On World Water Day 2010, Jane Beesley looks back on her experiences of communities struggling with — and overcoming — difficult access to safe water.
Hawa Omar Kahin working as 10th woman whilst nine others collect water from within a cave. Photo: Jane Beesley/Oxfam
Looking back over the year since last World Water Day, it’s easy for me to remember people, images and stories relating to water — for many reasons.
For some people, the daily struggle for water continues — like the group of women in Ethiopia who, in teams of ten, collect water from deep inside a hillside. Often it takes them all day — every day. They described being down the hole as like being in a grave. I have a short film of one woman ascending from the hole, reaching up and passing a heavy jerry can to someone at the surface, before turning back to descend into darkness again.
Safe water means a huge difference to people’s lives
Elsewhere, where Oxfam has been able to work with communities, I am constantly struck by the huge difference having access to safe water makes to people’s lives, and the positive effects of having a borehole, or any of the water systems we’ve been able to help with. In southern Sudan a community worked together to clear through dense bush a road where none had existed before, so Oxfam could construct a borehole. Now, despite the roughness of the road, other organisations can find the community and further development is on its way. The road and the borehole meant that more people were returning home from camps that they’d fled to because of conflict.
In another part of southern Sudan the boreholes were having other effects, often unexpected — like more girls attending school. With Oxfam buckets the girls can go to school, held under trees, and have something to sit on during lessons before going to the nearby borehole to collect water on their way home.
Women on the water committee
But it’s across the border in northern Kenya, in Turkana and in Wajir, where I’ve had the privilege to meet the same people five or six times, that I’ve seen real progress made. There are so many stories to tell, but those that stand out are the stories where women, through being involved in managing their water systems (often new, sometimes rehabilitated) has given them some standing in their communities. One woman, Mumina Ali Amin, on recognising me in a town in Wajir rushed up and said, “We are no longer in the kitchen!” Eighteen months earlier I had been at a meeting where several men had spoken about women not being strong enough to be on a water committee, and belonging in the kitchen. Women were now on the water committee, and Mumina told me how this had made a difference and improved women’s access to water.
Down the road in another community, where Oxfam no longer works, the committee reported back how they were not struggling during the current water shortage; how they had raised money to extend their water system and purchase solar panels to pump water instead of having to buy expensive fuel, and were even in a position to provide water for others and their livestock.
Pastoralists bring their animals to the waterpoint at Kaikor. Photo: Jane Beesley
Over in Turkana, there’s a place called Kaikor. It’s one of my favourite places in the world – at night there are more stars than can be imagined. But the real stars are the water committee members. Over the years they have had — and continue to have — problems and challenges that they have worked together to solve. Recently a friend went to carry out an assessment and reported back that when a new policeman had tried to get water without paying the small charge, he was challenged by the kiosk operator, Lydia. Lydia explained the system and the reason for the charges, to which the policeman responded, “I didn’t know I was talking to someone in authority,” and handed over the money. Lydia was delighted to be seen as a person of authority.
I hope that the women who have to descend into darkness will soon have easy access to safe water.
The state-owned Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) has inked a deal with SEACOM for an international backhaul link via Djibouti, Computerworld reports. As a result of the deal ETC expects to lower the cost of bandwidth, and subsequently the cost to consumers for telecoms services. Commenting on the development, Amare Amsalu, ETC’s CEO, said: ‘SEACOM is ideally suited to provide international connectivity that will complement ETC’s extensive national initiative to link the country’s businesses and end-users with fibre broadband connectivity,’ adding, ‘The availability of high-quality broadband at lower prices will accelerate economic development and educational initiatives that will enhance lives and will also establish Ethiopia as an important commercial centre for Africa and as a regional transit point for other service providers.’
Under the terms of the deal it is understood that ETC will connect its domestic network to an undersea cable system that has been extended to the shores of the Red Sea. SEACOM has partnered with SEA-ME-WE 3, which operates a cable from South East Asia to Europe; TEAM, which has a Kenya to Dubai link; and the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy), which has landing points in six countries. Currently ETC provides its voice and data services via expensive satellite connectivity, operated by Hughes International, although it does also have a low capacity bandwidth connection via Port Sudan.
The agreement complements the ongoing Next Generation Network (NGN) project being undertaken by ETC, which aims to enhance and improve the country’s existing telecoms infrastructure nationwide. The USD1.5 billion project encompasses work on both fixed line and wireless networks, as well as the national fibre-optic backbone.
Presenting a report covering the past decade, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership said a jump in financing had helped to contain the disease but more needed to be done.
“In all the countries where there is sufficient financing, we are reaching our goals,” said Awa Marie Coll-Seck, executive director of the partnership, which is backed by the World Health Organization.
Total annual global funding was about $2 billion at the end of 2009, far short of the estimated $6 billion required annually to expand the campaign, the partnership said.
Coll-Seck said malaria remained a leading cause of child mortality in Africa. The partnership said last year the disease was claiming a life nearly every 30 seconds. In worst-hit countries it consumes 40 percent of public health spending [ID:nSP459775].
“Financing has a very swift impact,” said Michel Kazatchkine, director of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. “In some countries, the number of malaria cases had fallen 50 percent over the past two years.”
The fund, set up in 2002, aims to raise government funding for 2011-2013 in the next few months.
One of Roll Back Malaria’s aims is to distribute more insecticide-treated mosquito nets and replace old ones — a cheap, simple and effective way to prevent the disease.
Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Ethiopia and Senegal have used 40 percent more mosquito nets between 2003-2005 and 2007-2009, the report said. This has helped to cut malaria cases dramatically.
In Zambia, for example, the number of deaths from malaria fell by 66 percent between 2001-2002 and 2008, according to the report. The number of children hospitalized with malaria fell 55 percent over that period.
The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said earlier this month that malaria could be eliminated as a public health problem within a decade in most states where it was endemic so long as funding was secured.
Statement from Oxfam, Christian Aid and CAFOD, 17 March 2010
Aid money sent to Ethiopia in the mid eighties saved hundreds of thousands of lives. The British public should feel justifiably proud of the very generous contribution they made to this.
Assertions made by a TPLF former commander in a recent BBC investigation that the majority of aid money to Tigray in 1985 was used for arms or political purposes are incorrect. When Ethiopia was struck by one of the worst famines in history amid heavy conflict twenty-five years ago, agencies including Oxfam, Christian Aid, CAFOD and others sought to save the lives of distressed and starving people under difficult circumstances.
We are confident that aid got to millions of people who needed it. It would be wrong to claim that no money was ever diverted in such a situation of active conflict. However, the uncorroborated allegation, made by a former rebel leader in the BBC report, that 95 percent of $100 million aid for famine victims in Tigray in 1985 was misused is grossly inflated. There is no credible evidence that this figure – or any figure remotely close to it – is accurate.
We welcome public scrutiny of aid distribution and media investigations including those by the BBC. The public can and should always demand that aid reaches the people who need it, that responses are faster and more coordinated and ultimately that the international community put maximum effort into preventing such emergencies from happening in the first place. In 1984-5 and today, we are fully dedicated to uphold these standards in our mission to end poverty worldwide
Oxfam’s activities in Ethiopia in 1984-1985
In 1984/5, Oxfam itself spent over £5.6 million on aid for Tigray, which was then controlled by rebels, as well as more than £10.3 million in government-controlled Ethiopia. Oxfam’s monitoring system at that time consisted of spot checks on aid distributions made by REST (the humanitarian arm of the then rebel group in Tigray), interviews with people who had fled the region and had little sympathy for REST political affiliations, and more than a dozen major assessments of the rebel areas in Ethiopia. Oxfam took all these steps to minimize the possibility of aid relief being abused for military or political purposes. Most aid was given as food, seeds and tools, rather than cash, which also reduced the risks of abuse. Oxfam’s monitoring teams found no systematic or wide scale diversion of aid but it would be impossible to say that no aid was misused in such difficult circumstances.
The humanitarian aid sector continues to improve its standards and accountability. When Oxfam operates in war zones and conflict areas to help people in great need, we insist on stringent monitoring and evaluation of all our work to ensure that we make the best possible use of money given to us. We constantly work to improve our effectiveness. Large scale aid projects are subject to an independent review to ensure value for money and to learn lessons that will improve our future programmes. Our monitoring and evaluation policy and results of our reviews are in the public domain (www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/evaluations/)
There is more to be done in Ethiopia to overcome the underlying causes of suffering and hunger but progress has been made. As in every country in the world, aid agencies should always be vigilant to ensure that all their aid is used effectively to reduce poverty and meet urgent humanitarian needs. In the recent Global Hunger Index of all developing countries, Ethiopia was shown to be in the top five performers in alleviating hunger since 1990 in absolute terms. The proportion of children completing primary school has more than doubled since 2000. There are many challenges, but, supported by the generosity of the British public, things are improving and they will continue to do so?”
A women’s group is criticising the United Nations for appointing only men to a 19-strong panel of experts to work out how to raise billions of dollars to fight climate change.
“A planet of men? Since when?” asks the German-based Gender CC — Women for Climate Justice in a statement. (An update — since the list was announced, U.N. officials say that a woman has been added — French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde)
The new panel, to be co-chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, will look into ways to raise at least $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries combat climate change. The panel includes Guyana’s president, Norway’s prime minister, finance ministers, investors and leading economists: all men.
Marion Rolle of GenderCC says U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon could expand the panel and add some well-qualified women before a first meeting planned in London for March 29. “There’s still time” she told me.
Rolle says Ban’s next test will be the appointment of a successor for Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate change official, who stands down on July 1 after four years in the job. His predecessor was a woman, the late Joke Waller-Hunter.
“The important thing is to look at the qualifications of both men and women. It must not be a woman at any price,” Rolle said. Many studies show climate change is harsher on women in developing countries than men, partly because mothers usually have to stay in areas affected by droughts, deforestation or crop failure.
Strong female candidates for de Boer’s job might be Kenya’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai or Dessima Williams, Grenada’s ambassador to the United Nations, she said.
(Picture: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks next to U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer (R) at a news conference during the U.N. Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen December 15, 2009. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins)
Wealthy developed nations are eyeing up land in some of the world’s poorest countries in order to feed their own. It sounds like good news for local economies but how can people in places like Ethiopia be sure they’re getting a fair deal? Coco McCabe reports.
In August 2009, I found myself sitting on the damp earth of Dida Liben, a once-prosperous pastureland in southern Ethiopia where both wild and domestic animals thrived. Today, it’s mostly hard-packed dirt, pocked with patches of stubby grass and thorny bushes ― except where I was perched with a small gathering of local elders.
Around us, the grass had grown tall and thick, the result of an Oxfam-supported conservation effort that had set aside 275 acres of pasture and fenced it off with a bramble enclosure to give the land time to recover. And it had, gloriously, prompting the elders to luxuriate in the feel of the grass all around them, as they had when they were children. Even some of the wildlife was coming back including antelopes, rabbits and boars.
But a tinge of fear coloured their reminiscences. What if someone were to see how good all of this had become and decide to take it away? That was the first thing Kotola Buyale, wrapped up in a tight red shawl, wanted to talk about as we sank into the tall grasses to get out of the wind. What if?
Shopping abroad for places to plant
Kotola Buyale worries about what may happen to some of the pastureland in southern Ethiopia now that it has become productive again. Credit: Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America.
The elder’s words came back to me like an omen when I read a story in the New York Times about how rich countries with limited land suitable for farming are now shopping abroad for places to plant so they can feed their people. And guess where they’re looking ? Ethiopia, where hunger regularly stalks almost eight million people. The story reported that the country’s ministry of agriculture has tagged more than seven million acres as virgin land and plans to lease half of it, very soon, to foreign investors for just 50 cents an acre per year. It’s part of a trend now sweeping the globe. In May 2009, the Economist reported that in the last three years foreigners had secured deals or engaged in talks on between 15 million and 20 million hectares of farm land in developing countries.
Surely Ethiopia, one of the poorest places in the world ― it’s 171st on a United Nation’s index of 182 countries that measures national wellbeing ― could benefit from some robust foreign investment. But it must be the kind that helps the government meet its responsibility to ensure people have enough to eat. Is 50 cents an acre that kind of a deal? And for people who must certainly be living on those millions of acres, will there be long-term benefits they can count on from these investments? The government, like any government in this situation, should insist on it.
The pressure is on
The pressure is on. And Ethiopians feel it, even as they scramble to find ways to feed themselves. It’s hard not to admire the drive and entrepreneurial spirit of a man like Huka Balambal, a herder in southern Ethiopia who knew he needed to find a different way to provide for his family when repeated droughts shriveled the pasture on which his livestock depended. First, he taught himself to farm. Then, he devised an entire irrigation system for his small plot near the Dawa River. Now, harvests of corn and onions have eased his situation considerably.
That kind of determination can help feed a nation ― if the government ensures people have the resources and support they need.
A women’s group is criticising the United Nations for appointing 