Economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin outlines her ambitious vision to found the first commodities market in Ethiopia. Her plan would create wealth, minimize risk for farmers and turn the world's largest recipient of food aid into a regional food basket.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Eleni Gabre-Madhin on Ethiopian economics | Video on TED.com
Eleni Gabre-Madhin on Ethiopian economics | Video on TED.com
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
After the revolution, Libya's challenges - World - CBC News
ANALYSIS | After the revolution, Libya's challenges - World - CBC News:
Derek Stoffel is the Middle East correspondent for CBC Radio News, a position he took up in the summer of 2011. Based for a long time in Toronto where he covered national news for CBC Radio, Stoffel has also done long stints in Afghanistan and Europe, both as a reporter and producer.
'via Blog this'
Derek Stoffel
Middle East correspondentDerek Stoffel is the Middle East correspondent for CBC Radio News, a position he took up in the summer of 2011. Based for a long time in Toronto where he covered national news for CBC Radio, Stoffel has also done long stints in Afghanistan and Europe, both as a reporter and producer.
'via Blog this'
Saturday, October 22, 2011
East Africa drought crisis still ‘huge’ — SOS Children
I just copied this to help get the word out.
East Africa drought crisis still ‘huge’ — SOS Children:
The size of the humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa remains massive, says a British politician.Three months after famine was officially declared in Somalia, hundreds of people, mainly children, are still dying every day, said Britain’s International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell.
The drought and famine have forced thousands of people into refugee camps and left 12 million people in need of aid and 750,000 at risk of death in Somalia, according to the latest figures from the Famine Early Warning System FEWS.
Earlier this week it was revealed that British aid is feeding more than 2.4m people across the region and an appeal by the UK’s Disasters and Emergency Committee has raised £72m, but that is still not enough.
With the rainy season round the corner, people caught up in the crisis are now facing the risk of disease spreading across crowded refugee camps.
More than 400,000 children are still at risk of death, just in Somalia alone, Mr Mitchell notes. British aid pouring into the region has been concentrated on keeping people healthy. About 1.3m people have been given jabs against measles, for instance, and 400,000 doses of anti-malarial drugs are heading for Somalia.
Although the rains look likely to bring with them yet more misery and death, they can also play a part in the region’s recovery from the disaster. Funds raised by British people have helped buy seeds for more than 200,000 people, which they will be able to plant and grow when the weather improves. The biggest problem, however is still actually getting to people in need who are living inside the parts of Somalia worst affected by fighting. Famine was officially declared in the lawless country as far back as July. And because they can’t get aid if they stay put, the number of Somali refugees crossing into south-eastern Ethiopia is on the rise.
Announcing its appeal to help people hit by the crisis DEC chief executive Brendan Gormley said earlier this week: "The incredibly generous support of the UK public for the DEC East Africa Crisis Appeal has made the difference between life and death for many people in the region. But, he warned that "the situation remains grave however particularly in those areas of Somalia where access for most aid agencies remains severely restricted.” The appeal brought in the third highest amount in charity's 45-year history - only the Asian tsunami (£392m) and the Haiti earthquake (£107m) raised more.
'via Blog this'
East Africa drought crisis still ‘huge’ — SOS Children:
The size of the humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa remains massive, says a British politician.Three months after famine was officially declared in Somalia, hundreds of people, mainly children, are still dying every day, said Britain’s International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell.
The drought and famine have forced thousands of people into refugee camps and left 12 million people in need of aid and 750,000 at risk of death in Somalia, according to the latest figures from the Famine Early Warning System FEWS.
Earlier this week it was revealed that British aid is feeding more than 2.4m people across the region and an appeal by the UK’s Disasters and Emergency Committee has raised £72m, but that is still not enough.
With the rainy season round the corner, people caught up in the crisis are now facing the risk of disease spreading across crowded refugee camps.
More than 400,000 children are still at risk of death, just in Somalia alone, Mr Mitchell notes. British aid pouring into the region has been concentrated on keeping people healthy. About 1.3m people have been given jabs against measles, for instance, and 400,000 doses of anti-malarial drugs are heading for Somalia.
Although the rains look likely to bring with them yet more misery and death, they can also play a part in the region’s recovery from the disaster. Funds raised by British people have helped buy seeds for more than 200,000 people, which they will be able to plant and grow when the weather improves. The biggest problem, however is still actually getting to people in need who are living inside the parts of Somalia worst affected by fighting. Famine was officially declared in the lawless country as far back as July. And because they can’t get aid if they stay put, the number of Somali refugees crossing into south-eastern Ethiopia is on the rise.
Announcing its appeal to help people hit by the crisis DEC chief executive Brendan Gormley said earlier this week: "The incredibly generous support of the UK public for the DEC East Africa Crisis Appeal has made the difference between life and death for many people in the region. But, he warned that "the situation remains grave however particularly in those areas of Somalia where access for most aid agencies remains severely restricted.” The appeal brought in the third highest amount in charity's 45-year history - only the Asian tsunami (£392m) and the Haiti earthquake (£107m) raised more.
'via Blog this'
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Something Evil Happened Here
Libya: Gaddafi's Reign of Terror - The Daily Beast:
There are places in the world, like Srebrenica in Bosnia, like Hama in Syria, where the ghosts of death linger long after the event. You smell them and you see them even before you arrive: these are haunted places. In a small field, part of the compound, belonging to the 32nd Brigade, a guard leads me to a corrugated-iron warehouse, terra-cotta colored, about 30 feet by 50 feet. I’m not so far away when I begin to feel a familiar sensation: something evil happened here.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Dancing with monsters in the Congo - World - CBC News
Dancing with monsters in the Congo - World - CBC News:
"There, a vast war has raged since the mid 1990s. An estimated five million people have died. And thousands of women have been brutally raped as the spoils of war and pillage."
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Gero Miesenboeck reengineers a brain | Video on TED.com
Gero Miesenboeck reengineers a brain | Video on TED.com
Gero Miesenboeck is pioneering the field of optogenetics: genetically modifying nerve cells to respond to light. By flashing light at a modified neuron in a living nervous system, Miesenboeck and his collaborators can mimic a brain impulse -- and then study what happens next. Optogenetics will allow ever more precise experiments on living brains, allowing us to gather better evidence on how electrical impulses on tissue translate into actual behavior and thoughts.
In one experiment, done at Yale, he and his team engineered fruit flies to be light-sensitive in the neural area responsible for escape response. Then the flies were beheaded; fruit flies can live for a day without their heads, but they don't move. When the modified cells were flashed with light, though, the headless flies flew. Miesenboeck had successfully simulated an order from a brain that wasn't even there anymore.
Miesenboeck's current research at Oxford's growing department of neurobiology focuses on the nerve cell networks that underpin what animals perceive, remember and do. In one recent experiment, he used optogenetics to implant an unpleasant memory in a fruit fly, causing it to "remember" to avoid a certain odor as it traveled around. He and his team were able, in fact, to find the fly's specific 12-neuron brain circuit that govern memory formation.
On the Web@
http://www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/academic_staff/gero_miesenboeck/
In the quest to map the brain, many scientists have attempted the incredibly daunting task of recording the activity of each neuron. Gero Miesenboeck works backward -- manipulating specific neurons to figure out exactly what they do, through a series of stunning experiments that reengineer the way fruit flies perceive light.
Gero Miesenboeck is pioneering the field of optogenetics: genetically modifying nerve cells to respond to light. By flashing light at a modified neuron in a living nervous system, Miesenboeck and his collaborators can mimic a brain impulse -- and then study what happens next. Optogenetics will allow ever more precise experiments on living brains, allowing us to gather better evidence on how electrical impulses on tissue translate into actual behavior and thoughts.
In one experiment, done at Yale, he and his team engineered fruit flies to be light-sensitive in the neural area responsible for escape response. Then the flies were beheaded; fruit flies can live for a day without their heads, but they don't move. When the modified cells were flashed with light, though, the headless flies flew. Miesenboeck had successfully simulated an order from a brain that wasn't even there anymore.
Miesenboeck's current research at Oxford's growing department of neurobiology focuses on the nerve cell networks that underpin what animals perceive, remember and do. In one recent experiment, he used optogenetics to implant an unpleasant memory in a fruit fly, causing it to "remember" to avoid a certain odor as it traveled around. He and his team were able, in fact, to find the fly's specific 12-neuron brain circuit that govern memory formation.
On the Web@
http://www.dpag.ox.ac.uk/academic_staff/gero_miesenboeck/
Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt | Video on TED.com
Peter Eigen: How to expose the corrupt | Video on TED.com
Some of the world's most baffling social problems, says Peter Eigen, can be traced to systematic,
pervasive government corruption, hand-in-glove with global companies. At TEDxBerlin, Eigen
describes the thrilling counter-attack led by his organization Transparency International.
From the website of Transparency International comes this elegant definition: What is corruption?Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It hurts everyone whose life, livelihood or happiness depends on the integrity of people in a position of authority.
Peter Eigen knows this. He worked in economic development for 25 years, mainly as a World Bank manager of programs in Africa and Latin America. Among his assignments, he served as director of the regional mission for Eastern Africa from 1988 to 1991. Stunned by the depth and pervasiveness -- and sheer destructiveness -- of the corruption he encountered, he formed the group Transparency International to take on some of the main players in deals with corrupt officials: multinational corporations.
Eigen believes that the best way to root out corruption is to make it known. Thus, Transparency International works to raises awareness of corruption, and takes practical action to address it, including public hearings.
As a director of the World Bank in Nairobi, Peter Eigen saw firsthand how devastating corruption can be. He's founder of Transparency International, an NGO that works to persuade international companies not to bribe.
On the Web @
www.transparency.org
www.africaprogresspanel.org
Jacqueline Novogratz: A third way to think about aid | Video on TED.com
Jacqueline Novogratz: A third way to think about aid | Video on TED.com
The debate over foreign aid often pits those who mistrust "charity" against those who mistrust reliance on the markets. Jacqueline Novogratz proposes a middle way she
calls patient capital, with promising examples of entrepreneurial innovation driving social change.
Jacqueline Novogratz invests in Africa's own solutions | Video on TED.com
Jacqueline Novogratz invests in Africa's own solutions | Video on TED.com
Fortune
One of the most innovative players shaping philanthropy today, Jacqueline Novogratz is redefining the way problems of poverty can be solved around the world. Drawing on her past experience in banking, microfinance and traditional philanthropy, Novogratz has become a leading proponent for financing entrepreneurs and enterprises that can bring affordable clean water, housing and healthcare to poor people so that they no longer have to depend on the disappointing results and lack of accountability seen in traditional charity and old-fashioned aid.
The Acumen Fund, which she founded in 2001, has an ambitious plan: to create a blueprint for alleviating poverty using market-oriented approaches. Indeed, Acumen has more in common with a venture capital fund than a typical nonprofit. Rather than handing out grants, Acumen invests in fledgling companies and organizations that bring critical -- often life-altering -- products and services to the world's poor. Like VCs, Acumen offers not just money, but also infrastructure and management expertise. From drip-irrigation systems in India to malaria-preventing bed nets in Tanzania to a low-cost mortgage program in Pakistan, Acumen's portfolio offers important case studies for entrepreneurial efforts aimed at the vastly underserved market of those making less than $4/day.
It's a fascinating model that's shaken up philanthropy and investment communities alike.Acumen Fund manages more than $20 million in investments aimed at serving the poor.And most of their projects deliver stunning, inspiring results. Their success can be traced back to Novogratz herself, who possesses that rarest combination of business savvy and cultural sensitivity. In addition to seeking out sound business models, she places great importance on identifying solutions from within communities rather than imposing them from the outside. “People don't want handouts," Novogratz said at TEDGlobal 2005. "They want to make their own decisions, to solve their own problems.”
In her new book, The Blue Sweater, she tells stories from the new philanthropy, which emphasizes sustainable bottom-up solutions over traditional top-down aid.
"Acumen Fund is a not-for-profit group (but not a charity) that is supported by investors (not donors) who wanta good “social return” on their capital."
Fortune
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