Malawi Youth Builds Windmill

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/07/11/malawi-youth-builds-windmill-to-power-village/

This article tells of William Kamkwamba who built a windmill from scraps to provide power for his home. He had to drop out of school due to lack of funds, but his primary school had a number of donated books, one of which showed in detail how to build a windmill to generate electricity. This is a very interesting example of the way that sustainable development has "trickled down" to individuals. The book he used to learn how to do this most likely came from a "first world" country.

It does seem to me that if "under-developed" countries have the desire to become developed, they should follow sustainable models (as should we, in the U.S. - we should switch to sustainable models as well). I also like the fact that this youth did it himself - he chose for himself this route towards development. It was not "forced" on him, except perhaps by showing him in a book how to generate electricity from wind power. So in this way, I am not against technology or knowledge that is "western" in its origin being used by local people in their own initiative and in their own way.

He has become a bit of a celebrity, and people are sending him donations directly. Here is his blog:

http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/

He is now going to finish school, and go to college, and has used the donations to benefit his family, extended family, and village.

I really love these personal accounts, and personal stories, and seeing how these individuals feel about their life, their future, education, etc. It is really interesting to read his blog. I find it much more inspiring than these "bigwig" conferences and political figures, and all that nonsense, which is generally depressing. The personal is more genuine, more touching, and I would say more truthful than most of the "news" these days. It is good to understand the theoretical aspects of development (like we learn in class) and also be able to see those big picture ideas in action in the little picture, and I think it's important to have both.

Sustainable Development News

I found an interesting website today: the World Business Council for Sustainable Development

http://www.wbcsd.org/

and I am reviewing this article -
http://www.wbcsd.org/plugins/DocSearch/details.asp?type=DocDet&ObjectId=MjU2MTY - from July 29, 2007

This article documents how one business in Honduras which raises and fillets fish for sale uses its own fish waste (head, scales, guts) to make biofuel which runs the whole factory as well as the buses that bring workers in each day.

I had heard about the problems with biofuel - especially that made from corn, which may be renewable but is not really sustainable. However, using fish waste that would normally simply be garbage for fuel is really a sustainable thing.

This whole website is full of "success" stories about sustainability, which is a very different kind of news source than the others I have been looking at so far (CNN, BBC, etc.). I had been looking for the more "personal" stories all this time, but most of the big news corporations are about political figures, conflicts, and the like.

World Social Forum

I had not heard of the World Social Forum before, but these two articles talk about it some:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4204829.stm
from 2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6281649.stm
from 2007

It is a gathering intended to be the opposite of the World Economic Forum, and as you can imagine it concerns itself with social issues such as poverty, disease, environmental damage, fair trade, etc.

It sounds like a very interesting forum that perhaps is able to accomplish something that the other ones (in which mainly people of means get together to talk about how the world can be improved) have failed to accomplish. I suppose it could be seen as the "socialist" vs. the "capitalist" forums, at least the way they describe in the articles.

"The World Social Forum describes itself as a platform for ordinary people to
exchange ideas opposed to a world dominated by capitalism and imperialism."

I am happy to hear about these kinds of things, and would like to know more
about these alternative forums and what they may or may not have been able to
accomplish. Anybody have any information about these?

Apocalypto

I watched "Apocalypto" the movie by Mel Gibson about the Mayans last night. I drew some interesting comparisons of the scenes of the Mayan city and the talk we had in class about the core and the periphery. You could almost see this visually in this movie, where on the outskirts of town there are the agriculture fields and the extraction of raw materials (limestone and trees) and the shanty-towns where the poor live, and as you get closer to the center, you see there are more tradespeople and craftsmen, and ultimately at the center of town there are the extremely wealthy people who are enjoying themselves, and the government. I just thought it was like a mini-model of the core and periphery - the poor, agricultural, raw materials are on the periphery (like the third world) and the wealthy merchants and probably capitalists essentially are in the center (like first world).

Also, a salient point being made in the movie was about environmental and social degradation which ultimately allowed for their downfall (with the help of Europeans of course). They overused their resources, and abused their people, and so the core collapsed along with the periphery. The beginning quote of the movie says something about how a civilization can only be destroyed from without if it is first destroyed from within.

So do aliens have to come to Earth to make us see that we are destroying ourselves from within? (teehee)

One other thing - most of the actors in the movie were not professionals, they were just normal people from Mexico - some who had never seen a movie or a camera in their life. I just wonder if the production company paid them US wages? Or did some of these village people just do it for free? Or was it conducted in an exploitative way, where none of the profits or even fair wages were paid to the actors and extras?

Burma and the US

Burma/Myanmar is my country of research for this class, so I looked for news about it. I found this article:



http://www.bbc.co.uk/burmese/news/story/2004/12/041201_thursday_dawn.shtml



Today, the US Congress voted for a one-year extension of sanctions over Burma, because of their deplorable human rights record.

The main goal of the sanctions is to gain freedom for more than one-thousand
political prisoners -- the most prominent of whom is the Nobel Peace Prize
winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San Suu Kyi also won the democratic election in 1995 but has never been allowed into office. The military basically controls the country.



The US sanctions ban imports from Burma and also denies US visas to Burma.



I guess this is sort of a form of "blackmail" in which the US (and perhaps other countries) do not allow Burma to export things, thereby harming their economy (which is in bad shape anyway) unless the Burmese people change their ways - to a real democracy.



What do you think about this kind of behavior? Is it helpful or harmful, or neither?

UN Troops authorized for Darfur

Today, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to authorize 26,000 troops and police to Darfur to stop attacks on civilians.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/07/31/darfur.troops.reut/index.html

"The plan for Darfur from now on is to achieve a cease-fire, including anend to aerial bombings of civilians; drive forward peace talks ... and, as peace is established, offer to begin to invest in recovery and reconstruction," he [British Prime minister Gordon Brown] said on a visit to the United Nations.

Since 2003, over 2 million people have become refugees in this area.

Rape, looting, murder and government bombardment drove millions from their homes in Darfur, where mostly non-Arab rebels took up arms in early 2003, accusing Khartoum of neglecting their arid region.

In many ways, I am glad that something more is going to be done about the situation in Darfur by the United Nations. Often, I have thought that it is "none of our business" to interfere with civil wars in other countries. However, when this many civilians are being attacked and driven from their homes (genocide?), it seems necessary for the other more powerful countries in the world to step in and stop the killing and displacement.

However, I do think it is ironic that we have maybe 100,0000 (more?) American troops deployed in Iraq at the moment, and we are still unsure of what to do next in that area...

Strangely I say "we" when I am referring to the U.S. although I have really no control whatsoever over our foreign policies or what "our country" does. Still, I live here, so somehow I feel in some way responsible for "our" actions as a country....

Columbian communists

I will try to be more brief in my postings, because I am not getting any comments and maybe this is because my postings are too long!

Columbia rebel group breaks off peace talks

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/07/27/colombia.rebels.reut/index.html

Basically, the Columbian government has asked the communist rebel group ELN to concentrate their troops in one area as part of the cease-fire agreement, and the rebel groups have refused. Apparently, this group got started in the 1960's along with another larger revolutionary group, and they are all branded as terrorists by the U.S. government. Of course, they are communists, so go figure. This war that has been going on kills thousands of people every year, and forces millions from their homes because of the violence between government and rebel forces.

Obviously with a civil war going on, it is hard if not impossible to proceed towards development, socially or economically. However, I think that if so many people are willing to fight and die for their communist ideals, perhaps the government should take those concerns into serious consideration. I am assuming the rest of the country (not the rebels) are more capitalistic?

Was that a short enough post to extract some comments?

Access to civil nuclear technologies crucial to development?

Last week, Libya released the five Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor who had been held for eight years on charges of deliberately infecting over 400 children with the HIV virus, with some final help from France's president Sarkozy's wife. The day after their return to Europe, President Sarkozy paid a visit to Tripoli to negotiate a deal with Libya to build a nuclear power plant to be used to desalinate sea water for drinking water. Some people have accused this deal as being a "ransom" for the medics' release. Sarkozy denies these accusations.

Sarkozy defended the project, saying access to civil nuclear technologies
was crucial to the development of countries in the region. - http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070020460

The combination of the words “nuclear” and Libya was bound to get people
screaming foul. Sarkozy’s reply is splendid: “Nuclear power is the energy of the
future. If we don’t give the energy of the future to the countries of the
Southern Mediterranean, how will they develop themselves? And if they don’t
develop how will we fight terrorism and fanaticism? And if we don’t consider
Arab countries sensible enough to use civilian nuclear power, the West risks a
war of civilizations.” - http://arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=99090&d=30&m=7&y=2007

In 2003, Libya had announced its intention to dismantle their nuclear weapons program.



Environmentalist group Greenpeace said France was irresponsible for exporting its nuclear technology for civilian needs.



The first issue in these articles (both of which discuss the release of the medics in conjunction with the nuclear power plant) is how closely, if at all, these two occurrences are. Was Libya's treatment of these six people over-zealous and unfounded? And if so (most seem to think it was), then was it used as a bargaining tactic with the rest of the world to get aid? It seems that the families of those children who were infected with HIV, many of which have subsequently died, are being compensated over a million dollars apiece. (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22096828-32682,00.html)
Some of this money will be coming from the Libyan government, some from Europe, it seems.

The other issues is whether helping Libya to build a nuclear power plants is really the way towards development. Sarkozy states that nuclear power is the way of the future, which is part of development, which connects with fighting terrorism and fanatacism, and ultimately he is connecting nuclear power with preventing a war of civilizations (see quote above). I think that statement is a bit far-fetched or at least over-extravagant in its scope. What do you think?

It always worries me when people think that by bringing this one giant thing that is "modern" into a country will somehow magically make everything better. Take the example in the Isbister text about the Indira Gandhi Canal in India (p. 148).

It is apparent that Libya wants this help though, I think. I am curious though if it is the wealthy people in Libya who want to become more wealthy through this, or if it really will help the general population to live better lives...?

Maternity leave around the world

I was reading a brief article in National Geographic (August 2007) about the statistics across the world of the amount of guaranteed maternal leave time per country. The U.S. has the absolute least in the world - only 12 weeks of unpaid leave - while places like Russia, Cuba, and Eastern Europe have at least 52 weeks and full wages. At least 66 countries allow dads time off as well, to spend with their newborns. Only the U.S., Liberia, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and Australia have no guaranteed paid leave at all. Every other country in the world, under-developed and otherwise, guarantees at least partial wages and more time off.

This article just made me think about how important it is for developing countries to also understand the negative aspects of living in a developed country. We are forced to be such work-a-holics here in the U.S., and I read somewhere that we have the least amount of time off compared to most other countries. I think it was something like, Europeans get a month or two off every year, and of course Americans only get 1-2 weeks. So be careful what you wish for!

This ties into what we were talking about in class about how/if cultural values can be maintained and incorporated into development, rather than just being Westernized by development. I would hope that these developing countries would incorporate their own values on work, time off, motherhood, etc. rather than joining the U.S. in what I consider to be an absurd amount of value placed on overworking. And yes, the more you work, the more material goods you can have, but at what cost to family, friends, relationships, free time, playtime...?

In some ways this article makes me think we don't value our children as much as others. But perhaps it is just that in our society, it is expected that one will put their children in daycare - rather than take time off of work and not make money, we would rather spend money to have someone else care for our child....I am not sure this makes sense to me. I tend to commend Russia and Cuba, despite what other conditions may exist there, they value child-parent relations enough to pay full wages and allow a year off of work.

There are some interesting responses to this article online:

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=11778

http://blog.mises.org/archives/006900.asp

Both these online responses criticize the article, and National Geographic in general, and commend the economic freedom of the U.S. and that the government stays out of the maternal leave issue and lets employers/ees decide between each other how they want to do it.

Any thoughts?

Movies and Documentaries

In the past few years, I have really been digging into movies and documentaries that address real problems and issues that are going on in the world today. One of my absolute favorites is The Corporation which is a very well-rounded review of everything to do with corporations.

I am always looking for new movies and documentaries that address social and political issues, so please let me know if you have any suggestions. The list at the right has some that I could think of off the top of my head right now. I am sure there are more that I am not remembering at the moment, and plenty that I have not even seen yet. So any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

France and Africa

France's new president, Sarkozy, made a visit to Africa and a speech in Senegal about his country's new policies in regards to Africa, "acknowledging colonialism's ills and calling for democracy, liberty, justice and law, to a mixed reception".

Here is the link:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/07/27/france.afrique.reut/index.html

As I understand it from the article, France had previously supported Chad's president Hissene Habre, who is now being charged with political torture and killings, but now France has
changed its stance on this matter. They are also supportive of a bigger role for
Africa in the U.N Security council. However many people in Africa are skeptical
of France's new policies.

"France has always been at the side of dirty dictators who have brought Africa
to its knees, who have stolen its riches and humiliated its peoples. Will France
stop that?" said a university student.

"You'd think he was here to teach schoolchildren. We already know all that. What
we want is development plans ... and access to Europe for Africans," said
science student Fallou Fall, 20."

Many Senegalese criticize Sarkozy's immigration policies, which are based on who has certain skills and qualifications. Apparently many Senegalese have made the dangerous boat crossing to the Canary Islands, in search of work in Europe. Most who are found are put on a plane and sent back home. This reminds me a lot of the U.S. immigration policies in regard to our southern neighbors.

Sarkozy says he wants an immigration policy that would welcome Africans to France, but at the same time he encourages immigrants to take their skills and qualifications and return back home to put them to good use. I would have to agree to a certain extent with this, because people are one of the greatest resources a country has, and if all their well-educated people leave and never come back, then once again it is as though Europe is exploiting Africa's resources.

I think it is a wonderful thing when people can come to Europe or America and obtain a good education, which may not be available in their home country, but I think it is important for those people to make good use of their skills to help their home country, their original community. I think of Ghandi, who went to Britain for an education, and of course returned home and led his people in a peaceful independence movement. Although he understood and was educated in a Western environment, he still maintained strong ties to his own culture and used what he learned in the West for their benefit.

I think that what some Senegalese are saying is "too little too late" about France's newfound idealism in its policies. They are wondering if it is just more political talk that will really not change anything, or if France is really overturning a new leaf. It reminds me a lot of the U.S.'s foreign policy, where at a whim and for our own benefits (economically mostly), we support one dictator, and then decide to be against him. France supported Chad's president, and now they do not.

I thought it was interesting that the science student said they wanted development plans, and access to Europe. I wonder what his definition of development is? Obviously there is a desire for access to Europe, America, and other developed countries among the rest of the world. But do they need France to help them with a development plan, or should they create one for themselves?

Welcome!

Hello everybody in my class and others who might stumble upon this blog!

The goal of this blog is to focus on current events in the area of international development, under-development, and the different perspectives on these issues. I will be reading news articles daily, commenting on their contents, and incorporating concepts discussed in class to create a forum where all comments, concerns, and criticisms will be valued.

I hope you all enjoy and participate in my blog!

Thank you.