Empower youth by highlighting their projects

In the recent years, I had the opportunity to help highlighting the work young people do, throwing the spotlight on their projects and success stories, their struggles and challenges.

I firmly believe that putting young people on a platform, enabling them to bring their message, automatically empowers them, their causes and youth in general. It not only gives the individual a well-deserved chance to show their project, but each of those projects reminds the world that young people *are* the future deserving our attention, support, guidance, mentoring and funding.

And the youth have the drive, the ingenuity, the geniality and true spirit to make a change.

I was privileged to be part of the group giving that spotlight to people like Joseph Macharia from Kenya or Joseph Otim from Uganda just a few weeks ago.

It is in that spirit you should watch the video from Kelvin Doe, a fifteen year old from Sierra Leone, who picks parts from trash, to make his own radio station - including its mini-generator - in Sierra Leone.
I invite you to support "Innovate Salone" with similar initiatives.


Thanks to Kay Chapman for the tip on the video..

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Another drought. Is the development failing?

When I started working in the Horn of Africa, in the mid 90's, my first emergency was a drought operation. Between 1900 and now, the region had more than 18 famine periods. This year, we have another one. And I am sure - unless we change things drastically - there will be another drought emergency a few years from now.

As an aidworker, I always worked in emergencies. Droughts, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, were my daily work... Some of these calamities are hard to anticipate, leave alone mitigate. But other, climate change related emergencies, are. At least partially. The question is: "Are we doing enough?".

My answer is: NO. According to me, both the humanitarian community neither the donors put enough emphasize on agricultural development, which -to me- is the core of climate change mitigation for farmers in many parts of the world.

In the past year, I travelled through Kenya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana and India, interviewing a dozen farmer communities on climate change. I recorded their views on the current state, their wishes, their fears, and condensed it in about 30 videos (the videos you can watch here, some of the stories, you can read here). The problems differed from region to region, and so do the possible solutions.

What got to me is not only the struggles of the farmers themselves, but also the social implications of the failing agriculture in many parts of the world. In Kenya, most of the men went off to work in the cities, leaving the women to farm, and to raise their families. In Burkina Faso, whole villages migrated due to repeated failing crops. In India none of the people I spoke to, saw farming as a viable way to make a living anymore. All but one family saw the future for their kids as getting a "proper" job, somewhere in a remote city. Where will that leave us, ten-twenty years from now? Farming is the basis of many developing countries. No farming, no food, as simple as that. But even more importantly, without proper targeted agricultural development, farmers will even have it harder in the years to come. Already many live on the edge of survival. It does not take much to push them over the edge. As what happens in the Horn of Africa, this year once again.

And yet, it does not take much. Locally adapted solutions make a big change. Be it a dam, constructing low walls to avoid water running off and taking the top soil with it, planting trees to avoid erosion, micro-dosing fertilizer,.... Or wider solutions in breeding crop varieties, better adapted to the changing environment.

But little is invested in agricultural development. I broke a bone before on how cutting agricultural development, is like digging our own grave. The most frustrating part, for me, is to see how the budgets for aid emergencies, like the current drought in East Africa, beats that of agricultural development in the same area, by a ton. How everyone is beating the press drums once a drought hits a region again, but the same drums kept silent for the years before that. How the press is all over the current drought, but hardly made any room to show sustainable solutions, in the past. Everyone cries foul now over the drought, but hardly anyone was interested in the same region, in the past. And still, the impact of the current drought could have been avoided. But we failed to do so. The humanitarian community failed, the press failed, the public interest failed,...

Emergency aid relief is a plaster on a wooden leg. Sure, we have to help the people dying of famine right now, but our interest will fade out once the peak of the emergency is over.

And that gets to me.


More posts about agricultural development on The Road

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So why did the West push for South Sudan's independence?

75% of the oil reserve in Sudan, perhaps 6.5 billion barrels, is located in South Sudan (Source).

Since the "second" Sudan war between the North and South started in 1983, an estimated 2 million civilians were killed, and at least 4 million were displaced at least once.

During the war, aid agencies set up one of the largest, most costly and complex humanitarian relief operations ever, "Operation Lifeline Sudan", running a "relief pipeline" from Kenya (and partially Uganda) into the South. An operation which was often criticised as "fueling the conflict".

True or not, I guess "Operation Bulletline Sudan" fueled the conflict much more: While Russia -mostly through proxies- and China -mostly thru "oil-for-bullets" deals- made good business of arms deals with the North, the "West" kept "an extensive arms pipeline" running to the South during the whole conflict.
For years, the world kept their eyes closed, as business was good: selling weapons dearly, and getting cheap oil, I mean, what more can one wish?

This US arms supply to the South continues to run up to this very day, mostly through Kenya, one of the strongest US proxies in the region. Meanwhile, Russia and China continue to supply Khartoum. What will this lead to? An expanded conflict border zone where North and South Sudan dispute oil fields.

Aren't we lucky there is an embargo for selling arms to Sudan?

PS: this map might indicate the oilfields more clearly (Tnx @MFB)

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Kids in Kenya

During the interview tour in Kenya, I had little time to take pictures from the people other than the interviewees, but I could not resist some of the kids.

We were in pretty remote places, so three muzungus with all kinds of equipment talking to their mum, grandma or neighbour stirred up quite some interest amongst the youngsters. And in turn, the youngsters stirred up my interest.

A girl minding her baby sister.

This little girl was too shy to come from behind the tree,
but still wanted to see every bit of what was going on.


Two sisters.


These two boys were fascinated by the video camera.


Not sure of those muzungus!


Serious face

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Farmers adapting to climate change: Emily Marigu from Kenya

Anyone doubting the effect of climate change, and how farmers can adapt continuously to changing weather patterns, should talk to Emily Marigu Ireri.

We met Emily, near Meru, eastern Kenya, where she farms a five acres plot, 1,500 meters high on the steep slopes of Mount Kenya.

She describes how, in recent years, the rains are more erratic. At the beginning of the rainy season, often it would only rain for a few days, and then stop, sometimes for weeks. “Often seeds would start to sprout during those first rains, but then they would dry up”, Emily explains. She takes us to the bottom of the valley just below her fields. “By this time of the year, this small stream would normally be a river, but now, it hardly irrigates the fields around it. A few miles from here, the river is dead, water is just absorbed by the soil.”

“But it is not only the erratic rains that makes the life of farmers difficult“, Emily explains. “Here, so close to Mount Kenya, we also used to get misty drizzle in May and June. From the time of my father’s fathers, we used that moisture for a crop in the middle of the year. Now that drizzle does not come anymore. I don’t know why, but nowadays, we can only get one harvest a year, in the rainy season. Now is the time for the rain to come." (...)

Read the full post on the CCAFS blog...

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Glory sings Halleluya

We met Glory Kinya Gitonga during our Kenya tour. We were interviewing her mother-in-law about the way she adapted her farming techniques to cope with climate change.

Glory said she wrote songs in her native Kimeru, and asked if we could videotape one called "Halleluya".

So, ladies and gentlemen, here is Glory Kinya Gitonga performing "Halleluya" in a cappella!

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On the road once more

I am on the road in Mali, Ghana and Burkina Faso for a new series of interview with farmers on the impact of climate change on their daily life.

Looking forward to see the differences with Kenya.

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Interviews with farmers in Kenya: the positive vibes

I am back in Belgium for a few days to work on the post-production of the video interviews we shot in Kenya two weeks ago.

We had a team of three: Bart -the cameraman who also does the video post production-, Jan -the radio reporter from the VRT who did a series on climate change and myself. Plus a local NGO contact and two drivers.

The goal of the interviews, which will also be done in West-Africa and several Asian countries, is to take a snapshot how the farmers in different countries experience the changing weather patterns, and how they adapt to them, or even mitigate the climate changes they anticipate.



Every farmer we spoke to highlighted their dependency on the rains, and the more erratic rain patterns nowadays. They also battled with high prices for the seeds and fertilizers which, paired with a lower price for their produce, resulted in a deflated income.

A combination of past inefficient farming techniques and the introduction of foreign seeds and aggressive pesticides often depleted the soil and caused the introduction of new pests which needed even more chemicals.

It was interesting talking to the older farmers, and their stories how things gradually changed. "Twenty years ago", said sixty years old Andrew, who also used to be a teacher, "Twenty years ago, we planted seeds without fertilizers. We had no pesticides. And yet, we had a high yield. We could use the seeds from our harvest for the next year's crop. Water was available everywhere. Forests were dense and plentyfil. But now, you will not yield any crop without pesticides and artificial fertilizers. We have to use hybrid seeds which are more drought resistant. The seeds from the hybrid plants themselves are worthless, so we have to buy new ones every year."
But he said so in a "tone of fact", not as a complaint. It was a statement.

And still they all cope: Some change the crops they grow or the type of seeds they use. Others resort to small-scale irrigation, mulching -covering the seedlings with clover-, or conservation farming... They brought up creative ideas on how to avoid erosion, conserve the manure from running off the fields and collectively advocated on planting more trees both for the fruits, the timber, and... the carbon credits.



Each interview lasted about three hours during which we took ample time to get the farmers at ease, even though each of them was quite outspoken and not camera-shy at all. Each had a story to tell. Not only about their farming, but also about their families, how the men went off to work in the cities, and the women are left to the farming. How all too often, the grandparents are left with their orphaned grandchildren, as if a whole productive generation was decimated.



Still, each and everyone of them smiled. There was more laughter than complaints in the air. Each had taken an active role in determining their destiny, even though they had far less control over "life" than anyone in more developed countries...

I left one week of Kenya feeling respectful for each of the people we met, whose lives briefly crossed mine. And at this moment, I am trying to put that respect into the videos we are producing.

Ruth, Cheleste, Emily, Edward, Julia, Anastacia, Margaret,.. you will soon get copies of the pictures and the finished videos. As promised!

PS: Some of the output of these interviews is reflected in short blogposts. The first one is already out on the CCAFS blog.

First two pictures courtesy Jan Gerits.

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Mobile phones for farmers in Africa: Myth or reality?

My first trip to Africa, goes back to 1994: Angola in the midst of the civil war. I "left" the continent end 1999, moving from Uganda to Kosovo.

Through my five years in Africa, I travelled extensively throughout. I was a first-hand witness of the mobile phone networks rolling out in different countries. From the old AMPR system and 2 kg mobile phone/walkie talkie bricks in Congo (then Zaire), to the new generation MTN-types using the latest technology, huge bandwidths, and connectivity of "a certain reliability".

Still by the time I left, end 1999, mobile phone connectivity was still pretty much limited to the capital cities. Even though, in just a few years, GSM had completely taken over the old 'copper' landline market in African cities, it seemed there was quite a hurdle to get the connectivity "upcountry".

Not only was the support infrastructure - electricity, security - often lacking to spread mobile phone towers in remote areas, but it seemed like the companies doubted if there was a real market...

That was back then, in 1999.

Since then, I have always been very reluctant to join the highly enthusiastic crowd propagating mobile phone technology as one of "the" key means for rural farmers to be "informed". "Informed" about the weather forecast, seed fertilizer and crop prices, and agricultural support.

I still remember saying "those farmers hardly having ends meet, without electricity in their homestead, often illiterate, ain't gonna use mobile phones"...

And then, last week, during my first trip to Africa in 12 years, we are in Karurumu village in Central Kenya.

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Karumu is about an hour's drive from the nearest provincial town. In other words: Karumu is, euh... remote. Here are some of the notes in my mind:



We are sitting in the shade of a mango tree, on the yard of Celeste's farm. Celeste is 88 years old. He fought the English colonizers "way back when". He has 10 kids. He says he can't remember exactly how many grand children and grand-grand children he has.

Celeste speaks slowly and stresses every word. We are listening to his story of how he built up his farm from nothing to the 30 acres it is now. How he was blessed with his children. Some who lived on his farm. He points out a house, a few meters further up. The house is locked up. It belonged to his son and his daughter-in-law, a doctor. Both passed away. Celeste and his wife Julia are now taking care of their grand children.



We are pulled into the story of Celeste and Julia, a story which is so common in Africa: children being raised by their grand parents. A generation being wiped away. Bart, our camera-man, keeps the focus on the sound and the ever changing intensity of the sun. Jan, the radio-reporter, is taking mental notes on what he would like to discuss further with Celeste. I am sitting on a stool, with Julia, Celeste's grand-grand child on my lap. Julia is fascinated by the sound an elastic band makes when you pull it like a guitar string.
In short, we are all pulled into the story, into the moment.

And then, all of a sudden, a mobile phone rings. Celeste, 88 years old, farmer from Karurumo village in Kenya, stands up, says "Excuse me", reaches into his pocket, pushes a button and starts talking into a Nokia.



It is the driver of one of his five trucks. He is held up loading fertilizer on a farm a bit further up.
Celeste calls the driver of his other truck, informs him of the delay and orders him to pick up a load of firewood from another farmer.
As he puts the phone back in his pocket, Celeste, 88 years old, farmer from Karurumo village in Kenya, sits down, and continues his story about the price of fruit tree pesticides and the market price for a bag of maize. As if it all was the most normal thing in the world.

The picture of Celeste, answering the phone, stays with me. The sur-reality of a mobile phone ringing in the African bush.

Have I really missed a lot during my 12 years absence in Africa? Driving around for five days in Kenya, I think not. The overloaded trucks are still the same. The accidents are just as grave. People still die needlessly of diseases we find common in "The West". Nothing changed except one thing: Mobile phones are now everywhere. Farmers call each other with information, with questions, they are more informed, and stay 'connected' to each other.

I will be curious to see if I find the same giant leap into rural connectivity when travelling through Mali, Ghana, Niger, Burkina and Senegal in November.

One thing is for sure: I will not make fun anymore of those enthusiasts saying the mobile phone connectivity makes a big difference for rural farmers!


Picture interview team courtesy Willemijn Drok

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About reforestation and conservation farming in Meru Kenya

Today we did our last interviews in the neighbourhood of Meru, right under Mount Kenya.

Every single interview reveals new material, lets us discover new angles, and stories. More over, every single moment, we meet beautiful people, with a spank in their eye and stories to tell.

I have been amazed how little problem people have to stand in front of a camera team and start talking. Shows how proud they are of their work.

A couple of pictures from today's trip:

Edward is a retired teacher, who has also been farming since he was a little boy. He talked about the pests introduced with the cotton culture, and the way he is now planting trees to conserve the soil, protect his shamba from the wind, for the fruits and as an income by selling fire wood.



On Margereth's farm, we found a dozen women who showed us everything about "conservation farming", a technique which requires less efforts to plant, weed and irrigate, and at the same time, has a higher crop yield and is kinder to the top soil than traditional planting.





More snapshots of the people we met yesterday:

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Second day of farmer interviews in Kenya

Today, we did a second row of interviews in Emru Kenya, trying to understand how farmers cope with climate change.

We interviewed Ruth, a widow who was looking after her grandchildren, trying to find inventive ways to adapt to the shorter rainy season. I told her my first girlfriend was called Ruth too. She teased me "You should have married her, why did you not?".



I felt privileged to spend several hours with Celeste, with a blessed age of 88, and his wife Julia. They proudly welcomed us in the warmth of their farm, the largest I have seen so far. "I inherited nothing. Everything you see here, we worked for hard, with our bare hands", Celeste said.



And we had another day on the fields. Women are forming cooperative groups cultivating a common piece of land. As we arrived, they were sowing potatoes.











Some of them proudly showed a harvest of sweet potatoes, as one of their ways to adapt to the frequent droughts. They told us that root vegetables were far more resistant to the dry spells than other crops like maize or beans...

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Kenya's power women

Yesterday, I spent the whole day interviewing woman near Embu, Kenya. All farmers, looking for ways to adapt their crops, fields, methods, seeds and fertilizers to the changing weather patterns.

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Blog Action Day: Drought and floods hit the poorest

Fewer and fewer people who believe "Climate Change" is fiction. The hard evidence the climate *is* changing, is in our face: Hurricanes and typhoons become more frequent and more violent. Extensive droughts are followed by devastating floods.

Unfortunately, the poorest are hit the hardest. Look at what Typhoon Ketsana recently did in the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Followed a few days later by Typhoon Parma.

For months now, the humanitarian community has been warning about the droughts in Kenya, which is now taking its full toll. What is said to be the worst in the country since 1996, with 3.8 million people now tumbling over the poverty line and becoming dependent on food aid.


The misery is not over, as floods are kicking off the rainy season in many parts of Africa.

The frustrating part is that even those who previously were able to sustain themselves independently, are pushed again to become dependent on aid. One step forward, two backwards. And the answer is in the hands of the richer countries, to impose proper limits on pollution. Is that not tragic?

Unless we can turn around the causes of climate change, it will only get worse.

This post is part of Blog Action Day, which concentrates on Climate Change this year.

Picture courtesy BBC

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Acute hunger spots in the world

Myanmar faces food shortages in many parts of the country, largely because of last year's cyclone Nargis destroyed most of the delta's harvest and a rat infestation wiped out most of the remaining crops.
A total of 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of rice paddy were submerged saltwater waves and 85 percent of seed stocks were destroyed. A shortage of labor - 130,000 were left dead after Nargis - higher fertilizer prices and lower rice prices have dissuaded delta farmers from planting, causing about 185,000 tons of emergency food aid needed this year. (Full)

There is a general alert going out for an upcoming wave of hunger due to a drought in the Horn of Africa:

In Uganda's Karamoja region 970,000 people are heading towards starvation. The Government declared the whole region as an emergency area and said "food must [quickly] be distributed to this area to avert this problem." Drought conditions will cause conditions unlikely to improve before October when the next harvest is due. (Full)

The same regional drought also hit Kenya hard. In the South-eastern regions, the third consecutive bad crop will force 3.2 million people to resort to food aid. (Full)

Since August last year, WFP, the UN's main food assistance agency, has lost 4 staff in Somalia due to security incidents. Last week they said if the situation does not improve, they will be forced to cut their food aid, which will affect 2.5 million people. (Full)

In Zimbabwe, the hunger figures are even worse. The prolonged political turmoil has turned Africa's former breadbasket into one of the continent's poorest countries. Currently 4.5 million Zimbabweans are fully dependent on food aid, a figure expected to raise to 6 million in the next month.
Due to lack of donor funding, WFP has been forced to cut core monthly maize rations from 10kg -already 2kg below the recommended ration- to 5kg a month for adults. That is just about 600 calories a day. (Full)

News discovered via NewsFeeds and AidNews.

Picture courtesy James Akena (WFP)

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Did we forget these humanitarian crisis?

With the international (press) spotlights on Gaza, one would forget these -ongoing- humanitarian hotspots:

Sri Lanka:
The Red Cross appealed to both the Tamil Tigers and the government to allow what they estimated at 250,000 people trapped in the northern war zone to flee to safety.
"People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and several aid workers have been injured while evacuating the wounded," according to the ICRC.
"It's high time to take decisive action and stop further bloodshed," he said, warning there could be "countless victims" if nothing is done.
The government has called on civilians to gather in a small "safe zone" on the edge of rebel territory, but a health official said at least 300 civilians were wounded and scores feared killed by army artillery shells fired into the zone. (Full)

Somalia:
The United Nations will be forced to end food distribution in Somalia unless armed groups stop attacking U.N. staff, the World Food Programme (WFP) said.
Humanitarian workers have been targeted during a two-year-old rebellion by Islamist insurgents that has killed more than 16,000 civilians and uprooted one million others. Four WFP staff have been killed since August last year. (Full)

Kenya and Horn of Africa:
Large areas of Kenya and the Horn of Africa are facing "an exceptional humanitarian crisis" that requires "urgent food assistance and other interventions to combat high malnutrition levels", according to the IFRC's appeal.
The combination of high world food prices and a crippling drought is endangering as many as 20 million people in both rural and urban communities. (Full)

Sudan:
Clashes in Southern Sudan's Warrap state have left 41 people dead and displaced hundreds of others from their homes in the past two months. (Full)
Sudan's government accused Darfur rebels of planning to launch attacks if President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is indicted for war crimes and said that would bring a new round of bloodshed. (Full)

Philippines:
Flooding in some parts of Mindanao has exacerbated the humanitarian situation on the island after nearly five months of deadly fighting between government troops and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Floods affected 40,000 people. More than 300,000 people remain displaced in the conflict-affected areas, many of them living in shelters or with relatives outside government-designated evacuation sites. (Full)


News discovered via AidNews

Picture courtesy Finbarr O'Reilly (Reuters)

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News: The World's Oldest School Boy: 88, Kenyan and Refugee

Kimani Maruge is his name. You might never have heard of him.

This Kenyan peasant farmer and great-grand father was illiterate all his life, until at the age of 83, he jumped at a belated opportunity to educate himself when free primary schooling was introduced in Kenya, five years ago.

Maruge became something of a national celebrity and poster boy for free education campaigners worldwide. The U.N. even sponsored a trip for him to New York.

Now, at the age of 88, he is faced with a new challenge. In the recent post-election violence, members of his Kikuyu tribe were attacked by gangs and Maruge became one of the 300,000 refugees around the country are still scared to return home.

So every morning, "Mzee" as he is called - Swahili for 'elder' - gets out of his white Red Cross canvas tent at an agricultural showground housing 14,000 displaced people, to collect his books, don his uniform - shorts and all - and walks with a limp the 4 km (2.5 miles) to his beloved Kapkenduiywo Primary School.
At first, he went to a special school set up at the refugee camp, but he prefers his old school near his home.

"But I have not stopped studying. School is too important.", Maruge says, "It is hard. There is no one to help me walk. I go alone. But the urge to learn keeps me going."

In an interview with Reuters, he asks: "If you see people, tell them the kids here need help."

Which we do. Hat off to you, Mzee! (full)

Picture courtesy Reuters. Source: The Road Daily

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Rumble: Pictures from Kenya

Stuart, a friend and colleague just came back from his Kenya mission where he supported the aid surge after the election trouble. When he told me he brought some pictures back, I thought it would be about crowds fighting with riot police, burning houses and charred cars.
But most of his pictures were about children. And they touched me. I don't know why. Maybe because of the innocence they radiate, amidst violence and hatred. Maybe because while their country threatened to go up in flames, these children continued to smile.

Pictures courtesy Stuart Zimble (WHO/WFP)

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