigeria – let’s say in the past half decade, if not more – nothing much has been heard of the Nigerian Press Council. Recently, there has been lots of comment and opinion about the NPC, much of it alluding to the fact that new blood needs to be injected into the council. The younger generations of practicing journalists do not even know about the existence NPC. There are fears that the NPC, as constituted, does not understand what has hit it in terms of the media revolution, which has mostly been ignited by the avalanche of social media.

Ordinarily, the NPC is very much in darkness and it is tempting to equate its processes with those of the mysterious National Electronic Power Authority. Despite the fact that former president Olusegun Obasanjo dared to commence a reform, resulting in Nepa now being known by the more dramatic name Power Holding Company of Nigeria, the syndrome of mismanagement lives on. For most of the Nigerian populace, including the growing media outlets, the ill health of Nepa has gone beyond being a syndrome to an endemic disease. The utility's attitude is to hold on to power – and then feed you back with outrageous bills.

For its part, the NPC suffers similar mismanagement. The NPC is led by chairman Alhaji Inuwa Lamido and executive secretary Mudashiru ’Bayo Atoyebi. The agency is saddled with the responsibility to promote high professional standards for the Nigerian press. It was established by the Nigerian Press Council Act No. 85 of 1992 (amended in the Nigerian Press Council Act No. 60 of 1999). Its vision is to create a culture of ethical press in Nigeria, driven through research and documentation of contemporary press development, training and workshop for journalists and accreditation of programmes in tertiary institutions.

However, many people in journalism in the last decade have not been inducted into the happenings of the NPC.

This concern is crucial, especially when taking into account the rising power of new media technologies, including social networks. With hundreds of media outlets registered with the NPC since God knows when, they need to be shown the route to modernity – which is new media. Another bothersome aspect of the NPC's operations, is that it has no newsletter through which to communicate with its membership, supposedly drawn from the Nigeria Union of Journalists.

It has been alleged that the NPC's leadership has become embroiled in political wranglings. This is against the backdrop of an imbroglio of interests between NPC and the likes of the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria, the Nigerian Guild of Editors and Nigeria Union of Journalists.

As matter of fact, rather than in-fighting, critics claim there is an avalanche of needs the NPC must address:

• a media census should be conducted and the viability of existing media evaluated;
• a contemporary template for the NPC to lead the Nigerian media into the current era of possibilities should be drawn up;
• updating of NPC technology and access to bandwidth, as well as its website;
• improving its management; and
• pressing for the much-vaunted Freedom of Information Bill to be passed.

The Bill was approved by the Nigerian Senate in 2006, but still needs to be approved by the House and signed into law by the president. As stated on its website: “The Freedom of Information Bill..., if passed into law, will give every Nigerian a legal right of access to information, records, and documents held by government bodies and private bodies carrying out public functions.” As the website goes on to explain, currently, “Nigeria has no law which guarantees citizens access to public records and information. On the contrary, many Nigerian laws have secrecy clauses prohibiting the disclosure of information, e.g. the Official Secrets Act, the Criminal Code, the Penal Code, etc.”

To make the Bill a reality, as well as to make good use of it once it becomes law, the NPC first needs to get its house in order. Nigeria's National Broadcasting Commission, may well be better placed to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Bill.

The NBC was formed seven years before the enactment of the NPC, in 1992. Its management of the broadcast industry in Nigeria has earned it trust, with progress recorded so far. It is also a parastatal of the Federal Government of Nigeria, and authorised to regulate the broadcasting industry by Act No. 38 of 1992 (as amended by Act No. 55 of 1999) based on the recommendations of the committee on national mass communications policy relying on a decree of 24 August 1992, which amendment was adopted as Acts of the National Assembly numbers 38 and 55 in line with present democratic tenets.

The leadership of NBC was pioneered by its first director-general, Tom Adaba, alongside a 10-man board, with Peter Enahoro as chairman and Bright Igbako as secretary. By July 1999, the second director-general, Mallam Nasir Danladi Bako, was appointed. He resigned in November 2002 and was succeeded by Silas Babajiya Yisa. Mudashiru ’Bayo Atoyebi came in next and held the post in an acting capacity between August 2006 and March 2007 prior to his current position at NPC.

In March 2007 Yomi Bolarinwa was named acting director-general of the NBC and his appointment was confirmed by former president Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, on 17 February 2009. He is chief executive officer of the 10-member commission’s board, presided over by Alhaji Ibrahim Najume. Each member has five-year tenure, and is usually appointed by the president, while the NBC maintains about 25 offices across the nation.

It has 301 employees shared across all the offices and Abuja to assist in the management of the broadcast industry as well as ensuring people's right to quality broadcasting. Now, all these facts and figures may seem rather dry – but that's the point; it's not very interesting when something is orderly and on track, and it forms a stark contrast to the disorganisation of the NPC.

The NBC could be said to have done very well in terms of planning activities for the members of the Broadcasting Organisation of Nigeria, and fulfilling its mandate, which includes counselling the federal government on the implementation of the national mass communication policy, with particular reference to broadcasting, as well as licensing cable, direct-to-home and all terrestrial radio and television services. Additionally, the NBC is charged with undertaking research and development in the broadcast industry, upholding the principles of equity and fairness in broadcasting and establishing and disseminating a national broadcasting code, while also setting standards with regards to the content and quality of broadcast material.

For the NBC, managing the new opportunities afforded by the Freedom Of Information Bill may not be a difficult task, given the infrastructure and manpower on ground. But for the NPC, the real work is yet to commence.

Free African Media

Photo: A man reads a newspaper at a vendor's stand in Obalende district in Nigeria's commercial capital Lagos, December 2, 2009. Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday published a call from a group of public figures for President Umaru Yar'Adua to quit or prove he is fit enough to govern, deepening debate over the leadership of the oil producing nation. REUTERS/Akintunde Akinleye.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Although the Press Council has long boasted a high compliance rate to its recommendations over ethics violations, it now finds itself in uncharted waters over a stock market scandal.

A Jakarta court on Monday opened a suit against the council filed by former Kompas daily journalist Reinhard Nainggolan, who was fired for allegedly soliciting shares in exchange for positive coverage of Krakatau Steel’s initial public offering last year.

Reinhard was one of four reporters caught up in the coverage-for-stocks scandal. A Press Council tribunal and an internal probe by Kompas both found Reinhard guilty of ethics violations and he was fired by the newspaper.

But now he is taking the Press Council and his former employer to the State Administrative Court for unfair dismissal.

Hendrayana, chairman of the Legal Aid Foundation for the Press (LBH Pers), said it was unusual that the civil action targeted the council and the newspaper, because both acted independently. “Kompas’s decision was about industrial relations, while the council’s decision was an ethical matter.”

Press Council member Agus Sudibyo, said the case would be gladly reviewed if Reinhard presented new evidence.

He said Reinhard had been given ample opportunity to defend himself during the probe but had not done so. “Our findings were similar to what Kompas found in its internal investigation, so our decision lent credence to Kompas’s own findings,” he said.

Agus said the Press Council’s rulings were rarely protested because “we always back our decisions with solid proof of ethical violations.”

Of the 520 cases on ethics vilations heard last year, the parties involved complied with the council’s rulings 95 percent of the time, he said. “And we always welcome the media organizations in question to conduct their own probe beforehand.”

Johnson Panjaitan, Reinhard’s lawyer, said the lawsuit challenged the council’s decision because of its position as a state-recognized agency. “ We want to assist journalists who feel they have been unfairly treated.”

Johnson added Kompas never notified his client of his dismissal and that he had only learned about it from media reports.

The Press Council is recognized as an independent body, although it receives some funding from the state.

Jakarta Globe 

by Ismira Lutfia