All you can farm for $200 a week

I came across this video below from the Guardian website on Duncan Green's blog. An Indian company has bought an area of land the size of Wales in south-west Ethiopia for which it pays the Ethiopian government just over US$200 a month. Most of the workers receive less than US$1 and the food produced will be exported to India. And this in a country where a large proportion of the population are still dependent on foreign food aid.

Is this just an inevitable consequence of globalisation, where the interests of large corporations supercede those of the indigenous population? Can private sector companies be held to account to ensure they give due regard to international human rights norms? Relevant to this issue, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights will be considered by the UN's Human Rights Council this June. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, has also issued a call to consider a set of eleven human rights principles regarding "land grabbing".

The land grab phenomenon thows up a lot of questions regarding the fight against poverty and for sustainable development. Anyone got any answers?

Link to game

For some reason the link to the game I refered to in my post yesterday was down. Today it's working - you can check it out here.

Look forward to your comments after you've given it a look.

Can you turn Haiti into a game?

With spring in the air, time for this blog to emerge from hibernation...


And what better way than a moral question. I came across on the Global Poverty Project website a game which has been developed by a group of children from Brooklyn, NY who are involved in a project to develop online games run by Global Kids Online Leadership program. The game I came across is called, "Ayiti: The Cost of Life" and it involves "Helping the Guinard family to make ends meet and get ahead in their poverty-stricken homeland, Haiti. In this sometimes tragic and always challenging simulation game, you help the parents, Jean and Marie, and their children, Patrick, Jacqueline, and Yves, make decisions about work, education, community building, personal purchases, and health care that might brighten their future."


According to Global Kids' website, "During the 2005-2006 school year, Global Kids Youth Leaders in the Playing for Keeps program at South Shore High School gained leadership, research, and game design skills while producing a socially conscious online game, Ayiti: The Cost of Life (CostofLife.org). The youth chose to design a game that focuses on the issue of poverty as an obstacle to education and uses the country of Haiti as a case study. The game and its associated curriculum were released through UNICEF’s Child Alert: Haiti website(...) Since it was released in October 2006, hundreds of thousands of people have played Ayiti. The game and the after school component are being evaluated by the Center for Children and Technology."


I played the game to see what it was about (this morning the link is down for some reason). The game is user friendly and has been well designed by the kids. But no matter how hard I tried, the Guinard family kept dying on me, one by one, as I ran out of money and they got too sick to work or go to school. 


The game certainly made me think about the challenges extreme poverty brings to a family in Haiti: health, education, lack of money and decent work, hurricanes. There are even pop ups occasionally telling you it's Carnival and how happy the community are to celebrate, so you get small glimpses of the culture.


The game also made me think about what Haitian kids would think of this game about trying to keep alive and flourish their fellow citizens. I couldn't find anywhere on the website reaction from Haitians.


It also made me think about the extent to which it is fair for people to learn about a country based principally on its hardship. What you come away with from the game is how harsh and fragile life is in the country. More often than not, the game will end in the death of the family after about 15 minutes play, in which time 2 or 3 years have gone by in the life of the family. 


What's missing is a real insight into how people really live to really do justice to the struggle of the Haitians (or any people come to that). How do Haitian children spend their day, how do they help their family, what games do they play, what are their hopes and dreams? 


I think it's a great idea to learn about a country through a game. But my question is whether it is morally acceptable to learn about a country through a game in which people die?

Time for people living in poverty to have a voice on the MDGs

Two interesting blog posts drew my attention the last couple of days. Firstly from the Guardian's Poverty Matter blog is an article on the need for a new set of MDGs that apply to all countries. I couldn't agree more with the view that, "The MDGs development targets (MDGs 1-7) apply only to "developing countries", leaving the entirely false implication that "developed countries" no longer have anything to improve on. Next time we draw up some global targets, all countries should be treated the same, all with targets to meet at home, and all with a responsibility to offer help and solidarity abroad."


ATD Fourth World has long argued the same point and is in the process of drawing up a project that will give people living in the most extreme poverty in "developing countries" the chance to have their say on the impact the Goals have had on their lives to date. The project will also include people living in long-term poverty in Europe and North America their opportunity to have a say on what poverty eradication targets have meant to them (the EU for example set a target in 2000 to make a decisive impact on poverty). The project also aims to enable people living in poverty to point the way forward so that the successor to the MDGs post-2015 has more success in reaching those experiencing the severest poverty. 


Whilst working on this project proposal today, I came across a blog post that publicised a Village in Action Conference that seeks to build a platform for villages to be heard in order to,"Contribute not only our voices to the discussion, but to also showcase what we are already doing to advance our own communities."  The first Conference will take place in Uganda on 27 November. This initiative came about due to frustration that debate on the MDGs, particularly during the September summit, is devoid of the voice of those who stand lost to gain from them.


I look forward to reading what the people from this Ugandan village have to say about what they are doing to achieve the MDGs. Between now and 2015, we will need plenty more initiatives that do not see people in poverty as mere "beneficiaries" but actors of change whose knowledge cannot go untapped if we want to make that decisive impact on extreme poverty in all countries in the world. 

Small acts of resistance

I came across today on Duncan Green's blog what seems like a really inspiring book called "Small acts of resistance: How courage, tenacity and ingenuity can change the world." The book has its own website where you can also submit your own stories of resistance.

Some of the examples included on the website from the book give pinpoint examples of how ordinary citizens took very simple actions to bring about change. For example, football supporters in Uruguay during the military dictatorship mumbled the national anthem until it came to the line, "May tyrants tremble!" which they shouted with all their might, before continuing to mumble the rest. The Generals couldn't arrest a whole football stadium nor could they accept the humiliation of removing this line from the national anthem. The people had found a way to express their opinion.

Those of us committed to creating a fairer world by eradicating poverty should also submit our stories of acts of resistance. So often we're faced with the question, "So what have you done that's improved people's lives?" Often our responses are so long-winded and complex, that potential supporters have moved on to the next, more readily understandable cause.

We should take up the author's invitation to submit our small acts of resistance. We are witness to them everyday by people living extraordinarily difficult lives who, despite all the odds, demonstrate courage, tenacity and ingenuity to survive extreme poverty. To inspire you, here's a video presentation of the book.


Small Acts of Resistance Final from Small Acts on Vimeo.

A world where money is more important than people

I was in Strasbourg this week, accompanying a group of young people from across Europe to meet Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General. Some of the guys who made up the delegation continue to have a difficult life, struggling to find work or their place on a worthwhile training course. And struggling to find their place in a society that tends to value people's worth in economic more often than human terms. Others have had more opportunities but are committed to creating a society which gives those same chances to everyone whatever their background.

It was uplifting to join them as they delivered their Appeal for a fairer world to Ban Ki-moon and the European Parliament President. This Appeal is the fruit of a process that has brought European young people together over the past year, in which each person was listened to and each point of view was respected. The Appeal asks Europeans of all ages and backgrounds to express their solidarity with young people who are among the over 80 million who live in poverty across the continent. 


"As young people from across Europe and in solidarity with young people the world over, we live in a world where money is more important than people. This world excludes some of us and breaks others. It leaves us feeling disgusted and angry. (…) We are of all ages and from across Europe. We dream of a fairer world. We must come together to make it possible."


The high that the young people were on after the event was infectious. As one of them put it, "When we began the process of writing this Appeal, I could never have imagined that we would end up reading it to the UN Secretary-General!"


It is easy to be cynical about such encounters between dignitaries and "ordinary citizens". I honesty got the feeling that Ban Ki-moon was genuinely touched and impressed by the commitment of this group of young people. In his very spontaneous response, he congratulated them on their leadership in tackling questions of poverty and encouraged their expression of solidarity to build a world free from poverty.


Those of us accompanying the delegation must now ensure that the Appeal's strong message of a dream for a fairer world is reinforced by reminding world leaders and decision makers of the expectations young people have for them to stand by the commitments they have made to make that dream a reality.


European youth appeal to the UN Secretary-General for a fairer world from ATDFRA on Vimeo.

Break the silence: International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Tomorrow is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. I'll be heading to the Plaza of Liberties and Human Rights, at the Trocadero in Paris to join thousands of others to who share my refusal to accept that over a billion of our fellow citizens be condemned to a life of extreme poverty. The Plaza were over 60 years ago the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed to herald, "Freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people."

What will it take to spur us to take a stand against the injustice of poverty and make this proclamation more than rhetoric? For President Piñera of Chile, it was the plight of the 33 miners which led him to state his country will could now undertake the challenge to be the first in Latin America to defeat poverty.

It shouldn't need 33 courageous men to spur us to end poverty. The rallying call has come from many great figures in history over the years. From Victor Hugo, who in addressing the French Parliament in 1849 said, "I am among those who think and affirm that poverty can be destroyed." Or more recently, Nelson Mandela, who, now free, reminded us that the poor are not: "They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free."


Yet since the onset of the global economic crisis, nearly 70 million more people have been condemned to extreme poverty. And this just ten years after the international community pledged to, "Spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty."

Poverty can and must be eradicated. Tomorrow, people in different corners of the globe, including those who experience poverty first-hand, will express the conviction of Joseph Wresinski that, "Wherever men and women are condemned to live in extreme poverty, human rights are violated. To come together to ensure that these rights be respected is our solemn duty."

Below is a video from the director general of ATD Fourth World with his meesage for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

What will you be doing tomorrow?


Message from Eugen Brand, Director General of the International Movement ATD Fourth World on the occasion of the International D from ATDFRA on Vimeo.