Why focussing on "the End of Poverty" reinforces Poverty - Energy follows Attention, so let's aim for Sustainable Prosperity

Some years ago my attention in a bookstore was caught be Jeffrey Sachs' book titled "The End of Poverty". Later at the UN I even had the chance to meet Jeffrey Sachs and his intelligence and passion are amazing. Doesn't ending poverty sound like a cause worth fighting for? It certainly does, the real question is how to achieve this.

Other passionate and intelligent people, such as William Easterly, strongly disagree with Sachs' grand UN-plan. Millennium Development Goal 8 "Develop a global partnership for development " goes into the right direction Easterly has a point. He argues that one big plan for so many different cultures and countries have never worked and in fact have done damage. In fact when you study international development there are no clear examples where 'aid' actually really helped a country to develop. In Mali I even have found cases where aid reinforced dependency and created a corrupt aid system.

Energy follows attention, this means that by focussing on poverty and pitying the 'poor' Africans (for example) and trying to 'help' them, it is actually contributed to reinforce the situation. The more we try to fix poverty the more energy it gets... why not talking about potential and sustainable prosperity?

I have blogged many times about examples how CSR and especially Social Entrepreneurship can contribute to sustainable prosperity, rather ending poverty. These concepts tap into potential, they unleashing entrepreneurship and responsible business pratcices by an increased awareness that there is 'more' than profit or poverty only. For example, I am sure Yunus is not running around in Bangladesh pitying 'the poor' but has been their potential and unleashed it with microcredits.

Fundamental problems such as poverty can not be solved until a shift in awareness helps our consciousness to go beyond the we-versus-them paradigm. We need to see the bigger picture, i.e. that we are all connected and therefore part of one whole (call it the planet, the universe etc.). Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer et. al., leaders in organizational learning, describe this well in their book Presence (more on this in a separate article).

Finally, there are certainly enough resources on earth to happily feed the planet's population. Why do 20% of the world population need 80% of the world's resources? So it's not about ending poverty but about sustainable prosperity for all. How can it be achieved? With real partnership with 'aspiring countries', it's about fair trade (hallo Doha round), it's about sharing and collaboration, it's about expanding consciousness. So let's give energy towards sustainable prosperity which will end poverty along the way.

As Ghandi put it: "The earth has enough for man’s need but not for man’s greed"

What do You think?

Copenhagen Consesus Ranking: Doing Good Efficiently

Recently a group of five Nobel laureates and three distinguished economists came together to answer the question: "if we had, say, an extra $75 billion to spend, where could we achieve the most good?"

For each issue examined, thy focused on benefits relative to costs. The latest Doha round just collapsed (again) and some are happy... but it ranked second in this. So what's #1? Climate Change? Nope that came last. Micronutrients is their #1.

In summary, their top-ranked solutions were in areas that we don’t hear much about, "unglamorous interventions". Certainly inspiration to look deeper... Read on here and their ranking below.

Copenhagen Consesus Ranking 2008:
1. Micronutrient supplements for children (vitamin A and zinc)
2. The Doha development agenda
3. Micronutrient fortification (iron and salt iodization)
4. Expanded immunization coverage for children
5. Improving agricultural technology
6. De-worming and other school-based nutrition programs
7. Lowering the price of schooling
8. Increasing and improving girls’ education by paying mothers to send them to school
9. Community-based nutrition promotion
10. Support for women’s reproductive role to reduce gender inequity
11. Low-cost heart attack drugs for developing countries
12. Malaria prevention and treatment
13. Tuberculosis identification and treatment
14. R&D in low-carbon energy technologies to combat global warming
15. Bio-sand filters for household water treatment
16. Pumps and wells to improve water coverage in rural areas
17. Conditional cash transfers to increase the number of children receiving education
18. Peace-keeping in post-conflict situations to reduce the risk of civil war
19. HIV “combination” prevention package
20. Total sanitation campaign to reduce the number of “open defecation” areas
21. Improving surgical capacity at district hospital level
22. Microfinance to women to reduce gender inequity
23. Improved stove intervention to reduce indoor air pollution
24. Large, multipurpose dam in Africa to improve water coverage
25. Inspection and maintenance of diesel vehicles to reduce outdoor air pollution
26. Low-sulfur diesel for urban road vehicles to reduce outdoor air pollution
27. Diesel vehicle particulate control technology to reduce outdoor air pollution
28. Tobacco tax to reduce heart disease and cancer
29. A package of R&D and mitigation to combat global warming
30. Mitigation of carbon emissions to reduce global warming

Münchner Merkur "Vom Siemensianer zum Schulenbauer"

UN Report: Doing Good Business with the Poor

The United Nations Development Program just released a potentially groundbreaking new report on how businesses may include the global poor as potential customers--and how the global poor might benefit from collaborating more closely with businesses. Creating Value for All: Strategies for Doing Business with the Poor is part of UNDP's Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative and explores 50 case studies of local and international companies successfully integrating the poor into their business models to "create wealth, spur growth and spark social change." Here are a few highlights from the report:

* In Colombia, the Juan Valdez company is offering higher, more stable incomes to over 500,000 smallscale coffee growers.

* In China, Tsinghua Tongfang markets computers loaded with distance education software to the rural population both for primary and middle school education and for minority language education.

* In the Russia Federation, over 80 percent of Forus Bank's clients are women, most of them in retail businesses; in 2006 the bank helped create 4,250 direct
and 19,950 indirect jobs.

* In Senegal, healthcare organization Pésinet provided an early warning method for monitoring the health conditions of children under age five from low-income
families--the infant mortality rate fell by more than 90 percent between 2002 and 2005--from 120 per 1,000 live births to 8.

* In Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, the liquefied petroleum gas supplied by VidaGas improves the sterility of medical instruments used to deliver babies.

* In the Philippines, Smart, whose network covers over 99 percent of the population, offers low-cost, prepaid mobile phone airtime cards and eases financial transactions through the option to send remittances using short messaging service (SMS) technology. In the full report there are many, many more examples of companies helping countries reach the millennium development goals while not sacrificing on the bottom line.

Cross-posted from UN Dispatch

Mali Ambassador for Germany supports the Mali Initiative

Earlier in May I met with Malian Ambassador for Germany Madame Fatoumata Siré Diakité in Berlin. Objective was to seek her support for the German information and fundraising activities of the Mali Initiative (MI). Together with other committed people in Munich and Berlin I have founded the MI's carrier organization 'Sterntaler für Afrika e.V.'. It's inspired by brothers Grimm fairy tale Sterntaler, in English The Star Money.

The meeting with her "excellence" went very well, thankfully she looked over my faux pas when not addressing her with "excellence" as the diplomatic protocol would require. Fortunately, she is down to earth and hands on. She herself has founded a Kindergarten in Kalabancoro, the same are where the Mali Initiative runs a school and a street kid education program.

I presented her with the Mali Initiative's activities, and she was pleased that projects where successfully delivered over the last 4 years. When I mentioned that - next to building schools - I have a "crazy idea" to add, she corrected me by saying this is a dream and dreams are there to make them happen... what a woman:

„I fully support the Mali Initiative's work of improving access to quality education in Mali. Let the Mali Initiative be a bridge between the people of Germany and Mali. I join you in your dream of bringing a modern University of Timbuktu to life”.

The best is that Madame Diakité will fly in from Berlin to give the key-note speech at our photo and information event on 1st July in Munich! So if you are in Munich or know someone there, join in!

Social Intrapreneurs Promote Sustainability From Within Corporations

Another formula: Social Entrepreneur (SE) + (within) Corporation (MNC) = Social Intrapreneur (SI).
I have wondered for long where the cross-road of these two concepts is and the following article from CSR Wire hits the nail on it head:

An Inside Job: Social Intrapreneurs Promote Sustainability From Within Corporations

In 1978, Gifford and Elizabeth Pinchot coined the term "intrapreneur" to describe innovators who create change from within corporations, obviously riffing on the term "entrepreneur." Almost a quarter century later, the Pinchots co-founded ... the first MBA program to integrate sustainability at its core. This bold move exemplifies "social entrepreneurship," a current buzzword for applying innovation to promote social and environmental sustainability that is the focus of a new book (The Power of Unreasonable People co-authored by SustainAbility founder John Elkington), a foundation (The Skoll Foundation established by eBay's first president Jeff Skoll), and annual awards (Fast Company Social Capitalist Awards.)

Now, a buzz is building around social intrapreneurship. John Elkington just co-authored a report (sponsored by the Skoll Foundation and others) entitled The Social Intrapreneurs: A Field Guide for Corporate Changemakers. The guide profiles prominent social intrapreneurs from multinational corporations such as Unilever, Nike, BP, Cemex, Coca-Cola, Dow, and Shell, among others. It also proposes a playful taxonomy of tactical and strategic characteristics: the stamina of a donkey, a "lone" wolf, a giraffe with head in the clouds and feet on the ground, and beaver who transforms landscapes...

Thanks to CSR Wire. Read on with SustainAbility's Report.

CSR a necessity - not a choice

Is the discussion about if to do CSR over? Another 'yes' says the latest Grant Thornton International Business Report. Now the main question is how to implement CSR policies?

While most studies I have read so far have a 'one size fits all approach' regarding company size, Grant Thornton have made a useful distinction between a) privately held businesses (PHBs) and b) multinational companies (MNCs):

• "PHBs are ‘the economic engine of the world’" and they are adopting CSR policies "not just to save the planet but because they are having to in order to survive and prosper."
• "For privately held businesses, the pressure to act can stem from the demands of the supply chain, with large multinationals increasingly demanding that suppliers conform to ethical business practices."
• In comparison to PHBs, large multinationals have a far more powerful stakeholder group to consider and have, in many cases, adopted an holistic approach to CSR."

Top CSR drivers for PHBs identified are:



In summary, "while ‘saving the planet’ is a concern, by far and away the main drivers for action on corporate social responsibility are recruitment and retention issues followed closely by cost management."

To me this looks pretty pragmatic but also reactive. It appears that these comapnies are lead by their staff rather their CEOs. Where is forward-looking leadership? Where innovation for new products and markets?

Social Entrepreneurs + Web 2.0 = betterplace.org

What do you get if you combine the functionality of web 2.0 with the objectives of social entrepreneurship? Probably a platform similar than betterplace.org.

I have blogged about social entrepreneurs several times. Using business acumen (economic development) for the public good (social development) is a hybrid I have centered my interest on for years. Imagine you add the outreach potential and functionalities of web 2.0 using the internet as a platform for web-based communities. The outcome might be a social platform to make the world a better place: connecting people who want to help with people who need support.

How does betterplace work?
Signing up is as simple as onto Facebook or match.com, however, at the center of this platform are development projects. On the one side, individuals and organization post projects which they are looking for support, while on the other side, individuals and companies offer their donations or in-kind contribution (see illustration below). A bit like match.com but rather a computer matching you, you are selecting suitable projects yourself and, rather going for a blind date, you can check the projects through a 'web of trust'.



The Web of Trust
How do you know which projects and project carriers are trustworthy? Trying to trust big brand names such as UNICEF has its limitations. Many local projects are directly posted by small organizations from developing countries. Therefore, people you know who have visited the project or have a relationship with the project carriers help to build up a trust relationship with the project. It is a bit like business networking where you would only recommend someone you trust. Below an illustration.



New generation of Social Entrepreneurs
A few months ago I met betterplace' CEO Till Behnke in Berlin and it is great to see a new generation of young social entrepreneurs emerging in a 'conservative' country such as Germany. Till, for example, left his well paid job at DaimlerChrysler Financial Services to set-up betterplace. He uses business skills not just to develop the platform but also to link it to Corporate Social Responsibiliy (CSR) by offering betterplace as a platform to companies allowing them to integrate their employees into the corporation's CSR activities.

Furthermore, recently the co-founders of betterplace visited us in Mali on their travels around the world meeting searchers and featuring projects. Joana Breidenbach is very active on the betterplace.blog and a helping the Mali Initiative a lot to spread the word, especially in Germany where we work on a joint event in May.

What are the benefits of betterplace' approach?

1. New ways in development are much needed as success stories of the last 60 years are hard to come by. Moreover, the aid system is full of fundamental flaws as I have observed in Mali and blogged about in "How corrupt is the development aid system?"
2. William Easterly, author of White Man's Burden, states, a platform such as betterplace "would bypass the narrow administrative funnel in the recipient government... it would avoid the strategic manipulation of aid by donor governments and the corruption of recipient governments."
3. Ultimately, my field observations in Mali and at renowed Ugandan Rural Development and Training Programme (URDT) support the argument that the so-called 'poor people' are key to their own development (rather the patronizing and often dependency-increasing efforts of us 'whities'). As Easterly states "Only the self-reliant efforts of poor people and poor societies themselves can end poverty, borrowing ideas and institutions from the West when is suits them to do so".
4. Therefore, it is great to see how different social entrepreneurs working together, from the betterplace founders in the heart of Europe to local searchers such as Youchaou Traore, the Mali Initiative's social entrepreneur in Africa.

Read an article about betterplace in Die Zeit (in German).
Check out the Mali Initiative's projects on betterplace.

The Mali Initiative launches to make Change through Education

(5 January 2008 Bamako, Mali) - The Mali Initiative, a not-for-profit network of committed individuals around the world aspiring to make change through education launches with the start of 2008. Nelson Mandela said “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world” stressing the fundamental importance of education for development.

Therefore, the initiative aims at improving the education of children to become an active generation for a better future. It facilitates global partnerships for local development projects which communities drive and own themselves. It focuses on improving access to quality education for the children in Mali where around half of all children have no access to schools at all.

Activities include facilitating the construction of new class-rooms as well as significant improvement and equipping of existing class-rooms, enabling an effective learning environment. Furthermore, teacher training and ongoing support is provided empowering teachers to use engaging and effective techniques, including laptop computers.

Education is seen as a priority at national and village levels in Mali, with good reason. Many children have no access to any schools at all. Class-rooms hold up to over 100 children where most children do not have tables and chairs or books and pens. With 81% illiteracy rate, 4 out of 5 adults can not read and write, according to UN data.

“How shall you learn or find a job without being able to read and write? Education holds the key for sustainable development in action, you see the difference child per child” says Youchaou Traore, Director of the non-governmental organization (NGO) that has been officially registered to undertake activities in Mali.

Youchaou was a street-child himself, without access to education for many years. He decided to leave the begging in the streets behind him when he got the chance to go to school where he learned enthusiastically. Education pulled him out of poverty and allowed him to become a renowned translator for international organizations. Now he runs the flagship school of the Mali Initiative in Bamako.

“A world is possible where all children have access to quality education” believes Elise Klein, Managing Director. “We know it is a long way but bringing together local communities in Mali with passionate individuals from Australia and around the world is powerful. Step by step we have been building friendships, developed class-rooms and given children the gift of education” she continues.

The Mali Initiative is based on the success of a project by young people and Malian Youchaou Traore who have fundraised and invested over 200.00$ since 2004. The pilot school in the outskirts of Mali’s capital Bamako has been expanded to now 12 class-rooms, a library and computer-room. The school is a quality-reference and considered one of the best in the country. Furthermore, a pilot with street children successfully educates these marginalized children.

By 2020 the Mali Initiative wants to have developed 1.000 class-rooms, trained 10.000 teachers and have facilitated the education of over 500.000 children in Mali. “Young people are the future. We are going to need a lot support to scale up the successful pilot schools. Individuals and organizations, please join the initiative!” calls Elise Klein, Managing Director who also is a UN Youth Spokesperson.

“Help is especially needed in raising funds for additional class-rooms which each costs up to 13.000$ in poor but expensive Mali. Adopt a class-room which is more than a donation, you get a great social return on investment: enabling quality education of 30 children per year” says Program Director Juergen Nagler.

So far the growing network consists of some dozens of committed individuals bringing in their passion, skills and time; Corporate supporters include National Australia Bank and Telstra. Express your interest to support the Mali Initiative by emailing to elise.klein@mali-initiative.org. For more information see www.reachmaliproject.org.au. To make a donation use PayPal, please.

About the Mali Initiative

The Mali Initiative is a not-for-profit network of committed individuals around the world aspiring to make change. We facilitate global partnerships for local development projects which communities drive and own themselves. We focus on improving access to quality education for the children in Mali. A non-governmental organization (NGO) is officially registered in Mali. Tax-deductibility status is also given in Australia through the Reach Foundation. Fore more information, please visit www.reachmaliproject.org.au.

About Mali

Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the 4th poorest country in the world with over 70% living of less than 1$ per day according to UN data. It has a population of 12 million people, of which over the half is under 15 years old and 81% are unable to read and write. However, Mali is also a positive example for African countries and the world as a stable democracy where Muslims, Christians and different ethnic groups live peacefully together.

Where would You be without Education? - A Journey into an African village

Let me take you onto a journey...

You fly into Africa... to Bamako, the capital of Mali. You leave the airport, board a rusty old Mercedes minibus which was dumped in Europe probably 15 years ago. The five hour journey takes you through red dust countryside and huts along the road. Whenever your vehicle stops woman who wait along the road in front of their huts out of handmade mud bricks, come quickly to your window trying to make a sell to generate some income. The journey continues sharing the road with even older trucks, people on rooftops, donkey-carts and Malians walking from village to village.

After hours witnessing some of Mali's rural life along one of its main roads between Bamako and Segou, you leave the (hardly) paved road and turn right into the Sahel, the semi-desert sister of the Sahara. There is no more maverick-dangerous traffic, no overloaded trucks or broken down cars; in fact there is no more motorised traffic at all. Farmers, too poor and uneducated to use advanced tools or fertilizers, are trying to make the best out of the meager land. Currently it is the "season of plenty" which means the soils have recently delivered harvests but how must it be to be here in the "hungry season" when there is no water and no food?

You arrive in the village Niamana. As soon as kids spot the vehicle (remember, no cars) they get very excited which quadruples when then see "tibbaboo". This is the friendly word in Bambara, the most widely spoken language in Mali, for white people. The kids scream loud due to excitement with an heart touching smile on their face. You arrive at Youchau's family's house. Niamana is inspiring, kind of sobering. Imagine you strip away the "matrix" of our busy life-style full of gadgets, information overload with TV and daily swamp of emails being always connected. No water coming from tap (there is a well) and no electricity (there is a solar panel powering a lamp at night) and no mobile phone reception (there is one landline). You feel like being transferred into a village 100 years ago, start feeling settled into an extremely poor yet friendly community.

The poverty bothers you and you start thinking how you could make a difference (next of being an attraction to the kids). A happy young kid comes up to you and when he smiles at you you feel happy and smile back. Amadou is a typical rural Malian kid. Although being 10 years old he looks much smaller due to not getting enough good food. You learn that he talks 5km each morning to get to school. There he squeezes himself into a small, old class-room together with 100 other kids. Most of the kids don't find a table and almost none of them has something to write. Many kids are hungry which makes learning even harder. You identify yourself with Amadou and ask yourself "could I have learned under these conditions?" You learn that 4 out of 5 people can not read or write. Teaching facilities are so basic, classrooms missing and overfilled that hundreds of the village's kids have no chance to go to school at all.

However, there is hope: Elders, teachers and families of the community see education as the key to provide their children with the chance of a better future. They free their kids from work in the fields or households, they try to safe money to be able to pay for the teachers' salary. You think of Amadou and the hundreds of kids without a chance to receive education. You imagine how the the next generation of this country could develop through education. You remember that, although school was not always fun for you, it allowed you to read your favorite books, to learn, to study, to vote, to get your jobs... Where would You be without Education?

Happy new year!
Elise, Youchaou and Juergen

PS: The Mali Initiative works to improve the education of children in Mali. Get involved. For more information see http://www.reachmaliproject.org.au/.
PPS: For more photos see http://www.flickr.com/jjnagler/tags/mali/show