Peak youth - seizing the moment
LONDON, 25 November 2014 (IRIN) - We have accepted the concept "peak oil" - the point where oil production goes into an irreversible decline. Now we are being asked to contemplate that we are also rapidly approaching "peak youth", when there will be more young people than ever before in the history of the planet, and when young people as a proportion of the population will reach a maximum, before starting to drop. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA) reckons there are already 1.8 billion people aged 10-24 in the world. In its annual report it presents them as a great force for accelerated development and a better quality of life, but only if the demographic changes going on can be harnessed for good. The pattern followed by populations over the past century or more is now well understood. First, medical advances improve child survival; the numbers of children and young people rise, and working adults struggle to raise an increased number of dependents. Then people start having fewer children. Meanwhile, the first generation of the baby bulge reaches adulthood and joins the workforce, and suddenly there are more adults to support fewer dependants; families have the chance to get richer, and so does the whole society. Europe made this transition long ago. South East Asia followed, and more recently China. All saw a dramatic increase in prosperity, the so-called "demographic dividend". Now Africa is going through the same transition. The UNFPA report says that only six countries remain where the population is still "youthening" rather than ageing, and five out of those six are in sub-Saharan Africa. Even there the trend is expected to reverse after 2020. (Israel, a special case, is the sixth one).
"The demographic dividend is not a given; you have to seize it" UNFPA's Director Babatunde Osotimehin is upbeat. "Never before," he says, have there been so many young people. Never again is there likely to be such potential for economic and social change." But he adds a warning. He told IRIN: "Demographic transition will happen, but the dividend is not a given. You need to seize it, and you need to understand that this is the time to seize it." To make the most of this potential workforce, you need your young people to be healthy, well educated and gainfully employed. The first response of governments facing the demographic shift tends to focus on job creation. But the report's editor, Richard Kollodge, would like to see a shift of emphasis from worrying about unemployment, to enabling young people to find their own ways to contribute. "We've got to get people thinking in those terms," he told IRIN. "We've got this big youth population, and are we doing the right things to allow them to fulfil their potential? Instead of seeing them as a liability, we have to see them as an asset; instead of seeing problems, we have to see possibilities. But none of this will happen automatically." For UNFPA, with its main work in the field of sexual and reproductive health, this means putting more effort into helping girls and young women, in particular, to fulfil their potential, freeing them from the health problems brought by FGM and too-early childbearing, and giving them the power of choice, about education and work, about when and who to marry, and about when and how often to bear children. Its vision is of a healthy, well educated and self-confident workforce, where young women as well as young men will be able to create their own employment and produce economic value, even where formal sector jobs are not available. At the Institute of Development Studies near Brighton in the UK, Pauline Oosterhoff is concerned that making young women economically productive is going to be a much wider project, with investments needed in infrastructure like water supply and more social support; dependency ratios are not just about GDP, they are about child care and elder care, and like other domestic chores, the burden is borne by women and girls. "A young woman is not going to be able to work for profit if she is doing a lot of unpaid work," she says. "If you see what a day looks like now for a girl in developing countries, you will see that achieving an economic dividend is going to take a lot of investment." "And let's not forget," adds her colleague Deeta Chopra, "that the trend will eventually be reversed when this working age population gets old, and then again there will be more dependency. I'm surprised that in policies to empower women and girls, care-giving doesn't figure. There's no discussion of child care, no discussion of elder care, so the demographic dividend risks being defeated by the invisibility of the care economy." "Trade liberalization has completely changed the playing field" Other demographers doubt whether it can ever be possible for the youth bulge in Africa to produce the kind of growth spurt seen in countries like South Korea and Thailand. Deborah Potts of Kings College London is one of them. "The significant factor in almost every case was state intervention," she told IRIN, "but in a globalized world, with major constraints on what kind of development path you can go down, it is actually impossible for African countries to follow the path that South Korea did. "South Korea basically poured money into heavy industries like shipbuilding, undercutting its rivals in a way that would not be allowed today. Under World Trade Organization rules it would be completely illegal. Trade liberalization has completely changed the playing field. Nigeria, for instance, has lost hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs to Chinese competition, and there is no suggestion that these jobs are coming back. All these young people in Nigeria have to be doing something more productive than they are doing now in order to produce a demographic dividend. It's not informal sector jobs which kicked off the economies or Thailand, Vietnam or China." The dilemma for policymakers in Africa is that the population shift is happening right now, and even the optimists say the need to make decisions is urgent. Kollodge says: "It's during the lag between falling mortality and falling fertility that you have to start making the investment if you are going to see the benefit. Eventually a very young population will become a very old population, and you have to plan for that too. Unless steps are taken right now, then the opportunity for a demographic dividend will be squandered. The window of opportunity won't remain open for very long." eb/cb Access report online |
| Northeast Nigeria: "Hundreds of thousands have fled"
DAKAR, 28 November 2014 (IRIN) - More than 400,000 people in northeastern Nigeria, who have been forced to flee their homes due to ongoing violence by militant Islamist group Boko Haram, are in "urgent need" of assistance, humanitarian agencies say. This number is likely to increase as attacks against civilians escalate. "There's a major crisis going on in the northeast, and it's not being recognized for the crisis it is," said Sarah Ndikumana, country director for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Nigeria. "Since late August, the insurgency movement has been aggressively and progressively taking Adamawa State over and establishing their presence, and what this means is that hundreds of thousands have fled." This has left "countless" people without access to food, water, shelter, medical care and other basic necessities, such as clothing and soap. "You're talking about huge movements of populations and these people flee with nothing," Ndikumana said. "These are surprise attacks, so people literally come with only their shirts on their backs. They don't know anybody, they don't have anything and many aren't getting anything." A double suicide bombing at a busy marketplace in Borno State's largest city, Maiduguri, on 25 November, which killed "dozens" of people, is the latest in a wave of terrorist attacks in the region. A growing crisis At least 1.5 million people have been internally displaced since May 2013, when the Nigerian government first declared a state of emergency in the northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, according to the government. At least 150,000 have taken refuge in neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon, according to the UN Refugee Agency. The European Union aid body ECHO says this number could be as high as 180,000. Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says they registered nearly 700,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) between January and November. Most have appeared within the past six months. Following the takeover of Mubi town (in Adamawa State) by Boko Haram on 29 October, more than 20,000 IDPs were registered by NEMA at formal camps in Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, during a single week. Tens of thousands more are believed to have taken refuge in makeshift settlements within neighbouring host communities, and remain undocumented. "As we speak, there is still an influx of displaced people fleeing from northeastern areas," said Fernando Arroyo, head of OCHA's operations in Nigeria. "The trend has continued unabated for a very long time now, but it has really accelerated in the last few weeks." More camps needed There are now 12 official IDP camps in Borno State and six in Adamawa, which are operated by the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) with the support of NEMA and other international partners. At least four of these have opened in the last few weeks to accommodate the recent influx of IDPs. Those that arrive at the camps are registered and given access to necessities such as food, water, health care and shelter. The majority of IDPs, however, never make it into a formal camp. Some are turned away because the camps are overcrowded. Others are too afraid to enter the camps, and hide out in remote villages. Many people end up sleeping under trees, in abandoned churches and school buildings, or in empty fields. "The problem is, we know for a fact that only a minority are going into formal IDP camps and the majority are moving into host communities and so it's very difficult to know how many they are and to register them in order to provide assistance," Arroyo said. Delivering aid to these IDPs has also been a challenge. "The people living in host communities - it's not like in camps where you can do mass distributions," said the IRC's Ndikumana. "We have to go community to community to find these people, so that makes it more complex." Most of the spontaneous informal camps have no water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, with sanitary conditions described by some aid workers as "deplorable". Many of the health centres in the neighbouring communities have been shut down or destroyed. Such unhygienic conditions have led to an increase in cholera, diarrhoea and other preventable diseases among IDP populations, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC). "One of the challenges we are facing is the difficulty to cope with the increasing humanitarian needs," said Dénes Benczédi, a communication coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Nigeria. "Our capacities are limited. Our assistance remains essential for the victims, but we are covering just part of the needs." Food security concerns More than five million people were estimated to be food insecure across 11 states in northern Nigeria in 2014, according to OCHA. Adamawa State now faces a phase 2, or stressed acute food insecurity, and could enter a phase 3 crisis situation, OCHA has warned. In Borno and Yobe states, food security reached crisis levels before the normal lean season in July/August, ECHO says. Many fear these numbers could go even higher, following disruptions to this year's agriculture and trade activities, including destroyed harvests, farmland taken over by rebels, and people abandoning their fields. The government says production is down this year by 26 percent in Borno State, 21 percent in Yobe State and 14 percent in Adamawa State. "The crisis that is playing out in northeast Nigeria is always hitting the most vulnerable hardest," said Robert Piper, the UN regional humanitarian coordinator for the Sahel. "We've already seen an impact on children, with a big jump in numbers of moderate acute malnutrition in the last six months and there are early indications of big drops in agricultural production in the three states of emergency. And at the rate things are going at the moment, the situation could well get worse." Food prices remain high across the three states and many people have lost their main sources of income, further reducing purchasing power. NEMA, along with partners such as IRC, ICRC and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), have been distributing food and non-food items to IDPs both in and outside the camps, but say more assistance is needed. "The government is doing what they can, but they don't have enough resources," Ndikumana said. "No one has enough resources. and because it's a forgotten crisis, there is not enough money or materials coming in. We try to prioritize the most vulnerable, but when everyone is hungry, how do you prioritize one person over another?"
Limited international presence Due to ongoing security concerns, there are only a dozen or so NGOs or UN agencies currently operating in the affected areas, according to OCHA. "The northeast of Nigeria is [a] very dangerous region to operate in," Arroyo said. "Even in Madiguri - the capital of Borno State - there is only a small concentration of humanitarian workers. But the situation is extremely worrying and probably should deserve more of our concern, both in terms of how serious it is and that the problem is only growing." In Adamawa, the most affected state, for example, only two NGOs - IRC and Oxfam - have a permanent operational presence. They have been working alongside NEMA/SEMA, the Nigerian Red Cross and UNFPA to help reach displaced populations. The World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization and UNICEF have a monitoring presence, and ECHO, the World Bank and the US Agency for International Development are the only donors for the area. "So the humanitarian footprint in the northeast is really quite small," said Dominic Stolarow, the emergency manager for UNICEF in Nigeria. Those agencies that are operating, face many challenges due to poor road networks, state of emergency curfews and checkpoints. Many have had to relocate or have bases far from the priority areas. Stepping up aid As of mid-November, the Strategic Response Plan (SRP) for Nigeria, which was launched in February, was just 14 percent funded. "This has really made it quite difficult to work," Stolarow said. To help meet the growing needs, IFRC requested an emergency appeal on 5 November for US$2.8 million to assist 150,000 people who have been both directly and indirectly affected by the conflict, over the next 12 months. They also plan to open two additional sub-offices in early 2015 in Adamawa and Gombe states. ICRC says they also plan to expand their operations into Yola and Gombe in early 2015. In response to the events in recent weeks, ECHO pledged $6.2 million on 25 November to help IDPs in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. This is in addition to the $9.4 million they gave earlier this year to the region. "It's clear that the situation is getting worse and not improving for the time being," said Yassine Gaba, ECHO's head of office in Nigeria. "More and more people are fleeing and they have no support and no assistance, and so we are trying to change that." jl/cb Access report online |
| Terrorism hits education, health in Kenya's marginalized Mandera
NAIROBI, 28 November 2014 (IRIN) - People in northern Kenya's marginalized Mandera County face a devastating loss of basic services as teachers, healthcare workers and other state employees face calls to leave in the wake of a terrorist attack which claimed 28 bus passengers. The victims, who included 24 teachers, were shot in the head on 22 November after being made to lie on the ground. The Somali insurgent group Al Shabab said it carried out the attack. In the aftermath of the widely condemned killings, several civil servants' unions urged their members who are not indigenous to the larger northern Kenya region to leave until their security could be guaranteed. "It's a painful scenario to comprehend what has constantly befallen our members. Many have undergone painful deaths. We don't want to contemplate what will happen next to them should they continue serving there," Wilson Sossion, secretary-general of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), told IRIN.
"We have called for better security for our members in the past but the government has failed to provide it. Now we want all teachers to move out from insecure regions and relocate to places deemed secure."
According to local media reports, an exodus of civil servants has already begun on roads leading south. And soon after the attack, dozens of people gathered with their suitcases at Mandera airstrip, waiting in vain for a government air lift.
Sossion said teachers had been targeted before. "We have witnessed cases where terrorists, [who] move from house to house, profile and target teachers. We want to avoid a similar thing once and for all by completely moving out from volatile regions. We are not talking of Mandera alone, but we want them [teachers] to move out from all insecure regions of the country."
"Now we want all teachers to move out from insecure regions and relocate to places deemed secure" But others think this is wrong-headed. "If you leave," public service chief Joseph Kinyua told civil servants holed up in an army base in Mandera, "it will as appear as if we have surrendered our sovereignty to Al-Shabaab. "Withdrawing labour will not help solve the region's security problem," Francis Atwoli, secretary-general of the Kenyan chapter of the Central Organisation of Trade Unions told IRIN. "We are still insisting that the government provides security to ensure the safety of our workers. It has taken [the government] a lot of effort to create employment and they should do the same to protect the jobs by beefing up security. We want a situation where workers can work in any part of the country. "Withdrawing will mean that we are defeated and thus falling into the traps of the enemy. We cannot accept defeat and succumb to their demands. What happened is unacceptable and we condemn it." Limited access to education, health care The northern Kenya region has historically been marginalized by successive governments, leaving access to basic social services such as education and healthcare limited. While demand for teachers stands at 20,000, there are only about 12,000 in the region, according to KNUT. UNICEF says about 80 percent of girls in North Eastern Province are not enrolled in school. The doctor-to-patient ratio is 1.0 to 100,000 in the larger northern Kenya region, according to Fredrick Oluga, a member of the advisory council at the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPPDU). Nationally, according to government figures, the ratio is 1.0 to 20,000. The global recommendation is one doctor for every 1,000 patients.
Indicative of the level of need in northern Kenya is the dependence on civil servants from other parts of the country.
KMPPDU's Oluga added that there are just 41 doctors in northern Kenya, forcing them to be on call 24 hours.
 The northern Kenya region is often insecure "Our members have been attacked while walking to hospital to attend to emergency cases. In Lamu, for instance, we lost one member, while in Mandera, a pharmacist was killed. It is a very sad situation where you don't know what will happen next," he said. Meanwhile, some workers have already abandoned medical facilities. "Our health facilities are the most affected. Elwak, Arabia, Libahie hospitals, close to the border, have all been deserted by the staff," said Ibrahim Ali, an official with the Mandera County public service board. Few staff remained at Mandera Referral Hospital, added Ali. "All units are feeling the pinch. The outpatient department is congested, diagnosis is a problem in cases where tests are required, and patients are suffering in the wards too." Most of those who opt to work in the region are fresh graduates embarking on their careers. Several newly-graduated teachers were among those killed in the recent bus attack. The region is prone to banditry and attacks as well as intercommunal conflict. The proliferation of weapons, as residents seek to defend themselves, has worsened the situation. Growing insecurity In the past three years, insecurity in the borderlands, especially in regions adjacent to Somalia, has taken on a new dimension. Al-Shabab has been the main perpetrator with deadly attacks, including raids on police stations, restaurants and churches, and abductions of government personnel and aid workers. In North Eastern Province, security officials and businesspeople have been accused of colluding with Al-Shabab, increasing insecurity. Kenya sent its forces into Somalia in October 2011 in a purported bid to secure its borders and its tourism sector. But critics of the operation, dubbed Linda Nchi (protect the country), warned that it could boost popular support for the Islamist insurgents. Since then, a spate of deadly attacks claimed by Al-Shabab have been recorded across the country.  Dozens of people died in the Mpeketoni attacks, in Lamu County (file photo) In June, dozens of people were killed in a string of attacks in Mpeketoni in Lamu County on Kenya's coast. In Mombasa, fears of the radicalization of increasingly disenchanted youth are on the rise. Recently, the government announced the discovery of a cache of arms, including grenades and ammunition, in several mosques in Mombasa leading to their temporary closure. At least 21 Muslim clerics, of whom 20 were linked by the government to Al-Shabab, have been killed over the past two years in Mombasa, according to human rights group Haki Africa. Resentment due to historical grievances especially over land, has fuelled the creation of groups such as the Mombasa Republic Council (MRC), which, according to some analysts, could be an Al-Shabab sympathizer. On 22 September 2013, Al-Shabab militants stormed an upmarket shopping mall in Nairobi where they killed 67 people and injured many others. To protest growing insecurity, citizens recently held peaceful demonstrations outside President Uhuru Kenyatta's office, on Harambee Avenue in Nairobi. The #OccupyHarambeeAve hashtag is still trending on Twitter in Kenya. aw/ho/na/cb
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| Boko Haram hits north Cameroon schools
YAOUNDE, 1 December 2014 (IRIN) - Nearly 70 schools in Cameroon's Far North Region have been forced to close, are damaged, or operate intermittently as a result of the recurrent cross-border raids by Nigerian Boko Haram insurgents, officials say. The 69 affected schools (mostly primary schools) are in Logone and Chari, Mayo-Sava and Mayo-Tsanaga departments of the Far North Region, which lies across the border from Nigeria's northeastern heartland of Boko Haram. In Mayo-Sava, for instance, 20 out of 30 schools are not operating since the start of the new school year in September, said deputy-prefect Ibrahim Koulagna. "Boko Haram attacks on villages and schools have forced students and teachers to flee. There are many displaced families in the region. This displaced population is now occupying other localities like the central towns of Kolofata and Mora," Koulagna told IRIN. Boko Haram militants have repeatedly attacked northern Cameroon, abducting foreigners and locals as well as raiding police and border posts. Yaoundé authorities have beefed up their military presence in the region and the army recently claimed killing over 100 of the group's fighters. The military in September said it had killed Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau - a claim dismissed by the insurgents. "We are losing students each time there is an attack on a village even if it is several kilometres from here," said Christophe Barbah, a school master in Kolofata area in the Far North Region. Dire education standards worsening Just a handful of government teachers assigned to the Far North Region remain in their posts. "In 2014, more than 200 trained teachers did not take up their posts in these localities and many seek transfer to other places due to insecurity," an official of the Ministry of Basic Education told IRIN. The official, who did not want to be named, voiced worry that education in the Far North was in serious jeopardy not only because schools in the region were being shunned by teachers, but that no additional funding was being given to schools absorbing pupils from other establishments. "I am the only government teacher left here on a regular basis," said Barbah. "Because of my status as the head teacher, I cannot leave my post… "We have resorted to seeking assistance from some educated young men and women in the communities to teach the children. But we have to motivate them with money if we want to keep them committed to the work. This is not always possible because most parents in this region are very poor and can barely afford food for the children to stay in school." "Education has been targeted by these attacks because Boko Haram has often left messages warning school authorities in the region" Joseph Ampoam, a teacher who fled violence in Fotocol area near the Cameroon-Chad border, said he has decided to stay in Maroua (the Far North Region capital) rather than risk his life by going to work in the community. "We had no peace at work because the fighting was not far from us. The recent attacks extended right up to the village where I was working so I escaped to Maroua town. I learnt that students do not want to come for school and my school has not been operational since the start of the school year [in September]," he said. Migrating for safety In Mayo-Sava Division, hundreds of students and their families have fled from schools near the border to those in Kolofata and Mora urban centres. Deputy-prefect Koulagna said that in August they registered over 3,600 internally displaced people, but many more could not be reached for registration, he noted. "Most of the displaced families are now living in towns and the number of children in [some] schools has doubled, but there are many others who cannot access schools," Koulagna said. "Education has been targeted by these attacks because Boko Haram has often left messages warning school authorities in the region." Boko Haram literally means "Western education is forbidden." Military spokesman Col Didier Badjeck told IRIN that a recent creation of an army division in the Far North, and military equipment received from the US, Germany and Israel, would bolster the fight against Boko Haram. But the brutality being unleashed by the insurgents on communities is likely to have a deeper impact in Cameroon's most deprived region. "The short- and long-term implication will be enormous. The quality of education is bound to worsen and many youths will miss out on the opportunity to be at school and may end up being brainwashed into joining militant groups as a result of idleness," said Mahamat. mn/ob/cb Access report online |
| Locking Ebola out of Sierra Leone jails
DAKAR, 1 December 2014 (IRIN) - It is next to impossible to avoid physical contact in an overcrowded prison. In Sierra Leone, heavily congested jails and a worsening Ebola outbreak make a potentially lethal combination. So how do you keep inmates safe? Some of the safeguards against the virus are: A 21-day quarantine for fresh detainees before joining the old timers; training prison health workers and inmate leaders on Ebola prevention; and providing health and safety education and equipment. Such measures, and others, have so far helped keep the virus out of Sierra Leone's 17 prisons and three juvenile offenders' homes, said Mambu Feika, head of NGO Prison Watch Sierra Leone (PWSL), which is spearheading a three-month programme to prevent Ebola transmission in prisons. "There is no place where contact is more possible than in the prisons," Feika told IRIN. Sierra Leone has around 3,000 inmates. Most of its prisons are badly overcrowded. The main prison in the capital Freetown, for instance, was meant for 324 prisoners, but currently houses 1,919. PWSL is also aiming to get 500 inmates released to help ease congestion. Since launching the prison safety programme in September, it has helped secure the release of 50 detainees on bail. Another 100 have been freed for lack of evidence, and it has also obtained fines rather than custodial sentences for others. Growing Ebola cases Sierra Leone is seeing a rise in cases, whereas in neighbouring Guinea the outbreak is stabilizing and in Liberia it is slowing down, according to World Health Organization updates on 26 November. In the week of 17-23 November, Sierra Leone reported 385 new confirmed cases. Guinea had 148 and Liberia 67 over the same period. Information Minister Alpha Kanu told reporters on 26 November that some risky cultural practices were responsible for the current Ebola trends in Sierra Leone, but said the outbreak was at its peak and a downward trend would soon start. While no Ebola case has thus far been reported among Sierra Leonean prisoners, in the eastern town of Kailahun, the wife of a prison officer and his son contracted the virus. "One serious concern is the prison officers. They are in constant interaction with community members," said Feika. The virus first erupted in Sierra Leone in the eastern towns of Kailahun and Kenema earlier this year. Almost 1,400 people have so far died of Ebola in Sierra Leone. Feika said prison authorities and the police have been helpful in identifying inmates who need legal representation in a bid to help decongest jailhouses and avoid the risk of infection in detention centres. Overstretched justice system Sierra Leone's backlog of court cases, overwhelmed magistrates and judges, and slow court processes are blamed for the prison congestion. But there have been improvements lately in managing court records, said Ibrahim Tommy, director of the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, a Sierra Leonean advocacy group. Not all the blame rests with the judiciary though. "All offences that carry capital punishment are tried by jury. Unfortunately, it is so difficult to get 100 percent attendance by jurors, either because there is no 'motivation' for participating or because they don't get punished for not participating," Tommy explained. Labyrinthine court procedures that result in lengthy pre-trial detention - some suspects have been detained for 10 years pending trial - and frequent adjournments are undermining confidence in the justice system, and to some extent in the government. "Many do not believe that the government is doing enough to ensure a credible, fair and accessible justice system," Tommy told IRIN. "There is a growing public perception of corruption in the judiciary, particularly with respect to bail. These issues need to be addressed without delay." Sierra Leone has made efforts over the past decade to improve the justice system and received external financial support. It has set up some institutions to help promote accountability and employed more magistrates. "In spite of this, serious challenges persist. The police, prisons and the courts need a lot of support. Of the three institutions, the police gets the highest funding, which has not necessarily translated into public confidence in their responsiveness to security issues," Tommy said. ob/cb Access report online |
| Ebola: Where next and how bad?
LONDON, 1 December 2014 (IRIN) - In the past few months huge amounts of time and energy have been spent trying to second-guess the progress of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Where will the next hotspot be? Is the outbreak still exploding or is it starting to burn itself out? And how many beds will be needed next week, next month or next year? Predictions so far have been off the mark, so better ways of modelling are clearly needed. Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC), a UK funding body, is now financing two Ebola-related projects aimed at improving epidemiological prognosis. "The first thing we asked was whether this was something answering the urgent needs of Ebola response, and addressing the question, 'What don't we know about how to do this effectively?' Also whether it was likely to yield useful results and how quickly those results would be available," Daniel Davies, R2HC's programme manager, told IRIN. Mobile data tracking One of the research projects (by a team at Oxford University's Spatial Ecology and Epidemiology Group) is looking into mobile phone data to track movement in and out of Ebola-hit areas in order to assess the spread of the virus. Negotiations are still going on with telecom companies about what type of data they will release, but typically in such situations they are willing to provide figures about how many mobile handsets have been seen to move from one place to another in a given week. So, for instance, when the first Ebola cases in Liberia appeared in Foya District near the border with Guinea, this kind of data might have shown whether Foya residents typically stayed in their own vicinity, or whether - since it is a border town and a major trading centre - there is brisk traffic between Foya and the nearest big town, Voinjama, and between Foya and the capital, Monrovia. "The only other way you could do it," says Nick Golding, one of the ecologists with the group, "would be to go out there and give everyone a GPS, but that's not going to happen. The problem with mobile phone data is that it tends to stop at country borders. So to get an idea of cross-border movement we are supplementing it with census data, which tells us something about longer term patterns of how people move between countries. It's not ideal, but it's the best information we have." The speed with which the virus spread down to Monrovia showed Foya was indeed very "connected". Golding says that being able to predict the next likely flare-up is going to get more rather than less important as the outbreak is brought under control and reduced to isolated hotspots in rural areas. "Resources are limited, and we need to spot each flare-up as it happens. In the past, Ebola was brought under control just because isolated outbreaks were spotted and dealt with," he explained. Currently there is an outbreak in Liberia's Rivercess County, which has few roads and where travel is difficult. Mobile phone data might be able to predict the likelihood of the virus spreading further east, or into neighbouring Grand Gedeh County, an area which has so far reported few cases. That would show health teams where they might need to concentrate their efforts. The Oxford team is hoping to present their initial findings to the World Health Organization (WHO) within three weeks. Predictions wrong-footed Mathematical modellers have a difficult task predicting the spread of Ebola as it has wrong-footed previous forecasts, making those working on the ground wary of the figures. In mid-October, for instance, WHO predicted that, assuming things carried on the way they were, there would be 5,000-10,000 new cases a week by early December. WHO's 26 November updates show just 600 new cases across the three most affected countries. Even allowing for under-reporting, the US Centers for Disease Control estimated the number to be between 1,000-2,000. "I don't want to discredit the efforts of the modellers, but what we have learned from this epidemic is that it is very hard to predict, so we have made very few decisions based on these kinds of models up till now" Michaela Serafini, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Switzerland's medical director, told IRIN: "Previous predictions used so many assumptions that it has been difficult to rely on them, so mostly MSF has been working on the evidence we have ourselves. We are operating isolation centres across four countries, which means we can be extra sensitive to any changes if, for instance, we have fewer cases one week than the week before. I don't want to discredit the efforts of the modellers, but what we have learned from this epidemic is that it is very hard to predict, so we have made very few decisions based on these kinds of models up till now." Another R2HC-funded research project, in this case being conducted by a team from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has steered clear of those risky, epidemic-wide predictions. It is trying to bring the models as close as possible to the real world. The Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases works with day-to-day figures from treatment centres in the affected countries. They stress the need to stay responsive and flexible, and not look too far ahead. "From the beginning we have worked hand-in-hand with MSF," said Sebastian Funk, director of the Mathematical Modelling Centre. "Initially it was to predict how many beds they would need. They send us data collected on the ground and we analyse it for them, and I think they have found that useful." The group now wants to collect data from many different treatment centres on the ages of patients, the severity of their symptoms, how early they were admitted, how long they stay and the fatality rate. The results, they say, could give clues to better control of infection, better treatment regimes, and potentially hint at changes in community behaviour or the evolution of the virus. They are also going to be working with Save the Children UK, to help evaluate the impact of their Ebola community care units, whether they help check the spread of the disease and whether they create additional risk for caregivers in the units. "What we want to know is how best to distribute a vaccine" Another project is to look at issues around possible Ebola vaccines. Funk says: "We know from the WHO when we might expect to have vaccines available and in what kind of quantities. What we want to know is how best to issue those doses, whether certain areas should be prioritized or whether they should be distributed everywhere equally. But obviously nothing is set in stone. We have to look at different scenarios, because we don't know what path the epidemic will follow up to the point where the vaccine becomes available." Funk and his colleagues hope their results will be there in time to provide guidance as soon as the vaccine is ready. eb/ob/cb Access report online |
| Cash transfers: Good for people, bad for the community?
DAKAR, 2 December 2014 (IRIN) - Some 24 million people around the world now receive money instead of food or goods from humanitarian and development agencies. But the glowing reputation of the mushrooming cash-transfer sector is being undermined by recent ethnographic research about the unintended consequences of cash on community social relations and the inability of standard evaluations to capture the full picture. "The official story is quite different from the real story," said Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, principal researcher with the Laboratoire d'Etudes et de Recherche sur les Dynamiques Sociales et le Développement Local (LASDEL) in Niamey, which uses socio-anthropological methods to study development. Starting in late 2012, Olivier de Sardan and his LASDEL colleagues conducted qualitative fieldwork into cash transfers in 21 villages in Niger, using local languages and immersing themselves in the communities. In contrast to the mostly positive official evaluations and reports about these programmes, LASDEL found a substantial amount of malaise in the cash transfer communities. In papers published in April and July 2014, Olivier de Sardan examined the reasons behind this dissatisfaction. He found it was especially linked to the way beneficiaries had been selected - only some people received the transfers - which had a negative impact on the way people in the communities felt about each other. "Almost everywhere people were not comfortable with it," Olivier de Sardan told IRIN. "It was seen as introducing jealousy and conflict inside the community."
Olivier de Sardan said there is no question that the emergency cash transfers given out during Niger's many food crises help mitigate the situation. That money helps people buy food or make investments in livestock or education that support their overall resilience.
But they also lead to an atmosphere of discontent that irritates the social fault lines of the communities and pits neighbour against neighbour.
Community members described cases of fraud where the selection process included people who were not poor, but were well connected to village leaders, or who had misrepresented their conditions in order to be included.
One local official cited in the papers said it is something the villagers know, but they do not tell outsiders. "Usually, we do not criticize each other in front of strangers, especially when it is an older person doing it," he said.
But such silence exacts a toll on the people who maintain it, especially if they do not receive a cash transfer, too. Even in cases where the selection process worked well, community members suspected that authorities had fiddled with it. Another local official quoted in the papers explained that a cloud of suspicion hangs over the heads of those involved. "With food distributions people are already very suspicious, and they are even more so with cash distributions. They think that we elected officials always win something and it really hurts."
In some ways, these conflicts are only to be expected, said Leila Bourahla, the Niger country director for Concern Worldwide. "As long as you choose one group that receives and one that doesn't, there is tension," she told IRIN.
In fact, there has long been discussion among researchers about how cash transfers might be contributing to jealousy, resentment and distrust in target communities all over the world.
Bourahla said Concern Worldwide tries to counter the tension by explaining why they choose certain poor and vulnerable people and not others. They follow a similar protocol at the World Food Programme (WFP) in Niger, said Giorgi Dolidze, the head of the rural development unit.
"We've been distributing cash in Niger for more than four years and have been closely monitoring the distributions every year and measuring the outcomes," Dolidze told IRIN. "And [we] have been receiving positive feedback from the beneficiaries and communities."
This gap between what community members say to evaluators and what they say among themselves might be accounted for in several ways. One reason might be that people in local communities and programme implementers often do not have the same definitions of poverty and vulnerability when it comes to beneficiary selection, said Nicola Jones, a research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). She worked on a DFID-funded study about the perceptions of cash transfers in Africa and the Middle East.
"One of the tensions is that a lot of the programmes are supported by institutions like the World Bank and they have a formula that does not capture context-specific sources of vulnerability," Jones told IRIN. She said the determination of vulnerability has to go beyond assets and money to examine issues like substance abuse and domestic violence.
According to LASDEL's research, though, there may be a more subtle dynamic at play.
"They [the non-beneficiaries] thought it was completely unfair, but they wanted it to go on," said Olivier de Sardan. Why? Because they hoped that the next time, they might be the ones to benefit.
Olivier de Sardan explained that in many communities, they view these transfers as gifts or as "manna" from heaven. They do not complain because they fear that this manna might disappear from their villages if the programme teams knew the whole truth.
Yoann Tuzzolino, the focal point in West Africa for the Cash Learning Partnership, said this was one of the most interesting questions raised by LASDEL's research.
Tuzzolino posited: "Is there some kind of informal agreement, between the beneficiaries, local representatives and tribal chiefs to keep the cash transfers in the communities?"
If so, then they may need to use different methods to reveal the truth. Most cash transfer project evaluations focus on their objectives. Did it help food security? Did it help improve school attendance? Did it improve their finances? But maybe these evaluations should include another question, according to Tuzzolino. "What impact does it [the cash transfer programme] have on the organic solidarity of the community?"
Learning to communicate
For his part, Olivier de Sardan noted that cash transfers are doing some good, but also, undeniably, causing some harm. He believes that organizations need to change the process to become more responsive to each community's needs.
"Cash transfers are not the devil," Olivier de Sardan told IRIN, explaining that cash is not creating conflicts out of thin air. "They are sharpening conflicts that are already there."
These are issues that implementers will have to confront as they scale up their programmes. "It's more than ensuring that the money gets to the right person," Jones at ODI told IRIN
She said a few measures could help minimize conflict: better communication with local people; a more inclusive selection process; and the creation of ways for local people to interact and speak with programme implementers. Many of these measures are already best practices in the cash transfer world, but are hard to do well, according to Jones.
Concern Worldwide-Niger was the organization that originally asked LASDEL to research the socio-cultural impacts of cash transfers.
Bourahla said they collaborate with research projects because they want to know how to improve their programmes. Although LASDEL's research did not include any recommendations, Bourahla said her team is refining how to target the most vulnerable people and using more qualitative methods in their evaluations.
The team also realized they needed a better response mechanism to hear about the things the programme was doing correctly and what it was doing wrong. So, they established a hotline for community members to speak with the programme implementers. "We have more and more complaints," said Bourahla, which, paradoxically, is a good thing. "People are being encouraged to report the errors."
jkl/am/cb Access report online |
| Press 4 for fertilizer - M-farming in Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, 3 December 2014 (IRIN) - One reason farmers in Africa mostly produce so much less than those in other parts of the world is that they have limited access to the technical knowledge and practical tips that can significantly increase yields. But as the continent becomes increasingly wired, this information deficit is narrowing. While there are other factors, such as poor infrastructure and low access to credit and markets, that have helped keep average yields in Africa largely unchanged since the 1960s, detailed and speedily-delivered information is now increasingly recognized as an essential part of bringing agricultural production levels closer to their full potential. In Ethiopia, which already has one of the most extensive systems in the world for educating the 85 percent of the population who work the land for a living, this recognition has driven the development of a multilingual mobile phone-based resource centre. The hotline, operated by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, and Ethio Telecom, and created by the Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA), has proved a huge hit. Since its July launch and still in its pilot phase, more than three million farmers in the regions of Amhara, Oromia, Tigray and the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR) have punched 8028 on their mobiles to access the system, which uses both interactive voice response (IVR) and SMS technology. "On average we get approximately 226 new calls and 1,375 return calls per hour into the system," Elias Nure, the information communication technology project leader at ATA, told IRIN. When the number of lines doubles from the current 90, he said, "these numbers should significantly increase." More than 70 percent of users are smallholder farmers, he said. Timely, accurate information Ethiopia has the largest agricultural extension system in sub-Saharan Africa, the third largest in the world after China and India, according to the UN Development Programme. This system has led to the establishment of about 10,000 Farmer Training Centres, and trained at least 63,000 field extension workers, also known as development agents. It facilitates information exchange between researchers, extension workers and farmers. However, the reliance on development agents means that sometimes agronomic information reaches farmers too late or is distorted. Push and pull factors The agriculture hotline was proving popular due to its "pull" and "push" factors, according to ATA's chief executive officer, Khalid Bomba. Farmers could pull out practical advice, while customized content could be pushed out, such as during pest and disease outbreaks, to different callers based on the crop, or geographic or demographic data captured when farmers first registered with the system. Recently, it warned registered farmers about the threat posed by wheat stem rust. "These alerts and notifications were not available to smallholder farmers in the past and could greatly benefit users of the system by getting access to warnings in real-time," said ATA's Elias. According to Tefera Derbew, Ethiopia's minister of agriculture, ATA should boost its content to meet more needs. "The IVR system offers users information relevant to the key cereals and high value crops, but I envisage that in the near future there will be the opportunity to upscale the service to include content relevant to all of the major agricultural commodities in the country, including livestock," said Tefera. The hotline currently focuses on cereal crops such as barley, maize, teff, sorghum and wheat, but plans are under way to provide agricultural advice on other crops, such as sesame, chickpea, haricot beans and cotton, while incorporating farmers' feedback on needs. For Ayele Worku, a teff farmer in Gurage zone of Ethiopia's SNNPR State, the system's benefits outweigh the frustrations of a patchy mobile network. "The way of farming, especially for row-planting for teff is kind of new for me although I heard rumours about its advantage a while ago," he told IRIN. This break with tradition in the way teff is sown has seen yields increase by up to 75 percent. An agricultural extension and rural development expert working at Addis Ababa University, Seyoum Ayalew, said: "The new service could build a synergy with the previous approaches of the public extension system, which is largely based on trickle down approach of communication." Seyoum noted that within the traditional extension system, "where information passes through different channels before reaching the farmers, [it] is subjected to distortion through filtering and translation errors." bt/am/cb Access report online |
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