Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan’

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Kabul Arrival

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

Mariana and I landed in Kabul to a bright, smoggy morning. Frost lie on the grass; snow blanketed the mountains in the hazy distance. Driving through the city was like viewing every typical photo of Kabul I had ever seen; it was strange knowing I was actually present in it.

We met PDT’s Country Director Phil Colgan in the lobby of our hotel, where he immediately handed us a copy of Afghan Scene magazine, flipped to a PDM-A ad.

“Peace Dividend Trust connects you to local suppliers that can meet your needs. Turn your procurement dollars into development dollars by purchasing your goods and services from Afghan suppliers.” I was excited to meet the team behind it all, a few of whom I knew only through email exchanges.

When we arrived at the PDT office, Phil gave us the run-down of the local context and some additional details about the Afghanistan Marketplace project. Phil was overwhelmingly positive about PDT’s accomplishments and even more so about the staff. He called them “loyal, dedicated, the cream of the crop.” Their results are staggering, he said, especially in a country whose population is about 97 percent illiterate and has been occupied by one force or another since 1970.

Afterwards, we met the staff and sat in on the weekly staff meeting. As each person discussed the weekly minutia of his or her department, I realized that the only reason the project was a success was because of the hard work of these individuals. An obvious statement, but I suddenly understood the infamous “HQ bubble” that haunts many a development project. Listening to one conversation with staff helped me understand more details than I could have ever learned from sitting in the PDT office in New York. It also made me realize that what HQ does matters little to the success of the project. It’s the daily work on the ground that makes the difference.

And in the case of PDT in Afghanistan, the results are astonishing!

The team has created livelihoods for over 120,000 individuals, and by extension their families, and raised billions of dollars for the Afghan government through taxes. This is particularly important in a country with high amounts of corruption. Over 8,000 Afghan businesses are listed on the portal. In order to be listed, each business must be visited onsite by a PDT team member, which includes a site visit by a PDT staff member, survey questions and re-verification – usually over the phone – six months later. Just this week 16 new businesses are in the pipeline to be listed on the portal. This is going on every day thanks to the dedication of our staff.

The portal is popular in Afghanistan. Last week it received just over 7,500 hits, despite the New Years holiday. Afghan ministries use the portal to distribute information about tax filings and other business information. Tender distribution is another important part of the portal. Last week, the office received 53 different tenders and distributed over 190 copies via e-mail, SMS or by Afghans visiting the office.

Thanks to the hard-working staff, PDT’s popularity continues to grow. In addition to billboards around town and an ad in Afghan Scene magazine, the team created a commercial in Dari and Pashto, which recently ran for four days. The next day the PDT office received hundreds of phone calls from Afghan business owners inquiring about PDT’s services. This shows the hunger of Afghan business owners to succeed.

Mariana and I know the week will pass too quickly. Every day is jam-packed with traveling to Afghan businesses, speaking with buyers, shadowing staff and filming TDS pick-up and training sessions in the office. Just going over the schedule that Akbar and Hamid prepared for us was painful because we realized we wouldn’t be able to see everything in such a short time. Though we can’t do everything, we’ll certainly accomplish as much as humanly possible – we owe the staff here as much. Afghanistan is a tough and brutal place but I can already see how inspiring and determined the Afghan people are. We hope we can capture some of that on video.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Changing the world | 4 Comments »

Meet Mariana Keller, PDT’s Journalism Fellow

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

“Stories have power. They delight, enchant, touch, teach, recall, inspire, motivate, challenge. They help us understand. They imprint a picture on our minds.” – Janet Litherland, author

You may remember Scott Gilmore’s frank remark about PDT’s inability to tell our story, and his subsequent call for an outstanding journalism fellow who would travel the world to help us do just that. Well, we chose one and we couldn’t be more excited. Mariana Keller: a brilliant videographer with experience telling stories from locations all over the world.

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Though she missed New Years Eve at the legendary Gandamack Lodge in Kabul, she’ll arrive there early Sunday morning and hit the ground running. And I’ll be right behind her. We’ll keep you posted regularly on the blog about the sights we see, the stories we hear and the challenges we face in telling those stories to a wider audience. After a week of delving into what it’s like to be an entrepreneur in Afghanistan, we’ll be heading to Haiti to do the same.

Kabul and Port-au-Prince. Two very different places (and several long layovers in between) with one important similarity: the need for private sector growth and job creation to help create stability and sustain peace. That’s why the Peace Dividend Marketplace operates in both countries, after all.

photo copyright: James Rexroad/PDT

In the meantime, we won’t be posting other content as regularly as before. But we hope you keep watching this space as Mariana and I travel, listen and blog it all back to you. And don’t miss our tweets @PDTGlobal

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Posted in Afghanistan, Haiti, PDT's Journalism Fellowship | No Comments »

Buy Local. Build North Korea.

Monday, December 19th, 2011

Merry Christmas! Kim is dead, Long Live Kim. The dictator of North Korea, is dead. Christmas time can be a bad time for dictators. Romania’s Ceausescue came to an end on Christmas Day 1989, and just five days prior Panama’s Noriega got a heavy metal serenade on his way to the clink.

Kim Jong-Il in happier days.

Captain Kirk once said “Space, the final frontier”.  I disagree.  Its actually right here, on Earth.  Its all about those marketplaces which are found beyond the frontier.

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My wife woke me up at 3am this morning to tell me that Kim Jong-Il died.  She is Indonesian, and I am a self hating Canadian, but we were both “interested” enough to take note of this news when we should have been fast asleep. Why so? Perhaps because the North Korean regime has been such an oddity for such a long time, and is armed with nukes.  But also perhaps because North Korea is an extreme example of the blue sky markets which are beginning to open up to the global economy.

How extreme an example?

The National Post’s Peter Goodspeed wrote the below of the absurd nature of Kim Jong-il’s rule

“For 69 years, Kim Jong-il, a ruthless pudgy demigod, has been one of the most idolized men in the world. To most North Koreans the mere presence of “Dear Leader” could cause fruit trees to bloom in winter and make snow melt. A “genius of 10,000 talents,” he allegedly wrote 1,500 books during four years at university; shot 11 holes-in-one the first time he played golf and is “praised by mankind as the most outstanding political elder and a peerlessly brilliant commander.” He was a totalitarian tyrant, who enslaved and starved his people, ran a political gulag as ruthless as Stalin’s and taunted the world with nuclear weapons. A fat man in a country frequented by famine, Kim reportedly bought more top-of-the-line cognac than anyone else in the world; imported “pleasure squads” of Swedish blondes to satisfy his lust; and, supposedly, injected himself with the blood of virgins to stay young and healthy.”

Kim Jong-Il would have made a good bad guy in a Star Trek movie, as would have Qaddafi in Libya, Egypt’s Mubarak, Duvalier of that Caribbean isle Haiti, Cambodia’s own Pol Pot, world terror chief formerly holed up in Afghanistan (Osama bin Laden), Charles Taylor of Liberia, and others.

Then again one should not forget those that remain in place in Zimbabwe, Myanmar, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Somalia etc etc.  But times are changing. Gbagbo is in a jail cell, and even George W. Bush is having to change travel plans to avoid the cuffs.

While the future of North Korea may still be a huge question mark, the changing of the guard in the world’s off limits areas is now an historical fact. The Arab Spring (summer and fall too) as well as the Russian winter, are creating the ways and means for new markets to emerge. Many of these are not yet called emerging markets. Oddly enough according to MSCI and Standard and Poor they are not yet even known as frontier markets.  Lets call them blue sky markets, places beyond the horizon.

Would you call Liberia, Haiti, and Afghanistan emerging markets? Places to do business? Probably not, but doing business is exactly what they are doing.

Our Republican friends used to talk of the “Axis of Evil”, “Beyond the Axis of Evil”, and even “Outposts of Tyranny”.  Well a few tyrants have reached the end of the road this year. Their countries now represent new markets. 2012 has long been touted as the Year the World will End but for some of these tough places its all blue sky.

So let us not mourn Kim Jong-Il overly much. Tears of grief or tears of joy? This blue sky market may result in a place that does not need food aid in the future.

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Blue sky markets are appearing all across the planet.  They may be beyond the frontier marketplaces of some big funds, the IFC and Worldbank, but they are opening up, and opening up fast.

Anyone going to come with me to blue sky marketplaces in Kigali, Juba, Kinshasa, Conakry, Harare, Rangoon, and Phnom Penh next year?

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Posted in Afghanistan, Aid industry, Changing the world, Haiti, Liberia, North Korea | No Comments »

Afghanistan: The Land of Dreams and Industry

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

 

Optimism. The Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce Business Matchmaking conference held earlier this week can be summed up by that one word.

Whether an Afghan government official or business owner, an official from a US government agency or a CEO of an American company working in Afghanistan, everyone spoke about the urgency of strengthening Afghanistan’s private sector before Coalition forces pull out in 2014. But any mention of this transition was always followed by remarks about the private sector that were filled with an electrifying optimism.

Perhaps H.E. Asif Rahimi, the country’s Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock said it best: “Gloomy people watch the news and see only that donors are going away…Everyone is asking how Afghanistan can become more self-reliant. The answer is business.”

Conference attendees were full of optimism not only because they had inspiring ideas but also because many were well on their way to achieving them.

Telecom Industry

The telecoms industry in Afghanistan has exploded in recent years, going from .05 percent phone coverage in 2002 to 80 percent today. The sector is one of the major pistons of Afghanistan’s economic engine. It attracts a large amount of investment and provides the largest tax revenue of any domestic industry, about ten percent of all revenue generating activities. Additionally, it has created about 100,000 jobs indirectly and has invested $1.2 billion into building Afghanistan’s first-ever national telephone network. There is still much room for the sector to grow. Rural areas, home to about 20 percent of the population, remain unconnected. As the telecom sector develops, it means more jobs and connectivity for ordinary Afghans and a continued stream of tax revenue and investment for the country.

Source: ABC News

Mining

In 2010, major media outlets broke the news that Afghanistan was sitting atop $1 trillion worth of mineral deposits, including iron, copper and gold. The country faces huge challenges to getting this sector off the ground, such as security, lack of infrastructure and the infamous resource curse. Most likely, it will take years to attract top global mining companies, but Chinese companies are already clearing the way and expect to begin production at the Aynak Copper Mine south of Kabul in 2014. It will be a challenge for the country to properly manage such projects, but, if done well, it presents huge opportunities to bolster the country’s economy.

 

Airline Industry

“We are not focused on 2014. To us it is simply a thing that will happen,” says Michael Timcke, Director of Business Development for Kam Air, one of Afghanistan’s three airlines. Landlocked, Afghanistan is rapidly expanding its air industry. Its national airline carrier, Ariana, was incorporated by PanAm in the late 1950s and services expanded quickly throughout the region.

By the 1970s, Ariana employees were providing technical assistance to Turkish Airlines. “There’s no reason why we can’t go back to that,” says Timcke. Currently, the country’s three airlines have a total of 18 planes. In 2001, there were none. Those numbers sum up both how far the airline industry has come and how far it still has to go.

Source: Airline-Pictures.net

 

Agriculture

Afghanistan’s Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Minister Asif Rahimi is quick to put naysayers, who focus on the possible negative effects of his country’s transition aside. After all, he’s got more important things to think about, like pomegranates, almonds and, what Rahimi calls, the “caviar” of saffron. Rahimi has a top ten list of agricultural products that he predicts will be major factors to drive Afghanistan’s growth Some of the products on the list need entire supply chains to be built, such as lamb and pistachios, while others can simply be ramped up. For example, there is a huge market for seasonal flowers from Afghanistan in the Middle East and Europe. Why not break into the market of the US? It’s ambitious plans like these that will allow Afghanistan to enter new markets and spur its development.

 

Despite all the negative news coming out of Afghanistan, PDT is inspired to know and work with Afghans on the ground who are dreaming up big ideas, making business connections and growing their country.

 

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Posted in Afghanistan, GEW | No Comments »

“Fast Running” Entrepreneurs: Bpeace CEO Toni Maloney on the Link Between Job Creation and Peace

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Toni Maloney is the Co-Founder and CEO of the Business Council for Peace (Bpeace). Bpeace is a non-profit network of global business professionals who believe that more jobs mean less violence in conflict-affected countries. In 2010, the organization launched its One Million Jobs for Peace commitment in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative. Bpeace is headquartered in New York and currently works with entrepreneurs in Afghanistan, Rwanda and El Salvador. To learn more and find out how you can put your professional skills to work, please visit Bpeace’s website.

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Why does Bpeace believe so strongly in the role that entrepreneurship plays as a stabilizing force in countries emerging from conflict?

Bpeace’s reason for being is to focus on creating jobs in conflict-affected areas. We believe that jobs are the answer to most everything. When a family is earning income from a job, they can afford to send their children to school, they can afford better nutrition, and they have hope for the future.

A large part of Bpeace’s mission is to empower businesswomen. Why focus so strongly on female entrepreneurs?

We have a bias for women’s businesses because we believe that when women have a stronger economic voice, they have a stronger voice for peace in their communities. Bpeace was founded by five businesswomen and, in the beginning, we only focused on assisting women entrepreneurs. The U.S. Department of State partially funds our work in Afghanistan.  Several years into our program, they asked us if we could do for businessmen what we were successfully doing for businesswomen. After consulting with the Afghan businesswomen in our program, they emphatically endorsed the idea and said, “Yes, because unless men are also given economic opportunities, there will never be peace in Afghanistan.” Bpeace recognizes that a businessman who employs women, who provides a service for women or purchases from women vendors also deserves our attention.

Afghan Fast Runners acquire and practice business skills during a Bpeace Apprentice Road Trip in Dubai

Have you found that security concerns and cultural restrictions, in Afghanistan in particular, impede Bpeace’s access to businessmen and women? How does Bpeace handle these constraints?

We operate right now in three countries. And, overall, it’s always tough to identify the high potential small business owners who demonstrate intuitive business sense and are in an industry sector ripe to grow. When you add on top of that the unique challenge of finding Afghan businesswomen who fit that profile, it’s not easy. And one of the reasons is that in the early years after the Taliban fell in 2001, Afghan women were really concentrated at the bottom of the business pyramid. They largely worked in handicrafts and many of the NGOs operating in Afghanistan were focused on that area as well.

Is that why Bpeace chose to focus on what it calls “Fast Runners” in the business communities where the organization currently works?

Bpeace has always taken a different stance and that is to focus on Fast Runners.

These are not bottom of the pyramid individuals. These are women who, in Afghanistan, are operating in non-traditional industries like IT, electrical contracting, construction and furniture manufacturing. It is still difficult to find women in non-traditional industries that meet Bpeace’s criteria. However, through the relationships we have with our ground partners and organizations like PDT, Bpeace always finds highly motivated, business saavy women.

In 2010, Bpeace, in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative, announced its 1 Million Jobs for Peace initiative. That’s a pretty impressive goal. Can you tell us a little bit about that initiative?

Our board and staff members revisited Bpeace’s plan for scaling up and making an impact. In just about any community, we believe that adding 1,000 jobs can ignite momentum because those jobs are providing income into 1,000 families that will support roughly 6,000 family members. That money is also circulating into the community and is also circulating, from the business standpoint, to vendors. So, our goal is to determine how many jobs we want to create in a community. And a community is not a country, it is a city like Kabul or Mazar-i-Sharif or Kigali or San Salvador. So if we focus on creating 1,000 jobs in a community and we look to see if we could accomplish this across 1,000 communities. If we could impact three communities in a country, what would it do for that country? And what could we leave on the ground in terms of knowledge? At the same time we were talking to the Clinton Global Initiative, and we decided to make this commitment as a board to create 1 million jobs which translates to 1,000 jobs across 1,000 communities.

The commitment is not solely about creating jobs. It is about involving both small companies and larger corporations in this effort by utilizing their employees as skill-based volunteers. Last month, for example, when we hosted 9 Fast Runners, we worked with 37 host companies involved and we will invite each of them to join our commitment to CGI. We’re also recruiting more companies with similar social responsibility and philanthropic goals to partner with us moving forward. In the next month, we’re hoping to announce the companies that will be working to help Bpeace achieve it’s 1 Million Jobs for Peace commitment.

Afghan Fast Runner Haji visiting Redmond Minerals in Utah in October 2011

With the US actively reducing its footprint in the country, the road ahead for Afghanistan is often looked at with great skepticism. Is Bpeace still optimistic about the future of the country and what do you think is Bpeace’s biggest challenge moving forward?

We do have cautious optimism. We’ve never been more inspired by the talent of our Fast Runners than we are now. The group that visited the United States in October was very serious about gleaning everything they could from their host companies. They were very serious about putting together a forward plan to apply what they learned and it really was the best group that we’ve had to date. We feel very inspired by that.

The challenges that they are facing are the challenges that affect our work. They face a lack of security, of infrastructure and of omnipresent electricity to name a few. They also face challenges that any entrepreneur in the world does, that is, access to markets and capital. Both of those things are magnified in Afghanistan because of the hesitancy of outsiders to invest in the country. Right now, you’re not going to see multinationals jumping into Afghanistan.  Conversely, for Afghan entrepreneurs to export is difficult and expensive.

Speaking of global entrepreneurship, Bpeace also works in El Salvador and Rwanda. What can you tell us about those projects?

We launched our program in El Salvador just about a year ago and we started on-boarding Fast Runners this year. We still use the same Fast Runner model in El Salvador but the characteristics of the Fast Runners in El Salvador are different. The businesses are slightly larger; we’re working with a few million dollar businesses. It’s actually been difficult to find women-owned businesses. Instead, we’re finding family-owned businesses with women at the helm. The security challenges in El Salvador are a result of gang-related violence that takes a toll on a business’s profitability but does not threaten the viability of businesses like we see happening in Afghanistan.

Despite these challenges, we’re particularly eager to work with Salvadoran businesses because they are not only larger but more sophisticated. Bpeace is getting into more complex issues that deal with supply chain and new product development. And, as always, when you bring a new venture to the Bpeace table, it’s exciting.

Bpeace volunteers visit with the organization's first group of Salvadoran entrepreneurs

Before I let you go, I wondered if you could point to one recent moment that really encompasses and validates Bpeace’s belief that, “more jobs means less violence.”

We visited the State Department in Washington, DC last Wednesday with nine of our Afghan entrepreneurs. One of them, a young man, mentioned that he has a former Taliban working for him. He said that this employee is a good worker and is no longer interested in fighting for the Taliban because he has a job and he can take care of his family.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Changing the world, El Salvador, entrepreneurship, Fast Runners, GEW, Rwanda | No Comments »

PDT Celebrates Global Entrepreneurship Week

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

If you know anything about PDT you know that we are all about supporting and promoting entrepreneurs. But we’re not the only ones. Organizations, governments and individuals throughout the world actively promote entrepreneurship as a way to inspire, innovate and move people and societies forward. Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) is the world’s largest celebration of the innovators and job creators who launch startups and bring ideas to life. And PDT is excited to participate.

GEW encourages organizations and governments across the world to host or participate in events that promote entrepreneurship during the week of November 14-20th. This year 123 countries are officially participating, everywhere from Costa Rica to Zambia. Neither Afghanistan nor Haiti has ever participated in GEW, and we think that’s outrageous. While not widely publicized, both of these countries are filled with enterprising business owners who are pulling themselves and their fellow countrymen and women out of poverty through the private sector.

In Haiti, we are focused on inspiring young Haitians to believe that entrepreneurship is an opportunity to create opportunities and make their ideas a reality. Over 50 students from five universities will gather for a day of discussions, collaboration and competition. Haitian business owners, from a variety of youth and private foundations and NGOs, will lead workshops with the students about the ins and outs of owning a business in Haiti. We expect a content-rich event that will be both inspiring and challenging, just as entrepreneurship is.

GEW is particularly relevant in Afghanistan, a place where much of the world’s attention is focused on the presumed negative impacts of US and NATO troop drawdown. But PDT is staying positive about the transition. After all, our market research report on job creation and local businesses in Afghanistan shows that the rate of entrepreneurship in Afghanistan has risen in recent years. Inclusion in GEW would afford Afghanistan the opportunity to positively highlight its private sector and encourage young Afghans to think about seizing their futures through business ownership.

PDT is partnering with local universities and relevant Afghan ministers to host a daylong event for both students and Afghan business owners. Unfortunately, the scheduled date has been moved back, outside of the official week, to Wednesday, November 23 Thursday, November 24. This is due to a Loya Jirga, to be held on November 16, to discuss the strategic future of Afghanistan. Thousands are expected to attend, including 170 Afghan parliament members. During this time, all government offices, banks, universities, schools, and some businesses will be closed. Despite the delay, preparations are underway and PDT is expecting a good turnout on the 23rd 24th.

We’ll be sure to keep you posted about how the GEW events in Afghanistan and Haiti turn out. You can follow @haitifirst this week and @buyafghan on November 23rd  24th to get live updates on GEW in both countries. Or check out our Haiti and Afghanistan pages on Facebook, where we will post photos and videos of the event. And of course, we’ll provide you with some post-GEW analysis on the PDT blog. To find out more about all of the global events taking place this week, visit unleashingideas.org or follow @unleashingideas on Twitter.

In the meantime, we are getting excited about celebrating entrepreneurship and all the possibilities it brings, from reinvigorating stalled economies, to inspiring innovation and collaboration, to helping developing countries take ownership of their potential for growth.

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Posted in Afghanistan, entrepreneurship, GEW, Haiti | 1 Comment »

Aid is About Action

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Aid is an effort – to alleviate poverty, fight hunger, cure disease… you get the picture. You may think that’s good or bad. We may never agree on an answer. Here at PDT we’re not looking to be right or wrong. We’re just looking – for the best possible way to get to a better place. That’s why the organization was founded seven years ago. We want to improve aid and development efforts and see communities move forward.

In the moving that we’ve done over the past several years, we’ve found that there is no single path to getting there: development work is hard and complicated. The one thing we have found is that you’ve got to be flexible, willing to respond and adapt to change. That’s what we’re doing.

Several months ago we rolled out a blog plan that has given you snapshots of Afghanistan, Haiti, Timor-Leste and now Liberia. We’ve invited guest bloggers and experts to talk to us about aid effectiveness. We’ve waxed on about the need to get better. Now we need to focus on it. For the next couple of months PDT is rolling up its sleeves and getting itself dirty in the world of building markets. Following the publication of our Afghanistan Jobs Creation Report where we note that over 100,000 jobs were created, we’ve decided to push ourselves harder. 100,000 jobs is a nice number. That’s livelihoods for 100,000 people and their families. But more needs to be done. That’s why we’re going to change up our blog a bit.

For the next few weeks you’ll hear a bit less from guests and a bit more from our teams in the field who are working on building markets in Afghanistan, Haiti, Liberia and possibly South Sudan. Our fearless leader Scott Gilmore, and the rest of PDT, is cooking up some innovative ideas that we’ll share with you as they start to take shape. Scott will also be contributing more of his thoughts as we do this – not because he’s got more time on his hands, but because he’s fired up.

We still want to be a part of the aid and development conversation, and we’ll work hard to contribute, but for now our minds are focused elsewhere. Development simply can’t move at the pace it currently does. And we can’t sit around just theorizing about it. PDT is about action.

Go!

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Posted in Aid Effectiveness, Aid industry, Changing the world | 2 Comments »

An Open Letter to Haiti’s President Martelly

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

 

 

Dear Mr. President,

I watched your speech at the United Nations General Assembly last week. It was frank, a rarity in UN speeches, and frustrated, which is a byword for UN diplomacy.

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You were provocatively blunt about the failures of the international donor community and the development industry. The world came rushing to Haiti’s aid after the earthquake, and then almost as quickly, they wandered away. Over 18 months later, only 43% of the promised aid has been disbursed, and that money is largely invisible. The refugee camps are still full, half of Haitian women are still giving birth with no medical care, and cholera is still rampant.

In your speech you said that Haitians feel left behind and left out. The donor money that does flow, flows into the hands of expats and international agencies. There are too few new schools, but the streets are crowded with white SUVs, the international symbol of “aid” from Kabul to Kigali.

International Development Assistance (for Tokyo)

Haiti’s experience is not unique. Again and again, the international community responds to war, tsunami, and earthquake the same way. Billions are pledged. Less is disbursed. And almost none enters the hands of the local community.

In PDT’s peer-reviewed research, we have documented that on average only 5% of UN budgets enter the local economy.  In larger missions, like Afghanistan, the broader donor community does not much better, spending only 37% of its money locally. But when you subtract salaries to local staff, local spending by international staff and direct budget support, the actual amount of donor money that focuses on contracts to local businesses can be as low as 1%. In other words, what is happening to Haiti is the norm: Aid is spent on the countries it is meant to help, but not in those countries.

As you noted yourself, “it is nice to talk about human dignity, human rights, stability, and peace. But a hungry stomach has no ears. It is through the creation of decent jobs, fair pay…that justice begins.”  If Haiti is to have a future, it must first have jobs. And those jobs cannot be given to high-priced “capacity building consultants” or “private sector development advisors”. Those jobs must be for Haitians. Donors have never created employment with “economic growth log frames”. These merely generate consulting fees for expats. Only entrepreneurs create jobs.

Something can be done to put Haiti first. In Afghanistan, faced with the same paradox of billions in donor promises, but almost nothing in the hands of Afghan entrepreneurs, the US government under the leadership of Gen. Karl Eikenberry, implemented an “Afghan First” policy which called for the Afghanization of foreign assistance. The Afghan First movement, designed to “ensure that Afghans lead, not follow, in their path to a secure and economically viable Afghanistan.” Was soon adopted by other donors such as the British, and by NATO and UNAMA.  Its impact was extraordinary, leading to billions in new local spending, and the creation of over a 100,000 jobs.

As President, you should call upon the donors to adopt a “Haiti First” policy. Ask them to spend their development dollar twice. Instead of merely building a $1m hospital, ask them to use Haitian construction companies in order to also leave behind $1m in wages, profits, and taxes.  The key donors, such as the US and the UN have already proven they can do this. If they did it in Kabul, then can do it Port au Prince.

Like you were in New York last week, be frank. Demand that the aid money spent on Haiti is actually spent in Haiti. Demand “Haiti First”.

 

Respectfully Yours,

 

Scott Gilmore

Peace Dividend Trust

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Posted in Aid Effectiveness, Aid industry, entrepreneurship, Haiti | 3 Comments »

Eau d’Empowerment – the scent of opportunity: a conversation with Barb Stegemann

Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Barb Stegemann is the author of The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen and CEO of The 7 Virtues, a fragrance line sourcing its organic essential oils from countries of conflict to introduce these businesses to new markets. With two fragrances from Afghanistan (‘Afghanistan Orange Blossom’ and ‘Noble Rose of Afghanistan’), 7 Virtues is launching a new perfume from the vetiver oil of Haiti this fall on September 21st (International Day of Peace). We sat down to chat with Barb in August; this is our read our conversation with her.

This interview has been edited for length.

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PDT: I was wondering how you came up with this idea in particular. Was it something you always wanted to do, or was it prompted by something?

BARB: I would have to say that it was prompted by my best friend, Captain Greene. He was one of my first mentors who really believed in me, and we met in university 25 years ago. When he joined the military, I wanted to join with him but couldn’t because I have a hearing impairment. So he joined the military and while he was there 5 years ago he was severely wounded, and, you know, your life is flipped upside-down. Suddenly you look at your life and say, “Well, am I really doing meaningful things?” I was working in economic development and revitalization and it certainly was meaningful, but suddenly when my best friend was severely wounded, I felt that I wanted to take on his mission and help him to ensure that women and children and families in the community of Afghanistan where he was serving were not being oppressed and that they could have their dignity and literacy and all the freedoms that are the basic foundation to peace. And economic empowerment is obviously a part of that.

In the hospital for the year with him, I wrote my book and dedicated it to him, and really felt that I had to start in my own neighbourhood and women in North America to really share some of the ideas about community economic development and roles that women could play in making change. Because we aren’t the top level CEOs, we’re less than 5% of the top 500 CEOs, which is where a lot of decisions are made. In government, in business, we’re not there in the numbers we need to be. We own the voting power at 52%, but we only have 20% representation [*2011 stats: 25% in Canada; 16.8% in the U.S. House of Representatives, 17% in the U.S. Senate] so I just felt that it was time to communicate differently with women because maybe we need to create new models. The models that are out there don’t necessarily work for us.

So as I went around my province giving talks I listened to women, and they were telling me, “You know, we feel like our hands are tied, we don’t have an accessible way as everyday citizens to be a part of change in Afghanistan, or in other countries experiencing strife, for that matter.” Even though our hearts ache, a lot of women were sharing that charity was the only way they could connect. Of course, I don’t really believe in charity – I was raised with very humble roots, we spent many years on welfare in rural Nova Scotia, and I really could connect and understand what they were talking about: there had to be a different way.

[…] One day I read an article on this gentleman Abdullah Arsala in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and he was working tirelessly to get farmers off the illegal poppy crops, which accounts for around 90% of the world’s heroin, and the traders kept knocking over his distillery. And that was it: I knew in that moment he was my way of making change. I flew to Ottawa, met with CIDA, who connected me with the NGO that did the study that proved that if you could provide buyers with the suppliers, that farmers would grow the legal crops. We pay $10 000 for a litre of rose oil, $8000 for a litre of orange, and it certainly can take on the illegal poppy crops.

What’s been fascinating for me as we’ve been doing this is that I came to find out that it goes against Islamic law to grow the poppy crop. So not only is it economically empowering for these families, and helping them to not be beholden to oppressors, but it’s giving them their dignity. And you know, I think that’s crucial, in terms of really making lasting change. I think that dignity is such a central part of economic empowerment and literacy. […] When you can achieve something like that, I think you’ve cracked the code on really making change and building peace and harmony. […]

I think it really follows the thesis of my book: that is, 3 levels of government and private sector together in harmony. As citizens, we tend to look at government and say “fix it, fix the world, fix issues of war and poverty.” I think that’s really incorrect, I think as citizens and businesses we need to be saying “how can we participate, we recognize we need to participate,” and we need to start really leading with government and harmony. And I think that’s why what we’re doing is exciting so many, and I started on my VISA card in my garage – I bought all the orange blossom oil they had and just took risks, went on ‘Dragon’s Den‘ and was terrified, but I did it because I realized the chance to tell millions of Canadians that we need to do trade with nations in strife and this has been, I believe, the missing piece. I mean, you see it too with Peace Dividend Trust: I want to see a cavalry of businesses lining up, excited to purchase from suppliers in countries like Haiti, Afghanistan, other nations.

Rose petals are distilled into precious oil

I think that’s crucial: more than the work we’re doing, I think we need to be communicators and I think our job at the end of the day, whether it’s PDT or CIDA, myself, or anyone that’s doing this kind of thing, our job is to communicate that it is more exciting to rebuild than to destroy. And I think we have to actually make rebuilding more exciting than destruction. If you look at the media, often what grabs the headlines is destruction. The spokespeople that are often the oppressors get interviewed, and those who are oppressed are silenced. And so, I really believe it’s our responsibility in business to be louder than the fanatics to ensure that logic is louder and that rebuilding is more exciting, and that means taking responsibility, doesn’t it? […]

PDT: Yes, exactly. And it really does depend on perspective, too – we were talking to Gayle Lemmon, who says that people don’t invest in victims, they invest in survivors, so you really do have to display the dignity in these entrepreneurs and in the people who are living in these areas of conflict.

BARB: That’s right, you’ve hit it on the nail. I think that the fact that even though I was raised in humble roots by Canadian standards, that’s more wealthy than most in the world, so I don’t take my public school education, my health care, or the chance to go to university which I took advantage of [for granted]. I don’t believe that we are more entitled to this than anyone else, so I don’t believe that I have more of a right to this than any girl in Afghanistan, or any child in Haiti. So it’s not about charity, because we don’t have the right to have any more. We must find ways to fix broken systems and fix broken models and it’s really healing to do that. It’s healing for us and it’s healing for others, and there’s something very satisfying in knowing that you’re making a difference but that others are able to realize that their communities can be stronger, their lives can be better, and at the end of the day I don’t believe anyone should be bullied. I think that we have to speak up. […]

Harvested rose blossoms

PDT: Exactly. I know some might think of perfumes and fragrances as a luxury item and say that we might need to counterbalance poverty by re-evaluating our consumerism. However, it’s a billion-dollar industry, so do you see any need to adjust that, or do you think it’s more important to offer ethical alternatives and to make sure that we can access things [in a way that] does provide dignity to people and does do some good in that purchase?

BARB: Well, it’s twofold, right: it’s dignity abroad and it’s dignity at home. You go to the beauty counter in a department store and […] you see a myth of beauty that is unattainable for real people, and I am tired of watching little girls look at that and think that that’s what they should grow up to be. I want little girls to grow up to be ambassadors and prime ministers, and I want them to be strong, and I want them to be brave, and I want them to build new models. So going to the beauty counter with a book on empowerment and philosophy and Adam Smith and capitalism, who would’ve thought? You will never see skinny models or movie stars in our advertising, because we prefer to give that money to the farmers [to model and promote]. I think it’s really crucial that when we are caring about others in other nations we are also caring about ourselves, and so that’s really the model that this is. Every time we help a farmer get off the illegal poppy crop, he’s not beholden to an oppressor and he’s growing the legal orange blossom and rose [and can] have his dignity and can pay for books and shoes for his children.

[...] And then back here at home, when someone buys the Afghanistan Orange Blossom or the Noble Rose of Afghanistan or soon the Vetiver of Haiti, they’re not bombarded with imagery of […] unrealistic ideals of beauty. They are being shown a book on community economic development, our story, how to empower themselves, and it’s a language that wasn’t given to women necessarily.

So it’s informing and empowering women here in North America – and by the way, it’s glorious, the essential oils from these countries are absolutely beautiful. And in terms of luxury items, this is truly fair trade. Which means the suppliers get fair market wages, but in true fair trade, you then don’t make it a leap over here in North America. It’s a very attainable price point, available at a department store chain: The Bay, the oldest department store in Canada. I was advised by many to make it very elite, to put it in little specialized boutiques, and I said “that’s not fair trade.” It has to truly be something that is [fair trade].

The other thing is that it’s a communications piece: we always honour the country in the name of the fragrance: so Afghanistan Orange Blossom, it flips the idea of what Afghanistan is. It showcases that these farmers grow some of the most exquisite oil in the world. Same thing with Vetiver of Haiti – our perfumers said the vetiver of Haiti is the most exquisite vetiver in the world. When I spoke in New York, a journalist interviewed me and she said “I didn’t think there was anything in Haiti.” I said “Yeah, there’s lots of suppliers selling products and they need buyers,” so I feel it’s partially my responsibility through the fragrance line to be communicating that businesses need to work through Peace Dividend Trust or CIDA or whichever group is in their country to connect with suppliers and buy from them. And it’s very easy to do, the process is very straightforward […] and you’ve got all these wonderful tools to build a relationship.

PDT: I like what you said about building that relationship; I think you’ve said a few other places that fragrance can be “a body of communication,” and it’s sort of a neat connection to remember the places and the people whenever you use it – especially because it is a fragrance – to sort of carry them with you, in a way.

BARB: That’s right, it’s very powerful. A lot of women will smell the Afghanistan Orange Blossom and they may be from Afghanistan or Lebanon and they’ll smell the orange and say, “Oh, this is my childhood!” I’m blown away by the stories people share with me because scent is so powerful, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a fragrance based with its base note of essential organic oils from countries of strife, so it’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced. People are always amazed at it, but I love that it carries people there, especially for people who are from those communities. […]

Haiti; rebuilding after the earthquake

We get a lot of orders from soldiers from the U.S. and across Canada because they understand this is part of the mission in Afghanistan, that farmers are not beholden to oppressors, that we can find other ways to contribute to a vision of security and peace – and in fact we have to: it’s our responsibility. There’s a lot going on, including the shift out of the idea of the beauty industry being kind of superficial and giving it some real substance, whether it’s the essential oil that’s giving it substance or the story, it’s definitely shifting the industry. I would love to see more businesses finding ways to take a product that North Americans would have bought anyway and convert it into something that’s actually a little more meaningful and has more value-based purpose, and I think there’s a lot of room for the market to change and to see more kinds of things like what we’re doing crop up.

PDT: To transform all the things that we use into something that has a greater purpose – I think that’s a really fantastic goal. One last question: in the book you wrote, The 7 Virtues of a Philosopher Queen, I really love the idea of ‘wonder’ as a central principle. You’ve mentioned other ones – dignity, courage – but I really like that idea of wonder. I think wonderment and imagination are often sort of undervalued or not necessarily considered conducive to business, so I was wondering how that was important to you in this venture in particular.

BARB: Oh yeah! I love that you recognized that, by the way; that’s very important to me. I think that wonder is the most important virtue: it’s where all philosophy begins, the minute you wonder “I wonder what’s going to happen today, I wonder who I’m going to meet, I wonder what could happen if I tried this” as opposed to judgment or cynicism, which the world is filled with. I think that wonder is like a muscle, you’ve got to rip it, it’s daily practice, daily practice, to continue to wonder and not judge, and I think it starts with ourselves. I think the most important thing is to not judge ourselves, I don’t judge myself, I don’t label myself – I might discuss the fact that I was raised in poverty so that people can understand my roots and why it’s important to me, to share – but I don’t believe I have any less of a right to come to the banquet or to speak than anyone else. […]

This is the other thing: I’m working with people that are coming from a place of wonder, and people who are living in places that are filled with strife and yet these people are open and excited and keen and really, I think, some of the most beautiful businesspeople I’ve ever worked with in my life, who are coming from, you know, some of the most strife-ridden countries. […] I’m getting to see communities through a whole new lens, because they too are in that state of wonder. I think it fades as we get older, and I think it takes a real skill to remain in a state of wonder at all times and not to judge. And the minute we judge ourselves or judge other anyone else or a community, we are doomed to fail. Guaranteed. I do not believe you can possibly work with people if you’re judging them and, well, it just can’t work. Wonder is the root of the success in doing anything that’s not been done before or anything that’s a little different. […] And so it’s very important for us [if] we want to make change, to strip away the clutter and the opinion and the fear and focus solely on that state of wonder [and what] would happen, and just start. You just start, right. You don’t get overwhelmed, just begin. And it works.

PDT: That’s wonderful, it’s very inspiring as well. So what’s next, then? I know you’re launching the perfume from Haiti and you’re launching nation-wide this year as well. Are there any other locations or scents or ventures you’d like to try in the future?

BARB: Well, we’re launching ‘Vetiver of Haiti’ in 91 Bay stores on International Day of Peace at the Rideau Centre [in Ottawa]. I’ve got some beautiful grapefruit oil from Israel and I’m working with the Minister of Housing for Palestine – I would like to do a Middle East collection so that you can actually mix the oils yourself; that way we don’t have to wait for permission to build peace, […] and again the whole example of our responsibility to be louder than destruction. It’s really important for us to get the headlines and show that rebuilding is possible and that we have to – there’s no alternative. What’s the alternative? To stay in a state of disarray is not a choice. That’s one of the future lines – and then, a friend of mine is from Korea and I’m very interested in bringing oils from the North and South and merging them into one fragrance. So, just going around the world! Sadly there’s no shortage of countries in strife, so if we can keep shining light on these countries and give people in communities faith that people in North America love them and care about them and honour them then I think it does a lot.

PDT: Exactly. This sort of changing and making that a bigger part of our habits and our consciousness, connecting Canadians to things like that is so, so important.

BARB: Thank you, I love it. I love the people I’m communicating with and connecting with and I just feel like I’m becoming a better person from these people that are teaching me, whether it’s Gilbert in Haiti or Abdullah in Afghanistan. I feel very blessed and I want others to experience this kind of journey too, because it’s just –  it’s a very fulfilling living. I think that a lot of Canadians, North Americans, are struggling with fulfilment, you know, you really see that people are trying to find joy and fulfilment through stuff, and that’s never going to be the way. Joy and fulfilment only comes from doing something meaningful and obviously stretching out of your comfort zone a little bit, so I’d like to see more people doing that, and being happy, right? Being satisfied, being joyful, and feeling like they’re living with purpose – it’s one short life and I can’t imagine wasting a minute of it.

PDT: Exactly; that’s wonderful. Thank you so much for your time and the opportunity to talk to you.

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Posted in Afghanistan, Changing the world, Economic Inequality, Haiti, marketplace, Resources | No Comments »

Jobs, the Future and Afghanistan

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Jobs. Doesn’t matter whether you have one or not, they’re on everyone’s mind. President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress about the subject two weeks ago. Former President Bill Clinton is discussing it today at his annual Clinton Global Initiative, which kicked off in New York City.

Peace Dividend Trust talked about it yesterday at an event where we launched our Job Creation in Afghanistan: Putting Aid to Work report. It is the first study that sheds light on jobs created as a result of international spending and local procurement. An estimated 118,000 jobs were created in Afghanistan as a result of the PDT Marketplace. 118,000. Imagine how many more could be created if there were a steady stream of deals and prospects for Afghanistan’s marketplace? That was one of the points made and discussed at PDT’s launch event at the Roger Smith Hotel in New York.

The event was kicked off by The Economist’s Matthew Bishop who is, along with Michael Green, the co-author of Philanthrocapitalism – a book that is focused on donors moving into market-based solutions to solve world problems. One of the reasons they’re moving in this direction, as was noted in yesterday’s meeting, is that “aid is broken.” The good news is that there are major efforts to fix that.

More effort is being poured into high-risk, high-return projects in places like Afghanistan that will put people to work and allow them to build businesses and a marketplace that will last. Donors, philanthropists and world governments are identifying and targeting force-multiplying industries such as construction and manufacturing that have the potential to stabilize fragile economies. That’s important in Afghanistan, where pessimism is on the rise as the drawdown date for US troops approaches.

Progress in Afghanistan, as this report notes, is not forgone. Through this report and the data collected from it, PDT has created a platform to understand better the kinds of jobs created, the conditions in which they were created, and the ensuing results of their creation. They are results that fill an important gap in information both about Afghanistan’s marketplace and the impact of the international community’s spending. It’s information we believe provides the tools to develop a roadmap for building and, more significantly, scaling-up Afghanistan’s economy.

 

 

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