In major step, Yemen moves toward open government
Belqis Abu Osba (left), SNACC Vice Chairman, and Horia Mashhoor (right), Minister of Human Rights, speak out at a workshop on the Access to Information law. The workshop helped promote the law and generate support among Parliament, journalists and activists.
By Jeff Baron
As Yemen draws up a new system of government, it is promising a level of openness unprecedented in the Arab world.
A law passed by Yemen’s parliament April 24 would guarantee open public meetings and access to records from all levels of government. The legislation follows three years of work by civil society activists, including Counterpart International’s Responsive Governance Project (RGP) and the Studies and Economic Media Center (SEMC).
“Information is the oxygen of democracy, and without information, the democracy will vanish and die,” says Abdul Moez Dabwan, a member of Parliament’s Information Committee. He says the new law will enhance transparency. “The best atmosphere of corruption is where no information is allowed and available,” he says.
Protests that dominated public life in Yemen in 2011 led to the resignation of longtime President Ali Abdullah Saleh in February 2012. His successor, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has promised a two-year process to create a more democratic constitution and government.
Fatma Uqba, RGP’s Advocacy Manager, says the Access to Information law was a priority for proponents of good government. RGP trained SEMC and other civil society organizations to develop an advocacy campaignthat gained the support of the ministers of legal affairs and human rights.
100 signatures set the stage
A major step toward passage of the bill came in January during a workshop on the campaign by RGP and SEMC. Minister of Human Rights Hooria Mashoor helped open the workshop by speaking in favor of the bill. The session drew more than 140 people, including representatives from six government ministries, members of Parliament, journalists and activists. By the end of the day, more than 100 had pledged their support for the measure.
SEMC then used that show of support as it educated other decision makers in government and civil society in meetings and phone calls. Mustafa Nasser, the head of SEMC, also stationed himself at the door of Parliament’s sessions hall to lobby for the bill in sight of all the chamber’s members.
The advocacy campaign overcame objections by some members of Parliament who considered an open-government law a low priority in a time of crisis. Advocates said that the law would be essential to give Yemen a chance at democracy.
“One of the conditions of democracy is to have the right to access to information,” says Beliquis Abo Osba’a, head of the Supreme National Committee for Combating Corruption.
Business leaders endorsed the measure, too.
“No information means no investments, which means no economic development in Yemen,” says Fathi Abdul Wasa’a Hail, head of the Businessmen’s Club.
Now that the law is passed, civil society organizations are making plans to promote its use with a public-awareness campaign comprising documentary films, brochures, a poster, TV public-service pieces and podcasts. Some will target women, who traditionally have played only a limited role in Yemeni public life.
How the law works
The law says that the government must comply with citizens’ requests for information that it has unless the information falls into certain categories. Among them: the secrets of private businesses; copyrighted material; personal information of private citizens; diplomatic or defense secrets; and details that could jeopardize criminal investigations.
The law applies not only to the executive branch of Yemen’s central government, but to the legislative and judicial branches as well, at all levels, and to institutions, such as universities, that receive government funding.
If a request for information is rejected, the applicant can appeal the decision in court.
Uqba said corruption is considered “prevalent throughout the public institutions, affecting the country’s resources, economic stability and people’s lives.” If the new law is followed, corruption should be easier for civil society groups and the media to find and expose.
“The knowledge of Yemeni citizens on what the government is doing, especially the executive authority, will allow them to observe and participate,” says Mohd Al-Mekhelafi, Minister of Legal Affairs. This will “surely lead to enhance the trust between the government and citizens,” he says.
About RGP
RGP, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), focuses on strengthening public policy, enhancing representative government, forming a competitive political process and increasing civil society’s participation.
May 15th, 2012 | Tags: corruption, government, law, policy, RGP, Yemen | Category: | Leave a comment
Mauritania: Village Development Committees Increasing Food Security and Resiliency
Grain mills for women provide much needed income, and health promote healthier and more educated families. © Alisha Rodriquez/Counterpart International.
By Alisha Rodriquez, Senior Program Development Officer
For the 53 members of the Bouté women’s cooperative in Mauritania’s Guidimakha region, a simple grain mill was all it took to transform their community.
The women cobbled together 40,000 Mauritanian ouguiya – the equivalent of about $140 U.S. – to found a simple community garden. They used the initial funds to buy seeds, and men in the village worked together to dig a well to irrigate the garden. Counterpart International kicked in a motorized mill, providing them with an additional source of income.
“In Mauritania, staple foods are typically cereals that must be milled,” says Romain Kenfack, who leads the Counterpart program in Mauritania. “Grain mills are valuable labor-saving technologies which allow for generation of income that can be leveraged into other projects. Having cereals milled at the village level also promotes increased food intake, as food is more often ready when needed.”
The proceeds of those initial enterprises in Bouté yielded incredible growth: The cooperative accumulated more than 2 million ouguiya in savings – nearly $7,500 U.S. dollars. The co-op used 10,000 ouguiya to open a butcher shop and 350,000 ouguiya for the construction and supply of a community store. Today, these businesses thrive and the cooperative has accumulated 800,000 ouguiya, about $2,800, in savings.
“In the past, a family would sell a milk goat to earn money,” says the cooperative’s President. Selling animals too early reduces a household’s assets and takes away valuable sources of nutrition for children. Now, she says, the families leave selling goats to the butcher shop, which buys goats for 7,000 to 8,000 ouguiya and earns 20,000 for a butchered animal – a 150 percent profit.
The cooperative’s community store, members say, has a tremendous impact on food security for families. Cooperative members who work on monthly rotations as shopkeepers earn income from the store’s proceeds, which enables them to buy food when harvests are scarce; and the community is also able to maintain a stock of food to last two or three months during shortages or when heavy rains leave roads to nearby markets impassable.
Other communities working with Counterpart have experienced similar success.
Reaching more with innovative activities
In the Assaba region’s Laouessi commune, one Village Development Committee’s (VDC) grain mill has generated income to support 15 businesses and development projects in four villages, plus seeded an emergency fund to pay for transporting sick residents to hospitals or managing other crises. A third VDC in the Guidimakha region leveraged a community garden supplied with a water pump, irrigation pipes, fencing and seeds to start four additional gardens and accumulate 4 million ouguiya (nearly $14,000) to fund community projects and buy furniture for the school.
In total, Counterpart has supported 160 committees through small initial investments and training in the creation of community development plans, implementation of community projects, and management of community funds and assets. Counterpart staff members can now take a back seat as VDCs are able to use their new skills and growing resources independently. At a recent meeting, Counterpart staff met with leaders of VDCs to review comprehensive action plans that included development objectives, time lines and assignments.
The benefits of the VDCs’ activities go beyond economic growth and community development. Committee members say they have also yielded immediate benefits on food security and health. Community gardens provide a steady supply of diverse, nutritious foods; one VDC member cited the impact of these gardens in reducing anemia among pregnant women and lowering the incidence of diseases among children in the village.
“Projects like community gardens can have a major impact on nutrition, especially for children,” says Jennifer Burns, Counterpart's Nutrition Technical Specialist. Once parents learn good practices in nutrition, the gardens “provide communities with an opportunity to improve dietary diversity through increasing food availability and access,” Burns says. “Dietary diversity is vital to support optimal physical and cognitive development for children.”
The Bouté women say their cooperative’s activities have improved conditions for everyone in the village by guaranteeing that they have healthy food, clothing for children, and better health for everyone.
The Sollou cooperative says the initial investment by Counterpart has not only provided the village with immediate benefits but also has made families more self-sufficient and resilient for the long term.
“We need new tools and irrigation pipes for our community garden,” the group’s President says. “We don’t have to wait for an NGO to help us, because we have the money to buy them. We know one day Counterpart will leave our community. We need to be ready to take over for ourselves.”
May 11th, 2012 | Tags: cereals, economic development, gardens, grain mills, health, livelihoods, Mauritania, nutrition | Category: | Leave a comment
Aid Reaches Somalis Hit by Double Disaster
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By Jennifer O'Riordan
In the fall of 2011, thousands of families who had fled Somalia’s dangerous south for the north began to experience a devastating famine.
War and other violence in southern Somalia in the past three years have led to thousands of deaths and forced thousands more to flee their homes without their possessions or the hope of return in the near future.
Drought and food shortages throughout the Horn of Africa, particularly in Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya, continue to affect those living in the displacement camps of the country’s Puntland region.
Last fall, Counterpart recognized that help was needed quickly in northern Somalia. United Nations figures suggest that more than 29,000 children younger than 5 have died in the famine.
“The drought in the Horn of Africa has devastated the lives of thousands of people and their livelihoods,” says Rang Hee Kim, Director of Humanitarian Assistance at Counterpart. “With the generous support and strong partnerships in the U.S. and in Somalia, Counterpart is pleased to be able to respond to this need and extend a helping hand.”
In collaboration with two U.S. organizations, the Churches of Christ and Feed My Starving Children, and working with the Kaalo Relief and Development Organization in Garowe, Somalia, Counterpart has shipped three cargo containers of food and hygiene supplies to those in need.
The third container arrived March 17, and its contents, fortified rice and soy protein meal packages called MannaPacks, have since been distributed to about 3,780 people living in the displacement camps.
The food packages supplement hygiene kits, kitchen supplies and water buckets that arrived in the two earlier containers. These supplies are proving invaluable to displaced Somalis trying to survive the crisis.
“The food and nonfood items we received have improved our living conditions,” says Iisho Maadey Isaaq, a mother of three living in Garowe’s Banadir camp. “We eat the food. We use the other nonfood items as they were intended – like the buckets, we use them for fetching water and other necessities. These displaced people will never forget your assistance.”
The third container was loaded Nov. 18 in Aurora, Ill., left New York on a cargo ship Dec. 1 and arrived in Bossasso, Somalia, in early March.
The port-to-port costs were covered by the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Ocean Freight Reimbursement Program, the MannaPacks came from Feed My Starving Children, and the transportation costs of supplies to port were covered by a donation from the Churches of Christ.
“Your assistance through the Kaalo Relief and Development Organization has benefitted more than 7,000 internally displaced persons,” said the Mayor of Garowe, Aziz Nur Elmi. “I would like to highlight that the Garowe community will not forget your help.”
In the past 18 years, Counterpart’s Humanitarian Assistance Program has worked with its network of more than 80 public and private donors to acquire, track and deliver more than $1.2 billion worth of aid to 61 countries.
May 10th, 2012 | Tags: Somalia, drought, emergency response, CHAP, Ocean Freight Reimbursement Program, food, hygiene supplies, | Category: | Leave a comment
Mauritania: Microfinance for Resiliency – But Will It Last?
Small grants help local communities survive the long dry season and allow them to start new businesses like convenience stores and pharmacies. © Alisha Rodriquez/Counterpart International.
By Alisha Rodriquez, Senior Program Development Officer
When we think of responses to malnutrition and ways to help communities survive crises like food shortages and drought, many people’s minds often turn to visions of warehouses full of food for distribution to communities unable to pull themselves out of poverty.
As international development practitioners, we realize that food-based responses, while immensely valuable for basic survival in times of crisis, are not always the most effective in promoting sustainable, long-term recovery and resiliency.
We often think of projects involving microfinance and economic development in terms of catalyzing markets and creating entrepreneurs, and bringing people in impoverished communities into the world of business. We don’t often think of them as a vehicle for preventing malnutrition and helping communities survive crises like food shortages and droughts.
In Counterpart’s programming in Mauritania, however, microfinance does just that. During a recent field visit, I was able to see just how powerful microfinance has been for Mauritanian communities struggling to put food on the table in the midst of the country’s worst drought in 15 years.
Seeing the change first-hand
We drove across Mauritania’s southern Sahel zone without seeing much more than a few camels and struggling trees. Many of the villages where Counterpart implements its Community Action for Nutrition and Livelihoods program are extremely remote – maybe two or three hours’ drive from a small city, and six to 10 miles or more from a small town with basic shops and services. They would seem too isolated for economic development, lacking the support services and customer base one imagines for microfinance projects. But Counterpart’s microfinance activities have been incredibly transformative for our beneficiaries in rural communities.
Small business loans have enabled entrepreneurial residents to bring vital goods and services to their remote villages. When rains are scarce and crops fail, as they did in the last harvest across Mauritania, a simple convenience store provides communities with easier access to affordable food. When the nearest town center is 10 miles away and you’re traveling on foot or by donkey, being able to buy staple foods in your village is an immense benefit.
Starting a small business also makes rural families less at risk when their harvests are meager; diversifying income sources gives families a safety net, helps them build assets and makes them more resilient when a crisis happens.
Loan beneficiaries receive basic training in such business skills as bookkeeping and inventory management. Managers of the local microcredit institution say they originally had to work intensively with communities to develop successful business plans; now, they say, potential loan recipients have become savvier, presenting coherent, feasible business plans in 15 minutes.
From pharmacies to convenience stores to one-room gas stations, beneficiaries are thinking of creative ways to leverage microcredit funds to increase their incomes while responding to the service needs of their communities. And the benefits are exponential: Not only do loan recipients have a stable source of income that helps their families meet basic needs and generate savings, but the services they provide stimulate trade, create markets in villages previously underserved by other businesses, and open up transportation corridors to formerly isolated communities. A single small business can put a village on the trade map and bring with it a variety of other goods and services.
For business owners and their communities, increased trade and income mean increased food security and reduced malnutrition. A convenience store, a butcher shop or a bakery brings affordable food into the community. Beneficiaries say that these new businesses have improved nutrition and health for their families and their neighbors.
Counterpart's success
Counterpart has helped deliver 926 microloans to 3,000 recipients – most of them women – through its local partner, providing entrepreneurs with a total of $570,000. Ninety percent of borrowers have kept up on the payments.
The current drought crisis in Mauritania threatens that high success rate. Everyone is squeezed by poor crop yields, declining livestock earnings and rising food prices. Managers of Counterpart’s microcredit branches say beneficiaries are struggling to repay loans under the increased burden of food insecurity.
With severe food shortages, households are forced to divert an increased proportion of profits from their businesses to buying food – thus compromising their ability to make loan payments. Microfinance managers say they hope these families will begin to recover within the next few months, but persistent drought, food shortages and malnutrition don’t show signs of letting up. With such beneficial enterprises bringing food, income and services to beneficiary villages, we hope they will be able to survive the crisis until the rains finally come.
May 10th, 2012 | Tags: agriculture, credit, crops, drought, famine, food security, loans, Mauritania, microfinance, pharmacies | Category: | Leave a comment
Mauritania: Bringing Health Services to Rural Communities
In many regions of Mauritania, volunteer community health workers are leading the charge to provide better healthcare and early prevention techniques. © Alisha Rodriquez/Counterpart International.
By Alisha Rodriquez
Maté Mint Sidi Ali says she never envisioned being a leader in health. But when Counterpart International came to her village in Mauritania’s Guidimakha region recruiting volunteers to serve as Community Health Workers, she jumped at the chance.
For many rural communities in Mauritania, access to health care is a significant challenge.
The nearest health post, which provides only basic services, is six miles from Maté’s village. For most communities, without vehicles, transporting sick people to receive care is a major hardship – hiring a ride is expensive for people with limited incomes, and the alternative is an all-day trek that takes them away from income-generating activities or caring for children. As a result, many health problems go untreated and become severe or chronic.
“Access to health care is important for people’s well-being,” says Romain Kenfack, head of Counterpart’s operations in Mauritania. “Having basic health services available in the community reduces mortality and morbidity, while also reducing health expenses that households can now direct to more productive investments.”
Seeing change in communities
After a series of four training sessions in basic preventive health care, disease management and peer health education methods, Maté began helping her neighbors by encouraging them to adopt improved health behaviors and providing them with treatment for basic ailments. She says bringing health care directly into the community has had an enormous impact on community health.
Before she became a Community Health Worker, Maté says, many of her neighbors suffered from malaria or fever, and small children frequently had diarrhea from drinking contaminated water and from poor household and community sanitation practices. Now, Maté leads peers in health education sessions.
These help them prevent and recognize the symptoms of common diseases, improve hand-washing and hygiene practices, identify the signs of high-risk pregnancies, promote improved breastfeeding and child nutrition, and seek care from higher-level health professionals when necessary.
This knowledge has translated into better disease prevention and management that has reduced the incidence of ailments that previously plagued the community. According to Maté, this has reduced malnutrition rates in children – which she measures during regular community-wide growth monitoring and promotion sessions – and enabled adults to work and earn money to support their families without interruption from illnesses.
Maté also helps treat basic conditions with her own supply of medicines. Counterpart provided Maté with a basic medical kit that allows her to test for and treat malaria, provide oral rehydration salts and antibiotics for children with diarrhea, and handle other simple medical issues. For more complex cases, she refers people to seek treatment at the nearest health post and follows up to make sure they recover.
Maté takes a basic fee for the medicines she provides and restocks them from pharmacies in the nearest city. In addition to bringing needed treatment to her village, Maté’s medical box earns her about 6,000 Mauritanian ouguiya – or $20 U.S. – every month to supplement her family’s income.
Hope for the future
Counterpart has trained Community Health Workers in 160 communities. Like Maté, they provide basic health education and services to villages remote from health posts.
Counterpart has also provided training for Trained Birth Attendants (TBAs) whose skills help to reduce complications and death during pregnancy as well as pre- and postnatal care. After starting as a volunteer Community Health Worker, Fatima Mata Li attended a month-long training program from Counterpart to become a volunteer Trained Birth Attendant in 2009. Fatima delivers approximately 10 babies per month and has had to evacuate only one mother for an emergency delivery since she began as a TBA.
Fatima was recently recruited by the Ministry of Health to become a full-time, salaried birth attendant for her community and neighboring villages, and she looks forward to starting her eight-month training program in May.
“I would like to go further,” Fatima says, grateful for Counterpart’s support in starting her career in health care. “Maybe one day I can become our village’s full-time nurse.”
May 9th, 2012 | Tags: children, CHWs, community health workers, diseases, education, health, health care, malnutrition, Mauritania | Category: | Leave a comment
