Follow Friday is a chance for people on Twitter to recommend other people, organizations, and movements on Twitter. We at @ONECampaign like to take the opportunity to give shout-outs to other partner organizations and people who are making a difference in the fight against extreme poverty.

Here’s today’s round-up:

#FF @mercycorps turns crisis into opportunity at the One Table blog. See how they’re investing in the world’s women: http://bit.ly/xgwOb

#FF @savethechildren knows who’s Feeling the Heat: http://bit.ly/3VjmPm

#FF @nothingbutnets reports from the ground in Uganda. Check out the trip: http://bit.ly/bfMym

#FF @worldvision podcast with World Food Programme on 1+ billion urgently hungry: http://bit.ly/1u1aia

Les Roberts, Clinical Associate Professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health has worked extensively in countries ranging from Zimbabwe to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Today he writes about a lesser-known country– the Central African Republic:

The Central African Republic (CAR) is a little known nation in the middle of Africa with a population of only four million. The country was fleetingly in the public eye as the hunting grounds of choice of former French President Charles De Gaulle, and for the 1987 Coronation of Jean-Bedele Bokassa, an obscenely extravagant event made famous in the Werner Herzog documentary, “Echos from a Somber Empire.”

What is less easy to observe is that CAR is a land that is nearly ideal for human development. The land is fertile and plentiful, rainfall is parsed into two growing seasons, there are diamonds and gold and expanses of tropical jungle. In the North of the country, the climate is arid and a variety of animals roam in large national parks. In the South, the mighty Oubangui River forms the border while assuring plentiful water and forest parks that bring visitors from around the world to see gorillas and forest elephants. This land of agricultural and tourist potential has had one of the most politically unstable periods of post colonial independence of any African nation. Adding to the troubles is the fact that the country has borders with the conflict-laden areas of Eastern Congo, Northern Uganda, Darfur, and Chad. Over the past two decades, agricultural exports have plummeted, roads and infrastructure have decayed, and the country has evolved to be one of the world’s poorest.

Columbia University, in conjunction with UNICEF, recently conducted a survey about problems facing women and children in CAR. In the days to come, our partners at Columbia University will explore with us if CAR is presently the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and the opportunities of effective compassion and humanitarian response that the crisis presents.

We recently wrote about ONE Germany’s “Artikel ONE” campaign to compel the German government to “focus on human dignity.” Carola Bieniek has a great play-by-play looking at the German coalition treaty, and gauging the campaign’s success:

Following the German elections in September, the new government in Berlin is now formed of 3 parties – the CDU, the CSU and the FDP. In order for them to be able to work productively during their 4 year term they have agreed on a coalition treaty, which points the way for the for the future political direction of the German government.

As the goal of our ‘Article ONE’ campaign was to influence the content of the coalition treaty, we’ve picked apart the Article ONE and the treaty to see how we did:

Article ONE: “The German government has the duty to act decisively against extreme poverty….”

The coalition treaty speaks of values and interests in development politics. There is also an important reference, containing the commitment to fight extreme poverty, to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Article ONE: “…The successes of the past years show that there is a way out of poverty….”

There is no reference to development successes of recent years in the coalition treaty.

Article ONE: “…Germany keeps its promise to Africa and will allocate 0,51% in 2010 and 0,7% of its gross national income no later than 2015 for development assistance….”

The international commitments to finance development are enforced in the treaty. However, whilst the 0.7% goal is named, concrete timing is not. However by referring to “international commitments” the treaty implies that this goal – through an intermediate goal of 0.51% ODA/GNI by 2010 – shall be reached by 2015. The CDU/CSU’s “Government Program 2009 to 2013” contains similar wording. ONE asked the Secretary Generals of the CDU and CSU to clarify this wording and they confirmed that the above interpretation is accurate. ONE therefore assumes the meaning is the same in the coalition treaty. There is, however, a reservation clause on the budget of which the exact relevance and meaning remain unclear to us.

The coalition treaty ensures a “design of development assistance tailored to the need at hand in the areas of biodiversity as well as the fight against climate change and hunger”. This will make substantial Overseas Development Aid (ODA) increases necessary.

Article ONE: “…Ownership as well as transparent and coordinated aid is key to highly effective development assistance….”

Strengthening the individual responsibility of the developing countries is named as a central element and the importance of coordination on a national as well as an international level is picked up broadly in the treaty. (more…)

ONE’s Co-Founder and Executive Director Jamie Drummond writes about his personal journey to Ethiopia:

Twenty five years ago, like many of my generation, I was called to action by images of drought and starvation – and by a couple of shaggy-haired, Irish rock stars with whom I’ve now been working for a decade. The Ethiopian famines and the world’s response through Band Aid and Live Aid have shaped the image of Africa for a generation and spurred concerted action to fight extreme poverty. A quarter of a century on, it is perhaps a good moment to ask how the aid that has flowed has worked and how the model of celebrity-led advocacy is faring.

A few weeks ago, I returned to Tigray in northern Ethiopia to look again at the impact of funds raised by Band Aid and the work of the World Food Programme. I travelled through this region in 1995 and visited a village called Daereda. Drought and a desperate population had denuded their valley of trees and greenery; fertile top soil had been eroded by seasonal flash floods. Back then, many of the villagers were grateful for the food aid they had received and quick to thank the western public and a far-off thing called Geldof. But they wanted more than handouts – they wanted to take matters into their own hands and heal the physical damage to their lands.

The food aid helped them do just that. It was being given through “food for work” programmes. Teams of thousands set to work planting trees, contouring steep hillsides to conserve soil and water, digging ponds and building check dams, all to raise the lands fertility. Today, the results are astonishing. The valley is lush and green; the river flows all year round; the land is more fertile and productive.

This success story is echoed in valleys across Tigray. The region receives many expert visitors to see how it was done. And in spite of the images of starvation we’re currently confronted with, it’s not the only positive story to have come out of Ethiopia in the past decade. The country has also halved malarial death rates through widespread use of insecticide= treated bed nets, and doubled school enrolment. Economic growth has been over 5% for a decade, 7% on average for the last three years.

But parts of the country, and region, are still on the verge of starvation. This could lead some quickly to assume that 25 years on nothing has changed. No serious investigation can lead to the conclusion, but it is still not acceptable that 14 million Ethiopians today rely on food aid and that for some rations are being cut.

The answer as ever is complex. Climate change is causing more frequent droughts, impairing rural communities’ coping mechanisms. Not enough has been spent on rural roads and the government hasn’t permitted mobile phones or developed local markets. But above all there has been insufficient global attention paid to agriculture. Spending on agriculture went down from 17% of global aid in 1980 to just 3.8 % in 2006. It’s stunning that after the famines of the 1980s we didn’t increase investment in long-term regional food security and agricultural productivity. The World Bank and IMF even counselled against it as part of their notorious structural adjustment programmes. Tough questions must now be asked about the international development business and how this was allowed to happen.

At last this year the G8 countries agreed to invest $20bn in agricultural productivity. (more…)

Global Health Magazine just posted this interesting interview with Ambassador Eric Goosby, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. In it he discusses the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) at length as well as the Obama Administration’s plans for combating the global AIDS epidemic.

Excerpt below, full interview here

Q: What are you spending most of your time on now?

Goosby: The main focus has been in understanding what we’ve done in the first five years in the PEPFAR programs (and) in each location how our response in both prevention and treatment do or do not relate to the demographics of the epidemic in each of these settings. In each city, there are multiple epidemics. Each has their own population, and movement of the virus through that population. And we’re looking at how well our prevention programs understand that movement of the virus, and if they have indeed positioned themselves in front of it.

A second focus … has been appreciating the complexity of our partnering network within the country, in the NGO community in particular. It’s been astonishing to see how well we have done in urban populations.

But now the fragility of these health systems is what I’m most concerned about it. They are as fragile as the NGO who is involved in the delivery, and that is dependent on continued resources from us to support them in that effort.

At the start of the year, Nora Coghlan from our policy team wrote about the education crisis in Zimbabwe. After a heated conflict between school teachers and the Zimbabwean government, it was feared that “2009 will be another lost year for education in Zimbabwe.”

Today, CNN.com has an article examining the state of education in Zimbabwe. While they note signs of the education system fighting back to normalcy, the price of education and continued lack of funding still make it incredibly difficult for families to send their children to school.

Watch this corresponding video that CNN ran a few weeks back:

Excerpts below, full piece here:

The country’s education minister in the year-old power-sharing administration believes it could be decade before standards are back up to Zimbabwe’s good past record.

According to the education department, 20,000 teachers have left the country in the past two years and half of Zimbabwe’s children have not progressed beyond primary school.

Many parents today are too poor to send their children to school. Rural schools — where pencils, desks and books are luxuries — are hardest hit.

When CNN visited a Mathabisana primary school in Umguza, in the southwest of Zimbabwe, headmaster Nonkululeko Ndlovu said that at one point teachers used charcoal as a substitute for chalk.

“There are no textbooks to talk about at the moment because I remember the last text books were bought sometime in 2000 or so, when we were still getting government grants but now we don’t have anything.

“Those text books have reached their shelf life. An aid organization donated 32 text books which we really appreciated and we are using those text books right across the grades, trying to impart knowledge to the kids.”

Just a reminder that if you haven’t done so yet, please submit your design for ONE’s Next Top T-Shirt by tomorrow’s deadline. After noon tomorrow (EST), we will no longer be accepting submissions.

In the past couple days we’ve received many excellent designs, but the winning design could still be out there! Remember to submit it here and ask your friends to do the same. Check out a sample of submissions we’ve received so far in the gallery below.

Good luck!

Reuters—Africa aid can boost global economy: World Bank
Development aid to Africa can boost domestic demand on the continent and help wean the global economy from over-reliance on personal consumption in the United States, a senior World Bank official said on Thursday. “We need to look at a multi-polar world, because the dependence on U.S. consumption will have to shift,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, managing director at the Bank said. “There are other countries that can provide consumption. When you look at Africa, it has around a billion consumers. When you invest in Africa you provide trade and services to these people.”

Los Angeles Times—Massive malaria vaccine trial has begun in Africa
A massive Phase 3 trial of a malaria vaccine is now underway in Africa, with 5,000 children enrolled already out of a target population of 16,000. If results are favorable, marketing approval could be sought as early as 2012, making it the first commercial vaccine available for the disease, researchers said Tuesday in announcing the trial at the 5th Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Pan-African Malaria Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Guardian—Rich countries call on African bloc to keep climate talks on track
Rich countries piled pressure on Africa not to derail climate talks after the poorest countries in the world shocked the UN by walking out of the official negotiations in Barcelona, demanding that their concerns be met. The African bloc complained that rich nations’ carbon cuts were far too small to avoid catastrophic climate change, and refused to participate until more was done. The move forced the UN to abandon several sessions and reschedule others to give rich countries more time to debate emissions cuts.

Reuters—U.S. wary on Doha deal, World Bank says go for it
The United States will not agree to a deal in world trade talks unless other countries make better offers to open their markets, two U.S. trade nominees said yesterday. But a forthcoming study from the World Bank argued that proposals now on the table in the Doha round—which would make it easier for developing countries to trade—would bring huge gains to the world economy and World Trade Organization members should stop quibbling over further concessions.

Deutsche Press Agency—Don’t back-track now on AIDS, Doctors Without Borders warns Western donors
Cutting funding for HIV/AIDS treatment would condemn millions of poor people to death, international medical NGO Doctors Without Borders said Thursday, amid signs they said of Western governments starting to back-track on their commitments. Two major funders of AIDS treatment in poor countries – the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) – are considering scaling back or freeze their funding levels, Doctors Without Borders said in Johannesburg.

The Guardian: African nations make a stand at UN climate talks
African countries have said they are prepared to provoke a major UN crisis if the US and other rich countries do not start to urgently commit themselves to deeper and faster greenhouse gas emission cuts. The move by developing countries reflects “their deep and growing frustration over the slow progress that industrialized countries are making towards agreeing cuts.” According to the Guardian, this week’s UN negotiations in Barcelona are shedding light on the growing split between rich and poor countries, which threatens to blow the talks fatally off course.

The Guardian: US puts climate debate on hold for five weeks despite plea by Merkel
In the latest obstacle on the road to the UN summit in Copenhagen next month, the US Congress ruled out passing a climate change law before 2010. The delay caused a last-minute push by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who have repeatedly said US legislation is crucial to a deal on global warming. According to the Guardian, Merkel used a historic address to a joint session of Congress today to urge America to act on climate change, stating that success at Copenhagen rested on the willingness of all countries to accept binding reductions in carbon emissions.

The Christian Science Monitor: Is fight against hunger a matter of security?
Kanayo Nwanze, the new head of the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development is bringing increased attention to hunger and food insecurity as an international security issue, a dimension that is raising new interest in tackling the matter. Rural hunger and food security are increasingly cropping up in venues ranging from the US Congress to G8 summits. According to Nwanze, it is the emergence of food as an international security issue that raises the odds that “the international community will help developing countries come up with sustainable answers to food production challenges.”

Reuters: Only 15 pct of G8 food aid pledge is new-sources
Reuters reports that only $3 billion of the $20 billion promised by a G8 summit over the next three years to boost agriculture in poor countries appears to be new money. According to one diplomat, “In the $20 billion figure people have included all sorts of things, double counting stuff, putting in loans and grants: the real new money is $3 billion at best.” Despite the announcement of increased investment at the G8 meeting in Italy last summer, anti-poverty campaigners warned that the pledges announced by rich countries were proving elusive.

Reuters: Brazil, others squeeze China in scramble for Africa
Though China has now eclipsed the United States as Africa’s biggest trading partner, they are by no means the only country involved in what Reuters is calling the “21st century scramble for Africa.” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has visited the continent six times in his four years in office and the country has increased its trade with Africa from $3.1 billion in 2000 to $26.3 billion last year. However, according to Reuters, it is not only Brazil and China that are muscling in on Africa. “The two other members of the so-called BRICs grouping — India and Russia — are also setting up stall in a region that for generations European powers regarded as their own back yard.”

Daily Nation: Kenya: Locally-Growing Moringa Tree Key in Fight Against Malaria
A malaria treatment derived from a locally-growing Kenyan shrub is one of only a few herbal cures being presented at an international conference in Nairobi this week. The tree is competing alongside malaria medicines developed by some of the world’s best scientists with the backing of global pharmaceutical giants. In a presentation at the Pan- African Malaria Conference, the tree extract, in combination with other herbs, has been seen to cure even drug-resistant malaria and has been endorsed after trials by the World Health Organization, according to a researcher at the National Research Institute for Chemical Technology in Nigeria.

Jessica Uno, a junior at Stanford University, recently won the “World Briefing: Telling the Malaria Story” contest, earning her a spot on the frontlines of the malaria fight. This week, she will be reporting from the 2009 MIM (Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Pan-African) Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

Jessica will interview malaria experts and journalists; learn about new technologies and approaches to fighting the disease; and travel to a local clinic for an insider’s perspective on the malaria fight. She will report back on her findings and experiences via guest blog posts on our Buzzwords Blog and she’ll be Tweeting regularly from her Malaria No More twitter name, @JunoMNM.

The World Briefing contest is co-sponsored by Malaria No More and Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation and raises awareness about the race to save lives.

Be sure to check Jessica’s blog posts and follow her on Twitter to get the inside scoop on the latest news and trends from the front-lines of the global effort to end malaria deaths.