meeting in the aisle

Dude, have you like, seen what’s happening in Liberia (wo)man?

Given I knew I was going to Africa for work this month (specifically Tanzania and Ethiopia, because we know Africa is not a country), I decided to load up my kindle with some Africa reading. This is how Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s book This Child Will Be Great made it into my head.

For those who don’t know, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the President of Liberia. She was also the first female head of state in Africa. And by Liberia I do mean the country that spent over a decade living through civil war involving all the horrors of child soldiers, displaced people, destroyed cities and massive loss of life.

It’s fair to say that Liberia was decimated, socially, politically and economically. Not only that, but its neighbours are far from peaceful too. Sierra Leone and Cote d’Iviore have experienced terrible conflict themselves. All of this makes it a fairly unstable, and cripplingly poor, region.

So the fact that such an educated woman was elected in Liberia, and has actually stuck by the country implementing policies to significantly reduce debt, bring government spending under control, and is resisting the temptations of corruption which is so common in leadership is seriously impressive.

Ellen Sirleaf Johnson has just been reelected for a second term of government, and while Liberia’s problems are far from solved, it’s hard not to see the turnaround as a beacon of hope, a good news story, for a country which was synonymous with hopelessness.

Further reading on Liberia - Chris Blattman

What do 11 million people look like?

[there is no picture here because starvation porn scares me]

In the Horn of Africa right now, people are starving. Some of them to death. Hopefully you know this, have seen it on the news, read about it in the paper, or even better, made a donation to an organisation trying to help save lives.

The current drought/famine/food crisis [insert scary word for Not Enough Food] is affecting over 11 million people in a part of the world which is challenging to live in, to say the least, let alone now with no rain.

This crisis is consuming me right now. I read about it all day, every day for work. I see it on the news when I am jogging on a treadmill to try and curb the excesses of my wealthy lifestyle. But at the end of the day, it can get a bit overwhelming.

Which is why I look at CARE’s flickr photostream - to remind myself what 11 million people look like. They look like individual people. Kids, parents, mums, babies, workers. Of course they do. But sometimes, it’s hard to really get it.

The BBC have put together a handy ‘East Africa hunger crisis FAQ guide’ which is helpful.

Update: The famine in Somalia finally made the front page of the New York Times (and a debate instigated by Bill Easterly broke out on twitter about the image used - what do you think?)

And of course you can donate here.

When do condoms mean a choice between AIDS or cancer?

When do condoms mean a choice between AIDS or cancer? In Africa, of course!

At least that’s the situation in Kenya with a new program which is trying a new tactic to get condoms into the community by distributing them with cigarette packets, among other (less life-threatening) consumer products.

The problem? Is it ok to prevent one fatal disease (AIDS) by promoting another (cancer)? Is this just a case of the lesser of two evils?

The obvious advantage of a program like this is:

The cigarettes act as a delivery mechanism, making sure the condom gets to where it’s needed, namely a truck stop bar on the road to Mombasa at 2am on a Saturday. - Scott Gilmore, Peace Dividend Trust

My initial reaction is that the only reason this is even being considered as an appropriate course of action is because cancer is not yet a major health issue in much of Africa. Africans are just not living long enough to get cancer, yet. But what happens when they do?

Fast forward 10 years, and I could be incredibly angry at well-meaning do gooders who trained me to buy cigarettes in order to get a condom, and thereby avoid the social stigma of going into a shop and actually buying what I really needed in the first place - safe sex, if I ended up with lung cancer.

Here is what the man behind the idea has to say:

The objective is to attach condoms, in the factory, to a range of widely consumed products distributed to the periphery of the economies of HIV-vulnerable weak states (including sub-Saharan African states, PNG and Timor-Leste) using market networks. Products being considered include soap, telephone cards, razor blades and cigarettes (pictured).

The use of tobacco products, despite their known health risks, is proposed because of the level of consumption of cigarettes and the serious nature of the epidemic. From a harm-minimisation perspective, smoking is bad, but smoking and practising unsafe sex is worse. - Rod Nixon

Sorry Rod, but the condoms with a pack of smokes idea still doesn’t work for me.

I know life is often a choice between a lesser of two evils, but the risk of encouraging behaviour to prevent one serious disease with the sanctioning of another behaviour which causes serious disease is bad policy that comes with high long-term risk.

October - that’s a wrap! My top 10 blog posts this month

For all the people too busy saving a life, being the change, sleeping, sunning themselves, or generally too preoccupied with life to read blog posts as they happen, I’ve compiled my top 10 blog posts of October in one tidy post:

1. Why the revolution might be tweeted (in ten years time) - brings you my take on Malcolm Gladwell’s ripple-causing New Yorker article on activism and creating social change.

2. R U OK? - was written for #RUOK day, a day intended to increase awareness of mental health and suicide prevention. The social media campaign has come under some criticism, and I think Jonathan Crossfield has a point, but I err on the side of support for initiatives like this. Conversations can be so damn difficult.

3. The true size of Africa is a great infograph, appropriately named.

4. This quote on poverty porn was popular (and popularly reblogged in the wonderful tumblr way)

5. I asked if we all have internet cause fatigue (and had to explain myself in the comments)

6. And I argue cause marketers should give Gen Y a bit more credit and try marketing to this generation differently to stay ahead of the curve in does it have to be about me all the time?

7. What makes a good NGO website is something I’ve been working on lately, and so have other people I presume given the popularity of the post, but I would have liked some comments with other people’s tips of good NGO websites. I blame myself for not being more specific with ‘my ask’ (oh, can you tell what industry I’m in?) - or you could read the post & help me out now.

8. I went and saw I’m still here and then wrote a review of it, and then posted that on my facebook page, which is where the extra traffic for this came from. This tells me something about spreading the word about my writing across different channels, the importance of getting personal, and that…my friends like movies. Profound.

9. The next two installments of my ongoing blog post series Africa is not a country…is it? came out - did you miss discovering more about Cameroon or Cape Verde?

10. And finally, this quote on internet litter, is spot on.

p.s. Did you miss my weekend link reader? It comes with extra sauce.

p.s.s. the photo above was a welcome surprise I ordered from a coffee shop in India, the memory still makes me smile.

Africa is not a country….is it? - Cape Verde!

This post is part of my ‘A Country in Africa’ series.

And the first island country in this series enters the picture! Cape Verde, a former Portuguese Colony, is actually made up of over 15 islands 570kms off the coast of West Africa.

Previously unpopulated, the islands were discovered in 1462, and then inhabited by Portuegese settlers, which accounts for today’s small population (560,000 people) and majority Creole ethnic makeup. And my, are they beautiful in a kind of haunting way if my google image search is anything to go by.

Quick facts:

• Cape Verde was the place to be! Both Sir Francis Drake and Charles Darwin made stopovers there
• The islands became an important location for the Atlantic slave trade owing to their strategic location
• The capital city is Praia
• Portuguese and Cape Verdan Creole are the official languages.

The money

I was really not sure what to expect at all from the (limited) indicators I’ve been looking at in this series. A series of islands off the coast? I was thinking tourism? Maybe trade given the coast lines? But in general I was expecting stronger indicators than I’ve seen recently in Burundi, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon.

And I was not all wrong. Cape Verde has a GDP per capita of $3,600 (Cameroon $2,300; Canada, $38,200), which doesn’t sound fantastic. But volcanic islands mean limited natural resources, and limited agricultural opportunities.

The ease of doing business in Cape Verde is a problem, ranking 146 out of 183 economies around the globe does not put the islands in an ideal place on a list like this. (Rwanda, 67; Burkina Faso, 147)

When it comes to corruption, though, Cape Verde is much, much stronger, standing at an impressive 46 out of 180 ranked economies. (Rwanda, 89; Burkina Faso, 79).

Approximately 20% of the population lives in extreme poverty, and the islands do rely on foreign aid to support the population.

Health
And here is where the whole “island” part of “island country” meets my preconceptions. Cape Verde has an impressive life expectancy of 71 years.

 
Cape Verde compared to Australia and Cameroon - life expectancy & GDP from 1900-2009 via Gapminder.

The Gapminder graph shows a positive trend in both life expectancy and GDP, though gains in GDP have not been dramatic.

In terms of the Milennium Development Goals - the great news is that Cape Verde is on track to reach most of the MDGs by 2015. Even better, it has already achieved universal primary education, promotes gender equality and women’s empowerment, reduced childhood mortality, and improved maternal health.

With relatively low (compared to some areas of mainland Africa) rates of malaria and HIV, Cape Verde deals well with poor health resources in a more favourable environment in terms of serious infectious disease.

While I could go on and on with more and more facts, I am summing up all my research by asking myself two questions based on what I have learned

Would I travel to Cape Verde? Yes! Islands, volcanic landscape, democratic stability and Creole culture make the islands sound like a fascinating place to visit.

Would I want to live there? Not really, though only because I’ve never loved the idea of island life full time. I’m a big city kind of gal, and one that doesn’t love boats, which could be a problem in a place where going anywhere means crossing water.

This post is part of my ‘A Country in Africa’ series, see also: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi and Cameroon.

[image: lonely planet]

Africa is not a country….is it? - Cameroon!

This post is part of my ‘A Country in Africa’ series.

A coastline, mountains, deserts, rainforests, beaches, iconic animals - Cameroon, otherwise known as mini-Africa, certainly sounds like it has a lot to offer a travel-devotee (like myself). Relative political stability is also an attractive feature, as is the famed local makossa music.

Quick facts:

• Cameroon has one of the best named coastlines in the world - who wouldn’t want to swim in the “Bight of Bonnie”?
• The word “Cameroon” means river of shrimp, courtesy of the Portuguese sailors who stumbled ashore in 1472
• The capital city is Yaounde
• French and English are the official languages, and there are over 200 other identified linguistic groups in the country. That’s impressive.

The money

After the shock of Burundi, it is somewhat of a relief to find Cameroon languishing somewhere ‘in the middle’, though a GDP per capita of $2,300 is not exactly great news. (Canada, $38,200; Nepal, $1,200)

The ease of doing business in Burundi is incredibly discouraging, with Burundi ranking 171 out of 183 economies around the globe. (Canada, 8; Nepal, 123)

Corruption is a serious inhibitor of business and investment, with Cameroon standing at 146th our of 180 ranked economies. (Canada, 8; Nepal, 143)

Much of the population lives in extreme poverty and relies on subsistence farming, and income disparity is a very real problem. Apparently there is oil and relatively developed infrastructure to support resource extraction (ouch!), but unfavourable business conditions are limiting investments in the country.

Health
Like many countries in Africa, Cameroon has been devastated by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and other serious infectious diseases, which have taken a huge toll on life expectancy and health indicators. If you are born in Cameroon today, you can expect to live until the age of 52. Still, this is an improvement from 2003 when life expectancy was a mere 48 years.

 
Cameroon compared to Australia and Burundi - life expectancy & GDP from 1900-2009 via Gapminder.

Looking at the Gapminder graph above, the past twenty years have not been kind to Cameroon. While not as erratic as Burundi, which has experienced serious conflict, it is not great to see a triangle in these indicators. It is also sobering to note that Australians in 1901 were living longer than people from Cameroon in 2000.

In terms of the Milennium Development Goals - there is not as much good news as I would like. But let’s look at the good news first. Cameroon is on track to achieve universal primary education. If some changes are made, there could be gains in combating HIV, malaria and other serious diseases.

The bad news? Cameroon is off track in maternal health, gender equality and women’s empowerment, and reducing childhood mortality. There is also insufficient information available to track environmental sustainability, and there is not enough information to track extreme poverty and hunger.

While I could go on and on with more and more facts, I am summing up all my research by asking myself two questions based on what I have learned

Would I travel to Cameroon? Yes! Mini-Africa and relative political stability make it look like one of the more appealing destinations on the African continent.

Would I want to live there? No. But I would consider it in the capacity of aid and development work so I can tell more stories like this one.

This post is part of my ‘A Country in Africa’ series, see also: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, and Burundi.

My top 10 blog posts of September

Too time poor to read blog posts as they happen? You’re in luck! I’ve compiled my top 10 blog posts of September in one tidy little post.

Without further ado, here’s what you liked reading most this month:

1. Banning the burqa - the debate I don’t want to debate was by far my most popular post. Which makes me happy, as I’d rank it as my most important post in the past 30 days too.

2. The new CARE Australia video was also a hit - it’s all slick n stuff. You should watch it.

3. I always suspected there were more poetry fans out there than people admit, which explains why my live-tweeting post from the Overload Poetry Festival was popular.

4. And people wanted to know why the kids are all right too.

5. My Africa is not a country series is generally popular, find out why by checking out Burkina Faso

6. Or better still, check out Burundi (which was less popular but arguably more important, so I’m bending the rules)

7. Did you see this? No, me either is worth the attention. Really.

8. People also wanted to watch Sheryl Wu Dunn’s TED talk on women and poverty, which makes me smile.

9. And apparently people are wondering what to get my for my 30th at the end of the year

10. Finally, the popularity of this post tells me my wonderful readers are probably the type who think books are an essential item and should be GST free.

Did you like something that didn’t make the list? Tell me, I’d love to know what tickled you.

[image: out in America]

Poverty doesn’t cause conflict

Poverty doesn’t cause conflict, according to Chris Blattman, who is doing research on conflict and governance in Africa.

I like the stuff from Chris, and link to him fairly often, because he says new things about poverty. He challenges my preconceived ideas (like that unemployed young men increase the risk of conflict) in interesting ways.

Of particular interest to me today are his thoughts on the future of International NGOs and their role in good governance:

• It’s a good moment for conflict NGOs to rethink their future
• Institutional change and peace-building are a local processes you can (at best) support
• It’s harder than most of the things you do
• Do it seriously or don’t mess around
• Have realistic expectations of the pace of change
• Experiment and innovate

One thing I worry about with NGOs is the ability to turn the ship around mid course, if that’s what is needed. More than that, I worry that many NGOs work so hard, with so little staff, on such big/important projects, that the capabilities for quality monitoring and evaluation are seriously limited.

Suggestion? Add Chris to your google reader/news feed (you have one of those, right?)

Weekend reader - links, because they’re worth it

- Can you be a ‘homeless’ homeless person?

- This could possibly be the best advice I’ve ever read on presenting and audience (Chris Brogan)

- Sex with drunk girls is funny, according to Amazon (Sociological Images)

- The Guardian shows you what it is like growing up in Africa as part of its coverage of the UN MDG Summit in New York this week, but there has been criticism of the media for largely ignoring the summit, and the standard criticism that famous people have no business fighting poverty (which I disagree with, but that’s for another time).

- Speaking of the UN, did you know the UN has a 24hr webcast? This morning I listened to a session about stabilising Sudan (and found out that violence here is escalating, again).

- Why having a writer in the family can suck for everyone - Emily Gould & The Rumpus

- Hate overhearing people’s conversations on the train? This is why

- An interactive literary map of Manhattan? Tres cool.

- And finally, I can’t work out whether Penelope Trunk is insanely brave or insanely annoying (or both), but I read her e mails in full every time:

“You have two names, you claim you’re a millionaire, and you’re lying on the floor taking drugs.”

p.s. like links? Here’s some from last week.

p.p.s Africa is not a country, but Burundi is.

[Photo: one of my favourites from Kolkata, India]

Africa is not a country….is it? - Burundi!

This post is part of my ‘A Country in Africa’ series.

I need you to do something for me. Sit back and take a deep breath. Inhale deeply, fill your lungs all the way up, let your chest rise. And now exhale slowly and say “we can end extreme poverty in our time.”

Now come with me. We have a lot to discuss when it comes to Burundi.

Quick facts:
    •    Burundi is one of the smallest countries in Africa, but also one of the most overpopulated
    •    It is landlocked (and we know what that means…)
    •    The capital city is Bujumburu
    •    French comes in handy there, as does Kirundi and Swahili, none of which I speak.

The pain

How else to describe what has happened in this tortured part of the world? War, genocide, conflict, extreme poverty, refugees, violence against women, death, disease. Everything I read about Burundi is devastating.

The warring between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes has decimated the country in almost every way, and continues to plague the region. I can’t quite understand how I studied the Rwandan genocide at university and yet know so little about the situation in Burundi. I mean, I knew a bit, in fact the only thing I did know about Burundi before this was that the Hutus and Tutsi conflict was present there too. But I had no idea how extreme the situation is.

Nor did I understand that it is this conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi that continues to ravage the Democratic Republic of Congo today. Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda are all affected by the class-based conflict, and peace still looks to be a long way off. A new report by the United Nations into war crimes in the Congo is further revealing realities of Hutu-Tutsi atrocities.

The fighting continues.

The money

And here it is - the country with the lowest GDP per capita in the world (shared with the Democratic Republic of Congo). If you’re from Burundi, you can expect to live off $300 per year. This seems like a good time to say out loud ‘there are 365 days in a year.’

The ease of doing business in Burundi is incredibly discouraging, with Burundi ranking 176 out of 183 economies around the globe.

Corruption is also yet another bad indicator, with Burundi ranking 168th our of 180 ranked economies.

Health
War, HIV/AIDS, and serious infectious disease have taken a huge toll on life expectancy and health indicators. If you are born in Burundi today, you can expect to live until the age of 51. Infant mortality is poor, at 64 deaths/1000 live births, and 46% of the population are aged 14 years and under.

 
Burundi compared to Australia and Burkina Faso - life expectancy & GDP from 1900-2009 via Gapminder.

Looking at the Gapminder graph above, it’s clear that Burundi has never been on a great trajectory, but things started heading dramatically backwards in the decade from 1987-1997. War, genocide and HIV/AIDS. Burundi (like Burkina Faso) has not experienced a substantial increase in health or GDP in the past century.

In terms of the Milennium Development Goals - there is virtually no such thing in Burundi. Burundi isn’t even listed on the site I normally use for this research and I had to use the official UN data site, which is not user friendly. I ended up visiting over ten different sites and can conclude that there is very little information available, and what is available is depressing. Burundi is off-target for every single MDG, and has only made a slight gain in the education of boys and girls.

While I could go on and on with more and more facts, I am summing up all my research by asking myself two questions based on what I have learned:

Would I travel to Burundi? Sadly, no.

Would I want to live there? No. But I would consider it in the capacity of aid and development work so I can tell more stories like this one.

This post is part of my ‘A Country in Africa’ series, see also: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana and Burkina Faso.

Africa is not a country….is it? - Burkina Faso!

I’m sure there must have been a really great reason to change the name of your country, but if my country had a name as cool as the Republic of Upper Volta, I’d think twice about changing it. How cool would it be to have a passport for the Republic of Upper Volta?!? Unfortunately, as of 1984, no one has a passport from there anymore…though Burkina Faso is not too shabby a name either, come to think of it.

And all that’s before I’ve even talked about the fantastically titled capital city – who wouldn’t want to live in a city called Ouagadougo? All those vowels!

General chit-chat about names aside, Burkina Faso has a few things that set off alarm bells for someone like me who has started pricking up my ears at terms like “Africa” and “land-locked”. Paul Collier has told me just how dangerous these two qualities can be for a country. Time to find out more…

Quick facts:

• Burkina Faso is oooold, being populated some time between 14,000 and 5000 BC
• It became a French protectorate in 1896, then went through separations, conflicts, independence, in-fighting, factional disputes and general war for a long, long time
• Burkina Faso means ‘land of honest people
• It is an important contributor to the African film industry

The money

With a depressing GDP per capita of a meagre $1,200, Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 204th out of 227 countries. That is absolutely shocking. I guess this is what Paul Collier is talking about when he talks about land-locked, resource poor countries with unstable neighbours – not a good position to be in at all.

The ease of doing business in Burkina Faso is not good either, with the country ranking 155 out of 183 economies around the globe.

Corruption is not as bad as I was expecting after the two abysmal indicators above, with Burkina Faso coming in at a remarkable 79th out of 180 economies. For comparison, China is at #79, and Thailand is at #84, so this is a good sign.

Health

HIV/AIDS and poverty have wreaked havoc on the life expectancy and health of the population too. A life expectancy of just 53 years. Infant mortality is a devastating 85 deaths/1000 live births, and women have an average of 6 children each. This makes my heart ache.

As if that wasn’t enough, the chances of getting serious infectious diseases is also sky high. Malaria, typhoid, yellow fever, schistosomiasis, rabies – they’re all there.

Burkina Faso compared to Australia and Botswana - life expectancy & GDP from 1900-2009 via Gapminder.

Looking at the Gapminder graph above, it’s clear that Burkina Faso has just never really ‘taken off,’ for want of a better term. Whereas the HIV/AIDS epidemic really set Botswana back decades, Burkina Faso has not experienced a substantial increase in health or GDP in the past century.

Things don’t even start looking up when considering the Millennium Development Goals, with Burkina Faso not having achieved any goals, and not being on track to meet any either by 2015. This is the stuff of, well, sadly, the African cliché.

While I could go on and on with more and more facts, I am summing up all my research by asking myself two questions based on what I have learned:

Would I travel to Burkina Faso? No, nope, no way, not a chance.

Would I want to live there? Um, no. Better leave this one for the experts. 

This post is part of my ‘A Country in Africa’ series, see also: Algeria, Angola, Benin, and Botswana.