Why we’re running out of effective antibiotics – in between 10 and 20 years time, all bacteria may be antibiotic resistant.
That means that dangerous infections like Tuberculosis grow a lot more dangerous, and minor ailments like strep throat or an ear infection become killers.
Alanna Shaikh explains what this means and how an innovative approach to fighting bacteria is needed.
“What you do [to provide better aid is] you shut up. You never arrive in a community with any ideas.”
An often funny TED talk from Ernesto Sirolli on listening to communities in development, which also emphasises the importance of consulting entrepreneurs.
My friend Nicholas (a programme manager on water and sanitatiion projects in Ashanti region, Ghana) has also blogged about the importance of community meetings as well as direct consultation with stakeholder groups including community leaders, men’s and women’s groups and religious leaders. Please consider following Nicholas’s blog.
A short film about Richard, who tunes pianos during the day and sleeps rough by night.
I’ve updated Rough Development with a new template that works on mobile and gives the site a breath of fresh air, hope you like it.
I’ll try and get back to posting regularly too.
Meanwhile, Meg L sent me this recommendation for a video from a few years ago, BBC Natural World documentary ‘Farm for the Future’, in which farmer Rebecca Hosking explores the terrifying dependence of modern intensive farming on fossil fuels and looks at the role of permaculture, forest farming and other practices in regenerating agricultural land and achieving a sustainable future for farming.
From the people who made Baraka, Samsara. Shot over five years on 70mm film in twenty-five countries. Eyegasm.
‘A Day Without Dignity‘ was established to provide a counterbalance to the popular image of people in the developing world as hopeless, helpless, and in need of ‘saving’ by affluent Westerners. The latest of these images to be shared around the world are of Ugandans, apparently powerless against the warlord Joseph Kony, waiting for salvation from American high school kids in T-shirts that carry his name. Most Ugandans don’t recognise this image of their country, and have reacted angrily to it (if you’re going to share something on YouTube around, share this).
The ‘Whites in Shining Armour’ phenomenon is nothing new – Ivan Illich spoke to American students in Mexico about it in 1968. Yet over four decades on, people in developing countries are still commonly regarded, and reported, as victims with no agency and no clue. For various reasons many are desperate, without hope, in dire need of help, but to suggest that all development and aid is this way does a disservice to the many, many grassroots initiatives in the developing world that are bringing about real, sustainable change in their communities.
Mum and child, Bimma, Ghana. Once a week, community members in Bimma come out in force to do physical work around the village such as repairing roads or, in this case, filling in the foundations of their new kindergarten. This happens in many villages and is encouraged (and enforced) by chiefs and community leaders.
Images, videos and stories are being shared by development workers and grassroots organisations, celebrating local champions – the people working in their communities to address local needs. It’s also a good time to focus on how to ensure that local champions are heard in the wider development discourse.
There are so many great examples of local development initiatives and individuals communicating their work, and in some cases these are well-established projects working across vast areas. A few years ago I was privileged to meet Dr Cletus Babu, the founder of SCAD (Social Change and Development), an NGO working in Tamil Nadu. Cletus, a former Catholic priest, started working in the small town of Cheranmahadevi in 1985, and since then has built a formidable organisation that has so far served over 500,000 people, focussing on the empowerment of women and marginalised Dalit communities as well as agricultural work, environmental protection and other initiatives. At the other end of the scale are small organisations and schools like Jay’s School in Cambodia, set up in the spare room of a house and teaching local children languages, art and dance.
But not all successful locally owned initiatives have to have been started by locals. Soria Moria Boutique Hotel in Siem Reap, Cambodia was established in 2007 by a Norwegian couple, but from the very beginning had a clear mission to provide development opportunities for staff and the community. Soria Moria sources silks, crafts and other goods from other enterprises in the area, provides ongoing staff training, works with local NGOs to provide youth training and employment opportunities and engages with the community in several other ways. In May 2011, Soria Moria made its local staff majority shareholders and owners of the business. Soria Moria was just named a runner-up in the Tourism for Tomorrow Awards for Community Benefit.
A Day Without Dignity is more than just a counterbalance to the stereotyping perpetuated by the likes of #KONY2012 and TOMS Shoes – I hope it’s part of a wider shift in attitudes towards the developing world and people living in poverty. As we near 2015 and David Cameron is set to chair a panel to discuss what should come after the Millennium Development Goals, there is an increasing awareness of the changing shape of the developing world, the distribution of poverty (including poverty in developed nations), the roles of aid and trade, the contribution of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and other emerging economies, the importance of well-executed social enterprises and the need to consult people about the decisions that affect them. Preserving human dignity can be an embedded principle which guides all of this.
Find tweets on this topic at #Dignity2012 and #LocalChampions, and see #Dignity2012 discussed on Al Jazeera’s The Stream.
Maybe it’s because it’s a four-day weekend here, maybe I’ve been inspired by Britney Spears’ Guide To Semiconductor Physics (look it up), I don’t know, but I just discovered that Vanilla Ice, intentionally or not, offers one of the most essential pearls of international development wisdom I’ve seen yet:
Stop; collaborate and listen.
Do not follow Vanilla’s advice to ‘light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle’. This is usually not appreciated and may be seen as unprofessional. You should also exercise caution when accepting advice from someone who raps wearing peach-coloured trousers.
*gets coat*
