Development Policy — Ethnic Supplies

Doing business in areas of conflict

July 23, 2009 By ethnicsupplies Leave a Comment

I haven’t written much lately, as I have been nursing a nasty summer bug. Any how before all that happened I had the chance to attend a networking event organised by the good folk at Business Fights Poverty . This was one of a number of events that they have put on since January 2009 and the idea was to bring together practitioners, academics and other interested people from the business world to discuss how business can contribute to poverty alleviation in developing world.

The event on 14 July considered the subject of doing business in areas of conflict, and the topic we were invited to consider was

Peace and economic growth are closely related. How can policy makers maximize the impact of private sector for both peace and development?

At this stage if you are like me you may wonder and in fact ask whether

Business has any role to play in bringing about peace in areas of conflict
What business opportunities could possibly exist in war torn areas
What about safety implications?

It would appear that to a certain extent your fears/ concerns would not be unfounded as we soon found out from the guest speakers on the night Diana Klein from Peace, Building issues programme, International Alert, Andrew Bone Head, International Relations De Beers and Lisa Curtis, Adviser, ManoCap. What is important to note is that they also provided solutions to some of these concerns, and if all else fails there is INSURANCE

I found Diane’s presentation especially interesting. According to Diane business can thrive in conflict areas so long as they comply and are not seen to be contributing to the unrest. One of the ways in which businesses maybe unknowingly contribute to the unrest would be to employ foreign workers Diana went on to say!

I found this interesting as not so long ago our Prime Minsiter here in the UK was quoted to have said something along the lines “British jobs for British workers” in response to strikes in the oil industry here in UK. That being the case is there any wonder that folk in the developing countries would take to the streets in similar circumstances?

On the issue of compliance, I recalled a situation in Uganda where Mehta an Asian owned business group was allocated some land in Mabira Forest an ancient forest in Uganda and the locals didn’t agree, here is what happened next .

What is interesting about this forest is that many years ago it was a 7 mile forest with numerous species of tress and you could not see beyond a few yards, today the locals have moved in and started subsistence farms, and there are holiday chalets for hire, but the locals were up in arms over the thought of their forest being given away to a foreign business company. If you are a company what do you do in a situation such as this?

I understand that, that wasn’t the end of the story and here is the latest discussion on the matter

At the event there was a man whose job involves getting Palestine and Israel to do business together! He had an interesting tale about getting all sides to work together as well as the results that ahve beena cheived thus far. Earlier this year I wrote about the experiences of an olive farmer on my other blog

So do you think there are business opportunities in areas of conflict?

Filed Under: Business Opportunity, Development Policy, Good Practice Tagged With: Business, developing world, Uganda

Africa doesn't need Obama's style of democracy

July 13, 2009 By ethnicsupplies Leave a Comment

Really? A lot has been written about Obama’s vist to Africa and I have scanned and read a few of the artcles/blogs. Earlier today I came across this one although it would appear that it has since been pulled, unless something is wrong at my end

Zimbabwe Tribune Is Mr. Obama out of touch with the African question?
Zimbabwe Tribune – Harare,Zimbabwe
Africa needs to curtail spiraling poverty, widespread disease and falling literacy rates. Poverty is at the centre of what has caused so much suffering, .

I do agree with the opening statement but the article went on to say Africans didn’t really care for democracy and certainly not the sort of democracy that is being advocated by Obama and his chums. Obama was out of touch with African affairs and so was the rest of the Western world and as such this explains the lack of progress in spite of the billions of dollars that have been poured into Africa. Apparently the likes of Mugabe have remained in power precisely because they have spent their money where it matters??

Anyway reading this article in particualr remined of something I wrote about way back in Nov last year and if you missed it here it is

Having followed the news headlines particularly on reactions from around the world the issue of expectations of the new president stood out for me. In particular the expectations of the people of the people of Kogelo in kenya. This is a poor African village and the news that one of their own made it the highest office in the land is put simply a Miracle

Ok he is not a Kenyan president, but when I watched the interviews of the villagers on TV I got a feeling that the villagers believe Obama’s victory is crucial for their village and as one commentator put it “they believe their streets will soon be lined with gold” Why would a news reporter say such a thing?

Well you would have to understand how politics works in some parts of Africa in order to understand such a statement

Generally speaking in some areas of Africa politics and nepotism go hand in hand and therefore it

is generally accepted that the life of folk in a certain village will improve if one of their own get’s into government “she/he will look after us”

An illustration of this is the First Lady of Uganda is the MP for Ruhanga in the SW of the Country where we are currently working to improve the lives of the villagers. But one Ugandan business person I approached for support said to me “why should I help those people? their tribes people are in power and as far as I understand a lot of money has been invested in their villages!”

My efforts to convince him otherwise fell on deaf ears

The other side to these sorts of expectations of the person in government are rather sinister in that it is implied that the person is corrupt!

As I watched the scenes from the Kenyan village I couldn’t help but wonder whether they believe that a president Obama will increase aid to their village or whether the assocaition will draw tourists into their village who will spend money in their village and thereby improve their lives!

So the question I ask today, did Obama’s speech/visit to Africa inspire folk to do more to help themselves out of poverty or did it raise un realistic expectations?

Is Obama’s kind of democracy possible in places where people are starving, dying of disease or is it a necessity in order that these issues can resolved?

Is there anyone out there that understands Africa’s problems and how to resolve them? One thing for certain as someone I met two weeks ago put it “there are no Silver bullets”

What do you think?

Filed Under: Development Policy, International Policy

An incredible journey by canadian peas

July 12, 2009 By ethnicsupplies 2 Comments

Listening to Obama’s speech yesterday reminded of my trip to Uganda last year. He urged Africa to stand up for herself specifically to come up with solutions to its problems. He told the audience that he would like to see an Africa that sells food to the developing world.

This was certainly the case for Zimbabwe in the early 90′s, there were bananas, apples etc on the shelves of my local supermarket market PRODUCE OF ZIMBABWE, one has to ask how did all go so wrong that Zimbabwe has come to need FOOD AID?

I wrote about this year’s G8 SUMMIT in L’Aquila Itlay and their commitment to increase food security for Africa in particular. But how do you ensure that food gets to where it is meant to be or that as President’ Obama’s wish for African countries to become suppliers of food elsewhere in the world?

Whilst in Uganda in September 2008 I discovered that Peas that were donated by the Canadian government to the people of Rwanda made their way onto a fruit and veg market in Uganda. I however never considered that the same peas would make it to Isle Worth in West London England!

These Peas journey in summary is Canada- Rwanda- Uganda- London…Phew!

What are they doing in s hop in Isleworth you may ask? Well most of us in immigrant communities have foods we love that are not available in main stream supermarkets and mine is Ugandan sweet potatoes and tea

I therefore make the journey from Surrey to Isleworth on and off to get those sweet potatoes and on that visit I discovered that the same peas I had seen in a market in Uganda were on sale in the shop in Isleworth! The shopkeeper was amazed when I told him about the incredible journey these peas had made to Isleworth!

Should we in the UK be buying food that was given as part of the Food Aid programme donated to the developing world, I asked him? He agreed that this is wrong and that he would take his suppliers to task about it. That was 2008! I have since been back to the same shop in Isleworth and I am pleased to report that they have stopped stocking these peas.

That aside, this example illustrates that FOOD AID is open to abuse as the food does not necessarily get to those that need it/for whom it is meant.

How do we guard against/end this kind of abuse? I suspect that some of the reason this sort of thing happens may have to do with poor wages for staff on the ground who quite possibly see this a perk that comes with their jobs. The selling of food that is meant to be given out free of charge is additional income for them? What do you think?

If that were indeed the case what do we do? Pay them more? or stop sending the FOOD AID altogether?

Filed Under: Development Policy, food distribution