Received: from SOUTH-STATION-ANNEX.MIT.EDU by po7.MIT.EDU (5.61/4.7) id AA09039; Wed, 31 May 95 21:42:38 EDT Received: from atlanta.american.edu by MIT.EDU with SMTP id AA16006; Wed, 31 May 95 21:42:35 EDT Received: from atlanta (atlanta.american.edu [147.9.1.6]) by atlanta.american.edu (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id TAA71467; Wed, 31 May 1995 19:59:43 -0400 Received: from LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU by LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8a) with spool id 1160446 for DEVEL-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU; Wed, 31 May 1995 19:59:33 -0400 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by atlanta.american.edu (8.6.12/8.6.11) id TAA90123; Wed, 31 May 1995 19:59:30 -0400 Received: from relay3.UU.NET (relay3.UU.NET [192.48.96.8]) by atlanta.american.edu (8.6.12/8.6.11) with SMTP id TAA71672; Wed, 31 May 1995 19:59:25 -0400 Received: from lan.vita.org by relay3.UU.NET with SMTP id QQysdz16355; Wed, 31 May 1995 19:59:25 -0400 Received: by lan.vita.org (5.64/PERFORMIX-0.9/08-16-92) id AA23169; Wed, 31 May 95 19:59:57 EDT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Message-Id: Date: Wed, 31 May 1995 19:59:56 -0400 Reply-To: DevelopNet News Sender: Technology Transfer in International Development From: DevelopNet News Subject: Your DevelopNet News for June X-To: dnn-l@american.edu, devel-l@american.edu To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @@@@@ @@@@@@ @@ @@ @@@@@@ @@ @@@@@ @@@@@@ @@ @@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@ @@@@@@ @@ @@ @@@@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@@ @@ @@@ @@ @@@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@ @@@@@@ @@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@ @@ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @@ @@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@ On-Line News and Views on @@@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@@@ @@@@@@@ @@ Technology Transfer in @@ @@@ @@ @@ @@ @@ @@@@@@@ @@ International Development %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @@@@@ @@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@ @@ @@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% June 1995 Volume 5, No. 6 IN THIS ISSUE EDITORIAL Is the World a Better Place? LITERATURE REVIEWS Drought Trees Information Superhighway: Africa Finding 20,000 Nongovernmental Organizations Recent Nutrition Workshops ORGANIZATIONS Microenterprise Development Worldwide Zimbabwe's Farm Radio Network VITA PROJECTS Chad Project Nears Independence ANNOUNCEMENTS Energy Economics 2020 Vision for Food * * * DevelopNet News is published monthly by Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA) in Arlington, Virginia, USA. For additional information, please see the end of this newsletter. * * * Editorial IS THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE? According to J. Brian Atwood (U.S. Agency for International Development, Arlington, Virginia), international cooperation in foreign aid has achieved major successes. His examples highlight the importance of tech- nology transfer: -- In the past 50 years, infant and child death rates in the developing world have been reduced by 50%, and health conditions around the world have improved more during this period than in all previous human history. -- Life expectancy in the developing world has increased by about 33%, and the percentage of rural families with access to safe water has risen from less than 10% to almost 60%. -- Smallpox has been eradicated worldwide and polio in [the Western] [H]emisphere. -- Oral rehydration therapy, a low cost and easily administered solution developed through USAID programs in Bangladesh, is credited with saving tens of millions of lives. -- In 1980, only 20% of the world's children were immunized, today 80% are. -- In the past 20 years the number of the world's chronically undernour- ished has been reduced by 50%. -- Average real incomes since WWII have doubled in the developing world and the world economy has grown from $3,000,000 million ($3 trillion) in 1946 to $23,000,000 million today. -- The Green Revolution resulted in the most dramatic increases in agri- cultural yields and production in the history of mankind, allowing nations like India and Bangladesh to become nearly food self-sufficient. -- Literacy rates are up 33% worldwide in the last 25 years, and the primary school enrollment has tripled in that period. -- In the 28 countries with the largest USAID-sponsored family planning programs, the average number of children per family has dropped from 6.1 in the mid-1960s to 4.2 today. -- As recently as 1981, 60% of the governments in Latin America were dictatorships or military governments. Today, 98% of the Americas now have democratically elected governments. -- The UN International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade in the 1980s resulted in 1,300 million people receiving safe drinking water sources and 750 million people receiving sanitation for the first time. Source: J. Brian Atwood, 1995. Remarks delivered at Georgetown Univer- sity, Washington, D.C., 16 March. Literature Reviews DROUGHT TREES Felix A. Ryan, 1994(?). Selected Drought Trees for Dry Villages. Madras (India): Ryan Foundation (8 West Muda Street, Srinagar Colony, Madras 600 015). This attractive booklet (48 pages, 13.5 X 21 cm) is divided into 21 sections, each describing one or more trees or shrubs, common in South Asia, but underused in villages that could profit by cultivating them. Its purpose is to provide concise guidance and technical information to meet the needs of local people. The booklet's sections are also avail- able separately as "handouts." For each plant, there is a simple sketch, the scientific name and coun- try of origin, the main commercial uses of the wood, fruit, or other plant parts, other suggested uses, and suggestions for propagation. The author also provides suggestions for "mini projects" and do-it-yourself projects to generate income for poor people. Ryan Foundation Interna- tional, a registered public charity, distributes its materials at very low cost. The author is generally careful about the accuracy of claims made for the value of different plants. For example, in his description of Ailanthus ("Tree of Heaven"), he discounts claims that the bark has medicinal value. But he misses a few facts, too: in the section on the celebrated neem tree (Azadarachta) he repeats a claim, that neem oil is effective against leprosy, for which this reviewer knows no evidence. In another place, he incorrectly gives the population of India as "800 crore" (1 crore = 10 million). In spite of minor errors, the booklet is a model of what a small non- profit organization can do at low cost to print and disseminate needed technical information for end-users. INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY: AFRICA Regional Africa Symposium on Telematics for Development, 1995. [Draft] Recommendations. Addis Ababa: UN Economic Commission for Africa. Tony Hall, 1995. "Let's Get Africa's Act Together and Head for the Highway. Users, Donors, and Policymakers Start Face-to-Face Networking." Article posted 5 April on AFRICANA-L electronic mailing list by Ben Parker . Is Africa ready for the Information Superhighway? Some 250 information specialists, users, donors, and policymakers addressed this question at the Regional Africa Symposium on Telematics for Development, held in Addis Ababa from 3 to 7 April. They met to share ideas and work out ways of easing national regulations and user fees. Africa has 12% of the world's people and 2% of its phone lines. Although local calls are cheap, the average African spends less than a minute a year on the telephone. The continent has the highest phone installation costs in the world and it can cost $25 to send a one-page fax. Four African countries have full Internet connectivity, 33 have internal net- works, and fewer than 20 have no form of electronic connection. Asrat Bulbula (Ethiopian Science and Technology Commission) said, "The cost saving and convenience (of electronic communication) is changing our social and office activities . . . [and the] sharing and organizing of noncomputing resources. . . . Telematics is a need and not a choice." The Symposium's draft recommendations (four pages) address building political leadership in telematics for development, collaboration and coordination, regulatory issues, training, connectivity and participa- tion, technical innovation, and broadband and multimedia perspectives. FINDING 20,000 NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS Christina N. Anson, 1995. A Guide to NGO Directories; How to Find Over 20,000 Nongovernmental Organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean; 2nd ed. Inter-American Foundation (Publications Office, 901 North Stuart Street, 10th Floor, Arlington, Virginia 22203. Tel. +1 (703) 841-3800, fax +1 (703) 841-0973, e-mail . This tidy, 24-page pamphlet describes 42 directories which, in turn, represent 20,000 groups of people "working to improve the standards of living of their members, communities, and countries." Copies of the directories can be obtained from their publishers, and this publication provides instructions regarding each directory. Each description includes the date of publication, the address and telephone number of the publisher, and the count of organizations listed in that directory. According to Anson, "The growth of NGOs in Latin America and the Carib- bean in recent years has been nothing less than explosive." RECENT NUTRITION WORKSHOPS (Source: International Food Policy Research Institute, 1995. "Research Perspectives." IFPRI Report, February, pages 3-5. (IFPRI, 1200 17th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036-3006. Tel. +1 (202) 862-5600, fax +1 (202) 467-4439, e-mail .) -- Saly, Portudal (Senegal), December 1994. African food issues to 2020. Working groups agreed that the blame for Africa's poor agricultural and trade performance should rest equally on domestic and international fac- tors. Africa will continue to need imported food. The participants lis- ted strategic options. -- Airlie House, Virginia, November 1994. "Ecoregions of the Developing World -- A Lens for Assessing Food, Agriculture, and the Environment to the Year 2020." The world's ecoregions (humid and subhumid tropics, semi-arid and warm tropics, etc.) will require different combinations of technology, policies, and institutional relations. These were summa- rized, along with such cross-regional issues as extension systems, modeling of agricultural and environmental interaction, natural resources managent, and population migration. -- Columbia, Maryland, October 1994. Farmers in Niger, Haiti, Honduras, and many other places cooperate in natural resources management. These efforts, although increasingly important, are not widely studied or well documented. This workshop concentrated on research methods to produce results and recommendations to serve the changing needs of local organ- izations, national policymakers, and public agencies. Participants developed guidelines for standard methods for use across a range of resources. They agreed that monitoring of projects over time is essen- tial to understand their effects on natural resources. -- Accra (Ghana), December 1994. "Food Security, Nutrition, and Devel- opment in Ghana." Participants listed important policy issues, including macro policies, agricultural growth and transformation, production tech- nology, and household food and nutrition practices. Agricultural growth in Ghana has lagged behind population growth, and urbanization has increased demands upon food-producing systems. The adoption of new technologies remains slow, and agricultural growth is hindered by neglect of the needs of small farms. Finally, the country urgently needs a national nutrition policy and strategy. -- Annapolis, Maryland, December 1994. Nontimber tree products were the focus of this workshop. Participants pinpointed issues related to tech- nologies, market development, and environmental impact. Forest clearing by poor people, who need fuel or space to grow crops, is a growing trend and it is becoming critically important to find environmentally sustain- able economic activities for them and their families. Case studies included the palm wine industry in Central Africa, eucalyptus products in India, and woodfuel products in Malawi and Niger. Organizations MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT WORLDWIDE Throughout the developing world, microcredit programs are using lending and village banking to reach the very smallest enterprises. Even in such comparatively affluent countries as Finland and the United States of America, particular banks are targeting low-income, urban enterprises for urban development, using models based on Third-World successes. In North America, the Small Enterprise Education and Promotion Network (SEEP) membership includes 38 private development organizations that support micro and small enterprise programs in the developing world. SEEP provides coordination and information services to its members. A recent report from the SEEP Network summarized microenterprise devel- opment worldwide. East African organizations provide small loans, and some of them serve remote rural areas. But in West Africa, credit is not readily available in the informal sector. In Latin America, loans to community organizations are efficiently distributed, and borrowers are organized in groups to guarantee repayment, but small-scale lenders tend not to survive. Lender survival is also an issue in Asia. Information: The Small Enterprise Education and Promotion Network, c/o PACT, Inc., 777 United Nations Plaza, New York, New York 10017. Tel. +1 (212) 697-6222, fax +1 (212) 692-9748. ZIMBABWE'S FARM RADIO NETWORK Livai Matarirano, 1994. "The Farm Radio Network; Communication With a Difference." Ecoforum (Nairobi), volume 18, no. 3, pages 6-7. No wonder a group of 48 women in Mhondoro, Zimbabwe, sits under a tree every Monday afternoon to discuss technologies. These are described in packets from the Farm Radio Network in Harare, the country's capital. The network is an information exchange in East and Southern Africa. In spite of its name, it does not have a radio station or pay reporters. Since 1992 it has distributed four packets a year, each containing about 10 regional scripts, to its "communicators". Some scripts are developed in Harare; others are based on packages from the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network, a Canadian nongovernmental organization. The Harare organization aims to reach small-scale farmers with new tech- nologies and information on everyday issues, through the efforts of com- municators and participants. These persons, currently more than 300 in Zimbabwe and nine neighboring countries, are carefully selected and their activities are followed up annually. They are kept on the active list only if they contribute ideas and actually disseminate materials. Rural communicators are broadcasters, health workers, farming advisors and extension workers, training center staff, journalists, teachers, and farmers themselves. Each package contains the latest communicator news- letter, which is designed to reduce the isolation of communicators from each other. Dissemination of the materials reaches millions of small-scale farmers with transcripts, translations into local languages, poems, posters, videos, plays, puppet shows, and extension classes. The selected tech- nologies must meet rigid standards regarding the need for them, the cost and availability of resources needed to use them, simplicity, ease of communication, and capacity for generating feedback. Livai Matarirano's short article may make some readers wish for more detailed information. Fortunately, the article includes a brief bibliog- raphy that lists evaluative studies. Information: Livai Matarirano, Farm Radio Network (Eastern and Southern Africa), P.O. Box 308, Harare, Zimbabwe. Tel. and fax +263 (4) 495-317. VITA Projects CHAD PROJECT NEARS INDEPENDENCE VITA's Private Enterprise Promotion Project (VITA/PEP) in Chad has been serving the needs of a large number of small, medium, and microenter- prises for more than ten years. Since 1984, the project has helped the country's private sector in and around N'Djamena and Moundou, extended agricultural loans to farmers in the town of Bongor, and opened a micro- lending "window" to reach the informal sector. VITA/PEP's statistics are impressive: It has created some 6,080 jobs and has made 9,648 loans for a total of $5,538,467, more than 70% of which have gone to women. Since 1990, VITA/PEP has initiated a new, critical process: the transi- tion from a supported project to an independent financial institution. To this end, VITA has fostered organizational commitment in local staff and developed the institutional capabilities that are required for a successful enterprise. With VITA's help, the project established organ- izational objectives and priorities and installed cost-effective finan- cial, administrative, and managerial operating systems. In June 1993, with the appointment of Evariste Kebba to the post of Project Director, the management of operations was transferred to a Chadian. Recently VITA requested from USAID a final two-year grant to make the transition. The grant will support operations and logistics in the main office in N'Djamena and in the Moundou office. It will also be used to cut down costs associated with the provision of technical assistance, help the project broaden its client base, and finance its legal transi- tion to independence. Among the issues that are faced with the transition, the most urgent is the adjustment of its interest rate. The project must successfully lobby the government for an increase, because the current 13% annual interest rate will not allow it to cover its operations and possible loan losses or maintain old equipment, much less invest in expanded plant and equip- ment facilities. VITA recently sent Cary Raditz (Energy Market Resources, Silver Spring, Maryland), an international banking and financial consultant, to Chad to assess the project and provide advice on the transition. Raditz recom- mended that the project raise its interest to 24%. In analyzing whether this would lower the demand for project services, he argued: "[A]ccess to credit is more important than price . . . a small merchant might take goods on consignment from a wholesaler for a week and pay 1,200 CFA (approximately $2.50) for what he could buy for 1,000 [CFA] in cash. This is the equivalent of 20% a week, 80% a month, 960% annually, non- compounded. Unless marketplace suppliers lower their price margins to compete, VITA/PEP can provide valuable credit services to its borrowers and earn enough to survive and grow." Overall, Raditz was optimistic about VITA/PEP's ability to complete its transition. According to him, the qualifications of its new Director, who understands commercial finance and has a private-sector commercial banking background, and the interest that VITA has maintained over the years in propagating appropriate technology, will greatly boost this effort. Information: Mohammad Shah Announcements ENERGY ECONOMICS From 5 to 8 July, the International Association for Energy Economics is sponsoring a conference on harmonizing energy policy, environment, and sustainable economic growth in the 21st century. The conference will explore all facets of energy -- oil, natural gas, electric, hydro, renewable, and nuclear -- and the requirements for energy generation in each of these areas. The keynote address, focusing on sustainable global energy policies for the 21st century, will be delivered by U.S. Vice President Al Gore. General sessions will cover a number of topics inclu- ding restructuring and competition in electricity; country energy and carbon dioxide restraint plans; implications of integration and polit- ical reform on world energy; economics of global climate change policy; global financing of clean-energy technologies; and integrated assess- ments of climate change policy. Concurrent sessions will cover a host of issues ranging from technology growth to energy markets and emerging policies for energy conservation and environmental protection in selec- ted regions. Information: David Williams, International Association for Energy Eco- nomics, 28790 Chagrin Blvd, Suite 210, Cleveland, Ohio 44122-4630; tel. + 1 (216) 464-5365; fax +1 (216) 464-2737. 2020 VISION FOR FOOD "A 2020 Vision for Food, Agriculture, and the Environment" is the title of an international conference to be held 13 to 15 June 1995 in Washing- ton, D.C. It will address the question, "How can the global community feed itself and prevent hunger to the year 2020 and beyond without destroying the natural resources on which the world depends for food, biodiversity, industry, and recreation?" More than 400 participants from 50 countries are expected to participate, and the conference is intended to provide direction to policymakers from developed and developing coun- tries about where to invest their limited resources. The conference is sponsored by the International Food Policy Research Institute and the National Geographic Society. Although there is no registration fee, space cannot be guaranteed to those who have not registered in advance. Information and registration: Barbara Rose, International Food Policy Research Institute, 1200 17th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20036. Tel. +1 (202) 862-5670, fax +1 (202) 467-4439, e-mail . * * * HOW TO JOIN VITA'S ELECTRONIC FORUM VITA's free, public, online discussion forum, DEVEL-L, provides for the exchange of ideas and information on a wide range of issues and topics related to technology transfer in international development; for exam- ple, technologies, communications in development, sustainable agricul- ture, women in development, the environment, small enterprise develop- ment, meetings, and book reviews. Subscribers to DEVEL-L automatically receive this newsletter and can download documents free from a special archive by using ftp requests or e-mail messages. To join the forum, send this message: SUB DEVEL-L (your real name, without parentheses) to this address: or . You can receive the same benefits by joining the newsgroup bit.listserv.devel-l. You can subscribe to DevelopNet News without joining the discussion forum by sending the following message to the same address: SUB DNN-L (your real name, without parentheses) Please do not send these messages to VITA. * * * DevelopNet News is an electronic newsletter published monthly by Volun- teers in Technical Assistance (VITA), a private, nonprofit, interna- tional development organization located in Arlington, Virginia. The newsletter needs your stories: you are invited to send them to the edi- tor in electronic form. Your redistribution of DevelopNet News is encouraged. Kindly send us a message on the approximate size of your mailing list; it will be helpful in our planning. Back issues can be downloaded gratis from VITA's on-line information services. President: Henry R. Norman Acting Editor: Vicki Tsiliopoulos Editorial Assistant: Rafe Ronkin, VITA Volunteer VITA specializes in information dissemination and communications tech- nology. It offers services related to sustainable agriculture, food processing, renewable energy applications, water sanitation and supply, small enterprise development, and information management. It has pro- jects in 6 African countries. VITA's publications, on a variety of practical subjects, are designed to assist persons and organizations in developing countries. You can request a descriptive publications list by postal mail, phone, or fax. You also may download the list by anonymous ftp or gopher. VITA's on-line information services: 24-hr BBS: +1 (703) 527-1086 [9600, N,8,1], gopher://gopher.vita.org, anonymous ftp://ftp.vita.org. Volunteers in Technical Assistance (VITA), 1600 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 500, Arlington, Virginia 22209. Tel. +1 (703) 276-1800, fax +1 (703) 243-1865, telex 440192 VITAUI, cable VITAINC, e-mail: Internet , FidoNet 1:109/165.