The Drum Beat 366: MDG #8 - Develop a Global Partnership for Development

***

We would like to welcome two organisations as strategic partners of The Communication Initiative (The CI). As Partners, these organisations help decide the overall vision for The CI and review progress on key performance indicators. We look forward to strengthening support for The CI networks and process through these new connections.

• International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) - an independent non-profit foundation working to assist developing countries to realise locally owned sustainable development by harnessing the potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs). IICD works with its partner organisations in selected countries, helping local stakeholders to assess the potential uses of ICTs in development.
• Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) - the agency in Switzerland which carries out tasks assigned by the two houses of Parliament and the federal government with the aim of achieving sustainable development to meet the needs of future generations. SDC works to promote the desire of people to live in peace, freedom, security, justice and prosperity - always keeping in mind the interests of future generations. At the forefront of its activities is the improvement in the living standards and the quality of life of destitute people in the countries of the South and East.

***
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) #8 focuses on the power and potential of cooperation between international organisations, governments, pharmaceutical companies, the private sector, and developing countries to help people access what they need - through fair and equitable market access and debt sustainability efforts, youth employment opportunities, and increased access to affordable essential drugs such as antiretrovirals (ARVs) and information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as telephones and personal computers. This Drum Beat reviews a number of the initiatives, insights, and information sources that are helping spur and sustain "a global partnership for development" around the world.

For further information, please visit the MDG overview page for this goal.

***

CONTEXT

1. Commitment to Development Index 2006
The Commitment to Development Index (CDI) rates 21 rich countries on how much they help economically poor countries build prosperity, good government, and security. CDI charts may be browsed by clicking bars, country names, and policy components; explore the Data Maps to see results another way.

2. The Mystery of Development
The explosive growth of China has little to do with the 0.1% of its GNP that comes as foreign aid. Nor have receipts amounting to more than 50% of GNP brought development to Mozambique or Sierra Leone. Aid may not bring development, but that does not mean it cannot produce value. In Africa 60% of the people now have clean drinking water, as compared to 25% in 1970....The enrolment rate in secondary school has increased from 5% to 30%....Roads provide a stimulus to trade....Micro-credit projects have changed the lives of countless women.

3. Eurizons: Goal 8: Develop A Global Partnership For Development
The United Nations (UN) estimates that unfair trade rules deny economically poor countries US$700 billion every year. Every year Sub-Saharan Africa spends US$14.5 billion repaying debts to the world's rich countries and international institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. In 1970, 22 of the world's richest countries pledged to spend 0.7% of their national income on aid; 34 years later, only 5 countries had kept that promise. Debt cancellation needed by the world's economically poor: US$300 billion. Debt relief promised by creditors so far: US$110bn. Debt cancellation delivered by July 2003: US$36bn.

4. Inequality Continues Despite Growth - Findings
Unemployment remains high; youth are 2 to 3 times more likely than adults to be unemployed and currently make up 47% of the 186 million people out of work worldwide. Most labour markets are unable to absorb all the young people seeking work...

5. The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006 [PDF]
Between 2001 and 2005, the number of people on ARVs in low- and middle-income countries increased from 240,000 to 1.3 million. But the target set in 2003 of reaching at least half of those in need of therapy has been missed, and ARVs reach only 1 in 5 globally.

6. ICT Global Trends and Policies
Between 1980 and 2005, the number of telephone subscribers in developing countries rose 30 times. In 1980, developing countries accounted for only 20% of the world's telephone lines; by 2005, 60% of the world's phones were in developing countries. Worldwide, internet use more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2005, but differences in the number of secure internet servers, a proxy for the availability of e-commerce, remain stark. While developed nations have more than 300 such servers per 1 million people, developing nations have fewer than 2.

MEDIA: SHEDDING LIGHT ON TRADE & AID

7. Trade Talking - Global
This 6-part TV series explores the potential impacts of the July 2006 World Trade Organization (WTO) trade negotiations known as the Doha Development Agenda (DDA). Produced by Television Trust for the Environment (TVE) in collaboration with Oxfam International and 6 TVE Partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America, Trade Talking includes individual stories filmed in Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Philippines and Zambia, each focusing on a specific industry or service crucial to a country's economy. The goal of the series is to engage members of the public in developing countries in the WTO debate and to increase public support for the trade ministers who have been pushing for a more equitable trade deal at the WTO meetings.
Contact Nick Rance or Jenny Richards nick.rance@tve.org.uk

8. Signed and Sealed? Time to Raise the Debate on International Trade Talks
This media toolkit presents information about international trade agreements, particularly the WTO's Doha trade talks. For example, Section 2 explains that the WTO's Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) negotiations are about reducing or eliminating tariff and non-tariff barriers to industrial goods and natural resources such as fisheries and minerals, and explores what bearing these negotiations will have on economic growth and jobs in developing countries. The toolkit was developed to help journalists report on trade issues, encourage public interest, and raise debate on whether trade deals will benefit or damage people's lives.

9. DFID: Development Works [Film/CD-ROM]
Produced by the Department for International Development (DFID), this series of short films illustrates some of the development achievements being made around the world, such as the benefits of debt relief in Mozambique.

10. In the Field: Exploring Innovative Improvements to Livelihoods around the World [cassettes and booklet]
In 2000 and 2001, the BBC World Service and the Natural Resources Institute of the University of Greenwich collaborated on a multimedia project in an effort to showcase various approaches to improving economically poor people's livelihoods. Among the 12 topics covered in the radio series: Introducing ethical trade, UK and Ghana; Different ways of understanding ethical trade, Ghana and UK; and Trading cocoa fairly, Ecuador.

 

GETTING PEOPLE ENGAGED: AWARENESS, ADVOCACY & ASSESSMENT

11. Get on Board Bus - Africa
This initiative sought to bring African voices and messages to the G8 summit in Edinburgh, Scotland (July 2005). Along the way, the bus stopped in Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Kenya to reach out to people living in extreme poverty wherever they lived, asking them to tell or show what they thought about poverty and what should be done about it. The programme was an effort to call on world leaders to support Africa's efforts to fight economic deprivation and injustice by advancing a collective voice to change the face of global poverty. It was developed as part of a wider mission: The Global Call to Action against Poverty and Make Poverty History, whose demands include tackling unfair global trade rules, cancelling the debts of the economically poorest countries, and increasing the quality and amount of aid given to developing countries.

12. Milking It: Small Farmers and International Trade
Offered by Oxfam, this website explores dilemmas that farmers face at the beginning of the 21st century, development issues associated with trade, and ways in which trade affects the food we eat. It specifically addresses young people with a game-like atmosphere...

13. MDGs, Taxpayers and Aid Effectiveness: Policy Insights No. 13
In this policy overview produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Centre, the authors propose that greater public awareness and concern about development issues could put MDG-related issues on domestic political agendas and thereby protect official development assistance (ODA) commitments. Creating that awareness will mean engaging people in a deeper debate about development, and thus building a "real" constituency. To mobilise citizens in support of the MDGs, communicators and development educators must find new ways to demonstrate that donors and recipients are actually working towards them as part of a shared global effort to reduce poverty.

14. Civil Society Challenge to Export Credit Agency Debt - Global
Created by the network of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) Eurodad, this initiative aims to involve civil society organisations in a collaborative process that urges rich country governments to change the way they report aid statistics. It seeks an environment of openness in which the citizens of aid donor countries can get a true picture of their nation's contributions and can hold their governments accountable. Nearly 60 participating NGOs from 24 countries have signed on to an advocacy statement that condemns what are being described as dubious development aid statistics linked to export credit debt deals. Currently, the NGOs argue, governments falsely inflate aid figures by including commercial debt write-offs...
Contact Francesco Oddone foddone@eurodad.org

INVOLVING & ADDRESSING CHILDREN & YOUTH AS PARTNERS

15. Chinkokolola - Malawi
Chinkokolola is a rural-focused ICT campaign that aims to promote social and economic transformation in Malawi through the generation of employment opportunities, the provision of core knowledge resources, and the enabling of business between private firms and people in distant places. The campaign engages youth in identifying problem areas and making recommendations to the authorities for redress. These problem areas include: lack of knowledge regarding the importance and benefits of ICTs; lack of capacity to install, maintain/manage/operate a reliable internet network and ICT access points due to high tariffs of fixed telephone lines and high computer prices, hence low levels of entrepreneurship; lack of conducive policies at national level to accelerate ICT-related development; and inequitable distribution of telecommunications infrastructure due to poor electrification of rural areas and poor living standards.
Contact Kenneth Harry Msiska kennethmsiska@yahoo.com

16. Pacific Youth Festival - Pacific Region
Organised by the Ministry of Youth and Culture in French Polynesia, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, and the Tahitian youth organisation Union Polynésienne pour la Jeunesse, this 6-day, UNESCO-led festival drew approximately 900 youth leaders from 25 Pacific countries and territories to Tahiti in July 2006. They shared experiences and promoted their concerns and visions of how young islanders can take the lead in promoting positive change in their communities and make an impact on the agenda for regional development. In one section of the Pacific Youth Charter that emerged, the young writers describe the challenges they face when seeking employment (even after finishing secondary and tertiary education); they call for strengthening of practical, non-formal and vocational training and mentoring to assist in transition from school to the workplace.
Contact Jacqueline Groth j.groth@unesco.org or ucj@unesco.org OR Rosita Hoffman RositaH@spc.int

17. e-Village Initiative - Jordan
Officially inaugurated in July 2006, the Government of Jordan's and United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM)'s e-Village initiative aims to bridge the digital divide between women and men living in rural and urban areas through the use of ICT as well as technical assistance. Public-private partnership is key in ensuring that villagers in Lib and Mleih have access to the technology itself, and to high-quality capacity building experiences. For instance, the skills-and-training programme is being carried out with Microsoft and Cisco Systems, and internet infrastructure and connectivity is being improved through collaboration with both government and private sector telecommunications organisations such as Jordan Telecom and Intel. To motivate and encourage youth involvement in ICTs and community life, an Intel Computer Clubhouse and Lego Robotics Lab have been built, complemented by Learning Resource Centers in schools that aim to give young people access to opportunities to learn design, engineering and computing skills within a creative and safe after-school learning environment.
Contact Yazan Majaj yazan.majaj@unifem.org

18. Business without Borders (BWB) - South Eastern Europe & the UK
BWB is a British Council project addressing the problem of youth unemployment by linking young people from the UK and South Eastern Europe through the creation of a youth-initiated and -led network committed to the full participation of youth in developing activities and strategies for facilitating economic development and intercultural networking. The 2-year programme centres around connecting and capacitating young people through a series of training sessions that aim to build awareness of business, trade and manufacturing. The aim is to help participants set up and run successful small businesses, transfer the necessary skills to their peers, and make a real contribution to their countries' economies.
Contact Aida Berxholi aida.berxholi@britishcouncil.org.al

19. Young Power in Social Action (YPSA) ICT4D Unit - Bangladesh
YPSA is a voluntary social development organisation using participatory programming in an effort to engage Bangladesh's economically poor youth in bringing about their own and society's sustainable development. The initial purpose of YPSA ICT4D Unit was to empower vulnerable young people to educate and capacitate themselves by through training in ICT skills that would lead to employment. Although the project has reportedly provided marginalised youth with more marketable skills, organisers explain that the market remains small and largely inaccessible. Nonetheless, YPSA claims that participants generally have a greater practical understanding of the world of computers and ICTs and with it more confidence to face the challenge of earning a living.
Contact Debobroto Chakraborty debobrotochakraborty@yahoo.com OR ict4d@ypsa.org OR info@ypsa.org

 

GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO DELIVER AID, DRUGS & TECHNOLOGY

20. Eliminating World Poverty: Making Governance Work for the Poor - A White Paper on International Development
This 2006 report sets out what the UK Government aims to do to reduce world poverty over the next 5 years. The Department for International Development (DFID) pledges to increase its development budget to 0.7% of gross national income by 2013 and to double funding for science and technology. Partnership will be a key theme in establishing priorities for the distribution of such aid; DFID will work with the rest of UK Government, partner governments, international organisations, NGOs, and academics to fulfill promises made by G8 countries at the Gleneagles Summit in July 2005. (Chapter 1, "Delivering the Promises of 2005", discusses the global poverty and aid situation; a chart on page xi traces progress in meeting the MDGs).

21. Uniting for HIV Prevention - Global
During the XVI International AIDS Conference in August 2006, UNAIDS launched an initiative to bring together the UN, civil society, treatment activists, pharmaceutical companies, the private sector, and governments to call for "out of the ordinary partnerships" that will mobilise an alliance for HIV prevention efforts around the world. The goal is to influence policy makers as well as to generate public awareness about the need to bridge the HIV prevention gap - hopefully shaping a movement that will support the realisation of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.
Contact Sophie Barton-Knott bartonknotts@unaids.org OR Beth Magne-Watts magnewattsb@unaids.org

22. Evaluation of WHO's Contribution to "3 by 5": Main Report
"Important progress was made during the two-year period of "3 by 5" leading up to December 2005, as the number of people on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in low- and middle-income countries nearly doubled in 2005 alone (to about 20% of those needing treatment)....However, this was less than half of what "3 by 5" set out to achieve." This report examines the administrative, technical and managerial guidance that the World Health Organization (WHO) provided during the "3 by 5" initiative, which sought to mobilise the international community to address the global inequity in access to ART. It provides an appraisal of WHO's role in advocating and supporting the "3 by 5" target - with a focus on the extent to which WHO spurred, sustained, and contributed to this major global partnership by improving harmonisation between UN agencies and working with other stakeholders. One suggestion for further scaling up access to ART is promoting cooperation (especially South-to-South) between various global health initiatives.

23. AIDS: Questions for Development
by Jerker Edström, Laura Turquet & Ingrid Young
One of the central questions addressed in this Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Policy Briefing is: What are the best ways of harnessing the capacity of governments, civil society, the private sector, researchers and communities to enhance coordination, transparency and accountability in the global response to HIV? To that end, in June 2005 IDS hosted a workshop in partnership with UNAIDS and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance to examine the linkages between HIV and vulnerability; among the strategies that emerged: Communicators and development personnel have a role to play in the medical arena, such as by strategising together about how to deliver ARVs to those in need. Engaging with those from other disciplines - as well as with affected communities (using participatory approaches to development, citizenship, and power) - is thought to be crucial.

24. Low Cost Lap Tops
A US$100 laptop has been designed by One Laptop per Child which will work with UNDP and local and international partners to deliver the new technology to targeted schools in least developed countries. It has been designed to be durable, use open-source software, have very low power consumption, have the capacity to be powered by hand cranking, and work in 'mesh network.'

TECH TRENDS & THINKING: ICT ACCESS & IMPACT

25. Information and Communications for Development 2006: Global Trends and Policies
This World Bank report addresses the critical role being played by ICTs in advancing economic growth and reducing poverty. It provides a global overview of ICT trends and policies in developing countries, covering issues such as the importance of public-private partnerships and effective competition for extending access, using ICT in doing business, and formulating national e-strategies. The ICT At-a-Glance tables for 144 economies worldwide show the recent national data on key indicators of ICT development.

26. VOIP Phones Give Villagers a Buzz
by Cyrus Farivar
Solar- and pedal-powered voice-over-internet-protocol (VOIP) phones and wireless-fidelity networks ("wi-fi") are now being used in a few villages in western Uganda "where nothing resembling a telephone system has ever existed". The non-profit USA-based Inveneo has installed its Linux-based VOIP stations at 4 isolated villages in Bukuuku subcounty; the key to this new system is its low cost (US$1,800, including the outdoor antenna).

27. Wireless Communications and Development: Rural India Focus
by Ashok Jhunjhunwala
Jhunjhunwala reports that wireless technology has enabled India to reach its dream in 1994 (when there were less than 10 million lines) of crossing 100 million telephone lines in a decade. Entrepreneur-driven, operator-assisted telephone booths were introduced in 1987; today, 950,000 such public call officers cover every street to generate 25% of total telecom income, serving 300 million people. For example, n-Logue's 2500 kiosks - which cost US$1200 each, and provide telephone, internet, a multimedia personal computer (PC) with web-camera, printer and power back-up for PC (plus Indian language software, video conferencing software, training and maintenance) - are set up by a village entrepreneur. n-Logue's various educational offerings can earn operators in a village of 1500 $90 per month or more.

28. The Use of Mobile Phones by Microentrepreneurs in Kigali, Rwanda: Changes to Social and Business Networks
by Jonathan Donner
According to Donner, the International Telecommunication Union estimates that in 2003 in Rwanda, there were 16 mobile users per 1000 people, roughly 134,000 subscribers. Since mobiles were introduced to Rwanda in 1998, their adoption has eclipsed that of landlines; there are only 23,000 landlines in the nation. "The call logs of the new mobile owners, with a high proportion of new business contacts, may provide evidence for businesses which are growing or changing more rapidly..."

29. Profitable Universal Access Providers: Report for Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)
This feasibility study finds that Global System for Mobile (GSM) is a financially viable way to provide rural, low-income areas in Africa with communications services (compared to providing fixed line services). It "explores how GSM and associated technology could be used for deployment in rural areas with the aim to provide rural telephone services at tariffs that take into account the low ability to pay and at the same time generate long term financial viability for the service provider. The concept is to establish Micro Rural Operators that would make the necessary restrictions in service offerings in order not to compete with existing mobile or fixed line operators, even if the latter are not presently offering services to the target population."

30. Diversifying Network Development: Microtelcos in Latin America and the Caribbean
by Hernan Galperin & François Bar
This paper makes the case that "microtelcos" - small-scale telecom operators that combine local entrepreneurship, municipal efforts, and community action - can play an important role in extending ICT services in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly in rural, economically depressed areas. For instance, in Piraí (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), a community committee was formed that "proved critical in securing partnerships with universities, NGOs, and private firms, which contributed to the project with equipment, application development, and expertise in the deployment and operation of the municipal network....To date, the network has over 50 broadband nodes, connecting all local government offices and most of the public schools and libraries. There is also a growing number of public access points, and a private company with majority municipal ownership has been formed to commercialize services to households and businesses."

 

This issue was written by Kier Olsen DeVries.

 

The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com

To reproduce any portion of The Drum Beat, see our policy.

To subscribe, click here.