Women’s Empowerment and Food Security in Rural South Africa: A Virtual Sit-Down with Dr. Elizabeth Vibert

Tori Wong on March 29, 2017

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Recently, IdeasXchange published an editorial about food security that broke down the concept of food security and made linkages not only between agriculture and climate change, but also between developing countries and wealthy countries like Canada.

Today, I virtually sat down with Dr. Elizabeth Vibert, an Associate Professor in the University of Victoria’s History Department with whom I had the great honour of traveling to South Africa in 2014 as part of UVic’s Colonial Legacies Field School in South Africa. The field school, a senior undergraduate course open to all students who wish to apply, focused on the legacies of colonialism and apartheid on South African development in urban and rural settings.

Elizabeth’s most recent research focuses on food security, household microeconomies, and alternative economies in rural South Africa. She is collecting women’s life histories in rural Limpopo Province, examining gender and inter-generational politics and relations to the state among smallholder farmers. Dr. Vibert recently published an article in The Journal of Contemporary African Studies about a women’s community food sovereignty project in Limpopo, and this year (2017) she released a documentary film about this farm, The Thinking Garden. Dr. Vibert co-wrote and produced the film with director Christine Welsh, editor/cinematographer Mo Simpson, and assistant director Basani Ngobeni. The film won a Matrix Award at the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival in March and is currently touring festivals and screenings in Canada and South Africa, including a stop in Vancouver at the Vancouver South African Film Festival on April 2 – details on tickets and showtime at the end of this interview!

(Interview by Tori Wong)

TW: Allow me to virtually greet you and tell you how happy I am to finally be interviewing you, despite the approximately 4,400 kilometers between us right now!

I’ve already explained a little bit about your background and your current research, but can you elaborate a little more on your current project? When did you start this work? How did you decide to focus on South Africa and, more specifically, rural Limpopo?

EV: It’s lovely to ‘see’ you again, Tori. I’m a social historian of the regions that were formerly the British empire. I was trained in my doctorate at Oxford by Southern African specialists – particularly Terence Ranger, a social historian of Zimbabwe. I was hired at UVic as a Canadian historian, although I made clear that I’m really a colonial historian. Over the years I’ve always taught courses that included Southern African content and questions, but it was only in 2012 that I was able to focus my research attention there again.

I met the women whose food sovereignty project captured my imagination while I was volunteering at another vegetable farm in rural Limpopo Province. I found the women’s project really inspiring – not least the fact that this group of older women farmers, for twenty years, had been feeding their community and their households from their collaborative vegetable farm. The farm aims to be self-sustaining through vegetable sales, but the women have a strong social justice ethic: they donate vegetables to people on treatment for HIV, to people hosting funerals, to other people in need.  Community support, including supporting one another as farmers and as women, is their first priority, not commercial profit.

TW: Your work zeroes in on food security, politics, and gender dimensions. Have there been any surprising discoveries over the course of your research or any relationships between themes/concepts that aren’t very obvious on the surface?

EV: When I started doing oral history research with the women I was thinking of the life stories of the individual farmers, and I was thinking of the farm as an economic enterprise. It took me a while to recognize that the women don’t narrate individual life histories in the way we might expect: they don’t narrate the life of the autonomous Western liberal subject. They tell their stories as women in kin and community networks, in customary communities, and as heads or members of households.  Xilo xinwe is a xiTsonga phrase that comes up often in their depiction of their farm. It means ‘being one thing,’ a little like the phrase Ubuntu. It means people become people in relation to other people – by working together, cooperating, finding common ground. That’s very much the story of the women’s farm.

TW: Tell me a little bit about the women whose stories you are collecting (How many are there that work on the farm, what stands out about them?).

EV: There are currently seventeen women actively working at the farm, although there are twenty-seven women who are formal members. Some of those are now too old and unwell to work, while some of the younger women have gone off to wage labour. The women aren’t paid wages for their work at the farm, but they’re well aware of the value of payment in vegetables a couple of times a week. The women are ‘older’ – many of them are pensioners whose pensions are key to the support of multi-generational families in a region where unemployment rates are astronomically high, and even the employed are very often precariously employed.

TW: This past year you traveled back to Limpopo with a small production team to capture a snippet of the lives of the women on the farm. How did this idea come about?

EV: We went to the farm in May 2015 to make a film about the story of this inspiring women’s farm. I was keen to capture on film both the uplifting story of the farm, and the way this farm has been afflicted by many of the challenges of small-scale farmers across the Global South. Among these challenges are mechanization of large-scale agriculture throwing people out of rural work; cheap (and mostly unhealthy) food washing into the local shops from Western agribusiness companies, at prices local farmers can’t compete with; lack of accessible government support for small-scale and community farms; and the sharpening demands of climate change – more frequent droughts, hotter winters, more intense pest pressures, more extreme weather events like floods and heatwaves.

The idea to make a film about the women’s farm came from the women themselves. They can’t read the academic journal articles I write (nor would they want to!), so from the start they were asking ‘aren’t you going to make a film about us?’ At first my collaborator, Basani Ngobeni, and I laughed at this idea. I’m not a filmmaker. But they asked the question each time we came to do research. In 2014 the idea took hold in my mind, and I approached Metis Canadian filmmaker Christine Welsh to see if the story would interest her. She makes wonderful films about, as she puts it, ‘ordinary women doing extraordinary things.’ To my delight, Christine was very taken with the story and jumped at the chance to direct the film.

TW: How do you envision the film’s impact on Canadians and South Africans alike?

EV: I hope the film informs people about the central role of small-scale, community-based, sustainable food production in community wellbeing. The tagline at the end of our film is ‘Local farmers build healthy communities.’ We mean all local farmers who are farming food sustainably, around the world. That’s the big message. More specifically, the film conveys the message that small-scale farmers in the Global South are doing amazing things – making healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food available to their communities; creating local opportunities – despite really daunting challenges. These small farmers, many of whom are women who get much less material support than male farmers, deserve government support; they deserve ngo support; they deserve our support. They’re farming in ways that respect the land, water, and atmosphere. What can we do? Buy food produced locally and sustainably as much as you can. With respect to the Global South, lobby your MP to support small-scale farmers as a key element of the agendas to support women and families and to turn the tide on climate change. Support organizations that explicitly support women and small-scale farmers.

To see the film for yourself…

“The Thinking Garden” is currently making its way through festival circuits and screening events across Canada and South Africa. Book your calendars to attend the Vancouver South African Film Festival, taking place at SFU Woodward’s from March 31st to April 2nd. The Thinking Garden will be showing on April 2nd, followed by a Q&A session with Basani Ngobeni and Elizabeth Vibert. http://www.vsaff.org/

Editorial: Food – A Basic Human Right, Both Abroad and At Home

Tori Wong on February 3, 2017

If you have been keeping up with current global news, particularly when it comes to poorer countries and countries in conflict, then you may have learned that food security is part of the conversation, whether it is a factor driving conflict or migration, or a result of them.

But what is food security? At first glance, it seems to be a fairly straight forward phrase – “food”, calories you need to stay alive; and “security”, one’s food supply being safe from danger or threat. At a basic level, this understanding is correct, but in policy and program discussions between development practitioners and bodies like the United Nations, Red Cross and within national governments, food security is a little more complex. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food security exists when people are able to access enough safe and nutritious food to live a healthy life. This food can be produced domestically, imported, or arrive through food assistance programs. Food security is comprised of four major components. First is the availability, or overall abundance of food. Understandably, if food is unavailable, people are not food secure. The second component is whether people are able to access available food. The availability of food does not matter unless people can physically access markets and have the resources to access food. Third is the utilization of food, which means that to be food-secure, food consumed should provide people with the nutrients they need to live healthy lives. Lastly, people need to have stable and reliable access to a supply of food. To be considered food-secure, these four requirements must be met. Based on this criteria, it is estimated that 795 million people in the world presently experience chronic hunger. This is about one in nine people.

Food Security and the Developing World

Unsurprisingly, the highest prevalence of food insecurity exists in developing countries. This is not the result of an inability to grow food. In fact, agriculture is the main economic activity in most developing nations, from East Asia to Latin America to Africa. Rather, global economics prompt farmers, the majority of which are small-scale producers, to sell most of their products to markets in exchange for cash, which they believe will raise their standards of living. Yet, the value of primary products like agricultural commodities is steadily declining in global markets. As a result, entire families will work for subsistence wages in order to survive, drawing children away from education and reinforcing the cyclical nature of poverty. Despite agriculture being the main economic activity, high costs of producing food and transporting food to markets contribute to developing countries’ reduced food security and competitiveness in global markets. For example, high production costs due to a lack of modern agricultural techniques and technologies tend to cause low productivity, as well as lower quality products. Due to the higher cost of production and lower quality products, developing countries tend to struggle in selling their products on global markets and cannot compete with more cheaply-produced and higher quality goods from countries such as the United States or China. This leaves small-scaled farmers with little cash and little food for their work.

Is Canada Food Secure? Don’t be so certain. Canada is an advanced industrialized country that ranks 9th on the Human Development Index, which combines measurements of life expectancy, education, and Gross National Income per capita to determine how well-developed a country is. Despite our relatively comfortable standard of living, this is not uniform across the country.

Resolute Bay, Nunavut. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Numerous reports and studies, including those conducted by UN Special Rapporteurs, show that there are significant gaps in wealth and inequality, and pockets of Canada reflect conditions that would seem more characteristic of a developing country. Non-profit organization Canada Without Poverty estimates that 4.9 million (one in seven) people in Canada live in poverty, and food insecurity is a threat to stability for many of them. In many rural and northern regions of Canada, food costs are exorbitantly high owing to their remote locations and the high cost of transporting food from more populated areas. Residents in Nunavut spend $14,800 on average each year on food – more than twice as much as the rest of the country ($7,300).

Responses to Food Insecurity

By 2050, it is estimated that global food production will have to increase by 70% in order to keep up with growing population levels and food needs. Governments, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations are undertaking various approaches to combat food insecurity and climate change across the globe. Canada’s federal foreign affairs, trade, and development body, Global Affairs Canada, pursues a food security strategy geared towards the reduction of food insecurity in developing countries, and in particular, targets the most vulnerable countries and populations, including a focus on women and girls. A major component of Canada’s strategy involves the promotion of sustainable agricultural practices, such as crop rotation and reduced pesticide use. Agriculture is the main economic activity for many developing countries and the main income source for poor households, meaning that improving food security goes hand-in-hand with reducing poverty. However, agriculture poses significant challenges, too. The agricultural sector is a major contributor to, and a major victim of, climate change. The agriculture, forestry, and other land-use sectors produced 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions and between 2001 and 2011, global emissions from crop and livestock production rose by 14%.

Projected impact of climate change on agricultural yields by the 2080s. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

At the same time, climate change in the form of extreme weather events like droughts and floods negatively impacts agriculture. In addition to creating unfavourable conditions for growing staple crops, climate change also contributes to manifesting favourable conditions for new crop diseases. Through Canadian and international partner organizations, activities like farmer education courses on sustainable agricultural practices, such as climate-smart agriculture, and the introduction and subsequent adoption of more modern agricultural technologies contribute to increasing food security. This also prepares farmers against negative effects of climate change on their livelihoods, and mitigates the agricultural sector’s impact on the environment. Combined with significant investment in agricultural research and development, promoting sustainable agriculture will aid the global population in increasing food supply to meet growing demand in a way that does not place more stress on an already resource-strained planet. This work must continue if we hope to keep up with population growth and preserve the planet’s resources.

What else can we do?

As concerned global citizens, how can we contribute to the conversation and action our governments and civil societies are taking against food insecurity? We can take localized action. The BC Centre for Disease Control and Food Secure Vancouver are great resources for learning about local food security. Food Secure Vancouver’s website contains information about local food markets, farmer training programs, school gardens, and community food resources. By educating ourselves and getting involved in initiatives like community gardening and food banks, we can participate in improving our own food security and that of others around us.

Davie Village Community Garden in Vancouver, BC. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

We can participate in our democracy. Canada is set to release a new international assistance strategy, which takes into consideration over 10,000 public submissions. We can educate ourselves on Canada’s new strategy and call or write to local Members of Parliament or the Minister for International Development to express concerns and suggestions for how Canada interacts with our developing country partners. Domestically, we should let our representatives know that Canada should give more support to our own food security efforts. The Northern Farm Training Institute in the Northwest Territories is an experiential school that aims to empower northern residents, strengthen communities, and create sustainability through local food production. By supporting efforts as such, we can contribute to closing the inequality gap in this country.  

Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Editorial: Is our love for “superfoods” more destructive than we think?

Tori Wong on November 30, 2016

In Western countries, it has become commonplace or even trendy to consume so-called “superfoods” that developing countries produce and export. They sit on shelves in nearly every grocery store and their health benefits are well known to consumers. In particular, Western demand for grains such as quinoa and teff have exploded in recent years. But why? Superfoods are food products that are relatively high in nutrients. What drives Western demand for them? If you live in a developed country, it’s likely you’re well versed in, or at least conscious of the superfood conversation. They tend to be popular with vegans and vegetarians, lifestyle choices that have become more prevalent in Western culture, as superfoods are nutritious alternatives for meat products. As we become more preoccupied with making healthy food decisions, foods deemed “superfoods” are front and center. But there’s more to the equation than just demand – somebody has to meet those demands, and this responsibility falls upon the superfoods’ countries of origin.

Background on quinoa and teff and its impacts on countries of origin

Image courtesy of: www.morguefile.com

Quinoa and teff are highly nutritious, gluten-free grains. Quinoa traditionally grows in Peru and Bolivia and is low fat, high in protein, and full of amino acids. Teff, which has 50% more protein, five times more fiber and 25 times more calcium than brown rice, hails from the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea. With these stats, it’s no wonder that health-conscious Westerners covet them – consuming foods with these nutrient levels likely impacts our own health in positive ways (which is why demand is so high), but the impacts of our consumption on producing countries is another story altogether. While consuming superfoods like quinoa and teff may have positive health effects for Westerners, we can’t say the same for the health of the countries that produce them. In fact, the “Columbusing” of superfoods, or the “discovery” of these crops in developing countries, tends to benefit global consumers more than producers.

Quinoa industry damaging Bolivian development

Increased global demand – how much people desire a good as a whole – for quinoa spurred Bolivia to export higher volumes of the grain. While this increases Bolivia’s revenue and incomes of local farmers, it also causes the domestic price of quinoa to soar. In other words, while individual living standards of farmers have improved, it has become more difficult for the general population to afford quinoa, a staple in their diets. In 2011, a kilogram of quinoa cost $4.85 USD in contrast to $1 for the same weight of rice. The problems don’t stop there. In attempting to meet global demand, Bolivia faces pressure to allocate more land for quinoa production. If it follows through, Bolivia will in effect transform its agricultural portfolio into a monocrop of only quinoa. Without diverse agricultural production, Bolivia will become subject to volatile food prices and limited food security. If the price of quinoa plummets, its agriculture industry won’t bring in revenue; if it only produces one crop, Bolivia risks pest or disease infestation that can wipe out its only source of food, potentially resulting in famine.

 

Image: Bolivian city. Courtesy of: www.morguefile.com

Ethiopia’s teff dilemma

In recent years, Westerners have lauded teff for its nutritional value, so much so that the Ethiopian government decided to lift its ban on teff export with tight controls in place. Previously, there was a complete ban on raw teff export, with only processed teff in the form of injera allowed to leave the country. While this prevented the re-entry of teff into the Ethiopian market at inflated prices, the government and manufacturers were involved in the economic process, leaving farmers with little of their deserved revenue. Lifting the ban means Ethiopia needs to control price fluctuations. It hopes to do so by licensing commercial farms to produce teff for export to avoid flooding the market and bringing teff prices down. According to CEO of Ethiopian Agricultural Transformation Agency Khalid Bomba, licensed producers will supply exports first, and then extend to small-scale farmers who comprise most of Ethiopia’s working population. The Ethiopian government’s hopes to meet both domestic and global demand will be tricky business. If it wants to engage in export, Ethiopia should first satisfy its own population’s demand. This involves increasing production levels by introducing modern farming techniques. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot of agricultural research on teff production, so Ethiopia must first figure out which modern farming techniques are best suited to teff. Another issue is other countries have successfully planted teff crops. In the United States, 25 states produce the superfood. Al Jazeera reports that because of such successful transplantation, Ethiopia is losing out on its staple crop. Perhaps the best way for Ethiopia to combat this loss is to capitalize on the fact that the quality and taste of foreign-produced teff can’t hold a flame to its own. If it manages to brand Ethiopian teff as a premium product, Ethiopia may be able to overtake its competitors.

Image: Agricultural farm. Courtesy of: www.morguefile.com

Consequences of superfoods on health in developing countries

Let’s now consider the impact of Western demand for quinoa and teff on the health of Bolivian and Ethiopian populations. When goods become too expensive, consumers substitute their consumption of that good with cheaper alternatives. In Bolivia, people substitute less nutritious rice and noodles for quinoa. In Ethiopia, teff farmers are selling the bulk of their harvests instead of eating it to take advantage of high global prices. The consequence of these actions is rising malnutrition, especially in rural communities. In both Bolivia and Ethiopia, consuming more quinoa and teff can alleviate malnutrition, but this task competes with Western cravings.

What can we do?

This paints a fairly bleak picture of guilt. Evidently, Western eating habits are directly related to economic conditions and poverty levels in developing countries. How can we reconcile our health-conscious love for quinoa, teff and other superfoods with the adverse affects it creates for countries that produce them? One way is to practice ethical consumerism. Movements like Fairtrade aim to ensure local farmers receive fair payment for their work; purchasing Fairtrade products means more of your money goes to the producer rather than distributors or manufacturers. But this only solves half of the equation – how can we ensure that our consumption of superfoods doesn’t come with the price of malnourished communities who can’t afford the same product? This is a question of social and economic policy. We have seen how Ethiopia is taking measures to ensure domestic prices (the current price for teff in the economy) of teff don’t skyrocket. To see lower domestic quinoa prices, Bolivia may restrict exports or increase production (both of which will bolster domestic supply and push down price) or introduce some kind of policy that balances its exports with domestic concerns. It’s unlikely that Western demands for superfoods will cease or even plateau any time soon. Indeed, such demand can produce incentives for more people or countries to become involved in superfood industries and drive more efficient production. Taking this into consideration, the key lies in how, rather than what, we consume, and the ways in which we can all improve our consumer behaviour.

Editorial: “Conflict mineral” only the tip of the iceberg in DR Congo conflict

Tori Wong on January 30, 2016

In recent decades, the world has become increasingly interconnected not only through the trade of goods across borders, but also the migrations of people, technologies and ideas.

Today, billions of people own cell phones, from teenagers in rich industrialized countries to farmers in rural Africa. In fact, the mobile phone has become so commonplace that we don’t think twice about what we hold in our hands or where it comes from. In response, some movements have emerged to urge consumers to buy local and develop an understanding of where their food, clothing and other goods originate.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are coltan reserves, a mineral which is found in almost all electronics. Mass media has sensationalized the use of coltan in such manufactured goods, reporting that industries buying the mineral are funding violence in the DRC, where civil wars have been ongoing since 1996.

Polinares, a European project researching the effects of conflict on peace and economic development, released a report in 2013 entitled Coltan, Congo, and Conflict, addressing concerns about common misconceptions of coltan and violence in the DRC.

Initiatives seeking to limit the revenues of armed rebel groups assume that mineral revenues from trading coltan are responsible for continued fighting in the DRC. In response, Polinares argues that little convincing evidence exists suggesting these initiatives will significantly reduce violence in the region.

In reality, the underlying causes of conflict are much more complex, and unless these risks for conflict are addressed and resolved, rebels will simply shift from trading minerals to other sources of revenue.

History of the DRC

The Democratic Republic of Congo is an incredibly diverse country in central Africa with more than 200 distinct ethnic groups. Since its independence from Belgian colonial rule in 1960, the DRC has suffered repeated outbreaks of violence and lingering conflict between numerous parties, from the national army to various ethnic groups and neighbouring countries.

drc

Image courtesy of: USAID 

The most recent conflicts include the First Congo War (1996-97), ignited by the cross-border impact of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the Second Congo War (1998-2003), considered the deadliest war in modern African history.

What’s causing such staggering amounts violence?

According to Polinares, there are many contributing factors, not the least of which was the 32-year dictatorial reign of Joseph Mobutu, a leader more concerned with personal gain rather than his country’s welfare. Associated with his rule are the degradation of infrastructure, an increasingly incapable government, and persisting absence of national cohesion. Together, these factors have rendered the DRC a “failed state”.

What is coltan?

Short for columbite-tantalite, coltan derives most of its value by the percentage of tantalum contained in it. Because the mineral is light and durable, electronics producers extensively use it in products such as cell phones, computers, and automotive electronics.

320px-Ferrocolumbite-Manganotantalite-rh3-36a

Piece of coltan ore. Courtesy of: www.creativecommons.org

In Africa, the DRC is the largest producer of coltan, with 14 mining sites in the North Kivu province and nine in the South Kivu in the east. While some assert that the DRC accounts for 60% of the world’s production of coltan, the reality is much closer to 8%, meaning the DRC is nowhere near the top global producer.

The real impact of coltan on violence in the DRC

With the DRC’s complicated history of violence, explaining the role of coltan is similarly complex. The media and initiatives seeking to stop the purchasing of coltan from the DRC believe the mineral to be a key motivator of armed groups to fight in the region, characterizing it as a conflict mineral.

In reality, the relationship between coltan and the conflict isn’t so straightforward.

Statistical analyses indicate that some mineral resources may lengthen pre-existing wars, suggesting that coltan and other minerals may be responsible for prolonging recent conflicts in the Congo.

But while an abundance of natural resources, like coltan, may be an additional factor that increases the likelihood of conflict, it is by no means the only driver of violence.

According to Polinares, many factors that substantially increase the risk of civil war or violence are present in the DRC. These include a large territory, ethnic diversity and declining living standards. Another factor relevant to the DRC is conflict in neighbouring countries, which includes the civil war and genocide in Rwanda and civil war in Angola.

It seems, then, that unless these structural and political causes are appropriately confronted, conflict will persist, and lobbying for the end of purchasing coltan from conflict regions is just the tip of the iceberg of a very large, very complex issue.

UBC students launch new project to support Ethiopian girls’ education

Tori Wong on December 22, 2015

The 7dayringproject is a brand new local initiative dedicated to promoting girls’ education, founded and run by two third-year UBC students in the Sauder School of Business, Taylor Davis and Peony Au.

The inspiration for the project came from Davis’ trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia after her first year where she helped host business workshops for local entrepreneurs with UBC’s Arc Initiative. It was here that she met Salem Kassahun.

Kassahun owns Salem’s Designs, creating and selling beautiful handcrafted Ethiopian jewellery, textiles, and gifts in Addis. What inspired Davis and Au to work with her is that in addition to being a strong businesswoman, Kassahun also seeks to benefit her community with every business decision she makes.

From empowering her employees through training and fair wages to sponsoring the schooling and education of children in the community, she does her part to fight Addis’ overwhelming poverty and leave the world in a better place.

Image courtesy of the 7dayringproject

Noticing the “7 day ring” in Kassahun’s shop one day, Davis learned it represents the seven days of the week and serves as a reminder that we have two choices every day: to make the most of it or let it pass us by.

After buying a ring for herself, Davis says she “fell in love with the personal reminder to seize everyday.”

An initiative is born

In the spirit of social entrepreneurship, Davis and Au teamed up to bring the 7dayring to Canada. With their combined specializations in human resources, marketing, and accounting and their a mutual passion for “doing good” with business, the 7dayringproject was born!

The process is simple: the project purchases Kassahun’s rings from Ethiopia, sells them in Canada, covers its distribution and operation costs, and donates the proceeds to the Girl Fund of Imagine1Day, an organization in Ethiopia dedicated to gender equity and girls’ education.

[vimeo 147983359 w=500 h=281]

THE7DAYRINGPROJECT from Nano Clow on Vimeo.

With so many issues involving poverty that need addressing, I asked Davis and Au why they chose the cause of girls’ education to support. Davis took the lead, recalling Kassahun’s sponsorship of a young girl named Kiddist, a daughter of an employee. In their community, Kiddist had little opportunity to attend a strong educational program. Noticing her potential, Kassahun sponsored Kiddist’s schooling.

Now, Kiddist is the top of her class, in the top four in Addis and is set to receive a full-ride university scholarship. “We want to create more success stories like Kiddist’s and to foster the next generation of female leaders, like Salem!”

It’s very clear that Davis and Au have high hopes for the 7dayringproject and a passion to push the initiative as far as it will go.

Davis explains, “the heart of the project really goes back to the fundamental purpose of the Arc Initiative – to use your skills and education to have a positive impact.”  Jumping in, Au says the initiative feeds her drive to empower people to find their potential.

With Christmas just around the corner, the 7dayring is the perfect gift for the do-gooder in your life who’s passionate about making a difference in an ethical way. Because the project buys the rings straight from Ethiopia through Kassahun, it aids in injecting money back into the Ethiopian economy, allowing Kassahun to continue helping her community.

The ring not only represents the importance of seizing every day, but each purchase also supports girls in Ethiopia to do the same thing by making education a reality for them.

Click here to visit the 7dayringproject’s website, learn more about their story and business model, and purchase a ring or two!

Why initiatives like the 7dayringproject matter

In 2015, the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a series of commitments that aim to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change. Two specific goals of the SDGs are the deliverance of quality education and gender equality.

In development work, it’s well known that empowering women and girls is key to breaking the cyclical nature of poverty, and to empower is to educate. Due to harmful gender stereotypes, poverty, and early pregnancies and marriage, many girls and young women don’t complete their educations.

According to UNESCO statistics, 31 of 57 million children not in primary school are girls while 493 million of the world’s illiterate population are women.

Just how important is girls’ education and how much does it really contribute to fighting poverty? UN Women notes that improved education accounts for 50% of economic growth in OECD countries, a group of wealthy Western nations, in the last fifty years. Half of that growth statistic is a result of more women in higher education.

For developing countries, ensuring girls are able to obtain and complete primary and secondary educations will be a difficult task, as they must also deal with other dimensions of poverty, such as health, to render education effective.

In spite of this, the value of ensuring girls’ educations is no less important. In a PR statement, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova confidently states, “We know increasing the education of adolescent girls and young women carries impact across generations. We know education is the best cure against transmission of HIV/AIDS from mother to child. We know it is the best way to avert child marriage. We know if all women completed primary education, we could reduce by 70 per cent the number of women dying in childbirth in sub-Saharan Africa – saving over 100,000 lives every year.”

 

Editorial: Small-scale farmers set hopes high for Paris climate change conference

Tori Wong on December 6, 2015

UN member countries, non-governmental organizations, lobbyist groups and UN agencies represented their interests in the development of a universal agreement on climate change at the COP21 climate change conference in Paris, with many expecting great results.

Fairtrade International, one of the largest fair trade certification groups – part of a movement asking consumers to pay a little more for a product to help the people who produce it – is one such organization.

In a short video series featuring farmers from across the globe, from Kenya to Peru to India, Fairtrade sparks a discussion on the monumental importance of reducing climate change.

What’s so important about COP21?

Climate change has begun to be a front and centre issue for both developed and developing countries today; meetings like COP serve as valuable opportunities for the global community to work together towards a common goal of reducing the effects of global warming.

Within COP21 is the Lima-Paris Action Agenda (LPAA), a platform where countries and non-governmental actors discuss their respective interests in order to reach an agreement on cooperative climate change action.

The LPAA highlights in a statement both the mounting threat of climate change against agriculture and the fact that agriculture accounts for 24% of greenhouse gas emissions, major contributors to global warming. This is a key concern for Fairtrade because many of their partners’ livelihoods are agricultural.

The LPAA proposed initiatives focusing on four areas: soils in agriculture, food losses and waste, sustainable production, and resilience of farmers. Partnerships developed within the LPAA will commit money and technical knowledge towards supporting farmers in developed and developing countries to become key actors in the global drive to reduce climate change.
[vimeo 147620976 w=500 h=281]

Fairtrade farmers

The farmers featured in Fairtrade’s video series are members of cooperatives – jointly-owned businesses that share profits with members, in their countries – partnering with Fairtrade to ensure that members receive fair payment for their goods.

Generally, Fairtrade partners are farmers or artisans who partner with the organization as a way to combat the highly competitive nature of free trade that would pay them very low prices for their work. These competitive prices are not enough for them to survive on.

With agriculture as their livelihoods, they understandably have many concerns about climate change and how COP21 decisions will directly affect them.

Mabraat Kabbada harvesting coffee cherries.

Their thoughts on COP21

The farmers in Fairtrade’s videos express a sense of urgency about COP21. From Kenya to India to Mexico, climate change is affecting small-scale farmers in devastating ways.

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“It doesn’t rain when it should, and it rains when it shouldn’t,” says Luis Martínez Villanueva, a representative from Mexico. Changing weather patterns are problematic for farmers, driving down production by causing droughts and crop diseases. With falling production, farmers’ incomes are falling, too.

Facing such grim realities, farmers set their hopes high for COP21. Victor Biwot, a tea farmer from Kenya, says he’d like to see more activities spearheaded by developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to support African farmers to adopt energy efficient methods.

A representative of the Suminter India Organic Farmers Consortium, Benny Mathew, demonstrates that solar power allows farmers to dry 500g of seeds using 250kg instead of 1500kg of firewood. By using a more sustainable energy source, farmers in Kerala, India are able to do more work at less cost to the environment.

Making moves towards greener energy use and reducing greenhouse gas emissions may seem like moving a mountain, but to small-scale farmers, it will be life-changing.

“We need to have high expectations even if we don’t reach them,” Villanueva continues, “small changes in big countries mean that small countries can have high hopes.”