LDS Aid in Ethiopia - 1984

I've been reading up on how The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has grown in Nigeria. In the process, I found an interesting article from the 1988 August Ensign talking about the church's efforts during the 1984 Ethiopia famine and other aid projects. In response to the famine in Ethiopia, the Church sent out a special request for the entire membership to go without food or water for 24 hours (a fast) and give the money they would have spent or more specifically to help the people in Ethiopia:

Lit in Review: Case Studies about LDS in Africa

Martinich, author of the LDS Church Growth blog, has published a series of case studies on the growth of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints globally, including on opening new cities for missionary work in general and two case studies in Ghana and Ethiopia showing how that was done specifically. Of interest to me, he recommends leaders use cost-benefit analysis in determining where new cities should be opened as part of the "homework" required for the revelatory process.

In Sunyani, Ghana, there were previously no members of the church in late 2010 when 6 young missionaries and one senior couple were sent in to form three "groups" (very small congregations ... yes, very small) in a city of less than 100,000. In the course of one year they had not only turned two of them into "branches" (small, but self-sustaining congregations, in this case around 50 people attending each week) but a fourth congregation had also been formed. The branches are being led by local leadership instead of missionaries.

In Awasa, Ethiopia, one family had been meeting since 2003 but did not become a branch until 2008 (average attendance about 20). When full-time missionaries were assigned in mid-2010, attendance rocketed from 20 to 70 by the end of the year. There are now four congregations there, though attendance has been highly variable and most of the members appear to be under the age of 21. Some local religious leaders also joined the Church during this time period. The groups are still heavily dependent on the missionaries for leadership and training.

In other posts, Martinich reports on recent Church growth in Sierra Leone and the temporary removal of senior missionary couples from the Democratic Republic of Congo following the election violence last month.

Test Questions I Have Used: The price of everything

In the final for my introductory microeconomics students, I posed a question based on a post on Wronging Rights. It involved an NGO buying up AK-47s in Africa to scrap and sell as jewelry in the West as a means of "doing something" about conflict. The question was to identify why this was a terrible idea, thinking about the incentives increased demand has on the supply side. WR subsequently put up a correction based on an email to the NGO. They do not go around buying guns from dealers, but they buy guns that have been confiscated by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the UN. If anything, this encourages the government to confiscate more guns, which should do good things for reducing demand and supply.

On a midterm for the same class, I also posed a question based on the growing gender imbalance in some Indian states. Having 8 women to 10 men ought to increase the "price" of a bride that husbands pay, or in this case reduce the price the family of the bride has to pay the groom's family. This article from the World Bank discusses one campaign to encourage single men to get indoor plumbing and a toilet: No loo, no I do. And what do we find? Single men are becoming much more likely to have a toilet for prospective brides in states that have a low female-to-male ratio.


In class we also debated the ethics of kidney donations just in time for a slough of posts to go up around the blogsosphere about them.

Mixed Bag: good and bad in African agriculture

In the most distressing news I've heard recently put in a positive light, 20 Tanzanian farmers were invited to Uganda to learn more about using human feces as fertilizer. They would like to convince us that this is a good thing because fertilizer use is so low, but it's also a great way for spreading diseases. Their numbers are 20 years old, but show that a lot more fertilizer is supposedly distributed than was ever spread on crops. That doesn't suggest the problem was lack of fertilizer availability.

Flooding in northwestern Nigeria (Sokoto state, pictured) destroyed 1 billion Naira worth of crops ($6.7 million).

In much happier news, ICRISAT has been providing some Mali farmers with groundnut (peanut) seeds that take only 3 months to harvest instead of 4. As rain patterns have shifted, assumedly due to climate change, the rainy season has been getting shorter and shorter. If I understand the report correctly, it claims that groundnut production has also increased 10-fold.

They also established a cooperative (starting at 20 members, now 65) to coordinate storage. Each member of the cooperative contributes 20 kg of groundnuts for storage. 10 of them they get back later in the year (as a form of forced storage for behavioral economics reasons) and the other 10 are sold (for about $320) to give the cooperative a source of loanable capital.

Ugandan rice production is up significantly - 66% during the last decade. Instead of importing rice, they now export to South Sudan, Kenya, and DRC. The article credits Nerica (New Rice for Africa) with much of the growth. I take the article to be saying that a new survey by the Ministry of Agriculture claims that rice exports are now valued more than any other traditional food export.

Zimbabwe is going to start handing out agricultural input vouchers to vulnerable farmers this week, entitling them to "10 kilograms of maize seed, one 50-kilogram bag of compound D and one 50 kilogram bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer."

LDS Aid

Two professors, one a Cornell-trained BYU professor of nutrition, have been working to improve the Atmit porridge that is often given out in LDS care packages. The hope is that it will be even better for small children with a better mix of micronutrients (particularly more iron) but without compromising on shelf-life. Another article describes its dissemination in poor areas of Peru.

A single serving provides 34 percent of the recommended daily allowance of protein, 43 percent of calcium, 99 percent of iron, and high percentages for a dozen vitamins and minerals for children under 5 years old. ... 
In 2010, 645,000 pounds of Atmit were shipped by LDS Charities to four countries. Depending upon the age and size of the children, that's enough to feed 100,000 to 130,000 children for one month. The cost? Less than $6 (USD) per child.

LDS efforts to help those suffering from the famine in the Horn of Africa:

In Ethiopia, projects to aid more than 100,000 refugees are under way, including water tanks, trucking services, sanitation supplies and hygiene training for 15 villages; supplementary food for 8,700 malnourished children; nutrition centers and sanitation facilities for Somali refugees in Dollo Ado; and 5,000 hygiene kits.
The Church also plans to provide water catchment and storage structures, as well as soap and washbasins to serve tens of thousands of other residents in the communities surrounding the Dollo Ado camps.

Other projects in Kenya, Uganda, and Somalia are also underway and briefly described at the link.



At the most recent General Conference, Church President Thomas S. Monson reminded members about the General Temple Patron Fund. Donations from members around the world are used to help members who live far from a temple travel there. A recent article highlighted some of the saints in southeastern Africa who have been blessed by the Fund:

LDS in Africa and Asia

An LDS teenager won a national Nigerian chess championship.

Last month, a new stake was formed in the Democratic Republic of Congo out of a district. A district is a collection of very small congregations separated by large distances, while a stake has several larger congregations closer together and possibly some outlying smaller congregations. This is the ninth stake in the DRC.

Elder Holland meeting with members

Elders Holland and Bednar visited thousands of members of the Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints in Hong Kong (~25,000 members), India (~9,200 members), Mongolia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Taiwan. Growth in Mongolia has been particularly pronounced, with almost 1/10 citizens of the capital city joining the Church. They hosted Q&A sessions in most areas in additional to giving prepared talks so they could answer and get a better feel for local needs. Among my favorite comments that he made concerned the "pioneer" heritage and situation the members in Asia are creating.

"It's always 1830 or 1840 somewhere in the Church," added Elder Holland, "and in Asia, it's about 1840" in terms of the development of the Church. "We are always beginning somewhere and parts of Asia are beginning beautifully."

Right now, it's about February 1830 in Yola, with no organized church, but very soon there will be (4) members there.

Meanwhile, Elder Nelson created the first stake in Russia in Moscow. That's right, there are nine times as many stakes in DRC as in Russia. This was particularly pleasant for Elder Nelson because his granddaughter is a missionary there. We have friends who have accepted a job in Moscow also, and we are very pleased for them to have a full stake there to welcome and support them. Elders Oaks and Cook also visited Mexico, where there are 1.2 million Church members, to strengthen them.

As Elder Holland said, the reason for sending the apostles to so many countries and members recently is to say one thing:

"I’ve come halfway around the world literally to say basically one thing. … We love you,” Elder Holland said. “You may be a long ways away from us physically or geographically, but you’re not more than a prayer away and a heartbeat away from our affections and our admiration.”

Mormons in Africa series

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put out a series of news reports last week on the church's activity in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Church's Africa Fact Sheet can be found here. There are nearly 320,000 Mormons in Africa, roughly 100,000 of them in Nigeria. The fact sheet also provides statistics for the church's humanitarian aid. The initiatives are described in more detail here and I regularly link to more information.

Elder Richard G. Scott, a senior member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, visited Mozambique in January. In his last visit in 1999 there were 40 Mormons in Mozambique, while there are now over 5000. He spoke to members in several meetings, with some members traveling two days for a chance to be there, as well as to doctors and nurses teaching neonatal resuscitation techniques to 53,000 medical professionals so far. His message was one of hope, reassurance, and encouragement. Another apostle, Jeffrey R. Holland, prophesied in Burundi that “Africa will someday be seen as a bright land full of ... hope and happiness.” Several African Church leaders tell their stories here.

This article tells several personal stories: one from a rural family in Madagascar who spent 27 years searching for religious truth and two accounts from South Africa. One of them describes the love expressed by white and black members for each other during Apartheid:

Dominic had never seen that type of affection generated from a white person toward someone of darker skin. “You don’t understand how big that was, how amazing it was to see that — how shocking. It went against everything society had taught me.” ... He was baptized and started attending church and was again amazed by the acceptance he felt. “They taught the same thing to me as the white boy sitting next to me at church. That broke a lot of boundaries for me. That said to me in my heart and mind that we are equal.”

This is a first-hand account by an LDS Kenyan journalist. Another article talks in a very introductory way about the 7,000 members in Uganda. The fastest Church growth currently is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Church runs a program called the Perpetual Education Fund which provides low-interest loans to help people to receive education, usually in order to secure better employment. PEF is helping 2,300 people in Africa so far. The average loan in Africa is $1,200 for a year of schooling. 570 people have finished their education with the program and have seen large increases in income. Funds come from donations by members, myself included, and is run by volunteers.

Most genealogical records are preserved orally in Africa. The Church's FamilySearch program is attempting to record and preserve these family history records. The article quotes a Ghanaian proverb: When an old man dies, it is as if a library has burnt down.

Success, Disaster, and One or the Other in the Making: African Agriculture

LDS Charities has been working wth IITA (a Nigerian charity) inLuputa,  DRCongo on a project to increase cassava yields and processing. The local members who devised the project [right] and Brother Squires, director of Agriculture Production Services for LDS Charities, are very pleased with the results:

Families also grow their own cassava, then process it in exchange for a small fee used to maintain the equipment. They often have enough flour to use, preserve for food storage and sell for a small profit in the marketplace. Any surplus is used to help care for the poor and needy.

"This project offers sustainability at its best," said Brother Squires. "These subsistence farmers have improved their self-reliance through increased production, improved marketing and better processing. They have given back to those in need with their surplus product. It's a great success story."

The site supervisor for the project, Nestor Ilunga, is featured in a second article this week as he and his family prepare to visit the LDS temple in South Africa, after a 7 hour bus ride to a plane to the DRC capital to a plane for the 1730 miles trip south. The story was the first time I had heard mention of a "General Temple Patron Assistance Fund" to assist families at great distance to attend the temple. "To date, only one family in the Luputa district has been sealed in the temple: the district president and his wife. Full-time missionaries called from the district have also been to the temple."

Southern Africa has meanwhile been facing floods which have damaged local crop production in "portions of Botswana, Lesotho Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa." Over 60% crop losses are reported in Lesotho while Mozambique and South Africa have declared a state of emergency.


The Ethiopian government has agreed to allow private Indian farmers to set up shop to crow pulses and edible oils to export back to India. The Indian government for its part is providing assistance with watershed development and other commercial agricultural investments. More on land grabbing.

Roving Bandit brings to our attention a call for papers on food market systems planning, with an emphasis on the planning. The call also includes plans made by NGOs and landscape architects, but the intro paragraph makes pretty clear their interest in meeting "the official who is in charge of ensuring bread supplies to London."Oh dear.

A World of Interesting Incentives

USAID cannot help Haiti develop crops that would compete with US producers.

Haiti weddings are up by a lot since the earthquake. Annan, posting at Blattman, hypothesizes the reason is that the social norms are changing: you don't need to get married in a big church because they were destroyed, and you don't have to have a big house to live in because they're gone too. The costs of marriage are down, so people are practicing monogamy while the getting's good.

The DRC is looking at changing its constitution in the way the president and legislature are elected. One version says the hope is to stamp out corruption. The other side is that the hope is to centralize corruption. But will the congress agree to the shift in corruptive rents?


On how commercial incentives erode social norms (work ethic, the nobility and sacrifice of the public servant, etc.), possible making the situation far worse.

Is the problem that companies can buy their Congressional representatives loyalty, or is it that Congressional representatives are already loyal to their constituents and companies merely give them the clout to follow their political incentives? Yglesias argues that the case isn't very clear regarding ethanol support.

What set of incentives would be necessary for colleges to offer these kinds of courses? (HT: Newmark)

FINAN 141: Introductory money management course. Offers a brief overview of higher-level theories such as relatives you may never have thought to ask for money, state-by-state law into just how far you can fall behind on your rent before being evicted, and getting the most for your old Magic the Gathering cards on eBay.
SPAN 301: Explanation and response to the four questions employers most commonly ask you in Spanish to make sure you weren't lying when you put on a resume that you speak it fluently.

LDS around the world

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka Mormons) had a brief, government-authorized presence in Burundi before civil strife broke out in 1992. Last August the first officially recognized church unit in Burundi held meetings again. The article tells the story of the Malabi family, their sacrifices, and the regrowth of the Church in Burundi. It mentions how a group of hundreds of people who wanted to join the Church had formed an informal church group and when they found Bro. Malabi asked him to visit them and teach them more.

Brother Malabi made the long trip to Uvira to teach them two or three times a month. This continued for five years. He traveled at his own expense, usually alone but sometimes accompanied by his wife or one of his children. When asked how much he paid for each trip, he responded, "$10". That travel expense of $30 per month was 5 percent of his total monthly income of $600.

I thought I had blogged about this earlier, but I can't find it now:  LDS Apostles Holland and Christofferson visited a number of African countries last month, pronouncing blessings on Burundi and Angola."Elder Holland expressed his feeling that Africa had been held in reserve by the Lord in the spirit of "the last shall be first" and that Africa would someday be seen as a bright land full of gospel hope and happiness." Both blessed "government leaders as they seek to serve the people and prayed that persons of ability and integrity would be drawn to public service." Picture shows members in Zimbabwe.

Proselyting missionaries save up to help pay for their endeavors. A recent article showcased what a young man in the Democratic Republic of Congo does to save for his mission:

Each day, Sedrick pushes his bicycle, laden with 200 pounds of bananas, for two hours to get to the market. He sells the bananas for the best price he can, then rides back for another load. He does this several times a week. Sedrick has been doing this backbreaking work for four years.

Sedrick told me that he makes about $3 a trip. From that he must buy his food, repair his bicycle and save for his mission. His savings will only pay for the high cost of getting a passport in the DR Congo. Member contributions to the General Missionary Fund will pay the rest.

Putnam and Campbell's study of religion in America shows that "Religious Americans are more likely than others to act in a variety of ways that benefit society, and they tend to be more actively engaged in the surrounding social sphere as well."

The Kosovo ambassador to the US was a refugee ten years ago during the ethnic cleansing. This week during a trip to speak at Utah Valley University he visited Church headquarters and LDS Humanitarian Services to thank the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for their humanitarian involvement during that time.

Church service missionaries (different from proselytizing missionaries) rebuilt schools in Peru following the 2007 8.0 earthquake.

The Church provided the rebuilding resources then contracted with local construction companies to build the classrooms. Church engineers, added Brother Ramirez, oversaw every aspect of the school building, from the foundation to the roof and right down "to the amount of mixture in the cement." ...

Gil Villa is the mother of a child attending the Chincha school. She has noticed a difference in the students and her fellow parents since the rebuilt classrooms were opened last year. The children, she said, take ownership of their school. They are quick to report vandalism and other abuses. And the parents are doing their part to help.

"Every week parents come to clean the school," said Mrs. Villa. "We come every Friday to polish and wax the floors. We clean everything so on Monday, when the children return, they find a clean school."

 And a brief mention of last week's flooding in Venezuela and LDS relief efforts there, and cholera relief efforts in Papua New Guinea and Haiti. The Church also established its first stake [multiple congregation unit] in Guam for the 2,000 LDS living there.

"Sustainable" Agriculture in the DRC

Given just how many inputs are being imported to put this show on, I wonder just how sustainable the project is. Despite that, here is some impressive agriculture in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (until about 3:40, then it's all about IBM). Video below the fold, Hat tip: Texas in Africa.

Water project: LDS in DRC

Progress report on the project to bring clean water to Luputa, Democratic Republic of Congo, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (other posts here and here). Luputa has over 200,000 people but no electricity, no roads, no cars, and no clean water.

Twice a day, as men and teenagers tend their family farms, thousands of women and children walk a mile or more to get water. It comes from polluted sources — muddy pools shared by animals or contaminated springs — but people need the water for drinking, cooking and bathing. To avoid the crowded wait, women often get water during the dark of early morning — only to become victims of assault and rape. 

Locals had searched for 15 years before finding some fresh springs in "nearby" hills, but had no way to bring the water the 19 miles to Luputa. They looked for several years until they met LDS Charities who agreed to work with them. There are approximately 1800 Mormons in the area and growing rapidly.

Digging the trench was the most arduous part of the project. Volunteers hacked their way through the jungle and savannah for 19 miles to dig a trench 18-inches wide and 3-feet deep. Volunteers gathered every day — except Sunday — for more than 900 days to complete the trench. ...

On a good day, the men could dig a distance of 150 meters (165 yards). On other days they made little progress due to tree roots or rocky terrain. Special pipe was fabricated in Kinshasa and shipped to Luputa. Volunteers carried the pipe long distances for installation. ...

Two water towers, two stories each, are being constructed without power tools. Cement, sand and gravel are mixed by hand, hauled by a bucket brigade, hoisted up the tower by hand and poured into forms surrounding the steel-reinforced frame. Sixty-four kilometers, or 40 miles, of smaller trenches have also been dug to tie in more than 80 water stations being built. This will provide water every 500 meters, nearly one-third of a mile....

In the villages farther up-line from Luputa, water is already flowing at the turn of a gauge.
And there is joy. Hearts are tender as many people express their happiness.
"I'm very happy for water that is clean," said Jolie Mularju, mother of three. "I thank LDS Church members for their willing sacrifice. Children will no longer get sick and die."
The work continues at a feverish pace to complete by November, when it is anticipated that Joseph Kabila Kabange, president of the DR Congo, will visit Luputa with a member of the Africa Southeast Area Presidency. 

Work is done through local volunteers and local contractors. Training is provided locally so the system can be kept up. Pipes were built in Kinshasa and transported the 600 miles to Luputa. Funding comes from charitable donations from members and interested parties around the world. More about the goals and principles of LDS welfare projects, and this project in particular, can be found here. More on the difficulty of maintaining water pumps here.

Five Second ... Leaked Report on DRC

The UN report on the violence in the DRC was recently leaked and Texas in Africa gives these valuable summary points as well as the usual cogent discussion:

As Jason Stearns notes, the leaking of the report almost certainly happened in order to ensure that the word "genocide" got out lest someone scrub it from the final version.... I have seen the draft report. It is long and it is damning. ...

Faced with the incredible horrors around him, he assumed that since the genocidaires were the bad guys, Kagame and his team were the good guys. What Gourevitch failed to understand then - and seems to still be missing now, despite all evidence to the contrary - is that there were never any good guys in this fight. Blood is on almost everyone's hands, and there's plenty of blame to go around. ...

This report highlights the importance of seeing violence in Rwanda, the Kivus, and the rest of the eastern DRC as interrelated. You can't understand one without the others. The Rwandan genocide did not happen out of thin air; it was a product of the country's civil war, and decades of historical events before that. The fight for control of Rwanda extended onto Zairian territory and, in one form or another, continued at least until early 2009 and arguably until today. It may well break out in Congo again;...

The importance of this leaked report cannot be overstated. If released as such, it will disastrous for what's left of Kagame's reputation, and he knows it. Even if it's not released, it's unlikely the donors can now simply ignore what they have long known to be true. What happens as a result of this is anyone's guess. Kagame is already sitting atop a powder keg of resentment and division in his own party. But there are many potential consequences, and no donors want to see instability in Rwanda.

LDS in DRC and other news

Julie Beck, president of the LDS women's Relief Society organization - the largest and second oldest women's organization in the world - visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo recently. There are over 20,000 members of the church in the DRC. Though they are more than 2500 miles from the nearest temple, they were encouraged to obtain and maintain a current temple recommend (a formal approval enter the temple). In a short talk, she said:

"I love you sisters and I am so grateful for what you are doing to lift each other and build the kingdom of God on the earth. I know sometimes your lives are difficult, but there is much you can do to improve your lives and to become closer to our Heavenly Father."

In other news, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is opening a new Missionary Training Center in New Zealand, the 15th such training center in the world. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir is being inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame.

Eating Remarkable Food: Other White Meats

Back when I’d been at this international aid thing for not very long, I made a promise to myself that food was never going to be an issue for me. Annoyed with fellow expats for whom food seemed justification for going high-maintenance, I resolved to try anything at least once. And always accept whatever a host offered. “It’ll all just turn to glucose later”, I told myself. And to this day, that has been my personal motto, while traveling, where food is concerned.

 Thus begins a fascinating tour of food duty, including:

Dog: The other white meat. Tastes a little like chicken. In fact, quite contrary to the ethnocentric assumptions of some, I’ve heard of Western people going to dog restaurants and being tricked into eating chicken disguised as dog (chicken is much cheaper), rather than the other way around.

Other tales of micro-livestock: in Bolivia, in Mexico,  in DRC.

Obama Legislation Addresses Wrong Problem

I and others asked Texas in Africa for an opinion on the legislation Pres. Obama signed into law yesterday requiring firms to trace whether their mineral components were sourced from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Bottom lined:

Just about every local leader in the east will tell you that the mineral trade is not the cause of violence and that ending the trade is very unlikely to end most violence, especially given the absence of functioning political and security institutions. … The legislation is unlikely to do harm (until it causes some of the 1 million people who depend on the trade for their livelihood to become unemployed), so it's mostly just been a waste of time and energy

Full response below the fold.

Big Bag o Blog Links

Facebookistan: the third largest country.

The power of barter: how a teenager turned a beat up cell phone into a Porsche.

Mobile banking for the unbanked - how Kenyan banks and microcredit orgs use mobile banking.

An unidentified LDS bishop in Africa decided he would follow one of the church's programs for youth to experience what it was like. He asked one of the youth verify that he had successfully completed his project similar to how her parents would sign off on hers.

He shared with her the things he had learned and done and then she asked to see his journal entry regarding this experience because that was part of the requirement. He replied, "Well, I did not write about this in my journal. I don't have one." The young woman replied, "Well then Bishop, I cannot sign your Personal Progress book. Come back when you have completed all the requirements." He said that he had learned a great lesson.

A World Bank RCT on AIDS and poverty in Malawi

found that if poor schoolgirls and their families received small monthly cash payments, the girls had sex later, less often and with fewer partners. A year and a half after the program started, the girls were less than half as likely to be infected with the AIDS or herpes viruses than were girls whose families got no payments. The likelihood that the girls would agree to sex in return for gifts and cash declined as the size of the payments from the program rose, suggesting the central role of extreme poverty in sexual choices. ...“The program empowered these girls to make better choices,” said Berk Ozler, a senior economist with the World Bank’s Development Research Group.

Half the girls received no cash payments. The parents of the other half were paid $4 to $10 a month while the girls themselves received $1 to $5 a month if they attended school regularly.

Hat tip: Poverty News Blog.

Meanwhile, Blattman tells us there is something not worth reading. I am thankful for one more data point to support my biases: "I also got talked into reading Wicked. ... I just can’t shake the feeling I’ve lost six hours of my life I will never get back."

Oh, and "I, Pencil" meets iPad.

Small Bag of Blog Links and some thoughts on Independence Days

AidMart

Three on trust and Africa: US corporations - against "knee-jerk prejudice and the willingness to write off an entire continent of people as liars and cheaters"; aid workers meeting corruption everywhere vs. in everyone; trusting the media to report on good news in eastern DRC.

From the first day of Congolese Independence, compared to 50 years later. A grand vision with which I cannot help but entering into sympathy that is lacking in completion. (Hat tip: Texas in Africa)

Speaking of 50 years later, July 4, 1826 was when both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson passed away. John Quincy Adams was president at the time, merely our sixth president. He had spent most of his time working as our ambassador to various nations and spent 8 years as Pres. Monroe's Secretary of State, drafting the Monroe Doctrine. If the election of 1824 had been held today, his opponents would have been saying he stole the election, which was decided by the House of Representatives. He spent most of his presidency building canals, roadways, and treaties. He said, "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." He also passed protectionist tariff laws that would not be allowed by today's WTO.

At that time, Missouri had been a state for 5 years, giving us 24 states. The nation was deeply divided at the time over slavery and states rights, though it would take almost another 40 years before the rest of the world shook their heads as our country was riven apart by civil war (We knew they could never handle independent government! Maybe it would be for the best if England took charge again.). Also in 1826, Maryland decreed that public office could be held by a Jew. Previously a belief in Christianity was required of office holders

Going back to John Adams (Quincy's dad, another family that stayed in politics a while) for a moment, aside from his work promoting the concept of independence and his pivotal efforts in Congress and the Presidency, one of the things which I think alone makes him worthy of remembrance is that when he was defeated in election by the other party (Tom Jefferson), he willingly stepped down. No election funny business, no military protections, no recounts. He stepped down.

So has Somaliland's President. Good show. Roving Bandit asks "Would somebody please recognise Somaliland?! They have bi-o-met-ric pass-ports" and just passed this major democratic hurdle few African governments have managed. "Let the people vote for what they want."

What IFPRI has been doing

They've been very busy at IFPRI recently....

The Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System (ReSAKSS) is a new data base with some two dozen indicators regarding African agriculture, designed at the request of NEPAD. Immediately from the home page you can generate many comparative maps on GDP, poverty, hunger like the one below showing that they now estimate 90% of the adult population of the Democratic Republic of Congo are hungry.

Ghana has a goal: "In the past five years, Ghana has experienced fairly high levels of poverty-reducing growth, and the country has set 2015 as a target date to achieve middle-income status." They are already classified as lower-middle and are about half-way to upper-middle status.


IFPRI has a useful report out on Gender and Governance in Rural Services in India, Ethiopia, and Ghana. It looks at women's access to agricultural extension and water supplies. Each country has a very different system in place, with different pros, cons, and different recommendations for what to do next. Available for free online, but you can only print 1-2 pages at a time.

A number of PowerPoints on mitigatingclimate change through agriculture came from a meeting last week in Bonn. Includes a proposed study on Payment for Environmental Services to reduce livestock-land degradation cycles. Another paper finds that rural people living near national parks in Costa Rica and Thailand are doing better financially than rural people who are further away from them, largely as a result of new jobs in conservation and ecotourism.

They are releasing a new dataset on chronic poverty in Bangladesh using both qualitative and quantitative panel data on 2000 households. Other papers on Bangladeshi poverty and food security that came out quite recently include:
Agricultural marketing, price stabilization, value chains, and global/regional trade
Cross-cutting issues: Governance and gender
Food utilization and nutrition security
Growth and development potential of livestock and fisheries in Bangladesh
Income growth, safety nets, and public food distribution
Investing in crop agriculture in Bangladesh for higher growth and productivity, and adaptation to climate change

Ways to Help: Africa

Texas in Africa offers some helpful alternatives to the much lampooned ideas of donating used shoes or t-shirts to Africa. A few quoted here:

• Why not help African textile manufacturers? @tmsruge (who is actually from Africa) suggested on Twitter the idea of buying 1 million shirts from African vendors to donate to children in need stateside. This would provide African workers with desparately-needed jobs, income, and stability, in both the manufacturing and the cotton-production sector while meeting a need here as well.
• DRC: Heal Africa They provide small business loans to foster families who are willing to take in orphaned children. The families use those loans to start businesses, which help with the expense of housing, clothing, and feeding an extra child. They then repay the loan and the money is used to help another foster family. This is a sustainable, well-thought-out project that meets a critical need in a culturally-appropriate way.
• Ethiopia: Amhara Credit and Savings Institution. [Another microfinance institution.]
• Check out Saundra's post on questions you should ask before donating goods overseas. This is a helpful tool for evaluating the idea and for thinking about other alternatives. 
• Ask people what they need. In almost fifteen years of studying African communities, I've never heard of a community saying that clothing is its greatest need. Things like access to clean water, better sanitation, easier transportation options to markets and schools, and basic security are far higher priorities. Direct your efforts as a response to needs the intended recipients have directly expressed.