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1. Liberia: Ushahidi to monitor elections

AK-47. Source: "Wikipedia/ US MADE (Kr6)"

Last week’s newsletter from Good.is contained an article titled: “Gun Trafficking for Good: How to Get AK-47s Out of Africa”. The idea is to turn AK-47s into cufflinks, earrings and other jewellery. I have a few problems with this concept.

The concept behind this initiative is to buy used AK-47s and turning them into jewellery, thus taking them out of circulation while at the same time increasing the prize and, due to the increased prize, making it more difficult for people to buy guns.

While “Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration” (DDR) frequently involves buying guns from ex-combatants, I think this particular project is a terrible idea.

• According to Wikipedia, about 75 million AK-47 rifles and about 100 million AK-type rifles have been built so far. Considering that more are built every day, it is unrealistic to think that it would be possible to drive the price up by increasing demand. The only thing that would have a significant effect on the price would be a comprehensive, international ban on small arms.
• The jewellery is extremely expensive with a pair of cufflinks costing a much as 35,000 USD. This seriously limits how many of customers/donors you can attract, further reducing the potential impact of the project.

On a personal note I also have to admit that the website of Fonderie47 made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. The way the video is shot, the quotes by Pablo Picasso, Aristotle and Marc Aurel, the whole aesthetics of the website have an air of “death is chic” that I find utterly inappropriate and make me wonder what kind of people would wear these kind of accessories. What’s next? Necklaces made out of human bones?

I’m very surprised that the respectable “Mines Advisory Group” (MAG) has allegedly partnered with this project, but from own experience I know that even big and professional organizations sometimes enter into partnerships they later regret.

If you really want to do something to reduce the number of guns or do something for survivors of war and conflict, I’d suggest you donate directly to organizations like MAG, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV)  or indeed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and skip the questionable jewellery.

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Photo by Darwin Bell.

I have written about the logistical challenges in Liberia before, however I was not ready for what I found out today.

We recently bought a carton of egg from the single local store in Sanniquellie. Unfortunately they were all rotten, so when I went back to the store today I asked when they got the eggs on display and explained what happened last time.

The store keeper then explained: “We only got the eggs a few days ago, so they should be fresh. But you know, we get them from Monrovia and Monrovia gets them from India.”

“India. Right”, I said with a smile, certain that he was kidding.

“No. Really, all of these eggs are imported from India. None of them are produced locally.”

“Ok. Thanks, in that case I think I’ll rather buy them from the market”, I replied slightly horrified.

“Sure, but the people at the market are buying them wholesale from us.”

And indeed, when I went to a small market stall selling nothing but two dozen bananas and three dozens of eggs and asked the woman where she had gotten the eggs from, she said: “From the store.”

This completely blows my mind. There are chicken everywhere!!! How can there not be eggs? I understand that it’s really difficult to transport raw eggs safely on these roads, which explains why it’s easier to buy boiled eggs than fresh eggs. But if you can get raw eggs to Sanniquellie from Monrovia, surely you could build an egg farm in Monrovia as well. (Note: this is not an endorsement of the living conditions for chicken in many egg farms)

I realize that a lot of countries imports of cheap, excess food destroys the local market for things – but surely it can be more economical to produce eggs in-country than import them from India!

What are your thoughts? Why do you think this is happening and do you have similar experiences?

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2. Rural Liberia: Where mobile phones are still a rarity
3. Web based election monitoring in Liberia: a failure

The main reason is quite simple: I needed a break. Not so much from this blog but from anything that was work related.

And I had plenty of other things to do: in December I left the IFRC, left Geneva and moved to a temporary place in Berlin, bought an apartment, moved there, was re-united with my girlfriend and after countless trips to IKEA was finally able to enjoy my new life in Berlin. Tip: If you ever have to furnish a complete apartment, get IKEA to deliver and assemble everything. It’s totally worth it. And so for a long time, looking at different samples of hardwood floors was more important to me than updating this blog. Besides, I wanted to switch off.

Then, I got a job offer from ICRC and since June 1st I am based in Liberia – not as a communicator, but as a protection delegate. The ICRC has this crazy idea that communicators should actually know what they are talking about before speaking on behalf of the organization and so all communications delegates get the chance to do the job that everyone else is doing for a few months, before taking over their “normal” role. Nice. Because as much as I enjoyed working for Shelter Cluster in Haiti, the water was very cold when I was dumped into the deep end.

What that means for this blog, I don’t know. Probably, that I will write more about Liberia than about social media in the immediate future. Besides, I don’t know whether and how often I’ll have internet access. In any case: I will try to update this blog when I have something to share that I find interesting.

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After all they get things wrong all the time and you are generally happy enough if the general thrust of the piece was accurate and in defense of most journalists you have to say that  they normally don’t have the time or resources to research a complex subject, nor the column-space or air time to explain it properly. That might explain why listening to ”Haiti and the truth about NGOs” for 45 minutes annoyed me so much!

Clearly the BBC’s Edward Stourton has had all the time and resources in the world to produce this piece. And he was given 45 minutes! An eternity! And he still manages to deliver a one-sided and biased anti-aid piece that seems to come down to this central message: NGOs have lots of money and know what needs to be done, but they have lost their souls and that is why they squander it all.

Hogwash!

I’m not saying that the problems that he mentions don’t exist. They do and they shouldn’t. And I agree that the Haiti response hasn’t been as good as it should have been. But producing a 45 minute piece that is basically saying that it’s all because the NGOs are sinisterly hoarding the money is just a waste of airtime. I’m not going to go through it minute by minute, but here are a few things that I found particularly annoying (quotes are not verbatim):

In a big disaster everybody expects the UN to take the lead.

Wrong! The government has the lead! The UN and NGOs have no legitimacy to, well,  ”govern”.

The UN is unable to keep incompetent NGOs out of the country.

True. But again: that is not the UN’s role. It’s the government’s. Can you imagine what would happen if the UN would suddenly start kicking NGOs out of the country.  And you know what? People who be justifiably pissed off, because the UN is not a democratically legitimized institution of the host country. The UN is a service provider to the government.

What I find telling is that Stourton actually didn’t talk to anyone from the government for his piece.

The first thing that’s back up and running are the generators so that aidworkers can power their DVD players (Linda Polman).

Cheap jibe. The first things that these generators power are laptops and lights so that aidworkers can work deep into the night, as well as telecommunication infrastructure so that the people on the ground can tell their headquarters what is needed. And I’m sure Linda Polman knows that.

The UN is asking beneficiaries for their opinion.

It’s hard to believe, but he actually makes that sound like a bad thing!

There is no way to know what NGOs are doing with the money

Saying it’s impossible to know how the money is spent simply isn’t true. Every major organization has to report back to donors. Those reports are public. In addition, most project proposals or appeals include detailed financials as well. Nowhere in this piece did I hear him ask for any financial reports. Of course reading those and making sense of them is actually quite hard and tedious work.

I could go on to the police-scene and how he suddenly introduces some drama when driving past a couple of burning tires. Oh, the excitement! But I’ll stop here. Please go ahead and listen to it and let me know what you think. The piece will still be available online on the BBC website until January 18.

What annoys me most is that this is just lazy on the part of Stoughton: If you want to talk about the failings of aid, then also talk about the complexities of aid. If you talk about lack of programming, then also talk about whether pledges have actually turned into real money. If the money hasn’t been spent then ask the project people why. And if you really think that NGOs haven’t done any good in Haiti, then also mention what has been delivered over the last 12 months.

And why is there no mention, discussion or interview with the Haiti Interim Recovery Commission, the major body for assigning money and moving project forward, headed jointly by former US President Clinton and the Haitian Prime Minister Bellerive? I mean, how can you discuss the successes and failings in Haiti without looking at the commission that is supposedly in charge of the majority of the money pledged for reconstruction of the country?

Has enough progress been made in Haiti over the last 12 months? Absolutely not. Could things have been done better: Of course!

But if you are given 45 minutes of airtime and generous travel budget, then please spend you time to address concrete issues and then ask the people on the ground why these things are that way – instead of “aid experts” back in Europe!

Here are a few blog entries and articles I would like to  recommend:

• Foreign Policy: Five lessons from Haiti’s disaster
• Aidwatch: Aid is not just complicated, it’s complex
• Tales from the Hood: Looking back on Haiti – Failure or Success?
• Tales from the Hood: Cost
• Engaging internationally: Haiti one year later: what have we learned?
• Wired: Organizing Armageddon: What we learned from the Haiti earthquake (from April 2010)
• New York Times: In Haiti the displaced are clinging to the edge (from July 2010)

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True, there are USB stick that you can use to connect your laptop to the web, but to me that always felt like a crutch . Then, the other day, I discovered what I had been looking for all the time: a wireless router that is small enough to fit into a pocket. And I love it!

Connects up to five devices

Fit's in the palm of my hand - the Hauwei E5 wireless router.

It’s called “Huawei E5” (marketing clearly had no say in this) and I bought it through my local mobile phone provide for 120 Euros. In addition you need a SIM card and obviously some kind of data-plan.

What I like about it is that it is not SIM-locked so I can easily switch this SIM card for another if I’m abroad.

I can connect up to five devices to it, which is great if you are meeting for an impromptu work-session with someone in a cafe where there is no wifi.

The maximum download speed is 7.2 MBit but that depends on what kind of wireless signal you have at your location. If HSUPA or 3G is not available, it’ll switch to whatever speed is. I tried it while being in the train and it was still good enough to browse the web (slowly) and send or receive emails.

Meager battery life

The only negative thing I can say about it is that battery life is not great. It’s only good for about four hours. Considering that it’s basically just a small transmitter the batter life should be much better than that. But it charges through USB and wall socket so it’s not a huge issue.

I’ve had it for around for about a week now – always in my carrier bag – and I think it’s great. In Germany O2 is selling it, but you can fit any SIM card into it so there is no reason to be tied to a specific provider.

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