Changing Lives gets a new website

Changing Lives who were running thier site at www.changinglivescards now has a new website to reflect the expanding nature and emphasis of thier work:

www.BringingVision.org

Mapping resources

The myriad of digital mapping resources make locating the right information tedious at times, so here is a quick summary of some primary areas to look at:

The Data Repository for the Geographic Information Support Team house volumes of downloadable  data sets.

The OCHA Information Management Toolbox is a resource base designed to assist Humanitarian Affairs professionals in managing information to support their work in ensuring better humanitarian planning and response.

Directory of Open Access Journals

A great resource for research material is found at the

AssistAfrica has voted to support the EU petition for the free and open access to European research.

Replanting the DRC’s forests.

An interesting article from the World Agroforestry Centre’s site highlights what can be done through partnerships. In this case between The Salvation Army and the WorldAgroforestry project “Growing out of poverty: Tree cultivation in west and central Africa for home use and markets”, which is  funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development, (IFAD).

Public Attitudes towards Developemnt

These are drawn from the DFID survey last year of public attitudes towards development …

Key findings:.

Concern with and perceived impact of poverty in developing countries

• Over four fifths (81 per cent) of respondents were either very or fairly concerned about poverty in developing countries.
• Women were more likely than men to express concern about poverty in developing countries (85 per cent compared with 76 per cent).

Importance of poverty issues

• The vast majority of respondents thought that reducing malaria, HIV/AIDS and other major diseases was very important (92 per cent).
• Nearly as many thought that the following were very important: reducing the number of children who die before they are five (91 per cent), that all children should be able to go to school (90 per cent), reducing the number of women dying as a result of childbirth (88 per cent) and men and women having access to family planning services (83 per cent).
• About three quarters thought that reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty (77 per cent) and reducing damage to the environment (75 per cent) was very important. Seventy one per cent thought that better management of the debt problem facing developing countries was very important and 63 per cent thought that fairer global trade was very important.

Awareness of UK Government commitment

• Over half (53 per cent) of respondents thought the UK Government’s commitment to poverty reduction in developing countries was too little, and about a third (34 per cent) of respondents thought that was about right.

Contribution of international organisations to poverty reduction in developing countries

• International charities (mentioned by 78 per cent of people), the United Nations (58 per cent) and governments of richer countries (54 per cent) were considered to be the main contributors to the reduction of poverty.
• The least mentioned contributors were individuals in developing and developed countries (16 and 15 per cent respectively).

Actions that could impact on poverty reduction in developing countries

• The action that people thought would have the most impact was reducing conflict and war: 67 per cent of people thought this would impact ‘a lot’ and a further 22 per cent thought it would impact ‘a fair amount’.
• Over half of people thought that a substantial impact (‘a lot’) on poverty reduction would stem from helping governments in developing countries provide better healthcare and education services (56 per cent), helping developing countries work their own way out of poverty (53 per cent), removing rich dictators through force (53 per cent) and creating a fairer trade system (51 per cent).

Ways in which individuals can help

• Donating to charities was the most popular means by which respondents felt that they could contribute to the reduction of poverty in developing countries: 60 per cent of respondents gave this answer.

• Nearly as many respondents (58 per cent) said that they could make an effective contribution by buying fair trade goods, and 46 per cent said they could avoid businesses that exploit the country or people.

Corruption and waste

• Two fifths (41 per cent) said that they agreed with the statement ‘some people have said that most aid to developing (poor) countries is wasted’: 9 per cent agreed strongly and 32 per cent agreed. Over a quarter (27 per cent) said they neither agreed nor disagreed and the remainder (32 per cent) disagreed.
• The majority (75 per cent) of respondents thought the UK should continue to help poor people with health and education in countries where corruption is discovered in their government.
• The most popular policy suggested by interviewers to help countries with corrupt governments, supported ‘a lot’ by 72 per cent of people, was putting strict conditions on how the money was spent. About half of respondents supported ‘a lot’ helping citizens to hold their governments to account (50 per cent), running projects directly and not dealing with the government (48 per cent), and bypassing the government completely (47 per cent). Nearly as many people (42 per cent) supported working with the governments of developing countries to fight corruption.

Impact of overseas aid in Africa

• About a third (34 per cent) thought that the lives of poor people in Africa had been improved ‘a fair amount’ in the last ten years, and a further 8 per cent thought they had improved ‘a lot’. Nearly half of respondents (47 per cent) thought lives had not improved very much and 6 per cent thought they had not improved at all.

Sources of information about the lives of poor people in Africa

• More than half of people reported that they found out about whether aid has improved the lives of poor people in Africa by watching the TV News (76 per cent), watching TV documentaries (55 per cent) and from Comic Relief and Live Aid (53 per cent).
• Nearly a half (47 per cent) looked at newspapers or magazines, 15 per cent of respondents said that they used the radio and the Internet was used by 8 per cent of respondents to find out what was happening.

The full report can be read here.

Reports & Research available from DFID /R4D

The UK Department for International Development (DFID) through Research for Development have provided funding for a number of programmes that should be evaluated to see if (at all) they can fit into the AssistAfrica remit.

These are available to view through these search results on the R4D site.

Agriculture still crucial in African Development – New Report

An article on the DFID / Research for Development site points towards a new report published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). The report “The role of agriculture in development: Implications for sub-Saharan Africa” shows that agricultural growth will continue to play an important role in promoting overall economic growth and reducing poverty in most of Africa’s agrarian-based economies.

The report focuses on low-income countries, because more than 90 percent of Africans live in countries where incomes average a dollar a day. The study suggests that 26 out of 34 low-income African countries have favourable agricultural potential. Agricultural growth is important for most low-income African countries and tends to benefit the poor more than growth in other areas such as manufacturing or mining.

Xinshen Diao, IFPRI senior research fellow, and his colleagues contend that only smallholder food-staple and livestock production can generate the broad-based agricultural growth that is needed. He called for greater public sector involvement in the short term, and to meet the challenge for new institutional arrangements between the public and private sectors that foster private sector development without neglecting smallholder farmers.

The full report can be downloaded from the IFPRI website here.

Returning Home – A short film from the D.R. Congo

A Refugees International video on returnees to South Kivu.

This video tells the story of the people of South Kivu — in the east of the Congo. After years of war and crisis, people are returning from exile in Tanzania and trying to rebuild their lives. Refugees International is calling on the US government and the UN to make greater investments in basic services, like education, health care and food security to help people rebuild their communities and restart their lives.

Historical Overviews

Anup Shah, of GlobalIssues.org has complied a very good (and brief) historical overview of The Democratic Republic of Congo. It goes up to October 2003

UN work in DRC

MONUC is the UN mission to DRC.

An aspect of its work has been Civic Education. Civic education is essential for the maintenance of democractic institutions and the establishment of good governance. It is about providing citizens with the basic information on how government works in order to strengthen the move towards good governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Other UN organisations active in the DRC are:

OCHA
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Information for the humanitarian community in DRC. News and actualities from various sources about DRC

OHCHR
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Documents and press releases on RDC

UNAIDS
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
Estimations and reports on AIDS in DRC

UNHCR
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
News and actualities by UNHCR about DRC

UNICEF
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund
DRC at a glance

UNDP
United Nations Development Programme
Human development report, country sheet

UNFPA
United Nations Fund for Population Activities
Population, Health & Socio-Economic Indicators / Policy Developments

WFP
World Food Programme
Hunger reports on DRC

WHO
World Health Organization
Health indicators on DRC

World Bank Group
Country brief and profile, Millennium Development Goals and Regional Integration Assistance