Wired has a beautiful article about how public-interest initiatives can make use of Twitter, blogs, flickr and other web 2.0 tools to raise awareness and attract funding.

In this case, a Kenyan organisation in charge of managing a local animal park has partnered with a European “mentor” who assists in making technologies work for local benefit. Interestingly, this approach seems to work remarkably well.

Have a look at Kimonjino’s pictures at flickr. You may also want to follow his tweets from the African Savannah on Twitter.

What do you think, is the combination of local activists cum global supports/mentors a good model for making technologies work for local organisations in remote places?

And, in generally, what would be feasible ways to effectively connect the global community to local action, that is how can gap between facebook causes and concrete local action be bridged using Web 2.0 technologies?

I know I have been rather silent on the blog for a long time. There are several reasons for that, firstly, my job has been a challenge for the first months of this year, and, secondly, it is going to stay that way for quite a while.

Nevertheless, I though the recent shift in my “region of operations” in my work from Africa’s jungles to the mountains of East Europe would warrant that I drop you all a line - albeit a quick one.

I have just uploaded an extensive gallery depicting my last 10-day business trip through Georgia from Tbilisi in the East to Batumi, a small summer resort by the Black Sea. I spent about a week in Tbilisi working with partners and then continued on to Batumi by train passing through some of the most marvelous landscape’s I have seen so far, even though it was late February and most of the countryside was rather dull and greyish.

As my camera was stolen while traveling through Poland last year (no offense intended, really) and I didn’t find the time to look for a decent new one before I left I took the pictures with my iPhone. Thus, while they look rather quite “mobile” I hope they will give you a glimpse of that diverse country that I would heartily recommend to visit for all lovers of great wine, tasty food and strong Russian vodka.

When you travel a lot, you do sometimes lose track where exactly you are. An eleven-hour flight from Germany to South Africa can pass so quickly that when you disembark and take a minute to think and soak up the atmosphere of the place, you begin to wonder how all this flying thing is actually possible, how you ended up there and if the fact that you can physically traverse the largest part of the Earth in just about a day is not completely nuts, anyway.

This is what must have happened to a guy (or gal) from EuropeAid, the European Commission’s office for the implementation of global development aid programmes. Otherwise it would not be comprehensible to me how could have happened what apparently has happened on their new website.

There are plenty of curious ways to put technology to good use for helping the poor. These days, they often involve mobile phones, 100$-laptops and many other fancy gadgetry.

Granted, many of these technologies, like mobile phones, have become so central to even rural life often in poverty that they have taken on a salient role in people’s lives and can very well be employed to better their livelihoods. For instance, I recently assisted in a project development involving GSM handsets and text messages to keep peasants informed about market prices for their cash crops in rural Congo. Because, as any traveller to the developing world will know: while many people living in abject poverty lack many things, they usually do not lack mobile phone connectivity. I regularly had perfect network coverage in the Congolese bush 20 miles from the border to Angola.

However, you do not necessarily need high tech to make people’s lives better. And I am always delighted to see how many bright ideas are developed all over the world making use of very basic technologies to find ways to improve people’s lives.

That said, do not miss the fabulous video produced by GOOD Magazine that demonstrates how an NGO in The Gambia employs high-speed motorcycles to bring health care to the countryside. There is also an accompanying article here.

Over the past years, in Germany, young male Americans in white shirts and black pants and their female counterparts have become a regular presence in the pedestrian zones of most larger cities. In fact, as most German cities have pedestrian shopping streets of any kind, bumping into them is practically unavoidable.

When you are approached, the ensuing talk is usually a fairly standard one focusing on your belief in God (or the lack thereof), possible reasons for hunger and poverty in the world and somewhat less apparent reasons why all this does not necessarily have to be that way at all and why it will rather sooner than later be gone, anyway. As someone working in global development aid, you are necessarily particularly sensitive to these issues. And, certainly, also less likely to accept solutions that are, well, somewhat more metaphysical in nature.

It sometimes seems to me as if you cannot miss them these days, whereever you go, be it Germany, Rome or London. I frequently bump into them whever I am travelling and, until now, I had to admit I was fairly unaware of the reasons for them being there and all wearing the same picture-perfect white shirts. But I was keen to know.

After having read this very comprehensive article in GOOD magazine, I know why. I also know a few other things I did not know about the Church of the Latter Day Sains - or Mormons - before. To me, the article gives a colourful and plastic impression of what the boys and girls in white believe in and why they spend $10.000,- for leaving Utah and go to Europe, Asia and - as it seems - even the remotest and poorest parts of the world. Young mormons are required to go to any place they are selected for and that, apparently, may also include the developing world.

“In many parts of the world, a Mormon missionary is the only American the locals will ever meet; the clean-cut, idealistic young face of our nation.”

As it seems, even in a modern way, proselytizing still is a flourishing form of development aid. This resonates with my experience from many African countries, where plenty of churches and free Christian movements coexist happily next to each other and where, in fact, they are often the only ones staying put when times get worse. Lubumbashi, for instance, boasts several houses of God including a well-refurbished synagogue, as shown here.

The comment section should not be missed. Interestingly, most commenters that rip the article to shreds seem to be long-standing Mormons themselves. Nevertheless, the comments section makes for an interesting read, too, and put the article in a more multi-faceted light.

While visiting Egypt recently after a pause of almost 3 years, I was able to verify that the title of this post also holds true not only for the Least Developed Countries (LDC’s).

”The least developed countries (LDCs) are a group of countries (presently 50 States) that have been officially identified by the United Nations as ”least developed” in the light of their low income, weak human assets, and high economic vulnerability.”

I have never been to a developing or transition country where positive development was so obvious than this time. The roads were better, boardwalks had been built where most streets never even had one, and, as much as that is possible in a country the surface of which is 97% sand, there was generally more green scattered all over the city in the form of trees or lawns.

Nevertheless, while development is visible and confirmed by locals, Egypt still drops in terms of global indicators.

It is fascinating and depressing at the same time to see that, even in the true LDC’s like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, just as poverty always has the same face everywhere, so has the “new richness”. There are plenty of twenty-somethings on Kinshasa’s streets driving their imported BMW or Mercedes to show off that they have made it. They all look the same, just as their cars.

You, when walking those streets, do not really want to know what they are making their money with. But the point is that this does show that growth is not everything if it does not reach those who are most in need. Just as trade or increased FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) does not automatically translate into growth, growth does not automatically lead to better living conditions for the poor. Look at Nigeria for another example.

By the way, the UNCTAD has recently released the Least Developed Countries Report, 2007, subtitled ”Knowledge, technical learning and innovation for development”. The full report can be downloaded here.

UNCTAD has often taken the view that the development of productive capacities and the creation of productive employment is a key to sustained poverty reduction in LDC’s. This year’s report supports this position. It focuses on the accumulation of knowledge, technological learning and the ability to innovate as salient steps on the way to developing genuine productive capacity.

For developing countries to suceed in a sustainable manner does not only require external measurable effects such as an increase in quantitative trade; it also requires good governance as an element that is highly difficult to influence and support from the outside.

An interesting piece I just found on WorldChanging.com highlights the recent emergence of “junior mapmakers” all over the world.

Applications like Google Earth, Platial or Yahoo! Maps have finally taken map-making out of the hands of the professionals where this art had remained for hundreds of years. Since then, a new generation of “amateur cartographers” is springing up.

Even after the advent of commercial satellite and aerial photography, the ability to make maps remained largely in the hands of specialists. Now, suddenly, mapmaking power is within the grasp of a 12-year-old. A host of collaborative annotation projects have appeared — not to mention tens of thousands of personal map mashups — that plot text, links, data, and even sounds onto every available blank space on the digital globe. It’s become a sprawling, networked atlas — a “geoweb” that’s expanding so quickly its outer edges are impossible to pin down.

We’re all mapmakers now, which means geography has entered the complex free-for-all of the information age, where ever-more-sophisticated technology is better able to reflect the world’s rich, chaotic complexity.

Interesting point. We’re finally able to map ourselves completely - not only socially but now even geographically.

I feel even more “glassy” now.

I only recently discovered Mickael Therer’s site “360 days”.

It is not only a marvellous portfolio of breathtaking photography. It is also a splendid way to discover Africa, particularly its human face(s).

Even though the site’s pictures focus on the somewhat darker sides of the continent and its people - village life, diseases, war -, the fact that they are depicted in 360° panoramic photography captures its sights and sounds in a truly unique way lending a wholly new dimension to the face of a Malinese boy or clan elder.

Being a photographer for Medecins sans Frontières (MSF), who have, by the way, also published a marvellous series of pictures on one of the places I will soon visit again, the Congo, Mickael shoots mostly 360° panorama from countries such as Mali or Tchad.

I highly recommend having a go at the various links to his MSF-photography featured on the right-hand side of his site. You should have a somewhat more powerful computer with QuickTime installed and, preferrably, a wide-screen screen.

By the way, there’s some African photography to be found here, too. ;-)

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has just released a fabulous Google Earth Layer depicting the hell still going on in Darfur in vivid detail.

The layer which comes as a KMZ-file that can be directly opened and loaded into Google Earth, shows detailed maps of the Southern Sudan region with plenty of information on the location, pictures, testimonials and some video footage. It also includes data on villages destroyed or damaged and lots of links to further statistical data and information on the situation.

The release comes at the same time as the acceptance of a “hybrid intervention force” by the Sudanese government, as Le Monde reports.

The download is a fine example of how to leverage the potential of modern technology for a greater good and thus strongly recommended for everyone wishing to understand better why hell broke loose in the remote African country some years ago.

My stay in South Africa has just been extended.

My colleague and me have been invited to speak at the SangoNet conference in Johannesburg (not Cape Town, as previously mentioned) on 17./18.7. with all lodging paid. Whew!

I think I will be thoroughly enjoying that trip.

We are currently developing a PPP (Public Private Partnership) project with partners in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. If we get it, I know I'll want to be the coordinator.

I've always dreamed of going to Central Asia, to the cities of the old Silk Road, to the easternmost part of the Orient. I'm still dreaming of it. If I get the post, I know I'll want to spend a lot of time with “on-site coordination“. I'll want to drink tea with the Mongols, freshly brewed in the samovar. I want to sit barefeet on colourful carpets and sing songs the lyrics of which I don't understand. I want to ride a camel. And I'll want my own yurt in the steppes of Kazakhstan. And, who knows, I might just decide to wear a silly pot warmer, too.

I love to travel, you see. However, considering what travelling looks like in many parts of the developing world, I may want to reconsider. Eventually, I may indeed end up with a pot warmer on my head, kidnapped by the roaming kinsmen of the fundamentalists of the Eastern desert plains.

I sometimes do prefer to fly. Not in Africa, though. While it is still relatively easy to get to even the poorest nations of Africa as most former colonising countries still traditionally maintain close ties with their former colonies. Air Brussels directly flies to the Congo, for example, just as Air France does, and Mozambique can easily be reached by Portuguese airlines.

Travelling between cities inside Africa is a different story, however. Because people are still poor, most lines are not profitable. So, generally, there are none. Consider the trip from Accra to Abidjan, one of my colleagues just had to do. The distance by air is about 500km. While there are several flights a week from Paris to Accra, it is extremely difficult to get from Accra to Abidjan. It's a running gag among development aid people that it is usually faster to fly from Paris to Accra, back to Paris and over to Abidjan again, than doing the direct leg between the two cities.

Sometimes it's even cheaper, too. Getting from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi, for instance, as I may have to do soon, is not a difficult thing to do because there are Congolese airlines that operate between the cities. The distance is about 2000 - in West-East direction! However, going to South Africa with Air France and then back to Lubumbashi is usually cheaper and most certainly faster, too.

On second thought, I do have a friend who biked to India. Maybe I should ask him how long it took him to get to Central Asia...

The following passage is a factually correct statement.

In the 21st century, there was a war called a "world war" that claimed the highest death toll of any war after the 2nd World War. It encompassed 9 nations and about 25 warring factions and it lasted for almost 6 years. Around 4 million people, mostly civilians, died during this half-decade.

And, the last passage was not a statement about the future.

This certainly seems to be a World War most of us will have missed.

If you're irritated now, don't worry. It irrated me, too. I didn't hear about the "African World War" until I had returned from the Congo. In fact, I had to read about it before I realised what I had missed. You read the news and then, once in a while, you think you never have.

These 4 million people obviously were not soldiers but mostly civilians. And they also did not die from the direct effects of the war. They starved to death, died from diseases or epidemics. They died from a shortage of supply of the basic conditions for life, that is.

Tracing the roots of the conflicht is a difficult thing to do. One of them, however, lies in the Rwandan conflict most of us do remember. And that's an easier one to understand.

First, there was you and me, drinking more coffee than ever before in the Starbucks' and Balzac's of Europe and the States and most other industrialized countries on the planet. That increased the consumption of coffee worldwide and, since coffee buying and reselling is in the hands of a few large monopolies, prices didn't go up but down.

Next came a worsening economic situation in Rwanda. The falling coffee prices led to a slump in incomes for the working population in turn leading to growing political unrest, interracial hatred and, somewhat later, open civil war. The rest, as we may say, is history.

Of course there were and remain to be many reasons for war in Africa. But how we Europeans live and continue to live will play an even greater part in the future of the continent. Yes, even in such small things as drinking coffee, we do make a difference.

So, if you're irritated now, don't worry. There's an easy thing you can do to do your part that there won't be a second Rwanda. If I'm not mistaken, the price difference between conventional and fairly traded coffee is somewhere between 50 cents and 1 Euro. It will be fair to say that, if more people bought fairtrade coffee, tea, orange juice, green beans or any other product coming mostly from the former colonial states, the next African World War may well be preventable.

And the lady selling coffee and tea, among other goods, somewhere inside the suburbs of Kinshasa, and who smiled at me so lovingly when I approached her for a picture during my last stay in the RD Congo, may keep on selling her products for quite a while longer.

I've been to the Democratic Republic of Congo recently to help local NGOs with writing applications for EU funds. Actually, it was the first mission on my new job I will be working in for the next months to come.

It was an unforgettable and profound experience to visit the country that is currently holding place 167 out of 177 on the UNDP's Human Development Index. I travelled to Kinshasa and a remote rural area about 300km to the south, close to the Angolan border.

As usual, I've brought lots of pictures and some videos to show. The first gallery of images is now up and I'd be happy if you dropped by and have a look. Let me know how you liked them.

P.S. By the way, I have moved most of my pictures back from flickr onto my own server. Come and have a look at the greatly expanded galleries here.

I've been to the Democratic Republic of Congo recently to help local NGOs with writing applications for EU funds. Actually, it was the first mission on my new job I will be working in for the next months to come.

It was an unforgettable and profound experience to visit the country that is currently holding place 167 out of 177 on the UNDP's Human Development Index. I travelled to Kinshasa and a remote rural area about 300km to the south, close to the Angolan border.

As usual, I've brought lots of pictures and some videos to show. The first gallery of images is now up and I'd be happy if you dropped by and have a look. Let me know how you liked them.

P.S. By the way, I have moved most of my pictures back from flickr onto my own server. Come and have a look at the greatly expanded galleries here.