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Issue 03
Middle East, North Africa and South Asia
October – December 2013
Life lessons How education and job creation can change the Arab world Karachi uncovered
Bridging the gap
A century of giving
Transforming young lives on the streets of the fastest-growing city in the world
The Saudi women crossing the gender gulf and making an impact in the workplace
The Rockefeller Foundation’s journey from a family charity to an icon of philanthropy
Contents
Contents...
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Regulars 08 10 12 14 72 74 79
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Need to know
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The forgotten children How one charity is bringing life-saving cardiac surgery and much-needed expertise to hundreds of children in Iraq
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A nation displaced What next for the millions of refugees fleeing war-torn Syria – and for the countries that host them?
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The next generation The new ventures providing opportunities to Egyptian entrepreneurs in the wake of the Arab Spring
The Moment Global Eye Guest Column One Day Making a Difference The Next Step
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Crossing the gender gulf With the help of non-profit organisations, Saudi women are slowly carving a niche for themelves in the labour market
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Ghetto superstar Music legend Quincy Jones discusses his lifetime of giving, from We Are The World to the fight to end third-world debt
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A century of giving How the US-based Rockefeller Foundation grew from a familyrun organisation, to a global icon of philanthropy
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Karachi uncovered We visit Karachi and go behind the scenes at the Aman Foundation, which is transforming lives through education and vocational training
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Contributors
With our thanks to...
Badr Jafar
Badr Jafar is a leading Emirati businessman and philanthropist. His charitable projects include founding the Pearl Initiative, a venture with the UN Office for Partnerships to promote corporate accountability in the Middle East, and launching the non-profit Middle East Theatre Academy with the US actor Kevin Spacey. In this issue, he makes the business case for socially responsible investing.
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Jonathan Kalan
Jonathan Kalan is an award-winning photographer and journalist who has worked for the New York Times, the Guardian, BBC, the Financial Times, the Huffington Post, Associated Press, and the International Federation of the Red Cross, among others. In this issue, he examines the emergence of a new generation of entrepreneurs in Egypt.
Peter Guest
An award-winning journalist focusing on international development and environmental issues, Peter Guest writes for the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Guardian, among other publications. In this issue, Peter explores the long-term plight of refugees – and the countries that shelter them.
Tarik Yousef
Tarik Yousef is the CEO of Silatech, a Qatar-based social initiative focused on improving employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for young people throughout the wider Arab world. In this issue, Tarik writes that organisations working with young people need to approach prospective donors with more than just requests for funding.
Omer Waiz
Omer Waiz is a freelance photographer, graphic artist and videographer based in Karachi, Pakistan. He has worked with a number of organisations including SIUT, IUCN, Group M and Geo Television, and in this issue turns his lens on the disadvantaged youth of his home city.
Editor’s Letter
Philanthropy Age is published by Touchline FZ-LLC The publishers regret that they cannot accept liability for errors or omissions contained in the publication, for whatever reason, however caused. The opinions and views contained in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. The publishers take no responsibility for the goods and services advertised. All materials are protected by copyright. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photography or storage in any medium by electronic means) without the written permission of the copyright owner, except as may be permitted by applicable laws.
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Senior Editor Andrew White andrew@touchline.ae
Editor & Web Editor Joanne Bladd joanne@touchline.ae
Arabic Editor Fawaz Jarrah fawaz@touchline.ae
Publishing Director Salem AlShaikh
COO Waleed Gubara waleed@touchline.ae
Translation Zaineb Bouftass
Business Development Mona Mahmoud mona@touchline.ae
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Touchline FZ LLC Studio Ahmad Marei; Anas Ahmad Albounni; Michel Al Asmar; Qaiser Nawaz; Sam Birouty
Contributors: Badr Jafar; Tarik Yousef; Peter Guest; Adrienne Cernigoi; Tara Gally; Jason Simmons; Chris Assig; Jonathan Kalan Images: Getty Images; Reuters; Omar Waiz; PLC; BRAC; FBMI; Kiva; Rockefeller Foundation; Women For Women International ISSN: 2305–6525 Distributed by: GLS Media Services Printed by: Emirates Printing Press, Dubai
Rethinking education Children aren’t the only ones who have a lot to learn: despite their best efforts, many governments in the MENASA region are falling woefully short in their attempts to provide the economic security and opportunity that their peoples crave. The numbers are bleak. One out of every three people in the Arab world is under the age of 15, and around 75 million new jobs will need to be created by 2020, just to keep pace with this youth bulge. However, one in four people between the ages of 15 and 24 in the region is already unemployed. There are 6.3 million children of primary school age not attending school in the Arab world, and although this number has been falling, it is apparent that positive progress in school enrollment has not translated to positive progress in the youth labour market. In this issue of Philanthropy Age we explore themes of education, vocational training and job creation. We visit Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, each wildly different nations but each with one thing in common: there’s a disconnect between the education and employment needs of the youth population, and what the government is able to provide. In each instance, it will be up to non-governmental organisations, the private sector and individuals to bridge the gap. Some cast the Arab world’s burgeoning youth demographic as a timebomb, an explosive charge with the potential to reduce the region to rubble. Those featured in the following pages prefer to think of it as a potential dividend, one that could place the region’s economies among the most competitive in the world. Let’s listen to them, and learn from them. Andrew White Editor, Philanthropy Age The publishers seek to broaden the knowledge and understanding of good philanthropy and do not seek to promote the interests of any one individual, organisation or agenda. Individuals and organisations are featured solely according to the merits of their philanthropic endeavours. Go interactive with Philanthropy Age and Blippar! Just follow these simple instructions: (You can download the Blippar application for free from Apple App store and Google Play)
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Need to Know
Nine things you should know... 1
Child marriage debate reignited The death of an 8-year-old Yemeni girl on her wedding night made global headlines in September, reviving debate about child brides. Extreme poverty can drive families in Yemen to marry off young daughters to secure dowry money and save on the costs of bringing up a child. Data from the UN and government estimate almost 14 per cent of Yemeni girls marry before the age of 15. Human Rights Watch in 2011 urged the Arab state to ban the marriage of girls under 18, warning that child brides are deprived of an education and at risk of health issues. No such law has been passed to date. The issue is not confined to Yemen. Worldwide, some 39,000 girls become child brides each day, according to estimates from the United Nations’ population fund (UNFPA). In August, the US-based Kendeda Fund awarded $23m to NGOs in India, Bangladesh and Nepal to help end child marriage. More funding is needed to tackle the social and economic issues that lead to early marriage.
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2 The UN high-level panel, the body tasked with shaping the post2015 development agenda, has urged the United Nations to recognise the absence of child marriage as a key indicator of female empowerment in country rankings.
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$1
bn
The amount that Britain has pledged to donate across three years to The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The news was given in September by the country’s international development secretary, at the United Nations in New York
Need to Know
“We won’t hit all of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. But we have achieved the largest reduction in child deaths ever recorded. I dare anyone to call that a failure” Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 4
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India accounts for 22 per cent of all underfive deaths, according to UN data. Global under-five deaths have fallen 47 per cent since 1990, but the highest rates remain in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Child mortality rates need to improve by 4 per cent a year to reach the Millennium Development Goal of a two-thirds reduction in deaths by 2015. What more can be done to help these countries?
More than half of the Middle East and North Africa’s working age population is unemployed or inactive, according to the World Bank, reflecting the urgent need to buoy private sector growth and job creation
Food insecurity is threatening efforts to reduce poverty in South Asia. The region, particularly India, Bangladesh and Nepal, is home to nearly one-third of the world’s undernourished people, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. Tackling this will be critical to efforts to lift the region out of poverty.
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At least 20 per cent of the aid money rich countries give to developing nations is never delivered, new research has claimed. Analysts at the UK body Development Initiatives estimate that at least $22bn of the $100bn-plus pledged as official development assistance (ODA) in 2011 was never transferred to recipient countries. With better data, the report says, the planning and delivery of aid resources would be more efficient.
“When someone’s house is on fire and you choose to ignore their pleas for help, that fire could rapidly spread until your own house is ablaze” Sheikha Jawaher bint Mohammed Al Qasimi urges the world to do more to aid those affected by the Syrian crisis
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The Moment
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the moment
Friday, October 9th, 2012
The voice for millions O
ne year ago, two Taliban militants boarded a school bus in northwestern Pakistan in search of a 15-year-old girl. Seconds later, they shot Malala Yousafzai in the head, leaving her slumped and bleeding beside her horrified schoolfriends. The gunmen could not have imagined the impact their actions would have for Pakistan, and the wider world. Malala was attacked for her outspoken criticism of the Taliban’s ban on female education. Against the odds, she survived. Today, the voice they tried to silence has been amplified beyond what anyone could have thought possible. At 16, Malala has been transformed into the world’s highest-profile educational activist, turning the global spotlight on the nearly 60 million out-of-school children around the world. From addressing the United Nations to an audience with US President Barack Obama, she has pressed the case for ensuring education for all. By any measure, she is the voice of her generation. Malala was this year nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She may not have won, but there is little doubt she is a heroine in the eyes of millions. In a recent interview with the BBC, Malala was asked what she thought the militants had achieved that day in Pakistan. “I think they may be regretting that they shot Malala,” she said. “Now, she is heard in every corner of the world.” n
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Global Eye
A lost generation Syria’s bloody two-and-a-half year conflict is today the world’s largest humanitarian crisis. Some 2.1 million people have fled the fighting, surging across borders to neighbouring Arab states, while more than half of Syria’s estimated 20 million people need aid. The bloodshed has claimed 115,000 lives, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said October 1, with an estimated 5,000 soldiers, rebels and civilians dying in September alone. With little sign of an end to the crisis, aid agencies are scrambling to prepare for a third winter of war. As refugee numbers continue to rise, the United Nations has called for urgent global aid to help the countries shouldering the heaviest burden: Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. Part of that funding will focus on trying to save Syria’s children from becoming a lost generation. Women and children comprise two-third of
the refugee population, many arriving in UN camps with little more than the clothes on their backs. Nearly 2 million Syrian children have dropped out of school over the last year, the United Nations said in September, another grim marker of the devastation caused by the war. Without further funding, the future of these children – and that of their families – appears increasingly bleak.
The human cost of war More than 2 million Syrian refugees are hosted in the Middle East, the majority spread across hastily erected camps in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq. Conditions are severe, and likely to worsen as the exodus continues. More than 1 million people fled the Syrian war in the first five months of 2013 alone, a dramatic explosion. If current trends persist, the UN refugee agency predicts more than 3 million Syrians will have fled their country by the end of 2013. Lebanon 779,038* The UN has urged Jordan 534,418* the developed world to Turkey 500,273* provide protective or Iraq 194,644* Egypt 127,411* temporary resettlement Europe 20,776** for vulnerable refugees, Canada/USA 1,044** but the response has been Japan 171** Australia 85** muted. Resettlement programmes so far cover about 10,000 people – a drop in the ocean of the wider Syrian refugee population. * Source: UNHCR Regional Response, Oct 3, 2013 ** Asylum claims from Syrian citizens, lodged between Jan-July, 2013. Source: UNHCR
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GlobaL EYE
Safeguarding Syria’s future Almost an entire generation of Syrian children have dropped out of school due to the ongoing violence in their home country. For those living in refugee camps, the picture is equally stark; few neighbouring Arab states are able to accommodate the influx of children within their public school systems. A third or less of the Syrian children in Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan are in formal schooling, data from the UN children’s agency UNICEF shows, and their numbers are only likely to increase.
2 million
The number of Syrian children no longer in school, representing nearly 40 per cent of all pupils aged 6 to 15.
*Source: UNHCR, data correct as of October 2, 2013
A growing crisis The exodus of refugees from Syria shows no signs of slowing, while the number of citizens trapped in conflict zones within the country grows daily. As the Syrian economy collapses, it will become increasingly urgent for aid agencies to deliver food, water and other emergency supplies to those affected by the war. More than half of Syria’s population now requires aid, and that number will continue to rise.
*Source: UNHCR, data correct as of October 2, 2013
$161m Level of funding requested
$51m
Falling short Aid agencies desperately need funding to continue their efforts to help Syria’s refugees and displaced citizens. The UN in June launched the biggest emergency appeal in its history – for $5bn – to support the victims of war, and ease the strain on host countries in the region.
$2.98bn
Level of funding
received
Amount requested by the United Nations
$1.39bn Level of funding received to date
The UN children’s agency has appealed for $470m in funding to support its efforts in Syria. Education is its least funded sector. Of the $161m requested, the aid agency has received just $51m.
The UN refugee agency called for $2.98bn to support its efforts in Syria, with Arab states and aid agencies requesting a further $2.2bn. As of October 2, just 47 per cent of the funding called for by the United Nations had been received. *Source: UNHCR, data correct as of October 2, 2013
6 million
The projected number of internally displaced people within Syria by end-2013
4.25 million
The number of internally displaced people within Syria to date
3.5 million
The projected number of Syrian refugees by end-2013, based on current trends
2.1 million
The number of Syrian refugees that have fled the fighting
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Guest Column
The rise of the social entrepreneur Emirati businessman Badr Jafar makes the business case for socially responsible investing, and its role in the future of the Arab world he Arab world is going through a period of unprecedented change. A lack of economic opportunities for millions of young Arabs has resulted in a youth unemployment rate of close to 40 per cent. Compounding this problem is the region’s bulging population, 65 per cent of which is under 30. The population of the Arab world has expanded by about 50 per cent since the 1990s, and is set to grow the same again by 2030. Research has shown that most new, net job creation in developed countries is driven by small businesses, which generate between 60 and 80 per cent of positions. By contrast, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Arab world create less than 20 per cent of jobs. This makes investing in the SME sector paramount, particularly when we consider that simply to halt the rise of youth unemployment, the region must create more than 120 million new jobs over the next 20 years. That’s more than we have succeeded in creating over the past century. Social responsibility is a multi-stakeholder process, which must be promoted
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About the writer Badr Jafar, managing director of Crescent Group, is a leading Emirati businessman and philanthropist. His charitable projects include founding the Pearl Initiative, a venture with the UN Office for Partnerships to promote corporate accountability in the Middle East, and launching the non-profit Middle East Theatre Academy with the US actor Kevin Spacey
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from the home to the school, and from the government to the wider business community. Through socially responsible investment, we can begin to tackle our region’s socio-economic challenges head on. This is social entrepreneurship, and it can be achieved by one and all. Public-private-people partnerships have proven that the transfer of skills and knowledge to youth can be systematic, institutionalised and successful, when led by the private sector and enabled by the public sector. When this is combined with a triple-bottom-line approach to business – targeting profits, people and the planet – we potentially have the recipe for a truly successful and sustainable regional Arab economy. So what is social entrepreneurship? It is the act of utilising the private sector – through incentive-based partnerships with the public sector – global agencies and the non-profit sector, to embrace the many issues that face our increasingly globalised society, and integrating this approach into the fabric of our business models. Across the global community, the days of defining a successful business as simply a profitable business are rapidly coming to an end. Business models are increasingly ranked not only by profit, but also by their
The days of defining a successful business as just a profitable business are coming to an end
guest column
positive and measurable impact on society and the environment. The days of either/or thinking, or the belief that there is a zero-sum calculation to be made while investing in business, are over. We are in a world now where businesses can do good, while doing well. Impact investing, which is key to driving social entrepreneurship, means the two can co-exist within a shared framework of returns and broader community impact. The emerging model is one where community benefit and sustainability are what drives the value creation required by investors to achieve their profit demands.
This is the repackaging of capitalism into what is now being referred to as creative capitalism; or the reorganisation of our marketplace to reconcile our financial interests with the need to deliver on our responsibilities to our societies and to our environment. Already the opportunities for this model are growing rapidly. A recent report from consultancy group Monitor Deloitte estimates the impact investing industry will swell from $50bn in assets, to more than $500bn within the next decade.
Above The lack of employment opportunities in the Arab world was a key trigger in the civil unrest that swept the Middle East and North Africa in 2011
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, is a case in point. Founded in 1981, the company promotes global social entrepreneurship, a term first coined by its founder, Bill Drayton. Since its launch, Ashoka has been one of the world’s leading facilitators of business-led innovation focused on social impact. Ashoka Arab World, which launched in 2003, has already nurtured social enterprises ranging from microfinance institutions and online education platforms for the poor, to low-cost sewerage systems in congested rural communities and job placement platforms for the disabled. Its sustainable and scalable business models have directly affected the lives of more than 10 million people across seven countries in the Arab world. For the GCC states, this is a time of opportunity. Business leaders across the six Gulf countries have worked unceasingly to ensure that our markets play a vital role in the global economy, and that the cornerstones of this vision embrace the values which from time immemorial have been part of our collective consciousness: respect for life, human dignity and worth; responsibility towards future generations; and protection of our habitat. The time is now ideal for the GCC’s uniquely placed markets to lead this new business culture across the wider Arab world. Our domestic talent pool, our exposure to international standards of best practice, and the vision of our leadership are ideally qualified to drive positive change within our business communities, and across the region. n
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Philanthropy Age
Healthcare in Iraq:
The forgotten children BY  Joanne Bladd
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Philanthropy Age
or much of the world’s media, Iraq is no longer news. Ten years on from the US-led invasion, its struggles have been eclipsed by calamities in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere. Among those on the ground, however, the legacy of years of sanctions and war is harder to overlook; particularly for those working on the frontline of Iraq’s overstretched healthcare system. For years, doctors across the nation have reported a stark rise in birth defects and early-life cancers, a spike that some speculate may be linked to toxic materials left over from decades of fighting. The country’s healthcare system, drained from a scarcity of trained staff, funding and vital supplies, is utterly unequipped to help. Cody Fisher, an American who arrived in Iraq in 2007 to aid in the reconstruction effort, found the scale of the problem impossible to ignore. “Almost as soon as I arrived, I began to meet children with
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heart defects,” he says. “Day after day we’d see children, or parents who’d ask; ‘Can you help my child?’ There were thousands across the country, just waiting in line.” Little help was available. With no surgeon in Iraq able to carry out the corrective open-heart surgery required, parents were instead often told to take their child abroad for treatment, typically at the cost of thousands of dollars. “For most families here, especially in southern Iraq, that was just aiming for the moon,” says Fisher. “There was no way they could come up with the money. So they’d
just have to take their sick child home again.” Spurred into action, Fisher co-founded the Preemptive Love Coalition (PLC) in 2007, with fellow US development worker Jeremy Courtney. The non-profit organisation pairs with other charities to provide hands-on training to local medical teams, helping to carry out lifesaving cardiac surgery for hundreds of Iraqi children each year. These intricate skills are passed on by teams of volunteer foreign doctors and nurses, who spend up to two
Above PLC carried out more than 180 operations across Iraq in 2012, made possible by funding from private donors and volunteer medical professionals
“Day after day we’d see children, or parents who’d ask; ‘Can you help my child?’ There were thousands across the country, just waiting in line”
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Philanthropy Age
Main Iraq’s healthcare system has been devastated by war and sanctions, leading to a significant spike in infant mortality and morbidity rates
weeks at a time touring hospitals in Iraq’s key cities. Each ‘remedy mission’ treats between 15 and 25 children, generating hundreds of hours of critical training for local medics. “We love that we play a part in saving hundreds of lives each year,” says Fisher. “But the biggest thing is the training that takes place during each mission. That is what will save thousands of lives every year, well into the future.”
In 2012, each of PLC’s 184 operations cost around $8,592. These expenses are met in part by the Iraqi government, but are also subsidised by donations from partner charities, medical companies and contributions from private donors. This financial aid, along with the time and skills donated without charge by medical staff, is vital in helping Iraq’s backlog of sick children receive treatment, before their condition deteriorates.
“The biggest thing is training. That is what will save thousands of lives every year, well into the future”
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“We are here because of the generosity of others, and we will be here five years from now because of the generosity of others,” says Fisher. “We welcome anyone – supporters or medical volunteers – who is willing to be involved in this work.” Iraq’s hospitals were once the envy of the Middle East, offering free medical care from well-trained physicians. War, and the economic noose of sanctions, devastated its medical industry, with visible consequences. According to a study published in the Lancet in 2000, infant mortality in Iraq stood at 47 deaths per 1,000 live births before the UN imposed sanctions in 1990. Between 1994 and 1999, the figure more than doubled, to 108. By 2008, some 75 per cent of Iraq’s doctors, nurses and
Philanthropy Age
pharmacists had left their jobs, a report by the health organisation Medact found, with more than half fleeing the country. Children continue to bear the brunt of the country’s broken healthcare system. Up to 100 infants die each day in Iraq, the charity War Child said in a May report, while one in four suffers from stunted physical and intellectual development due to under-nutrition. For the medical staff working daily in the country’s overburdened hospitals, says Fisher, it can be difficult to imagine a return to normality. “The circumstances can be overwhelming,” he says. “When you live under decades of sanctions and fighting, it’s incredibly hard for them to hopeful; to
believe that their heart centre has a future, and to feel as though it’s not too late.” PLC expects to complete seven ‘remedy missions’ in 2013. This year also saw the launch of the ‘remedy fellowship’, an extended outreach effort that stations volunteer medical teams in one hospital for 48 weeks. Through intensive training of local doctors and nurses, the goal is to create a fully equipped cardiology team, able to operate with minimal outside help. In total, PLC hopes to reach up to 400 children this year. “We’ve started it in Nasiriyah, in southern Iraq, and we really hope that in five years from now, they will be at the point where they don’t need us anymore,” says Fisher. “I really believe these heart
centres will eventually be operating on their own. That’s the goal.” PLC’s website carries a clutch of stories from children and parents whose lives have been transformed by the organisation. In one, Noman Kamil Hadi, a 52-year-old university professor from Najaf, cradles his baby son, Salem, who was born with a congenital heart defect. Diagnosed at just a few days old, Salem’s successful surgery is testimony to the vital work the charity is doing to help Iraq’s children. “I will not forget it, ever,” Hadi tells the camera in broken English. “Any people which helped us, which saved my son, thank you. Thank you.” n
Above PLC hopes to reach 400 children in 2013. This year also saw the launch of its ‘remedy fellowship’, which aims to create self-sufficient heart centres
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PHILANTHROPY AGE
A nation displaced Amid the desperate reality of the Syrian refugee crisis, it is difficult to look beyond the immediate needs of the displaced: food, water and medicine. However, the lessons of past humanitarian emergencies teach us that the global response must also look to address long-term considerations by Peter Guest he exodus of more than 2 million people from Syria into other Arab countries is one of the defining humanitarian crises of the 21st century, and one that could have massive implications for economic development and wellbeing in the nations that host them. Michel Gabaudan, now the president of Refugees International, spent 25 years with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR). He believes that the ongoing Syria conflict, which has displaced at least a third of the country’s population, recalls the massive movement of people from Afghanistan after the Russian invasion in 1979 – one of the largest and most protracted refugee crises in recent history. The global community is struggling to keep up with the basic requirement to provide for people who have abandoned their homes and livelihoods. The UN-led humanitarian appeal has not yet reached 50 per cent of its funding targets. “That’s serious, because for the aid agencies or the NGOs or the [host] governments, you need to respond to the needs, but you need to plan ahead a little bit,” Gabaudan says. “With the large arrivals
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that have been coming in the last months, what we’re seeing is that the conditions for refugees are getting worse over time, not better. That’s saddening, because certainly the conditions in Syria are not improving.” Tensions between refugees and their host populations are building too, Gabaudan warns. Worldwide, the UNHCR estimates that 80 per cent of refugees are hosted in developing countries, which have their own challenges when it comes to delivering basic services to their populations. In Lebanon and in Jordan, the number of people crossing the border and integrating into the local population is straining already-struggling economies and societies. In Lebanon, one-fifth of the population is now Syrian refugees. How a refugee population develops is contingent on the welcome and cooperation of the host country. The Burmese government’s failure to accept its Rohingya refugees, for example, is, according to Refugees International, the cause of persistent underdevelopment among that population. Preventing that kind of tension is a crucial part of any unified response.
Main Some 80 per cent of refugees are hosted by developing nations, many of which are battling with their own social and economic problems
PHILANTHROPY AGE
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PHILANTHROPY AGE
Connecting lives Isolated and traumatised, those caught up in humanitarian crises are even more vulnerable without access to news and information. At the same time, aid agencies need the most up-to-date data possible to respond to unfolding disasters. For both, the ubiquity of the mobile phone has made data collection and communication possible even in fast-moving and complex environments. Ushaidi, an SMS-based reporting platform developed by activists during Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007 and 2008, has become a standard among the crisis mapping movement – volunteer groups who help to collate reports from civil society and private individuals in crisis-hit countries. The system was deployed in Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake to collect information from the field, taking data directly from affected communities and using it to direct and refine the response among rescuers and aid agencies. For displaced communities themselves, crowdsourcing and mobile phones are being used by the Danish NGO Refugees United to reconnect families broken by war. Refugees can put their details onto the online, mobileenabled system and use its search tools to find and contact relatives.
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“A lot of what the Above Refugees are more likely to return to their home countries humanitarian community if they have been able to can do is constrained by access some form of economic what the host government’s opportunity while displaced attitude is,” says Simone Haysom, a research officer at the Humanitarian Policy Group in the UK’s Overseas Development Institute. “While I think that for a long time it’s been recognised that populations would like to be self-sufficient, that they need skills training, and access to credit, it’s just not something that’s always feasible for the humanitarian community to pursue.” Research also shows that refugees are more likely to return to their home countries if they’ve been able to access some form of economic opportunity while displaced. “It’s important, given the scale of the [Syrian displacement], that we don’t only look at this in terms of humanitarian aid,” Gabaudan says. “We want to bring as much support as we can to refugees. But we have to also take into account that the local population is severely impacted.
“I think we are getting to this critical point where the assistance to refugees has not been sufficient, where the impact on host countries is starting to be very serious, and countries are rethinking whether it is right for them to accept so many refugees.” Refugees in camps are easier to provide for through humanitarian mechanisms, but the majority of Syrian refugees have joined national populations in neighbouring Arab states, putting a strain on services. Coordination with the international development community, which works more consistently on these issues, is going to be vital, Gabaudan suggests. “What the humanitarian agencies can do is to identify the most vulnerable, to patch things up,” he says. “But they cannot address how [host] countries face massive aggression to their economies. You’re talking about countries that had their own problems, and were not in the best of circumstances even before the crisis.” What is certain is that the international community will need to plan for the long
“We want to bring as much support as we can to refugees. But we have to also take into account that the local population is severely impacted”
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term. While it is difficult to draw emphatic parallels between different regions and different conflicts, in Eastern and Central Africa, for example, lasting implications of war and displacement are still written on the landscape. In northern Kenya, Lokichoggio is what passes for an airport. Its shipping-crate arrivals lounge is luxurious next to the wooden poles and tarpaulin that make up the terminal at the airstrip in the county capital, Lodwar, 200km down a singlelane road to the south. At the midpoint between the two is Kakuma, a town whose name, apocryphally, means ‘nowhere’, and for two decades has been home to a wealth of human suffering. The Kakuma camp opened in 1992 to house refugees fleeing the civil war in Sudan and, 20 years on, it still holds 100,000 people crammed into a city of tents, wire mesh and drifting garbage. Today it houses Somalis, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Congolese, Rwandans, Ugandans and Burundians, all displaced by violence in their home countries. South Sudanese still cross the border to arrive at Kakuma while, further south, on the road to Lodwar, prefab houses have sprung up to shelter internally displaced Kenyans who fled the post-election violence that ravaged the country in 2007 and 2008. To the east, a camp of unimaginable magnitude – Dadaab, the near-
permanent home to Above In parts of Africa, the impact of war and displacement 600,000 refugees – sprawls is clear in the long-established across the semi-desert. camps that house hundreds of These refugee groups thousands of refugees are among the world’s most vulnerable and, years on, they are still in Kenya. Whole lives have been lived in that camp, and even with relative peace in newly independent South Sudan, a whole generation was uprooted and is ill prepared to return. Luka Biong Deng Kuol recalls the chaos. Kuol, who has worked in development and the NGO sector for most of his career, was working with the World Bank when the transition began, and served in a government of national unity created between the warring north and south of the country following the signature of a peace deal between the two. Now a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, he says that the early days of the transition – between coping with the humanitarian crisis and preparing to rebuild lives and livelihoods lost over decades of war – were understandably chaotic. “During the UN assessment mission, we did not comprehend the magnitude of the challenges ahead of us,” he says. “The transition from a humanitarian crisis to development was so optimistic. We did not move gradually.” The 2005 peace deal offered a chance of stability in South Sudan, and four years
later the country was offered a referendum to secede from the north and become an independent nation. The lack of access to basic services and education for Sudanese living as refugees internally, or in camps in Kenya and Ethiopia, created a lost generation who would struggle to integrate and find economic opportunities. This created huge challenges of capacity. Kuol remembers civil servants arriving with ancient typewriters to start a new country. Independence and reintegration has not been easy, and the country’s population is still heavily dependent on aid money. But the financial support that is still flowing in and around South Sudan is not enough to alleviate the tension and distress that still haunts the population. As the world tries to rebuild and repair the damage of the civil war in Syria for the people who left their country behind, Kuol’s experience is that the focus on reconciliation will be critical. “These are people coming out of war,” he says. “I think one of the things the international community [should learn] is about the healing process. Dealing with the legacies of the past is so important. Sometimes people tend to bury them, or not to focus on them. “People are dealing with the issues of the past, the things that have happened to them. For you to come along and say, ‘I want to provide health, education, water,’ that is not enough.” n
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Main Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi accounts for as much as one-third of the country’s economic activity, and 95 per cent of its foreign trade
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City of Lights With 3 million young people set to enter the labour force each year between 2015 and 2050, Pakistan’s government faces a huge challenge. We visit Karachi, the country’s largest city, where a groundbreaking training initiative is transforming the lives of underserved Pakistani youth by Andrew White t is as correct as it is convenient to label Karachi, the City of Lights, as a microcosm of Pakistan. The third-largest city in the world, Karachi is home to a huge cross-section of the country’s ethnicities and cultures. Of the estimated 40 million Pakistanis living below the poverty line, around 30 million live in rural areas, a disparity which has triggered an ongoing migration towards the country’s urban centres. Karachi is the fastest-growing city in the world, followed by Mexico City; its population is estimated to have swelled from 9.8 million in 1998 to 21.2 million in 2011, the steepest population increase recorded in any city over such a short period of time. Moreover, Karachi’s position as Pakistan’s premier seaport means that the nation’s industrial and commercial wellbeing is inextricably tied to the fortunes of this modern-day megacity. Karachi accounts for as much as one-third of Pakistan’s economic activity, 95 per cent of foreign trade and 70 per cent of tax receipts – a state of affairs that has emboldened the theory that if you can ‘fix’ Karachi, then you have a real shot at remodelling the country’s cratered economic landscape. The responsibility for change lies, ultimately, in the hands of the new government, elected in May this year. Asif Ali Zardari stepped down in September at the end of his five-year term, becoming the
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first democratically elected president in the country’s 65-year history to complete his full term in office. Pakistan’s new president, Mamnoon Hussain, and prime minister Nawaz Sharif are charged with preserving the nation’s promising democratic principles, as well as continuing to rebuild its splintered institutions, from the judiciary, to education and healthcare.
“We want to position ourselves as both the brain and the brawn: educated graduates, and trained workers with practical skills” Widespread poverty has opened the door to religious fundamentalism and criminal violence: bomb and gun attacks blamed on Islamist insurgents have claimed thousands of lives already this year. In Karachi alone, official figures record that more than 1,700 were killed violently in the first half of 2013; the real death toll may lie closer to 2,500 over the six-month period, much of it attributable to internecine gangland warfare. In September, US magazine
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Foreign Policy termed Karachi “the most dangerous megacity” in the world. “Sixty per cent of Pakistan’s population is under 30 years of age and is trying to enter the labour force, while not being equipped to do so,” explains Dr Ishrat Husain, dean of the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), the country’s oldest and most respected business school. “Between 2015 and 2050 we will have 3 million young men and women each year entering the labour force, but if they’re not educated, and do not have the skills which the economy requires, then you have a ticking bomb because there is a danger they will join criminal gangs and mafias, or fundamentalists and terrorists.” A former governor of Pakistan’s central bank and a veteran of the World Bank, Husain insists that comprehensive reform of the country’s outdated education system can turn this demographic timebomb, into a dividend. “We have to have [students] educated in the fields for which there is demand, both inside the country and outside,” he says. “We want to position ourselves as both the brain and the brawn: educated graduates, and trained workers with practical skills. Now is a tipping point for Pakistan and we need all hands on deck: government, private sector, communities, NGOs and civil society, all of these groups need to work together, to roll up their sleeves and do it.” In Korangi Township, on the southern edge of the city, one non-profit organisation is already elbow-deep in making a difference. The Aman Foundation was
60% The proportion of Pakistan’s population that is under 30
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formally established in Above AmanTech classes are split between practice and 2008, seeded by a $100m theory; monthly exams ensure donation from Karachi-born students are keeping up to date businessman Arif Naqvi. It with their studies operates out of a converted cotton warehouse and takes full advantage of the building’s hangar-like open spaces: while the upper floors of the foundation’s headquarters are surrendered to management and administration services, the entire ground floor is dedicated to AmanTech, a training complex which represents a bold new step in the development of skills schooling in Pakistan. In one enclave scores of young apprentices in green overalls crowd around workbenches; arc welders and safety visors readily to hand. In another, a complicated model of a car engine splutters and dies; it is a simulator, and the gaggle of attendant students must identify why it has chosen this moment to shudder to a halt. Nearby, a plumbing tutor brandishes a spirit level in front of his pupils, holding it aloft as if it were their leader, and they its followers.
The largest vocational training facility in the country, AmanTech is in its third year of operation and has already transformed the lives of more than 6,000 young men, the majority of whom are between the ages of 16 and 22. An array of disciplines, from automobile repair to plumbing and software training, are covered by courses which are split 70/30 between practice and theory. Monthly exams ensure the kids are using their heads, but the majority of the work is with their hands – which is not to say that AmanTech is solely about engaging muscles other than the mind. “AmanTech is about giving people a bundle of tools,” says Ahsan Jamil, CEO of the Aman Foundation. “It’s not just the tools you see in the workshop, or helping kids to use international tools like computers. It’s not even just about equipping them with a tool like the ability to speak English. It’s about harnessing emotional intelligence, an intangible skillset that so often gets missed in our regular schooling systems.
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“It’s not just about economic growth, but about wellbeing, satisfaction, and leading a healthy and productive life” “Socialisation is very important: being able to work with people, to work in a system, and learn that if you treat people respectfully, that you will be treated respectfully,” he continues. “You learn the skills and you get the accreditation, but in my mind that’s a very small part of the whole thing. It’s not just about economic growth, but about wellbeing, satisfaction, and leading a healthy and productive life.” To that end AmanTech students, many of them drawn from the most underserved tiers of Karachiite society, adhere to a necessarily strict regime. Examples range from the simple – no smoking is allowed on premises and students are forbidden
from chewing betel nuts or gutka, both widely considered to cause oral cancer – to the sophisticated: each student must spend a minimum of two hours each week attending classes on ‘soft’ skills such as dining table etiquette, how to dress for an interview, and conflict resolution. Nor is AmanTech prepared to accept no-shows: over their six, 12 or 18-month courses, students must attend a minimum of 90 per cent of their classes, or face expulsion. “Each kid brings a different set of circumstances with them to the institute. There is always stuff going on at home, and yet we are happy to try and work with the workable,” says Jamil. “There’s a test at the
beginning, and there are Above The largest vocational training facility in the country, dropouts, which are usually AmanTech offers its students the a consequence of the kids’ chance to use a wide range of families needing them to equipment and technology go out and work right away, or the fact that Karachi is a huge city. Sometimes the students just can’t make the journey, and while that is unfortunate, we teach practical skills and so you can’t stay at home and read the book.” If Jamil and his team have their way, it won’t be long before geography no longer represents a barrier to entry for those wishing to develop invaluable vocational skills. “Amantech is a lever, a fulcrum which is allowing us to open conversations with people who want to do the same thing in other parts of the country,” he says. “Pakistan is undergoing a democratic transition, and the new government wants to perform so that it can get the votes it needs next time around. As a result, two and a half years into the life of AmanTech and five years into the life of the foundation, we’re having conversations at local
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MAIN The Aman Foundation is confident that AmanTech can easily be up-scaled and duplicated in other cities around the country
“We need to match the skills of our young people, to the skills that our economy so desperately needs�
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and national levels, on how we might partner with the government to replicate the programme in other provinces.” This long-term and large-scale strategic thinking is central to the ethos of the Aman Foundation. While well-intended others are focused on micro solutions to local problems, Aman is presenting its findings to policymakers at a national level, casting itself as a catalyst for change and a springboard for innovative approaches to age-old problems. AmanTech is working, and was designed from the very outset as a scheme which could be up-scaled and even franchised with the minimum of fuss. So why shouldn’t it provide a blueprint for the successful recalibration of training initiatives across the country? “There are very few institutions teaching technical or vocational skills,” says Husain at IBA. “Nationwide there’s only 1 per cent enrolment in technical and vocational disciplines. We need this to go up to 5 per cent in the next few years, and this is a big challenge because you need laboratories, you need working space, equipment, foundries, forging equipment, tools and dyes, and much more, to train the trades. “I’d put money on the multiplication of the AmanTech model,” he continues. “They have a prototype that they have tested, and now there’s a need to enter into
partnerships with other organisations, or operate it as a franchise through which the foundation provides backup and support services such as curriculums and testing. This is something which needs to be done as of yesterday, not today.” Of the Aman Foundation’s many initiatives, which range from primary education and infrastructure development, to sports and healthcare provision, AmanTech is the leading candidate for immediate adoption at a national level. Pakistan is facing an uphill battle if it is to satisfy the expectations of its swelling youth population, and the readiness of the new government to embrace forwardthinking initiatives such as AmanTech may determine whether this new generation grows up frustrated, or enfranchised. “Everybody plays lip service to education, and all the political parties in their manifestos have the right rhetoric as far as education is concerned,” says Husain. “However, I would suspend my judgment until I see some runs on the board, that they have done something and demonstrated that they are really interested. We need to improve access, to make it more relevant, and to improve the quality – which means matching the skills of our young people, to the skills that our economy so desperately needs.” n
Think like Aman A not-for-profit trust, the Aman Foundation is a rare oasis of strategic thinking amid the disorienting tumult of Karachiite business and politics. “We are local and we are talking about the fundamental message of these times: that Pakistanis can solve Pakistan’s problems and should take the lead in doing that,” says Jamil. “We believe that Pakistan is not a poor country, but a poorly managed one. We are a blend of sector experts, managers, and entrepreneurs. There’s innovation and creativity, a sense that we can take risks because we’re surrounded by risk. We are self-determined, and we believe that things can be changed, that there is a solution to the country’s problems.” This appetite for risk taking belies the foundation’s carefully structured approach to long-term, sustainable development. Operating first as in incubator at the initial stages of projects across healthcare, education and food disparity, among other areas, the foundation aims to prove that systemic change can be achieved. It also acts as a grant-maker, creating a platform for other social sector players to engage, before looking to build partnerships at a government and international level. International partners already include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Harvard University, and the foundation of Spanish football club Real Madrid. “We have an opportunity because there aren’t many organisations that are operators, grant-givers, and local,” says Jamil. “Now we are in a position where we can choose who we work with and engage with, and we will choose carefully because while some are straight-shooters, others are not. We always think very carefully about who we partner with.”
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Education in Pakistan:
Tough lessons BY Andrew White hen the lunch bell rings at Raana Liaqat girls’ secondary school, you could be in any schoolyard in the world. There’s the familiar expulsion of collective breath, the frantic clatter of rubber-soled school shoes on concrete and the flood of grinning faces, each and every child rushing to be out of the classroom and into the open. In the tumbledown neighbourhood of Ibrahim Hyderi in southern Karachi, however, there’s an extra reason for the kids to be relieved by their flight into the light: for much of the morning, they’ve been learning in the dark. Ibrahim Hyderi is notorious for electricity theft, as poverty-stricken local residents and businesses piggyback onto others’ power lines in a bid to avoid paying utility charges. Karachi Electricity Supply Company (KESC), the local power provider, has responded by limiting the hours the school can run the low-wattage bulbs in its classrooms, in an understandable bid to deter these daylight robberies. Between 8 and 9am, and 11.30am and 1pm, are the only times during which power is available to the 221 students and their teachers. “It’s very difficult to schedule classes in the dark,” muses Amna Akhtar, a 24-year-old finance graduate who has just spent the best part of an hour schooling 70 young girls in the finer points of mathematics – whether they can see the blackboard, or not.
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Main Raana Liaqat girls’ secondary school, in Ibrahim Hyderi, teaches 221 pupils, the majority of whom are between the ages of 12 and 15
“We have to shut the windows sometimes, and with three people to each bench, it can get very suffocating,” she continues. “The students become exhausted, they misbehave, and it affects their eyesight. However they show amazing resilience and they still want to come to school. It’s better than last year, when we didn’t have any electricity or even water for the washrooms. KESC knows about the school and they want to help us, but they are not able to do so at the moment.” The irony is that Raana Liaqat, for all its electricity woes, is something of a beacon for schools in underserved communities in Karachi, and Pakistan as a whole. Amna and one of her colleagues, Fatima Rizwan, are among the brightest young graduates
“These are bright, talented students, and we are getting them to think about how we might better educate Pakistan’s youth”
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in the city. They have been parachuted into Ibrahim Hyderi by Teach For Pakistan, an initiative of the Karachi-based non-profit, the Aman Foundation. Teach For Pakistan offers new graduates from the country’s top universities full-time paid positions teaching in under-resourced schools. The benefits cut both ways: not only do the children in the care of Amna and Fatima gain from their educated and enthusiastic tutelage, but the graduates themselves are given a crash-course in the challenges and complexities of Pakistan’s
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creaking education system, developing a range of highly transferable leadership and professional skills in the process. “Teach for Pakistan is a two-way street,” says Ahsan Jamil, chief executive of the Aman Foundation. “The schoolkids get an adult who cares about them, often for the first time, and what’s more it’s a young adult who isn’t that much older than them. It gives the kids a new life path to aspire to. “At the same time, for the graduates, they get to experience leadership in action. When you finish college, you think you’re
a genius, and then you come into an experience with kids who really desperately need what you have. You see how much of a difference you can make, and you see the change in the kids under your care.” The cost of sponsoring one fellow for one year comes to less than $9,500, and Teach For Pakistan is supported by a range of corporate and individual sponsors from within the country, as well as abroad. The independent initiative is part of a wider movement, Teach for All, which was launched at the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2007, and boasts similar enterprises in 30 countries worldwide. In each school, from Buenos Aires to Beirut, young graduates are witnessing first-hand the obstacles and opportunities presented by the education sector. “The younger generation understands Pakistan more than their parents, they are not tied to the old ways of thinking and they are more open to change,” insists Jamil. “These are bright students, very talented, and we are getting them to think about how we might better educate Pakistan. We need Left As many as 70 pupils are squeezed into each class; for leaders, and to channel much of the day, however, the their skills into areas of small school is forced to run neglect such as education without electricity is a tremendous thing.”
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“My father thought it was suicide for my career,” laughs English teacher Fatima, 24, a political science graduate. “He saw me working in international relations and so he was very concerned initially when I said I wanted to move into the social sector.
Now he is happy because he can see how happy I am to be working here. “We can make the students feel as though they’re being heard, and that’s very important,” she continues. “The attention that we give them is more than just about schoolwork, because at the end of the day what’s going to happen to them when we’re gone? We want them to become invested in more than just this class or that class, but the pursuit of education itself.” Both graduates are beginning the second – and final – year of their Teach For Pakistan placements. The experience has already inspired Amna to reconsider
Above Amna Akhtar, a finance graduate, teaches mathematics. Amna has been been placed at Raana Liaqat by Teach For Pakistan, a local non-profit
“We want the kids to become invested in more than just this class or that class, but the pursuit of education itself”
her career path: eschewing a future in corporate finance, she is keen to return to graduate school and then focus on development economics or public policy. Fatima, meanwhile, is less sure where her future lies. She is determined, though, to leave a mark in her remaining months at the school in Raana Liaqat. “To me, nothing matters more than results,” she says, sounding every inch the schoolteacher. “There are so many things that you can do, whether helping to build a computer lab, or a library or something else, but I have to leave knowing that my kids are learning at the right grade level. There are no two ways about it: nothing matters unless it shows on paper.” n
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Main  AmanGhar cooks in Khuda-Ki-Basti prepare more than 700 full meals each day, and 2,700 roti rolls, each destined for a hungry young stomach
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Food for thought The inhabitants of Khuda-Ki-Basti, a small neighbourhood in northwest Karachi, live on an average household income of around $85 a month. The Aman Foundation, with the help of corporate and non-profit partners, provides free school meals for hundreds of children – keeping them in the classroom, and off the streets. Around 30 staff, paid employees from within the community itself, prepare and deliver more than 3,000 nutritious meals a day. The AmanGhar scheme costs less than $50 per child per year, and yet for the urban poor of Khuda-Ki-Basti, its benefits are priceless.
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Clockwise from Above  Student volunteers are on hand each day to serve meals to schoolchildren; The provision of free school meals not only benefits the children’s health and boosts their attentiveness, but makes them more likely to attend classes; More than 300 students between the ages of five and 15 attend the Saleemullah (Memorial Fahmee) School; Food security is a significant problem in Pakistan, a situation that is only expected to get worse as a consequence of climate change and resultant water scarcity
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Clockwise from Left  Corporate partners including National Foods Limited, one of Pakistan’s most high-profile food companies, donate ingredients for the school meals; AmanGhar cooks, hired from within the community itself, start preparing food from 5am each day; Chicken biryani is by far the most popular item on the menu, according to AmanGhar staff; To date, AmanGhar has served more than 2 million meals to schoolchildren in low-income areas
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Training in Bangladesh:
Motorcycle girl BY Adrienne Cernigoi
Main  At just 17-years-old, Khadija is contributing to the family income and helping to support her siblings
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here is nothing immediately unusual about the workshop in Poba, a sub-district of Rajshahi city in western Bangladesh. Battered jerrycans and tattered posters are stacked on rusting shelves and tacked to rough walls. A mechanic is hard at work, grasping occasionally for a spanner, hammer or wrench amid the tangle of a toolbox, hands slick with oil and grease. Wherever you are in the world, repairing broken motorcycles is dirty work. The surprise comes when the mechanic looks up, a beaming smile illuminating her face. Khadija wields her wrench like a contestant on Star Academy might clutch a microphone: it’s both an invaluable tool, and a symbol of her aspiration. “When I repair something and customers praise me I feel very happy,” she says. “I work and earn for my family, and that’s what I enjoy most. I have the chance to be a helping hand to them.” Khadija is not the first of her family to don a mechanic’s overalls. The 17-year-old’s father worked at a truck garage in Bagmara, a largely agricultural sub-district of northwest Bangladesh. With no land and a small
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income, however, he could not afford to support his family. Khadija was forced to drop out of school, and faced becoming just another statistic: only 55 per cent of children in Bangladesh complete their primary education. When girls drop out of school they usually work as domestic helpers, in the home or as poorly paid maids. It seemed as if Khadija might be forced down the same road, until she was selected for a vocational skills programme – Skills Training for Advancing Resources (STAR) – run by the development organisation BRAC. “If I hadn’t joined STAR, I’d probably still work as a domestic help,” she says. Instead, Khadija works in the Raja Automobile Shop in Poba, under the mentorship of her ustad (teacher), Mohammad Raihan Raja. STAR pairs young people the state classifies as hard-to-reach urban working children, like Khadija, with entrepreneurs like Mohammad. Students, or shagreds, spend six Below Khadija secured employment in a Poba-based months concurrently workshop after completing her learning a trade and vocational skills training with the working as an apprentice STAR programme with their ustad. The
“I work and earn for my family, and that’s what I enjoy most” programme also helps link STAR graduates to employers. “In most cases, the ustad keeps the student as a full time employee after the training period,” says Riful Jannat, STAR’s programme manager. “At first I wasn’t that positive about a girl coming to work in my shop,” admits Ujjal Hossain, owner of the Raja Automobile Shop. “But Khadija was keen and willing and she had a log book in which her expertise was clearly documented. This helped me to trust her skills and so I hired her.” Young women in Bangladesh face considerable obstacles to advancement and empowerment. School dropout rates are high, youth unemployment is rising, and cultural mores mean women are limited in the choice of career they may pursue. STAR is attempting to make inroads into all three
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Main Khadija shown with her family. Fewer than 5,000 women in Bangladesh were found to have vocational skills in 2002
areas, providing students with incentives to complete their training, paying them an allowance, and even helping them to set up their first bank account. “I learnt how to save money,” Khadija says. “Like my father, I too can now help my family. During Eid I can buy gifts for them.” Unemployment is a challenge in a country that must create enough jobs for a workforce predicted to number 100 million by 2020. Vocational skills, particularly, are in short supply: 10 years ago there were only 5,000 women in Bangladesh with vocational qualifications. Last year the government adopted a national policy to encourage skills development, however, more can always be done to provide young women with the best possible chance of being able to earn – and save. “The students get training on financial literacy and communicative English once a week. The training is designed in such a way to not only develop a specific trade, but also their life skills,” says Shamsul Alam, STAR programme organiser in Bagmara. Women are a growing force in Bangladesh’s job market. However they are concentrated in the garment sector as a consequence of societal tradition. STAR offers a wide range of vocational trades to students including mobile phone repairs, embroidery, electrical wiring and tailoring, but it was Khadija’s father who chose this unusual line of work for his daughter.
“Would I employ another girl now? Definitely I would. Everything Khadija does, she does with complete dedication” Why did her father select motorcycle servicing? “I don’t know,” she laughs, “but he wanted me to learn this trade. Everyone said, ‘This job is not for girls, people will laugh’, but my father was very determined.” By the end of the apprenticeship Khadija had changed attitudes: diligent and capable, she got a job immediately after she had finished her apprenticeship. Her boss is certainly convinced. “Would I employ another girl now? Definitely I would, especially after seeing Khadija’s level of interest,” says Hossain. “Whatever she does, she does with complete dedication. Her best skill is motorcycle wiring and she is, in fact, better at it than me.” “At first customers are surprised. But when they find out I can work well, they
appreciate it,” adds Khadija. “They say, ‘Khadija’s work is good.’ If they come back, they look for me, asking ‘where is Khadija?’” BRAC has been operating within Bangladesh since its inception more than four decades ago. STAR was launched last year in collaboration with global children’s charity UNICEF, the International Labour Organisation and Bangladesh’s Bureau of Non-Formal Education. Since then, more than 990 shagreds have graduated from the programme and 983 of those are currently employed. BRAC has a three-year plan to scale up STAR, starting next year. “One of the main challenges of STAR is to make it both cost-sharing and sustainable,” says Alam. “The target beneficiaries’ economic background holds them back from a cost-sharing approach. If this could be managed then STAR would be a truly replicable design.” Khadija hopes she can free her whole family from the poverty trap. “I want to learn more, earn more, and help my family,” she says with a smile. “Also I have not tried riding a motorcycle yet, but if I have the chance I might try.” n
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After Tahrir
The next generation
Main Anti-government protests fill the streets in front of the Presidential Palace in Cairo, days before the regime was overthrown in July of this year
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A global NGO is taking a new approach to solving Egypt’s most pressing challenges, aiming to provide social entrepreneurs with the opportunity to profit from solving the problems that plague the Arab world’s most populous nation
BY Jonathan Kalan t’s no secret that Egypt is riddled with problems. Just ask any of the millions of Egyptians who took to the streets earlier this year, or back in 2011. They were frustrated, angry and tired of the government’s apparent inability to alleviate mounting pressures, from rising energy costs and rampant inflation, to a failing education system and growing unemployment – the list goes on. Nearly a quarter of the government’s budget is spent on energy subsidies: Egyptians currently pay about a quarter of the real energy costs of the country, something that may change very soon given the current political and economic climate. More than 25 per cent of the country lives below the national poverty line, and yet such are the state of Egypt’s schools, citizens spend as much as $3bn annually on private tutors. According to the country’s central statistics bureau, the unemployment rate among Egyptians aged 20-24 has reached 39 per cent. This last number is proving both an enormous challenge and powerful catalyst. With so many unemployed youth, start-ups are flourishing. And many young entrepreneurs are embracing social models of business, finding ways to profit from solving the very same problems that are killing opportunities elsewhere. This vibrant class of social entrepreneurs, like Egypt’s youth-driven start-up ecosystem itself,
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is new. However, while few mechanisms currently exist to fund and support young business people and their ventures, even fewer exist in the impact investment space. Steven Haley and his team are trying to change that. As well as being country director for Mercy Corps, a global non-profit, Haley is also the general manager of MC Egypt, a for-profit experimental offshoot that is working to establish Egypt’s first localised ‘impact fund’ to support and grow mission-driven businesses. The timing is right, he says, for a different solution. “You have inspired entrepreneurs, an unemployed uneducated workforce, a generation who wants to make a difference, and geographic proximity to a large number of poor,” Haley explains. It’s a perfect cocktail for social entrepreneurship.
25%
The proportion of Eg ypt’s population that lives below the national poverty line
What’s more, he adds, “the best opportunity to enable significant [social] change is in a country already going through social transition… and that’s obviously [the case] in Egypt.” Mercy Corps, founded more than three decades ago and operational in over 40 countries with an operating budget in excess of $300m, is testing the waters in a space few have ventured, and none have proved success in: seed-stage impact investing in the Middle East and North Africa. “If we’re going to solve tough challenges we face, we’re limiting ourselves in these buckets: non-profit, for profit, public, etc,” says Neal Keny-Guyer, CEO of Mercy Corps. “We’re recognising in today’s world this concept of convergence… where we’re seeing new kinds of institutional structures, such as social entrepreneurship and philanthropic investment.” “We’re realising the traditional model of NGOs [non-governmental organisations] hasn’t been able to solve the world’s problems,” adds Haley. “We have to be looking at different types of models, and the private sector has to be included.” In Egypt, however, these two sectors couldn’t be more separate. Most big industry in the private sector has apparently thrived on legacy, inheritance, cronyism, and corrupt contracts. Only more recently has entrepreneurship become a compelling force, while the NGO sector has struggled for decades with strict government oversight and restrictions. Loay El-Shawarby, chairman of Nahdet El Mahrousa (‘Renaissance of Egypt’), a well-established youth-led NGO in Egypt, says the January 2011 revolution exited and empowered people to launch their own initiatives, both non-profit and for-profit. “Many people feel a sense of ownership of the country, and trust and confidence. They want to change the country for themselves,” Shawarby says. “But they also need to make money, which is where social entrepreneurship comes in.” Muhammad Radwan, an activist and community manager at icecairo, a new
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“People feel a sense of ownership of the country, and trust and confidence. They want to change the country for themselves” co-working and training space in the capital for young Egyptians working on green technology projects, agrees, but views the change slightly differently. “Before the revolution, those who wanted to change things channelled their energy into the NGO scene,” Radwan says, adding that now legislation is pending that is likely to restrict NGOs even further, young entrepreneurs are shifting towards the private sector. “These entrepreneurs are trying to fix the same problems in a different way.” Impact investment funds are a growing phenomenon, led mainly by wealthy investors looking to disburse their dollars in a more strategic way, and large innovative foundations or special funds created by socially-motivated investors. It’s an investment strategy that seeks to strike a delicate, and often difficult and imprecise balance between financial returns and social impact, by investing in businesses that can generate profit while having a positive social or environmental impact. However, while regions like sub-Saharan Africa are teeming with impact investors – in Kenya, for example there are at least half a dozen or more impact funds scrambling for deals – the Middle East remains largely untouched. So why isn’t anyone charting the waters? Some have. A decade ago, Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund that is considered a pioneer in the impact
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Main icecairo, which launched in November 2012, is a co-working space, events space, and fabrication lab at inspiring the city’s entrepreneurial youtho
investing space, made three investments in Egypt supporting agricultural and livelihood creation, which it has since exited. “We were happy with those investments, and entrepreneurs. So four years ago, we looked at how to do it again,” says Ankur Shah, Acumen’s head of sector strategies, based in Dubai. The Acumen team looks for three things when considering market entry, according to Shah. “Is there a pipeline, is there existing regulation that allows a non-profit to make equity investments, and are there organisations and donors to help us build a truly local institution?”
Ultimately, their criterion wasn’t met. “Continued uncertainty in the region has delayed the creation of this infrastructure and it’s unclear if it will exist any time soon,” Shah explains. The organisation has grown significantly in other regions – East Africa and South Asia – but has “no immediate plans to expand into the Middle East”. It’s not just Egypt that is struggling to attract impact investment. Heather Henyon, founder and managing partner of Balthazar Capital, a Dubai-based microfinance investment advisory firm, conducted a survey in 2011 of commercial and social investors for microfinance, seen as a form
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of impact investing, asking why they weren’t coming to the region. “Part of it is positive,” she explains: over the years, more local banks have become involved with microfinance institutions (MFIs). “Around 75 per cent of funding [for MFIs] comes from local banks.” However, these MFIs are lending to small microentrepreneurs rather than scalable social enterprises hoping for national or regional impact. “These groups are not going to become Microsoft,” she says. There is an even more troubling figure, however, that contributes to the tough environment. “This region has the lowest access to finance in the world, even worse than sub-Saharan Africa,” says Henyon. And financing is vital for getting small social
enterprises off the ground. Most impact investors, like Acumen, focus on deals worth between $300,000 and $2m. What countries like Egypt need right now is support for smaller start-ups, deals worth around $100,000 to get a bright social enterprise off the ground. MC Egypt is hoping to fill this space, helping early-stage social businesses launch and then reach the next level of funding. “We’re filling a gap, hoping to pave the way for firms to reach that higher investment mark,” says Cornelius O’Donnell, MC Egypt’s regional entrepreneurship advisor. MC Egypt’s eventual range is between $50,000 and $300,000, below that of most
Clockwise from top left Mercy Corps’ Con O’Donnell; Recyclobekia’s Mostafa Hemdan; Entrepreneurs work out of Flat6Labs; Mostafa Farahat and Muhammad Habib of Nafham
traditional impact investors. Since the level of funding is relatively low, MC Egypt is looking for around $1.5m in initial philanthropic investment from high-networth individuals interested in seeing this model proven, to make their first half-dozen investments. Then it plans to find more established investors to help build a $5m fund. O’Donnell expects returns to come within seven to 10 years, or possibly earlier for technology ventures. Technology ventures are at the forefront of a social enterprise ecosystem in Egypt that is already building itself. One new arrival, Innoventures, helps creative entrepreneurs build successful businesses and runs an accelerator for several clean-tech and ICT startups. Flat6Labs, a
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QCHARITY.org
MDGs-2015 Since the adoption of the UN Millenium Development Goals
Working closely with vulnerable communities. . . QC has provided empowering economic opportunties globally to more than 30,000 families in 32 countries
COMMITTED TOWARDS ERADICATING EXTREME POVERTY AND HUNGER
ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY AND HUNGER
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from left Hesham Wahby (far right), CEO of Innoventures; Used phones are among the many e-waste items sold by Recyclobekia
Cairo-based accelerator that has already invested in more than 30 companies, some of which are solving social problems, is generating a great deal of buzz. One of the social startups, Nafham, which means ‘we understand’ in Arabic, is attempting to tackle education. It has created an online educational platform linked to Egypt’s mandated public curriculum, which has introduced a new concept called ‘crowd teaching’. This encourages students to create and upload five to 20-minute video lessons to share with their peers. “We don’t want it to be one-way learning,” says Mostafa Farahat, Nafham’s general manager. “We want to engage people to create videos themselves.” The videos are vetted, before being categorised by grade, subject, topic and date, allowing for easier navigation. Then, there’s Recyclobekia, founded by then 20-year old university student Mostafa Hemdan in 2011 with just $1,000
“The investment may not pay off in the next month or the next year, but you’ll be on the right side of history” in capital. Recyclobekia takes electronic waste including cell phones, computers, printers, and monitors, from large firms and sells it on the global market to be recycled in a green-certified way. It now exports 25 tons of e-waste every month, and although the company’s valuation in July 2012 was around $400,000, “now it’s probably between $700,000 and $800,000,” says Hemdan. “There’s huge opportunity
[for social businesses] because Egypt has so many problems.” While there may be a clear need, or at least budding desire, to invest in sustainable solutions to Egypt’s enormous social challenges, it’s also clear that now is perhaps one of the hardest times to convince people to invest in the country – particularly when it comes to impact investing, a relatively new industry sector that hasn’t yet demonstrated clear returns. However at MC Egypt, Haley says it’s not just about today, or even tomorrow. It’s about the future. “Any investor who sees Egypt as a place not to make an investment now, is not thinking straight,” he insists. It’s a “bargain market” because the situation opportunities aren’t entirely clear, for either financial returns or social impact. “If you can imagine Egypt in five years, it’s obviously going to be better. We’re betting on some of the changes we foresee happening in Egypt,” Haley says, noting the rise of mobile money, a spike in tourism, the stabilisation of the currency, and changes in government subsidy programmes. And even if the venture does not play out exactly as intended, Mercy Corps’ CEO is philosophical. “The investment may not pay off in the next month or the next year,” says Keny-Guyer, “but you’ll be on the right side of history.” n
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Main Many of FBMI’s employees are engaged in spinning and weaving activities Opposite top The charity works to halt child labour, and to improve access to education Opposite Bottom A critical tenet of FBMI is to be commercially successful. The charity has produced more than 1,000 carpets since June 2010
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Humble hands Modern-day Afghanistan is a hard place in which to live: 42 per cent of the population survives on less than a dollar a day, the average life expectancy is just 44, and 85 per cent of Afghan women are illiterate. Amid such poverty and uncertainty, the Fatema Bint Mohammed Bin Zayed Initiative (FBMI) is working to alleviate the suffering of women by offering them the opportunity to free themselves from economic hardship. So far more than 3,000 low-income Afghans have been trained and employed in the production of fine carpets; 70 per cent of the participants are women, and 35 per cent are widows.
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Clockwise from above Many women are able to carry out their weaving duties from home; More than 7,000 children are enrolled in full-time school, thanks to the efforts of FBMI’s education department opposite The programme seeks to give a revenue stream to its participants. it is estimated that FBMI has spread the benefits of sustainable economic development to more than 18,000 individuals across Kabul and Jalalabad
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ay Binsaeed, 30, is one of a growing number of Saudi Arabian women joining the workforce. After two years of teaching English language to first year students at King Fahd Medical City, she decided to pursue a new challenge with the kingdom’s stock exchange, the Tadawul. Four months into the job, which involves conducting feasibility studies and research, Binsaeed is enjoying her new role as senior analyst of product development. “I believe if you are qualified enough and good enough you can succeed,” Binsaeed says. “However, I don’t see women becoming directors in the near future. There are still people who don’t want to hire women because they may have a family and responsibilities.” This mindset prevails among a large percentage of the population in the world’s largest oil exporter, a country that adopts a strict interpretation of Sunni Islam. A web of laws and customs segregate men and women in many aspects of life in Saudi Arabia, including most workplaces and educational institutions. This has hobbled the ability of women to pursue jobs alongside men, resulting in an imbalance in the labour force and creating various complications for companies, such as having to create women-only offices. Today, just 10 percent of Saudi women above the age of 15 are employed, according to the country’s Central Department of Statistics and Information, representing one of the lowest levels in the world. Unemployment among Saudis rose to 12.1 percent in 2012 from 10.5 percent in 2009, according to an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report released in July. There are 629,044 Saudis out of work, and 363,619 are female, official data shows. This imbalance has led to the emergence of several companies and non-profit
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Crossing the gender gulf With the help of non-profit agencies and businesses with a social bent, Saudi women are carving a niche for themselves in the labour market
by Tara Gully
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organisations bent on tackling the issue. One of them is Glowork.net, a recruitment website for women, founded in 2011 by 29-year-old Khalid Al-Khudairi, after returning from his studies in Canada. “As a man coming back from Canada I had an issue finding a job,” says Al-Khudairi, who eventually had to rely on family connections to secure employment. “I started to think; if it’s that difficult for a guy, how must it be for a woman?” Al-Khudairi created a focus group, which revealed that while many companies had no issue with regards to hiring women, they struggled to find suitable candidates. At the same time, women seeking jobs had difficulty connecting with companies. This presented Al-Khudairi with both a business opportunity, and a way to support the inclusion of women in the workforce. “We started creating a website for female job seekers,” he says. “Then we went to employers who didn’t want to hire women and convinced them to employ them. We were the first to put women in supermarkets in the kingdom and faced a backlash, but we continue striving to ensure that our goals are met.” In 2012, the Saudi government enforced new regulations requiring lingerie and cosmetic shops to hire female sales clerks. Al-Khudairi says he was involved in the legislation from planning to execution after his company began working closely with the Ministry of Labour on new laws and regulations. It’s about “changing the mindset and getting organisations to place women”, he explains. Over the past two years, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has pushed for greater women’s rights in the kingdom, despite fierce opposition from some religious conservatives. Starting in 2015, women will be able to vote and run in municipal elections. In January this year, he appointed the first female members to the Consultative Council, with 30 women joining the 150-member advisory board. Last year’s London Olympics marked an important milestone for Saudi women’s
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Main Sarah Attar was one of two Saudi female athletes permitted to take part at the London Olympic Games in 2012
647,000 The number of Saudi women in the workplace in 2012, up from 505,000 in 2009 participation in sports when two female athletes were allowed to take part in the games. Women’s jobs have also expanded to include quality managers at factories, a migration from traditionally accepted roles in education, medicine and healthcare. “For years, the culture played a role in women’s unemployment,” says Al-Khudairi. “Now people are realising there’s no problem in women joining the labour market. Slowly,
we see the mentality changing and women taking their place in organisations.” The number of Saudi women with higher education such as Binsaeed, a holder of a master’s degree in English from the UK, exceeds men by around 4,000, based on Education Ministry statistics. Despite the higher percentage of educated women, however, not all programmes have been designed to meet the changing needs of the Saudi economy. Many have identified this issue, including the government, which is implementing a plan to diversify its economy away from reliance on hydrocarbons. Continuing to improve the quality of education and reducing barriers to female employment could help support a knowledge-based economy in the kingdom, the IMF said recently. Women with university degrees accounted for more than 70 per cent of female unemployment in 2012, it added.
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“Slowly we are seeing mentalities change and women taking their place in organisations”
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“Laws are very important but education is the most important because we have a gap between education and employment,” says Al-Khudairi. “Both men and women don’t have any practical experience and expect to find a job on a silver plate.” This is slowly changing with practical experience becoming mandatory for university students, he notes. Universities have also expanded curriculums available to female students with the addition of law and architecture. This brightening picture is also supported by non-profits working to help women cross the gender gulf into the labour market. The Al-Nahda Philanthropic Society for Women, for example, runs workshops in which young women are taught how to conduct themselves in a job interview, and also hosts recruitment days for employers and jobseekers at its offices. The organisation, which was founded by the late Queen Iffat Al Thunayan, also runs a networking initiative for female
professionals and offers career counselling in schools and universities. While the number of mixed workplaces in Saudi Arabia is increasing, many companies still provide segregated offices for men and women. The kingdom is even developing a women-only industrial city in the Eastern Province, with plans to create 5,000 jobs in the textile, pharmaceutical and food-processing industries. The project, one of several planned, is designed to allow more women to join the workforce and achieve financial independence. Binsaeed, who has enjoyed the support of her family, is aware that not all Saudi women have the same privilege when it comes to pursuing a career. “A lot of women would like to open their own businesses and have the ambition to do so, but many don’t get support from their husbands who are not open to the idea,” she says. “Women are being limited.” Afnan Ababtain, executive manager at the Prince Sultan Fund for Women Development, is working to change that. The non-profit fund offers loans and training to women entrepreneurs hoping to start their own businesses. “There are increasing numbers of Saudi women entrepreneurs, thanks to the support for women and government regulations,” says Ababtain. The fund dedicates roughly SR300,000 (about $80,000) per project, but would seek to raise additional financing if presented with an “excellent idea”, she says. The organisation funds between six and 10 projects annually. Through its ‘My Launch’ initiative, women have established more than 50 small businesses, including six that grew into medium-sized companies. These companies then create more job opportunities for Saudi females. In addition to financing, training programmes, seminars and advisory services, the organisation is also starting a so-called business incubator, scheduled to open next year. The incubator is a building for women entrepreneurs and includes offices, multi-purpose rooms, coffee shops,
“A lot of women would like to open their own businesses and have the ambition to do so” consultancy and transportation services, facilities and a front desk. “We are aiming to create the right place to support and adopt women’s ideas and encourage creativity and ambition,” says Ababtain. “We provide women with a healthy environment to develop their businesses for the first two years, which are the most difficult, and to network and receive consultancy services and funding.” Swiss food and beverage company Nestlé prepares young nationals to work in the private sector and helps “bridge the gap between the academic curriculum and corporate expectations”, says Karine Antoniades, creating shared value manager at Nestlé Middle East. The company launched the Nestlé Center of Excellence in 2012 to train Saudi graduates in different fields. It also has two female-specific training programmes to encourage more women to work in the private sector and give them the skills required to do so, says Antoniades. To date, 20 Saudi women have graduated from the programme, six of which were hired by Nestlé for full-term employment. The Business Executive Programme, which equips young Saudi females with skills required in business, graduated 15 women in June, five of which were hired by Nestlé Saudi Arabia. Such efforts are paying off. The number of working Saudi women has grown from 505,000 in 2009 to 647,000 in 2012, according to official data. But there is still a long way to go, insists Ababtain. “The funding is there,” she says, “but we need more education and training.” n
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Expert Column
Why funding isn’t enough Tarik Yousef argues that organisations working for young people need to approach donors with more than just requests for funding hile civil unrest and political turmoil dominate headlines emerging from the Arab world, perhaps the greatest challenge facing the region is that of youth unemployment. While there were initial hopes that the protest movements in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen in 2011 would eventually lead to increased economic opportunity for Arab youth, much of the region remains in a state of political uncertainty and economic dislocation. More than 25 per cent of the region’s economically active youth are unemployed, and millions more are either employed in low-wage informal jobs, or have remained outside of the labour force due to poor prospects. Finding economic solutions for youth – particularly in the areas of job creation and skills development – is a vital element of securing economic security for the region. Despite efforts made in good faith, the region’s policymakers have, by and large, proven unable to muster the resources and political will to put in place the programmes and reforms needed to improve opportunities for young people. In fact, economic insecurity has reinforced longstanding tendencies toward public sector employment and subsidy provision. These provide short-term gains but work against the long-term goals of enabling young people to transition into the labour market. At the same time, the private
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About the writer Tarik Yousef is CEO of Silatech, a Qatar-based regional social initiative focused on improving employment and entrepreneurship opportunities for young people throughout the Arab world. He was co-founder of the Middle East Youth Initiative at the Brookings Institution in 2007, where he served as nonresident senior fellow
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sector’s ability to serve as an engine of job creation has been stymied in most countries by regulatory issues and ongoing political instability. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have been involved in providing innovative solutions, but a lack of financial resources has limited the scale and scope of their activities. Past efforts at unlocking the challenge of job creation have failed to take into account the potential offered by regional philanthropists and high-net-worth individuals eager to play a substantive role in improving socioeconomic outcomes. In this regard, large foundations and institutionalised philanthropies have played an increasingly active role in the youth space in recent years, particularly in the Gulf countries. Institutions like the Qatar Foundation, the Alwaleed bin Talal Foundation, the Emirates Foundation, and the King Khalid Foundation have emerged with the goal of making social investments that help build more sustainable societal gains. In many cases, the efforts of these foundations have focused on improving the potential of the region’s youth. Private sector-led social investing has also emerged as a new trend in this area. However, such efforts are only a small part of the philanthropic sector’s potential as a whole, particularly when one takes into account the vast potential of non-institutionalised, discrete charitable giving. Due to a lack of transparency in giving – driven to some extent by a cultural stigma against publicising one’s own good deeds – there is little useful information on the
expert column
amount of charitable giving within the region, but it is clear that the philanthropic sector is sizeable. However, only a small share of charitable giving in the region has been strategically invested in issues related to the economic empowerment of youth. Islamic philanthropy, in particular, provides a large resource, but it has rarely been deployed in a manner designed to create strategic social change. Rather, Islamic charitable giving has focused largely on conventional donations: building schools, supporting religious institutions and responding to natural disasters. While these are all important needs, such giving is rarely aligned with a longer-term strategy that empowers youth. To effectively engage with potential donors interested in catalysing lasting social change through smart giving, organisations working actively for young people need to come to the table with more than requests for funding. Rather, it is up to us to engage philanthropists and high-net-worth individuals with a support structure that enables them to take bold steps. In this regard, there are a number of identified needs among charitable givers that must be addressed.
Above The Kiva Arab Youth First, most foundations platform supports entrepreneurs and individual givers realise aged 30 or younger, connecting the magnitude of the them with individual lenders and matching the offered loans region’s youth employment challenge; however, they often do not know the most appropriate entry points or how to address the issue strategically with their donations. Providing them with training on the core issues involved, as well as ways that they can provide innovative support, is a necessity. This need is particularly important in regard to Islamic charitable giving. While there is no doctrinal limitation on the application of such giving to support sustainable development for youth, potential donors are often uncertain about their ability to use charity in this regard. Islamic charity platforms are often designed in a way that aligns with literal
“Past efforts at unlocking the challenge of job creation have failed to take into account the potential offered by regional philanthropists”
interpretations of religious texts. Building the case for a broader interpretation of Islamic giving requires engagement with religious authorities, and practical advice on how zakat and sadaqah can be used to support youth. Technology also plays an important role, particularly with the development of online giving platforms that allow people to donate directly to organisations. We have seen the establishment of several ‘crowdfunding’ platforms aimed at providing funding for youth, such as the Silatechsupported Kiva Arab Youth platform. The challenge is to align such platforms with the interests of socially-minded investors and charitable givers. Finally, effective partnerships are essential. The challenge of youth unemployment in the Arab world is too large to be resolved by individual stakeholders in isolation; it requires a coordinated approach involving government, the private sector, NGOs and charitable givers working in concert. Building networking platforms is essential to enabling communication, exchanging knowledge and experience, and facilitating collaborative partnerships. The solutions are out there; it’s up to us to help find them. n
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Main  There are almost 70,000 pupils enrolled in BRAC schools across the country, of which 80 per cent are female
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Teaching in Afghanistan:
Learning the hard way by Adrienne Cernigoi
wo rows of children sit attentively along the room’s edge. Their hands lie in their laps, placed as neatly as the pencil cases and rulers laid out in front of them. Maps, posters and plastic flowers cover – almost entirely – the cracked-earth walls; these and the children’s clothing bring the only brightness to an otherwise stark classroom in rural Afghanistan. The students are all between 10 and 15-years-old. They have had to tackle cultural, geographic and economic challenges just to attend school, even before they begin the task of mastering reading and writing. Jamila’s favourite subject is biology, while her classmate Ismera prefers geography. Neither girl had been to school before BRAC, a Bangladesh-based NGO, opened a classroom in their village. “My family is glad to send me to the BRAC school because the government one is so far from my house,” Ismera explains.
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BRAC concentrates its education efforts in Afghanistan on girls, a singular, yet challenging focus. We cannot reveal the location of the school, or the real names of the students or teachers, without putting them at risk. “Security for our clients, students, teachers and staff is paramount,” explains Asif Saleh, BRAC’s senior director of communications, strategy and capacity. “Girls especially need to know that they can travel to and from school without fear.” Getting an education can be dangerous. Attacks on schools in Afghanistan continue a decade after the Taliban were ousted from power. “We received messages warning we would be punished when we were setting up the programme,” says Layla, branch manager of the school. She and her team pressed on “because education is the backbone of our country.” Faced with such challenges it is a wonder the girls persist. In fact, many of
their peers do not: 82 per cent of girls in Afghanistan drop out before finishing their primary school education at grade 6, aged 12, many as a consequence of having reached what is considered marriageable age in some regions. Amid such a challenging environment, BRAC has nevertheless developed a model that has enabled it to expand from 24 community-led schools in 2002 to 2,187 today. There are almost 70,000 students currently enrolled across the country, of which 80 per cent are female. BRAC targets young girls in hard-toreach environments: sparsely populated, rural and often ultra-conservative areas. It works with girls who dropped out of, or never attended, school and teaches them five years’ worth of primary education in three years, allowing them to re-join the state-run system. BRAC’s Bangladeshi staff train a female teacher from each community to be a
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Welfare Association Welfare Association is a non-profit organization established in Geneva, Switzerland in 1983 to support sustainable development and provide humanitarian relief to Palestinians. An independent development organization without political, partisan or factional affiliation; driven by the values of national commitment, independence and professionalism. Its scope of activities covers West Bank (including Jerusalem), Gaza Strip, 1948 Area, and Palestinian communities in Lebanon.
These programs help in improving the lives of more than one million Palestinians every year: • Old City of Jerusalem Revitalization • Early Childhood Development • Gaza Orphans’ Services • Community Based Rehabilitation • Youth Employment Services • Humanitarian Relief program • Food Security • The Palestinian Museum
Main UN data shows a girl increases her future earnings by 20 per cent for every extra year of schooling she completes
“I encourage other girls of my age to go to school and learn, because it is ordered by God” champion for her village. She receives a small monthly payment. It is a low-cost solution to a costly problem, and one that develops skills that then stay in the community. The intensive training courses take two weeks, and although they take place in remote areas of the country, the cultural and religious backgrounds of the BRAC staff means they are more readily accepted by the communities in which they work. “Our approach is so successful is because we work with communities quietly, sometimes below the radar, to achieve real, large-scale change,” says Saleh. The female learning statistics for Afghanistan make for depressing reading. Only 20 per cent of women aged 15 to 24
are literate; the rate is three times lower in rural areas, according to children’s charity UNICEF. Resistance comes from all sides. “One of the challenges is getting the families’ permission,” says Moriam, a teacher at the school. “For example, I faced hostility from the Madrasa teacher for educating girls.” Moriam and her colleagues are thankful to now have the community’s support: student attendance is up due to the welcoming educational environment, and improved access to teaching materials. BRAC hopes that by teaching girls together from the age of five they can support and encourage each other to stay on in education despite social and economic pressures to leave. “I encourage other girls of my age to go to school and learn, because it is ordered by God,” says Jamila. BRAC is the world’s largest NGO and the largest operating in Afghanistan. Over the past 11 years, 240,000 students have graduated from their community-led schools. More then 80 per cent were girls. The curriculum encourages students to
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think for themselves, and BRAC claims its graduates outperform their peers at state-run schools. “I think going to school is important because I will be able to earn an income, help out financially and help the family,” says Jamila. Her confidence is well-placed: research from the United Nations shows that a girl increases her future earnings by 20 per cent for every extra year of schooling she completes. “These brave and ambitious children are taking bold steps to create a better future for themselves and their families and we need to support them,” emphasises Saleh. Over the next four years, BRAC aims to educate another 120,000 children in Afghanistan – predominantly girls – opening a further 4,000 community-based schools. The initiative is budgeted at $20m, and the majority of funding comes from BRAC’s development partners. However the organisation will have to raise further resources if it is to achieve its objectives in full. In so doing, BRAC hopes to empower girls like Ismera and Jamila to achieve their ambitions – one to be a teacher, the other a doctor. For Ismera, a basic education is the first step to further opportunities. “I think going to school is important because it will open our eyes,” she says, with her gaze focused firmly on a vision of a brighter future. n
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Philanthropy Age
From the ghetto to the stars Over the last six decades, music legend Quincy Jones has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for needy people around the world, most notably through We Are The World, the fastest-selling pop single of all time. He tells Andrew White that charity, like music, comes from the soul don’t really consider myself a philanthropist,” says Quincy Jones, sipping on a sparkling water and leaning backward contemplatively in his chair. “I understand what the word is, but it doesn’t work for me. I’m just me and I’ve been caring for people all my life because I don’t want anybody to go through what I went through.” Before the music and the millions, before the 79 Grammy Award nominations and 27 wins, before Michael Jackson, Live Aid and the fastest-selling American pop single in history, was the poverty. At 80 years of age, sitting in the plush cigar bar of a luxury Dubai hotel, Jones now inhabits a different world to that in which he was raised. The memories are fresh, however, and he recalls the Great Depression and his
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Main Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones together at the 1994 Grammy Awards. The pair collaborated on smash-hit charity single We Are The World
early life in gangster-era Chicago with the swagger-and-staccato delivery of a hardboiled crime novelist. The son of a “carpenter for the mob” and grandson of a Mississippi slave, the young Jones saw “dead bodies and tommy guns and stogies and piles of cash”. He also resolved that given the chance, he would spare other young people the harsh reality of ghetto life. “Every society has a pyramid with have-nots that are scuffling at the bottom, from South Africa to South America to Asia and the Middle East,” he says. “It’s the same thing that I had to face on the streets of Chicago during the depression, and it’s very tough growing up poor, whether it’s in Chicago or Saudi Arabia or Yemen. If you can afford it, you’ve got to help them to get up on their feet.”
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Jones’ music career has been all about getting people up on their feet. The iconic producer behind such dancefloor fillers as Billie Jean, Beat It, and Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, not to mention the first black executive of a major record label, Jones revolutionised the American music industry over a period of six decades. As a jazz musician, arranger, music and TV producer, and entrepreneur, he introduced Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith to the world, and chose the nine tracks “from about 800” that would comprise Michael Jackson’s Thriller, which became the biggest-selling album of all time. As a charity fundraiser, social activist – and yes, philanthropist – his influence has been incalculable. “Giving is in my gut, same with music; they’re something you feel rather than think about,” he says. “Human beings’ emotional response to music makes it a great way to reach out to people, and to ask them to do good. I’ve travelled more than anybody else you know, and I’ve seen it all over the world.” Jones harnessed this gut reaction most effectively in 1985, when he formed the supergroup USA for Africa and recorded We Are The World, which went on to become the fastest-selling American pop single of all time. The record sold more than 20 million copies and raised more than $63m for famine relief in Ethiopia –the equivalent of $140m in today’s money. Huge stars including Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson lent their talents to the track, and as the world listened, so too did the US government, pledging a further $800m in aid to the drought-stricken east African country. “We Are The World took it from ‘I, me and my’, to ‘we, us and they’,” says Jones, insisting that those who took part did so with the minimum of fuss. Recording started early in the morning following that year’s American Music Awards, a notorious party night, but according to Jones not one star showed up late or blurry-eyed.
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Main As a music producer, TV producer, entrepreneur, social activist and philanthropist, Jones has left a mark on millions of lives
“You have to organise a foundation if you want it to outlast you, and I want mine to outlast me by a long way” “You can’t come in with an ego with that kind of group,” he recalls. “Those people came to see what they could do to help people in trouble, and I didn’t have one problem from anybody: Bruce Springsteen came up in a pickup truck, Diana Ross came up in a limousine, but they all came to help.”
Jones would revisit the same piece of music 25 years on, raising funds for the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which claimed more than 100,000 lives and displaced an estimated 3 million people. A year later, he collaborated with some of the Middle East’s biggest musical talents to launch the charity single Bokra/Tomorrow. The brainchild of Jones and Emirati social entrepreneur Badr Jafar, Bokra/Tomorrow united 24 artists from 16 nations across the Middle East and North Africa, raising millions of dollars for arts and culture programmes across the region. “We did Bokra to give all the benefits to kids and schools in the Middle East,” says Jones. “Those kids were the sweetest little kids I ever saw, and so it was all about
Philanthropy Age
Below The Quincy Jones Foundation raises funds and awareness to advance the health and wellbeing of children around the world
“The pope, Bono, Sir Bob and me” getting them to stop slinging insults at each other, and start singing.” Despite this success, Jones insists that as the music scene has changed in the decades between We Are The World and Bokra/Tomorrow, so too has the fundraising landscape. “It’s much harder to get people to give, because everybody who’s rich is always getting hit on all the time to give something,” he says. “It doesn’t take any talent to go to a rich dude to take his money, and that makes it a challenge to get money for the right reasons.” Jones has spent a lifetime raising money for the right reasons. Through his personal foundation, The Quincy Jones Foundation, he raises awareness and financial resources for initiatives that support global children’s issues in areas of conflict, malaria eradication, and clean water. He has also launched the Project Q foundation, a joint initiative
with the Harvard School of Public Health, through which he is working with NGOs including UNICEF to improve the health and wellbeing of millions of children in developing countries in Africa and Asia. “You have to organise a foundation if you want it to outlast you, and I want mine to outlast me by a long way,” he says. “You have to treat it like a corporation or a military operation, you have to run it that way otherwise you’re not going to be the best at it. “I don’t want to start something that will disappear and the people I work with feel the same way,” he concludes. “There are big foundations out there, which I won’t name, that have 48 per cent operational overheads. That’s wrong. You need 3 to 5 per cent so that people can get the benefit of it, some hope and life in their lives.” n
“Giving is in my gut, same with music; they’re something you feel rather than think about”
“Bono and I met when we did [1985 concert] Live Aid and We Are The World, but we didn’t know the science of what we were doing and made a lot of mistakes,” recalls Jones. “For example, we sent $1m worth of food to Ethiopia just before the conflict with Eritrea [in May 1998], but we had no idea about the politics of the place and the food ended up being left in a field. In four days it had all spoiled. “Bono said, ‘It’s time to go to school’, so we introduced ourselves to all the players, all the heads of state on the planet, even the not-so-nice ones, and did our homework,” he continues. “A year later we went, along with Sir Bob Geldof, to the ‘summer Vatican’, Castel Gandolfo, to sit with Pope Jean Paul II as a part of the Jubilee 2000 delegation to end third-world debt. “Our visit resulted in $27bn in thirdworld debt relief for Bolivia, the Ivory Coast, and Mozambique. I have a photo of that – the pope, Bono, Sir Bob and me. It was a good visit.”
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Main  The now iconic foundation was established in 1913 and named after its founder, the US industrialist and oil baron John D Rockefeller
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Philanthropy Age
A century of giving Over the last 100 years, the Rockefeller Foundation has grown from a small family-run organisation, into a global icon of philanthropy. What does the next century have in store? by Adrienne Cernigoi t is not immediately obvious what links the yellow fever vaccine, Albert Einstein and digital jobs for disadvantaged kids in the slums of Nairobi. For the Rockefeller Foundation, however – which has played a crucial role in the development and success of all three – the connection is clear: innovation. Over the course of the last 100 years, the foundation has transformed from a small family-run organisation, into a global icon of philanthropy. Established in 1913 by the American industrialist and oilman John D Rockefeller, the foundation’s initial ethos was to divest one family’s wealth for the good of others, but in a way that went beyond simple charity. Rockefeller believed in bold, effective initiatives where no dollar was wasted. Since his eponymous foundation’s first grant of $100,000 to the American Red Cross, the organisation has been at the vanguard of supporting public health, education and research for 100 years. More than $14bn has been granted across a range of sectors, from science, to the arts and social sciences, to agricultural research. Grants have been allocated far and wide. In 1935 Rockefeller Foundation funding
I
enabled a breakthrough in the development of a vaccine for the mosquito-borne haemorrhagic disease yellow fever. A few years later, in the early 1940s, the foundation funded agricultural programmes in Mexico, triggering a movement that would become known as the Green Revolution, and which would eventually save more than a billion lives around the globe. Most famously, when a young Albert Einstein sent a request for $500 to the foundation, Rockefeller himself took a calculated gamble. “Let’s give him $1,000,” the petroleum giant reportedly said. “He may be on to something.” “During our centennial year we’ve explored our history to get a better sense of what has driven our success. What we’ve found is that risk-taking has been an integral part of our DNA,” says Judith Rodin,
president of the foundation since 2005. “Unlike governments, we don’t live or die by the polls or the next election. Unlike businesses, we don’t measure success in quarterly earnings,” she continues. “In fact, I’d say risk-taking is one of the ways we philanthropic organisations do hold ourselves accountable to our stakeholders.” Whether or not each represented a risk at the time, the foundation has so far funded no less than 220 Nobel Prize winners. “The best way to cultivate leadership is to build the capacity to see around corners, see momentum building, and figure out a good way to harness, capture and ride it,” says Rodin. “All philanthropies are well-positioned to take risks, but we go a step further. We ensure risk-taking is part of our operating model, and that allows us to be more nimble.”
“I’d say risk-taking is one of the ways we philanthropic organisations hold ourselves accountable to our stakeholders”
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Philanthropy Age
A digital revolution In May 2013 the Rockefeller Foundation launched a $97m seven-year initiative, Digital Jobs Africa. The programme targets disadvantaged youth with high school degrees but no further education in Kenya, Ghana and South Africa, and will soon roll out in Egypt, Morocco and Nigeria. The initiative works with local institutions to offer training in Information Communication Technology (ICT) skills for young people. All six countries involved have growing service sectors with the potential for ICT development, a demand the foundation hopes to position its students to fill. “Morocco’s service sector is worth $80bn, or half of GDP,” says Biteye, by way of example. “ICT is a lever for development.” Working closely with the private sector, government and civil society, Digital Jobs Africa connects trainees to jobs through impact sourcing; specifically, by encouraging leading data companies to outsource projects to centres where low-income, high-potential youth are employed. The initiative was born from a foundation-funded project by US-based non-profit Samasource, which trained 3,700 marginalised people to work on ICT projects in India, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Haiti. According to the foundation, 89 per cent of graduates achieved a promotion, moved on to better work or pursued higher education. In MENA, the rate of unemployment is high and job creation too low to meet the demands of a rapidly growing youth population. By teaching young people technical and life skills and giving them work experience, Digital Jobs Africa aims to improve social and economic opportunities for 1 million workers and their dependents.
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This flexibility is ingrained in the foundation’s approach. Each initiative moves through four phases – scan, search, development and execution – to gauge the potential for impact, and allow for adjustments to the plan before its full execution. “I tell my board if everything we do is wildly successful, then it’s a sure-fire sign that we’re not taking enough risks,” says Rodin. “We must embrace failure as an opportunity for greater innovation.” While Rodin sees innovative philanthropic approaches emerging from Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Rockefeller
Above from left Digital Jobs Africa aims to equip young people with online skills; Judith Rodin has steered the foundation since 2005
Foundation’s longevity nevertheless holds lessons for these diverse actors. “The foundation looks at the world as one strategic unit, seeking solutions that will have an impact globally,” says Mamadou Biteye, the foundation’s managing director for Africa. “What makes us so distinct is the constant search for innovative ideas, and then the foundation has the influence to bring these ideas to others and to scale. That is a very formidable trait.” The foundation’s global reach, extended over the course of a century, is critical to the sustainability of individual initiatives. “The foundation is a catalyser,” explains Biteye. “What is important is that we create a
“The numbers of young people are increasing but there aren’t enough opportunities for them. Philanthropy needs to attend to this”
Philanthropy Age
Urban alliance
platform for action – with civil society, government and the private sector – to leverage knowledge and resources.” Africa has played a key part in the foundation’s history, and will continue to benefit from funding and expertise in the future. With what Biteye calls the “youth bulge” presenting opportunities and challenges across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in particular, there is even more reason for the foundation to focus its efforts in this region. “The greatest challenge is the gap between available skills and skills for employment. The numbers of young people are increasing but there aren’t enough jobs for them. Philanthropy needs to attend to this,” says Biteye. One such initiative is the foundation’s Digital Jobs Africa programme, which supports demand-led training. Typical of the foundation’s breadth of approach, the programme launched simultaneously in three African countries earlier this year, training high-potential but disadvantaged
youth in ICT skills and Above The foundation works on a global scale, both to support linking them to entryphilanthropic initiatives and to level jobs through local seek out innovative solutions to partners and employers. international problems The programme has been extended to Egypt and Morocco, where a pilot project is about to start. Biteye does acknowledge the particular challenges of operating in MENA, where security issues have meant a delay in the launch of the foundation’s Egyptian efforts. Still, he is undeterred. “We have done the scoping study, and we are ready and prepared so that when the situation allows we can roll it out,” he insists. “Youth are our hope for the future, as long as we nurture and provide the vision for young people to realise that hope.” “When we look back over our history and pinpoint the moments when our philanthropy is at its best, it’s almost always at those moments when the work is the hardest and the risk of failure is greatest,” says Rodin. “I hope this legacy lives on.” n
The Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) links the cities of Surat, Indore and Gorakhpur in India with seven others in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam to share experiences of adapting to climate change. Launched in 2008, ACCCRN is a $59m nine-year initiative with plans to extend to Bangladesh and the Philippines. It helps cities plan, finance and build resilience to changing climactic conditions. The network targets cities in Asia, where 60 per cent of the world’s population growth will occur over the next 30 years. ACCCRN cities share practical advice and encourage others to replicate success stories. In Gorakhpur, for example, the city’s water supply, sanitation and drainage systems have not kept pace with its growth. Sitting in the basin of two rivers, the city is at risk of flooding and other water-related problems – with potential knock-on effects for public health, particularly for its slum population. Through ACCCRN, the city has brought stakeholders together to implement projects to tackle waterlogging and flooding, among other dangers.
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one day
“You get hooked
when you see the difference you can make” Women for Women International provides support for women in war and post-war regions. Over the course of the past decade, the organisation has enabled more than 6,500 disadvantaged women in Iraq alone to make a living and rebuild their lives. Mohanad Tawfiq, a manager at the charity’s office in Baghdad, describes a typical day at work.
strong cup of coffee at 8am gives me the clarity of mind to start a day at work. I spend the first half hour or so responding to emails from our headquarters, other NGOs we cooperate with, or my colleagues, as well as the different institutions we deal with such as microfinance providers. My main duty is to help the women who complete our training programme to use the skills we give them to generate income on their own and support their children. I do, however, get involved in various aspects of serving these women, along with nearly 40 staff members and a dozen or so instructors. At around 10am I start my fieldwork with the daily tour to the training centres we run: three in the capital, Baghdad, and one in the city of Karbala. This is where Women for Women offers assistance to some of Iraq’s most disadvantaged mothers and single women. Many have lost their source of income, have no work skills, and are unable to provide the basic necessities of life for their children or themselves. We have
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designed and developed a one-year training programme for these women. The programme gives them the skills, knowledge, confidence, as well as emotional and financial support, to start a small business from home. It is funded by donations that come mainly from our ‘Sponsor a Sister’ campaign, which appeals to women around the world to sponsor a woman in Iraq for a year at a cost of $30 each month. From this, $20 covers the training cost and $10 is given in cash to the participant as financial assistance. Although it’s a small sum, we encourage them to save a little, if they can, to be able to buy the equipment they will need at the end of the programme to start a business. The programme requires participants to attend lectures and training sessions twice a month for one year. The sessions run for a duration of one and a half hours each, and build up to five and a half hours as more modules are added. The modules cover life skills, business skills and also vocational skills. Life skills is probably the most impor-
tant and comprehensive module because it helps them build their personalities, teaching them their legal rights, how to interact with the community, think independently, make decisions and take control of their lives as active participants in their communities. The module also covers the principles and practices for sustainable income, health and wellbeing, and networking. Along the way, we give them all the emotional support and guidance to ensure they’re ready to lead a successful life on their own. The vocational skills we offer them, as per their preference, vary from tailoring and embroidery to food processing, candlemaking and several others that we introduce as we identify new market opportunities. The third module gives them all the basic business skills required to run a small enterprise from home or a group cooperative – when two or more of our graduates pool their resources into one enterprise – from building a product to pricing, accounting, marketing and customer care. The women receive a certificate when they complete the programme. However this does not necessarily mean they will be able to start an enterprise immediately, as many of them lack the required seed money. Banks or other institutions that offer microloans or microfinance in Iraq often require a collateral or a guarantee for
one day
Main The scheme is largely funded by the ‘Sponsor a Sister’ campaign, which appeals to women around the world to sponsor an Iraqi woman for a year at a cost of $30 each month
payments from a government employee, which is beyond the means of these women. We intercede on their behalf to convince the loan provider of the high potential for these women to pay the money back. It is not an easy thing to do, not to mention that some women don’t trust banks or hold that paying interest is ‘haram’ or ‘un-Islamic’. We refer those who don’t get a loan to other NGOs that may provide them with a donation. Some women do manage to help themselves through savings, and one example is that of Awham. Her husband lost his job in 2010 due to a disabling sickness. She was almost 40 years old, had never worked in her life and had no skills, yet she had to make an income to support her husband and four children. A friend tipped her about Women for Women and she joined our programme. A hard worker and always ready to help others, Awham was a very positive influence on her peers. She took up tailoring and when she graduated she had saved enough money from
the $10 monthly support to buy herself a sewing machine. She succeeded in pulling herself and her family from destitution. Awham made many friends among our staff and other participants, and she volunteered whenever she could to assist in the centre and help new participants. She was so good that we made her an instructor – a part time job that helps to further supplement the tailoring business that she runs from her home.
Out in the field, we need to make sure that participants are building the desired business and vocational skills. I spend most of my tour of the centres meeting with instructors, administrators and participants, dealing with many issues, from security and administrative coordination to checking on participants that fail to appear for training. The women who participate in our programme range in age between 18 and 55, and their skillsets span from being illiterate to having completed their secondary school education. These wide ranges make it much more difficult to train them in one class and give them uniform skills at the end of the programme. But it is so endearing to see our efforts paying off when all or most of a group blends in and starts to make an extra effort to overcome psychological and other inhibitions to better communicate and learn. I usually go home at 3pm to my wife and parents, and carry on with my private life. However, when everyone is asleep at around midnight, I end my day as I started it: going through my emails. When the time you spend at work is about caring for the socially excluded, you get hooked – especially when you see the difference you can make. What we are doing has a ripple effect: the opportunity we give to almost every woman is multiplied by the number of children she has, who are saved from poverty and a grim future. n
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Making A Difference
Q
Ron Bruder Like many around the world, real estate developer Ron Bruder was left profoundly shaken by the 9/11 terror attacks. He channelled his energies – and $10m of his own money – into the foundation of Education for Employment (EFE), a network of non-profit organisations across the Middle East and North Africa region, that train young people in technical skills and place them in jobs.
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Where and when did the idea for EFE originate? My daughter was down by the World Trade Center during 9/11, and after I managed to find her we started talking about why this was going on. I became a firm believer that if we were going to have global harmony, it was important that [the Middle East and North Africa] have a piece of the global pie. I hired the Brookings Institution and brought some really brilliant people on board to help me figure out what I could do to make an impact, and I learned that education in the region was not really leading to jobs. We decided we would build global training franchises, but that the foundations themselves would be locally owned, because you can’t have the impact if the locals don’t care and it’s just a bunch of Americans running around thinking they know all the answers. Frankly, that model has turned out to be extraordinarily successful because the people that run the local franchises have taken ownership and pride, they’ve put in time and money and effort, and they know where the jobs are, and they know what training has impact. When you send a dollar and it’s through the auspices of a local foundation, the impact is so much greater.
Making A Difference
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How effective a tool is EFE in terms of achieving its goals? We see our foundations as a business, and we see ourselves as being very similar to a for-profit business, in that we want to be efficient, we want to get the best return on our investment, and we have a whole system to evaluate and monitor so that we know what we get for a dollar and when we make a profit. Our ‘profit’, meanwhile, is very simple: it’s the number of people employed. When we do training we shoot for 85 per cent of our graduates to be in the labour market. Sometimes it’s higher than that; I did a graduation ceremony in Tunis recently and 100 per cent of the graduates were in jobs. Other times it’s not so high; we had a programme in Jordan where we were dealing with ex-cons and drug dealers, and our success rate was only 50 per cent. Last year the average was about 70 per cent, and this year it looks as though it’s about 80 per cent. How important is it that EFE graduates find employment straight away? It means everything. In one of our first programmes we were taking accounting graduates from Islamic University of Gaza and placing them with a large construction firm in the Gulf. However the border closed between Gaza and Egypt for a while and kids could not get out into the labour market. One young man just went out into the desert, in full knowledge that he would probably die out there. But he really didn’t care and somehow he managed to make his way to the Gulf and got a job as an accountant. He went from somebody who was helpless, to someone who would either die or get a job – either of which was preferable to what he had been doing. His despair was that intense. He told me that getting a job was so paramount that going into the desert was not a courageous thing at all: it was simply something he had to do.
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“If we can continue to expand what we’re doing, we can change the way education is delivered in the region”
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What does the future hold for EFE and its operations? We’ve reached a critical point where things could go in one of two directions. The first is that we keep doing what we’ve been doing and train thousands more people for jobs, or the second is that if we can get to a greater scale, we can get more funding and more strategic partnerships in the region. We already have more than 1,000 partnerships, but we’re looking to create a tipping point where the system no longer allows institutions to train and not place. You’re starting to see that in Morocco, for instance, where we’re not only training our own graduates but we’re helping [government] training centres in the country do a better job. If we can continue on that route, we can change the way education is dealt with in the country. I’m hoping that within the next three or four years we will reach that tipping point in each of the countries in which we operate. I’m hoping that the work we’re doing will become persuasive enough and significant enough in the region to really change how education is delivered. EFE already operates across eight countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Are there plans to extend this network? We’re looking at expanding into other countries, and we’ll probably go into Libya. However I think we can make a serious difference in the countries in which we already operate, and I don’t want to squander that opportunity by trying to go
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everywhere. At the moment we are a great vehicle for donations because we’re giving a good return on investment and really making a difference. We’re not a foundation where people go around singing campfire songs and feeling good, we’re actually making a difference, placing thousands of kids in jobs. And if we can continue to expand what we’re doing, we can change the way education is delivered in the region so it’s much more focused on job creation. Is it easier to make a difference today then it was when EFE first launched? There is a much stronger awareness of what needs to be done than there was when we started, a much stronger awareness that jobs anchor peace and stable societies. Back then people realised it was important, but they didn’t realise how important. It’s amazing now that I’m a very small part of a very robust machine. We have more than 100 full-time employees and ownership has moved from me to others. I honestly believe that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, they would take it forward without a problem. Every now and again I’ll catch myself and say ‘what are you doing? You’re working harder than you ever did in the for-profit sector’. The travelling is killing me but I do it and I enjoy it. When you go into a room and see hundreds of kids who at one point were never going to get jobs, had no self-esteem or self-respect and were angry and frustrated… now they’re reborn, and it’s incredibly exciting to be a part of that. n
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trends
Child labour falls, but numbers still high he number of child workers worldwide has fallen by a third over the past 13 years, according to a report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), but campaigners say more must be done to protect children from long hours and hazardous work. Worldwide, there are an estimated 168 million children working in situations that fit the ILO definition of child labour, down from 246 million in 2000. Much of the progress was made between 2008 and 2012, when the number fell from 215 million to 168 million. Still, more than one in 10 children aged between five and 17 are active in the workplace, and 85 million of
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those children are doing hazardous work, defined as that which directly threatens their health, safety and moral development. The international community has pledged to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2016 but the report said this target will not be met, despite the progress made, without “a substantial acceleration of efforts at all levels.” “A world without child labour is still too far in the future,” the report added. According to the ILO, Asia Pacific has more child labourers than any other region in the world, despite recording the largest drop in child labour in the past four years. There were 78 million child labourers in the
Child labour by national income
No of child labourers aged between 5-17 years, by region Asia Pacific
2000 113.6 million 2012 78 million
Latin America, Caribbean
2000 14.1 million 2012 12.5 million
Sub-Saharan Africa
2000 No data 2012 9.2 million
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Child labour by industry sector % 58.6 Agriculture
% 32.5 Services
% 1.9 Other
Industry
countries
% 9Lower-middle income countries
% 6.2 Upper-middle income countries
2000 65 million 2012 59 million
Middle East, North Africa
% 22.5 Low-income
world’s most populous region in 2012, down from 114 million in 2008, the ILO said. The region also has the largest number of children in hazardous work, at 33.9 million. “We are moving in the right direction but progress is still too slow,” said Guy Ryder, director-general, ILO. “If we are serious about ending child labour in the foreseeable future, we need a substantial stepping-up of efforts at all levels.” The region with the highest incidence of child labour is sub-Saharan Africa with more than one in five of its children, or 59 million, in the workplace. There are 9.2 million child labourers in the Middle East and North Africa, ILO data shows.
Child labour by gender Boys 99.8 million
Girls 68.2 million
7.2%
trends
Money isn’t everything We compare the BRICS economies’ ranking in the global index on ageing, against the proportion of the population aged 60+
Country
Index ranking
% of GDP growth in 2011
% aged 60+ in 2012
% aged 60+ in 2050
Brazil
31
2.7
10.9
29
Russia
78
4.3
18.6
31.2
India
73
6.3
8.0
19.1
China
35
9.3
13.3
33.9
South Africa
65
3.5
7.8
14.8
Middle East, Asian states struggling to support elderly, finds report egional countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jordan and India offer the worst conditions for elderly people, according to the first global index on ageing. The over-60s fare best in Sweden, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, the index shows, though wealth does not necessarily mean better conditions for older people. The US, the world’s richest country, took the eighth spot, while the UK failed to enter the top 10. Sri Lanka, a lower-income country, ranked 36, significantly above Pakistan at 89, despite their similar levels of gross domestic product. The emerging economies of Brazil and China scored relatively well, at 31 and 35; however, Russia and India ranked far lower. “People in countries at similar stages of economic and social development may have widely differing experiences,” the report noted. “Older people in some lowand middle-income countries fare better than older people in some wealthier countries. Money isn’t everything.”
The index, developed alongside the UN fund for population and development, encompasses 91 countries and 89 per cent of the world’s older people. It comes at a time of rapid demographic change: by 2050, there will be more people aged 60 or over than children under 15, comprising more than a fifth of the world’s population. The index found that the world’s population is aging so fast that most countries are not adequately prepared to support their growing numbers of elderly people.
R
Year
Developing countries are often the least prepared for the demographic changes underway, the report noted. The world’s fastest-ageing countries – Jordan, Laos, Mongolia, Nicaragua and Vietnam – all scored in the lower half of the ranking. “The index challenges countries in every part of the world,” Professor Sir Richard Jolly, creator of the index, was quoted as saying in the report. “It broadens the way that we understand the needs and opportunities of older people, going far beyond the adequacy of pensions and other income support. “As both the number and proportion of older people rises in many countries, the importance of these lessons cannot be overstated.” The index is calculated using 13 indicators under four headings: income security, healthcare, employment and education and an enabling environment.
The number of 60+ people worldwide in (millions)
Proportion of the global population
2012
809
11%
2030
1,375
16%
2050
2,031
22%
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The Next Step
Never think you can’t make a difference… The stories featured on these pages are just a starting point. Many of the organisations we focus on are saving and changing lives on a daily basis, but they need support to survive. If you want to learn more about the issues, or get busy solving them, then don’t hesitate to get in touch and take the next step on your own philanthropic journey
Heart surgeons in Iraq The Preemptive Love Coalition (www. preemptivelove.org) helps to carry out lifesaving cardiac surgery for hundreds of Iraqi children each year. Any form of support, whether financial or in terms of medical volunteers, makes a considerable difference on the ground.
Learning through teaching Teach for Pakistan (www.iteachforpakistan.org), an initiative of the non-profit Aman Foundation, parachutes bright young graduates into teaching positions at underserved schools across the country. The programme is always grateful for both funding, and volunteers.
Afghan rug weavers The Fatema Bint Mohammed Bin Zayed Initiative (www.fbmi.ae) trains and employs marginalised women in the production of fine carpets. It also provides healthcare and education support for the women and their families, in the form of medical check-ups and free schooling.
African refugees Organisations including the UNHCR (www. unhcr.org), the World Food Programme (www.wfp.org) and the International Rescue Committee (www.rescue.org) work daily to relieve the suffering of the 100,000 refugees crammed into Kakuma, in northern Kenya. Two decades after the camp opened, it remains a magnet for displaced peoples from across East Africa.
Trade skills in Bangladesh Skills Training for Advancing Resources (STAR) provides technical and vocational education and training for adolescents who have dropped out of school. It is an initiative of the Bangladesh-based charity BRAC (www.brac.net), and covers five cities across the country with the support of partner organisations and donors.
‘Sponsor a Sister’ Women for Women International (www. womenforwomen.org) appeals to women around the world to sponsor a woman in Iraq at a cost of $30 a month. From this, $20 covers training costs and $10 is given to the participant in cash. Although it’s a small sum, it really can change lives.
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da vo s
Al to
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Sa n
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Key events this quarter Doha
Abu Dhabi
Brussels
Brussels
Abu Dhabi
The annual WISE Summit is dedicated to driving innovation in education, bringing together more than 1,000 corporate, political and social leaders from 100 countries to discuss the industry’s most pressing challenges.
The yearly meeting of the Arab Foundations Forum will follow the Emirates Foundation’s Annual Philanthropy Summit on November 12, and aims to foster dialogue, networking and collaboration among foundations active in the Arab world.
AidEx, the global humanitarian and development aid event, brings together more than 2,000 professionals and 200 suppliers to debate aid and development problems, share knowledge and drive action on wider humanitarian issues.
By invitation only, the one-day Euro Philantopics event in Brussels will gather high-level European policymakers and leading philanthropists to provide a platform for collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
Billed as the world’s largest brainstorming event, the World Economic Forum’s Summit on the Global Agenda will bring together more than 80 groups of experts from academia, business, civil society and government to explore the critical issues shaping the global and regional agenda.
October 29-31
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November 13
November 13-14
November 14
November 18-20
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Coming up
Next quarter
January 22-25 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2014, Davos-Klosters January 27-29 IHRFG Conference, San Francisco
Geneva
Cergy-Pontoise
The annual meeting of the European Venture Philanthropy Association will focus on the theme of responsible leadership. The event aims to drive action on strategic philanthropy, bringing together venture philanthropists and social investment experts from around the world.
The second annual conference of the Londonbased Social Impact Analysts Association seeks to promote the growth of more effective social purpose organisations, specifically by sharing knowledge, challenges and insights from professionals working in the industry.
November 26-27
December 10
February 17-18 World CSR Congress, Mumbai February 26-27 African Philanthropy Forum, Addis Ababa March 25-27 DIHAD, Dubai March 26-28 MIT Global Startup Conference, Rio de Janeiro April 3-4 SVCrowdFund, Palo Alto April 13-16 Celebrating Philanthropy in Emerging Economies, Washington DC April 23-25 Global Philanthropy Forum Conference, Redwood City
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Philanthropy Age
In the next issue…
Brave new world F
rom single-use syringes to electronic payment systems, development organisations around the world are employing inventive technologies not only as a way to save lives, but to improve access to opportunity. Quicker, cheaper, more effective and more efficient, these new tools are changing the way agencies operate in the field, and bringing achievable solutions to formerly intractable problems. In our next issue, we head into the field to see what works, and what doesn’t. We study the potential – and the pitfalls – of private sector collaboration, and we examine new innovations that could change forever the way the humanitarian community operates. n
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