The New Global Citizen - Spring 2015

4 Comment

Spring 2015

CAN THE SDGS ACHIEVE UTOPIA BY 2030?

Deirdre White

18 Around the World

JIVA LEADS TRANSFORMATION IN RURAL INDIA Virendar Khatana

22 Around the World

WEST AFRICA IN THE WAKE OF EBOLA Alicia Bonner Ness

50 Enterprise

HOW OIL & GAS IS DRIVING GROWTH IN GHANA Kuralai Kunz

Individual Action for Collective Impact

Spring 2015 Editor In Chief Alicia Bonner Ness

Executive Publisher Amanda MacArthur

Design & Publication Manager Melissa Mattoon

Contributors Deirdre White

CEO, PYXERA Global

Daniel Elliott

Key Client Manager, PYXERA Global

Pam Williams

President, Fine Chocolate Industry Association

Virendar Khatana

Director, Joint Initiative for Village Advancement

Daniel Hill

Co-founder and President, Green Impact Campaign

Laura Asiala

Vice President, Public Affairs, PYXERA Global

Rainer Stern

Global Sales Leadership Programs, SAP

Kuralai Kunz

Director, Enterprise and Community Development, PYXERA Global

Matt Clark

Program Manager, The Center for Citizen Diplomacy

PUBLISHED DAILY AT: www.newglobalcitizen.com CONTACT: editor@newglobalcitizen.com (202) 719-0656 @BeNewGlobal facebook.com/BeNewGlobal

Today’s world demands individuals and organizations prepared to thrive in a globally interconnected network of challenges and opportunities. Greater social awareness and innovative approaches have allowed us to cross borders and cultural boundaries to create shared value and understanding. The New Global Citizen chronicles the stories, strategies, and impact of innovative leadership and global engagement around the world. This publication seeks to capture the ground-level impact of these approaches, providing an avenue through which beneficiaries and implementers alike can showcase their impact.

Today’s transformed and increasingly interconnected world has spurred a revolution, ushering in collaborative approaches that address complex challenges. The New Global Citizen elevates the ways in which individuals, corporations, and social enterprises champion a better future for our world.

THIS IS THE WORLD OF THE NEW GLOBAL CITIZEN. THIS IS YOUR WORLD.

NGC

2

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

INSIDE THE ISSUE

You Are the Change You Wish to See

A It is easy to forget just how much positive change so many individuals create every day. Human beings, the world’s greatest source of transformation, have the power to change the world for good with both words and action. This issue champions the efforts of a diverse range of characters and their individual contributions to collective change in their communities.

I cannot deny my practical nature: there is a lot of work to be done and a 15-year timeline is short.

lready, the events of 2015 have underscored the power of individuals to change the world.

Yet, all too often, the news is rife with the hateful acts such individuals commit. Militant fighters within the Islamic State have escalated and expanded their offensive into Libya, massacring 21 Coptic Christians and undertaking massive suicide bombing campaigns. In France, Paris was brought to its knees by two men, so angry and aggrieved, they silenced forever those whose freedom of expression provoked their actions. The assassination of Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian deputy prime minister who spoke out against the corruption of the Russian government, underscores the ability of individuals to not only commit hateful acts, but to incite them.

Under such circumstances, it is easy to forget just how much positive change so many individuals create every day. Human beings, the world’s greatest source of transformation, have the power to change the world for good with both words and action.

This issue champions the efforts of a diverse range of characters and their individual contributions to collective change in their communities. Cacao farmers in Ecuador work to preserve the industry’s heirloom varietals. Welders in Ghana build the country’s oil and gas supply-chain to foster economic growth. Health workers in Liberia and Sierra Leone repair their countries’ social fabric after the devastation of war with an invisible enemy.

And, people are not just making change in their communities. Many are crossing borders to build bridges instead of walls, to foster social impact where it is needed most. Whether it’s pro bono corporate consultants in Colombia addressing the country’s agricultural value chain, SAP executives in Uganda working to save the lives of the country’s AIDS orphans, or the more than 6,000 individuals who volunteer with the United Nations each year, the opportunity to make a positive change in the world is enabling people to find new meaning and focus in our ever-frantic lives.

In 2015, the United Nations will set forth 17 sustainable development goals to focus world attention and efforts on the critical challenges we face. In these pages, Deirdre White challenges their feasibility as real goals as opposed to aspirational targets. In the context of global progress and equality, one thing is certain. Whether or not the SDGs reach their lofty, though laudable, objectives, over the next decade, or century, or millennium, nothing will exceed the effect of the women, men, and children who make it their mission to build a better future for the world.

Alicia Bonner Ness Editor in Chief

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

3

FEATURES 30

AN INNOVATION IN ENERGY AUDITING FOSTERS SUSTAINABILITY AND PROFESSIONAL GROWTH D ani e l Hill

38

BUILDING FAMILIES ACROSS BORDERS L aura Asiala

42

WHAT I LEARNED IN COLOMBIA CHANGED MY CAREER R ai ne r S ter n

4

COMMENT ARE 17 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT? D e i rd re Wh i t e

54 BOOK REVIEW

WORKING WORLD: CAREERS IN INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, EXCHANGE, AND DEVELOPMENT M a t t C l a rk

50

FOR GHANAIAN ENTREPRENEURS, OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS BUT OPENING THE DOOR IS NOT SO EASY

34 HAPPENINGS CAN GLOBAL BUSINESS FEED THE WORLD? 2 0 1 4 N e t I m p a c t C o n fe re n c e

K uralai Kunz

AROUND THE WORLD 8

BUILDING A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR UGANDA’S FORGOTTEN STREET CHILDREN

46 HAPPENINGS

THE UN EMBRACES THE POWER OF VOLUNTEERING WITH IMPACT 2030 Impact 2030

D ani e l Elliott

14

IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT CHOCOLATE Pam W i lliams

18

VOICES FROM THE FIELD

22

AT WAR WITH AN INVISIBLE ENEMY

Vi re nda r Khatana

Ali c i a Bonner Ness

22

NGC

4

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

COMMENT

Are 17 Sustainable Development Goals a Sustainable Approach to Development?

IN 2015, THE UN MUST BALANCE EFFORT AND ASPIRATION TO RATIFY THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS D eirdre White

A

s a year, 2015 holds great promise for the global engagement community. We can celebrate the sunset of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and also look forward to the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will set a vision for the next 15 years.

The MDGs, though flawed, were revolutionary. Drafted in 2000, they provided common understanding of the world’s most egregious social problems. They laid out eight goals, including poverty reduction, improved maternal health, and universal primary education. Further, they set a timeline for improvement, calling for significant advancements by 2015.

Over the past year, many important international leaders, from the heads of USAID and DfID to Bill Gates and Bill Clinton, have celebrated the progress that has been made. And it is true: a great deal has been accomplished.

At the same time, two key challenges constrained the MDGs’ impact. First, the goals were hatched by a handful of people in a back room. While they were endorsed by the United Nations in 2001, the limited perspectives taken into account in their formation resulted in a lack of strategy and cohesion in terms of how to move forward. This lack of cohesion was only compounded by

the UN’s assumption that people and institutions would come together organically to move toward those goals.

Second, the goals did not lay out strategies for effective monitoring, evaluation, and impact measurement. At first glance, MDG reports suggest that a great deal has been achieved: the number of people living on less than $1.25 a day was halved, exponentially more children have access to primary schooling across the globe, and the incidence and mortality of HIV/AIDs and malaria have been significantly reduced. Yet, few people realize that the baseline data for most goals is 1990, not 2000. Without this knowledge, it is easy to be impressed with all that has been achieved, but such progress took place over 25 years, not the 15 generally cited.

These results also encompass the significant economic transformation that has taken place in China and India during this time period, due not to donor intervention, but to enterprise and technology-driven economic change. A burgeoning middle class in both of those countries necessarily skews the overall progress indicators on poverty, health, and education. Those boasting success do not take into account progress that was

The MillenNium Sustainable Development Goals 1. End poverty in all its forms everywhere 2. End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture 3. Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all 7. Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all 8. Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all 9. Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation 10. Reduce inequality within and among countries 11. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable 12. Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts 14. Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development 15. Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss 16. Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels 17. Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

NGC

6

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

well underway by the early 2000s and not necessarily related to the goals. In fact, there has been no formal analysis of whether the MDGs contributed in any way toward these positive trends.

In short, while the MDGs were an important innovation in development planning, we must address their shortcomings in order to achieve more over the next 15 years.

It is in the context of this history that the UN has put forward the Sustainable Development Goals. Currently in draft form, these goals are expected to be ratified in September by the UN General Assembly. One clear lesson learned from the MDGs was that the goals for the next 15 years cannot be created by a small number of people without external consultation. Thus, the UN launched a

PYXERA Global Targets: Nine Sustainable Development Goals Goal 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture

Goal 4 Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

Goal 6 Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Goal 8 Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

Goal 15 Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

Goal 3 Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Goal 5 Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Goal 7 Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Goal 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Methodology and Approach Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development (Goal 17) *the UN’s goal numbering is maintained here for clarity

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

The goals as currently stated are heady ones, envisioning a 2030 world with no poverty, no inequality, nor injustice where, on a sustainablymaintained planet, no man, woman, or child is hungry, ill, uneducated, or unemployed. My inner idealist embraces this glorious vision, but I cannot deny my practical nature: there is a lot of work to be done and a 15-year timeline is short.

highly-inclusive process, inviting input from the public, private, and social sectors. Everyday citizens had an opportunity for comment through an online tool. The result of this broad consultation is the Open Working Group proposal that can be found on the UN website today.

The inclusive process that led to this draft proposal was surely important. However, openness to broad input has had a social price. The 17—yes, 17—proposed goals (along with 169 associated targets) seek to effectively address and overcome every challenge known to humankind. The goals as currently stated are heady ones, envisioning a 2030 world with no poverty, no inequality, nor injustice where, on a sustainably-maintained planet, no man, woman, or child is hungry, ill, uneducated, or unemployed. My inner idealist embraces this glorious vision, but I cannot deny my practical nature: there is a lot of work to be done and a 15-year timeline is short.

Until recently, looking at the list of 17, I felt certain I was reviewing an early draft. That was until the World Economic Forum in January 2015, when I had the opportunity to participate in a roundtable on the SDGs and how public-private-social sector partnerships can contribute to their successful achievement. The two UN Ambassadors charged with finalizing the goals were also participants and their message was clear: the current proposal is, in fact, the one that will be voted on by the General Assembly later this year.

What is the value in setting goals that are unachievable, I wondered. His Excellency Macharia Kamau, the UN Ambassador from Kenya, succinctly answered my question. “We are at a level of ambition that has never been seen in human history, and that level is achievable.” He further challenged, “How shall we embrace it?” How could I not be inspired to climb on board?

But these are not realistic 15-year goals. The totality of change envisioned requires the destruction of long-held social structures, the demolition of broken institutions, the provision of an unfathomable volume of services, and the development of unimaginable infrastructure. Fifteen years is not enough time to complete this extensive laundry list. In fact, a recent report from the Overseas

NGC

7

Development Institute (ODI) states, rather bleakly, that without overhauling development practices across the board, the better world we seek might not exist even by 2100, let alone 2030. According to ODI, it will take 76 years for all Ghanaian women to have access to skilled care during childbirth. Kenya will not have sanitation for all its residents for another 150 years. We are more than six decades from sub-Saharan Africa achieving equal access to education for boys and girls.

Based on my experience executing meaningful partnerships over the past quarter century, I strongly believe that the United Nations should pare down the list, and revisit the broad nature of some of the goals. Yet, this is unlikely to happen. If the SDGs stand as currently drafted, each organization and individual committed to global engagement and social impact must evaluate the list and see how best each of us can have a real and meaningful impact over the coming years. Even without the ability to erase history and its effects, there is still a great deal that can be achieved.

I remain hopeful that the United Nations will revisit its decision to endorse the full list of 17 SDGs; however I am prepared to concentrate the work of PYXERA Global and out partners on nine goals, for which we will develop our own sober targets and indicators.

A tenth goal, regarding partnership for sustainable development, is for PYXERA Global a methodology at the core of our approach, how different players can make meaningful contributions, not an end goal in and of itself. I encourage other organizations and individuals struggling with the SDGs to do the same. Select the areas where you can contribute, define the real impact you can effect, then put together the right partnerships to do so.

I believe the nine goals seen in the picture at left represent the most purposeful objectives we can pursue within a 15-year timeframe. Certainly, we are unable to address each of these goals in every geographic and political context; rather we will rely on our 25 years of experience and our deep relationships around the globe to determine where we can best focus our energies and those of our partners.

“This journey from the aspiration of the SDGs to their achievement will require focus and collaboration.”

The world’s biggest challenges will not be resolved by any one sector alone. To effectively move the needle on any of these objectives, the global engagement community must learn how to better create, maintain, and capitalize on strong partnerships across sectors. This journey from the aspiration of the SDGs to their achievement will require focus and collaboration. While the SDGs are overly ambitious and may be ill-advised on a 15-year timeframe, their pursuit is valiant. Moving in partnership provides the global community’s best chance at achieving such an aspirational vision.

NGC

8

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

AROUND THE WORLD

BUILDING A BRIGHTER FUTURE FOR UGANDA’S FORGOTTEN STREET CHILDREN D aniel Elliott

D

o not bring anything valuable,” Viera said. “No money, no phones, no watches or jewelry.” I patted my pockets to confirm I had taken everything out. Standing in the hotel courtyard as the Ugandan dusk began to creep overhead, I felt the weighty absence of my wallet and mobile phone.

My group stood nervously around as Viera gave instruction, each more ominous than the last. A ubiquitous, burning odor hung in the air, mingling with the smell of garbage and cow manure. Pop music wafted over from an outdoor common area where local children were dancing on stage for no one in particular. Przemek, a Polish national living in Dubai, took a long, last drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out.

Viera eyed our group calmly. “Once we get out of the van, stay close to me and do everything I say. If I say turn right, turn right. If I say step back, step back. If I say run, run.”

Almost everyone on my team was in Africa for the first time. Many were anxious, even afraid, of what lay ahead. Over the course of my career, I have traveled to more than 70 countries, including post-conflict and post-disaster environments like Iraq and Haiti. But even I, under the continued warnings, felt a little nervous.

“When the children approach you, do not give them anything,” Viera said. “If we start to attract attention, just listen to my instructions and do exactly as I say. Any questions?”

“How long does it take to get there?” someone asked.

“Depending on traffic, it should be about two hours, maybe more. We will stay until around 10 pm and then return.”

“Should I take off my wedding band?” I asked.

“You should never take off your wedding band,” Viera said. “Not until you die.”

“Which could be tonight,” Przemek added helpfully.

With that, we boarded the van and began our journey to downtown Kampala.

In a country of just under 40 million people, UNICEF estimates that Uganda is home to two million orphans, more than half of whom were orphaned by Africa’s

In a country of just under 40 million people, UNICEF estimates that Uganda is home to two million orphans; where more than half were orphaned by Africa’s AIDS epidemic.

SAP AND THE GOOD FUTURE AND HOPE FOUNDATION PROVIDE FOR UGANDAN ORPHANS

AIDS epidemic. The Ugandan government estimates that more than 10,000 of these children live on the streets of Kampala, the country’s capital.

Viera Liebe is the Executive Director of The Good Future and Hope Foundation, an organization that focuses on getting orphans off the streets, providing them with warm beds, healthy meals, and an education. A Slovakian national married to a German, she and her husband Hannes split their time between Dubai, Uganda, and Myanmar, the location of the other orphanage they run. They are making plans to establish orphanages that cater to street children in other countries as well. I was part of a small group of people who wanted to see the Foundation’s work firsthand and

determine how to leverage SAP’s global pro bono programs to further their goals.

Located a few hours outside Kampala, the orphanage is a blissful oasis compared to the rough and dusty streets of the capital.

Tucked away off a side road, lush vegetation and scattered farm houses line the dirt trail that leads to the still-under-construction entrance gate. As the van pulled up, all of the orphans dressed in their Sunday best greeted us with a chorus of songs, welcoming us into their homes. One bright teenager proudly led us through each of the houses in the compound, showing us where each child sleeps, the cabinets where they keep their clothes, and the common area where they share meals and study. She did not

NGC

10

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

SAP SOCIAL SABBATICAL EMPLOYEE VOLUNTEERS WORK WITH THE GOOD FUTURE AND HOPE FOUNDATION, AN ORGANIZATION THAT FOCUSES ON GETTING UGANDAN ORPHANS OFF THE STREETS.

fail to mention that the boys’ living quarters are always messier than the girls’.

Each house is equipped with running water, a kitchen, and separate living quarters for the “house mother,” a full-time, live-in adult who looks after the children in each house. Many of the house mothers are widows or single mothers who can bring their own children to live with them in the orphanage in exchange for their work, a model used successfully by other orphanages in the region. They are responsible for the daily upkeep and order of their houses, and they take great pride in their maintenance. None of the children know exactly how old they are, so ages are approximations. The Foundation hosts one big birthday party for all the children in August, where they celebrate with cake and presents.

During my visit, I sat with Viera at the dining table in one of the compound’s newer buildings, discussing the orphanage’s origins. I could

hear the children running around outside, playing with some of the toys the group had brought. In 2011, rising world food prices and shrinking supply brought severe famine to many countries in East Africa. Like many Europeans, Viera and her husband were blissfully unaware of the crisis.

They had been planning a vacation to Israel. Then, a flyer raising money for victims of the famine caught their attention.

“We thought, what if we just cancel our vacation and go to East Africa and help there?” she said. “We of course didn’t know anyone there, or anything about Africa, but we thought to ask the organization that was passing around the flyer to put us in touch with whoever they knew on the ground.”

When they arrived, they visited one of the local organizations attempting to support children in need. Viera continued with her story, the passion

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015 and dedication she has for her Foundation and the children they foster apparent in each word.

“There was one place specifically where we entered and it was…” Viera paused, controlling the surge of emotions that came with the recollection. “I can’t even call it an orphanage.”

Viera described what passed for an orphanage—a run-down house rented by a school teacher and his wife that provided minimal care to as many children as possible. “They were not able to send them to school or anything,” she said. “They just had a possibility of a place to stay at night.”

This chance encounter with the school teacher and his wife running a bare-bones orphanage for street children proved to be fateful. Upon entering the house, Hannes was overwhelmed by the level of poverty around him. The children’s distended bellies and visibly infected skin were a signal of the dire absence of sufficient medical care and food. Hannes realized that he and his wife faced a fight-or-flight moment.

“As soon as I stepped into the orphanage, I looked at my wife, horrified by the realities we saw around us,” he said. “I knew if we didn’t leave then, we would be committing our lives to helping these children.

‘Let’s just give them $1,000 and get out of here,’ I said.”

But Viera wouldn’t have it. “It’s too late,” she said. In that moment, they decided to make the orphaned children of Uganda a cornerstone of their life’s work.

They found a local doctor who came to treat the children’s various ailments, and made a deal with the local water company to reconnect the house to the water supply. They went to a local store and bought enough food for three months. They also visited several other orphanages for comparison. To their relief, they were better managed. So they focused their assistance on that one that was most in need. After three weeks, they returned to Europe to determine the path forward. Viera and Hannes

knew it would be impossible to continue with their former life. Viera, then a successful management consultant, completed her ongoing projects then let her employees go. She planned to completely dedicate herself to the launch and operation of the Foundation.

Hannes began making plans, too. “I sat down with my computer and said, ‘Okay, let’s plan this whole thing out,’” he remembered. He began to speak to colleagues and friends about what they had witnessed in Uganda, and people began to offer financial support for their efforts.

In 2012, the couple bought land out in the countryside and started to build proper facilities. Today, the orphanage houses 44 children, with plans to expand its capacity to 360 over the coming years.

The drive to Kampala was slow. The main road to the capital took us through several villages, where both sides of the street were flooded with an amorphous mass of souls, sounds, and smells. Countless sellers hawked their wares; varied collections of shoes, bed frames, electronics,

NGC

11

and other sundry items lined the streets.

The more robust retail establishments had a blanket under their merchandise; some even had a few pieces of ill-fitting wood supporting a corrugated tin roof and small kerosene lanterns illuminating the goods inside. Others had LED lamps. With no street lights, these small luminescent globes were all that brought shapes and faces out of the shadows.

For most of the ride, no one spoke, each of us consumed with the uncertainty that lay ahead. Were we really going to walk around downtown Kampala at night?

The driver popped in a CD of songs performed by a chorus of children from the orphanage. Before Viera and Hannes came to Uganda, selling music was a primary source of income to support the orphanage; one of their songs had actually been a hit on Ugandan radio.

When we finally arrived, I jumped out of the van into the streets of Kampala, exhilarated. The smell of car exhaust and dust filled my nose. Even at eight in the evening, the streets were crowded and vendors were out in force, hoping for one last sale. The

NGC

12

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

In 2012, Viera and Hannes left Europe to start The Good Future and Hope Foundation. Today, the orphanage in the Ugandan countryside houses 44 children, with plans to expand its capacity to 360. congested traffic flowed with relative ease.

Though our group of foreigners stood out, we attracted no more than a few curious glances. After an uneventful walk from the van to the nearest street corner up the road, I relaxed slightly.

The first child we walked by could not have been older than four. She or he—I couldn’t tell which—sat cross-legged in the middle of the sidewalk, hands held up to form a cup. A dirty ragged shirt hung off the child’s shoulders. Too dark to make out a face, we passed by like everyone else.

The next child was similarly sprawled out on the sidewalk, no more than 20 feet from the first. This one caught Viera’s attention. She told us to stand back while she spoke to the girl. From a distance, we watched Viera kneel down. Viera smiled and the child smiled back. Then she put up her hand and gave Viera a high-five.

Passersby, if they bothered to notice at all, glanced briefly at the strange sight then continued on. Most people just flowed by like a river around rocks. Viera acted as a big boulder shielding the small child from the passing current. I nervously scanned around to see if anyone was looking at

us, or them, with more than just passing interest. No one seemed to care.

As I glanced back to Viera, tears suddenly formed in my eyes. I thought about the incredible difference The Good Future and Hope Foundation is making in the lives of so many children. For Viera, this was an average night, driving around the streets of Kampala looking for orphans. I thought about what I did most nights back in the United States and a pang of shame shot through my stomach.

“Your wife is a saint,” I said to Hannes.

He smiled and looked down.

I thought about the incredibly fortunate children the Foundation saved from their lives on the streets, and about the countless others in Kampala, in Uganda, on the continent of Africa, and around the world that would never be so lucky. Like washed up starfish on a moonlit beach, those children would never to be picked up and thrown back into the ocean. I thought about the good fortune of my two-year-old son, nestled safely in his bed at home.

Viera chatted with the small girl for a few more minutes, then got up and walked back toward us. “That’s Esther,”

Viera said. “I have been looking for her since December.” A few weeks prior, Esther had been picked up by “the bus,” a government vehicle that makes a sweep through the city every few months, picking up street children and dropping them off several hours outside the city in a loosely guarded holding pen. Most children try to make their way back to the city to the only life they know. Some die in the process.

The Kampala Capital City Authority has several programs in place to help street children and foster youth development, but the scale of the task is monumental. And like any other local government authority in the world, resources and time are in short supply.

“Are we going to take her?” I asked.

“No, we can’t just take her,” Viera said.

“We will have to come back during the day and have her say in front of the nearest police station that she wants to come with us.”

“Is it easy to get them to come with you?”

“Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. It usually takes a couple of times talking to them. The only thing these kids have is the relationship with the street and the other kids. No matter how abusive or negative that relationship is, it is the only thing they have. Getting them to a point where they can trust us and have enough confidence to break the only bond they know is really difficult.”

“What did you ask Esther?”

“If she remembered me,” Viera said quietly. “She said yes. Then I asked if she remembered what I had taught her, and that’s when she gave me the high-five.”

We were walking briskly now, up a steep hill towards another area of the city where street children often congregate.

We passed a guard slouching in a plastic lawn chair with an AK-47 across his lap. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was guarding—the locked gate behind him had no sign. I ducked, just barely avoiding hitting

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015 my head on a sign advertising assistance for applying for American visas.

“Musungu,” a man said as he walked by me. White person.

“Do you think she will come to the orphanage?”

“I don’t know,” Viera said. “I hope so.”

Every trip to Kampala is a journey down this tenuous path, the promise of a chance meeting that could result in one more child leaving their life of homelessness for a brighter future. As we got back on the bus, the group reflected on everything that we had seen. Almost everyone noted that the streets of Kampala at night were not nearly as frightening as they had expected.

The Foundation’s future plans are ambitious. Currently, the compound has four houses in a circular layout that will eventually hold eight, mirroring how Ugandan society lives. The shared space provides community; the house mothers provide the children a sense of belonging to a family with their adopted brothers and sisters.

Viera and Hannes are also building a school and housing for teachers, a computer lab, and a medical clinic. The foundations for the school buildings are already in place. If all goes according to plan, the school will be open in time for registration this spring.

Yet, in order to attract local parents to send their children, and more importantly, pay the school fees, the school needs a

Significant changes in the lives of all orphans will require institutional and foundational shifts in how society addresses the challenges they face— the lack of educational opportunities, medical care, and nourishment required to lead healthy and productive lives.

NGC

13

10,000 T h e U g a n d a n g o ve rn m e n t e s t i m a t e s t ha t more th an

o f t h e c o u n t r y ’s t w o m i l l i o n o r p h a n s l i v e o n t h e s t re e t s o f Ka m p a l a .

communications strategy. Additionally, the computer lab is overdue for a needs assessment to decide what hardware to request from potential donors. To fill these gaps, the CSR department for SAP’s Europe, Middle East and Africa Division will send a team of seven communications and IT experts to Uganda this year, leveraging their professional expertise to establish a communications strategy and assess the IT requirements for the Foundation. The company has also started a fundraising drive to engage the SAP EMEA employee community to support the Foundation.

This project is a byproduct of SAP’s growing commitment to making a difference in international development. Along with SAP’s Social Sabbatical and Engaging for Local Impact (ELI) programs, the company is putting their talented employees at the forefront of meaningful global engagement projects.

“Two years ago, the SAP CSR team started with a donation matching program,” Viera said. “It was a fantastic first interaction with an international corporation.

Then, the senior management of the EMEA region came to Uganda to really see what is happening here. I think that’s the most mind-changing thing, when you just come on the ground and see. They said, ‘we want to help you on a bigger scale.’”

The day after our evening excursion, we milled around the village square area in the central part of the orphanage. The afternoon rain had just passed and a glorious golden sun washed over the landscape.

Kathryn from Germany and Miro from

Slovakia continued helping the children with some drawings they were doing for a fundraiser in London. Claire from France was shooting a few more photographs that she’d share with her own children back in Paris. The cows noisily made their way back from the fields, and some of the orphans took turns pushing each other on a small, metal scooter.

As I prepared to return home, I felt energized and proud of the small part I would play in helping these children. Orphanages funded and managed by generous hearts like Hannes and Viera, however, will never clear the beach of all the starfish. Significant changes in the lives of all orphans will require institutional and foundational shifts in how society addresses the challenges they face—the lack of educational opportunities, medical care, and nourishment required to lead healthy and productive lives. But for Hannes and Viera, and the children at The Good Future and Hope Foundation, their lives have been transformed for the better.

I asked Viera what she would tell herself if she could reach into the past, before she began this journey—an unexpected phone call to warn herself about what was to come.

“I wouldn’t make that call!” she exclaimed. “That Viera would get so scared she would never have started this project.

But sometimes I am very thankful that I was not aware of the magnitude of the task. You know the saying, ‘Even an elephant has to be eaten one bite at a time.“

NGC

14

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

AROUND THE WORLD

IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT

CHOCOLATE

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

15

THE CHOCOLATE INDUSTRY’S FIGHT TO PRESERVE THE TASTE AND HERITAGE OF HEIRLOOM CACAO Pam Williams

A

n eight-seat van rumbled along the lightly graded road from Quito, Ecuador, to Quevedo, one of the country’s leading agricultural centers. Our group of chocolatiers and chocolate makers from the United States, Brazil, Belgium, and Canada was on its way to learn more about the country’s cacao, an increasingly rare commodity. Along the way, I was struck by the contrasts: spectacularly beautiful countryside sat alongside abject poverty. We passed lacy waterfalls plunging down steep mountainsides next to half-built cinder-block shanties where TVs flickered behind empty doors and window frames.

The Heirloom Cacao Preservation Initiative Fifteen years ago, most people had one frame of reference for unsweetened chocolate—the bitter brick of baking chocolate our mothers used in recipes. On its own, it tasted terrible.

Over the past decade and a half, this has changed dramatically. Today, unique varietals of single-origin chocolate are available at high-end chocolate stores everywhere and people savor the flavor the way they would a fine wine. The demand

30% Photo: Ever Jean | CC BY-SA 2.0

The demand for cacao is expected to gro w by 30 pe rce nt by 2020.

NGC

16

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

for cacao is expected to grow by 30 percent by 2020, which has the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS), to suggest that the gained international notice.

FCIA work to save fine-flavor cacao by matching flavors (deterBut for many in the fine chocolate industry, the loss of cacao mined by actual human tastebuds) to genetics. biodiversity, especially of older traditional and fine-flavor cacao A significant amount of scientific research has focused on varieties, is even more alarming. Chocolate is poised to go the disease resistance and improved yield. However, flavor is a very way of conventional tomatoes and complex trait and therefore not strawberries; it may look the same normally considered. Fortunately, on the outside, but inside, the flain 2011 the FCIA created the HeirCocoa flavor is not something that just vor and character will have disloom Cacao Preservation (HCP) exists, it is something that is influenced appeared. Over the last 20 years, Initiative in partnership with the every day, all year long by everything from breeding programs focused on disUSDA ARS. “The HCP is important genetics, farming practices, and postease resistance and yield have not in preserving the diversity of cocoa just supplemented the traditional flavor,” Dr. Meinhardt said at the harvest practices, to roasting and refining. cacao orchards, but replaced them.

FCIA meeting in June 2014. “For Each step is important—you must do the In countries like Ecuador, this has the first time, we can understand right things the right way. led to the loss of hundreds of and identify tree varieties that are acres of flavorful cacao. really unique in flavor,” he said.

In 2010, Santiago Peralta, Presi“It allows us to take information dent of Pacari Chocolate in Ecuador and member of the Fine to the next level where we can analyze it to tease out what conChocolate Industry Association (FCIA) went actively searching for tributes to flavor. This is all being done at the USDA Agricultural fine-flavor cacao. When he finally located heirloom groves, they Research Service laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, with research were ripping out the trees to plant a more productive—and thus geneticist Dr. Dapeng Zhang, one of the world’s leading experts profitable—variety. Those kinds of stories led Dr. Lyndel Meinhardt, in cacao genetic diversity.” research leader for the Sustainable Perennial Crops Laboratory at

Photo: Ever Jean | CC BY-SA 2.0

Exploring and Savoring the Fine Flavors of Ecuadorian Cacao Ask any serious chocolate maker or chocolate connoisseur to name their favorite cacao from anywhere in the world, and invariably they will extol the virtues of Ecuadorian chocolate. The region’s rich soil and unique climate bring out deep flavors, as do the cultivation practices of families who have been nurturing their cacao with traditional methods for over a century.

It is sad to see this precious cacao disappearing and bulk cacao seemingly encroaching everywhere. Along the highway as we come into the agricultural Los Rios province, we start to see vast orchards: banana, oil palm, passion fruit, coffee bean, and cacao. Most of the cacao orchards along the highway are growing bulk cacao, mostly CCN51, a hybrid variety developed for its high yield and large pods. While some growers have tweaked the post-harvest processes to improve the flavor, CCN51 has a bland taste spectrum and requires high amounts of fertilizer.

Undeterred, we continue our hunt for authentic, indigenous flavors. We stop at Hacienda Limon owned by Samuel Von Rutte whose trees have received the Heirloom Cacao designation from the HCP because of their fine flavor. Von Rutte has lived and worked in the Ecuadorian chocolate industry for more than 25 years and is now out on his own. While his trees are technically hybrids, they contain a percentage of the old Ecuadorian Nacional cacao blood line.

While the resulting flavor is different from a traditional Nacional, it is fabulous.

The trees in his orchards are well managed, pruned to a workable height for harvest and to optimize sun exposure, and he has developed a pre-fermentation drying process that he feels improves not only the fermentation process itself but the flavor of his cacao beans. Von Rutte’s commitment to his practices is clear. “Cocoa flavor is not something that just exists, it is something that is influenced every day, all year Photo Rog01 | CC BY-SA 2.0

long by everything from genetics, farming practices, and post-harvest practices, to roasting and refining,” he said. “Each step is important—you must do the right things the right way.”

Defending the Future of Chocolate The loss of flavor and cacao biodiversity became the underlying theme of our travels across Ecuador. After visiting three other orchards in Los Rios, our next stop was Mindo where Americans Jose Meza and Barbara Wilson of Mindo Chocolate Makers have established a chocolate-making operation to support local cacao farmers in Meza’s home region of Pichincha. They search out traditional cacao orchards and pay the farmers a premium directly for their beans, bypassing the middlemen and collection centers.

They have also brought in cacao experts to improve the post-harvest processes so that the beans reach their full flavor potential. Wilson has begun to see how valuing high quality, flavorful beans changes the farmers’ perspective. “There has been a big transformation in the way that cacao farmers think about their beans.

They are proud of their Nacional beans and want to sell a high-quality product,” she said. “When we first started making chocolate, farmers were not rewarded in any way for higher quality, and would sell any

variety of beans all mixed together in one bag. When we asked them to separate out only the highest quality beans, they began to understand the importance of the quality of their beans for the reputation and demand for Ecuadorian cacao.”

Most farmers are willing to improve their husbandry practices to continue growing the cacao that their families have always grown (instead of tearing it out and planting higher production hybrids or other crops) if it’s economically realistic for them to do so. They understand and appreciate the quality of what they have. A premium price makes all the difference.

Throughout our travels in Ecuador, we saw firsthand how quickly a precious resource is disappearing. Though they may not realize it, consumers have enormous power to influence how the chocolate industry evolves and whether heirloom cacao survives. Those who appreciate taste, quality, and environmentally sustainable initiatives can make a difference by supporting members of the Fine Chocolate Industry Association, who are leading this effort to save heirloom cacao. Each bite of chocolate ultimately impacts a farmer somewhere in the world. The chocolate people choose to consume now will have an impact for generations to come. Help us save the good stuff.

VOICES FROM THE FIELD THE JOINT INITIATIVE FOR VILLAGE ADVANCEMENT LOOKS BEYOND THE NUMBERS

I

n 2011, Sam Allen, Deere & Company’s Chairman and CEO, led a team from John Deere on a week-long corporate service experience in Rajasthan, India. Following this engagement, the John Deere Foundation decided to fund a five-year community development project in three rural villages. Focused on three key areas—agriculture and income security, education, and infrastructure—the project, created in partnership with PYXERA Global, seeks to foster economic growth and improve the quality of life for those residing in these villages.

Following a needs assessment in the fall of 2012, the Joint Initiative for Village Advancement (JIVA) was up and running by January 2013. The project’s multipronged approach includes renovating schools, training farmers in new agricultural practices, and increasing opportunities for children to stay and perform better in school. In less than two years, the results have been extraordinary: • • • •

100 percent of all drop-outs are enrolled in JIVA’s afterschool tutoring program More than 80 percent of students enrolled in the program showed improved school exam scores More than 120 percent increase in students passing the Class 10 Open Exam from 2013 to 2014 More than 70 percent of participating farmers have adopted some improved agricultural practice

• •

Virendar Khatana

Close to 15 percent of all farmers have adopted a diversified cropping system with higher-value crops 138 farmers have increased profits by more than $2,800 collectively

Two village schools have been fully renovated, including new toilets fitted with solar pumps for the supply of water, new water purifier systems for safe drinking water, kitchens and dining halls, external repairs, and classroom refurbishing. Villagers have contributed more than $7,000 USD to school infrastructure improvements.

The project’s robust monitoring and evaluation strategy has allowed it to adapt and realign plans to meet on-the-ground realities. Its early successes can be attributed to this participatory approach that recognizes that people make decisions based on what they think is best given their circumstances. Taking the opportunity to ask “What?” and “Why?” before “How?” is a differentiation sometimes overlooked in development, but necessary for achieving impact and sustainability in any intervention.

In the two years since its launch, the project’s impact has gone far beyond the quantifiable statistics reflected above. The people in JIVA communities are driving change. There are a number of individuals whose success is worth sharing. The following are just two case studies that show JIVA’s impact beyond planned outcomes.

Photo Ana Raquel S. Hernandes | CC BY-SA 2.0

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

19

AROUND THE WORLD Mr. Bansi Lal Ahir Farmer, Madara Village

T

he first time Bansi heard about JIVA was in February 2013 when a neighbor recalled interviewing with a team from John Deere, PYXERA Global, and local NGO Jatan Sansthan, for a needs assessment a few months prior. He, too, had participated in those meetings and was eager to learn the outcome of the study and what the project would be doing in his village. There was a village meeting to discuss the upcoming agricultural activities scheduled later that week.

Bansi left that first JIVA meeting interested though somewhat skeptical of the “demonstration plot” trainings they would be offering to farmers. Fellow farmer, Nanu Ram, offered to be a demonstration plot farmer for the next two seasons. Out of curiosity, Bansi started working with Nanu Ram from time to time and attended trainings to see what would happen to his crops.

The following year, Bansi ploughed his land prior to the Kharif season (a practice he knew was beneficial, but often opted not to do during the hot season), tested his soil and water supply, and sowed his wheat in rows as per JIVA recommendations. He used a bio-pesticide and constructed a vermi-compost pit as an alternative to the traditional method of applying dried cattle dung as fertilizer.

Bansi became worried when the JIVA Agriculture Specialist advised him to skip his usual second pesticide application; however, as the cotton began to grow, Bansi quickly realized this was going to be a good season for him. Farmers visiting his field also noted the height of his plants, already a foot taller than they usually were this time of year. In December, Bansi calculated that his cotton recorded an increase in yield of 11 percent, resulting in an additional profit of 1,840 Indian Rupees (or $31) per bigha (0.16 hectare).

In addition to helping farmers increase their production and profitability of existing crops, JIVA planned to rotate demonstration plot farmers in year two and select farmers interested in installing net-houses to grow fruit and vegetable seedlings to sell to other farmers in the village. This time, Bansi didn’t hesitate to volunteer.

He used his nursery under JIVA’s guidance to grow papaya and pomegranate seedlings supplied by JIVA. Soon, Bansi’s neighbors were lining up to purchase his seedlings. That summer, Bansi sold seedlings worth 6,400 Indian Rupees (or $103 U.S. Dollars) and recovered about 90 percent of the total cost of the net-house installation. He also planted 100 papaya and 600 pomegranate seedlings on his own plot.

As he calculated his earnings, Bansi began making plans for the following year. He expanded his nursery to include tomato cultivation and installed a subsidized drip irrigation system with JIVA’s guidance. He has already planted bottle gourd, watermelon, cluster beans, and amaranth for market. In 2015, he plans to invest more of his profits in additional livestock, and by 2016 he will be ready to start a home delivery business with his son. His additional yields and profits will help him turn his farm into a delivery service, providing fresh produce to villagers directly to save them the lengthy and costly trips to and from the market.

These days, JIVA brings other farmers to Bansi’s field on a regular basis to demonstrate the value of crop diversification, and Bansi offers them advice on ways they, too, can turn their fields into more lucrative businesses.

NGC

20

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015 ing, Shayari felt they had also made a small step forward because the families of the other five children left them behind with extended family to continue their studies.

When school let out for the summer, children continued to go to the JIVA ERC in the afternoons. Enrollment was growing steadily at the main ERC and there was a demand for a second center. JIVA decided to move the Bagariya center to the nearby Anganwadi (pre-school) located within the village boundaries. Shayari was unsure about the change at first, but was surprised to see how quickly the children adapted. “Children from the rest of the village would not come to the ERC in my locality.

But Bagariya and children from other castes have started studying together after the ERC was moved to the Anganwadi. Gradually, change has happened and children have started calling me teacher. They even take water from me now. People from other castes do not like to take things from the hands of Bagariyas. Earlier they would not even talk to us. Now they sit together like brothers and sisters in the ERC.” Earlier, the Bagariya children faced teasing and bullying at school, but gradually the other students started to accept them.

During a visit to the school with the JIVA Community Education Officer, Shayari noticed that the Bagariya children were sitting sideby-side with other children, particularly in the younger classes— something she never thought she would see.

Ms. Shyari Bagariya

Teacher, Morra Village

S

hyari Bagariya was excited to learn that she was hired as a teacher for JIVA’s new Education Resource Center (ERC) in Morra beginning in May 2013. There would be two centers in the village—one for children of the Bagariya community, where she is from, and one for everyone else. She would provide tutoring in all subjects to children during the afternoon hours, although none of the Bagariya children were enrolled in school.

The Bagariya tribe, often landless, is considered a low caste in India. In Morra village, Bagariyas live in a small settlement on the outskirts of the village, and migrate for four to seven months each year to sell brooms and beg on the streets of busy cities like Mumbai and Chandigarh. Historically ostracized by the rest of the village, Bagariyas are not allowed to purchase anything from the stores in Morra and must travel three kilometers to Railmagra to purchase everyday items and food. Few Bagariya children attend school, and those that do sit apart from their peers in class and are often behind in studies as they cannot attend regularly due to their families’ migration.

JIVA had been meeting with the parents for several weeks prior to the center opening, and their initial commitment to the program was promising. When the ERC classes began that May, Shayari was surprised to see that all 13 children from the community were coming regularly. Bagariya homes are usually small huts, so most classes were held outside on a mat. Because all 13 children had previously dropped out of school, they were not used to sitting in class for hours at a time. To keep their interest, Shayari worked with the JIVA Community Education Officer to develop curriculum that incorporated various learning aids and games.

By July, all 13 children re-enrolled in the village Government school. However, when October came around, seven of the children left to migrate to other cities with their families. They would not return until spring, just before exams. Although this was discourag-

Gradually, change has happened and children have started calling me teacher. They even take water from me now. People from other castes do not like to take things from the hands of Bagariyas. Earlier they would not even talk to us. Now they sit together like brothers and sisters in the ERC.

When school started again in the fall of 2014, all thirteen children were enrolled in school. Level performance testing showed significant improvement in school exam scores, particularly among the five students that didn’t migrate that year. A couple now ranked among the top five performers in their class at school.

Shayari is working diligently to ensure they will pass their upcoming exams in spring 2015. When she looks back over the last two years, she continues to be surprised by the remarkable progress made. Shayari has always been an exception to the rule in her community, but now she is an integral part in ensuring others have the opportunity to follow her lead in receiving a quality education.

DEVELOPING THE NEXT GENERATION OF HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS THROUGH GLOBAL PRO BONO The Global Health Fellows Program (GHFP-II), led by the Public Health Institute (PHI), improves the effectiveness of US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) population, health and nutrition programs overseas by developing and increasing the capacity of health professionals in all stages of their careers, including those making transitions into the global health field. GHFP-II helps USAID address its immediate and emerging human capital needs by developing a diverse group of global health professionals to support and sustain the effectiveness of USAID’s current and future health programs.

Sponsored Content

PHI is proud to partner with PYXERA Global through GHFP-II to bring talented corporate staff into direct implementation work, arranging pro bono volunteer placements in developing countries as part of our work to cultivate and support the next generation of global health practitioners. Through these mutually beneficial partnerships, corporations extend their knowledge and range, volunteers gain invaluable developing country experience, and the nonprofit placement agencies gain access to an unprecedented level of technical expertise.

LEARN MORE:

www.ghfp.net | www.phi.org | www.pyxeraglobal.org |

@GHFPII

AT WA R W I TH AN INV I S IB LE E NE MY

T he Searc h fo r S tab i l i t y i n t h e W a ke o f E b o la Alicia Bonner Ness

T

his isn’t 15,000 incidents of eating bushmeat,” Dr. Paul Farmer said. “It’s weak public health systems.”

Prior to his remark, I thought that contracting Ebola was a death sentence, but Farmer corrected my assumptions. “Don’t believe anyone who tells you that case fatality is

higher than 10 percent,” he insisted. “These are people dying of untreated shock. That means it’s a supply-chain problem.”

I have admired Farmer’s leadership in public health for more than a decade, but this was the first time I had the chance to hear him speak firsthand. Just off the plane from the hot zone,

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

23

AROUND THE WORLD

Ant hony Banb ury, S p e cia l Re p res ent at i ve of th e S e c ret ary Genera l a nd H e a d of t he U ni te d Na tio ns M i s si on for Em er g e ncy Ebola Re s p ons e, vi s i t s th e PS T 1 E b o l a Treat ment Unit run by t h e S i erra L eone Ministry of H e a l th and t he S ie rra Le o ne Arm e d Forc es .

Photo: UN/Martine Perret Farmer presents as an affable uncle, but the issues he describes are deadly serious.

“This is not the first zoonosis to jump from animals into humans and then go global,” he remarked, gesturing at past outbreaks of SARS, avian flu, mad cow disease, and swine flu. Ebola, he said, is a public health crisis, driven by the absence of strong public health infrastructure.

On December 3, 2014, Farmer spoke to a group of more than 100 stakeholders at

a day-long event that sought to improve the private sector’s response to the Ebola epidemic. Representatives from General Electric, Western Union, UPS, GSK, IBM, and others were in attendance, as well as key leaders of public sector institutions, including Ron Klain, White House Ebola Response Coordinator, and others from The World Bank and U.S. Department of State. The event was convened by a group of nonprofit stakeholders that included Points of Light, CECP, PSI, CollaborateUp, and PYXERA Global.

The day before the event, the number of people infected with Ebola surpassed 17,000; the fatalities totaled just over 6,000.

Moussa Abbo, a Cameroon native and PSI’s Senior Regional Director of West and Central Africa, spoke on behalf of those on the continent. “We at PSI believe the private sector plays a key role in addressing pressing issues in the world,” he said. “This Ebola outbreak has shown how vulnerable we are.” Abbo called on those convened to take a long view. “We need to share our knowledge and resources across the world. When this crisis is over, we need to continue working together, not to chase this issue, but to address it from the roots.”

David Barash, the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Director of Global Health Programs at the GE Foundation, is an emergency physician by training who still works in his local ER one shift a week. He shared Abbo’s excitement for the potential for collaboration. “I haven’t seen a private sector group come together like I’ve seen it around Ebola,” he said. “Let’s think about how we can do this in the long term.”

I left the event that day overwhelmed by both the substantial commitment of the private sector to respond to the disease and the short-sighted nature of the response. Many organizations were extremely motivated—and rightly so—to support the immediate need for personnel and

resources, but few had a clear picture of the road to recovery.

Today, the number of cases of Ebola in Liberia has dropped almost to zero, and the case load in Sierra Leone and Guinea is continuing to decline every day. Soon, the immediate effects of the Ebola epidemic will be forgotten, disappeared from the headlines once the disease is fully contained.

Yet, in many ways, this simply marks the beginning of a much longer effort to rebuild after the onslaught. Though it may seem the fight is over, the road to recovery has only just begun. Supporting the economic resilience of the countries most affected will require a sustained commitment well into the next decade. The details of how bears further examination.

Fighting Ebola from the Ground Up It has been more than a year since Emile Ouamouno, a 2-year-old boy epidemiologists identify as Patient Zero, contracted and died from the latest outbreak of the Ebola virus. Since then, more than 23,000 people have contracted Ebola, and over 9,300 have died. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to respond to the disease, and many millions more are earmarked for the future.

I considered Farmer’s insistence that the disease is a problem of supply-chain management. In much of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, high-speed roads, vehicles, sterile needles, saline, blood banks, doctors, and otherwise well-resourced facilities are in short supply, handicapping the countries’ ability to effectively contain and treat the disease. I also investigated how Ebola kills. The disease attacks the immune system, using our own immune cells to attack the body’s defenses. The body’s last-ditch response to this attack leads to organ failure. Intravenous fluids and blood transfusions, two simple interventions easily administered in every ICU in America,

A man has his temperature checked on arrival to a community health center. can dramatically improve a patient’s ability to survive, providing vital reinforcement to the body’s natural immune response, and staving off a lethal immunological storm. With the right reinforcement, the body continues to fight the virus slowly, to survival. In essence, a person’s life depends on their prompt diagnosis and rapid treatment, the two critical supply-chain breaking points.

Unfortunately, health systems in many parts of West Africa prior to the outbreak were already notoriously weak. While pri-

Photo: UN/Martine Perret vate clinics offered some care for treatable ailments, according to World Bank data, mortality from all ailments is higher than in more developed markets.

These countries also lacked sufficient doctors and public health workers. According to Farmer, Liberia had fewer than 50 physicians practicing in the domain of public health prior to the outbreak.

As the disease began to spread more rapidly in the summer of 2014, the situation became increasingly dire. Unprepared to

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015 handle a highly contagious disease, many private healthcare facilities closed their doors. Afraid of contracting Ebola from colleagues and neighbors, many small businesses folded. In Sierra Leone, the two preeminent mining corporations, London Mining and African Minerals, shuttered their operations, stalling the country’s primary economic driver. Worse still, the international community was slow to respond. A coordinated international response didn’t crystalize until the U.S. Africa Leaders’ Summit in Washington D.C. in early August 2014, nearly eight months after the first fatality.

get to public health, the country’s health system was inherently fragile. “One case of Ebola crossing the border from Guinea, the entire system crumbled because of the fundamental weakness,” Dzisi said.

At the height of the epidemic, more than 80 percent of community clinics in Liberia closed down due to fear among health workers and community distrust.

The country’s health system was not prepared to handle the onslaught of a highly

NGC

25

contagious and deadly disease. While health resources in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have focused on the neediest patients—those suffering from Ebola—the rest of the population has suffered from common ailments that have gone untreated as a result.

Two critical statistics help quantify the epidemic’s effect on the health of nonEbola patients. In Liberia, immunization has dropped significantly for children under

Collateral Damage and the Domino Effect The catastrophic effects of the Ebola epidemic are both complex and intertwined. To fully understand the extent of the resulting challenges, I asked healthcare professionals in West Africa and the United States, as well as investors and economists attuned to the fiscal and economic realities. With limited information available on the epidemic in Guinea, the bulk of my research focused on Liberia and Sierra Leone.

I spoke with two African medical professionals directly affected by the epidemic.

Dr. Stephen Dzisi, a Ghanaian doctor who received his post-medical school training in Germany, has been serving as a Public Health Institute Global Health Fellow with USAID in Monrovia, Liberia, for the past two-and-a-half years. When Dzisi arrived in Liberia in 2012, he was shocked that the consequences of a 14-year civil war still plagued the country. Even though Liberia was dedicating 10 percent of its annual bud-

Photo: UN/Martine Perret

Wo rk er s d is in f ec t h omes a n d a mb u l a n c es w it h c h l o r i n a t e d wa te r wh ere pa t ien t s w it h E b ol a w ere t rea t ed in F re e t o w n , S ie rra Leon e.

Experts like Dr. Dzisi help USAID address immediate and emerging needs around the world through the Global Health Fellows Program II, an innovative approach administered by the Public Health Institute (PHI). This diverse group of global health professionals support and sustain the effectiveness of the Agency’s current and future health programs, and provide increased ability to respond quickly to threats.

Photo: UN/Martine Perret

NGC

26

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

the age of one. Prior to the outbreak, Dzisi UNIC E F c on d u c t s d oor- t o- d oor c a mpa ig n s t o said, 88 percent of children in Liberia under ma p a c t ive c a s es of Eb ol a in Tew or d is t r ic t , Libe r ia . To k eep t ra c k of t h e h omes vis it ed , one had received the vaccine that protects th e t ea m w r it es d et a il s on t h e wa l l s of t h e against diphtheria, whooping cough, and h ou s es . tetanus. “By December 2014,” he said, “this number had dropped to 49 percent.” In maternal health, the landscape is equally grim. the continent more broadly. The most recent According to Dzisi, incidence of maternal fistula more than doubled study, based on a combination of cell phone between January and December of 2014. survey data in Liberia and Sierra Leone and Dr. Abdullah Daniel Sesay, a Sierra Leonian doctor, is also a other macroeconomic indicators, was released member of the country’s parliament. When I spoke to Sesay, or in January 2015.

Doctor “A-B-D” as he is known to friends and colleagues, he The news was better than expected—the was quarantined in his home after returning from a session of economic impact across the continent was parliament to find that someone in his neighborhood had likely largely muted by effective geographic containbeen exposed. ment. Fewer than 30 cases in Senegal, Mali, and Prior to the outbreak, Sesay ran a small community clinic Nigeria were quickly diagnosed and contained, with 44 beds in Makeni, one of Sierra Leone’s larger cities. As the staving off major ripple effects. But in the most epidemic started to escalate, the clinic closed due to insufficient affected countries, the consequences have been resources to effectively diagnose and treat Ebola, as did most even worse than predicted. private clinics in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Based on the cell phone survey data, World As a member of parliament, Sesay is well-versed in the ecoBank research suggests that nearly half of male nomic challenges the epidemic has wrought. “To break the chain heads of households [46 percent] in Liberia that of dead, the government had to create traveling restrictions,” he were working prior to the epidemic remain unsaid. “At the end of the day, this had a negative economic impact.” employed, and even more [60 percent] of female According to Sesay, prior to the epidemic, Sierra Leone funded 72 household heads are out of work. The implicapercent of its national budget from domestic revenue. Today, the tions of this are twofold. First, the country’s collapse of the mining industry and overwhelming job losses have primary productivity has been cut in half, as forced the country to revert to an economy that is largely donor has the government’s income tax base. Sierra driven. “People are dying of hunger because of the harvesting Leone’s survey results, though different, suggest restrictions,” he said. “Thousands of orphans have nowhere to other equally calamitous problems.” In Sierra go.” The debilitating economic environment makes it that much Leone, small enterprises have been going out of business at much harder to defeat the disease. higher rates than they did previously. For businesses that are still Sesay summarized the bleak conditions simply: “What has operating, revenues are down 40 percent,” said David Evans, a happened with Ebola,” he said, “is just as bad as the civil war.” senior economist on The World Bank research team.

This summer, as the epidemic grew more threatening, a team In both countries, a large majority of people are hungry and of World Bank economists were asked to estimate the epidemic’s rationing food. According to Evans, “three quarters of households likely economic impact on the most affected countries and on in Liberia are reporting significant food insecurity. This isn’t because of prices but because income has fallen.” Another problem Repairing the damage to the is that domestic food harvests are lower than past years. Harvesteconomies of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra ing, typically done in large groups, has been less productive as communal activity has been discouraged or banned for fear of Leone will require a multi-dimensional spreading the disease. approach; eliminating the disease Job losses and food insecurity have had measurable macwill only serve to stop the bleeding. roeconomic effects as well. In Sierra Leone, rapid growth in the Overcoming the disease’s ripple effects first half of the year quickly turned to contraction. Prior to the will require rebuilding and reinforcing outbreak, Sierra Leone expected 11.3 percent growth, which fell health systems and developing a plan to 4 percent over the second half of 2014. Evans and his team for fiscal and economic recovery. “expect a contraction of 2 percent in 2015,” a profound reversal in economic progress. In Sierra Leone and Liberia, falling commod-

ity prices of iron ore, copper, and cotton have directly reduced government revenues, causing, Evans said, a “double-whammy.”

Mykay Kamara, a Sierra Leonian businessman who currently lives in London, has seen this effect firsthand. Prior to the outbreak, he split his time between Liberia and Sierra Leone, supporting business startup and operations management in the energy and mining sectors. “The mining sector has been seriously disrupted,” he said. “London Mining defaulted, African Minerals Limited have had to mothball their operations.” The country’s largest taxpayers, both companies also provided a significant portion of Sierra Leone’s formal employment. Kamara commented on how restrictions of movement have had a significant downgrading effect on both agriculture and trade. “Investors who had planned to spend aren’t spending anymore,” he said.

Kamara, who has visited Sierra Leone since the outbreak, believes that people’s reactions have had the most significant negative effect. “People are hysterical and fearful about the disease.”

Going to War with the Disease Repairing the damage to the economies of Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone will require a multi-dimensional approach; eliminating the disease will only serve to stop the bleeding. Overcoming the disease’s ripple effects will require rebuilding and reinforcing health systems and developing a plan for fiscal and economic recovery.

Yet, such reinforcement can be easier to promise than to deliver. In August, the GE Foundation deployed a $2 million grant to support Farmer’s Partners in Health in Liberia with Last Mile Health and Sierra Leone with Well Body Alliance. The funds were used to train 500 clinical health workers and 800 community health workers, to educate communities about sanitation and post-mortem practices to stem the spread of the disease. This infusion of newly trained talent staffed 47 health centers and one Ebola Treatment Unit with 50 beds.

While Barash is happy with what the GE Foundation funding could accomplish, he acknowledged that the grant was hardly enough to stop the bleeding. So he also formed a business response team within GE to determine how the company could best provide meaningful long-term help. At the December event, he announced that GE would contribute substantial in-kind support that will include healthcare equipment, water and power systems, and important software solutions.

The goal is that the in-kind assets will shore up medical systems after the crisis passes. “Ultimately all the equipment we Photo: UN/Martine Perret

are donating will go towards systems strengthening more than towards the immediate response,” which he argues, has a greater impact. “The epidemic provided an opportunity for the Foundation to meet a broader mandate to support systems strengthening in West Africa.”

Most epidemiologists recognize that, while this outbreak of Ebola was especially severe, it is unlikely to be the last. For Barash, there are two challenges that must be addressed to ensure an epidemic of this magnitude is preventable in the future. The first imperative is to build a strong public health foundation, “putting a public health infrastructure together that prevents outbreaks, or allows people to respond to outbreaks quickly,” he said.

But infrastructure alone is not enough. Success and failure in an outbreak scenario depends deeply on the people in charge.

Barash noted that management training for health professionals in emerging markets is in great demand. “Our experience is that in developing countries there is a gap in terms of leadership and management skills and there’s a big role that we can play in making that sustainable,” he said. During his first trip to Africa in

NGC

28

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

November 2014, he heard this articulated by hospital administrators in Kenya and Rwanda.

To address this, the GE Foundation currently underwrites the Ministerial Leadership in Health Program, jointly administered by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the Harvard School of Public Health. This program provides leadership training to African ministerial leaders in health and finance. In the future, he hopes to expand such training and support to the community level, where the need is also critical. “What we really want to do is support hospital leaders and the people who are actually on the ground doing the hardest day-to-day work,” Barash said.

Treating the Symptoms and the Ailment While companies like GE and organizations like Partners in Health have focused on strengthening the country’s health systems and infrastructure, the economic view is still bleak. In mid-January, Kamara traveled to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to participate in the government’s efforts to craft a 2015 post-Ebola economic recovery plan. In his view, his country’s effective recovery will require three key points of reinforcement.

“First, we need to bolster the financial services sector,” he said. Capitalization and liquidity have suffered under the financial strain. Currently, Kamara says, a third of the country’s debts are not being paid.

The country also must address the dramatic reduction in industry that has shrunk its tax base. “You need budgetary support to the government, because of the shortfalls coming from the companies that have reduced their profits,” he said.

Lastly, multinational corporations must begin to consider how to re-engage as investors, especially in tourism, agriculture, and mining, where the economy has been the hardest hit.

In addition to these key economic drivers, Kamara noted the significant handicap small and medium enterprises (SMEs) must overcome to maintain their operations. “You need a lot of support for SMEs, who need technical assistance to help them,” he said.

According to Evans, the World Bank is doing just that, financing a program of about $1 billion to contain the epidemic and to address its economic effects. The investment has two parts—it is providing $500 million in support for health workers, as well as a platform that helps foreign health workers enter the affected areas quickly and effectively. “On the economic side, the International Finance Corporation has a $450 million project that is providing support to small and medium enterprises across the three countries.”

Evans estimates the fiscal gap across the three countries is about half a billion dollars, or close to five percent of their combined GDP. That large fiscal gap will likely have a dramatic effect on non-health related infrastructure. Sierra Leone and Liberia in particular will require significant budget support to overcome the fiscal shortfall caused by declining tax revenue and an inordinate

level of expenditure both countries directed towards Ebola response.

Kamara is disheartened by the return to a donor-funded economy after so much sustained growth. “We are back to an economy that is less private-sector run and more donor-funding run, which is similar to what we had during the war,” he said. “It’s not the right kind of economic growth.”

Of course, the best antidote to a donor-driven economy is private-sector growth. Evans urged companies to invest bullishly sooner rather than later. “Organizations that are considering investment may be hesitant in the wake of the epidemic, but I would encourage them to be bold in the face of uncertainty,” he said.

To that end, Barash hopes to help the Ebola Private Sector Mobilization Group, of which GE is a part, to think collaboratively about the way forward. Already, companies like UPS, Pfizer, Apple, and Intel have agreed to work together to better coordinate their response to the epidemic. But Barash wonders why their efforts must remain solely focused on the disaster at hand. Instead, he wants the group to collaborate on long-term development. While collaborating with competitors may present some challenges, Barash insists a coordinated effort need not constrain a competitive market. “Why shouldn’t GE sit at the table with our competitors to figure out how we solve the problem?

We can compete in business, but for the better of public health, especially in the setting of a disaster like Ebola, we should collaborate,” he said.

Efforts are also underway to establish an African Center for Disease Control, making the continent less dependent on support from the U.S.-based CDC. The African Union is coordinating the effort, with high-level support from First Lady Sizakele Zuma of South Africa. Currently, the African Union hopes to bring the initiative online by 2016. The World Bank has also pledged financial support for the undertaking.

Paving the Road to a Healthier Future for West Africa For their part, both Sesay and Dzisi, two men with a similar view of the problem in Liberia and Sierra Leone, remain optimistic about the future. When I spoke with Dzisi in early February, Liberia was on the verge of zero cases. “We’ve reached the point in my view where we need to strike one more time at trying to get the regular health resources back,” he said. “The perspective is starting to shift to the longer-term solution to the problem.”

Dzisi rejected the idea that Liberia should wait until Ebola is gone before it tackles larger health problems. By then, he worries,

A group of women attend a session on facilitating community acceptance of new Ebola surveillance, clinical care, and burial procedures in Freetown. the international community may be distracted by the world’s next crisis. “Near zero is good enough to work on rebuilding the fundamental health system,” he said. “One, we still have everybody’s attention, including the Ministry of Health, the UN, the international bodies. We still have the opportunity to tap into a lot of resources. If we want to wait for zero cases, as soon as we get to zero cases, we will lose a lot of attention. And this is a country confronted with a huge human resource gap.”

Eighty percent of the health facilities in Liberia that were closed prior to the epidemic are now reopened, though not all services available prior to the epidemic are being offered. “If we go back to business as usual, it’s just a matter of time before another disaster strikes and we are back on our knees,” Dzisi said. “Now is an opportunity to go back to the drawing board to create a more resilient health system that is able to withstand a shock.”

Doing so requires identifying the system’s major weaknesses.

To that end, Liberia’s Ministry of Health is leading a health system assessment across the country, looking at its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Dzisi is on the committee for service delivery, supporting this process through his work with USAID in a variety of ways. Once the final report is released this April, the government will begin to look for resources to fill the gaps that have been identified.

Photo: UN/Martine Perret

For his part, Barash believes that prosperity and growth in any context rests on a three-legged stool of health, education, and infrastructure. “You have to have a healthy population to have economic growth,” he said. “In the crisis setting of Ebola, many workers were rightfully focused on protecting themselves and their families. Work became a secondary need and even a possibly risky proposition.” Getting back to early 2014 growth targets will require reinforcement of all three legs of the stool.

Farmer, for all his admonitions, is optimistic about the future, too. At the December event, he rallied those convened to take heart in a future of partnership. “I am full of optimism about how we are going to turn this around. I am looking forward to living up to our name,” he said, “as partners in health, in the long term.”

As international attention for the epidemic wanes, the persistent problems that have developed as a result will fade from view.

The Ebola epidemic represents a dramatic and tragic loss of human life that many will mourn for years to come. Yet, a circumstance of such misfortune also offers a rare opportunity. The international development community can choose to do things differently, to see the next problem as it has begun to emerge, and to support both an immediate and sustained response. With help from a broad range of committed international stakeholders, perhaps Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone can right the three-legged stool, laying a strong foundation for the bright future ahead.

NGC

30

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

An Innovation in Energy Auditing Fosters Sustainability and Professional Growth D aniel Hill

F

or most people, a trip to the dentist is a reminder of the virtues of flossing, or the sharp pain and numbness that follows a Novocain needle. For Mimi West, a graduate student at the University of Virginia, it was an opportunity to make her community a little greener.

Mid-cleaning, West peered up at her dentist and asked, “Would you be interested in having me conduct a free energy audit for you?”

It would be the fourteenth energy audit West had conducted for a local business in just ten days. In that time, she helped identify 60,000 kilowatt hours (known as ‘kWh’), or $6,000 in annual energy savings, which is the equivalent of offsetting 40 metric tons of carbon emissions every year.

West is part of Green Impact Campaign, an organization that engages students at more than 70 universities to volunteer to conduct free energy audits. Since 2011, they have helped around

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

31

IMPACT & INNOVATION GREEN IMPACT CAMPAIGN TRAINS UNIVERSITY STUDENTS TO CONDUCT FREE ENERGY AUDITS FOR SMALL BUSINESS 300 small businesses identify more than two million kWh of annual energy savings, equivalent to a quarter of a million dollars in energy costs and 1,500 metric tons of carbon emissions.

West knew immediately that the organization aligned perfectly with her vision for a more sustainable and energy-efficient world.

“The moment I found out about Green Impact Campaign, I knew it was for me,” she said. “The goals resonate with mine and the vision I have for the kind of impact I’d like to have on the world.”

Developing a More Efficient Energy Audit Americans began conducting audits during the energy crisis of 1973. As rising oil prices drove fuel costs to dizzyingly unaffordable levels, building owners tried desperately to find ways to use less energy. This gave rise to the energy audit, a lengthy, time-consuming, and technical process that analyzed the ways a building consumed energy and identified ways to conserve.

The service typically involved a trained engineer surveying all the energy-using devices in the building, identifying various energy-efficiency upgrades, calculating energy and cost saving estimates, and writing lengthy, detailed reports. Over the past several decades, the energy audit has grown in popularity along-

GREEN IMPACT CAMPAIGN HAS HELPED AROUND 300 SMALL BUSINESSES IDENTIFY MORE THAN TWO MILLION KWH OF ANNUAL ENERGY SAVINGS.

side the concern for the environment and businesses’ bottom lines. However, the process has not changed much since its beginning, which means it’s still a time and money sink for many small businesses.

Green Impact Campaign has not only streamlined the energy audit process, but turned it into an educational opportunity for students. Dave Hussey and I conceived of Green Impact Campaign while earning our MBA at James Madison University. Both of us noticed a lack of attention to the energy consumed by small businesses and their desire to become more sustainable, largely because their buildings and budgets were too small for a traditional energy audit.

Our combined background in energy and sustainability consulting and web development enabled us to create a cloud-based energy auditing tool that could be used by students to deliver audits to businesses at no cost and in a much shorter time.

Here’s how it works. Students learn about Green Impact Campaign through existing network organizations, such as Net Impact and Alliance to Save Energy, as well as direct campus outreach efforts in select regions. After receiving a volunteer toolkit and

NGC

32

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

attending a kick-off call, students use GEMS, the cloud-based energy audit tool, to conduct audits on their smartphone.

As they walk through a business’s building, GEMS prompts the student with simple yes or no questions regarding various energy- and water-using devices, such as the types of light bulbs, insulation, or thermostat settings.

Once a student has completed the questions, GEMS automatically compiles a report of energy-efficiency recommendations for the business owner, including cost and savings estimates, a comparison of the business’s current energy usage to similar businesses, and a progress tracker to measure their change in energy usage over time.

A traditional pen-and-paper energy audit can take a couple of days to complete, not including the time to train the auditor. Using GEMS, the average energy audit takes a student just 20 minutes and identifies 25 percent in energy savings for a business—with zero prior training needed.

Why Small Businesses?

In the United States, small businesses account for approximately $60 billion in annual energy costs and nearly half a billion metric tons of carbon emissions every year. That’s equivalent to powering half of the homes in the United States.

The free energy audits provided by student volunteers easily enable small businesses to simultaneously discover cost savings and energy efficiency. Most importantly, it’s free to them.

“Green Impact Campaign provided in-depth sustainability feedback for our locations, as well as recommendations for lowering our overall footprint,” said Robby Goldsberry, Director of Operations at Cove, a shared workspace with multiple locations around the Washington, D.C., area.

“For example, the information provided suggestions and helped facilitate a transition to LED and other high-efficiency lighting solutions,” he said.

Free Energy Audits Help Students Gain Professional Skills Small business owners are not the only ones who benefit from Green Impact Campaign’s efforts. University students are getting hands-on training in environmental stewardship.

Unfortunately, the traditional classroom, with its textbooks and hypotheticals, fails to prepare students to transition from graduation to an impact career. According to Net Impact’s 2015 Business as UNusual report, a third of students nationwide do not feel that their school offers adequate career preparation resources for impact job seekers.

Through their involvement with Green Impact Campaign, students have an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of energy-efficiency and sustainable business practices by being able to touch, see, and interact with sustainability concepts in a real-world setting. Many student volunteers have gone on to internships and jobs with firms that specialize in energy audits or sustainability consulting. Others have taken their sustainability knowledge further by sitting for and passing the LEED Green Associate exam, enabling them to work in the green buildings industry.

One group of students from the University of California at San Diego became so inspired that they developed the “Kill the Cup Challenge,” an initiative aimed at reducing the use of disposable cups on campus. Another past graduate student volunteer is now a professor at Purdue, where she incorporates the energy audit program into her class’s curriculum.

STUDENTS USE A SIMPLE, SELF-TRAINING CLOUD-BASED ENERGY AUDITING TOOL CALLED GEMS TO CONDUCT ENERGY AUDITS IN ONLY 20 MINUTES.

Donny Jagoda was one of the first student volunteers with the program. “Being a part of Green Impact Campaign was a great experience and allowed me to gain valuable skills in the energy and environmental field,” he said. “The skills that I obtained gave me a huge advantage in securing an internship for the summer, which I’ve now made a career,” explains Jagoda. “Companies are always looking for real world experience in the candidates they interview and being a part of this definitely gave me that experience as a student.”

An Audit Competition Comes to Washington This spring, Green Impact Campaign will host its first-ever city-wide energy audit competition in Washington, D.C. Students from D.C.’s major universities will compete to see which school can conduct the most energy audits for local businesses. Fifty students will likely participate, helping an estimated 300 local businesses.

To help participating businesses take the next step after the competition, Green Impact Campaign will partner with other community-level organizations, including Think Local First DC, Nextility,

DC Sustainable Energy Utility, and Spark Fund to implement energy audit recommendations and further reduce energy costs.

West, who convinced her dentist and more than a dozen other small business owners of the value of the energy audit, reflected on how her experience as a student volunteer changed her outlook on the future of sustainability.

“From a very young age, I wanted to devote myself to sustainability, but I often felt a sense of doom and gloom about the environment. I thought for many years that the planet was doomed, businesses were greedy and most people were in denial or simply didn’t care. My outlook on the future of sustainability is much brighter now, thanks to my involvement with Green Impact Campaign,” said West. “Being a part of Green Impact Campaign and completing the energy audits actually helped me reverse my negative outlook on sustainable businesses.”

To learn more about Green Impact Campaign, visit greenimpactcampaign.org.

CA N G LOB A L B USI NE S S F E E D THE WO R L D ?

TA C K L I N G T H E F U T U R E O F F O O D , W AT E R , A N D E N E R G Y AT T H E 2 0 1 4 N E T I M PA C T C O N F E R E N C E

W

e have to produce more food in the next 36 years than has been produced in all of mankind’s history,” said Natalie DiNicola, Vice President of Sustainability and Signature Partnerships at Monsanto, a biotechnology company.

This challenge, and its implications for a planet facing massive natural resource constraints, was among the most dynamic

topics of conversation at this year’s Net Impact Conference.

DiNicola faced off against Dr. Jahi Chappell, Director of Agroecology and Agriculture Policy at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) during the conference’s most heated session. IATP and Monsanto represent two opposite but critical sides of the food production spectrum. IATP is a nonprofit research and advocacy organiza-

MELISSA MATTOON tion that works to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm, and trade systems. Monsanto is a multinational agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation and the world’s leading producer of genetically engineered seed.

Both organizations are deeply committed to feeding an expanding population while preserving the planet’s natural resources. But the similarities stop there.

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

35

HAPPENINGS

Photo: Tau Zero | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Putting a Balanced Meal on Every Plate To the public, Monsanto’s name is most often associated with genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), also known as biotech or genetically engineered food. These are crop plants that have been modified in the laboratory to enhance desired traits like resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content.

The company, however, has a much broader focus. A significant amount of their research goes into traditional plant

breeding and, more recently, precision agriculture. Precision agriculture uses sophisticated computer software to track and analyze the soil, crop yields, and water and fertilizer needs of each plant. (Last year, Monsanto spent $1 billion to acquire weather data-gathering start-up Climate Corporation, so that weather information can be integrated as well.) This data helps farmers maximize their output.

“Agriculture is at the center of so many challenges that face our society and our planet,” DiNicola said. “As a company solely focused on agriculture, we see ourselves as having a real responsibility and opportunity to be an important part of trying to help solve those kinds of challenges,” That means, she explained, developing tools that help farmers produce more food while conserving natural resources.

Montsanto works with industrial farms in the United States as well as smaller operations in emerging markets around the world. They partner with governments and organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and USAID, to provide royaltyfree hybrids of drought- and insect-resistant crops to African seed companies.

“We have some really significant challenges ahead of us as a society and as a planet, whether it’s about eliminating hunger, protecting biodiversity, combatting climate change, protecting human rights, or empowering women and girls,” DiNicola said. “They are going to require us to bring the best of both the private and public sector to bear to try and address them.”

But not everyone in the audience of more than 2,000 was convinced that Monsanto’s commitment to “net impact” was genuine.

The War of Efficient Production and Biodiversity At the debate, Chappell and his colleagues at IATP argued that the current

approach to industrial farming is dysfunctional and short-sighted. “We’ve locked ourselves into a system of making a lot of one thing on farms,” he said. “This is very efficient for making processed foods, but it is not efficient for a diverse diet, for promoting biodiversity, for conserving the environment, or for preventing nitrogen from running into the Gulf of Mexico.”

According to Chappell, production is not the only important factor in feeding the world. Industrial agriculture systems, he said, often squeeze out small farmers.

As an agroecologist, Chappell advocates for more ecologically sound design and management of sustainable agriculture systems. By linking ecology, culture, and economics, farms can increase agricultural production while also promoting healthy environments and viable communities.

“There is significant empirical and peerreviewed research that says that more diverse and smaller farms are not only better for the environment, but also for keeping more money within the local community,” Chappell said.

These methods rely on the knowledge and skill of the farmer rather than on sophisticated technology. This can be good -it encourages greater education and keeps more money in the local community. It also lowers the cost of production and reduces dependency on external inputs.

But can farms using agroecology feed the nine billion people projected to populate the planet by 2050? While the research is still inconclusive, Chappell says a handful of studies suggest agroecology methods can have close to the same yields as conventional agriculture. “And this is when agroecology has gotten, at best, one percent of the kind of research funding that the typical system of intensive inputs and GMOs have gotten,” he said. “If we can [achieve these results] using a system with one percent of the research budget, then we can improve that a lot.”

NGC

36

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

According to the United Nations, we ing in discussion that mainly highlighted currently produce enough food to feed each progress as opposed to challenging difhuman in the world, around 2,700 calories ferences, Monsanto chose to take the hot a day. In fact, we grow and harvest enough seat. It’s not surprising. food right now to feed the projected 2050 The company has been working to more population. But a third of the calories pro- effectively engage with consumers, a shift duced goes to animal feed, nearly five per- likely fueled by the fact that Monsanto has cent is used for biofuel production, and one of the worst corporate reputations in another third is wasted.

America, according to a 2014 Harris Poll.

Perhaps feeding the world lies not in Last November, the company launched a increasing and intensifying production, but television campaign spot that urges conin more strategic, locally-centered, and eco- sumers to “pull up a chair” and engage logical production. in a bigger conversation about food. The “It’s a very exciting time to be in food company also recently hired a director of right now because not only do we have millennial engagement to reach younger millions of people out there advocating consumers. Research shows that this aufor a new system, but we also have the dience believes the success of a business science to support it,” Chappell said “There are a lot of alternative practices to the input-heavy, manufactured fertilizer and pesThe conversation about how to effectively ticide system.”

when in fact the company is comprised of passionate people with emerging market experience who genuinely believe the company is doing the right thing. DiNicola, too, is a well-spoken, experienced executive with a clear mandate. She is also a scientist with a PhD in environmental toxicology and experience studying bird habitats. Both DiNicola and Chappell bring empathy and respect for different points of view to the conversation. This provides an essential foundation for a productive dialogue that enables real change.

DiNicola and Chappell’s debate was a highlight of the event, but it was just one of more than 100 sessions that spurred a stimulating dialogue among the 2,200 attendees. The challenges of food security and sustainable agriculture were among the most feed popular themes of the conference, fueling some of the most the world must go beyond what has already engaged online interactions.

Ending World Hunger Is been done well. We must think creatively and Consensus on the future of Not a Zero Sum Game collaboratively about what can be done even food may not have been reached Monsanto was not alone in better. Producing more food on less land, using at this year’s Net Impact Concelebrating the contribution big ference, but attendees and less water and energy does not necessarily business has made to sustainpanelists left with a better unconstitute improvement. able food production. Executives derstanding of the topic’s comfrom McDonalds, General Mills, plexity. As conference attendee Walmart, and others shared how and sustainability professional their corporations are addressing Laura Clise noted, “Leadership the challenge, and making a measurable should be measured not only in terms of its is the willingness to participate in difficult difference. Many brought along presen- financial performance, but its contribution conversations. Dialogue takes courage on tations showcasing impressive stats like to society as well. both sides.” “record corn production,” and “60 percent That belief was on full display at the Yet, the courage both organizations less energy use.”

Montanto talk. The millennials in the audi- showed in taking on a known adversary These metrics clearly represent gains ence peppering DiNicola with accusatory in the court of public opinion is just the in measures of environmental efficiency. questions during her talk. Vance Crowe, beginning. Organizations like Monsanto But the conversation about how to ef- Monsanto’s new Director of Millennial En- and IATP—and McDonalds, General Mills, fectively feed the world must go beyond gagement, has a tough job ahead of him.

Walmart, and others—need to make room what has already been done well. We must Crowe is a returned Peace Corps Volun- at the table, so more people can “pull up a think creatively and collaboratively about teer and a former World Bank employee. chair” for these challenging yet productive what can be done even better. Producing At first, these biographical details seemed conversations. more food on less land, using less water designed to establish his sustainability and energy does not necessarily constitute “cred.” But I soon realized this context Chappell and DiNicola’s full discussion is improvement. adds important, clarifying nuance to the available to watch online at: Although some corporations took a debate. It is easy to characterize Monsanto https://netimpact.org/conference/live safer approach to the conference, engag- as a nebulous nexus of corporate greed,

Sponsored Content

MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS MAY COME OUT OF THE LAB. BUT THEY BEGIN IN THE HEART. For more than 150 years, a very special passion has driven the people of Merck. Our goal is to develop medicines, vaccines, consumer care and animal health innovations that will improve the lives of millions. Still, we know there is much more to be done. And we’re doing it, with a long-standing commitment to research and development. We’re just as committed to expanding access to healthcare and working with others who share our passion to create a healthier world.

Together, we’ll meet that challenge. With all our heart.

For more information about getting Merck medicines and vaccines for free, visit merckhelps.com or call 800-727-5400.

Copyright © 2012 Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved. CORP-1060080-0002 12/12

NGC

38

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

CITIZEN DIPLOMACY

BUILDING FAMILIES ACROSS BORDERS Student Exchange Empowers the Youngest Citizen Diplomats to Foster Global Understanding Laura Asiala

I

was raised in a white bread world, amongst the cherry trees and corn fields of Northern Michigan. In the 1960s, there was nothing global about Elk Rapids, a village of 1,200 where my grandmother’s grandparents had emigrated from Switzerland in the mid-1800s. My parents were well-educated—my father was a physician—but rarely traveled outside their state, much less the country. Still their sense of curiosity, generosity, respect, and hospitality made them the best kind of global citizens. And they were committed to opening the world to our family.

I remember like it was yesterday the day in 1967 when my parents first decided to invite an exchange student into our home.

My father returned home from his medical practice, entering via the backdoor, which opened directly into the eat-in kitchen where my mother was making dinner. My younger sister and I were coloring at the kitchen table.

“I was at the conference meeting at the hospital this morning, and they mentioned that there was a German exchange student coming to Traverse City who wants to live with a doctor and his family for a year,” he said. “I said I thought we could do it.”

My mother looked up from what she was doing. She looked at him for a moment and smiled. “Okay,” she said.

Though I didn’t know it then, the experience that followed would change my life forever.

About two weeks later, we set out in our station wagon on the four-hour journey to collect our exchange student at Detroit Metro Airport. I remember my father glancing alternately at the photo of our expected visitor and at the young women walking down the

concourse. Suddenly he spotted her. “There she is!” he exclaimed.

My sister and I ran to her, wrapping our arms around her waist from either side. ‘My new big sister,’ I thought. ‘All the way from Bochum, Germany!’ I could not have been more excited to meet her. We christened her “Uli,” because my 2-year-old brother Jeff couldn’t quite manage “Ulrike” (pronounced “Ool-ree-ka”). For all of us, it was love at first sight.

In my current work, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to encourage people to become good global citizens who engage with purpose around the world. In fact, I think first grade may be the best time to convert children into citizen diplomats, which is ironic, because six-year-olds are not really very diplomatic, in the usual sense of the word, and are certainly not politically correct. At that age, their language is much more candid and unfiltered. Uli often came to ask me directly about things she didn’t understand, what they were called, how they were used.

With me, she could always count on a straight answer. I wasn’t shy about asking her questions either, tagging along at every opportunity. She told us stories we had never heard, sang new songs, made unusual foods, and shared German traditions with us. We especially loved the Advent calendar she made that December.

But most importantly, she gave us a window to the world and a profound understanding that there was far more out there than we knew in our tiny corner of the American Midwest. We learned that different wasn’t necessarily about right and wrong; different could be right, fun, and good.

Uli lived with us for a year, during which time she graduated

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

39

In 19 6 7 , t h e Won a cot t s welcom ed Ulrik e, a n exch a n ge st ud en t from Boch u m , Germ a n y, int o t h ei r famil y.

from our local high school and my youngest brother was born. Over the next twenty years, my parents hosted or facilitated the hosting of a dozen other students through various programs—from South America, Asia, Africa, Australia, and Europe. In turn, my parents traveled to visit them, and enabled their children’s international education and travel as well, encouraging us to visit our exchange ‘siblings’ and discover the world on our own.

I called Uli as I was getting ready to write this post. I wanted to make sure that my memories matched hers. We had a wonderful conversation, reminiscing about our nearly half century friendship.

“When you lived with us, did you ever think the day would come that my children would hold your granddaughter?” I asked.

“No,” she laughed, and then grew serious. “But what I learned

with your parents and your family was a different way of being with people, a much more easy-going and open way people in the U.S. got along with each other. For example, when you had a party, everyone helps in the kitchen after dinner, and you didn’t have to set the ‘perfect table.’”

She paused for a moment, remembering.

“In Germany, it was so much more formal, everything had to be done a certain way, which required a lot of work and preparation, and so we didn’t do it very often because it was so much work. Getting everyone together, having an open and friendly home, this is something that I have tried to carry with me in my life—to open my house, to accept everyone.”

The day Uli left is still clear in my mind. We had gone to my grandparents’ house for lunch after church. Afterwards, my aunt and uncle would drive her to New York, where she would board a ship with other European students who had spent the year in the U.S., and travel home. I always knew that she would return to Germany. I knew that she could only stay with us a year. But at six -years-old, a year felt like an eternity. The reality that she would leave did not hit me until the moment the car pulled away from the curb. I ran down the sidewalk after the car, crying.

“You were on the outside of the car crying; I was on the inside

NGC

40

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

of the car crying,” she said. “That was really terrible.” Forty-seven years later, we both choked up remembering that day.

Uli arrived just another German girl in the middle of Detroit.

She left my big sister forever. Because of her experience, she maintained a commitment to student exchange throughout her life. She has been an exchange mom three times. She sent her son to California as an exchange student through Youth for Understanding, an organization that has enabled the exchange of nearly 250,000 students who have gained skills and perspectives necessary to meet the challenges and benefits of the fast-changing global community, the same organization that helped her come to America so many years before. He married a fellow Youth for Understanding alumna and together they have already hosted an exchange student. At this point, Uli is a glorified student exchange grandmother—and aunt.

It was natural—nearly a foregone conclusion—that my own life would cross borders. Because I was interested and curious about the world and its people, I pursued a career in international business. Before I knew there was such a thing as ‘global competence’—a requirement for the jobs of the 21st century—I was learning it at home. My ability to interact across cultures gave me confidence socializing, working, problem-solving, and finding new ways to communicate with diverse colleagues and friends.

My experiences from my earliest childhood informed that work.

Here are six lessons in citizen diplomacy I learned in first-grade.

These continue to serve me well.

1. Ask if you don’t understand something. Be curious, not judgmental, and never assume motive based on behavior.

Encourage other people to ask, too.

2. Explain using simple language. Give straight answers and explicit instructions, and explain why you are doing something and what your expectations are.

3. Share your own story and your own traditions. It’s not only generous, it also makes you more mindful and appreciative.

4. Listen. The stories people share about their lives and families are one of the most important ways to learn, not only intellectually, but emotionally.

5. Invite. An open home is in and of itself generous hospitality, and creates the opportunity for deep and lasting bonds. There is rarely perfect timing. The unexpected guest can be a great blessing.

6. Love. Though it’s rarely discussed in these terms, tolerance and mutual respect are actually ways of loving people. A six-year-old and a sixteen-year-old from different countries and different cultures can learn early on that it is possible to love people who are different from them.

Through the years, our friendship never waned. Uli and her

Before I knew there was such a thing as ‘global competence’—a requirement for the jobs of the 21st century—I was learning it at home.

My ability to interact across cultures gave me confidence socializing, working, problem-solving, and finding new ways to communicate with diverse colleagues and friends.

My experiences from my earliest childhood informed that work.

husband Teddy came to visit periodically during our family’s summer vacations on the shores of Lake Michigan and we traveled to Germany to visit them several times over the years. In the summer of 2009, Uli and I sat together on the beach of Lake Michigan. “I always thought I would host an exchange student someday,” I said: “But the time never seemed right.”

My youngest daughter Caroline was about to enter her junior year of high school. Uli glanced over at me, smiled knowingly, and said: “If you’re ever going to do it, you’d better do it right now. There will never be a better time.”

I met her gaze, and our years of history as sisters and friends halfway around the world rushed through my mind. And in that moment, I decided exactly what I would do next. I stood up, brushed the sand off my rear end, and headed back to the house to submit a YFU application. Three weeks later, we welcomed Dai Chuan—known to us as “Clark”—from Tian Jin, China. Clark was as excited as we were for his arrival in central Michigan. At 16, he was the Bay City Central High School math star and a swim team stalwart. He was on time for school every single morning (which never rubbed off on his American sister, I’m sorry to say), and made many American friends. On the weekend before he returned to China, I cooked hamburgers for ninety teenagers who flooded our home to say good-bye and wish him well.

Clark is my only son and my daughters’ only brother. I hope to see the day he holds my daughters’ grandchildren, adding one more link to my family across borders.

First prize winner of the 2013 Center for Citizen Diplomacy Photo Contest: Qatar Foundation International

Your Organization Belongs Here The Citizen Diplomacy Network unites organizations that are committed to advancing purposeful global engagement at a person-to-person level, providing them with a common platform from which to share, participate, and learn in this important community.

Sponsored Content

Network Benefits

Join the growing Citizen Diplomacy Network, including members like these:

w w w. C e n t e r F o r C i t i z e n D i p l o m a c y. o r g / j o i n

TheNetwork@pyxeraglobal.org

WHAT I LEARNED IN COLOMBIA CHANGED MY CAREER So c i a l S a b b atical in Co lo m bia Yie l ds Le sson s on Te am wo rk an d Pro b le m S o lving Rainer Ster n

I

“GO WITH THE FLOW.” t’s hard to understand what that expression means until you find yourself in a foreign country, surrounded by people you hardly know, trying to solve a difficult problem.

This fall, I participated in the SAP Social Sabbatical, a CSR initiative that sends eight teams of 12 employees from different countries to emerging markets around the world. There, groups pair up with local non-profits and social enterprises to provide business development support.

When people heard I was being sent to Bogota, Colombia, they’d ask, jokingly, “Rainer, what are you going to do, grow vegetables?” Of course, they were kidding. But that question reflects the stereotype many people have about Colombia.

Before my arrival, I was assigned to Seeds of Confidence. Ironically, Seeds of Confidence (a project of the non-profit organization Proyectar sin Fronteras) actually does grow vegetables! Their mission is to bring people together to grow, sell, and consume healthy organic produce.

This is a big task. Thirty percent of Bogota’s residents live

in extreme poverty. The city’s unemployment rate is high—11.3 percent of people are unemployed and another quarter of the population is employed only informally. In vulnerable areas of Bogotá, more than 38 percent of the population suffers from food insecurity. Even in wealthier areas, vegetable consumption is low (the lowest in the region) and growing them is considered an inappropriate use of public and private spaces.

Seeds of Confidence addresses these problems in three ways: 1. They teach young children, students, and families about eating well by educating them on organic agriculture in kindergartens and schools.

2. They train residents to grow organic food in the community by educating people on greenhouses and other urban agriculture installations, like rooftop planters.

3. They help families live a healthier life by delivering organically grown fruit, vegetables, and other fresh products to their doors every week in baskets.

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

43

GLOBAL PRO BONO Seeds of Confidence also works to improve producer supply chains, particularly for the suppliers who fill the baskets sold to the community. They help producers start their own businesses by educating them on organic agriculture.

That’s where my team came in. We were tasked with helping these nascent farmers grow their businesses by finding more sales opportunities in and around Bogotá. Ultimately, we wanted to help them scale their model to Peru and Brazil.

I learned three critical lessons from this experience.

The Right Team Makes Anything Possible I remember the moment after our team’s first presentation to our customer, on our second day. “Wow,” the customer said.

“You really know what you are doing. How long have you been working together?”

Our team, which had met just four days earlier in Bogotá, was surprised by the compliment, but it taught us a very important lesson: with the right people on a team, anything is possible. Over the course of the project, three key themes helped our continued success: professionalism, personal trust, and fun.

The First Requirement for Success Is Listening with an Open Mind Before we started our journey, we had several preparation calls with Seeds of Confidence. On these kinds of calls, smart business people have a tendency—even urgency—to immediately

THE SAP TEAM IN THE STRAWBERRY FIELDS OF RURAL BOGOTÁ.

come up with ideas and solutions before they clearly understand the problem. Once I think I know what to do, I typically don’t want to spend the time to validate that my assumptions are correct.

So my team pledged to “just shut up and listen.” We agreed to be disciplined about validating assumptions with the Seeds of Confidence team. We wrote down all the facts, and created visualizations of our conclusions on paper, flipcharts, or whiteboards, whatever was available. Then, we shared them with our partners.

It took us hours to verify what we understood about their producers, customers, cost and revenue structure, processes, and communication assets. But asking the same questions again and again helped us avoid misunderstandings and get the truth more effectively.

An Effective Team Requires a Clear Mission One of my team’s main challenges was time management. Each of us was accustomed to professional time management—meetings starting and ending on schedule—but this isn’t the way most people operate in Colombia. On average, it took 30 to 45 minutes to get a taxi, and traffic is completely unpredictable—though we left at the same time each day, our commute took between 10 and 90 minutes. Meetings are often moved, sometimes more than once. This reality motivated our slogan “go with the flow,” which actually released some of the pressure we felt because we could not meet our own schedule. We had to adapt to local behavior—and it worked!

NGC

44

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

Cross-border, global pro-bono experiences like the Social Sabbatical are inherently personal, requiring each participant to step outside their comfort zone.

The one thing we never changed was our mission – to leave our client with a product that would make their company better, so we adapted the original scope of work to meet the customer’s needs.

Instead of reviewing their business plan, we focused on optimizing operational practices. This included a specific 30-60-90 day plan for the manager and the team on what to do and how to do it. Even more important, we talked to each individual and trained them on implementing their actions.

When we finally presented the plan and strategy to grow the business over the next two years, the feedback from Seeds of Confidence Vice President Juan Forero was clear: mission accomplished.

When I returned from Bogotá, I asked myself many times how to best transfer the experience I gained in Colombia into my normal business life at SAP. I quickly came to realize how much the experience had changed my perspective and my communication style.

First, my SAP Social Sabbatical experi-

ence dramatically changed how I communicate with my colleagues. Almost every Colombian I met was genuinely interested in how I liked their country and how Colombia is perceived by Germans. Even when we did not share a common language, we always found a way to communicate on certain topics. (One of their favorites was about German soccer, since Germany beat Brazil in the 2014 World Cup after Brazil knocked out the Colombian team).

I realized the value of showing a personal interest in everyone I work with, and I’ve tried to make that a habit. In business meetings, I ask each person at least one or two questions that reflect my interest in the other person. This requires some advanced preparation but this personal approach can have a game-changing effect when it comes to getting people on board.

Even in my private life, showing a real interest and asking more questions helps to generate a more personal and impactful conversation. It is amazing what you can learn from people if you simply ask.

When we visited farmers in rural areas

outside Bogotá, we witnessed the realities of some of Colombia’s poorest residents.

But instead of just looking and observing (what I have done on some of my vacations), we also had long conversations.

Suddenly, I understood that these weren’t people simply living in a stereotype of poverty. They were proud of their work and enjoy life a great deal, despite their financial limitations. These were very emotional moments.

Almost every day in business, I hear about “real problems.” It helps to pause for a moment and put things into perspective. In some of my team meetings, I now give everyone time to reflect and share these personal views with the group. It is amazing how this exercise helps change perspectives. Little moments of reflection and appreciation can make a big difference.

Cross-border, global pro-bono experiences like the Social Sabbatical are inherently personal, requiring each participant to step outside their comfort zone. Experiencing difficult environments, surprising behaviors, or completely unexpected challenges helped me realize that I can actually cope. If everyone could experience the value of the Social Sabbatical, maybe we could all help the world better operate.

THE SAP SOCIAL SABBATICAL TEAM EDUCATES YOUNG CHILDREN, STUDENTS, AND FAMILIES ABOUT ORGANIC AGRICULTURE.

“This is my office.”

Jessica Custer, an MBAs Without Borders Advisor in Kerala, India, brainstorms with the Kara Weaves staff on ways to integrate the natural beauty of Kerala into the design of local artisans’ handwoven products to reach more consumers in new markets.

MBAs Without Borders sends business professionals into frontier markets to utilize and adapt the latest management tools and techniques to fuel economic growth.

Where will your next meeting be?

A Signature Initiative of PYXERA Global

@MBAsWB Sponsored Content

www.MBAsWithoutBorders.org

#ThisIsMyOffice

Leading Corporations Partner with the UN to Achieve Sustainable Development Goals

The UN Embraces the Power of

VOLUNTEERING with IMPACT 2030

Le a d i n g Cor p ora t i ons Use Volu nte e ring to A chie ve the U n i te d Na t i ons S us tainable D e ve lopme nt G oals Alicia Bonner Ness

P

eople are the only real thing that will change the world.”

These words, articulated by Grady Lee, are the philosophy behind IMPACT 2030, a global private sector-led collaboration announced on International Volunteer Day in 2014.

It aims to mobilize corporate volunteers to contribute directly and sustainably to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

IMPACT 2030 Founding Partners, including The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, IBM Corporation, SAP SE, UPS, Perkins Coie, and Waggener Edstrom Communications, have already committed both financial and human resources to the initiative. But the initiative’s goal is far more ambitious. Sue Stephenson, Vice President of CSR at The Ritz Carlton and Vice Chair of IMPACT 2030, hopes to sign up 100 multinational corporations by the official launch in September 2015. Others committed as Collaborating Partners include SingTel, Google, Alcoa, Telefonica, Cemex, La Caixa, and Ball Corporation.

The project will provide essential support to the United Nations. “The effective implementation of the post-2015 development agenda, no matter how ambitious or transformational, will remain limited without well-facilitated corporate volunteer action,” said Will Kennedy, Senior Program Officer for the United Nations Office for Partnerships, and one of the originators of IMPACT 2030.

In his role, Kennedy works to promote new partnerships that support the United Nations. His experience building commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, he said, taught him that when the private sector engages in high-need communities, they can make a big impact. “This is an effective way to appropriately engage business, and provide a first-hand experience to these needs.”

Kathleen Dennis, Executive Director of the International Association for Volunteer Effort (IAVE), said volunteers will be a crucial part of achieving the SDGs. “If volunteering is not included

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

47

HAPPENINGS in the final SDG document, then resources volunteer commitments counted as a major countries through 34 different UN partner will not be dedicated to volunteering in contributor to this global endeavor,” she organizations and agencies. According to the post 2015 agenda,” she said. “Volun- said.

Dictus, the corps of individuals includes teers are not paid but volunteering is not Skills-based volunteering continues to five neurosurgeons and ten rocket scienfree.” In other words, though volunteering grow in popularity as a social impact strate- tists. can generate mutual gain for all partners gy for corporations. But large multinational UN Volunteers help agencies address involved, including the sending organiza- companies aren’t alone in their enthusiasm breakdowns in their talent pipeline, while tion, the receiving community, and the for volunteering. The United Nations, the bringing the unique value of volunteerism volunteers themselves, such deployments European Union, and national governments into their projects. To respond to an urgent require time and resources. have all embraced the opportunity to em- need, the agency can deploy a volunteer to Developed by a working group of ap- power volunteers to make a difference. In the field in as little as one month, far faster proximately two dozen volunteers from a late September 2014, a group of more than than trying to make a full-time hire. As a wide range of corporations, non-profits, and 200 representatives from government and result, UN Volunteers account for close to the United Nations, including GSK PULSE, institutional volunteer initiatives met in 30 percent of civilian personnel in PeaceRitz Carlton, Google, Points of keeping alone.

Light, Realized Worth, CorpsDictus, appointed to his Giving, and PYXERA Global, post just over two years ago, this new initiative responds is a refreshing mix of humility to a 2011 United Nations and exuberance. On the foIMPACT 2030 provides a platform for companies Resolution that explicitly rum’s second day, he skipped to both contribute to the positive reconstruction “welcome[d] the expanding the traditional UN podium in of the social fabric of countries around the involvement of the private favor of a more natural and world and have their employee volunteer sector in support of volundynamic engagement with teerism, and encourages its the audience, speaking excommitments counted as a major contributor to further engagement through temporaneously about the this global endeavor. the expansion of corporate issue at hand rather than volunteering and employee from prepared remarks. volunteer activities.”

“You can only make a difSue Stephenson summaference through service,” he rized the initiative’s central intent. “IM- Bonn, Germany, at the invitation of Richard said, before offering a deluge of rhetorical PACT 2030 is the only business-led effort Dictus, the Executive Coordinator of UN questions to frame the day’s program. designed to marshal the power of human Volunteers. The two-day forum provided an “How do we give leadership roles to capital investments to address UN Post- opportunity for institutional stakeholders young people when most of our society val2015 Sustainable Development Goals in de- from a wide range of countries—including ues grey hair? What are the different ways veloped and developing nations—and the America’s Peace Corps, FK Norway, and a to eliminate the barriers that keep people first time that companies will unite their host of UN agencies—to join an important from volunteering?” he asked. “How do we corporate volunteering efforts to address conversation about the UN’s ambitious explain that volunteering is not a ‘nice to the UN Development Agenda through col- commitment to volunteering. have’? How can we have this conversation laboration,” she said.

Gina Casar, the UNDP Associate Admin- not just here but at the national level in For her, the initiative is motivated by istrator, lauded the UN’s impressive volun- every country?” a need to both unlock new resources and teer force. “More than 6,000 volunteers, To showcase the potential impact of UN build on those already committed. “IMPACT and 11,000 online volunteers, serve in chal- Volunteers, eight volunteers were selected 2030 provides a platform for companies lenging, post-conflict environments,” she to give inspiring talks about the benefits to both contribute to the positive recon- said. Close to 80 percent of UN volunteers they had gained and delivered through struction of the social fabric of countries come from the Global South; their average their service. around the world and have their employee age is 38. These individuals serve in 129 Bobby Baker, an Irishman and engineer

NGC

48

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

IMPACT 2 0 3 0 , a g lob a l privat e sect or-led collaborat ion annou n ced on Int ernat ional Volunt eer Day in 2 0 1 4 , aims t o mobilize corporat e volunt eer s t o cont ribut e direct ly a n d sust ainably t o t he Un i t ed Nat ions Sust ainable Development Goals.

has spent the past two years supporting improvement of water and sanitation infrastructure in South Sudan. He said he learned important lessons through his service.

“My father used to say that two heads are better than one, which was opposite from my mother, who said too many cooks spoiled the broth,” he said. The audience chuckled. As it turns out, Baker learned in the field that neither was exactly right.

“To create the perfect partnership, you simply have to work hard to work together,” Baker said. For him, this included building local relationships, sharing stories of his family with others, and learning about the experiences of others he regularly works with.

Bip Nandi, a surgeon and UN Volunteer who has spent more than a year and a half in Malawi, described the tremendous professional opportunity his experience offered. In remote places like Malawi, many patients die waiting for surgical intervention.

During his service, Nandi completed more than 500 major lifesaving pediatric surgeries.

“UNV has left an indelible change in me. I hope that we together can create a change in pediatric surgery,” he said.

Just five days before the Bonn forum, a group of more than 50 representatives from Europe-based companies, nonprofits, and institutional partners gathered in Berlin for a one-day workshop on creating corporate pro bono volunteer programs. The day-long event was hosted by SAP, with support from PYXERA Global and Berlin-based UPJ. SAP launched its Social Sabbatical, a one-month global pro bono experience for top talent within the company, in 2011. And it has continued to expand its commitment to pro bono volunteering to enhance the company’s sustainable development efforts.

“SAP is excited to be on the cutting edge of pro bono and volunteer programming. We are committed to finding creative ways to use the talent of our employees as a resource that can

enhance the effectiveness of organizations around the world,” said Alicia Lenze, the Global Vice President of CSR at SAP. “We are thrilled to be a founding partner of IMPACT 2030 as it aligns well with our company’s commitment to meaningfully contribute to coordinated global development efforts.”

The workshop title ‘Achieving Triple Impact’ effectively captured the growing understanding that these pro bono experiences are a “win-win-win”: the companies, the participants, and the organizations served all benefit as a result. At the workshop, SAP and others outlined ways in which programs could be developed, launched, managed, and measured.

Over the course of the day, participants from programs at John Deere, Celanese, IBM, and Merck discussed their experience volunteering in-country, solving new problems and learning about other cultures. The speakers had been deeply changed by their volunteer experience. Helle Dochedahl, the head of Pre-Sales for EMEA at SAP, spoke to both the personal benefit she had experienced through her service experience in India, as well as the value she knows the SAP Social Sabbatical program delivered to the company and the community. The participants all agreed: “transformative” was the most accurate word to describe their experience.

Deirdre White, the CEO of PYXERA Global, offered a challenge to those convened, one that would surely be seconded by Stephenson, Dictus, and others.

“It’s not enough to keep doing more of the same—the problems are too big and the needs too many,” she said. “I would challenge you to do more to get other companies to follow your example, to do more to start or scale up your own programs, to engage more purposefully, and to think about what the innovations we can bring to this proven model [of global pro bono] that will more quickly and more effectively address the greatest global challenges.”

Dow Sustainability Corps Dow Sustainability Corps strives to meet the world’s most basic needs by matching interested and capable employees with organizations that need support for sustainable development projects, especially in emerging geographies and areas of growth for Dow.

Dow Is Proud to Address the World’s Most Pressing Challenges

At Dow, we are committed to the success of our communities. When we invest in them, we invest in our future. Whether we support events and organizations, collaborate on high-priority needs, or roll up our sleeves to volunteer, we work to solve challenges, bringing together our employees, friends and neighbors to address local and global needs. We believe that together, science and the human element can solve anything.

www.dow.com

®™The DOW Diamond Logo is a trademarks of The Dow Chemical Company © 2015

Sponsored Content

NGC

50

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

ENTERPRISE

For Ghanaian Entrepreneurs, Opportunity Knocks But Opening the Door is Not so Easy IN THE MIDST OF GHANA’S OIL AND GAS BOOM, LOCAL BUSINESSES BUILD THE COUNTRY’S ECONOMY ONE CONTRACT AT A TIME Kuralai Kunz

D

aniel Kwarkyi, the Managing Director of Danest Engineering, a Ghanaian welding company, told his peers at a recent workshop to address challenges of winning work from oil and gas companies, “Because of the numerous challenges that have been gripping my operations, the progress of my business has slowed and the patronage of my business by corporations is low.” The challenges Kwarkya described were many. The industry’s extremely stringent welding and fabrication standards are difficult to meet. Opportunities for formal vocational training are limited; many welders only learn on the job.

Kwarkyi is only one of more than 20 Ghanaian business owners who have benefitted from a recent effort, funded by the USAID Mission in Ghana, to improve the local supply chain to Ghana’s rapidly growing oil and gas sector. This initiative is driven by the recent discovery of massive off-shore oil.

Ghana’s Oil and Gas Sector Drives Economic Growth In 2007, Kosmos Energy made Ghana’s first commercial oil discovery off the country’s western coast. The discovery, now known as the Jubilee Field, moved from initial discovery to production in just three and a half years. Achieving the fastest time to market for deepwater floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) operations ever, the Jubliee Field is the largest oil deposit in West Africa uncovered within the past decade.

Kosmos joined Tullow Oil, Anadarko, Ghana National Petroleum Company and PetroSA to form the Jubilee Partners. Because of the rapid time to market, Ghana quickly became the darling of the oil and gas industry. The Jubilee Field production is expected to plateau at 120,000 barrels per day (bpd). Another nearby discovery, the Tweneboa, Enyenra, and Ntomme (TEN) fields, are expected to

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

begin producing oil in 2016, elevating Ghana’s expected production to 190,000 bpd.

Context is critical; compare Ghana’s offshore development timeline to the Norway’s North Sea discoveries. Exploration activities in the North Sea began in earnest in the early 1960s and first oil was produced in 1971. The Statfjord Field, the largest on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, discovered in 1974, averaged production of 140,000 bpd from 1980 to 2004.

Ghana’s rapid progress in becoming an oil producer has meant that its companies and workers have faced challenges in seizing business opportunities, due to lack of experience and expertise in the sector. Indeed, Norway struggled to overcome similar challenges over the course of the 1970s to eventually ensure the accrual of local industrial benefit from the North Sea discoveries. Of course, Norway is a sparsely populated country with a lengthy history of industrial activities such as shipbuilding. The contrast between Norway and Ghana on these fronts could hardly be sharper. Ensuring Ghanaian companies and workers are in a position to benefit from oil and gas

NGC

51

activities will not happen overnight, but with a balance of policy and practice, the country can meet this challenge.

Businesses Struggle to Meet Growing Opportunity Whereas Norway capitalized on its natural resource wealth, many West African oil and gas producers have not been so lucky.

For decades, Ghana’s neighbors have struggled to turn oil and gas discoveries into financial and economic return for society. The government of Ghana is determined to defy this trend, and in 2013 Ghana introduced a local content law to maximize the use of local labor and participation of Ghanaian businesses in the delivery of goods and services to the oil and gas industry. The Ministry of Trade and Industry is currently reviewing its 2011-2015 plan for industrial policy. Additionally, the Parliament is discussing a new Exploration and Production Law, which will help level the playing field between Ghanaian businesses and international contractors.

These legislative and policy initiatives are positive first steps on the path to successfully empowering local businesses.

Ensuring Ghanaian companies and workers are in a position to benefit from oil and gas activities will not happen overnight, but with a balance of policy and practice, the country can meet this challenge.

NGC

52

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

“Ghana’s aggressive approach to local content policy will go a long way towards ensuring that the value from these recent oil discoveries remains in Ghana,” said Harry Pastuszek, PYXERA Global’s Vice President for Enterprise and Community Development.

“But policies, benchmarks, and minimum requirements in and of themselves won’t make Ghana the next Norway,” Pastuszek said.

The oil and gas industry’s stringent accounting protocols, rigorous health and safety demands, and other professional standards often prevent companies from winning work in oil and gas. The industry’s complex procurement and contracting processes are a frequent source of frustration in developed and emerging markets alike. Many Ghanaian businesses lack systems to effectively comply with health and safety requirements, manage finances, and ensure quality. Many Ghanaian entrepreneurs struggle to navigate the “maze” of the sector’s contracting arrangements and fail to compete due to their lack of qualified personnel, and insufficient information about procurement opportunities. With limited access to finance, and inadequate government support for enterprise, local businesses are struggling to seize the opportunity before them.

Unlocking Supply Chain Opportunities Long-term institutional challenges, like poor transportation infrastructure, lack of vocational training, and unreliable electricity, constrain the country’s economic potential. Yet, Ghanaian business owners are enthusiastic about the opportunities that lie ahead, and steps can be taken to deliver immediate results despite these systemic constraints.

The Ghana Supply Chain Development (SCD) Program—a fiveyear USAID-funded initiative implemented by PYXERA Global in the western region of Ghana—attempts to deliver immediate results.

The SCD Program aims to increase the participation of Ghanaian

small businesses in the value chain of the oil and gas sector by focusing on the following objectives.

The program seeks to increase the capacity of local business service providers (lawyers, accountants, management consultants) to address specific requirements of the oil and gas industry. Experts also provide training, networking opportunities, and other outreach to increase Ghanaian firm’s understanding of the oil and gas sector’s procurement requirements and standards. Targeted technical assistance helps businesses achieve international certifications in areas such as environmental management, health, safety, and quality.

In 2014, the Ghana SCD Program successfully organized and delivered a number of stakeholder engagement events and trainings. “Establishing trust and building relationships between local business and the oil companies has been an essential starting point for the SCD,” said Ken McGhee, the SCD’s Chief of Party.

“Nothing happens in Takoradi without establishing warmth and trust.”

The Ghana SCD Program offers a wide array of technical trainings and workshops on subjects including welding standards, environment, health and safety policies, quality management systems, procurement best practices, business ethics, and access to finance. For example, in December 2014, the SCD program organized advanced training sessions on occupational, health and safety management for local SMEs. This Certificate training program meets internationally recognized standards and equips participants with the knowledge required to implement policies, procedures, and controls to achieve the best possible working conditions and align with international best practices in the oil and gas industry.

Since the start of the program, businesses that have benefited from SCD Program trainings and networking events have won over 20 contracts worth more than $10 million with oil and gas operators and service companies including Tullow Oil, Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, MODEC, Technip, and Haliburton.

After participating in a suite of workshops offered by the SCD Program, Danest Engineering won a service contract with one of the Jubilee Partners’ leading firms, and he is only one of a growing number of companies reaping this benefit. Nathaniel Kwansa, the General Manager of Kwansa Auto Ltd., has benefited from the SCD Program’s Environmental, Health, and Safety trainings. “If there is one organization that has built the capacity of our staff this year, it’s PYXERA Global through the USAID Supply Chain Development Program,” he said. He is optimistic about what the future has in store. “We are looking ahead into the future with positive expectations.”

WeAre Performance with Purpose

In rural India, women walk for miles each day to get water for their families.

The PepsiCorps team worked to scale rooftop rainwater harvesting systems to expand access to safe water for the community.

PepsiCorps

is a one-month international community volunteering and leadership development experience that enables PepsiCo employees to use their talents to enhance the capacity of local community organizations, gain insight into global challenges, and deliver sustainable social impact around the world.

At PepsiCo, Performance with Purpose is our goal to deliver sustained value for our business, for the planet and the communities in which we live and work.

S p o n s o r e d Cwww.pepsico.com ontent

NGC

54

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

From Job Search to (Global) Career Quest, Idealists Preferred WORKING WORLD: CAREERS IN INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, EXCHANGE, AND DEVELOPMENT Matt Clark

M

illennials, the generation born between 1980 and 2000, will form 50 percent of the global workforce by 2020. It’s a demographic coveted by advertisers and intensely written about by sociologists and political commentators alike. I’m technically a Millennial, though just barely, and I am personally skeptical of much that has been theorized about the motivations, hopes, and dreams of my generation. With 80 million of us in the United States alone, it seems somewhat problematic to make sweeping generalizations about any group so large.

Yet, one statistic from a recent study of Millennials that does not surprise me at all is this: 70 percent of Millennials around the world expect to hold an overseas job assignment during their careers. Studies also consistently show that Millennials place a higher premium on a job they find personally fulfilling over one that will make them rich. How are we Millennials supposed to land these do-good global dream jobs we want?

The recently updated second edition of Working World: Careers in International Education, Exchange, and Development, by Sherry Lee Mueller and Mark Overmann sets out to answer this question. Mueller and Overmann present a compelling account

Working World is not simply a howto guide for young professionals looking to get into the global engagement space.

It passionately calls young idealists to thoughtfully craft their careers, to find personal fulfillment, and to make a contribution to the greater good.

of not just how young people can break into a career that will take them abroad, but also suggest that more time should be invested by each of us in reflecting on what we really want to do in the world. The book seeks to help young professionals get ahead in the global marketplace and cultivate the skills required of emerging global leaders.

The book opens by acknowledging what most young people entering the workforce already know: the precise definition of an “international career” is elusive. In our global economy, the distinction between “domestic” and “international” has become increasingly blurred. Mueller and Overmann define the field as those careers committed to “building more effective communications, to tackling global problems, and to creating the web of human connections so critical to existence in the twenty-first century.”

The authors believe these individuals are united by one common quality: they are all idealists seeking to have a positive impact.

Working World is organized in two parts. In Part I, Mueller and Overmann outline ways individuals can shape their career philosophies. The authors share their own professional and personal experiences in different historical eras. As a seasoned global engagement veteran, Mueller advises young professionals to identify a cause they feel passionate about, and then carve out a place to affect real change in that space based on the trends in a particular period. Mueller believes it’s best to define a career path “from the perspective of your place in history.”

Overmann, who provides a young professional voice, is very honest about his career path being one that is less strategically planned than Mueller’s. Less focused on finding a place for himself in history, Overmann placed more emphasis on his micro-level impact. He recalls his first years after finishing his undergraduate studies, working in a series of jobs that were seemingly disconnected. He assures readers that even if they don’t have

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

NGC

55

BOOK REVIEW

a clear vision for their career trajectory at every turn, the whole can become greater than the sum of its parts. “I have no regrets about these choices. They not only gave me an array of diverse learning experiences that have shaped me in positive ways, but they also led to where I am now,” Overmann reassures readers.

He urges young professionals never to doubt the inherent worth of variety in professional experiences.

The juxtaposition of Mueller and Overmann’s worldviews and experiences presents divergent perspectives to guide the reader’s exploration. Each author challenges the other’s assumptions and approaches, which encourages the reader to engage in a similar exercise of self-reflection. The message to globally-minded young professionals is clear: there is no single path to success. Careers will likely take unanticipated turns, and there is not a magical one-size-fits-all approach that can be universally applied.

Mueller and Overmann also seek to arm young people with tips on how to incorporate professional best practices into their career quest.

These include the art of networking, the value of mentors, and the challenges of adapting to the changing dynamics that define most 21st-century career paths.

In Part II of the book, Working World highlights interviews from leaders in the field, directing readers to actual resources for young professionals to explore. Pearls of wisdom come from CEOs of nonprofit organizations, presidents of higher education institutions, and senior staff of Congressional offices, along with more junior professionals whose career paths are likely similar to many readers.

Allan Goodman, President of the Institute of International Education (IIE), for example, shared what he believes to be crucial competencies for thriving at any job. “I think good writing skills and the capacity for empathy are the two most important traits you can bring to the workplace,” said Goodman, “whether it’s public or private, whether it’s domestic or international.” In this section, readers will find tangible opportunities and useful guidance, which complements the philosophical reflection and advice in the first part of the book.

Working World is not simply a how-to guide for young professionals looking to get into the global engagement space. It passionately calls young idealists to thoughtfully craft their careers, to find personal fulfillment, and to make a contribution to the greater good. In the book’s introduction, Mueller and Overmann allow Howard Thurman’s famous quote to make their point for them: “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Seeking to forge careers that foster social good in a globallyconnected world, Thurman’s sentiment is perhaps the closest anyone has come to defining a Millennial manifesto. The millions of tweets on #bethechange are a testament to the number of Millennials inspired by the Gandhi-attributed quote: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Mueller and Overmann’s Working World is a useful primer for young professionals taking purposeful steps to becoming the change they want to see.

NGC

56

The New Global Citizen | Spring 2015

CONTRIBUTE

WHAT’S Y O U R STORY?

We welcome submissions from individuals, corporations, and organizations engaged in:

LEADERSHIP • CITIZEN DIPLOMACY • IMPACT & INNOVATION GLOBAL PRO BONO • ENTREPRENEURSHIP Send your content or proposal to editor@newglobalcitizen.com or scan the QR code for our online submission form.

Empowering Communities At John Deere, we recognize that communities form the foundation of society, and that strong communities provide greater opportunities for lasting health and prosperity for all.

That’s why John Deere supports programs to improve communities around the world, including the impoverished villages near our manufacturing facility in Pune, India. The Village Improvement Program increases access to quality education for children, provides vocational training to young adults, and helps women start their own businesses.

As well, the program is helping improve basic amenities in the villages, including sanitation, roads and health care.

Investing in our communities is one more way John Deere is becoming a catalyst for positive change in the world.

Sponsored Content

Non Profit U.S. Postage PAID PYXERA Global

1030 15th Street NW, Suite 730 East Washington, DC 20005

SAVE THE

DATE

THE GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT FORUM Moving the Sustainable Development Goals from Aspiration to Achievement FORUM & BROADCAST November 10 - 12, 2015 | Washington, DC | The Newseum WWW.PYXERAGLOBAL.ORG

PYXERA Global