Storms in Madagascar provide an added opportunity for embezzlement in education. Photo: lefthandrotation (flickr)

Mismanagement and corruption continue to hinder the progress of education in Africa, suggests a recent Transparency International report on primary education in several African countries. The report cites several examples where local officials wasted the funds of school systems, which raised the costs that parents were forced to pay.

One of more outrageous examples of such corruption came from Madagascar, where school officials use the annual cyclone season as an opportunity to embezzle funds. A Space for Transparency blog explained how they do it:

Every year the coastal areas, mainly in the north eastern part of the island, face an onslaught from seasonal cyclones. First warnings usually start airing on TV and radio a few days before the cyclone hits, which gives people time to put their corruption scams into action. It works like this: when the cyclone is confirmed, the person in charge of school procurements pays a local merchant to fabricate an invoice for school supplies. The wind and rains come and lo and behold the school storage room is inundated with water and all the supplies are damaged. The school then submits a reimbursement claim to the central emergency fund for school materials. It explains how the storage room roof leaked and the supplies were ruined. The fake invoice is included in the claim.

As the World Bank points out, It is particularly important to address such practices in primary schools because education is the key to achieving other development goals. If poor kids are to have a chance at getting the education that could help them lift themselves out of poverty, a strong start in primary school is imperative.

Esther Duflo speaking at Pop!Tech in 2009. Photo: kk + (flickr)

Ever wonder why some development projects succeed while others fail?

Esther Duflo and her colleagues at MIT’s Poverty Action Lab are working on the answer. Duflo is one of the newest recipients of the MacArthur Genius Grant because of her commitment to investigating what causes poverty to persist in some developing countries and what works to alleviate it.

She does this by setting up controlled field experiments in some of the poorest countries in Africa and South Asia. These experiments set out to prove how social and economic forces fuel the cycle of poverty in these areas. They also test how effective foreign aid projects are at lifting people out of poverty.

Duflo conducts her experiments using a method that mimics how drug companies conduct randomized medical trials. One group participates in a development project while the other does not. The differences between them are then measured to see if the project worked, and exactly how well.

Some of Duflo’s best known work is on HIV prevention in Kenya. Her research shows it’s more effective to teach girls specific ways to reduce their risk — like avoiding sexual relations with older men — than teaching basic medical facts about HIV and emphasizing abstinence as the best method of prevention. As she explains in her recent article for VoxEU.org, girls who were given risk-reduction information now use condoms more often, stay in school longer, and become pregnant less often.

“Economics is about the best way to allocate resources, and finding out what works is important to understanding how to allocate these resources,” Duflo told Philanthropy Action. Too few development strategies are vigorously tested. Proving what works can help.

(For more information on the Poverty Action Lab, check out Sarah Standish’s post "Researching Better Ways to End Poverty.")

China's attitude towards Africa was apparent in a slogan at a summit on Africa in Beijing. Photo: stephenrwalli (flickr)

Deborah Brautigan doesn't argue with critics who call China's interest in Africa self-serving. But she may be one of the first American academics to declare that China's deeds will be good for Africa, too.

It's an argument she expands in The Dragon's Gift, a new book analyzing the development of China's Africa policies over the last few decades.

Brautigan asserts that China's investments are integrating African countries into the global economy more quickly because, unlike Western countries, the nation invests in an array of industries. In Angola, for example, China has built roads, schools, hospitals, and irrigation systems in the country's interior — even though its oil wealth is far offshore. Brautigan also cites a telling remark by a Nigerian diplomat: "The Chinese are trying to get involved in every sector of our economy. If you look at the West, it's oil, oil, oil and nothing else."

And on a continent rife with corruption, China's style of development actually leaves less room for embezzlement than does the World Bank model, points out a book review in The Morning Star. Rather than funneling money through potentially corrupt government officials, China pays Chinese companies to head up infrastructure projects.

Brautigan acknowledges that China's behavior in Africa is sometimes far from saintly. Some have complained that Chinese companies do not respect local labor laws, as happened at a mine in Congo, and others worry that Chinese companies will have a negative environmental impact on the continent.

While not negligible, Brautigan sees these violations as small in comparison to what China's investments could mean for Africa, and in comparison to the failed promise of other foreign aid there. As an AidWatchers review noted, this "book seeks to compare Chinese aid to Western aid as it really is, not as we wish it were."

Wadango has already distributed around 10,000 solar-powered lanterns. Photo: **Mary** (flickr)

In rural Kenya nearly everyone uses kerosene as their main source of power. For those living on less than $1 a day — as about half the population does — this expense takes away a significant portion of their income. Kerosene costs the average African family almost $100 a year, according to the blog White African. And that's why Evans Wadongo's goal of providing solar-powered lanterns to rural Kenyans is so admirable.

In fact, Evans Wadongo and his work with solar lanterns was featured in a recent "CNN Heroes" video. In the video, Wadongo shows how these simple lanterns can do much good for rural Kenyans.

Families with solar lanterns can now spend the money they used to spend on kerosene on necessities like food and medicine. The lanterns are also much better for studying at night. Kerosene lanterns smother kids in smoke and can be harsh on their eyes because the light they give off is so dim. Solar lanterns provide brighter light without all the pollution — giving both kids and the environment a brighter future.

Thanks to Wadongo and his nonprofit sponsor Sustainable Development for All-Kenya, 10,000 of these lanterns have been distributed to rural Kenyans for free. You can help out by clicking here and donating to Sustainable Development for All-Kenya. A $20 donation provides a solar lantern for a family in need.

A child in Mexico City earns his wage cleaning windshields. Photo: Beto (Kuh) (Flickr)

So far, more than 4 million Mexican families have benefited from a government program aimed at combating some of the country’s toughest problems: poverty, illiteracy and poor health.

Oportunidades, which began in 2002, takes the innovative approach of paying these families to go to school, eat well and stay healthy. Eight years later, the concept is gaining international momentum.

The program is based on a “conditional-cash” idea, whereby eligible adults are given money for achieving specific goals, including regular medical checkups, taking classes on healthier eating habits, and making sure their children are enrolled in school.

Santiago Levy, a social economist and one of the men credited with implementing the “conditional-cash” approach in Mexico, recently spoke about Oportunitidades with PBS. Levy said that he wanted to focus on lasting ways to bring people out of poverty.

These families were trapped in … some kind of an intergenerational mechanism, by which parents were poor, children were poor, and the next generation were also poor. The kids were so poor, they had to be picking coffee in the fields, and they couldn't go to school ... [Through Oportunidades,] what you are saying is, your kid will be equally valuable to you if he's in the school, as opposed if he is in the street begging for money.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Oportunidades is its rigorous evaluation process. The program uses an outside firm to review every aspect of its impact, and so far the results have been convincing. In some affected regions, school enrollment is up 20 percent for girls and 10 percent for boys, according to a World Bank report.

The unique evaluation process has also offered Oportunidades a certain degree of credibility and international recognition. PBS reports that more than 30 counties — many in South America and Southeast Asia — are developing their own "conditional cash" programs.

Economist Jeffrey Sachs spearheaded the Millennium Village Project to create sustainable economies in villages in sub-Saharan Africa. Photo: kevin813 (flickr)

If you had millions in cash and a team of some of the most brilliant minds in development, could you transform a poor African village's extreme poverty to a viable economy in five years?

The Millennium Village Project (MVP) is trying to do just that. It is the ambitious, high-profile development initiative spearheaded by economist Jeffrey Sachs in 2004. Today the Millennium Village Project operates in 13 sites across sub-Saharan Africa. Each site has tailored projects aimed at improving health, education, agriculture, infrastructure, and commercial business, and relies heavily on local participation. According to their website, MVP says that by 2011 their role will shift from financing and implementing projects, to a more advisory one.

Jeff Marlow, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, recently visited one MVP site comprised of 11 rural villages in the Koraro region of Ethiopia. While he was there he wrote about his experience for the Nicholas Kristof's On the Ground blog.

Of the several posts he wrote, the "Sustainability Factor" was by far the most interesting to me. The MVP acknowledges that sustainability is crucial to success, but these villages aren't self-sufficient despite several years of support. Though Marlow found that huge gains were made in education and health, economic sustainability remains elusive:

What began as a five year initiative to end extreme poverty and send the Millennium Villages on their way toward further economic development has now ballooned into at least a 10-year program with no clear end in sight....

It’s hard to deny that the quality of life in Koraro has increased substantially: disease rates have plummeted, crop yields have gone up, and children are attending school at unprecedented levels. Does this mean the Project will accomplish its lofty goals and, as Sachs puts it, “end the dependency on help and create the kind of breakthroughs that will have a transformative effect on the world”? ...The Project faces fundamentally different challenges in scaling up and moving out than it has seemingly overcome in raising crop yields and cutting disease rates.

It looks like the millions in cash, brilliant minds, and local determination haven't succeeded in creating sustainable economic growth for these 11 villages. Maybe another five years will make the difference? We can only hope so.

Mercy Corps is using cash-for-work to help Haitians get back on their feet after last month's earthquake.

The idea behind cash-for-work is to create jobs immediately by paying local Haitians a fair daily wage to clear rubble from roads and around schools, houses, and businesses. The great thing about cash-for-work is that participants earn much-needed cash so they can buy food and supplies, and quickly gets cash moving through the local economy.

Mercy Corps’ cash-for-work program recently caught the attention of the American Public Media’s MarketPlace. Bill Holbrooke, Mercy Corps’ country director for Haiti explains to MarketPlace how the cash-for-work program's focus on job training will help Haiti's economy in the long-term. “There are meaningful, long-term jobs in the construction sector that have very few qualified people to fill. And so we’ve gotta address that.” Through the cash-for-work program, Mercy Corps will help Haitian communities build a skilled workforce that can lift families out of poverty.

Last Friday photographer Miguel Samper visited a cash-for-work site on payday. Check out his photos below.

Cash for work. Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

Cash for work. Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

Cash for work. Photo: Miguel Samper for Mercy Corps

OLPC instructors teach students how to use their laptops in Kigali, Rwanda. Photo: cellanr (flckr)

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame wants to secure a piece of the growing technology market that has already brought so much change to sub-Saharan Africa, and he’s starting young.

Kagame recently announced that he would provide a laptop for every child in his country between the ages of six and 18, reports The Economist. The magazine suggests the move is based on both economic as well as educational motives: The President has made it clear that he intends to have 50,000 computer programmers by 2020 as a result of the laptop program.

To reach that goal, he is working with the American non-profit One Laptop per Child (OLPC), an organization that is the first of its kind to provide durable and affordable laptops to many in the developing world. According to their website they believe (as I do) that a laptop can be a key for children to engage in their own education more fully than traditional rote learning. OLPC claims their laptops offer a way for the user to connect with both their local and greater communities in order to expose them to a world that is often not available.

The more practical economic benefits of such a program are also apparent. The president has already purchased 100,000 laptops from OLPC, according to the Economist, and plans to buy 1.2 million more as early as 2012. Over the long term, the initiative will create more jobs for computer teachers and repairmen.
And Government agencies and businesspeople have already started programs to help educate a computer-savvy population reports The New Times of Kigali.

Understandably, the plan has been criticized by many who think the money would be better spent on more visible and perhaps more necessary projects for the impoverished nation, including food distribution, health care subsidies and infrastructure development. Although the country must never lose focus on these persistent problems, there must also be room for the Rwandan Government to take risks on other fronts. The overall benefits of education are difficult to quantify but are nevertheless unquestionably valuable. Technology markets are on the rise throughout Africa, and President Kagame doesn't seem to want to let this opportunity pass.

Angola has an estimated 13 billion barrels of oil. Photo: Kaysha (flickr)

Angola is consistantly ranked as one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. But a recent Economist article suggests that thanks to Angola's extensive oil reserves, things are starting to improve. In fact, Angola's economy is expected to grow by 8 percent this year, which would make the country one of the top five economic performers worldwide.

But having an economy dependent on oil can have its downsides, the Economist points out. For example, after several years of ever-increasing oil prices, the price of oil rapidly declined in 2008 — dragging Angola's economy down with it.

Despite this volatility, Angola's economy has recently gotten back on track. And thanks to new government initiatives, the Economist reports that the people are starting to see the benefits.

The government plans to build one million homes for shack-dwellers by 2012. Teachers and doctors are being trained, children sent back to school, clinics opened, water-purification plants installed, electricity brought to villages and urban slums. José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola's autocratic yet popular leader for the past 30 years, has even pledged — for the first time — to reduce corruption.

The neglect of an Indian complaint box: Fighting corruption requires active prevention measures. Photo: watchsmart (flickr)

It's known, but not talked about: Sometimes humanitarian aid doesn't make it into the hands of those who need it. Why? Because small-scale local corruption can siphon off money or goods, make aid agencies run less efficiently, or even exploit those who are dependent on such assistance.

A new handbook produced by Transparency International aims to help aid agencies reduce the risk of corruption. Its concrete suggestions cover the mundane, the profane, and everything in between — from how to tell if local staff might be driving agency vehicles outside of work to how to ensure that aid recipients aren't sexually abused by humanitarian workers.

The report offers some overarching suggestions, too: Aid agencies must plan ways to combat corruption in disaster zones before such calamities strike, not afterwards. Over the long term, they must get to know local culture and power structures well, since that is often the key to recognizing sources of malfeasance.

The handbook's recommendations have come just in time to be useful in Haiti, a senior Transparency International Advisor told AlertNet:

It's what I'd call a perfect storm for high corruption risk: you have a seriously damaged institutional infrastructure, a country with endemic corruption, a weak or fragile state in the best of circumstances and sudden influxes of huge amounts of resources to a highly vulnerable population.

Such a report cannot be taken seriously enough.

Egyptian women typically work at home or in agriculture. Photo: DruhScoff (flickr)

An increase in the number of working women in Cairo is giving rise to a new niche within the local security industry: female bodyguards, or "lady guards."

In this part of the world, the mixing of single men and women is highly discouraged. So, according to the Christian Science Monitor, Egypt's leading security company has created a new division of "lady guards" to help these wealthy women feel more comfortable while being guarded.

The Falcon Group, as the Egypt-based security company is known, is pioneering a new model of protection that both signals and supports the rising status of women here. Falcon’s female-guard unit, the first of its kind for women clients, is creating an empowering new career for its employees while capitalizing on the demands of an increasingly conservative society.

These newly trained lady guards say they feel empowered by their work. Amine, a twenty year old "lady guard", tells the Jakarta Globe that "her work has given her a sense of power and status in a country where women often fall victim to male discrimination or harassment."

Glasses are one key to improving the economic productivity of poor people in developing countries. Photo: deepchi1 (flickr)

Poor vision may not seem like an economic problem at first glance. But according to the World Health Organization, workers with poor and uncorrected vision cost the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars in lost productivity each year.

Many of these workers struggle to put food on the table, much less purchase an expensive pair of glasses, so their vision problems go untreated. This situation may change thanks to an innovative new series of affordable glasses designs that the New York Times recently highlighted. Their genius lies in two factors: their low cost and how easy it is to adjust them. Production is cheaper when a single model can be made to fit almost anyone, which also cuts out the need for expensive doctors to write vision prescriptions.

How can glasses be one-size-fits-all? One type highlighted by The Times has lenses whose refraction can be adjusted by injecting a clear liquid into them, while another has overlapping lenses that can be adjusted by the user. These models are already improving the lives of wearers in countries like Rwanda, Afghanistan, Ghana, and Tanzania and cost $19 and $4, respectively.

Despite their potential, low-cost eyeglasses still face problems. As The New York Times explains, the glasses could cost only $1-2 per pair if produced in great enough volumes, but supply chains don't yet exist to distribute such quantities of glasses to those who need them.

The field of low-cost eyeglass production and distribution is in its infancy, but keep your eyes open for great things to come.

Cotton farmers in western Africa have been badly affected by a global drop in prices. Photo: 10b travelling (flickr)

Falling cotton prices hurt African farmers far more than their American counterparts. And American subsidies may be to blame for the Africans' pain, according to a documentary on Dev.tv, a nonprofit media outlet.

American farmers profit by growing more cotton since the U.S. government has promised them a fixed price no matter how much they produce. But American subsidies cause the market to be flooded with cotton, according to an industry expert in Benin, Bernard Adikpeto. "Because the U.S. subsidizes its cotton production, its farmers put a surfeit of 1 million tonnes in the market in 2001, leading to a drop in cotton prices."

On the other hand, African farmers don't get any subsidies, so they are hit hard when cotton prices fall in the free market. Consequences are especially bad because this crop is a crucial source of income in countries of Central and West Africa. For example, the cotton industry in Burkina Faso employs more than 2 million people and generates 40 percent of the nation's export revenue. Nearly 40 percent of Chad's population is involved in producing cotton, and two-thirds of its total export comes from this crop. In all, more than 10 million African farmers have lost income since the price of cotton fell worldwide.

What's ironic is that African farmers are losing money while selling a product they produce more competitively than others. Central and West African countries produce cotton at half the cost of the U.S. and Europe. Yet, these African nations bear a loss of $1 billion in the cotton economy every year.

To learn more on this topic, you can watch the documentary below :

Eritrean child receiving a vaccine. Photo: daveblume (flickr)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $10 billion-commitment over ten years to vaccinate children in developing countries on Friday. The nonprofit is calling on world leaders to join in this effort, aimed at drastically reducing the number of deaths of children under 5 years old.

There are economic benefits to reducing child mortality in developing countries as well. Countries with lower child mortality rates tend to be more economically developed, according to the World Health Organization.