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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
THE PILLARS
In this section:
Clean Solar Energy Replaces Kerosene Lanterns
Rainforest Alliance Protects Forests
Afghan Women Report
Paraguay Community Pharmacies Provide Low-Cost
Medicine
ECONOMIC GROWTH, AGRICULTURE, AND TRADE
Clean Solar Energy Replaces Kerosene Lanterns
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A group of U.S. and East African high school students stand on
top of Tweyambe Boarding School in western Tanzania in August 2004.
The group, through a USAID-funded project, had just installed solar
light panels so that the school could switch from kerosene lamps.
Christina Keller, Environmental Resources Trust
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KAMPALA, Uganda—Kakuuto Hospital in Rakai district,
where AIDS was discovered in 1981, installed solar energy
in 2004 to provide light and pure water with the help of USAID
programs aiding hundreds of hospitals.
Solar Light for Africa (SLA), a faith-based NGO working with
U.S. and African churches and governments to provide solar
power in rural Africa, has helped hundreds of hospitals with
a $300,000 grant from the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture,
and Trade (EGAT).
The group's primary project this year was to electrify Kakuuto
with solar photovoltaic panels.
Pure water was provided, utilizing solar-powered pumps as
well as piping to bring water over 3.2 kilometers to the hospital
from a spring. Spigots were placed along the way so that nearby
villages also had access to the water.
Before the project, the hospital had relied on kerosene lanterns
for light and there was no supply of clean water. Hospital
staff and villagers had to travel long distances to get water
from a spring that was not clean and frequently caused illnesses.
SLA is installing 100 solar systems at rural health clinics,
community centers, churches, and schools throughout Uganda
and Tanzania during 2004. The group has installed 1,400 solar
systems since it was founded in 1997 by retired Episcopal
Bishop Alden Hathaway.
The Kakuuto Hospital project "is an excellent demonstration
of the important role energy plays in a number of sectors,
including health," said Kevin Warr of EGAT's energy team.
"You can't refrigerate vaccines without electricity,
you can't run a proper operating room. You have to sterilize
equipment, and all of that takes electricity."
"So we don't look at energy as an end in itself, but
as an important input to larger development issues,"
Warr added.
Nearly 40 percent of the adult population in Rakai district
has died since HIV—the viral condition that precedes
AIDS—made its first appearance.
But today Uganda is one of the few African countries with
declining HIV rates. The infection rate ran as high as 30
percent in the early 1990s, but it is about 4.1 percent this
year, according to the United Nations AIDS agency.
SLA runs its projects through groups made up of volunteer
American and Ugandan solar engineers, doctors, dentists, students,
and environment experts who monitor cuts in emission gases
as solar energy replaces oil and wood fuels.
Electricity in Africa helps education and reduces environmental
degradation by promoting a clean energy source and replacing
the fumes of kerosene lanterns. Solar electricity also cuts
deforestation and erosion by reducing burning of roots and
other biomass.
"One of my fondest memories is of a young mother giving
birth to her child in the dark of night, with the assistance
of solar light," said Sherry Rainey, a former youth mission
participant from Tallahassee, Fla.
"Had it not been for this solar installation at the birthing
center, the midwife would have delivered the baby utilizing the meager
light of one kerosene lantern that produces noxious black fumes. Instead,
the baby's first breath was of pure air."
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE
Rainforest Alliance Protects Forests
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Children stand around a pile of boxes of Chiquita bananas. Some
75 percent of the plantations Chiquita contracts with are Rainforest
Alliance-certified.
Raed Chris Wille, Rainforest Alliance |
Although consumers and businesses increasingly want to buy
wood and other forest products that are certified as being
produced in an environmentally safe manner, it's become harder
and harder to meet the growing demand.
Most of the forests where the wood, nuts, fruit, plants,
and other materials are taken are in developing countries.
An $8.6 million USAID grant to the Rainforest Alliance, an
international not-for-profit conservation organization, will
help address this issue in Mexico and Central America by expanding
certification efforts for coffee, timber, and bananas and
linking these products with markets.
Private-sector partners include IKEA, Kraft, Procter &
Gamble, and Chiquita, and their participation is valued at
over $70 million. In addition to industry partners, local
conservation groups are also participating in the three-year
initiative.
The Certified Sustainable Products Alliance acts on several
critical business, social, and environmental fronts in Mexico,
Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and
Panama. Program areas include responsible business practices,
improved wages and conditions for farm and forest workers,
enhanced participation and income for farmer associations,
and reduced environmental degradation in production.
"By increasing the supply of certified products, promoting
conservation, and improving conditions for workers and communities
that neighbor farms and forestry operations, communities and
cooperatives will see an increase in income that will provide
them with an added incentive to practice sustainable agriculture
and forestry," said Tensie Whelan, executive director
of the Rainforest Alliance.
With staff based in Latin America and the United States,
the Rainforest Alliance can carry out both certification and
market linkage.
The Alliance helps local farmers and loggers develop the
ability to produce certified products. Rainforest Alliance-trained
auditors visit thousands of farms in four regions in Central
America and Mexico and assess each one according to a baseline
of over 200 indicators. Assessment reports identify processes
that must be rectified prior to certification. Other processes
must be improved continually from year to year.
One farm, for example, was instructed to plant hedges between
the settlements and fields in order to absorb any chemicals
that might waft from the fields. Another farm was required
to allow for natural habitat belts along road and waterways.
With headquarters in the United States, the Rainforest Alliance
also conducts outreach to secure buyers for certified products.
Gibson Musical Instruments, for example, has sourced its mahogany
and other rare woods from a forest in Peten, Guatemala, through
Rainforest Alliance outreach efforts.
Kraft recently committed to purchasing 5 million pounds of
coffee in one year from Rainforest Alliance-certified farms.
Procter & Gamble has introduced a line of its retail brand
"Millstone," which contains sustainable coffee certified
by the Rainforest Alliance. Chiquita reached 100 percent Rainforest
Alliance certification from company-owned banana farms in
2000, and has increased its share of certified bananas from
independent farms from 33 percent in 2001 to 75 percent currently.
The Guatemala and Central American Programs (G-CAP) office
recognized the acute need to link "responsible buyers
for certified products with responsible suppliers in global
markets," said Glenn Anders, mission director for G-CAP.
The regional mission is contributing $6.6 million to complement
$2 million in GDA funding for the Rainforest Alliance to expand
its work with producer communities and private-sector buyers
in North America and Europe.
DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
Afghan Women Report
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A woman hands out Morsal, a new national magazine that
writes about women's issues
Afghanistan Transition Initatives, USAID |
KABUL, Afghanistan—On assignment for a newly
established independent news agency, journalist Zainab Mohammadi
entered a bustling market to interview locals from an array
of ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. She revealed her
audio recording equipment and was soon surrounded by a group
of men. Undeterred, Mohammadi kept her cool and got what she
needed for her story.
"It is challenging to work with men in Afghanistan,
but we women will struggle," she said. "I am sure
we will make it; we will try to change them, to accept that
women can do whatever they want."
Mohammadi is one of hundreds of women participating in media
training courses and working for newspapers, magazines, and
news agencies supported by USAID. Last year alone, the Agency
spent $14 million on media-related programs in Afghanistan,
many of them focused on women.
Under the Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, women were forbidden
to work and were forced to cover themselves from head to toe.
But the newly adopted Afghan constitution says that "the
citizens of Afghanistan—whether man or woman—have
equal rights and duties before the law," and women have
been allowed to return to work.
USAID funded extensive civic education activities to provide
the Afghan public with information on key issues, such as
the Emergency Loya Jirga national council held in mid-2002,
the Constitutional Loya Jirga in December 2003, and the October
presidential elections.
Projects have helped train more than 800 radio and print
journalists, media managers, filmmakers, and staff from several
university journalism schools. USAID is also supporting the
establishment of the Tolo TV network, an independent commercial
television station.
The Agency supports 41 state and private radio stations,
20 of which are community-run and four of which are managed
by women.
Educational, news, and entertainment broadcasts are reaching
not only remote Afghan regions but also areas of Iran and
Pakistan that are home to large numbers of Afghan refugees.
A newly created satellite distribution network keeps the local
radio stations fresh on national news with a three-hour daily
programming feed.
One project supported innovative and educational mobile cinemas
that reach off-the-beaten track areas with films on health,
education, human rights, civic education, and the October
election.
The Agency has also supported seven print publications and
media resource centers, two daily newspapers in Kabul, several
independent publications focused on the establishment of democracy
in a modern Islamic context, and two national news magazines.
One of the national magazines, Morsal, covers women issues.
"Women who are working in media will bring a great change
in society," said Mohammadi. "They can highlight
the problems of other oppressed women who are inside their
homes and have no choice or place to raise their problems."
Only 36 percent of Afghans can read or write. But while 51
percent of men are literate, that number among women is only
21 percent.
GLOBAL HEALTH
Paraguay Community Pharmacies Provide Low-Cost Medicine
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Cecilia Gonzalez, a young mother from the Itapua municipality,
picking up medications from the community's pharmacy in October 2003.
Gonzalez, who earns less than $1,500 a year, gets her medicines at
half price.
Silvia Ocampos, CIRD |
ASUNCION, Paraguay—Although sick people in the
developing world often cannot afford or find medication, Cecilia
Gonzalez gets cheap medicine from her community's "social
pharmacy" in the southern area of Itapua.
Gonzalez, a young mother, is from one of 26,000 low-income
families who have access to the community pharmacies, where
drugs cost about 50 percent less than at commercial pharmacies.
Gonzalez's income is less than $1,500 a year.
In 1996, USAID/Paraguay began working with local governments,
health officials, and citizens to design the program. To date,
the Agency has invested about $1 million in technical assistance
to set up more than 100 pharmacies in four regions of southern
and central Paraguay.
"Poor people now have access to low-cost medicines,"
said Graciela Avila, the health program officer for USAID/Paraguay.
Money for the pharmacies is channeled through a revolving
fund that is managed by local health councils. The fund's
managers are responsible for stocking the pharmacies. They
select, purchase, and distribute pharmaceuticals and supplies.
Prices at the community pharmacies are kept low because the
revolving fund allows local government to buy medicines in
bulk from suppliers.
"In Itapua, we started the social pharmacy program with
50 million guaranies [about $7,500] provided by the departmental
government and 18 basic medicines," said Victoria Baez,
a voluntary coordinator of the program in Itapua. "Now
we have more than 100 medicines and more than 300 million
guaranies [about $44,000] in the revolving fund."
The pharmacies are typically housed within health posts or
clinics run by the Ministry of Health. Some are also located
in private houses.
They are run by volunteers who have some background in healthcare.
Each community's pharmacy warehouse is also managed by volunteers
who have the medical knowledge to administer pharmaceuticals.
Most communities in Paraguay suffer chronic shortages of
drugs, contraceptives, and medical supplies. This often leads
people to speculate on the causes and cures of what ails them
and to self-medicate. Many people are also too poor to afford
any drugs: Paraguayans annually spend only about 4.2 percent
of their income for healthcare, according to the Ministry
of Health.
The health ministry and donors such as the World Bank have
expressed interest in replicating the USAID-funded community
pharmacies program in other regions of the country.
Such pharmacies are just one way USAID has worked to improve
access to affordable medicine for people in poor countries.
In Ghana, the Agency supported a program that developed a
franchise to improve access to and use of essential medicines.
And in Tanzania USAID funded a program that accredits non-pharmacy
drug shops.
But programs supporting revolving drug funds, as in Paraguay,
have proven particularly successful, said Anthony Boni, pharmaceutical
management advisor with the Bureau for Global Health. USAID
has supported a similar program in Nepal and Tajikistan.
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