Dear baby Seven,

Your first breath of life on Earth is being celebrated as a milestone. On this October 31, 2010, we welcomed you to this rock of blue azure, your new home. It is the 3^rd planet from the sun, and the only one inhabited by life in the entire solar system. There are many species that live on this planet, but none quite as unique as the one you were born into today. You see, you are human, the seven-billionth being alive.

It took thousands of years for our population to reach one billion. Since then, our numbers have grown faster and faster. By the time you are 13, baby number 8 billion will join you on this planet.

Unfortunately, the more we grow, the less resources we have access to. As the world gets more crowded, you will have to fight for everything. One thing about being human: we know how to fight. We fight just as fiercely for the wrong things as we do for the right things. We fight for land, clean water, food, fossil fuels, and nonessential natural resources. We point guns and throw bombs, spears and arrows at each other recklessly. We pillage and furiously flex our muscles at anything that stands in the way of what we desire. We are so relentless in our pursuit that we forget how to be hospitable to each other and our environment.

So far, we have not been very good stewards of our home. We are the only species on this planet that requires such enormous amounts of energy. Energy powers everything about us. It defines our very identity. It feeds us, clothes us, and propels us from here to there. It powers our curiosity, and emboldens our greed. Mind you there’s nothing wrong with energy, just how we access it.

Humans rule supreme with unrivaled intelligence, zeal, ambition, and drive.

That intelligence and ambition drives us to invent and reinvent. We are destructively creative beings by nature; never satisfied with the status quo. “Out with the old and in with the new,” is a motto you will hear a lot in your lifetime. We create to destroy.

This is the world you are born into, but it is not a world you have to accept. Another thing about being human is that each of us has the inherent ability to be great, the capability to so greatly influence the world we live in that one person may inspire a change in how all others relate to each other and the environment. These influences come can be anywhere from inventions to social movements sparked by a single action.

Look at your hands. You have an opposable thumb. Believe it or not, it is very important. In a few years, I am sure you will be using that thumb to tap away at some piece of electronic glass to expand your knowledge. I am sure you won’t know what a keyboard is yet, but that’s what I am using to type this letter to you. Thanks to human intelligence, we are able to invent things; wonderful, delightful things that allow us to share knowledge and experiences and stretch our natural resources so that we fight just a little less.

But I wonder if you will have access to these wonderful inventions. You see, we may celebrate your birth today, but we still have no idea where you are on this rock. And where you are makes all the difference in determining what kind of life you will live, how hard you will have to work just to enjoy your short time here. If your first breath of life is in Africa, chances are you will have better access to information technology than the most basic of inventions, such as running water and waste management systems. In fact, today there are more mobile phones on the continent than there are toilets. By the time you are a teenager, there will be more internet enabled smart phones than toilets and households with electricity access on the continent. If you are in Europe or America, there is a much better chance that you will have access to any and all of the above.

But again, despair not. This reality may be what you inherit today, but it does not have to be the future you live in. I write this letter to you to give you hope, that between the great milestones of your life will be days filled with opportunity and hope. Here’s to wishing that you grab every available opportunity to succeed. Here’s to wishing you beat the odds and become great. Here’s to a dream of you rising one day to be the bright light the world needs to see. Here’s to being the difference maker. Here’s to the responsible choices that you will make in your life time. Here’s to wishing that one day you will write a letter, very much like this one but with more wisdom and guidance, to welcome baby number ten billion. For now, please enjoy sucking on that opposable thumb. It just maybe the secret to your future success.

Fellow Ugandans,

As a creative consultant, it is not often that I get to work on a project that both pays me and also contributes to the development and well-being of Uganda. I would like to introduce you to such a project.

I met Pratheepan “Deep” Gulasekaram in DC at the Clinton Global Diaspora Forum. He, along with a crew of determined colleagues put their skills together in the wake of the Asian tsunami and built a fully functioning hospital in Sri Lanka. They successfully negotiated a public-private partnership with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health to complete and ensure the long-term success of the newly constructed Matara Children’s Hospital.

After the completion and hand over of the project that was recognized by Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr., they have set out to build a children’s hospital in Uganda. “Project Heart: Uganda” has already broken ground. The walls and roof are already up and completion is in sight.

After a long talk with Deep last month, I agreed to assist their efforts to connect to members of the East African Diaspora that would bring value to their initiative. Not because they are my clients, but because it is a much needed initiative that will bring value to Uganda’s medical system. Additionally, I wanted to share this project with you as a plea for all of us to help support this initiative to make sure it is successfully launched with as much of our buy-in as possible. After all, it will be our family members that will benefit in the long run. The above video of one such child who was helped by these very same doctors to repair her heart

Here is a project that is reaching out directly for us to be part of its success and the re-invention of Uganda’s medical services & facilities. For once, it is not another aid project that FAILS to request to partner with us. It is a project that we all know could save the life of one of our family members.

On Sept. 24th, “Project Heart: Uganda” is having a fund-raising event in Los Angeles. If you are in California and are interested in meeting Deep and his inspiring colleagues, I am sure they won’t fail to inspire you with the vision that they have for the hospital.

Here are some things you can do to help this project:

I look forward to seeing us all rise to the occasion for this initiative. Even if all you do is  donate $1.00 (though I secretly hope it is more than that, nearly $3 billion in remittances is sent to East Africa annually-let’s put some of it towards a sustainability initiative). If you’d like more information, I’d be happy to put you in touch with Deep and his team. A new web site with more information is in the works that will keep all of you updated on the project.

My new position at World Bank: Lead Social Media Strategist for Connect4Climate

I have been hoarding this news for a few weeks now. Earlier this month I accepted a consultancy at the World Bank to help launch and maintain their soon-to-launch ‘Connect4Climate’ campaign. Connect4Climate will be a campaign, a competition, and an community of individuals and global partners that care about climate change.

As many of you know, I am passionate about photography, a die-hard enthusiast of Africa’s mobile promise and the continent’s youth. That is why I was immediately drawn to the climate change photography and video competition component of this initiative. This position combines all of my passions into one fantastic opportunity. I look forward to hearing to the many emerging youth voices on the continent and in the Diaspora. If those voices are as passionate as our very own Teejay, then you know this is going to be good.

As the Lead Social Media Strategist – Connect4Climate, my job will be to get as many youth voices on the continent to engage in the conversation about climate change at the local and international level through the C4C competition. We all know that climate change affect all of us. That is why I will be reaching out to all of you reading this to engage with us to share your stories, links, data, and interesting anecdotes that will broaden the baseline of this very critical topic of discussion.

So while I am busy working with the team on launching the new site later this month, please make sure to connect with us on our Facebook page. Invite your friends, colleagues, enthusiasts, fans, supporters, (and climate change “doubters” are welcome too). Let’s get the conversation started. You can find me on Twitter @tmsruge. The C4C Twitter account will be open sometime this week. I will update this post with the new account once that goes live.

So let the conversation begin!

We got this notice for an exciting new web series that will be shot on the East Coast and in Ghana. If you have acting chops or think you fit the roles, then download the PDF with character breakdown. Prepare your strong monologues now, I have a feeling these are going to be very sought-after roles for African actors and entertainers.

The creators of ‘The Other City’ (a working title) are casting for a pilot for a web series to be shot this fall/winter.  ‘The Other City’ is the African version of ‘Sex and the City,’ based in Accra, Ghana.  We are looking for women from the African Diaspora between the ages of 20 and 35, as well as male models of African descent between the ages of 20 and 40.

Date:  Thursday, August 25
Time:  3pm – 7pm
Address:  420 W. 118th street – 118th and Amsterdam (Columbia University)

Prior to the audition, please email to theothercity233@gmail.com a professional resume, headshot, and video link. Most importantly, please email a time you expect to arrive at the auditions. Shooting will take place in October/November in Washington DC (2 days) as well as next year in Accra, Ghana (2 weeks).

Download the call sheet »

For our fellow Diasporans in the UK, you might be interested in checking this out. We got word that FELA! is coming to Sadler’s Wells for a few weeks (July 20 – Aug 28 to be exact). Here’s more information below:

FELA!
Sadler’s Wells
Wednesday 20 July – Sunday 28 August 2011
Performances: Tue – Sun at 7.30pm, Sat & Sun mats at 2.30pm
Tickets: £15 – £50
Ticket Office: 0844 412 4300
www.sadlerswells.com

“There should be dancing in the streets. There has never been anything like this.”
- New York Times

Sadler’s Wells’ summer show for 2011 is the Tony Award-winning Broadway dance musical FELA!. A provocative hybrid of dance, theatre and music, exploring the extravagant, decadent and rebellious world of Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti, the production runs at Sadler’s Wells from 20 July to 28 August 2011.

Leading the cast is Olivier Award-nominated Sahr Ngaujah, who returns to the title role, having garnered acclaim for his portrayal of Kuti in New York and London. Featuring many of Fela Kuti’s most captivating songs and Bill T Jones’s visionary staging, FELA! reveals Kuti’s controversial life as an artist and political activist and celebrates his pioneering music.

Recognised as an icon in the international world of rock and roll, soul, jazz and hip-hop, Fela Kuti combined elements of traditional Yoruba, high life and jazz, giving rise to “Afrobeat”. Through his music he condemned military regimes in Nigeria. He was arrested more than 200 times and beaten savagely on many occasions. Despite this he continued to live in Nigeria and produced more than 70 albums during his career.

FELA! was choreographed, directed and co-written (with lyricist Jim Lewis) by Bill T. Jones, a leading light in American contemporary dance. Jones choreographed and performed worldwide as a soloist and duet company with his late partner, Arnie Zane, before forming the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982. The company last performed at Sadler’s Wells in 2004.

Jones’ awards include the 2007 Tony Award, the 2007 Obie Award and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Callaway Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening and the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven.

FELA! received its world premiere Off-Broadway in September 2008, where it won the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Musical, before transferring to Broadway’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre in November 2009 where its accolades included three 2010 Tony Awards®, for Best Choreography, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Design, and an Astaire Award for Bill T. Jones’ choreography.

FELA! is directed and choreographed by Bill T. Jones, with a book by Jim Lewis and Bill T. Jones, and music and lyrics by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti. Conceived by Bill T. Jones, Jim Lewis and Stephen Hendel, the design and Tony Award winning costumes are by Marina Draghici, lighting design by Robert Wierzel and the Tony Award winning sound design by Robert Kaplowitz.

FELA! is produced in association with Shawn ‘Jay-Z’ Carter, Will & Jada Pinkett Smith, Ruth & Stephen Hendel, Roy Gabay, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Edward Tyler Nahem, Slava Smolokowski, Chip Meyrelles/Ken Greiner, Douglas G. Smith, Steve Semlitz/Cathy Glazer, Daryl Roth/True Love Productions, Susan Dietz/Mort Swinsky, Knitting Factory Entertainment and with Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson.

“The dancing is ecstatic, the music lifts the spirits and the stage is alive with movement”
- The Guardian

Additional Notes on Fela Kuti and Bill T Jones:

Fela Anikulapo-Kuti was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, north of Lagos in 1938. His father was a Christian schoolmaster, minister and master pianist and his mother was a world-recognised feminist leader, who was very active in the anti-colonial Nigerian women’s movement during the struggle for independence. Educated in Nigeria, and later in London where he studied music, Fela Kuti found his authentic musical voice adding elements of traditional Yoruba, high life and jazz, giving rise to “Afrobeat”. Through his music he condemned military regimes in Nigeria for their mismanagement, and marginalization of the underprivileged. He was subsequently constantly harassed, arrested more than 200 times and beaten savagely on many occasions. Despite this he continued to live in Nigeria and produced in excess of 70 albums of music during his career. He toured the United States and Europe with an entourage of 80 people to public and critical acclaim. He died in August 1997 at the age of 58 from an AIDS-related illness. In Nigeria one million people attended his funeral.

Bill T. Jones won the 2007 Tony Award, the 2007 Obie Award and 2006 Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Callaway Award for his choreography for Spring Awakening. His many awards also include the 2007 USA Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship, the 2006 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Choreography for The Seven, the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement, the 2005 Wexner Prize, and the Aaron Davis Hall Harlem Renaissance Award. Before forming Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in 1982, Bill T. Jones choreographed and performed nationally and internationally worldwide as a soloist and duet company with his late partner, Arnie Zane. Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company last appeared at Sadler’s Wells in June 2004.

From time to time, my inbox is graced with a link someone came across and thought I’d be interested in checking out. More often than not, the sender is seeking my opinion on the contents of the link. I guess myself and the smartaid crew on Twitter have kind of gotten a reputation for not slacking on criticizing bad aid practices. Guess I am guilty as charged. When I read this piece on Mashable, I did a double-take before pulling out my tried and true aid-snark criticism.

But before I do that, let me first ask a question. What separates us from our money on our way to doing something charitable? Is it because we love the product or because we love the cause that the product’s proceeds support? I took part in criticizing TOMS’ ‘buy one, give one’ campaign earlier this year. I’ve generally not agreed with any initiative that falsely claims that giving things for free solves endemic problems. I think this is a fairly elementary understanding of good development.

So why am I pausing before I criticize Sevenly’s new t-shirt initiative? At first glance, I thought, ‘now here is something that I can get behind.’ But the more I think about it, the more I am torn about this little variation to the status quo.

Sevenly stretches its gimmicky name to it’s logical conclusion. It partners with a deserving non-profit organization. They design a shirt, and put in on sell for seven days. Seven dollars from each sale goes to support the partner organization. This is a little different twist from the TOMS Shoes BOGO model in that it is a strictly financial donation to a non-profit organization on the sale of a T-shirt (see also (Product) RED).

Again with my question: What separates us from our money? Surely you can find a T-shirt at your nearest Banana Republic or Old Navy for the same amount. It is also reasonable to assume that you can find a charity as the recipient of your hard-earned $24. Apparently, the problem is that we are doing more of the latter and very little of the former. Here’s why Sevenly was founded:

Co-founders Dale Partridge and Aaron Chavez were motivated to create the site after seeing the amount of worthy non-profits that shut down within their first year open. The problem isn’t apathy so much as a lack of following, funding and awareness.

Sevenly is attempting to address donor apathy by rolling charitable giving into consumer habits. As I write this, a ‘poverty-porn’-laced video from World Relief highlighting rape in Congo is playing on the home page. I am left asking myself exactly how giving $7 to World Relief is going to stop that little boy in the video from getting raped. At this question I am lifting my hands off the keyboard asking myself why I would be so heartless as to question World Relief’s efforts to stop(?) rape in Congo?* But really, how is selling a shirt going to stop the rape of over 1000 men, women, and children today? How much of that $7 is actually reaching the ground? Do you really really care when you hit the buy button?

Like TOMS, Sevenly has simply figured out a better way to sell shirts and make a profit, not a better way to help non-profits stay sustainably relevant. Which is another way of arranging a mutually-beneficial backscratching. The non-profits are just a beneficiary cog in the marketing machine. By targeting your heart strings, philanthropic e-commerce has found a new way to separate you from your hard-earned money and leave you that much more separated from the cause du jour. If this strategy had any merit at all as a philanthropic initiative, Sevenly should have reversed its share of the piece of the pie by giving away 2/3 and finding a way to operate on 1/3. Any initiative that leans heavy in favor of self-sustanability is just pulling your chain. I’d be impressed if the company designing and manufacturing the shirts for this week actually employed a subset of the recipients in the Congo. I highly doubt any of that is happening.

Sigh. So much for thinking there was something to like about Sevenly. Seems to me it is just a continuation of the status quo. Yes, yes
I know what you are going to say:

“At least it is better than nothing.”

That, my friend, does not make it right, now does it?

*For more nuanced analysis of the complexity in Congo (and to put into context why a $7 donation isn’t going to help rape victims), please start reading Dr. Laura Seay’s excellent ‘Texas in Africa‘ blog.

My dear sister, I have started this letter only about a million times. And a million times I have crumbled it up and thrown it away. As the years have passed the pile of words and paragraphs have sat in the hollow chambers of my heart; collecting layers of regret and sorrow. I have tried to make keys and lock them away in darkness, but the doors never seem to lock. The letters unfinished beckon incessantly to be put to their final purpose, haunting me with your face alight with that smile so seared in my memory. It’s all I had and it is all I have now. But the memory of you is a weight I can no longer carry. Life, my dear sister, it marches on you see. I fear I must heed its calling, lest my days in the sun pass me by. And so this I must say to you. This I must reveal to you. This I must unchain from my soul. This I must retire to the depth our past. These words to you my dear, on this most auspicious of times, must be set to light on this brand new day.

How do I even pretend to imagine your pain, your hurt, your loneliness? How do I erase it all away with words that come a little too late? Time I can not reverse, but the future awaits me to shape her. I must not wallow in my own regret. Even you wouldn’t have me drown in the shallows of what I cannot change.

You have waited for me I know, to say something, to say anything. I have tried so many times to come and failed. I have known the way and yet I continue to hesitate. At the fork, I stare down the meandering road until it disappeared in the distance. For these many years, I have been turning left for home, wishing I had had the strength to do otherwise. For these many years, you have waited to no avail. For this I am truly sorry.

You see, mother has been afraid of me leaving. She thinks I won’t come back either. She too misses you terribly. It is a sort of sadness written on her soul. No prayer goes without a wish that the truth wasn’t the truth; that there was still chance; that this cruelty of fate wasn’t woven in the fabric of our lives. I sat once in the garden with her, seeing if she would change her mind about letting me come. A few billowing clouds wafted across a plate of glassy blue sky. The wind was ushering in the season’s daily rains. The flowers she tended to so lovingly seemed to bow in resignation, as she looked at me with tears in her eyes.

“You must not go,” she said, “she’s no longer there.”

I remember thinking of this truth, and wanting to fight it once more, shove it back with the words unsent and the memories lost. I wanted the news that I received almost three years earlier not to be true. You were no longer there but yet I knew I had to come and do something. What, I did not know.

You see, the day we separated in Nairobi — you heading to see grandmother in Juba and me going to see grandfather in Masindi — almost felt like it was normal. I was never supposed to lose you for good. Perhaps I should have cried or protested more to stop it. I wish I had known more at the age of four. Or maybe you should have done something since you were older.

Oh, how I have lamented the sorrow you must have felt from not knowing where I was. I was told a terrible war waged the minute you reached grandmother. I waited for you to come, not understanding why you wouldn’t leave and just come, not understanding what war was. I wrote letters that never seemed to come back. I prayed prayers that never seemed to reach you. The seasons passed and the winds blew and the stars shimmered and the sun rose and set and the moon glowed and our reality became clear. You were not coming for me, nor would I ever reach you in time.

The call shook me from a deep night’s slumber. It was Uncle Joshua.

“I have news, are you awake?” he asked.

You had passed away a year before I started looking for you. I was at university and hoping to find you before I graduated so you could attend. I know you would have been proud of me. Mother came to watch me give the graduation speech. Father made a big meal for our party. I felt empty and guilty. I remember spending that summer so gutted, hollowed and haunted. I slept in fathers bed crying for days. I’d never been closer to him.

I have been so gutted in my soul for over a decade now. I think it is time I forgave myself. What do you think? Can I truly forgive myself if I don’t know if you forgave me? I will never know if you did or not. So I must make this choice to do so, because at the very least you would have wanted me to be OK. You always tried to make sure I was ok. So on this day I vow to make the best me that I can be, because of you. On this day I vow not to be sad but optimistic and hopeful that a new future is possible.

Wherever you may lay, know that on this very morning, a new kind of day is dawning. One that I think you and so many of us paid the ultimate price for. Please tell whoever is laying next to you that today a nation is born. The winds sway the tall grasses above you, shaking the morning’s dew from their sinewy leaves as they reach for the new morning sun. Today we awake to a new future full of possibilities, full of promise and hope. I hope you can see us celebrate, I hope you can hear the drums in the distance. I hope you can feel the stomping feet. I hope you can feel the joyous sound. I hope you can see our new flag shimmering in the morning sun. And I hope that you know, I wish you were here to celebrate with me.

Happy birthday Lucy, this is our day in the sun.

I spent this past week in Washington, DC attending Secretary Clinton’s Global Diaspora Forum. The UN foundation invited me to participate on a panel discussion the Global Diaspora’s role in tackling global problems.

The power of the Diaspora as change agents is not something new to us here at Project Diaspora. Since 2007, we’ve been singing that song from the perspective of the African Diaspora’s role in development of Africa. While the continent’s Diaspora was well-represented, I noticed a lack of Sub-Saharan Africa voices on the major planery panels. Semhar Araia, founder and executive director of Diaspora African Women’s Network (DAWN) and a member of Eritrea’s Diaspora, was one of the few voices I noticed.

I can possibly give the State Department a pass as this was the first conference of it’s kind. I am sure subsequent forums will include an equal representation from all regions. There was an underlying current of the need for collaboration among the Diaspora’s.

In his opening remarks, Thomas Debass, Director at the Global Partership Initiative in the Office of the Secretary of State, noted that “the tone of the conference is about partnership and less about pontification.”

The following are notes from the first day’s keynote speeches and plenary sessions. I zeroed in on interesting stats and quotes that I thought most relevant to this audience:

• We [ global diaspora ] are natural ambassodors
• 300 organizations represented
• Diaspora at State is a brand new office set up by Secretary Clinton

Maria Otero
Under-Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs

• Highest ranking Latina in the history of Department of State
• Raised with 8 siblings in La Paz, Bolivia
• Moved to Washington, DC when she was 12
• “Our hearts, our minds and our stomachs always remain in our home countries”
• Her siblings lived somewhere between Bolivian culture and new home in America. All her siblings got jobs that fulfilled that balance
• Has been fortunate to work in careers that have dealt with her home country
• Over 25% of American population is first generation immigrant
• US throughout has used used Diaspora to engage with their home countries
• This event today builds on our ties to our countries of origin. Seeks Diaspora to inform State Department on foreign diplomacy.
• “What State Dept calls diplomacy, we call a phone call to family and friends.”
• We know we are the link between the two and our voice matters
• Diaspora communities are first to respond and last to leave in any time of intervention
• Diplomacy under this pres and Sec of state is no longer limited to a phone call from government office
• From one immigrant to many, I greatly appreciate you being here
• All the issues that I work on I know are important to you

 

Hillary Clinton
Secretary of State of the United States

• Extend greeting to everyone that is visiting via internet
• One of great strengths of the US is its diversity
• More than 60 million Americans are first or second generation diaspora
• What would countries do without remittances from America. Remittances dwarf foreign aid
• Not possible for any government to deal with everything it has to deal with, that’s why we need ‘smart power.’ Building coalitions, people-to-people exchanges is the essence of smart power
• You are our peace corps, our usaid, opic all rolled into one
• In a crisis, first people to respond are those with family or friends where disaster strikes
• Many of you have stepped in where others were unwilling or unable to assist
• Irish Americans were instrumental in peace process in Ireland
• America has an obligation to try and promote peace around the world (with guns?-TMS)
• Particularly interested in women involved as peace makers
• There are some member of some communities who want nothing to do with their respective communities of origin
• GDF will instutionalize as a convener, catalyst, collaborator (work closely with diaspora to maximize impact
• We need to get into the basics of what it means to participate in the process of politics
• We need you to help to us (State dept) on what is best to be done to organize
• Too many people who pledge for democracy believe in one election, one time
• We want you to tell us what we should be doing

 

Partner Commitments to the International Diaspora Engagement Alliance (IDEA)

• IFAD
  • Diaspora investment in ag is end of conflict and beginning of development
  • 250 million leave outside countries of origin worldwide
  • We all have a profound connection to our friends and our families
  • 325 bil in remittances around the world, help in education, health, family
  • Role of diaspora goes beyond short-term relief
  • Investment in ag is best vehicle to development. Social and polical benefits
  • Diaspora willing to invest while foriegn firms run away
  • How can we better leverage Diaspora investments in agricuture
  • Diaspora save $400 bil every year, money is not the problem
  • Diaspora throughout the world will send over $1.3 trillion, goal is to encourage moving some of that money towards investments to foster growth and development
  • “Let us create a world where migration is a matter of choice, not a matter of necessity”

• Inter American Development Bank
  • Latin America will soon reach 100% mobile phone penetration, the highest in the world
  • It is impossible for any one institution to have everything

World Bank

• • African Diaspora is the 6^th region for Africa’s development
  • Africa in the last decade has done better than it has ever done, growing at about 5.7% per anum.
  • Africa’s sound policies rebounded after the global crisis because of sound policies
  • Any attempts to grow the continent needs to employ all economic regions
  • Data on physicians: 1 to 33,500 patients in Liberia
  • No way africa is going to achieve MDGs in childbirth without investment in this areas
  • 2 million in the US and other areas
  • Infrastrucre on the continent.
    • Domestic resources mobilization is almost saturated
    • $48 billion needed annually to build up Africa’s infrastructure

Haiti

• I would ask the remittances laws be changed to allow for more flow and less control at the top by remittance companies controlling remittance flows.

MVIA launches BOOM

• • World’s first global mobile-based bank account
  • Does not charge money transfer fees
  • First two global diaspora will be Mexico & Haiti
  • Will include large towns and cities as well as rural areas
  • Partnership with 25000 owner-operated money-transfer facilities
  • Bank over 1 million over next 5 years
  • Eliminating cash will increase security for many Mexicans who count on remittances
  • 30% of Haiti’s GDP is generated from remittances**
  • Zero transaction fees to Haiti for the 1^st year
  • More information at www.useBoom.com

 

The Hand Foundation

• Different views on various topics get in the way of organizing for development
• Human capital development is really critical in running our home countries

 

Western Union

• • Main business is to serve movement of money for diasporas
  • 10% of GDP for approximately 40 countries
  • 70% is functionally banked using technology
  • 70% of proposals came from USA for Diaspora Marketplace participants
  • Founding member of Diaspora Alliance
  • Announcing renewed partnership with USAID and will launch second DMP later this year
  • Celebrating 160^th birthday

The business card exchanges were fast and furious. Deciding which panel to attend and which to miss was a heart-breaking process, as I found the discussions both deep and engaging. It was unfortunate that so many panels were held concurrently, because it meant missing out on so much content. Here’s to wishing that the next forum provides a better avenue to accessing the panels & discussions that were missed online.

The Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog has been publishing some analysis on Africa’s middle class. According to research reports they cited, 1 in 3 Africans on the continent can be classified as middle class. The Guardian’s tight definition of Africa’s middle class is those individuals spending between $2-$20. It is quite a large range and actually a shocker to some people.

I wanted to take a look at those numbers a little deeper in my layman-nowhere-near-economist-or-mathematician kind of way. Help me out here if the math is flawed, but I hope you understand what I am trying to get at. Most of the reports cited by the Guardian articles make no mention of the Diaspora. Surely our $40 billion in annual remittances should be counted. Right? Does it really matter where we earn it when all of it is being spent on the continent?

Let’s look at the numbers. David Smith first reported that Africa’s middle class totals a staggering 333 million. That is a third of the continent’s population that spends between $2 and $20 per day. This is not the same definition used to describe the global poverty line. That, is defined as those earning less than $2. I am not yet sure what the difference is between earning and spending, but I am sure they mean different things in this context.

So let’s do some calculations.

According to Smith’s cited calculations, Africa’s middle class has between $666 million and $6.6 billion in discretionary income. When you look at that from the perspective that Africa’s population is 1 billion people and its total GDP was over $1.6 trillion, then we are not talking about a whole lot of money here. But, this small range is responsible for generating half of the continents collective GDP of $1.6 trillion.

The middle class was responsible for at least half of Africa’s GDP of $1.6tn, he added. The trend reflected years of sustained economic growth, with sub-Saharan Africa projected at 5.5% this year.

My question is why aren’t remittances counted in this equation? If we (Diaspora) are spending $40 billion annually on the continent, what kind of contribution are we having on the continent, when a mere $6.6 billion at the top level of that range accounts for half of the continent’s GDP? What am I missing here? Especially when that $40 billion is contributed by roughly 10 million of us frequenting Western Union, Money Gram and other means of transferring money to the continent. That’s an average of $4000 per year per per Diaspora or $11 per day per Diaspora in discretionary income sent to the continent. $11 per day put the Diaspora in the upper middle class based on that earning range. Why isn’t this part of the equation and conversation? I’ve got to be missing something here.

Africa’s Diaspora spends more on the continent than the supposed middle class on the continent, yet we are not counted. I don’t get it. The Diaspora needs to be counted as part of the continent’s middle class. Just because we don’t live there full time doesn’t mean that our money isn’t being spent there. And to answer their question, yes this “missing” middle class is contributing to a reduction in poverty and literacy. I know this because my remittances do just that. A third sibling is graduating from Makerere University while the other two are already gainfully employed. Now that’s just me. Multiply that effort by roughly 10 million and we become a catalytic, economic force for change — especially as many of us are turning that discretionary expenditure into money-generating businesses or social ventures.

Trade Africa quoting the ADF and World Bank:

Report on African countries remittances, skills and investments are jointly carried out by the African Development Bank and the World Bank as part of the Africa Migration Project.

A breakdown of the$40billion investment showed that Nigerians in diaspora invested 57 percent; 55 percent in Kenya; 36 percent in Burkina Faso; 20 percent in Uganda and Senegal, 15 percent.

Interesting to note that Andy Sumner and Nancy Birdsall‘s piece references The Globe and Mail’s piece that defines the middle class as a catalyst in 5 categories:

the catalyst class (a) has an interest in accountability because they pay more taxes; (b) probably don’t work for the state and thus don’t see their loyalty and interests tied to the status quo; (c) have parents who led quite different consumption lifestyles to them; (d) probably have internet (cafe) access and cell phones; and (e) want “open business conditions, fair and honourable contracts, and a route to employment unclotted by corruption”.

When it comes to Africa, if that doesn’t sound the like the Diaspora, I don’t know what does. Again, I am no economist, but the numbers are painting a picture that many are not seeing. Any ideas why?

UPDATE:

Andy Sumner has a great follow-up piece on the definition of the middle class

I’ve spent the last week thinking about what to write for “A Day Without Dignity”. Lately, I’ve been getting overwhelmed by the sheer number of uninformed people and organizations, both large and small, who continue to show zero restraint in effort to demonstrate how socially aware they are. The Smart Aid crew of bloggers has done a commendable job of late of rising to challenge these individuals and organizations.

As repetitive as the exercise has become, I think that is is important that our voices continue to rise against any and all acts of “dumbassery” in the field of international development. I especially welcome those voices from developing countries – so often the target of ill-informed campaigns meant to rescue them from their supposed underprivileged lives.

I spent this past weekend with my mum in her village of Kikuube in Western Uganda. It’d been number of years since I’d spent my birthday with her. I started my birthday with a long run through the winding slopping hills in the early morning mist. The cool breeze felt like heaven as my Nike-clad feet crunched the gravel on the country road. Danger, our scrappy family dog, ran along side me, jutting in and out of the bushes like a dart.

My morning jogs through the village had ceased to be a source of amusement for the villagers. They knew me by now, and greeted me with smiles and waves. I couldn’t help but take note of everyone’s feet as I passed them, keeping a small mental list of how many wore shoes and how many didn’t. Good thing it was early morning on a Sunday, there were few feet to count and many were already in the gardens barefoot and tilling mother nature for the season’s planting.

After breakfast, I took the motorcycle through the winding pathway to the local church. My mother is usually the preacher, but she was ill this morning, down with a chronic asthma flare up. I’d changed her medication a few weeks earlier, the side effects of the transition had left her energy-spent and weak. The view along the way to church has always been my favorite things about Sunday morning in Kikuube Village: endless rolling terrain of sugarcane plantations. The bustling forests of yesteryear were slowly being replaced by subsistence farmers transitioning to cash crops. Mother nature was loosing as the community continued to develop.

Hi heels on a dusty mud floor at Kihoole Church in Kikuube village

I arrived amid songs of praise with but a handful of people. Church always started this way. The deacons would arrive to setup the sanctuary by sweeping the dusty mud floors, cleaning off the array of drums and stringing flowers. There were no windows or doors to open and the roof was missing one shingle. Even then, the sanctuary had come a long way in the last three years. I had claimed the responsibility of paying for the floor to be put in, as my way of giving back. The jubilant choir kicking up dust as the songs of praise hit their spiritual climax served as a gentle reminder that I hadn’t fulfilled my promise. The women clapped and danced up a storm. At one point they kicked off their high heels and sandals and let the spirit ride. As the voices got higher, the hands clapped louder, the sweat dripped, and the hips swayed to the hypnotic rhythm of the traditional drummers. The songs subsided into prayer as we prayed for continued peace, the blessed rains, the health of our children and family members, school fees, our leaders, our markets, our friends and our enemies. We prayed for those we knew and those we did not. We gave thanks for what we had and what we didn’t have. As I rode home, my mind played back the dancing feet kicking up balls of dust as the children played in the corner, some with shoes and some without, and the odd thought that, no one prayed for shoes.

Barefoot children on their way home from school

Why has it become so easy for people to start feel-good campaigns that no one asked for? There are a thousand things this village needs and nowhere on the list are t-shirts and shoes. Or used bras, socks, underwear or whatever the latest SWEDOW item du jour. We can safely say that it has nothing to do with the intended communities. The whole exercise is about making someone feel good. Unfortunately, that someone is never the recipient. It is never the people in this and many other villages that are purported as poor and thus in need of XYZ. It is probably easier to go a day without wearing shoes and feel good about “doing something.” Yes you are doing something, but do you know that what you are doing is the dumbest, most ineffectual act of dumbassery you could do. Yes you are doing something, but tell me how going a day without shoes is going to magically pay for the badly-needed school fees in this village. How is that act of self-sacrifice going to bring development and jobs? Yes, you raised awareness. But it was awareness of your own guilty pleasures and a life of excess. So you send a pair of TOMS shoes to the kids I passed on their way to school Monday morning, how is that going to make their badly-equipped classrooms better? Or train the teachers? Or pay them better. Let’s not mention the cobbler in the town center you just put out of business. Unless of course, your argument is that when the pair of cheap TOMS shoes — which were never designed for this environment — break down, he can fix them. Nice one.

Is it really that hard NOT to do something no one asked for?

I took another extended ride on Monday, spending time in the trading center to just observe the day in the life of Kikuube Village. I stopped by Gabriel’s shop. A 76-year old retired teacher with 4 sons he still worried about. None had adequate jobs and were grossly under-paid. He was wearing a dusty black pair of shoes that looked like they’d been brought back to life by a talented cobbler. He was lamenting about taking out a loan from the bank at 25% interest to help his youngest son start a small business. His own shop was sparse but frequently visited. He has never let me leave without taking a soda. What would this man do with a pair of TOMS shoes? Probably sell them. He worried less about himself and his feet and more about the future of his sons. And shoes were the last thing on his mind.

I came home and asked my mother (without revealing to her what I was about to write) what was the one thing, above all, she wanted me to have as I was growing up. Without hesitation and in the soft voice I’ve always known to have wisdom, she said, “an education.” Not a good pair of shoes. Not a tshirt. Not good life. But an education. As simple as that sounded, it left a resounding thump in my heart. As I went to sleep that night, I stared at the picture she gave me for my birthday. It was a black and white photo of a little boy holding his chin and smiling. I turned it over to read the inscription,

“Teddy on his 4th birthday, April 3rd.”

I was wearing a pare of gum boots. TOMS didn’t get me those, my mother did, along with my education.

May is a great time to honor mothers, and in that spirit, Friends of the Congo, Arena Stage, and DC Arts and Humanities council, are bringing together a Mother’s Day fundraiser at Arena Stage; with a semi-private reception, the special showing of the play of the 2009 Pulitzer prize for drama, RUINED, and followed by a panel discussion about the Women in the Congo.

As a cross-cultural branding and productions company, Afrolehar LLC (AL) has joined forces with the Friends of the Congo and its partners to promote this special mother’s day fundraiser to benefit the Association of Widows of South Kivu and the Congo Restoration organisation; both non-profits are working to provide, including, but not limited to, human development services, capacity-building for reintegration in society, and healthcare for women and children.

Please extend the invitation to your mother, your loved ones, your friends, associates, and members.

For tickets, please purchase by clicking on this link. http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/167649].

For Group sales, sponsorship, and media inquiries, please contact Rahel Getachew by phone (703) 894-8945 or by email at rahel@afrolehar.com.

If you require further information about the event, please visit Congoarena.com.

We look forward to seeing you at this Special Mother’s Day Fundraiser, in solidarity with the women of the Congo, to celebrate Mothers’.

Should you have any questions, please free to contact me at your earliest convenience.

Back in 2007 when I attended the first East Africa Investment Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Dr. Mo Ibrahim speak. I remember then being in awe of his vision for East Africa’s business potential. Even then he was preaching the benefits of businesses building socially conscious business models. I didn’t know much about him and in fact had never heard of him. I’d just started blogging for PD and hadn’t really caught on to the impending technology boom. I am quite sure he has no recollection of me handing him my business card and him promising to keep in touch.

Bah. Bygones.

So it came as a pleasure when I actually opened up my email this morning to find that one of my favorite newsletters to receive, Business Call to Action, had the featured interview above.

The discussions on aid vs trade have been raging for a while now in the aid blogosphere. I’ve chimed in here and there and debated the issue on Twitter (the world’s new discussion board). But I think the Dr. Ibrahim puts it quite succinctly here that, in essence, business is a form of aid. For all that ills that aid tries to eliminate. Business can achieve with just a shift in business model. Dr. Ibrahim states that businesses shouldn’t be afraid to make a profit.

According to Dr. Ibrahim, there’s progress being made. “Business people are realizing more and more that we cannot succeed when our societies are failing. We are part of society.” He also states that

“the main objective of business is profit. Businesses are not charities. Let’s not confuse the two. We expect business to really work for profit. The fact that they are investing and creating jobs, they are creating wealth and that’s important for development. We say thank you very much. Do that ethically. Continue to do that ethically. We don’t ask you to turn from business to charity.”

I couldn’t agree more here. I think the debate over aid vs trade shouldn’t be centered around one or the other as the de facto mode operandi for eliminating poverty. I think the debate should be how aid and trade can coexist more effectively.

Elevating society shouldn’t be a divisive responsibility. It should be a collective effort. Let trade create wealth, but do so ethically so as to enhance the efforts of the aid community, who’s responsibilities should be more focused on filling the gap in civil services. Put another way, both should compliment each other instead of canceling or ignoring each other.

One more thing that Dr. Ibrahim touched is one that I think we as members of the Diaspora need to continue to embrace. Continued investment in Africa needs to be powered by real-time information. Dr. Ibrahim’s recounting of his American counterpart who was wholly ignorant about Uganda’s leader is what I am talking about. We need to continually speak up and represent our continent. Idi Amin is not longer Uganda’s president and hasn’t been for more than 2 decades. Yet, there isn’t a year that goes by where I don’t run into several people asking about him. For once I’d like them to me about mobile internet penetration, or how Diaspora remittances are fast outpacing bilateral aid and what that means to our economies. That’s the story we should be talking about and selling. Because doing so, creates an appetite for investment. Investment begets wealth creation, wealth creation begets a middle class. And I am sure you know what happens when we have an empowered, educated middle class? Change happens.

“We the undersigned wish to express our deep sadness at the murder of Ugandan human rights defender David Kato on 26th February 2011.  David’s activism  began in the 1980s as an Anti-Apartheid campaigner where he first expressed a strong passion and conviction for freedom and justice which continued throughout his life.   David was a founding member of Sexual Minorities Uganda where he first served as Board member and until his death as Litigation and Advocacy Officer and he was also a  member of Integrity Uganda, a faith-based advocacy organization.

David was a man of vision and courage. One of his major concerns was the growth of religious fundamentalism in Uganda and across the continent and how this would impact on the rights of ordinary citizens including lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered / Gender Non-Comforming and Intersex  [LGBTIQ] persons.   Years later his concerns were justified when the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill backed by religious fundamentalists was outlined in 2009.  David was also an extremely brave man who had been imprisoned and beaten severely because of his sexual orientation and for speaking publicly against the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Many African political and religious leaders in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Gambia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Malawi and Botswana, have publicly maligned LGBTIQ people and in some cases directly incited violence against them whilst labeling sexual minorities as “unAfrican”.

In October 2010, the Ugandan tabloid, Rolling Stone published the names and photographs of “100 Top homos” including David Kato.   David along with two other LGBTIQ activists successfully sued the magazine on the grounds of “invasion of privacy” and most importantly,  the  judge ruled that the publication would threaten and endanger the lives of LGBTIQ persons.

The court did not only rule that the publication would threaten and endanger the lives of LGBTIQ persons but it issued a permanent injunction against Rolling Stone newspaper never to publish photos of gays in Uganda, and also never to again publish their home addresses.

Justice Kibuuka Musoke ruled that,

“Gays are also entitled to their rights. This court has found that there was infringement of some people’s confidential rights. The court hereby issues an injunction restraining Rolling Stone newspaper from future publishing of identifications of homosexuals.”

Every human being is protected under the African Charter of Peoples and Human Rights and this includes the rights of LGBTIQ persons.   We ask the governments of Uganda and other African countries to stop criminalizing people on the grounds of sexual orientation  and afford LGBTIQ people the same protections, freedoms and dignity, as other citizens on the continent.”

It’s been over a week since the Super Bowl ended and just as long since the World Vision USA scandal about sending 100,000 over-printed shirts to developing countries hit the web. To date there are now 44 (including this one) blog posts dealing with this particular topic. To which World Vision USA has only responded once, much to the dissatisfaction of many.

One theory as to why there’s been such uproar over this, is that World Vision USA is pulling the same nonsensical gifts-in-kind stunt that got Jason Sadler’s 1 million shirts effort roundly thumped just last year. A 60-year old, multi-billion dollar organization such as World Vision shouldn’t be committing the same mistakes as a new-comer to the aid game.

Further more, it is time that the entirety of the aid industry started to adhere to stricter ethical guidelines. It is a long battle fighting against the inertia of entrenched practices in very large organizations, I know. If we can all get up in arms and subsequently smug about shutting down the 1 million shirts efforts, don’t we owe it to recipients and their fledgling economies to shut down the same practices for the whole aid industry as well?

Many of the critical blogs have been written by unanimously anonymously by employed aid workers who wish to keep their jobs. So it is hard to really get weight behind all our efforts unless we are truly speaking the same language. By that I mean we need to speak with a single voice. I spent the day thinking about Saundra S. Twitter question, as she wondered what it will take to get World Vision USA to change?

I think one of the simplest things we can do as a group is combine all our voice into one loud “NO!” The best way to do this in the digital age is through SEO, or search engine optimization. World Vision has a massive web presence and even better SEO strategy. A Google search of the term “World Vision USA” shows over 9 million search results. The first page of results for any search term is usually what most people will pay attention to. As such only 3 of our 44 posts show up on the first page. This is a great start but not nearly enough as we are below the fold. Where it starts to become a PR disaster is when we occupy the entire first page. So my solution is that we need to coordinate out efforts a little better to make this happen. Here’s a few simple things I think we can do to increase our presence on the first page:

1. Make sure you include “World Vision USA” in your post title
2. Make sure to link or reference to the appropriate blog posts on the World Vision blog post. There are two: this one and this one
3. Link to as many of the other blog posts that support your position as possible. You can either link straight to it or pull a quote. The list of posts on this subject is on Saundra S.’s “Good Intents” blog
4. Most of you are using WordPress for your blogs, make sure you fill out the SEO fields under the content of your posts
   Custom Title tag: the tile of your post
   Meta description: 3-4 sentence description of your blog post (should we all use the same description?). Keep it concise and on topic as possible. Include a few key words.
   Meta Keywords: Here’s what I used (world vision usa, nfl, tshirts, gifts-in-kind, sponsor a child)
   Post tags: Here’s what I used: World Vision USA, NFL, gifts-in-king, gik, tshirts, jason sadler, bad aid, swedow)
5. Tweet your post as many times as you can stand. If you don’t want to toot your own horn, retweet other people’s posts or comment on their posts. So far, there’s been a good round of commenting going on
6. A good SEO post should weigh at greater than 500 words. This is important for relevancy
7. Edit their wikipedia entry if you have access and can edit. Keep to the facts please
8. If you have a contact in mainstream media (MSM), please contact them to see if they’ll cover it
9. Be professional. Nothing worse than being dismissed as rabid twitteratti with zero klout (that’s for you @bill_easterly)
10. Send them an email on their site (http://www.worldvision.org/content.nsf/about/press-center)

Again, these suggestions are minor, but I think if we are going to beat the drum, let’s do it smartly and effectively by coordinating our efforts. I am not saying it is the magic bullet, but occupying the whole front page of their results is bound to get attention and hopefully our desired result. I welcome any corrections to the list above and any corrections to this strategy are also welcome.

Bizzarely, I’ve been on the sidelines this time around as yet another episode of SWEDOW: tshirts unfolds in the aftermath of the Super Bowl half-time show bashing (what was that?). No, it is not Jason Sadler again (more on him later). This time, the respected chorus of smart aid critics are setting their targets on World Vision’s practice of donating the NFL‘s “misprinted” shirts to the world’s poor.

To recap, the NFL pre-prints merchandise — tee shirts, sweat shirts, caps, etc. – for the two teams competing in the super bowl. This is why you saw winning quarterback Aaron Rogers immediately don a tee shirt and cap studded with Green Bay Packers as Super Bowl champions branding. Had Pittsburg won, you would have seen the same thing on Ben Roethlisberger and team mates. I used to think that they pre-printed those shirts and caps just for the teams or just the players that were going to get camera-time. Turns out it was much bigger than that. I am not privy to the benefits of why this is done this way but I can offer a few guesses:

1. The potential loss of sales from customers purchasing the gear after the game vs. customers having to wait weeks for stock to arrive at their nearest retailer are greater than the cost of printing & distributing both team’s gear after the winner is decided.
2. NFL capitalizes on the immediate global attention on the Super Bowl to move as much product as possible. This after all is the last game of the season. No one will care about football if you wait a week to deliver Super Bowl winner merchandise. It’s all about moving product with precision marketing decisions.

This practice isn’t just just exercised at the Super Bowl, virtually every major sports championships in America does it. From the Final Four to the World Series. The question then, is what happens to the loser’s merchandise. Thanks to this World Vision blog post and the CNN clip above we now know. Their partnership with the NFL stretches back 15 years. So really this was an open secret way before the #1MillionShirts hashtag was created.

Plenty of informed analysis has provided a week’s worth of thought-provoking great reads on why this partnership is lucrative for World Vision. Saundra at the Good Intentions blog does a brilliant bit of analysis here coupled with a running list of all the blog posts related to the saga here. My favorite of the bunch was contributed by @morealtitude at the Wanderlust blog.

There’s a difference between want and need

In the CNN piece above, World Vision’s Corporate Relations Senior Director, Jeff Fields stated

“…this year we know that there good needs in Zambia, Romania, Armenia, and Nicaragua … Basically just strictly on need. We are working in areas where there’s generally no electric and unfortunately a lot of times no running water…”

Let’s remember that there’s a difference between want and need. What you want is not always what you need. What you need, may not always be what you want. Let me put it another way. I have a $50 office chair from Walmart, but what I really want is a $1000.00 Aeron chair. Size C. A villager might want and accept a free tee shirt, but what they really need is a host of socio-economic and infrastructure projects in the village that will allow them to make or buy their own shirt.

Wold Vision USA needs to do good, it has to. It is in its DNA. Do good or cease to exist as an organization. So why then this 15-year partnership to schlep discarded paraphernalia halfway across the world to poor communities that “unfortunately a lot of times have no running water?” Shouldn’t water be your priority? I’d like to know how many wells and water purification projects can be built just for the price of shipping the products around the world? What’s the opportunity cost? As many other commentaries on this issue have stated, shirts are not the priority in these communities’ needs. Duncan at the Water Wellness blog listed some of the more pressing concerns faced by communities in Northern Malawi. NFL tee shirts are nowhere on the list.

So why then this high profile gifts-in-kind practice that is central to World Vision’s $1 billion annual budget? It’s simple. Its about World Vision. If it was about the poor simply needing shirts, go down to the nearest local market and buy up all the shirts and hand them out. That will cost you a lot less than shipping one all the way from Pittsburg. Heck, for the price of shipping alone you could probably clothe the entire village. World Vision knows this, you don’t operate for almost 60 years by making stupid decisions. But I fail to imagine a situation where a tee shirt shipped halfway around the world saves lives when one could be sourced from right there within the community. It seems simple enough so why can’t World Vision, with it’s infinite wisdom from years of experience figure this out?

They have.

This is a case of two organizations playing a zero-sum game with the poor. World Vision pads its books and image. The NFL scores a profit at the expense of tax payers. And all the poor got was this damned NFL loser tee shirt. GiK are never about the recipients, it’s about sustaining the donor entity. If it was ever about the recipients, the right decisions would have resulted in the alleviation of the world’s most easily addressable, and pressing problems.

When Project Diaspora held the Villages in Action conference in Kikuube Village, we sourced the shirts and printing right there within the country, so I know there are printing presses and textile industries in poor countries. The villagers got shirts they wanted but didn’t need. Not one was refused, in fact we didn’t have enough. The vendor who sold us the shirts got business. The printery that delivered the finished product got income. Jason Sadler, who funded the VIA conference shirts, got to do good like he wanted to do all along.* It didn’t alleviate all of Uganda’s problems, but it went a long way to sustaining already existing infrastructures. Imagine if World Vision took a page from a once lampooned do-gooder and did the right thing with their scale and influence.

I don’t have any answers to the NFL’s marketing decisions. Clearly, there are  global unintended consequences to their pursuit for profits. World Vision should know better by now that this probably isn’t the best way to help the poor. That is, of course, assuming that it was ever about that in the first place. World Vision, please do us all a favor and stop marketing to us that it’s about the poor. Man up, you know that we know that you know it is about you.

*Jason Sadler has made really good on his want to do good. Starting in February, you can nominate any non profit of your choice to be promoted on his I Wear Your Shirt website for a day for free. I know who I won’t be nominating.

**Header image taken from World Vision article found here.

Here is an opportunity that I think someone in the UK Diaspora might be interested in. Have a read on the details and apply if you are so qualified. This looks like a great opportunity to learn more about the activities of the Diaspora. Take note of the deadline for submitting applications: February 14, 2010.

Comic Relief is inviting tenders from interested parties to undertake a review of the literature on the African Diaspora based in the UK and their role in international development.

Expressions of interest should be sent to:  Rupal Mistry atr.mistry@comicrelief.com no later than 14 February 2010.

Purpose and Objective

The primary objective of this consultancy is to provide Comic Relief with a detailed picture of the research undertaken and literature published to date on the African Diaspora in the UK and their role in international development in sub-Saharan Africa.

This consultancy will enable Comic Relief to build a picture of the international development activities of the African Diaspora in the UK and will feed into other elements of the Common Ground Initiative, in particular the communications and advocacy and influencing work. It is intended that this work will form the first phase of a longer study and will provide the basis for the commissioning of a series of more focused studies.

Methodology

The work will be desk based. The consultant will review research and latest evidence from academic, political and non-government sectors, synthesise and critique the findings, and highlight areas requiring further investigation. It is also suggested that the consultant hold short interviews with key informants to build up an understanding of the anecdotal evidence within the sector of the role played by the UK based African Diaspora in international development.

Areas to be explored through the literature review:

• The different ways in which the African Diaspora in the UK are organised, grouped, clustered or networked and whether or not there are any similarities in approaches to development based on typology
• The kind of development related activities African Diaspora in the UK are engaged in – thematic areas of implementation, e.g. remittance, business, service delivery (health, education etc), and the different approaches being used
• The scale of this activity – local or community based, district, national,  and specific regions across the continent
• The ways in which they are working with communities in Africa – the types of relationships they build
• The level of engagement that the African Diaspora in the UK groups or individuals have with other stakeholders, communities in the UK and Africa, other NGO’s, governments, policymakers
• Examples of best international practice – in terms of relationships, activities, governance
• The level of interest, engagement and support of politicians and policymakers in relation to the “Diaspora and Development” agenda
• Any specific policy- level changes (both in the UK and in Africa) driven by the African Diaspora based in the UK
• The type of funding that UK based Diaspora entities have accessed

Deliverables

A detailed literature review report (maximum 30 pages, plus executive summary and annexes) structured as:

• Executive summary of key findings and recommendations
• Methodology
• Key Findings –in relation to areas to be explored, what is known, ongoing research  and donor initiatives
• What don’t we know: information and research gaps,  differences of opinion/ current debates
• Implications for Comic Relief and its stakeholders
• Conclusions and recommendations – summary of findings, suggested further actions for donors, practitioners and researchers
• Appendices – List of articles and reports reviewed

The Consultant should submit the final report in both hard copy and electronic versions.

Timeframe

The consultancy will take place between March and May 2011. The draft report should be received by Comic Relief within 30 working days of the commencement of the consultancy with an additional month to receive comments and finalise the report.

Required qualifications and skills

Contractors would need to have:

• Ideally a postgraduate level qualification in relevant discipline
• An understanding of migration and international development
• Experience of working with BME communities in the UK
• Good analytical skills and attention to detail
• Ability to communicate effectively in English, both verbally and in writing

Comic Relief is committed to diversity in all of our contracts and tenders. The successful contractor will be expected to uphold the principles of respect and open engagement throughout their work with us.

I penned an opinion text for CNN that’s been published. I was asked to comment on the state of the new reality in Africa in light of this year’s WTO Doha round of talks in Davos.

(CNN) — While the developed nations drag their feet on inclusive trade agreements with emerging markets, Africa is busy redefining itself. Most of the continent’s countries — remnants of colonial rule — are barely 50 years old, infant nations on the path to democratic maturity.

Nonetheless, the world is impatient to see a matured Africa unencumbered by battle scars emblematic of the march to democracy. This year, the continent is on the verge of birthing a new nation in Southern Sudan. In Tunisia, the “jasmine revolution” has gone a long way towards shrugging off the shackles of dictatorial rule. The world need not worry; this isn’t prescient to a new wave of unrest for the world’s youngest continent. This is the beginning of a renaissance.

Africa is rising, and not because global summits such as Davos are delivering results, but because the continent itself is awakening at the behest of half a billion people yet to experience their 20th birthday.

You can read the rest on the CNN site.

As we kick in a new year here at Project Diaspora, we are excited to be continuing our Diaspora at Work series of interviews where we catch up with interesting members of the African Diaspora busy at work changing the continent. This week, we caught up with published, award-winning Ugandan documentary photographer, Andy Kristian. Among other notable mentions, he’s founder of the civic engagement project, Voices of Uganda.

''Do not involve yourselves in acts of violence during this election period.''

Tell us a little about your background… and how you ended up in the Diaspora?
I am a Ugandan/East African Documentary Photographer. I grew up in Mbarara with my extended family of about 14. My mother was single and I am the fourth of 5 children. My mom’s brother, Chris, always lived and still lives in Canada. As a kid, this was kind of cool. My family says they always knew that I would end up living abroad. That is because even as a child, I was always dissatisfied with the status quo in the country. I ended up in the Diaspora not so much because I wanted to leave my country, but because I wanted to learn, to be stimulated and inspired and exposed, and that’s what’s happened to me. As I speak, I am now ready to return to Uganda, and to inspire the change I have always dreamed.

"As bodaboda drivers, we are not able to work when there is electoral violence. We then fail to repay our loan obligations to the banks, which cripples our business."

How did you get into photography?
My boyhood friend, Edgar’s dad was a school teacher who supplemented his income to support his five children and his wife by taking portraits of students, church folk and people in the hood. Both my friend’s dad and mom used to travel a lot, which offered us an opportunity to explore with some of his abandoned cameras and play in his dark room. Edgar was so proficient because he had learned from his dad. In turn, I learned from him and got my first interest in image making, but would not discover myself as a career photographer until about a decade later while working as a consultant on the Juba Peace Process between the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and Government of Uganda (GoU).

''We need leaders that will ensure better healthcare provision and education for our children.''

How did you retain a close connection with your homeland even though you lived in the Diaspora? What drives your passion to stay engaged with the Pearl of Africa?

First, unlike many who leave Uganda at a very young age and lose their connection to their heritage, I first left when I was about 22. By this time, I was already contributing to my kid brother’s tuition fees, and therefore somewhat responsible. For example, by 19, I already knew I wanted to invest in tree planting both as an economic means and an environment conservation strategy. The tree planting craze has just began in Uganda, and some of us already dreamed of these things even as teenagers. When I was about 16 or 17, I was so discouraged and annoyed by our government’s failure to make a dual carriage network to Entebbe Airport. I had never been overseas, but it made sense to me that the road to Entebbe Airport should have the fastest road in the country, with people rushing to catch planes. Years later, the government failed to seize another opportunity brought by CHOGM to correct the wrong! How does this rhetoric fit into your question? It is this passion, the desire to lead, the love for my country that has kept me plugged in. I read the online versions of the Daily Monitor and the New Vision every single day.

''Select a leader/s who will ensure zero tolerance to corruption.''

What lessons can other members of the Diaspora learn from your engagement that they could use?
The Diaspora has some of the best minds that Uganda has. From Engineers to Doctors to Nurses to Photographers to Servicemen to business men, the best that Uganda has, live abroad. We in the Diaspora need to step out and lead. We need to use our minds to uplift our people. Most of us are discouraged by the way of things in Uganda, but we can’t just do nothing. We have to do something, anything. We need to use our gifts and talents to serve our country, whatever profession or business one is engaged in.

“We need peace and non-violence during election season.”

What led you to start Voices of Uganda? Tell us a little bit about the project. What are you hoping to achieve?
I have an academic background in Peace & Security studies, and that’s how I got involved in the Uganda Peace Process. After having abandoned this career for photography, I am still a peace maker and non violence advocate. But above all, I felt the need to begin walking the talk, instead of talk talk talk. That is when I began conceiving of Voices of Uganda. I felt a responsibility towards my country, and knew that I had a duty to serve our people in whatever small way that I could with my talents. From a peaceful message, the project revolved into a greater civic engagement project, in which I could have real citizens talking to other citizens to get involved in issues based politics; for example, instead of voting for someone because they are of a similar tribe, people should start evaluating the candidates, and voting for them because of their abilities to serve the greater needs of that community. That has been the essence of the project, and I think with my partners in distribution, we have managed to plant seeds of true democracy and social change. Oh, and do not forget so quickly what happened in Kenya, Togo, Zimbabwe and what’s now happening in Ivory Coast and Tunisia.

''Vote for a leader/s who will ensure the development of agriculture.''

Will you eventually consider moving back permanently to the country as a “reaspora” or are you planning on living the duel life-style?
I hinted above that I am already considering moving back to Uganda. I am at the point now where it makes a lot of sense to be based in Uganda than in USA. I came to the USA to learn, and that I have succeeded in doing. Now I need to come back to Uganda to teach what I have learned. As a “social change” documentary photographer, there’s more for me to document in Uganda and East Africa than there is in the USA. I am now working on some neat projects, that I am quite positive will change a lot of lives. My partner and I are looking to raise several thousands of dollars that will benefit pediatric cancer children of Uganda. With the state of our health service delivery, we have to take some matters in our own hands. We are going to organize the Uganda Charity Week, which will become an annual event. Every Ugandan will want to be associated with this. Plans are in the pipelines, and we will welcome anybody who has something to contribute; ideas, money or otherwise.

''Too much taxation cripples small business. Less taxation means more money in the hands of the poor. Let us vote for a leader/s that will advocate for lower taxes.''

What are your hopes for Uganda election season due next month? Any concerns? And what kind of impact has VoU made in the run up to the elections next month?
My hopes for the Uganda election season in Feb 2011 is that first, it would be a peaceful one. Second, that the majority of Ugandans would have the wisdom of voting for leaders that will advocate for meaningful change. Third, that there would be no vote rigging, vote stuffing and every poll dishonesty. Fourth, that the losers would accept the results gracefully or use legal means to challenge results rather than wielding guns, iron bars and stones.

I am quite positive that the Voices of Uganda project has had a lot of impact on the people in respect to the issues I have raised above. It is unfortunate however, that there wasn’t enough funds to have the initiative penetrate even to the remotest of villages, especially where the “issue based voting” is needed. Nevertheless, I have planted a seed, and if someone else can water it, who knows?

Women of Kireka Documentary from Project Diaspora on Vimeo.

Cody Punter, our first male intern at Women of Kireka managed to put together this well-done short documentary as his last project with us. Thanks for your hard work Cody and we wish you success in your endeavors. The women will miss you!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Project Diaspora Presents VIA: VILLAGES IN ACTION CONFERENCE sponsored by Business Fights Poverty and Orange Uganda.

Project Diaspora is dedicated to change perceptions about the poor by building a platform whereby the voices of the poor can be heard. On November 27, 2010, the first conference will be held in a village outside Masindi, Uganda. The goal of this one-day conference is to showcase the grassroots efforts driving economic development and improving the welfare of the community – all with little or no assistance from international aid organizations.

In September 2010, international organizations, heads of state, celebrities and specialists gathered to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As you may know, the MDGs were set in 2000 to achieve eight anti-poverty goals by 2015. In the midst of the coverage of these grand events, the actual “poor,” (the object of these goals) were not invited to these elite events.

The keynote speech will be delivered by the village’s LC1 chairwoman, Milly Businge. Mrs. Businge represents this village of 270 homesteads and just over 1000 people. Her keynote will revolve around the development springing up due to the shift from subsistence farming to commercial farming of sugar cane. Kikuube’s first hardware shop was opened by an enterprising young woman who identified an opportunity and now has a thriving business.

Most of the presenters and panelists will be from the village itself, mixed in with local subject-specific experts and practitioners from the technology, education and community health fields of practice here in Uganda.

The conference is title sponsored by Business Fights Poverty and Orange Uganda. Business Fights Poverty, a network that connects practitioners and experts around the world to push the boundaries of how business can fight poverty, is facilitating the day’s events. Orange Uganda, provider of Uganda’s largest 3G network, will power the live video stream.

This ground-breaking conference brings together over 500 members of the Kikuube community, community leaders, development practitioners, who will interact with a global audience connected to the conference through Twitter, Facebook, the live video stream and live blogs. Anyone in the world with a broadband connection can watch the live stream on the Business Fights Poverty homepage; the Villages in Action homepage. Follow the conference on Twitter using the #via2010 hashtag, and on the Project Diaspora Facebook page.

About Project Diaspora
Project Diaspora (PD) is a USA-based organisation established in September 2007 with a simple mission—to promote African Diaspora engagement in sustainable economic activities within Africa. PD actively seeks to mobilize, engage, and motivate members of the African Diaspora to participate in Africa’s economic, social, and cultural renaissance. Looking beyond the $40 billion in annual remittances to the continent, the strongest resources the African Diaspora possess are its vast wealth of knowledge, technical expertise and professional network. Africa’s Diaspora is well positioned to become a major developmental force. In light of their cultural and personal ties to their home communities there is no other single group that is better equipped to generate positive, sustained change across the continent.

About Business Fights Poverty
Business Fights Poverty in a free-to-join global community of professionals passionate about fighting world poverty through good business.  Business Fights Poverty connects over 10,000 people from 150 countries through its online network (www.businessfightspoverty.org), its communities on Twitter (@FightPoverty), Facebook and LinkedIn, and through physical events.  Community members come from a diverse range of business, government and civil society backgrounds to share experience and good practice – collectively pushing the boundaries of how business can fight poverty.  We believe that we can achieve more together – by harnessing our collective intelligence and energy – than we can alone.

About Orange Uganda
Orange is the key brand of France Telecom, one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators. With more than 131 million customers, the Orange brand covers internet, television and mobile services in the majority of countries where the Group operates. At the end of 2009, France Telecom had sales of 44.8 billion euros (33.7 billion euros for the first nine months of 2010). At 30 September 2010, the Group had a total customer base of 203 million customers in 32 countries. These include 144.5 million mobile customers and 13.3 million broadband internet (ADSL, FTTH) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and broadband internet services and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing telecommunication services to multinational companies.

With its industrial project, “conquest 2015″, Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group will build its future growth; through the Group’s ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development

France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.

For more information (on the internet and on your mobile): www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.orange-innovation.tv

Contact:
TMS Ruge
Co founder – Project Diaspora
Teddy@projectdiaspora.org
+256 792 134 655

###

The idea of TEDxPoor was born out of a Twitter discussion during UN week in September. The ongoing review of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) left a lot to be desired. For starters, the voices of those that could best benefit from this conversation were left unheard. Too often entire conferences and summits are held on the subject of “the poor” All too often they are discussed as faceless, voiceless individuals who never get an opportunity to participate in the global discussion about them. The discussions on Twitter were that something was decidedly missing from the dialog. Laura Seay, assistant professor of political science at Morehouse College, attended several of the conferences that week and had this to say:

“While there is a lot of discussion of the need to capture human capital in developing countries, we didn’t hear from anyone who had actually lived the experience of escaping poverty. We didn’t learn how families survive on $1 a day from people who have no choice but to make it work.”

In the spirit of the moment and the discussion, I offered to take the microphone to these so-called “poor,” so the world could get a chance to hear their voices and opinions; many of whom have never heard of the MDGs.

TEDx’s online registration application has been offline nearly the whole time. This has provided ample time for me to rethink this whole idea and wether or not a TEDx-branded event in the village was what I was trying to accomplish. Leveraging the TEDx brand absolutely has its advantages. The TED Talks video library is probably the most inspiring online catalog of moving images. The TED conferences have made strides to include voices from the African perspective into its talks. Various African visionaries have shared their inspiring ideas; George Ayitteh, Andrew Mwenda, William Kamkwamba, Chimamanda Adichie, Ory Okolloh and Ngozi Okonjo-Ideal to name but a few. A TED conference was held in Arusha, Tanzania in 2007. I also had the opportunity to speak at TEDxKigali this summer. The TED community even announced a partnership with Nokia to bring bundled TED talks to Africa on Nokia N8 all-in-one phones. These are all great and welcome initiatives, but I am sure you know what I am about to say. We’ve seen this model before. Many times. Successful initiatives imported onto the continent, turning us ever more into consumers and passengers as opposed to mechanics and drivers; spectators to the shaping of our own collective destinies.

Western academics wax poetic about their research methodologies and theories into how or if we (the poor) can achieve the MDGs, even going so far as to engage in intellectual sparring over each other’s development methodologies. Why is our development the rightful occupation of Western academics and armchair development pundits, and the rich and famous? I think they all really miss the point. Albert Einstein once said, “if we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research.” I am not an academic, nor do I think that I was ever cut out for such a vocation. I am happy being drunk with can-do idealism that things can work much better for those affected, that things could be much simpler; one does not need 15 years or (50 years for that matter) of research figuring out how. Let’s just do it already.

This is a call to action for the creation of a completely new platform. A departure from the norm. Let’s build our own podium; where the world can meet us, the faceless “poor.” While we may not consider ourselves poor, the world, does. I include myself because this is my community, my village, my family. This is a chance for us to contribute our not only our voices to the discussion, but to also showcase what we are already doing to advance our own communities. I think too often the world forgets that there are real people behind the stats, research goals and projections; people with opinions, ideas and smarts. As Seay said, people who, against the odds, thrive earning $1 per day. I think it is time for us to share our ideas on what, (if anything) we can do to participate in our own economic emancipation. Above all, there has to be some value in sharing how we survive averaging $1 per day. If you can do that, are you really poor or an efficient minimalist? While the label of “poor” is generally attached to the those living under the $1 per day economic threshold, is it necessarily a bad thing if you can feed, house, clothe and educate you children?  Is it easy to do? Not in the least. Could we stand to rise above that in pursuit of a better quality of life? Absolutely! The state of Poor is relative.

I’ve espoused many times the need for us Africans to politely take over the reigns of our own development. No longer do we need the steadying hand the West has had on our shoulders for half a century. The journey to equilibrium requires that we experience both failure and success to appreciate what balance is. Eventually, we must become the architects of our own development. We must become our own advocates.

Introducing the first Villages in Action Conference
Twenty minutes outside the small town of Masindi, Uganda is a village called Kikuube. There are over 260 homesteads with a population just over 1000. The local council member representing the village is none other than my Mum, whom I am sure you have met. In talking to her about this conference, I was surprised that she—as a village leader—had never heard of the MDGs. Yet she goes about her day fulfilling tasks meant to improve the welfare of her community; from educating her community about the use of bed nets, to regular home inspections enforcing sanitation codes, to empowering women with micro-loan programs. What does it say about the MDGs when the very people that are supposed to be beneficiaries don’t even know about them?

On Saturday, November 27, the microphone will be mounted stage center in this little quaint village. We welcome the world to join us in a frank discussion on the state of poor. We’ll discuss the MDGs and what our role is in achieving them by 2015 (and what we were already doing). Let’s talk about how we survive. How big a role does commercial farming and the various small-scale entrepreneurial activities contribute to our development. I want to challenge the notion that the sustainability of our communities depends on intervention from the West and that we are willing to take up the responsibility of developing and managing ourselves. I’d like the world instead to come to my village (and hopefully soon enough, to other villages) to see how we “manage.” Not in the sense of “poverty tourism,” but in a genuine exercise of actually listening to and engaging with us.

“How can I help,” you ask?
Good question. With such a short throw window, we’ll need all the help we can get. From volunteers, to sponsors, to live tweeters and bloggers. The word needs to get out about this conference, so if you can space a few column inches about this new platform, please do support us with a paragraph or two. A live stream of the summit would be fantastic, so we’ll obviously need tech assistance pulling that off from a remote village. This is not entirely impossible with the right partners in place. So if this is your field, please do get in touch. If you would like to lend us some financial assistance instead, you can do do so at various levels below. We’ll give as much credit as deserved to everyone who contributes to pulling this off. So thanks in advance and do check back in the coming days as more details are released. As expected, we welcome as much Diaspora participation as possible!

We got in touch with Loren Treisman, Trust Executive of the Indigo Trust in London. The Indo Trust is looking to support ICT4D projects on the continent championed by members of the Diaspora. Of course we are giddy as these are two of the biggest ingredients in our daily meal here at PD – the Diaspora and technology. So if you are working on something that matches the description below, then you need to get in contact with Loren, like pronto. We encourage you to spread the word about this fabulous opportunity. If you know anyone or group working in this arena, please do pass along the information.

If you’d like to comment, or have questions that you think would benefit everyone, please do leave them in the comments for Loren and he’ll be more than happy to reply for clarification.

The Indigo Trust is a charitable trust.  We are currently exploring ways of promoting information equality and democratic transparency among disadvantaged people and communities in Africa. We are also interested in supporting innovative ICT4D projects in any field including health and adult literacy. Recent grant recipients include My Society, the democracy and transparency charity.

We are interested in the role that Diaspora communities can play in this process, generally and particularly in countries where people’s safety may be put at risk through engagement in this sort of work.  If you are a member of a Diaspora community and have projects/ideas of how to use ICT in a way that can aid democratic transparency or development, we would love to hear from you.

In the meantime, to find out more about us, check out our blog:, which is currently under construction or follow us on twitter: @indigotrust.  You can also contact me directly:

Dr. Loren Treisman, Trust Executive
The Indigo Trust
The Sainsbury Family of Charitable Trusts

Allington House (First Floor)
150 Victoria Street
London, SW1E 5AE, UK
T: 020 7410 0330
M: 07809702920
F: 020 74100332
E: loren.treisman@sfct.org.uk

We look forward to hearing from you!

This week I had the opportunity to have a chat with Dr. Richard Wamai for the latest installment in our Diaspora at Work (DAW) series. Dr. Wamai is a Kenyan Diaspora working in global health policy and health systems with a specific focus on HIV/AIDS and the poverty dimension. After getting his Ph.D. in Finland, Dr. Wamai did a post-doc at Harvard School of Public Health.

In my continuing conversations with members of the Diaspora, I am beginning to be astounded by the human and intellectual capacity the continent has access to within the Diaspora. I am constantly filled with a sense of pride by our contributions to business, academia and development sectors, to name a few. Our stories may not always make the evening news or even make a blip in the international wires, but behind the scenes we are doing great things. In order for us to make bigger strides in strengthening our bond with the continent, we must begin with these conversations. There’s so much to tell, so many stories, so many brilliant minds working inside and outside the continent.

Dr. Wamai, to me, is one such luminary that I’d like to highlight in this new episode of Diaspora at Work (DAW). Thoughts on the reaspora, global health, remittances, MDGs, Kenya’s Diaspora, the state of education in Kenya are among some of the topics we covered in this short episode. I’ll tell you though, it is quite intimidating talking to a highly qualified PhD., but Dr. Wamai weathered my curiosities very well with his cunning insight and vision.

One of the more interesting nuggets in our conversation dealt with Diaspora remittances. Dr. Wamai’s idea for greater Diaspora participation in Africa’s development was to incentivize remittances by providing tax write-offs. I think there’s a wider conversation that should be had on this topic. What would happen, for example, if the United States decided to cut bilateral funding to African states receiving more than $1 billion a year in remittances? Instead, provide tax deductions to members of the Diaspora to increase their participation in the development of their own country. Obviously there are consequences to such a drastic move, but coupled with other shifts in policy, this strategy could work (most importantly: the political will to do so). Are we ready for this level of self-reliance? What impact does this have to our development, governance, and sustainability?

What do you guys think? I am looking forward to your thoughts. Of course, comments on his other thoughts (which are also filled with nuggets of brilliance) are also welcome. Kenya should be proud of this son. Here’s to hoping his continued contributions in the global health arena, in particular HIV/AIDS will lead to major break-throughs.

Last September, I had the privilege of speaking at the Ars Electronica Cloud Intelligence Symposium in Linz, Austria (a super beautiful city!). My topic was the diaspora and the cloud (as in our participation in the digital cloud). I published a text in the Human Nature  catalog that accompanied the festival. I thought I would republish it here for a wider audience. That and because for some reason I was thinking about F.T. Marinetti today.

A MANIFESTO FOR AGES

On February 20^th 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti challenged Italy’s status quo by laying to white paper his generation’s blue print for an awakening. It was a stinging criticism of all that was, a violent cry for what could be but wasn’t, a generation’s trumpet call for all to shake off of a staid past and take on the responsibility of defining a new path. Italy had become too complacent with it’s rich history of accomplishments. The museums, centuries-old architecture, and dusty libraries – Marinetti was intent on destroying them all. He sent out a call for a new future defined by bold ideas, unapologetic disregard for tradition and the status quo, and a fully clenched punch into the gut of old-schoolism. F. T. Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto spawned a Futurist movement that left an indelible mark in every sector of European society from art to transportation to heavy industry. It was a campaign that defined an era. A defiant movement that crossed oceans and embedded itself all the way into mid-century America’s design culture. To Marinetti, Futurism celebrated industrialization, infrastructure, mechanization, militarism and the fiery beauty of machine-gunned speed.

Just a month after the The Futurist Manifesto was published, Theodore Roosevelt boarded a steamboat (a symbol of Marinetti’s mechanical beasts of speed) in New York for a trip across the Atlantic. He was headed to Africa for a safari. Ironically it was an expedition funded by the Smithsonian Institute and National Geographic Society—the very institutions that Marinetti vociferated against. Institutions that were the gatekeepers and archivists of human and global culture—full of “professors, archaeologists, tourist guides and antiquaries”—worshipers of cemeteries full of strangers. Marinetti believed that prolonging these very institutions wasn’t pushing humanity forward, rather, it was holding it back from an overdue, unceremonious, violent, push into the future.

Because of it’s ferocity and indignation however, it’s easy to dismiss The Futurist Manifesto as the work of a disgruntled Italian socialite; a histrionic collision of pen and paper, masterfully orchestrated by the mind of an antisocial Italian. While he was Italian by nationality, Marinetti was actually born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt. Marinetti was the most prominent Africa Diasporan of his time; Africa’s earliest social commentator. A mastermind at attracting attention; he wore the swagger and self-confidence of an accomplished gentleman, and commanded respect for fiery manifestos that defined a generation. It’s a pity that none of his manifestos openly denounced imperialistic joie de vivre and colonial umbrage in Africa.

MIGRATION AND THE MODERN AFRICAN DIASPORA

The Africa of 1909 was characterized by suffocating and imperialistic colonial rule. Only natural resources and museum keepsakes as amassed by the likes of Teddy Roosevelt, exited African shores. The movement to stop the trans-Atlantic slave trade involving millions of Africans had taken place a century earlier, in 1807. 1909 marked nearly 100 years of cultural separation between the last Africans to be exported on masse off the continent. The cultural divide widened by another 50 years, to the 1950’s and 1960’s, when colonial rule began to disintegrate, and be replaced by independent African rule. Voluntary migration patterns resumed in the subsequent decades after independence. One hundred years removed from Marinetti’s manifesto, the modern-day voluntary African Diaspora population has grown to just over 3 million [PDF] in the United states alone.

THE CONNECTED PALM

A century after Marinetti’s “indefatigable” future, as defined by violent speed; it lives on in the near-instantaneous way we communicate. It is debatable that Marinetti envisioned his “eternal, omnipresent speed” as being applied to the pace of innovation and conversely, ever-expanding modes of connectivity. Gone are the days spent anticipating the arrival of cross-country letters from loved ones. Enter; the always-on, globally-connected network where you are the mailbox and the mailman. Your mailbox is no longer relegated to the sidewalk. It has been uprooted, shrunk, and firmly planted into the palm of your hand. The mailbox is digital and mobile; the mailman relegated to schlepping credit card offers and coupons. No too long ago, it took a month for a letter that I wrote to reach my mother deep in the village of Masindi, Uganda. Today, she’s able to text me minute by minute updates from a family gathering, and I can call her while she swelters over the dinner in her wood-burning stove. We can talk at any time, and in an increasing number of ways. Today’s social construct has evolved from John Doe’s with physical addresses to walking online personas with witty Twitter handles and an insatiable thirst to broadcast wanton social commentary.

Web 2.0 is the term bestowed upon these various blogging, microblogging, social networking, and media sharing technologies defining today’s connected experience–all engineered with a heavy emphasis on interoperability. Simplified, web 2.0 is a “cloud” of multimodal, omnipresent tools that span software and devices; individuals to corporations; civil institutions to presidential elections. Your Facebook network account is connected to your Twitter micro-blog; your Twitter account also feeds content to your blog which is also populated by your photo stream. So, perhaps it’s prophetic that as I write this text, the lexicographers at the English Language Monitor chose ‘web 2.0’ to represent the millionth “neologism” to join the English language. Web 2.0 as a concept–and its encompassing technologies–while less than 10 years old, has revolutionized how the world communicates, collaborates, defines itself, and to Marinetti’s probable chagrin, archives itself. This amorphous cloud is quickly becoming the de facto storage locker of human intelligence; a virtual library of man’s greatest contribution to destructive manifestos and ideas.

Marinetti would be enraptured, not only at the pervasive speed and disruptive nature of this cloud intelligence, but also in the way the modern day African Diaspora has swiftly adopted web 2.0 as a platform to launch its own digital revolutions and manifestos. He would also be proud of platform that has democratized the seat of power; transferring the responsibility of archiving man’s achievement from the “professors and archeologists” of his time to the global populace. Every connected human being adds their contribution to this ever-expanding library.

AFRICA’S DIASPORA CONTRIBUTES TO THE CLOUD

So how are Africa’s far-flung children using the cloud as a platform for change? What role is the cloud playing in preserving Africa’s cultural connections, knowledge transfer, and community building. Is the cloud good for Africa’s development, or is it detrimental to Africa’s progress?

Much as Marinetti was passionate about the Italy’s state of development; today’s Diaspora is keenly vested in the future of their homelands. Africa’s Diaspora is discovering each other in social media networks; exchanging, sharing and broadcasting common bonds and ground-breaking ideas. They are creating virtual communities so far from home, and location is no longer as daunting a barrier to the preservation of traditional cultural ties. The village gathering is no longer summoned by the beat of a distant drum, but by the click of a mouse and pregnant mango trees no longer need to serve as shelter for the gatherers. The cloud is the new town hall, the new mango tree. The collective intelligence of Africa’s Diaspora population can, for the first time, congregate in the cloud.

For the first time, Africa is also adding its rich history and collective voice to the human archive. No longer is Africa’s rich cultural heritage, development and identity championed and hijacked by those from outside and treated as a footnote to human history. Increasingly, Africa’s dispersed Diaspora are amassing a collective intelligence of their own; earning and editing their own Wikipedia entries. Just recently, Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo added her voice to the decades-old aid to Africa debate with the release of her book, Dead Aid. Until now, the 60-year discussion on the effectiveness of providing aid to Africa has been passionately debated ad nauseam in the halls of Western academia by middle-aged, white men. Moyo’s consistently firm stance and passionate argument against government to government aid is laced with a Marinetti-esque rejection of the status quo. Her command of social media tools—Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube in particular—has spread her message to the masses. Love her or hate her, agree or disagree, Moyo’s Dead Aid is Marinetti’s “roaring motor car which seems to run on machine-gun fire,” tearing through “cemeteries of wasted effort” in the aid regime. Moyo’s main stream media savvy provides a near daily stream of recorded interviews, debates, and book reviews from around the world, accessible from anywhere at anytime—a virtual pervasive library of an African voice challenging the establishment.

A recent sample survey of the Diaspora’s use of technology conducted by my own organization, Project Diaspora revealed that Africa’s Diaspora is far flung and relying more and more on the cloud to stay connected. 82.35% of respondents said that web 2.0 tools are somewhat or very much responsible for helping them find and connect with other like-minded Diasporans. From a cultural preservation angle, 47% felt web 2.0 very much contributed to their staying integrated with their home cultures. What is surprising though is that, a 26.5% majority spent an average of 5 to 8 hours online. More than 17% of the respondents spent more than 10 hours online.

Additionally, Africa’s internet presence while nascent by Western standards, is also beginning to stay connected. 54.2 million Africans have regular access to the internet. Recent investments in expanding Africa’s access to broadband backhaul infrastructure by Google’s 03B Network, and a consortium of undersea cable initiatives on the East and Western shores of Africa will undoubtedly connect more Africans into the cloud in the next few years. A connected Africa is a working Africa; a working Africa is an Africa that’s one step closer to economic independence. Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, recently wrote an op-ed piece on The Huffington Post in which he states,

Our economy grew by more than 11% last year, even as the world entered a recession. We have chosen high-end segments of the coffee and tea markets in which to compete, and attract the most demanding world travelers to our tourism experiences. This has enabled us to increase wages by over 20% each year over the last eight years — sustained by, among other things, investment in education, health and ICT.

CONCLUSION

There’s a cloud gathering over Africa; a storm of connected thoughts and ideas that are pushing African countries violently forward. The Diaspora is using emerging web technologies in increasing numbers, frequency, and variety to stay connect with Africa, simultaneously charting a new digital course for it’s economic independence on the world stage. The Diaspora is also taking on the mantle of issuing it’s own brand of manifesto for the future of the continent. Africa it seems, is listening. Ten decades removed from Marinetti and Roosevelt’s colonial Africa, The Futurist Manifesto lives on in the cloud; re-interpreted and broadcast to inspire anew. A media savvy Diaspora charts a new course. What will Africa’s collective contribution to the collective human intelligence look like 100 years from now? What role will history say the Diaspora played in Africa’s rise? A hundred year’s from now, will Marinetti’s Futurist celebration of “industrialization, infrastructure, mechanization, and speed” have graced the shores and boarders of African countries? Perhaps the only lens one can use to answer those questions is meditate on this African proverb that has achieved immortality based on its easily retweetable nature: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the next best time is now.