An article in the NYTimes today on the invention of a solar-powered flashlight being distributed to refugee camps in Ethiopia:

I find it hard sometimes to explain the scope of the problems in these camps with no light,” Mr. Bent said. “If you’re an environmentalist you think about it in terms of discarded batteries and coal and wood burning and kerosene smoke; if you’re a feminist you think of it in terms of security for women and preventing sexual abuse and violence; if you’re an educator you think about it in terms of helping children and adults study at night.

Quite clearly, this flashlight will be put to all these uses and many more. But the interesting question is: would the environmentalists, feminists, and educators all have arrived at this solution for their respective problems separately? And if so, then why not work together if one innovation can solve this multitude of difficulties?

Read more here.

Ever thought women could wear condoms? Well, Brazilian artist Adriana Bertini thinks they can and for a great cause!

The ex-Greenpeace activist, now an HIV/AIDS prevention advocate, uses expired or quality-test rejected condoms to design evening dresses, bikinis and other kinds of clothing, as well as visual art pieces.

Bertini began to use condoms in her pieces after she volunteered for GAPA, an HIV prevention organization in South Africa, through which she met and helped HIV positive children. Since then, Bertini has designed hundreds of pieces using condoms, to remind people from all kinds of backgrounds to think and talk about such taboo issues as HIV/AIDS and its prevention.

“I volunteered to do the HIV prevention work. Then I made friends who were HIV positive and this stimulated me even more to promote prevention. Today, I have already lost some dear people to AIDS. I think this is the minimum I can do, being a conscientious person faced with a problem of this magnitude. ‘If you have conscience, act.’”

By using rejected condoms, Bertini not only draws attention to HIV/AIDS prevention, but also helps the environment by recycling hundreds of thousands of condoms.

Adriana Bertini’s pieces are exhibited internationally and all the profits made from the sales and exhibitions are given directly to nonprofit organizations that work for HIV/AIDS prevention.

ArtCorps is a nonrofit organization that aims to enhance the communicational bridge between NGO’s and the local communities in Guatemala and El Salvador through the use of the arts.

ArtCorps sponsors selected professional artists to work closely with local communities for a year on individual art projects that have such development themes as health, environment and sustainable agriculture.

As ArtCorps highlights “Only 7% of the impact of a message is based on words. Ninety three percent relies on gestures, facial expressions and non-verbal communication.” That’s why they believe that using artistic media such as skits, mimes, puppet shows, painting, mask making, singing and magic has an enormous power in conveying messages to target communities.

Here are some of the achievements ArtCorps projects have made since 1999:

• Increase knowledge of critical public health issues such as clean water, nutrition and vaccinations in more that 35 communities,
• Develop youth leadership in 70 communities,
• Increase girls’ access to education in 15 communities.ArtCorps artists clearly prove that when there is a culture barrier, simple but vital messages can be conveyed to local communities much more effectively through the powerful use of art.

The New York Times has an article today on the increasing number of organizations that fall somewhere between for-profit and not-for-profit:

Altrushare Securities is a brokerage firm, engaged in the sort of things you might expect of a Wall Street outfit, like buying and selling stock, and providing research on companies. Unlike its peers, however, the firm is majority-owned by two charities that each control about one-third of it. So is it a for-profit business? Or a nonprofit fund-raising machine? In fact, like hundreds of new businesses starting up around the country, it is both.

Read more here…

“Gender Equality as Smart Economics: The World Bank Group Gender Action Plan” - Business Goals and Human Rights are NOT Mutually Exclusive

1. Strategy: The World Bank’s Gender Action Plan (GAP) for fiscal years 2007 to 2010 has been widely critiqued for basing the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment solely on business objectives and “smart economics” rather than women’s human rights. According to Elaine Zuckerman of GenderAction, ‘rights’ are only mentioned twice within the GAP and neither instance refers specifically to the rights of women.

2. Weakness: Though GenderAction heralds this GAP to be the Bank’s best so far, it also lists several critiques of the strategy that have been longstanding weaknesses of the World Bank’s policies over the years. The fact that document seems to focus only on promoting the business of women’s empowerment demonstrates the need for a more holistic approach to development, one in which economic and social human rights and business goals are not mutually exclusive.

Source: Zuckerman, Elaine, “Comments on Gender Equality as Smart Economics: A World Bank Groups Gender Action Plan,” GenderAction, December 2006 www.genderaction.org

The Gyandoot E-Government Project in India -

Innovative Designs, Practical Failures

Situation: In 2000 the Madhya Pradesh state government in India designed a very innovative e-government information communication technology (ICT) development project in the rural Dhar district. The project consisted of installing a series of computer/Internet kiosks in the district in order to provide better government services and access to information such as welfare schemes, public grievances, land ownership documents, ‘chat with the experts’ farming tips, market prices, village publications…etc.

Flawed Approach :

• The design seemed to lack a practical consideration of the context in which the kiosks were installed. Many of the kiosk locations suffered from a lack of reliable infrastructure; without a regular access to electricity installing an all-purpose kiosk is futile.

• The project was managed by local government, in which leadership is constantly in flux, causing inconsistencies and periods of abandonment.

• The project didn’t address the quality of information/service output on the side of the government. Therefore lots of information provided on the kiosk home page was outdated (such as the market prices provided for farmers), often causing economic losses for the people making decisions based on it.

Failed Outcome:

• According to an eGovernment for Development case study on the Gyandoot project, “a number of kiosks lie idle for significant periods of time: around one-third appear to be permanently closed; many others are closed for hours or days at a time. Lack of electricity is one cause, as are ongoing telecommunications problems. Limited income and, related, the commitment of kiosk operators is another cause of closure. When kiosks are open, service response times are often poor because hardware capacity is limited, and because several kiosks may attempt to access services at the same time when the electricity comes on.”
• In some cases, the unreliability of the kiosks and infrequent usage lead kiosk managers to lose confidence in their supposed source of livelihood and resort to demanding bribes for the kiosk services and information.

A Better Approach:

• The broad context of poverty and its affects on infrastructure, economic sustainability, and good governance need to be addressed and integrated within the design.

• Hardware installations in the form of the computer kiosks should be accompanied by capacity building initiatives in the form of education, Internet research training, technical maintenance..etc.

• A more bottom-up structured approach to the initial design, implementation and evaluation processes would increase sustainability and overall success of the project.

Source: Sanjay, Alok Kumar and Gupta, Vivek. “Gyandoot: Trying to Improve Government Services for Rural Citizens in India,” eGovernment for Development, eTransparency Case Study #11, 2000. www.egov4dev.org

Introducing the latest, exciting new Globalhood initiative: GlobalVote.

GlobalVote is an internet based polling system that casts ballots on current resolutions from the UN, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, among other International Organizations. Just as these organizations vote according to nationality, GlobalVote participants become virtual members of their own national parliaments.

Taking place in GlobalVote means taking place in a pure, democratic experiment on an international level. Most International Organizations vote behind closed doors, without recourse to the general public. In insisting on maximum transparency for all ballots that are cast, GlobalVote aims to show that a fair and proper voting system can be used in a realistic way to discern global public opinion. We not only plan to give these results in official memorada to the Secretary General of the UN and to other International Organizations, but to pollsters and the media as well.

The GlobalVotes website (globalvotes.org) is still under construction but updates will be provided on this blog on a regular basis.

Check back soon!