Happy International Day of Cooperatives! July 4, 2009

As you enjoy your beer, barbecue, and fireworks this Independence Day, take a moment to toast to the UN International Day of Cooperatives.

The first Saturday of July has been reserved by the United Nations as a day to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions of cooperatives to cultural, social, and economic development around the world. This year’s theme, “Driving Global Recovery through Cooperatives,” highlights the strength and sustainability of cooperatives in driving endogenous economic growth, even in times of crises.

Despite worldwide instability of financial markets, food crises, and unequal trade agreements, co-ops provide a stable and local source of financial services, living wages, and fair market access for producers. As the US and international community question the value of foreign assistance (“Moyo Ignites Debate with ‘Dead Aid”), cooperatives empower workers to help themselves rather than rely on charity. Additionally, co-ops are required to maintain a dedication to social and environmental responsibility, equality, independence, democracy, community, and self-help, making them a guiding moral light in the current corporate accountability crisis.

To meddle or not to meddle…

Americans are having trouble believing it—their president is not making regrettable statements about the Iranian election.  Millions of facebook networkers, twitter users, and bloggers responded to what was immediately called an unfair election and its brutal aftermath.  Politicians and political junkies on both sides of the aisle chastised the great Obama for not taking a stand on the contested outcome and sequential outcome.  President Obama responded appropriately and thoughtfully.

As a huge Obama fan, I’m unapt to begin criticizing our President without all the facts.  He has responsibilities to his own people, to those who came before him, to the Iranian people, to the world’s people.  Completely isolating and insulting either Mahmud Ahmadinejad or his challengers could prove disastrous later in international affairs.  Illegitimating the unfavorable outcome of the election in Iran, a nation that had so hoped for a fair election, did not really feel right, especially while we were all still a little high on HOPE.  The appalled president condemned the actions of the Iranian government in a timely manner, but did not take the stand that so many Americans still thought was necessary

He still walks a “tightrope,” as CNN called it.[1] Jon Stewart joked that America can’t win and that seems to be true… or at least, Obama can’t win.  He was criticized by almost everyone when he didn’t say much and then was called a meddler and compared to President George W. Bush when he called for the violence to stop.  America got in trouble for meddling in 1953 and again in 1979, and now that we’re not meddling, suddenly we’re not doing enough.

I thought I was crazy or ignorant for being proud that Obama was taking the time to mull things over and react wisely.  My qualms were soothed after attending the June 22 New America Foundation forum on the Iran Election.  Most of the expert panel agreed that Obama was for the most part, doing the right thing:

Africa and the Global Economic Crisis: Challenges, Opportunities, and Next Steps

Over the last eight months, many scholars have questioned whether Africa might escape the worst effects of the economic crisis. Some have hypothesized that the continent’s limited involvement in the world economy and international financial system might insulate it from a crisis stemming from credit systems and lending markets. In March, AIDemocracy blogged about surprising economic growth in Africa thanks to heavy Chinese investment and trade (African Trade Booms as World Economy Collapses). New economic reports, however, suggest that the situation is a little more complicated than it seems.

On June 18th, the TransAfrica Forum held a roundtable discussion on the impact of the economic crisis on Africa. Panelists discussed the causes and consequences of the crisis on Africa and argued over some of its potential benefits. The speakers could whole-heartedly agree on two points: first, that the crisis has and continues to affect Africans dramatically, and second, that it provides an opportunity to achieve structural change through investment in women, workers, and other marginalized groups.

After nearly a decade of steady growth rates of 5-7%, the crisis is expected to make African nations’ growth negative. More developed countries like South Africa have seen stock market crashes and jumps in unemployment, as in the US and Western Europe. Developing economies, which had previously escaped the worst effects of the crisis, are now suffering as primary export prices fall. The crisis has reached these countries not through the stock market, but through the commodities trade in raw materials on which they depend. The implications of this crisis for an underdeveloped and impoverished continent are thus quite serious.

Sudanese Scholars at your School: Bringing the World Home, Banaa-style!

Greetings readers!

Though I’m pretty new to AID, as the summer Global Health Intern, it doesn’t take much time to recognize that our AID student network is heavily immersed in campus initiatives and social justice organizations across the spectrum. It’s hard to imagine that I can bring a new organization to your attention, but I’m going to give it a shot…

Ever heard of Banaa?

Banaa, or the Sudanese Educational Empowerment Network, is the brainchild of two George Washington University alumni, who have the following vision:
“To end the genocide in Darfur and prevent fresh conflict in the south of Sudan, there must be peacemakers on all sides. With this in mind, we provide marginalized individuals who have seen the horrors of war with the tools to make peace. By the end of the decade, we aim to empower hundreds of new peacemakers, helping unheard voices find space in the Sudanese political arena.”
-www.Banaa.org

How do they accomplish this empowering of peacemakers? Through education at American universities! Banaa seeks to partner Sudanese scholars with scholarship opportunities at universities across the United States. Once the students arrive to the States, they are given orientations, and assigned several university advisors who guide them through a four-year curriculum that will help them return to Sudan with important skills in peacemaking and conflict resolution, public health, or other fields vital to the future of Sudan.

The first Sudanese student to matriculate at GWU, named Makwei Mabioor Deng, started his freshman year in the fall of 2008. The articles included below offer more information about Makwei’s experience at GW. Makwei was one of over 160 applicants for this inaugural scholarship, which means that scores of driven and accomplished students had to be turned away. With the help of more universities funding scholarships–even just for one student–powerful, personal connections can be made between American college students and these Sudanese students, and peacemaking skills learned by Banaa scholars can be applied to the complex reality of Sudan.

The Banaa movement is growing on campuses across the country. According to the Washington Post, there are over 35 Banaa chapters at different universities. These chapters don’t grow without advocacy, awareness, and action, however, so find ways to get involved! Visit www.banaa.org for information on how to host a student on your campus, or to find out about campuses that are on their way to accepting students. Banaa.org offers toolkits on how to broach the topic with fellow students and campus administrators. They also offer a FAQ sheet that may address questions you’re having (”How can students from refugee camps be admitted to US universities?” “How will you ensure that the students return to Sudan?”). Moreover, the dedicated founding members of Banaa are always ready to provide further information or assistance to college students who want to support the cause.

Visit www.banaa.org, and find out more today!

Some news articles, provided by banaa.org, to learn more about the Banaa mission and experience:

“Student Activist Brings Sudan Native to GWU” [Washington Post]

“University Creates Darfur Grant” [GW Hatchet]

“Sudanese Refugee will attend GW” [GW Hatchet]

“A Dream Come True” [GW Hatchet]

“Tufts Banaa: a Strategic Initiative for Peace in the Sudan” [The Tufts Daily]

Fresh Perspectives: One Student’s Reintroduction to the Developed World

After five months in the Middle East and far too many hours on airplanes, I’ve settled in for a summer with Americans for Informed Democracy. I’ll be AIDemocracy’s Global Development Campaign Intern for the next two months before starting my final year at American University. If it weren’t for the frightening level of humidity, I’d be overjoyed to be back in Washington.

At this point, I’m smiling before people have even finished asking me where I studied abroad. If mentioning my first semester in Nairobi, Kenya, doesn’t cause people’s eyes to pop out of their heads, telling them I’ve just arrived from Cairo, Egypt, certainly does. When they’ve recovered from their shock, most people smile and ask me how I liked Africa and the Middle East. I can’t help feeling that they’re inwardly wondering why a sweet girl like me would choose to live in the big, scary, developing world with the Muslims, starving children, and deadly water-born diseases. Maybe that’s just my own paranoia.

I’m frustrated, I suppose, that my study abroad choices generate so much surprise. First of all, Kenya and Egypt are not scary places. There are certainly dangerous conflict zones in Africa and the Middle East, but there are many more beautiful places full of kind people who will draw you into their homes and lives with both arms. Second, these are the two regions about which Americans know the least—aren’t those the places I should be going as a student? I was in Nairobi following Kenya’s violently contested December 2007 elections, in Egypt following Obama’s inauguration, and in Syria for his historic address to the Muslim World. How could professors, government officials, or the American media possibly teach me more about global politics, ethnic and religious conflict, and the perspectives of people in other parts of the world? We should really be surprised that more students aren’t studying in Cairo, Nairobi, Damascus, Accra, Amman, or Abuja.

Moyo Ignites Debate with “Dead Aid”

It was last December, in a cozy Ann Arbor bookstore, that I first came across the book “The Shadow of the Sun.” I had finished all the previous books on my list (even succumbing to the chick-lit turned spiritual journey chronicle, “Eat Pray Love”) and decided to pick this one up and read it.

I was floored by its depth and detail. Written by famed Polish journalist, Ryzard Kapuscinski, “The Shadow of the Sun” outlines the tumultuous growing pains of the African continent in wrenching itself from the jaws of colonialism. In the mid-late 20th century, African leaders from Senegal to Ethiopia, from Eritrea to Mauritania, and Sudan to South Africa forged independent states through  armed uprisings and bloody coups. The tragedy being that many of these liberation struggles did not result in emancipation from greed, exploitation, and poverty. Instead, colonial leaders were merely supplanted by corrupt natives.

What I found most fascinating about this book was the author’s descriptions of the sometimes detrimental role played by foreign aid. Wars were waged over grains of rice and packets of dry milk. Hungry adolescents were easily convinced by powerful warlords to snatch aid away from the neediest to fuel their armies.

Apparently, not too much has changed.  This very debate about the efficacy of aid has recently been raging through foreign policy blogs, online newspapers, and even talk shows. The ignitor of this debate is Zambian businesswoman, Dambisa Moyo, who argues in her new book,”Dead Aid,” that foreign aid has plunged Africa into a state of permanent dependency and painful inefficiency. Moyo’s primary arguement – over the past 60 years, a whopping 1 trillion dollars have graced the continent in the form of aid, ultimately, to amount to nothing.

Iranians head to the polls!

As Iranians around the world head to the polls for a hotly contested presidential election, I thought I would post some of the most interesting stories and analysis I have seen…

The New York Times thinks that regardless of who wins this election, the democratic energy that has been rocking the country will leave its mark on the political process.  “If [Ahmadinejahd] wins a second term, many here are now asking what will become of the “green wave” — the name given to the vast crowds of people who have filled the streets in recent weeks dressed in the signature color of the Moussavi campaign, demanding change.”

There is expected to be record high voter turnout.  This could be extremely important, given the fact that Ahmadinejahd has strong support in the rural areas and Mousavi has mobilized urban voters.  The election could boil down to which demographic group shows up to the polls.

Foreign Policy has a photoessay covering the recent campaigning.  I find it interesting that so many of the photos feature women.  I wonder if this is representative of the campaigners: are women actually the majority of the crowd?  Or is this just because foreign journalists are fascinated by the idea that veiled women are politically active?

Global Voices Online has some great election coverage, including a piece on Iranian bloggers’ reactions to the televised debate between Ahamadinejahd and Mousavi.

Finally, and most importantly, Foreign Policy is already reporting that more than 70% of eligible Iranian’s voted and that some are already declaring Mousavi the winner.  We’ll have to wait to for the officical results, but what some have been calling the “Green Revolution” may have prevailed.

University of Delaware Learns About Life in a Sudanese IDP Camp

Post by Connie & Anika, STAND: Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, University of Delaware

The United Nations estimates that over 2.5 million people have been displaced in Darfur, as a result of the genocide that endures in this region. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are those forced to leave their homes but reside within their country in shelters known as IDP camps.

Last year, we attended the “Seal the Deal” rally in Washington D.C, in which hundreds urged President Bush to enforce passed legislation in dealing with Darfur. Several mock IDP camps were set up on the National Mall, exposing the realities of life inside of a real IDP camp via accurate representations of food rations and medical supplies, as well as photographs, videos and written information. These camps immediately caught our attention and we, along with many others, spent a great deal of time walking inside each tent to learn more about the lives of the displaced people of Darfur.

After the march, we decided to apply for a Rights, Camera Action mini-grant from AID in order to create a mock IDP camp similar to the ones we saw at the rally in D.C. for our campus’s next genocide awareness event.

YELL FIRE! Dozens of Indigenous Protestors Killed Over US Free Trade Agreement

As many as 100 of indigenous protestors were killed early Friday morning in the northern Peruvian province of Bagua, as 600 Peruvian riot police were ordered to disrupt a peaceful road blockade launched in April as a part of a national protest against a new series of laws that would allow an unprecedented wave of logging, oil drilling, mining and mono-crop agriculture in the Amazonian jungle.

Police fired live ammunition and teargas into the crowd armed with indigenous spears.  Peruvian authorities report 22 police were killed and 2 missing, while the indigenous community says at least 40 people, including 2 children were killed.  If you think the numbers don’t add up, you’re right.  Police have been accused of burning indigenous bodies, throwing them in the river and removing wounded from the hospital in order to hide the real number of casualties.

A state of emergency has been declared in the region, a military curfew imposed, and police continue to patrol Amazonian towns.

I am reminded of an interview I had last month with rebel rocker and peace activist, Michael Franti. “Now is the time when we need to stand up and yell fire,” Franti said.  “If ever there was a time that we need to say something is happening, let’s deal with it, it’s now.”

DR-CAFTA’s White Paper receives failing grade by Washington Office on Latin America

By Liz Haight, ILRF Intern

The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) presented their three-year study of the impact of DR-CAFTA on May 21. The report, entitled “DR-CAFTA and Worker’s Rights: Moving from Paper to Practice” evaluates the progress in the White Paper’s recommendations for improving labor rights in the DR-CAFTA countries.

DR-CAFTA is a free trade agreement that passed in 2005 between the US and Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic joined shortly thereafter. You can check out ILRF’s webpage dedicated to CAFTA for more specifics.  It almost did not pass due to concerns over labor conditions. In fact, in 2005, ILRF testified on Capitol Hill about many concerns regarding CAFTA.  To help secure a favorable vote in the Senate, US Trade Representatives supported funds that would be used for projects to strengthen trade capacity building and labor rights practice and enforcement based on recommendations outlined in the “White Paper,” which some saw as simply a tactic to get DR-CAFTA passed in Congress.

This White Paper report, titled “The Labor Dimension in Central America and the Dominican Republic- Building on Progress: Strengthening Compliance and Enhancing Capacity,” is a self assessment for the member countries of DR-CAFTA with recommendations on how they can improve labor rights and conditions in their respective countries. The countries agreed to make these improvements and wrote the White Paper. The White Paper identifies six areas of focus in order to improve the labor conditions and standards. The six “priority areas” are:

• Reforming labor laws and improving implementation
• Increasing the budget and personnel needs of the labor ministries
• Strengthening the judicial system for labor law
• Establishing protections against discrimination in the workplace
• Eliminating the worst forms of child labor
• Promoting a “culture of compliance”

From the outset WOLA and ILRF urged Congress to reject DR-CAFTA because it does not adequately promote respect and reform for labor rights. WOLA began monitoring DR-CAFTA, labor conditions, and the White Paper objectives in 2006. ILRF in conjunction with partners in Central America produced research concerning labor law implementation in Central America at the time that CAFTA was being debated.  In addition, ILRF published, again with the support of partners in Central America, reports in 2006 regarding labor rights violations in the sugar industries in many of the Central American countries.

WOLA’s new study reports on the labor conditions that have not improved despite the objectives of the White Paper. The study evaluates the progress (or lack thereof) in the priority areas identified by the White Paper. In its research, WOLA found that, despite the stated commitment of the governments to implement the White Paper recommendations, abuses such as violence against unions and union leaders, illegal closure of factories, gender discrimination, child labor continue.

The report concludes that the funds invested were insufficient in resolving the long-standing labor problems and the impunity of the employers. It notes systematic violations that continue to infringe upon worker’s rights. There have been instances of intimidation against union leaders, high levels of impunity of employers, and declining numbers of unions. Even graver abuses include the assassination of union leaders in Guatemala.

The report concludes that labor conditions in DR-CAFTA countries have not improved based on years of study, a conclusion reiterated by interviews with union representatives, labor lawyers and human rights organizations. WOLA anticipates that the labor conditions will only worsen in Central America due to the current global economic crisis. WOLA’s report makes suggestions for the Obama Administration and Congress to impact labor conditions in these countries. The report recommends strengthening enforcement mechanisms through employer sanctions, providing direct support to labor unions, and urging the governments to establish laws that regulate employment subcontracting. WOLA hopes that their report will also be useful in the debates on pending trade agreements with Panama and Colombia.