Association for agriculture and rural development - Ghana

http://www.ecasard.org/

International Interdependance

Here is an interesting statement from one of our friends in the states:

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1661846/a-modest-proposal-the-new-declaration-of-interdependence

It talks about how nations are no longer independent, and how americans must make better decisions about what they value and consume.  I think it applies to a lot of wealthy people all around the world.

Africa: Just ask

Here's a well written article from Worldwatch Institute: Thinking Big by Starting Small. It talks about listening to farmers on the ground to find out what they need to provide food and a living for themselves.

camp stove with power.

Using thermo-electrics, http://www.biolitestove.com/BioLite.html has developed a stove that is much cleaner burning than normal stoves, and uses a similar amount of fuel as a rocket stove...

another useful note from fast company...

might have to check out the annual Innovation Open in Monterey, CA ... might be more useful stuff there....

Local training videos for Rice farmers

AfricaRice - research organization http://www.warda.org/warda/aboutus.asp among other things, develops training videos for African small hold farmers.  Found out about it from a Worldwatch Institute Article.

I've been a fan of Vinay Gupta since i first ran into his Reykjavik breifing a while back.  Here's another briefing he gave to another group in the US government.

http://files.howtolivewiki.com/star_tides_ndu_briefing_8_apr_08/

It includes lots of links.  Alot of the focus is on disaster relief, but Vinay throughout and particularly at the end links the two concepts of disaster relief and development to the same fundamental issues of protecting life and building infrastructure.

Micro finance

Here's another organization to watch:Kiva.org.  Heard about it at kiwanja... http://www.kiwanja.net/blog/2010/05/frontlinesms-at-google-zeitgeist/

The idea is linking small lenders with small borrowers/entrepreneurs....  Needs more research ...