03.15.06
Create a Village Phone programme
Guide on creating sustainable access to affordable telecommunications for the rural poor.
It draws on Grameen’s experience in both Bangladesh and Uganda and establishes a template for creating sustainable initiatives that simultaneously bring telecommunications to the rural poor, create viable new businesses for microentrepreneurs, and expand the customer base of telecommunications companies. The authors point out that no two implementations of the Village Phone programme will be exactly alike. Each country will have unique variables, participants, and environments. However, it is expected that there will be common structures, applications, and processes.
01.24.06
WTO Hong Kong Meeting Analysed by Oxfam
“The final ministerial declaration contained some minor gains on agriculture, such as setting a 2013 end date for export subsidies, and providing developing countries with extra flexibility to protect their small farmers. There was some progress on preventing the abuse of food aid as a disguised form of dumping, but on cotton, the steps agreed fell short even of those required by the cotton panel ruling against the USA.
Developing countries successfully fended off some of the attempts to force open their markets to Northern industrial and service sectors. However, even the toned-down text on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and services is inimical to development. The offer of duty-free, quota-free market access to the poorest countries contains sufficient loopholes to rob the agreement of almost all value. An ‘aid for trade’ deal was agreed consisting largely of recycled money, and there was no progress on other ‘development issues’.
When talks recommence in early 2006, rich-country negotiators cannot simply turn up and carry on where they left off in Hong Kong. They need to go away, examine their consciences, and make a New Year’s resolution to turn this into a development round for the world’s poor.”
Oxfam Briefing Paper 85: What happened in Hong Kong?, Oxfam Briefing Paper, December 2005 (pdf-document)
01.20.06
Thailand- Myanmar/Burma Border
I visited Myanmar (former Burma) twice during my stay in northern Thailand. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, I had to. I needed to extend my visa. Anyway, I’ve written down some of my experienses in Thailand to share it with you. This is how I remember the first Up-North trip.
…Before continuing to Khung Khon, I had to visit Myanmar (former Burma) to renew my visa for another month. The bus ride to the northern border town of Mae Sai took 5 hours. We found Buddhist monks smoking cigarettes while talking in cell phones quite amusing, there are also the ladyboy monks that confuse me abit. Mae Sai has a border town feeling to it. People are going back and forth with things to sell in a big hustle. My border crossing was very undramatic, I was stamped out of Thailand, crossed the border , paid 200 bahts for Myanmar border officials and came back to Thailand. The bridge crossing the border and Mekong river used to be a major entrance point for drugs to the rest of the world. Today it acts as a gap between the rich and the poor, like the borders of US and Mexico or EU and Morocco (maybe not that extreme though). The music that blasting from loud speakers on the Myanmar side, had a soap opera touch in it, making my brief visit to this notoriously militant country absurd. After lunch we hurried back to the bus and sat for another 5 hours returning to Chiang Mai. There was a construction work of a major highway on its way between Mae Sai and Chiang Mai. With China border just some hundred kilometres away from Myanmar border, Thailand hopes that in the future Chiang Mai will become a centre of China-SE Asia trade…
01.12.06
Thai Travelogue
A paragraph from my Thai travelogue:
“…The day for unit’s workers started 8 o’clock with the national anthem and rising of the Thai flag in front of the office. The first day we walked through different plantation to find the most suitable ones to measure. The mountainous terrain offered beautiful views over the valleys with the highest mountain of Thailand Doi Inthanon looming behind the smoky sky. Only one plantation was chosen for closer measuring. This vast area had parts which had suffered a major forest fire six years ago and another part that hadn’t had a fire during it’s standing age of 26 years. Finally I would get the comparison that I needed. The two workers helping me were fun to be with, older Thai man knew all the plants like his own pockets and was constantly pointing around telling which trees produced something delicious to eat or chewing tobacco. He had a small bag with him where he kept this forest tobacco; fermented and dried leaves, bark and some white glue he called acid. All this would be wrapped inside a leaf and placed under a lip. The result: black teeth. The young Karen guy talked a bit English and worked as a scribe and a translator. He was especially pleased when he heard that there are hill-tribe people living in Finland called Saame people who nowadays use helicopters and snowmotorcycles (snowmobiles) to look after their reindeer. After the last days work (which took 10 hours) we headed to the Hmong village close to the unit grounds to buy couple of beers and a pair of Hmong trousers for my girlfriend. Villagers were playing football in the square while we bargained for the trousers. After half an hour I gave up and paid too much for the pants…”
Read more with pictures: Forest Inventories in Thailand and Then Some
01.09.06
China-Africa Trade Increases by 39%
Trade between China and African countries has stepped up since the start of China-Africa Forum in 2000. China has concentrated on buying African oil, but has also invested in Africa. A growing number (15.3 bn dollars) of products are imported from China to Africa.
“…China has scrapped tariffs on 190 kinds of imported goods from 28 of the least developed African countries, and Chinese firms have greatly increased investments in Africa – most notably in the oil sector.”
Today there’s a news about Chinese oil company planning to buy a share of Nigerian oil and gas field for 2 bn dollars.
China-Africa trade jumps by 39% -BBC
CNOOC to buy $2bn stake in Nigerian…-MSNBC
01.03.06
Vietnam’s Road to Capitalism
Very interesting article about The Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the reform of the country, launched in 1986. From communism to WTO, how did that happen? -YaleGlobal
