Agriculture policies and ideas...

Another one to look up sometime: International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) from 2008.  It's a report reviewing what's working in world....


Keeping an eye on the nourishing the planet feed from the worldwatch institute....


article

Most Effective Micro-finance

If you are getting involved in anything, it always makes sense to figure out who's the best in that field and keep an  eye on what they are doing.  You may chose to be different, but it's still important to know what's going on.  With that in mind, in the micro-finance world, Accion are one of those organizations to keep an eye on. They've been named the most effective microfinance non-profit by Philantropedia.  Fast Company had this article about it.

Vegetable Varieties

From worldwatch institute, an article that talks about two organizations that are working on maintaining seeds and the culture of growing in african communities.

AVRDC – The World Vegetable Center develops seeds
Developing Innovations in School Cultivation Project, or DISC teaches children about growing traditional vegetables

Peanut sheller by Full Belly Project

Here's a You Tube video of a peanut sheller design being used in Uganda.  It's a part of the Full Belly Project http://thefullbellyproject.org/.  This could be very useful.  The organization suggests training before giving out the technology, and setting up a local business to produce them. (see the FAQ section).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Nut_Sheller

Family connections

So, i've been talking to my mom recently, and re-realized that i have relatives that i hardly know that have been doing work in Africa since i was a kid...

Here's the organization that my cousin Roxanne's husband Jimmy is currently working for http://www.watermissions.org/ These guys are relatively new to the disaster relief and development field, but are working in water and sanitation with their water filter system, and a few associated parts.

Water treatment and storage

another one for the file: Scandinavian water technologies http://www.scan-water.com/home.php

They make portable water treatment, storage and distribution systems.  the one that caught my eye, giant water beds (they call them pillow tanks), for storing potable water, one model for stationary storage, another to be loaded on a flatbed truck.

I've been looking at the pool in the back yard, and thinking that would be a cheap way to have a cistern/water storage tank... similar system could be used for irrigation water as well.

got there via this link

Canadian Play: The Monument

I was just reading the Sept. 2010 issue of readers digest, and found an article about a play written by Canadian Colleen Wagner, and how it is being performed in Rwanda, to help with the healing process there.  If the performing arts can help with the healing process by telling a powerful story, then that's a good thing.  The story sounds pretty harsh, but it connects with people that have lived through very difficult times.

Large maps

Here's a quick tutorial on how to make large maps from google map data... may be useful..

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1073912/google_maps_hack_how_to_save_large_maps/

Support systems...

Here's an article recently published in the ontario society for professional engineers news letter. (link) It talks about how important it is for the local system to be in place to support infrastructure development.  Things like management, construction standards, accounting systems must be in place for large infrastructure systems to work.  Even for relatively small systems, if the support structures are not there, the projects will eventually fail.  This means its not just the technology, its the people and how they relate, the responsibility and social structures that are as important as the tools....

Maker Faire Africa and MultiMachine

This one is very exciting... The guys involved in TEDAfrica and Ushahidi are organizing and event for people from Africa to get together and display their inventions and exchange ideas.

http://makerfaireafrica.com/

If you are in Nairobi this August 27 or 28, you might want to head over to the university and see what's going on.  I want to see pictures and stories when it's over...

another man to watch: Al Hammond

Working in rural india, but planning to scale much larger, Al Hammond is developing a way to make affordable medical care in remote areas.  Local staff trained to run equipment and tests, tele-connected to doctors in urban areas, they can provide doctors visits or diagnostic tests for $1.  The local clinics also provide clean water at a reasonable price $1.50 for a month's supply.

Fast company article

Youtube video describing and demonstrating how it works.

Starting and growing a business

Okay, so this one is a little off of my usual topic.  But maybe there's something here that can scale down to small businesses as well....

Found a couple of blogs via a fast company article here, that are by some venture capitalists in Silicon Valley i think.  They talk about business models and scaleable companies.  Stuff that is way out of my league, but might be useful if it can be distilled.  The first one is by Ben Horowitz, and one blog entry of his talks about the roll of a CEO in terms of passing on bad information and getting help solving problems...

Some how, from the comments of one of Ben's blogs, I came across this article by Steve Blank. Steve also seems to be one who knows a lot about building businesses, so it's worth following some of the posts he puts up...

Peace Dividend Trust

Okay, last one for tonight....

Link from fast company. com  article about a new initiative to help aid $ get spent locally rather than in the usual rich places that donated it... building local economies as they are being helped through gifts...

The idea is to deliver 5 services:

• Training local entrepreneurs on how to find and bid on international contracts
• Translating and distributing international tenders locally
• Maintaining an online database of local entrepreneurs who we have personally verified
• Matchmaking large scale international procurement needs (like bottled water for a big UN mission) to local vendors
• Advocating for the concept of buying local with our "Buy Local - Build Afghanistan (or Timor or Haiti) campaigns

So, the key is linking local people with the contracts to be fulfilled, hiring local people to help their neighbours.  It's one of those "why didn't I think of that sooner" ideas...

The Peace Dividend Trust website looks to have a large data base of reports and papers about development and peace building ideas... maybe another night i'll dig into it more...

The Peace Dividend Market site links local businesses with international contracts, and currently is operating in Afganistan, Timor and Haiti

New Cassava Varieties

From the Worldwatch Institute, this article talks about some new varieties of cassava that have been developed in Zanzibar.  For those similarly geographically challenged, Zanzibar is an island in the Indian Ocean, just of the coast of Tanzania.  Apparently there have been some bad diseases affecting the cassava crops across Africa in the last few years, but these varieties are resistant.

Being Unreasonable

I love this site, and would love to help take some of these ideas to reality.   

http://www.unreasonableinstitute.org/
The purpose of the institute is to act as an incubator of new ideas (and businesses) that could change the world for good.

The episode that got me here was #4 about Ben Lyon and FrontlineSMS:Credit.  His idea is to develop the software to link mobile phone money transfer and bank loan systems.

Props to Ken Banks for pointing this one out: (kiwanja.net)

http://www.kiwanja.net/blog/2010/07/celebrating-the-enabling-environment/

Coming Soon: International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development

So, here's another event to watch for.  13 to 16 of Dec this year in London, UK.  Ken from kiwanja.net
will be there. Details: http://www.ictd2010.org/

Watch to see what papers come up.  Supposed to bridge the gap between academics and practitioners better than previous conferences.

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 ...

Mobile banking POS terminal

Here's another one to watch for the mobile money ideas:

Square has developed a credit card reader for attaching to your iPhone, so you can accept payment via creditcard... an option for those random sales, off the normal phone line type grid....

Sharing a Cell phone

So here's another interesting potential.  It's a system to share a cell phone while keeping billing separate.  Think cloud - based telecom....

frog-design-movirtu-collaborate-on-shared-cell-phone-access-in-developing-countries

Unfinished thought

What if...

During the so called dark ages, shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire, Ireland was one place where monastaries were built. Ireland was on the very edge of the Empire, barely within reach and control of Rome, yet for a time it benefited from Romes influence. It was in these Irish monastaries where the writings from the height of roman empire were stored and preserved carefully.  The renaisance in "the west" owes much to those monks who carefully kept and maintained key information for many centuries that would later be rediscovered.

What if the civilization as we know it were to colapse, as some doomsday types might suggest, due to enviromnental change, war, or other disaster... Where would the monks of our day go to find refuge, on the edge of civilization, to keep important ideas that should be entrusted to future generations....  Where is the edge of our civilization? War torn, poor countries like Somalia, Afganistan.... We may owe more to these places in coming generations than we credit them for now....

Launch ideas on Sustainability

Here's another interesting article:


LAUNCH (warning, auto-play video) is an organization from the US, including NASA, the State Department and Nike, looking into ideas about sustaining life on the planet...

First area of concern: Water

Ideas:
semipermiable pipe to irrigate plants using salt water...
floating sensors for water quality and flow measurement, particularly during disasters
solar powered UV light and sand filters for purifying water in Rwanda...

other areas to be tackled in future: energy, food, air...

Open Source Washing machine

So, someone decided that it was important to look into how people in the developing world wash their clothes.  The idea being that some of us take for granted how those of us with access to such devices simply throw clothes in and they come out clean...  Now the questions becomes how to do this on a limited budget.   Not much work done here that i can see.  We'll see what develops here in a while.

http://www.oswash.org/

Jumo - Sharing skills, not just money

Here's an interesting one i just came across:

Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes Is Back in the Startup Business With Jumo.com

The idea is to link individuals who want to help with organizations that are already helping and need support.  We'll see how this develops, but it looks like some heavy hitters are involved in setting this up....

Open source, simple communications

Here's a couple of things i've found recently that may be useful in the developing world. A simple system for managing SMS messages to/from a central location is Frontline SMS. I haven't tried it, but if you want to use text messaging to reach people, then this just might be the tool.

Another recent article on kiwanja.net talked about a new interactive voice response system that will be released soon at freedomfone.org. This sounds like an open source version of the commercial answering system with voice menu prompts. It's billed as a tool for NGOs to use to share information between all the people that have cell phones but not internet access, or even literacy, in their own language. We'll see, but it looks very interesting... Maybe i can set up a digital voicemail/answering machine at home here that i can access via skype... I doubt the priority will ever get that high unless it's to test the software for some other purpose...

Role of Government

Okay, so here's some thoughts on the role of government.

The purpose of government is twofold. First, government is about ensuring equity among the population it serves. This takes many forms, including the judiciary, the legislature, the regulators, the police services. The second purpose is about distributing common wealth for the common good. This includes the executive branch and public service, including things like infrastructure (physical and systemic). In both cases, the role of government is to improve the quality of life for the whole of the population. To do its work, the government requires money, which must somehow be drawn from the population. The challenge then becomes how to improve the quality of life for the population to the maximum amount. This implies wise use of resources, since each dollar earned by the population may either be spent by the person who earned it, or by the government on that persons behalf. In either case, the quality of life for that person should be improved. Which will improve the life of the total population more, having each individual spend the dollar on himself or herself, or pooling that money together and spending the dollar on some project or service that will benefit all? This question must be answered case by case. Since it is impossible to predict what one person would do with his dollar, it becomes difficult do determine whether or not a government expenditure is justified. Certainly, some basic level of policing, infrastructure, legal system, etc. is justified, since the stability these provide are necessary for individuals to be able to earn a living successfully. The question which politicians and statesmen have argued for a long time is where the line should be drawn between what is justified and what is not. Those that lean to the right would prefer that as much money as possible remain in the hands of the individual. Those that lean to the left would suggest that we pool our resources for the common good. We have seen problems when either of these ideas are taken to the extreme. In the first case, we have capitalist anarchy, where government does not regulate sufficiently to prevent those with money and power from taking advantage of those who do not, and there becomes drastic differences between those with wealth and those without. Those without wealth do not have the means to produce more wealth, even if they have the skill. On the other hand, in Stalinist regimes, we have seen how the central control for the good of all has also removed the motivation from those with skills that could produce wealth, so that in the end they do not produce wealth because they do not get to control the enjoyment of it. In the end such systems have failed eventually, and where they survive, there is still generally less wealth in the society.