(cc) Walter Krivanek, www.vividvisions.com
After attending AfrikaCamp Vienna yesterday, I want to share my notes on some of the sessions. As there were parallel sessions and we had two presentations, I couldn’t attend all of them. There is also the AfrikaCamp wiki on barcamp.at where the sessions are listed.
.
HIV AIDS und Human Rights Advocacy - Florian Schirg
Florian talked about his experiences when doing his civil service in Cameroon at a hospital.
Although the work there was quite rewarding and interesting for him, generally it is hard to motivate local people want to work there, as the connectivity in the area is quite bad and it is hard to get access to a mobile phone network or the internet. The only doctor working there right now is Austrian. The next internet connection is a one day travel away.
Now an Northern American church organization wants to install an ERP system there, to make processes more efficient.
Florian raised the question if this project would make any sense taking into account that
- there are not enough employees
- there are no local people capable of maintaining the system
- electricity is not constantly available
and asked for input from the audience.
The subsequent comments from the audience were mainly critical towards the lacking communication between the Northern American sponsors and the local church and hospital. Most people agreed that the project was bound to fail and the approach not to involve local people was ignorant and antiquated.
Another remark was that enhanced connectivity would motivate more people to go there. With mobile network coverage and internet connection people wouldn’t feel as far away any more.
Organization in Vorarlberg: http://www.kamerunpartner.com
Church: http://www.oseelc.org/
Blog: http://florian.nomadlife.org/
.
Peak oil und Afrika - Michael Cerveny
Peak oil: the climax in oil production followed by a constant decline and a sharp raise of the oil price - what are the effects on Africa?
Energy is the most important resource in the world, especially oil can cover the worldwide consumption. The production of oil will have its peak some time between 2010 and 2030 which will cause a sudden scarceness and result in a price explosion. This will definitely change the world, how will it affect different societies?
Consequences in Austria:
- everything will become more expensive, especially energy-intense products and food
- standard family:
- about 3000€ additional costs for heating per year
- 700€ more for fuel per year
How will it affect Africa?
Comments from the audience:
Agriculture in Africa is not that energy-intensive, it’s more labour-intensive. That’s why maybe the peak-oil will affect Africa less than other regions of the world.
Most of the African countries would have enough production to sustain themselves without imports. If the countries manage to organize the work efficiently and build up an active market, they would not be dependent on foreign countries so much any more. Inner-African trade is also important.
Right now the agricultural market in many countries of Africa is destroayed through subsidized imports from Western countries. Raising costs for industrial agriculture could correct this imbalance.
In many African countries the Western lifestyle serves as an ideal for a lot of people. So people here have the obligation to change their behaviour before demanding changes from others.
It is substantial to foster education, but on the other hand also production in these countries. NGOs often don’t invest, but donate. This does not help to develop a healthy economy.
Video cast from Christoph Chorherr interviewing Michael Cerveny.
.
Web 2.0 für große NGOs - Björn Stockleben
New donation-platforms such as Betterplace or Kiva offer their users a very personal connection to development assistance projects. For big NGOs this project-based approach is not practical as projects are organized at different levels of the organization. So the existing platforms are not used by big NGOs. How can they overcome this dilemma?
Björn suggested a cetral approach for a donations-platform, where all the organizations can upload their projects. To offer an enhanced persoalization, the project desctiptions could be accessed through an API and made visible depending on where they are integrated.
Comments from the audience:
Do NGOs even want that? Is there a demand for this type of platform?
It is important to identify oneself with the NGO and the project as donator. There is no sense for NGOs to compete with 1000 others for donators, if they cannot offer a personal connection to the projects.
Decentralization is vital, every NGO can create their own network with the tools which are already there (e.g. Facebook, …).
NGOs do not have the interest to create a network, when it comes to surviving, the aims are put behind.
-> This is not true, there are a lot of networks such as Globale Verantwortung or Ökobüro. Networking takes place in the exchange of experience, when it comes to donations every NGO works on its own.
RSS feed
