Their report, called “Microfinance in Africa: Closing The Gap“, explains how community-based savings groups, known as village savings and loan associations (VSLAs), offer an effective, sustainable way to begin meeting the enormous unmet demand for financial services in Africa’s poorest communities.

At the same time, VSLAs offer millions of participants the financial know-how they need to begin seeking vital financial services from formal financial institutions.

CARE VSLAs are open to everyone, but focus on women because experience shows their success creates lasting, beneficial change for entire families and communities. CARE’s VSLAs are typically built by women living on less that $2 per day who collectively save pennies each week, then make small loans to each other to help finance small businesses.

CARE offers VSLA members one year of intensive training in managing money, but no direct capital investment. Because VSLAs are self-contained and operated by their own members, they are sustainable and replicable in communities where traditional financial institutions cannot operate.

Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and John Boozman (R-Ark.) are exploring legislation to improve U.S. microfinance programs. The CARE report urges the adoption of policies promoting financial inclusion for women, and to target such efforts at countries and communities where poverty and discrimination have created the greatest need.

“When poor women have a place to save money, or take a loan to start a small business, they can lift themselves, their families and entire communities out of poverty,” says Lauren Hendricks, executive director of CARE’s Access Africa. “For financial inclusion to become reality, women must be at the center of policies and outreach.”

The Priority Conservation Areas in the study are 10 of the 19 places that WWF has determined are priority places for conservation. They are parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and South America.

Rural areas retain the highest levels of fertility on the planet, but also suffer high rates of maternal and infant mortality, morbidity, a host of tropical illnesses, and malnutrition, and generally receive little or no access to health care. Women may want planned families, but there are no services to help them achieve it. Also, subsistence farming often involves child labor and thus parents want lots of kids.

The study reports that despite unprecedented rates of rural out-migration in recent years, the destruction of the world’s most biodiverse forests has continued unabated. While many local communities in remote areas of high biodiversity have been stewards of their environment for generations, population growth often places new pressure on natural ecosystems. As new areas for agriculture or subdivisions become developed land, greater pressure is placed on natural resources.

While the basic ideas in the study are not new, applying them specifically to the highest priority conservation areas is new. Now WWF and other NGO’s can identify which areas need social services the most, as part of their ongoing efforts to preserve biodiversity.

The expedition wants to find the exact location that inspired Akeley’s famous diorama of the mountain gorilla, and then paint what the site looks like today. The expedition is being sponsored in part by Vancouver-based Artists for Conservation and the American Museum of Natural History 50 where the original painting is on display.

Akeley’s efforts were key in conserving the mountain gorilla’s area as Africa’s first national park nearly a century ago. Today there are only around 740 mountain gorillas left, and Artists for Conservation are joining the campaign to save them.

This artistic project is one of Artists for Conservation’s annual flag expeditions, which aim to combine modern day science with art to raise awareness for critical conservation work. As the group suggests, they believe in art in action.

If you’d like to follow along with the flag expeditions, Artists for Conservation have ongoing updates on their website.

Part of an effort by the humanitarian group Engineers Without Borders, the students experienced an eye opening time that likely taught them as much as they were teaching. The article starts with a student wondering “What did I get myself into?” as they bounced along a dirt road under the hot African sun.

One of the students’ achievements was building a water pump so the local farmers could access clean water for their crops. Before the pump was built, the farmers had to spend up to half a day getting water. Now they have the chance to spend more time farming and even making a little more money.

Making bricks and designing an optimal stove proved to be more difficult than the students originally thought. The village’s current abilities and technology affected the results, and some things will take multiple visits to accomplish.

I keep hearing from travelers to poor countries that the people there seem to be happy. This article again confirms it. During the student’s stay, the villagers partied, showing themselves to be very community-driven. It’s something that too many people in North America have lost during their struggle to improve their economic well being. It’s a feature that makes humanitarian work magnetic.

What a great experience for the students, and program for the Mali villagers.

Unfortunately, the impact of the illegal trade of bushmeat has serious repercussions for African wildlife.  In Africa the hunting of the animals has led to increasing biodiversity loss and species collapses.  Many of the animals being killed are already or are becoming endangered.  Since every animal has a function in the ecosystem such as predator or prey, the loss of one species has a widespread impact on other species and often the entire ecosystem.  Even species in protected areas and under legal protection fall victim to the bushmeat trade.  With weak law enforcement and lack of resources, officials are finding it difficult to keep up with the increasingly sophisticated killing and trade of bushmeat.

The international community has to join together to enforce laws regarding the illegal trade of bushmeat.  On the international level, countries should step up enforcement in airports and borders to help detect the import (and export) of bushmeat.  Further, they should impose fines and even jail time to offenders since many of these species are rare and endangered.

The poverty issue in Africa also needs to be addressed.  Since many bushmeat traders are poverty stricken and in need of income, countries need to provide a living for their citizens so they do not engage in this illegal trade.  With several enforcement mechanisms and financial aid, the illegal trade of bushmeat can be stopped.

We would add one more solution to those that Mark Jones suggested.  Considering the potential loss of magnificent species, conservationists should launch expeditions into the forests to capture and relocate or move animals out of the way of the bushmeat trade.  It’s likely the quickest and most sure solution, and would preserve entire animal species for generations into the future.

According to the Guardian (and a study in Biology Conservation), this includes the famous tourist safari destinations Masai Mara in Kenya and the Serengeti in Tanzania.

Western African parks averaged an 85% decrease in wildlife.  Human activities including the bushmeat trade have taken a heavy toll on the wildlife.  But one hopes that protected areas would keep the animals safe, particularly where tourist dollars pour into the local economy by people wanting to see the “Big Five” – lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard and rhino.

Outside the parks, the news is even worse.  There, in many cases the African animals including the rhino are close to extinction.  Of special concern are migratory animals such as the wildebeest, who venture through unprotected areas every time they migrate.  The African Conservation Foundation has an online article about why the lack of dry and wet season habitat is depleting the migratory mammals populations.

A beacon of hope shines from South Africa, whose 35 reserves averaged an increase of 25% in wildlife populations.  South Africa has more money to invest in conservation, more staff to patrol and stop poaching, and better preservation of park habitats and boundaries.

Another ray of hope is that many of the declines have slowed over time. Park management has improved.  Now, urgent efforts are needed to better protect the animals and secure the future of the parks.

The importance of the “role of women in international development is the reason CARE Canada has joined in with activities around International Women’s Day,” Kieran Green, their Communications Director, told me.  Over the years, CARE has “found that women play the most powerful role in fighting poverty”, Kieran explained.  “A woman who is empowered is more likely to send her kids to school and make sure her family gets proper health care”.  When women in developing countries become empowered economically, the rates of domestic violence go down.  The effects are enormous and that’s why CARE focuses on women, and it’s also what they’re trying to help people realize on International Women’s Day this year.

Kieran also mentioned that when CARE Canada realized there was no symbol for International Women’s Day, they decided to resurrect “the old folk tradition of when you want to remember something that’s important you tie a piece of string around your finger”.  It’s similar to the idea presented by the red ribbon for AIDS and the pink ribbon for breast cancer.  “So for this year we’re calling on Canada and hopefully we’ll see it in the years to come spread around the world, that for International Women’s Day as a reminder of everything that women have achieved and for what they have yet to achieve, tie a string around your finger.”

CARE Canada’s International Women’s Day website has a video showing Fergie, Duchess of York, wearing a string, as well as some women in Afghanistan, Haiti and elsewhere.  “String is available everywhere, and it’s cheap. It’s easy to tie a string around your finger,” Kieran added.  He’s right – tying a string around my finger by myself took less than a minute.  I may have a friend make it a fancy bow.

CARE Canada has a great website dedicated to International Women’s Day.  Enjoy the Day, and tell your friends about it.  It’s a good opportunity to celebrate the social, economic and political successes of women past and present.  Yet it is also a day to think of the millions of women and girls worldwide who continue to fight for justice, equality and peace, the website reminds us.

Happy International Women’s Day!

Angie Dazé, Senior Climate Change Adaptation Advisor for CARE International, gave me a personal interview today.  She specializes in community-based adaptations, trying to understand the effects of climate change and what the most vulnerable of our world’s people might do to survive the early stages of climate change.

Empower the Most Vulnerable People

A whole community is not affected equally by climate shock.  In pastoral communities, men often manage the livestock while women are responsible for fetching water, tending the garden, and ensuring the family has food.  “What we often find is that women tend to have a higher level of vulnerability because of their role in the home,” Angie told me.  “In agricultural-based communities, in particular, food and water become very difficult within a changing climate.  So women’s traditional roles and responsibilities become even harder,” Angie explained.  Issues related to climate change vulnerability can be social or political.  Although women traditionally have limited decision-making power, when humanitarian managers “empower women to have more power in decisions, they tend to make good decisions that will help the family to manage the resources in a way that will reduce their risk.”  But it’s not just women.  “It’s making sure that the different members of the household have the skills and the information that they need to play the role that they need to play most effectively.”

Get the Right Information

One of climate change’s biggest problems is the uncertainty of what, how and when changes are going to occur.  CARE managers “help people to have a broader range of options open to them, so they’re in a position to make decisions to manage the risks.  And also to ensure they have the information they need to make those decisions,” Angie told me.  This information includes seasonal forecasts, what crops might be better suited to a particular climate condition, and early warnings for droughts or storms.

Find Practical Solutions

While empowering women is an important part of an overall strategy of making a community more resilient, CARE also works closely with all members of the community, and local organizations, NGO’s, and government institutions.  Together, they come up with practical solutions such as different agricultural practices – when rainfall decreases, it’s essential to keep as much moisture in the soil as possible.  CARE is launching a program in Africa in which they do small scale adaptations in different communities and countries to find out what works.  That learning will then be applied widely, both at the community and broader levels, such as trying to influence national policy frameworks.  The focus is always on giving the most vulnerable people a voice and ensuring that the potentially large sums of money that will be donated to stricken areas actually reach the people who need it.  It’s also “building skills and new practices and always providing information,” Angie added.

The Future

Ultimately, the best solution is for countries to sign a binding agreement to reduce emissions and stop climate change.  Adaptation is most hopeful for our current level of climate change, but if it continues to grow (as is likely after Copenhagen), livelihoods are going to become impossible and mass migrations will likely occur.  If that happens, we will be facing a whole new set of social and political hot spots.

The silver lining to the recent Copenhagen conference may be the number of average people who became involved and who care about the effect that climate change is having, and will have, on our planet, its people and its animals.  So please keep caring and helping – You’re needed!

Starting on the lowest rung of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, for just $20 you can help feed two children lunch at school for a whole month in Burkina Faso (once known as Upper Volta) in western Africa.  You can help buy lunch every day for a year for $200.  If you’ve ever been hungry after missing a meal, you’ll know how distracting hunger can be.  As well, children need food so they develop properly and stay healthy.

We’re so lucky to be able to turn on our taps and get clean water.  Access to clean water is vitally important, and for $50 you can contribute towards providing a water filter for a school to help children avoid illness.  You can also buy six ceramic water filters for rural schools for $300, and help keep Nicaraguan children healthy.

For $500, you can support the purchase of ten doses of Pentaxine, a vaccine that fights hepatitis, which can be fatal for children.

Consider sponsoring basic school supplies including notebooks, pens, pencils, and a geometry set for children in Latin America for $35.  Or for $80, help Save the Children purchase a locally-made desk for two students, in Burkina Faso or Kenya.

You can also assist a teacher with transportation so they can get to school, visit parents, and even transport a sick child to a medical clinic, all for $100.

Accessing health services, education, and other state services in Nicaragua requires having a birth registration.  For $25, you can help ensure that two Nicaraguan children have their births registered and can access the services that they need.

Remote communities in places such as Nicaragua often lack health facilities.  For $120, you can assist in equipping a health services birthing team, including a midwife, and even emergency obstetric care if needed.

Feeling truly philanthropic? $1,000 provides 90 tables and benches for 180 students in Burkina Faso.

So as you rush around completing your shopping and trying to fulfill wish lists, please remember that the children of our world also have wish lists.  Let’s help them smile and feel the joy of this season and of having basic life needs met for the coming months.

In Sierra Leone and Guinea, the organization raises awareness about bushmeat and conservation, mainly through public education.  In Uganda, they have a community-centered conservation program that hires local hunters to remove snares in the forest.  Although the snares are usually put out to catch other mammals, chimps often get caught in them and get injured or killed.  To try to clean the forest, the program provides a salary to hunters who make a commitment to stop hunting and help JGI remove snares.

In July, Sophie was in Uganda and asked one of these ex-hunters what difference this program has made.  His answer?  “Now we have money.”  By working with JGI, he doesn’t have to worry about an income.  Unfortunately, JGI “needs a budget for that and you can’t hire everyone,” Sophie told me.  “Not everyone is interested, anyway,” she added.  It’s a long process to organize meetings, meet with people, and see who wants to help – “we don’t force anyone.  We need to have someone who is willing to do it and to come forth.”

JGI relies on cooperation between people.  The program in Uganda started ten years ago and now has small teams of former hunters in a national park and in two  forest reserves.  Some of the ex-hunters have been working with them for over ten years.

Through these programs, “the numbers of snares has decreased significantly,” Sophie commented.  “And so have the number of chimps that are caught in the snares.”

From time to time, a chimp is still caught.  Veterinarians, who are used to dealing with injured animals, then enter the forest and try to save the animal.

Sadly, a lot of the injured chimpanzees are now missing a hand or a foot.  “You can see them in the forest – some of them are very badly injured.  Depending on the degree of their injury, they have to accommodate differently.”  For example, one chimpanzee found in July had to be amputated below the knee.  She was released in September in the hopes that she would adapt to her new condition.  She may be lucky – with two good hands she can still raise a baby.  Chimpanzees are pretty flexible.

“JGI works very closely with the local communities,” Sophie continued.  Jane Goodall and her teams realize that in order to preserve chimpanzees it’s important to work with local human populations.  Education is also key, even though it’s a long-term process.  In Guinea and the Congo, the organization’s education efforts include large street signs.  In the Congo, fliers were distributed through taxi cabs in the capital city.  JGI has organized exhibits in the Congo and elsewhere, about the great apes and the bushmeat.  They are hoping to create a global awareness.

Another educational program is Roots and Shoots, in which schoolchildren gain some awareness about chimpanzees and bushmeat.  For example, they might put on a play about the bushmeat trade.

Children are also brought to sanctuaries to meet young chimpanzees.  “The children have never seen a chimp before.  ‘Oh, they’re like us,’ they’ll say,” Sophie described.  “It helps to change their minds.”

The young chimpanzees are orphans, a consequence of the bushmeat trade.  JGI is managing Africa’s largest chimp sanctuary, in the Republic of Congo, where they have 150 chimpanzees.  They’re found as babies, either left in the forest by bushmeat hunters or confiscated by local authorities as the chimps were on their way to the black market.  The babies can’t survive alone in the forest, and even when saved they are often so traumatized it can take months for them to recover.

In addition, JGI has some microfinance programs for women to establish a regular income.  “If you don’t do anything to improve people’s lives, they won’t do anything for the chimp,” Sophie concluded. It’s that simple, yet that complex.

JGI needs a larger budget to extend these programs to other countries.  You can make donations through their website.  If you’re in the Toronto area, you can volunteer there. Readers almost anywhere can apply to join JGI in the field, and if you successfully pass through the selection process you can help out on the scene and with the chimps for a month or more.

You can find more information on their websites – JGI Canada and JGI Uganda.