In Need of a Reminder

My studies in international development are progressing nicely, and I like all of my courses this semester. In addition, I am involved in some excellent student groups and research projects. But beyond the heavy workload, I have been feeling very... distant. I think it is because I have been in school long enough now to feel very disconnected from the very issues I am studying. This feeling has reminded me how important it is to stay in touch in development. Extreme poverty, inequitable trade policies, famine, deforestation, oppressive governments... these are more than just words in academic papers. They all have real effects on people in real places. As do words like: innovation, activism, self-sufficiency, protest, and participation. The longer we stay away from the faces behind these issues, the more detached we become. I am in need of a reminder of why I am here and studying to become a development practitioner. I am working on that, trying to get back "into the field" soon. In the meantime, I can already tell that this will be a continuing concern throughout my career. And a concern for any practitioner or academic. Let us all endeavor to stay connected in a real way.

On a lighter development studies note, I totally agree with BlattBlog on this one.

Franco-Malagasy Collusion to Undermine SADC

Last weekend was a wild one in Antananarivo, the capital of Madagascar. Former President Marc Ravalomanana tried to return to his homeland to meet 30,000 supporters at the airport, but his flight was turned back before it could enter Malagasy airspace by current "transitional" President Andry Rajoelina. Here is my favorite recap of that day so far, which includes the line "The ride had been rockier than Def Leppard in their crotch-guitaring prime."

Now allAfrica has a report directly criticizing France for colluding with Rajoelina's government to keep Ravalomanana out of Madagascar, thereby undermining the SADC's roadmap and overall attempts to end the almost-three-year-long political crisis that started with a coup. Here is the biggest claim in the article:

Security services in the region say they are aware of a 6-point strategy devised by Paris and Antananarivo to prevent Ravalomanana from returning. According to these sources, Rajoelina, his heads of security and France decided to:
Deploy security forces loyal to Rajoelina inside the Ivato International Airport in Antananarivo.
Deploy Rajoelina supporters outside the airport to antagonise and destabilise the estimated 100 000 Ravalomanana supported expected at the airport to welcome him home.
Issue statements threatening the Ravalomanana supporters with arrest.
Threaten to arrest Ravalomanana on arrival.
Lobby the international community to persuade SADC not to allow Ravalomanana back.
As a last resort, issue a Notice to All Airmen (NOTAM) to deny landing rights to all airlines. This effectively closed down the country's airspace.

The link between France and Rajoelina has been alluded to for a long time, especially in Madagascar where Ravalomanana supporters (and even some of his opponents but supporters of democracy) claimed France was behind Rajoelina's power grab. The claim at the time was that Ravalomanana had shifted business focus from France to regional neighbors, China, US, etc... While the facts suggested a connection, there was no real evidence of French involvement. Now allAfrica is claiming there is. This is very interesting times for followers of Malagasy politics and sovereignty and conflict resolution...

Fundraising for Local Madagascar NGO Community Center (and other follow-up links)

The Peace Corps Volunteer who was in Amparafaravola with me, Teena, has launched a Peace Corps Partnership project with the local NGO "ONG Zahatra" to build a community center. Teena describes the project:

ZAHATRA plans to construct a center equipped with proper dining and lavatory facilities which will allow it to expand its services to 30 children and their families. This crucial intervention will not only restore the health of the children and give them the education they need to break the cycle of poverty, it will restore the dignity of their guardians by providing them with the vocational training, skills and materials they need to earn a living and provide for their children.

You can see her full post here. You can also go directly to the Peace Corps site to contribute here.
Longtime readers of this blog may recall my brief work with ONG Zahatra (about half way down, second paragraph under If a Coup happens and no one cares...). As a reminder, I spent some time playing with the kids and talking a bit about nutrition, brought them some educational posters and books, and trained the staff on moringa trees. Here are a few photos:

Henri teaching about nutrition

The kids teaching themselves

ONG Zahatra planting Moringa seeds

The Moringa trees starting to grow 

The kids eating their healthy meals

This organization is pretty special, driven by dedicated Malagasy who want to improve their own community. So take a look at the project and help out if you can!

A few other follow-up links from previous posts:
-Here is a link to the video from the Sudan talk I mentioned a few months ago.
-In case you are interested in the rice experiment I mentioned, here is a nice video showing the researcher using an Android tablet to determine fertilizer amounts:


-Nice write-up on Zimbabwe here, a good piece after my conflicted feelings from Mugabe and the White African.

Practice What You Preach: Rice Edition

Sure, best management practices sound great in theory, but do they work in reality? Often times, experts preach certain techniques or methods without any first-hand knowledge of their success rates. Well over the next few months, two experts from the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) want to change that. They have embarked on the IRRI Agronomy Challenge, an attempt by two experts to grow a high-yielding rice crop themselves at the IRRI research center in the Philippines. Specifically, they are aiming for a 7 ton yield. Their approach:

We have chosen a single field of 0.25 ha size (25 x 100 m), which is quite typical for Asian rice farming. The soil is a deep, heavy clay. The location is in the humid tropics. In the dry season rice needs to be grown with irrigation.
We will obtain all information on recommended Best Management Practices (BMPs) from publicly available IRRI sources, particularly the Rice Knowledge Bank. We will do most field operations ourselves, to experience on the ground what works and what doesn’t. We’ll adjust as we go, just as a farmer would do while learning.
We will explain and document what we’re doing and we’ll share our experiences with you.

One of the experts, Achim Dobermann, described his motivation to take on this challenge as follows: "As a scientist and research leader I have been involved in rice research for 25 years, in many countries. My own research background is in soil science and agronomy, areas in which I have published numerous scientific articles and also a few books. But there is something that I keep wondering about: why is it that many of the research findings and technologies developed by scientists don’t seem to be used by rice farmers?"

This sort of practice, and the accompanying transparency in the results (the two are blogging weekly and recording short youtube videos at each stage of the crop's progression), is very refreshing. Granted, they are using some heavy machinery, so it is not identical to the implementation of rural farmers. But it is a step in the right direction, and hopefully other experts will work to implement their techniques before propagating them!  You can follow along at the blog here to see if they succeed or fail!

Check Out This Agricultural Mobile Data Collection Project

Here is a post I wrote for Columbia SIPA's New Media Task Force blog, focusing on the work of Eric Couper, the ICT and Agriculture Coordinator for the Africa Soil Information Service, leading an ICT4Ag Pilot Survey. His survey was conducted with Android devices running Open Data Kit. Click here for the full article.