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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
THE PILLARS
In this section:
Loans Let Zambia Farmers Store Grain Till Prices
Rise
Forestry Alliance Plants 4 Million Trees In Africa
and Asia
Bolivia’s Indians Win Municipal Elections
Heart Disease, Stroke, Other Chronic Illness
Kill More than AIDS
ECONOMIC GROWTH, AGRICULTURE, AND TRADE
Loans Let Zambia Farmers Store Grain Till Prices Rise
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This warehouse on Wangwa Farms, in Central Province,
Zambia, is certified by the Zambian Agricultural Commodities
Agency. Its clients can get loans using warehouse receipts
as collateral.
Chris Ray, USAID |
LUSAKA, Zambia—President Levy Mwanawasa told
farmers at a recent meeting that they should take advantage
of a U.S.-backed program that allows them to take out loans
using grain stored in warehouses as collateral.
Certified, high-quality warehouses give farmers and merchants
the opportunity to benefit from higher, off-season prices
because they can store grain instead of selling it for a low
price during the harvest glut.
Using stored grain as collateral, farmers can borrow the
money they need to pay debts and invest in production.
President Mwanawasa praised “the American government
for deciding to bring the Development Credit Authority (DCA)
facility, through USAID, to Zambia” when he addressed
the Zambia National Farmers Union at its October 2004 annual
meeting.
The DCA, which is run by the Bureau for Economic Growth,
Agriculture, and Trade (EGAT), allows USAID to guarantee commercial
lending for development goals. Through it, guarantees with
four private Zambian banks have been set up.
In the past, Zambian banks would not lend against grain
receipts. The Agency’s offer to guarantee 40 percent
of the principal of loans made against receipts helped convince
four commercial banks to invest in such lending.
Combined, the guarantees are worth up to $16.5 million.
The ultimate goal is for Zambian banks to gain enough confidence
in warehouse receipts as collateral that they will continue
to make such loans without sharing the risk with USAID.
Bankable warehouse receipts are issued by the private Zambian
Agricultural Commodities Agency (ZACA), which supervises and
certifies the commercial warehouses. The four commercial banks
helped found ZACA, which is also a USAID Global Development
Alliance partner.
The combination of certified warehouses and partial guarantees
has increased the purchasing power of farmers, millers, and
traders. As President Mwanawasa noted, the program stimulates
bank lending for agricultural development.
“This is an excellent example of USAID building capacity
in the agricultural sector —by releasing liquidity previously
trapped in stored commodities while stimulating private financial
institutions,” said Dann Griffiths, the mission’s
senior economic growth officer.
“Clearly, it is not just about financial flows and
marketing techniques,” he added.
Mwanawasa said he considered agriculture the engine of the
country’s economy because it has the highest growth potential
of all economic sectors.
The Zambia mission also helps farmers’ groups through
agribusiness management training.
Mwanawasa said he was pleased to see signs of growth in
the sector, but remained concerned about small-scale farmers’
access to credit from commercial banks, urging the expansion
of the receipts program to the country’s more remote
areas.
The minimum amount of maize needed to qualify for a guarantee
is 30 tons, so large-scale growers were the first to take
advantage of the loans. Small-scale farmers are combining
their harvests to get loans.
“Duplication is the best sign of success,” said
USAID/Zambia Mission Director Jim Bednar. “In this case,
an agricultural association has already consolidated maize
from its members to take advantage of the guarantees—only
four months after the DCA program started.”
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE
Forestry Alliance Plants 4 Million Trees In Africa and Asia
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The area behind this man, near Kongwa, Tanzania, was
once forested. Today it is bare, and although there
is a large stack of fuelwood, it had to be brought from
elsewhere.
TIST |
After farming and illegal logging in the 1980s destroyed
37 million acres of tropical forest in Africa and millions
more in Asia, aid groups formed thousands of small groups
that taught farmers to plant and care for 4 million new trees
so far, in Kenya, Uganda, and India.
Community groups of about 10 farmers plant trees around
their houses, along roads, or near their villages under The
International Small Group and Tree Planting Alliance (TIST).
It teaches them that trees improve soil fertility, create
shade for smaller plant species, provide fruits and nuts,
and lead to cleaner air.
TIST, which received $500,000 from the Global Development
Alliance (GDA), teaches farmers to plant saplings in holes
rather than rows because each hole can create a small pool
of water that will nourish the tree through the dry season.
If a row is planted, the water simply runs off and the trees
die during dry season.
Along with GDA, another $1 million was provided by Dow Chemical
Company Foundation, Clean Air Action Corporation, Solar Oven
Society, and the Institute for Environmental Innovation.
TIST personnel are trained to use Personal Digital Assistants
(PDAs) and Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to gather
reforestation data, which are then uploaded to an online database.
This helps identify areas where new trees are needed.
While groups may plant any tree, they are encouraged to
plant Neem trees, a native species of India and Myanmar (formerly
Burma) that thrives in semiarid climates, reduces pests, and
has medicinal value.
To encourage farmers to participate in the program, TIST
makes small cash payments for each new tree planting or for
tree care.
Since 1999, TIST has expanded from 40 groups in one region
of Tanzania to more than 2,000 active groups spanning Kenya,
Uganda, and India. TIST plans to plant another 5 million trees
in Kenya and Tanzania over the next three years.
Participants in TIST receive health education and learn
about their rights as citizens: planting trees in a village
is not always as simple as digging a hole and burying a seed.
“Some groups are successful in negotiating with local
and regional governments to gain permission to plant trees,”
said Ben Henneke, president of Clean Air Corporation and founder
of TIST. “But other groups didn’t even know they
were allowed to ask, much less get permission.”
The use of GPS technology, a growing trend in forestry,
helps individual farmers trained as quantifiers accomplish
more than an entire surveyor team.
“TIST empowers local communities to take charge of
their own development,” said Roopa Karia of GDA. “Members
see positive results from planting trees and practicing conservation
farming, and spread the word to their family and friends.”
DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
Bolivia’s Indians Win Municipal Elections
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Aymara woman reads about municipal elections.
USAID Office of Transition Initiatives |
EL ALTO, Bolivia—In the wake of December municipal
elections in Bolivia, U.S. aid experts encouraged the country’s
indigenous people to bring their concerns to the national
stage.
USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) led
U.S. support for the Dec. 5 elections, in which Indian and
peasant groups trounced their competitors, winning every contest
in Bolivia’s major cities.
Efforts come nearly two years after violent protests by
Indians that led to the ouster of President Sánchez
de Lozada.
In El Alto, a city perched on a plateau overlooking the
capital La Paz, poverty and a sense of exclusion from power
drove many to join the protests in October 2003.
OTI estimates it reached a quarter of Bolivia’s people
with theater groups, candidate debates, and media campaigns.
It also helped cover the costs for the Bolivian National Electoral
Court to process paperwork for hundreds of candidates.
“If we can get education for our children and jobs
for our adults through these elections, no one will throw
stones anymore,” said one Aymara Indian observer from
the highland village of Batallas, while watching a candidate
debate forum supported by OTI.
While the observer’s preferred candidate did not win
an elected office, she and the other 10 candidates in this
municipality signed a pledge with the outgoing mayor to support
a transparent, smooth transition that respects previous agreements
between the population and municipal government.
Many of OTI’s election programs have sought to preempt
future conflicts that often arise over resources and management.
Support to indigenous groups is a crosscutting theme in
USAID/Bolivia’s and OTI’s activities, which focus
on providing natural gas to local schools, engaging youth
in the labor market, and helping Bolivians obtain legal documentation.
These and other programs aim to promote dialogue and consensus
in Bolivian politics.
OTI is also supporting civic education forums in the eastern
lowlands and western highlands where many indigenous people
live. The series began October 2004 and runs for four months.
Such programs complement USAID/Bolivia’s longer-term
development efforts that seek to guarantee equal rights for
indigenous populations in health services, justice, environmental
protection, and economic development.
Bolivia next year will have a constituent assembly, which
will expand the national debate on civil and political rights,
especially those of the country’s long-ignored indigenous
people. Among the issues are participation and representation
of the indigenous people, who account for half of the country’s
overall population.
“We try to help people understand that this is a chance
to have a voice in shaping a new nation that recognizes the
traditions and needs of all Bolivians,” said Victor Hugo,
executive director of Fundación Brecha, the group organizing
civic forums.
GLOBAL HEALTH
Heart Disease, Stroke, Other Chronic Illness Kill More than AIDS
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A group of Uzbek family doctors learn how to interpret
EKG results.
Zdrav Plus |
Recent world attention has focused on HIV/AIDS, malaria,
tuberculosis, and diarrhea; however, more people die from
chronic illness such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, obesity,
and high blood pressure—areas that have become major
public health concerns for the Agency.
“Chronic diseases are the major cause of death and
disability worldwide,” said Dr. E. Anne Peterson, Assistant
Administrator for Global Health, echoing the findings of the
2003 Agency report Foreign Aid in the National Interest.
“Sadly, only a few, largely preventable risk factors
account for most of the world’s disease burden.”
The 2003 report found that in all developing countries except
those in Africa, the primary health killers were the same
diseases that are often prevented or slowed with simple lifestyle
changes—eating a more nutritious diet, boosting physical
activity, and quitting smoking.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says cardiovascular
diseases, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and respiratory diseases
make up 59 percent of deaths and 46 percent of disease and
disability in the world each year.
Cardiovascular disease alone could be cut by half globally
by reducing major risk factors such as high blood pressure,
high cholesterol, obesity, and smoking, WHO says.
By the time USAID’s 2003 report was published, work
on the ground was underway. USAID is supporting wellness and
prevention programs in Egypt, Russia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo,
Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Georgia.
In Egypt, for example, USAID has sponsored antismoking and
public education campaigns on the dangers of tobacco use since
1998.
And in Russia in 1999, the Agency worked with the Quality
Assurance Project to improve adult hypertension care at the
primary care level in Tula Oblast, a region about 100 miles
south of Moscow. Over the next four years, the number of people
needing to be admitted to hospitals for these conditions dropped
substantially.
Some 69 percent of patients were able to stabilize their
blood pressure, and “hypertensive crises” dropped
60 percent. There was a corresponding drop in overall costs
as well—by 23 percent—since patients were able to
get well with primary care instead of more costly hospitalizations.
USAID also supports the American International Health Alliance
(AIHA) in its more than 100 partnerships that focus on cardiovascular
health.
In one effort in Georgia, AIHA’s Mtskheta-Mtianeti/Milwaukee
primary healthcare partnership developed a program to detect
and control high blood pressure, a leading risk factor in
heart attack and stroke. Now, in five districts, the program
first developed in 2000 has helped drop systolic and diastolic
blood pressure levels by 12 and 10 percent.
A partnership that includes clinicians from Tuzla, a city
of 118,000 in northeastern Bosnia, and Buffalo, N.Y., is working
to open a cardiac center in Tuzla for advanced care. The collaboration
also aims to educate healthcare workers and patients about
risk factors and prevention strategies for cardiovascular
disease.
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