Partners
Kenyan farmer Anne answers your questions
In partnership with One Acre Fund, we are following Anne, a smallholder farmer from Kenya, for a whole growing season. From planting to harvest, we will check in every month to see what life is really like for a farmer in rural Kenya. Catch up with Part 1 and Part 2. Written by Hailey Tucker.
Anne with her children Leah, Sharon and Joshua. Photo: Hailey Tucker/One Acre Fund
In the last month, Anne has finished most of her planting. Although she still has to work in her field, weeding and applying fertiliser to each crop at the proper time, these less time-consuming jobs mean she can spend more time on family life.
Her eldest son Briston has left home, but her other children—Sharon (18), Leah (14), Joshua (13), Elvis (7), and Steve (3)—are around the house when they aren’t at school.
Early on a Monday morning, Anne shuffles around the dark house silently but quickly, without needing a light to find her way around. By the time the sun begins to rise, she already has the children dressed and ready to eat.
She tells Joshua to grab a tin bowl for their still-hot morning snack of roasted groundnuts and helps Sharon adjust her school uniform necktie. As the children eat in the kitchen, Anne sweeps the dirt paths around her compound and straightens the crochet cloths that cover the wooden chairs in her house. She shakes her head slightly.
“When I ask duties of the children, most of the time they forget, and I come back to find the duties have not been done,” Anne says. “Sometimes it makes me mad.”
Anne making tea at home. Photo: Hailey Tucker / One Acre Fund
She makes quick work of tidying the house’s mild disarray and returns to helping her children get ready for school. Her husband Isaac has already left for a nearby market, where he hopes to buy livestock he can then resell later in the week.
After the children head to school, Anne lets her livestock out to graze, surveying her field to see what farming needs to be done. She also has to make several trips to the nearest creek 1km away to collect enough water for a house of seven to drink and bathe in.
“What makes me so tired is the running between jobs,” Anne says. “It’s like chasing time, and it makes me tired. I’m always thinking, ‘after this—then this, and after that—then this.’”
Despite the drain Anne feels, she loves being a mother. She smiles as she describes how wild the house gets at night when all the children come home.
“When the whole family is around, some of the kids are very active and noisy. They make jokes and make the whole family laugh. Then there are some that are more quiet. A few even get a bit rough sometimes, and then I must intervene,” Anne says. “ I really like this time each day because I can learn the character of my children—who is who—and it brings me joy to see that.”
Anne says she wants her children to become whatever they want when they grow up, but she hopes they will learn some of her skills too.
“I learned how to grow various types of vegetables and how to plant onions because that’s what my parents used to do,” Anne says. “I want to give each child the opportunity to choose what she or he would like to do, but I hope since they see what I do on my farm, they will learn and be able to replicate if they ever need to.”
Anne herding her cows. Photo: Hailey Tucker / One Acre Fund
Last month we invited you to send a question to Anne, and we received almost a hundred from you! We’ll be posting more of her answers in future posts.
Stephanie Michelle asked: What is the number one obstacle you face as a farmer in Kenya?
Anne: “The rains and providing for the family. Even though I work hard doing the farm activities—they may fail. And even if they fail, the family still looks to me to provide something.”
Katarina Novotna asked: If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
Anne: “It is my dream to sell clothes. Other jobs I may have liked to do would’ve required more education, and I like this idea because the job would still allow me time to take care of my family and cattle.”
Kevin Fath asked: What are your coping strategies for the increased variability of rainfall levels?
Anne: “I look at the crops and if they are growing slowly and turning a bit yellowish, then I know there is too much rain. In that case, I usually dig a trench on the higher side of my field to hold the water. This year, I didn’t do this. Instead, I planted napier grass to serve the same purpose, but I have observed that this year the rains have been so heavy that the grass has let the water run through.”
One Acre Fund serves 125,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi, helping them to increase their harvests and incomes. It provides farmers with a service bundle that includes seed and fertiliser, credit, training, and market facilitation, and enables farmers to double their income per planted acre. To learn more about their work, you can read Roger Thurow’s The Last Hunger Season.
Announcing the 2013 DATA Report: Financing the Fight for Africa’s Transformation
Nursery school students eat a lunch of fresh bread and vegetables prepared onsite at the Debre Libanos Epicenter in Wakene, Ethiopia, built by The Hunger Project in 2006. Ethiopia are one of the trailblazer countries leading progress on meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Photo: David Snyder for The Hunger Project.
With less than 1,000 days to go until the deadline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ONE’s flagship DATA Report has a special focus in 2013, tracking how developing countries are progressing on these ambitious targets using the ‘MDG Progress Index’.
The 2013 DATA Report: Financing the Fight for Africa’s Transformation also measures how sub-Saharan African governments are faring against their own spending commitments in three poverty-busting sectors: health, agriculture and education. Finally, it offers recommendations for how the global community can intensify its efforts in a sprint to the MDG finish line.
We’ve uncovered remarkable progress:
- There are 10 sub-Saharan African MDG ‘trailblazers’ and dozens of countries have improved their performance.
- Sub-Saharan African resource flows have quadrupled since 2000, including domestic government expenditures, which account for almost 80% of all available finance. Domestic revenues, foreign investment, donor assistance and remittances are all playing an important role in boosting growth and development.
- Countries that allocate more of their budget to health, agriculture and education are, on average, progressing faster on the MDGs. For example, over the last decade,Burkina Faso spent a whopping 52% of its national budget on these three sectors and is currently on track to achieve four MDG targets (out of eight) and partially on track for another two.
But here’s the bad news:
- Some countries are falling behind on the MDG targets and slowing down regional progress. Nine of the fourteen global ‘laggard’ countries are in sub-Saharan Africa.
- African governments are falling far short of their own spending targets, and this has very real consequences. Take a large country such as Nigeria, which alone accounts for 11% of annual child deaths – if it were to meet its health spending commitment over the next three years, the additional resources could amount to $22.5 billion. This could pay for vaccinations for every single child, anti-malarial bednets for every citizen, and treatment for every HIV-positive person, saving millions of lives.
- Many donors are also off track in delivering on their promises, such as reaching aid levels of 0.7% of GNI by 2015 and delivering half of those increases to Africa. While aid flows rose dramatically from 2000 to 2010, we have now seen two consecutive years of decline, and, shockingly, sub-Saharan Africa is bearing the brunt of these cuts.
Sub-Saharan African governments and donors must urgently step up to meet their promises. Smart aid investments make a huge difference to the lives of the world’s poorest people, and donors should prioritise funding to mechanisms that best serve the MDGs, such as the Global Fund, the World Bank’s International Development Agency and the African Development Fund; all of which have important replenishments this year.
For investments to be effective they must be strategically targeted, carefully monitored, and – above all – transparent and accountable. Eight years after Gleneagles – another historic moment in the fight against poverty – as the annual G8 Summit is once again hosted by the UK, it is great to see transparency at the top of the global agenda. Transparency enables citizens to hold their leaders to account and demand that resources are used for the benefit of all. This is why budget transparency by African governments and aid transparency by donors is vital.
Tomorrow, the United Nations High-Level Panel will submit its recommendations on what global targets should follow the current MDGs. While the global community looks to the future, it is critical that it doesn’t lose sight of the urgent need to achieve the existing goals in these final 1,000 days. With each and every country that flies past the finish line, countless lives will be improved and the world will be one step closer to ending the absurdity of extreme poverty.
The 10 things I can’t live without
If you received a second chance at life, what would become precious to you?
This is a question that UNAIDS asked seven people from across Africa who are alive thanks to antiretroviral treatment.
At ONE we were thrilled to read that today, more than 7 million people across Africa have access to lifesaving HIV treatment. And we also loved reading these seven personal stories that were profiled in last week’s UNAIDS Update on HIV/AIDS in Africa.
Love lists? Share your own Top 10 Things I Can’t Live Without in the comments.
But first, get some inspiration from Janet Aligha and Dr. Steven Watiti.
Read all seven Top 10s in the UNAIDS online magazine
Me, my daughter, and our 1000 day journey
This piece, by 1,000 Days Executive Director Lucy Martinez Sullivan, was originally posted on Future Fortified’s blog.
In my job as the executive director of 1,000 Days, I am an advocate for mothers and children around the world. But it wasn’t until I learned I was pregnant last year and then finally welcomed my first child, Beatrice, that I actually started living first-hand the 1,000 Days mission – to ensure that mothers and babies get the right nutrition, right from the start.
Beatrice shows off her Future Fortified bib while enjoying one of her new favorite solid foods – eggs! Photo: 1000 Days
Being responsible for my little one’s own nutrition has been one of the toughest jobs I’ve ever had. Knowing full well the impact that nutrition during Beatrice’s early years can have on the rest of her life has made my awareness of the 1,000 day “window of opportunity” take on a whole new meaning.
The funny thing is, the academic papers and rigorous studies I so frequently read haven’t necessarily been my guides since becoming a new mother – instead, it’s been my sister, other mums in my neighborhood, co-workers and mummy bloggers who’ve helped me figure out the answers to some seemingly basic questions: how to use a breast pump, how often should I breastfeed, and whether fruits are appropriate at 6 months.
Beatrice has grown tremendously – in both size and personality – during her first 6 months. I know that her healthy growth and start to life is due to my ability to eat right during my pregnancy, exclusively breastfeed her in her first 6 months, and recently start her on the right kinds of nutritious solid foods. Her new favorite foods include eggs and avocado, in addition to breast milk!
The right nutrition will be critical as Beatrice continues to grow and learn about the world around her and, luckily for me, the community of mothers that I am now a part of will help me along the way. And also along that way, we’ll not only nourish my daughter and her future, but our future as well.
Let’s make sure that mothers around the world have the information, resources and support they need to ensure that their children are eating healthy foods in the first part of life. Sign our petition and urge world leaders to make measurable commitments to end chronic malnutrition.
About the Author: Lucy Sullivan is the Executive Director of 1,000 Days, a non-profit organisation dedicated to targeted action and investment to improve nutrition for mothers and young children during the critical 1,000 days from pregnancy to age 2, when better nutrition can have a lifelong impact on a child’s future and help break the cycle of poverty.
How much is too much rain? Ask Kenyan farmer Anne a question
In partnership with One Acre Fund, we are following Anne, a smallholder farmer from Kenya, for a whole growing season. From planting to harvest, we will check in every month to see what life is really like for a farmer in rural Kenya. Catch up with Part 1. Written by Hailey Tucker.
Anne at home in Kisiwa, Kenya. Photo: Hailey Tucker
In Western Kenya, successful planting for the year is typically seen as a matter of materials, skill and knowledge. However, most farmers acknowledge that ultimately—regardless of expertise—plant germination can be won or lost by the rains.
For farmers who plant too early, there will not be enough consistent rain to help their crops grow. For farmers who wait long enough but get unlucky, their newly sown seeds will be washed away by heavy rains before the seedlings have a chance to take root.
Trying to pinpoint the prefect timing makes planting one of the most risk-laden choices a farmer can make.
Anne (left) and Rasoa Wasike, both members of the Kabuchai Women’s Group, planting millet. Photo: Hailey Tucker
It had been a few nights in a row when Anne had been too hot to sleep and too hot to even cover herself with any sort of blanket, when she knew it was time. Anne would lay awake on a sweat-moistened mattress and hear a strong wind rustling the trees outside.
“When the temperature stays high at night and the winds are blowing hard from West to East, I believe the rains are very near,” Anne says. “Then in the day, I observe the clouds. If there are dark clouds and they hang closer to the earth than the white clouds, then I know the rains are coming.”
After seeing the signs Anne has come to associate with pending rain, she decided to plant part of her millet for the season on March 22, and then finished the rest of the plot on March 25 after taking a few days off for her mother-in-law’s funeral.
The morning of planting, Anne and her husband Isaac gathered with their relatives to pray over their seeds and fertiliser. “I am a believer,” Anne says. “I am spiritual so before planting my family will pray.” Isaac, who is a pastor at the local church, leads the prayer.
After planting, Anne commented, “Preparing the finger millet land required a lot of commitment and labour because we had to break down the soil very fine and remove all the debris. All of the preparation was worthwhile though because then the planting became easy—even easier than maize.”
On March 23, the rains were heavy and with Anne’s field being situated on a slight slope, her first round of seeds took more water than was ideal. Looking at the field two weeks later, the furrows that once divided her lines of seed are barely visible, but patches of millet are still beginning to appear.
“The rains are a little different this year because they usually come in April,” Anne says. “They came in March this year instead and are also much heavier.”
The first green shoots of millet germinating. Photo: Hailey Tucker
The second half of her field received light rain most of the days immediately following planting, which is the best Anne could have asked for.
“I believe that these are good,” Anne says pointing to the second set of seedlings. “They are much better, I think they will germinate well.”
Have you got a question or message for Anne? Leave a comment and we’ll get them directly to her in Kenya, and try and answer them in the next instalment.
One Acre Fund serves 125,000 smallholder farmers in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi, helping them to increase their harvests and incomes. It provides farmers with a service bundle that includes seed and fertiliser, credit, training, and market facilitation, and enables farmers to double their income per planted acre. To learn more about their work, you can read Roger Thurow’s The Last Hunger Season.
5 things you can do on World Malaria Day
Photo: Centres for Disease Control
Today is World Malaria Day and we’re asking ONE members to join the global movement to eradicate it. This deadly but preventable disease, spread by mosquitoes, causes 660,000 deaths a year – 90% of them in Africa.
Thanks to political will and sustained investment, together the world has saved 1 million lives in just a decade. And 50 countries are on track to reduce malaria by 75% by 2015.
So how can you get involved? We’ve made it easy for you. Here’s some of our favorite World Malaria Day actions from our friends and partners. And you can do them all online!
1. Join our World Malaria Day Google+ Hangout
Join ONE and our friends at the Centers for Disease Control and Malaria No More UK for a Google+ Hangout to hear first hand from the people who dedicate their lives to fighting malaria around the world. We promise there will be no jargon, no complicated science—just the truth about this incredible battle to save lives and how you can contribute to it.
2. Protect The Global Fund
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria works really hard to save lives around the world. But they need continued funding from world leaders to keep driving down these diseases. Take our one minute action and tell leaders to scale up their commitments.
3. Download South African superstar Yvonne Chaka Chaka’s new track
Recorded in support of United Against Malaria and The Princess of Africa Foundation, her performance of Hearts on Fire closed the Africa Cup of Nations football tournament earlier this year in Johannesburg. Warning – it’s catchy.
4. Fight back with facts
Impress your friends and family with facts about malaria. Did you know that 3.3 billion people – half the world’s population – is at risk of malaria? We like the facts on Roll Back Malaria’s website.
5. Buy a United Against Malaria beaded bracelet
They look amazing, AND you’ll be helping the campaign to eradicate malaria. The sales of these bracelets benefit the South African beaders who make them too.
Malaria is an important issue for us here at ONE, and World Malaria Day is a great opportunity to share the work our partners are doing.
Help us to remind the world that malaria is preventable, treatable and although we’ve made real progress, there is still a long way to go.
No parent should lose their child to malaria – keep acting and keep sharing to keep the fight alive.
7 things you need to know about the Millennium Development Goals, with just 1000 days to go
Back in 2000, the world made a promise to itself. It set out eight Millennium Development Goals, which if met, would significantly reduce global poverty and disease by 2015. On Friday we will enter the final sprint to the finish line, with 1000 days to go until the 2015 deadline arrives. So how are we doing?
ONE has set its cleverest people to work, analysing the progress made by both developing counties and donors who pledged to support them. Our 1000 Days briefing captures all the important facts and figures, but here are seven headlines you need to know.
If you want to know what we think needs to happen in the next 1000 days to keep the Millennium Development goals on track, have a look at the full briefing.
You can also join us on Friday for a live Twitter chat with ONE’s Policy Director Ben Leo. Find out more and send us your questions now.
Make yourself heard with ONE’s new ‘You Choose’ campaign says D’banj
This January, two years away from the expiry of the 2000 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the post 2015 agenda has already created a buzz in Monrovia and Johannesburg. As Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf hosts the United Nations High Level Panel on the post-2015 Development framework this week, I was privileged to have joined an energetic group of ONE Africa staff, friends, partners and members at the launch of ONE’s new post-2015 SMS and social media campaign called “You Choose”. The main objective of this campaign is to engage Africans from all walks of life on what the new MDGs should focus on.
Nachilala, D’banj and a ONE member from Johannesburg
At the launch event Nigerian music star Dbanj told the audience that he joined ONE because he is passionate about engaging on how best to end poverty, he noted that the “YOU CHOOSE” Platforms provide opportunities for all to speak out so that barriers can be removed – or until they find their Jesus Christ! “We can make it, I am an example … Nigerian born, Nigerian made, Africa is more than what people think we are, we have more and have the opportunity to be more,” He said. He called onto the audience and his supporters to participate in this campaign that will influence their futures.
ONE members at the Johannesburg event
As Africa has close to 700 million mobile connections, the “You Choose” campaign will take advantage of this mobile revolution to enable millions of Africans to make themselves heard. Young people on the continent who are 24/7 on social media will be encouraged to add their voices in shaping the new MDGs through “You Choose”.
The campaign has already hit major airwaves in South Africa on SABC TV, SABC SAFM, SABC and Metro. All citizens need to do is submit their priority in a simple format via a free SMS or the web based platforms. Their priorities could be as simple as food, land, jobs, public transport, skills, hospitals, leadership, accountability, corruption or another critical issue. Today, a radio phone in caller named Bongi told other listeners on the SABC
Morning talk radio show in Johannesburg that leadership is critical in ensuring that ensure that the current and future MDGS are met. He cited how former President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia inherited a country with only a few schools and colleges and no university. But within the first years of independence, he was able to establish a countrywide network of primary and secondary and a university. Bongi chose, and sent a free text to 30677.
What do you choose? To choose, send a text for free to 30677 if you are in South Africa or submit your issue at www.one.org/youchoose if you live elsewhere.
Unlike when the 2000 MDGs were created, the post-2015 MDGs process is seeking advice this time from citizens on what future MDGs should address when the current ones expire in 2015. ONE is working in partnership with 20-plus organisations and influentials that include the UN, civil society organisations, churches groups, radio stations and various media houses in rolling out this drive. ONE is particularly working closely with the UN My World team so as to ensure that the feedback collected through “You Choose “will be included in the meeting of the High Level Panel on the post-2015 agenda to be held in March 2015 in Bali Indonesia.
ONE is thrilled that African icons such as Hugh Masekela, Dbanj, Lira, Benni McCarthy, Chris Katongo, HHP, have joined hands with “You Choose” to urge ordinary African citizens to join the call to action. Launches in Malawi and Zambia will follow on the 12th and 19th of February respectively.
In Zambia, the campaign will be backed by local celebrities that include former Big Brother Housemate, Mampi, singing sensation, Slap Dee and Zambia’s own TV producer Mary Magambo and one of the hip and hottest artists on the Zambian music scene Kachanana. In Malawi the campaign will be backed by Malawian stars Dan Lu, Bon Kalando. You Choose participants will have an option to join ONE so as to have opportunities to join current campaigns ONE is running on improving health and Agriculture investments in Africa. Remember to choose by texting for FREE 30667!
Now Playing: ONE Africa Award Finalist Videos
As many of you know, we recenlty announced the winner of the 2012 ONE Africa Award in Dar es Salaam. While that was an incredible high—to acknowledge the amazing work of not only the winner but out other four finalists—what’s been more gratifying is the work behind the scenes to tell these organizations’ stories in five easy-to-watch video vignettes. We previewed these at our awards ceremony and since then, we have been editing, perfecting and mastering these videos up to this point.
Watch the videos here:
It’s not as easy as it looks. ONE’s filmmaker for this project, Amr Singh, and I visited these five finalists back in October. We interviewed corporate chieftains, government ministers and everyday citizens who are fighting for change while we also tried to capture the essence of each organization’s work. We had to wake up early, drive long distances and take more red-eye flights than can be considered healthy. All in all, we probably recorded between ten and twenty hours of interviews and footage for each finalist. That’s a lot of video to comb through in order to produce a final video that shouldn’t be more than four minutes (and in reality, we were trying to cap them under three-and-a-half minutes as you’ll see in a few).
It’s also a challenge to actually pick out the story to tell about these finalists. How could we somehow demonstrate the incredible support and integrity that Positive-Generation has engendered amongst its peers in Cameroon? Or what about the poignant story of the rural hospital in South Africa not being able to provide the adapted wheel chairs for the patients in such a rural environment? Inevitably, some incredible aspect of one of these finalists has to be cut and left on the floor of the editing studio. So as you watch these videos, consider them as an introduction to the organizations and challenges they’re working to address. There’s so much more going on behind the scenes, and I hope these whet your appetite to learn more.
These videos will be rolled out over the next week on ONE.org. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
My Annual Letter: How we measure impact to improve lives
Today I am launching my Annual Letter. This year, I concentrate on the power of clear goals and accurate measurement–simple concepts really–to improve the lives of the poorest people around the globe. It may not be the sexiest of themes, but the proof of its impact is undeniable. The lives of the poorest have improved more rapidly in the last 15 years than ever before. During that time, the number of people living in extreme poverty has been reduced by half–extraordinary progress in a short period of time.
A core reason for that remarkable progress was the world’s commitment to setting clear goals and identifying the right measures to drive progress towards those goals. Since Melinda and I started our foundation, I’ve seen how powerful measurement can be used as a tool to guide our work for the world’s poor. When you do get it right, you can do powerful things. You know what’s working and can work on scaling the best solutions. You know what you’re doing wrong and can course-correct. And when you’re done, you can be confident of the impact of each intervention.
As it turns out, setting clear goals and finding the right measures are just as important for governments trying to figure out how to spend their aid budgets. As I say in the letter: “Historically, aid was largely discussed in terms of the total amount of money invested. Now that we’re more precisely measuring indicators like child mortality, people are able to see the impact aid has in stark terms—that it’s the difference between putting people on AIDS treatment or letting them die.”
Not only do clear goals and measures allow governments to spend their aid money more efficiently, it builds the political will to continue funding aid programs by proving how successful they are. It’s not just about governments giving other governments taxpayer money: it’s about one community helping another raise itself out of poverty.
The world can accomplish really big things when we unite around clear goals and develop the measurements to gauge progress. One of the best examples of how that works is the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that the UN set in 2000. The MDGs are a set of eight specific goals that are an unprecedented global effort to meet the needs of the world’s poorest by 2015. While we won’t reach all of the goals, the progress we’ve made toward each is staggering. The MDG target of reducing extreme poverty by half has been reached ahead of the deadline, as has the goal of halving the proportion of people who lack access to safe drinking water. 14,000 fewer children around the world are dying every day than in 1990. The number of mothers who die during childbirth has been reduced by almost 50 percent since the goals were set.
And that is what my letter is about. I hope that you’ll read it and engage with our first ever digital experience. Learn more, share it with your friends, and get involved by visiting billsletter.com.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
The content of each post and each comment represents the views of that author and does not necessarily reflect the views of ONE. ONE does not support or oppose any candidate for elected office, and any post expressing support or opposition for a candidate is not endorsed by ONE.
TAGS: Agriculture, Kenya, ONE, One Acre Fund