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A U.S.-based non-governmental organization known as Mission Africa has extended its activities to Item, a community in Bende Local Council of Abia State, where it offered the indigenes a one-day free medical treatment.
Targeted at 800 persons, some of who got eye glasses, the one-day programme held at Central School, Amaokwe Item, featured laboratory investigation, general body and eye examination and treatment, as well as health counseling, among others. Continue Reading
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“You grow people, and people grow the business.”
On May 14, Howard Behar enlightened and inspired a packed room of Seattle-area leaders from the nonprofit, university and business worlds with his candid talk on leadership and the importance of putting people first. Behar, former president of Starbucks North America and former (and founding) president of Starbucks International, said he always knew it wasn’t about the coffee.
“We’re not in the coffee business serving people; we’re in the people business serving coffee.” Behar shared with the group his personal philosophies on managing teams and motivating employees, and talked about how this people-centered approach has been integral at Starbucks from the start. Continue Reading
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Welcome to the May 2014 issue of the Global Washington newsletter. If you would like to contact us directly, please email us.
Members and Friends,
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I’m excited to announce that Kristen Dailey is Global Washington’s new Executive Director. After doing a nationwide search, led by Waldron & Company, we believe Kristen is the best person to lead our association as we launch an ambitious five-year plan.
Kristen is no stranger to our Washington State global development community. She has over 18 years of experience in international development, including advocacy, issue campaigns, microcredit, and building partnerships among NGOs, businesses and government agencies.
Most recently, Kristen served as Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President at the Initiative for Global Development, where she played a leadership role in growing the organization from a small Seattle program to an international business alliance. Before that, she held positions at Global Partnerships and the United Nations Foundation, and worked with low-income refugee and immigrant families in South Seattle.
She’s eager to meet our 160-plus members and learn more about the great work you’re doing. And she’ll have an opportunity to meet many of you later this month at our 1st annual Spring Member Celebration.
I hope you’ll join us on May 30 as we celebrate five years of growth and kick off a new era at Global Washington. All of us work hard year-round making the world a better place, and we think it’s time to have a little fun, as well. It promises to be a delightful evening of dinner, drinks and entertainment amidst friends. Highlights of the evening will be silent and live auctions to raise funds for our fall media campaign, which will promote the work and influence of our Washington State global development sector.
With Kristen at the helm, we’ll be rolling out a number of new initiatives — each designed to help you reach your organizational goals and to increase public awareness of your achievements. The stories below are examples of the outstanding work being done around the world by Global Washington member organizations. Just a few of many success stories. Thank you for letting us be a part of that success.
Please take advantage of opportunities to meet Kristen at our upcoming events. As always, our team wants to hear your ideas on how we can help you tackle challenges, grow stronger and accomplish more. Working together, we’ll make 2014 Global Washington’s best year yet.
Sincerely,
Bill Clapp, Founder, President of the Board
Global Washington
Is your organization planning an upcoming donor trip?
By Holly Koch
Twenty years ago, Rwanda confronted the limits of evil within humanity and chose to define itself in another way. Amidst the genocide of 800,000 men, women and children in a span of only 100 days, this country of cheated, abused and tortured individuals chose forgiveness over revenge, grace over spite and strength over weakness in the face of horror.
Hate can fester and spread within the body like a virus. It can be a formidable force and, within a nation, can decimate development, drain capital and deplete potential. The ability of Rwanda to emerge from the darkness of its past to its victories of today is nothing short of a rebirth.
History
After Belgian colonists appointed the Tutsi minority the power to create an indebted class within their new territory, the Hutu majority found themselves the victims of systematic discrimination. Inevitably, revolution erupted in the mid-twentieth century as the oppressed began to fight back. Over the next quarter century, violence escalated to an unprecedented degree, fueling the Rwandan Civil War and ultimately resulted in the extremist Hutu Government’s systematic plan to eradicate Tutsis.
This concerted extermination effort simultaneously created a global debate in semantics. Similar to the calculated avoidance of the word “coup” by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney et al to describe the military overtaking in Egypt in 2013, the international community has a history of circumventing action by refusing to define crises by their true names. In 1994, that name was genocide.
Reconciliation
After the world’s super powers let time run out on the people of Rwanda, it was clear to the ravaged country that it would have no one to rely on but itself for building a better future. While its regeneration has not been without struggles, the energy it has devoted to healing the country has been admirable.
“Rwanda’s efforts toward reconciliation have been remarkable and unprecedented. That is not to say reconciliation and forgiveness are complete, or that it was a perfect process, but it is incredible how far they have come in such a short period of time,” said Suzanne Sinegal McGill of GlobalWA member organization Rwanda Girls Initiative (RGI).
Where at one time the proximity of Hutus and Tutsis resulted in violence, twenty years later, according to McGill, they are calling one another neighbor, friend, and even man and wife. “As I said, it isn’t perfect, nor would you expect that, but there seems to be an acknowledgment by many that we must move forward to survive.”
Born from the ashes of an ethnic cleansing within the new Rwanda, Peter Thorp, founding Head of School of RGI’s Gashora Girl’s Academy, explained, “People really do not talk about their ethnicity and are encouraged to identify as ‘Rwandan’ to be unified.” He continued, “There is unity among people with a common goal of never returning to the days of horror.”
Because more than half of the country was born after the genocide, great efforts are taken to keep younger generations educated about what occurred, according to McGill. Thorp explained, “Rwanda will not allow its citizens to forget, painful as it is for so many of them to remember.”
Proud of the strides they have made over the last two decades, “Rwandans do not want to be defined by the genocide,” said McGill, but rather as “one of the fastest growing economies in the world [8.1 percent], low corruption, one of the few countries that will achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the world’s first female majority parliament, and dramatically lowering child and maternal mortality [seventy percent and sixty percent, respectively].”
Rwanda has truly become an example of development improvement despite seemingly insurmountable evil. As history tends to do, however, it is repeating itself in the Central African Republic. According to McGill, “Rwanda provides a model for the world to understand more quickly what genocide really means.” It is a lesson that the international community owes Rwanda to have learned to inform its current and future interventions.
McGill said, “‘Never again’ cannot just be empty words we say; we must work to have that result.”
By Gena Lux
Microsoft’s presence in Africa over the last 20 years has resulted in significant gains throughout the continent, including 146,270 jobs created, 2,550 students earning technology certifications and 10,000 local partnerships being developed, according to the Redmond-based software giant. Microsoft isn’t stopping there.
With its new initiative, 4Afrika, Microsoft is committing to explore new ways to grow businesses and increase economic development on the continent. As Ali Faramawy, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for Middle East and Africa describes it, “At Microsoft we view Africa as a game changer in the global economy. We believe deeply in the potential of technology to change Africa, but we believe equally in the potential of Africa to change technology for the world.”
The company says that 4Afrika embodies three commitments to promote economic development:
Help millions of Africa’s youth gain access to smart devices in an effort to become active global citizens.
Enable 1 million African businesses to get online and improve competiveness.
Commit to training 100,000 current Microsoft African employees to develop world class skills that will improve productivity, and then having them teach these skills to another 100,000 recent African graduates.
To deliver on these commitments, Microsoft says it is dedicated to the following implementations:
Develop a new Windows Phone 8 for the African people. The phone is designed for African students, developers and first-time smart phone users.
Project deployment that includes TV white spaces (frequencies allocated to a broadcasting service but not used locally) and solar powered base stations that help deliver Wi-Fi accessibility to remote corners of Africa that will allow communities to connect to the world.
Creating jobs and collaborating through technology to increase trade and investment and increase Africa’s global market force.
Fernando de Sousa, Microsoft’s general manager of African Initiatives, said that the rationale behind 4Afrika is “there has simply never been a better time to invest in Africa and in the African people.” de Sousa noted a symbolic African proverb that sums up Microsoft’s partnership with Africa: “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the second next best time is now.” As 4Afrika demonstrates, according to de Sousa, “This is what we are doing.”
By Holly Koch
Imagine a small rural village in Kenya where the nearest clean water is a few hours walk away. Imagine the women and girls who lose those precious hours of their economic and intellectual potential because they must retrieve that water for their families.
Now imagine a similar village where the women have partnered with Seattle-based Women’s Enterprises International (WEI). The most obvious difference will be the 10,000-liter water cisterns beside each small home that have been purchased with the combined savings of the village’s hardworking women and a matching grant from WEI.
Founded in 2000, Global Washington member WEI is a faith-based, almost entirely volunteer run organization that was formed by two women, Theresa Schulz Norris from the United States and Gracie Mullei from Kenya, who met on a missions trip in Namibia. “We laid brick together for a week and became friends,” said Norris. “We discovered that we both had similar dreams and calling.”
While the majority of WEI’s work is in Kenya, where its model developed and matured, the organization also operates in Indonesia, and has partnered in projects in Guatemala and Benin. While WEI is commonly thought of as a water organization due to its signature rain catchment systems in Kenya, Norris is adamant that water is, “Just the catalyst that brings women together in a context where the real work of development is happening.”
The three pillars of WEI’s development model are the women’s groups, micro-savings and the financial match. Matching grants provide the incentive for the group to form and the women to make the sacrifices necessary to save. Grants are provided for development projects focused primarily on water, food security, education and income generation. In each of these areas, the model is set up to be a declining match in order to encourage savings, discourage dependency and to recognize the increasing capacity of the women to lead and fund their own projects.
“With the water projects, we’ll do a 1:1 match, for a second water project, or a drip irrigation project, we’ll maybe do a 2:1 match, so that after a third or fourth project, our match for that particular group has run its course,” explained Norris. For scholarships for the villages’ orphans, it is a 1:2 match.
“The model we use is based on building a culture of savings,” said Norris. In the beginning, the women saved money in tin cans, their “home banks,” that had to be opened by the slice of a machete at their annual “bank openings.” Today, the groups deposit their savings into commercial banks, increasing organization and accountability in the groups’ financials.
Of this, Norris expanded, “The thing that is just so amazing is that working together and saving gives them a sense of dignity, and of believing in their own capability that they never had before.” Word of WEI’s ability to help women find this strength within themselves has spread quickly; within the last eight years, its number of groups has risen from six to over sixty.
However, it often takes the physical size of the cisterns to portray the remarkable feat these women have accomplished to their friends and family. “It changes the perception of the people in the community around them,” said Norris. “It changes their husband’s perception of them, it changes their children’s perception of them, and it actually improves, in many instances, the dynamic in the family.”
The projects spearheaded by these groups, while supported by WEI and its mostly individual donor base, are run with the vision and ingenuity of the village women themselves. Norris explained, “We base everything we do on the ideas and capacities of the people we work with, believing that they are equipped with the basic things they need to solve their own problems and to build a better life for themselves.”
Acknowledging the propensity of Westerners to jump in as problem solvers, Norris said, “If we do that, we can easily foster dependency, as opposed to independence and interdependence. Ultimately, fostering interdependence within the community itself is what I believe is true development.”
To compliment its international work, WEI dedicates resources to developing donor and supporter awareness, including its annual Walk for Water (May 18, 2014), an extensive reading list and book forum, and annual weeklong work team trips to Kenya.
“It’s about creating opportunities for people here to grow in their understanding of issues of poverty and development, so that we can be more responsible and engaged global citizens,” said Norris.
By Gena Lux
Ask Rebecca Okelo, Executive Director of MED25 International, what advice she would give to young people who are considering starting an aid organization and she will quote Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
“There was never a time where I didn’t want to be involved in healthcare,” said Okelo. She grew up in a health services-orientated family. Her father is a professor in the University Of Washington School of Social Work and her mother a health care executive and nurse. Okelo’s passion for volunteering also began at an early age when she spent time helping at Harborview Medical Center. It wasn’t until high school that Okelo became interested in international relief efforts and, through outreach initiatives available through her church, Okelo took advantage of opportunities to volunteer in Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
In 2007, Okelo received her Bachelors of Science degree in Nursing from Seattle University, where she was recognized as an outstanding student by SU facility and awarded for her efforts. According to Okelo, the most memorable and humbling award received from SU was the 2009 Young Alumni of the Year Award. She received the award at a time when she felt that her global development efforts were still in an infancy compared to that of other alums. Okelo is thankful for SU’s continued support and remains a student at SU today, where she is enrolled in the Health Leadership Executive MBA program.
It was while studying for her nursing degree that Okelo said she became “very drawn to Africa.” In 2006, between her junior and senior years, Okelo volunteered in Ghana for three months as a nursing student. She experienced firsthand the lack of health care resources available to Ghanaian communities. Okelo said as soon as she returned to the U.S. she knew she wanted to return to Africa and help allocate resources for those impacted by HIV.
She began small, she explained, in efforts to raise enough funds to create an HIV medical center in Ghana. “When I came home, I started small projects to raise funds for Ghana such as selling jewelry and t-shirts,” said Okelo.
She founded MED25 International before completing her degree. The organization is named after the United Nations Article 25, the universal declaration of human rights.
In 2006, Okelo’s first project delivering HIV care to a community in Ghana was in the works. It was during this first project that Okelo decided that focusing on one village at a time was a means to creating long-lasting impact that generates ownership within the community, deepens partnerships with local government, and makes a project self-sustaining. MED25 International began working in Mbita, Kenya in 2009, providing much needed health care services. MED25 International’s next phase in Mbita, called the “One Community Project,” is something Okelo is very proud of.
One Community Project is delivering exactly what the community of Mbita, Kenya determined they needed the most – a mortuary. “The nearest mortuary was several hours away,” said Okelo. Building a mortuary was no easy task, admits Okelo, but the hard work has already paid off. The mortuary, which opened in February 2014, is already operating in a self-sustaining manner.
The next phase of the One Community Project kicked off early this year with the construction of a medical clinic in Mbita to replace the current facility MED25 rents. The facility is three times the size of the rented building.
One main funder of this project will be Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’s 30/30 Project. Ryan Lewis recently revealed his mother’s 30-year battle with HIV, a disease that she contracted after receiving a blood transfusion due to a complicated labor. Okelo is excited about this partnership and to continue working with Construction for Change, to promote and build health centers throughout Africa through the 30/30 Project initiative.
With Okelo’s continuous development as a leader in the global health world, and the public awareness that the 30/30 Project may bring to MED25 International, Okelo is determined to keep her team centered on one community at a time.
“In the future, I hope for MED25 to continue its model of one community at a time,” she said. “Even if we become larger, we will still invest the same way we do currently; we will engage in the community to make a long-lasting impact, and we will never do something just because we can afford to.”
When asked if Okelo plans to focus her efforts outside of Africa, she simple states, “We’ve found our niche here.”
To learn more about MED25 International, its partnerships and its “One Community Project,” click here.
The Seattle International Foundation (SIF) is now accepting applications for the 2014 Global Program. The Global Program supports local organizations based in Washington State that are working internationally. SIF is interested in development projects in all regions of the world. The Global Program is open to 501(c)3 organizations, or those with fiscal sponsorship, with an annual organizational or project budget of less than $2 million (USD). The deadline to apply is June 2, 2014. For more information, please visit: www.seaif.org.
You work every day to make the world a better place. Now it’s time to party!
We’re celebrating Global Washington’s first five years, and kicking off the next five in style.
Enjoy dinner, drinks and entertainment, mingle with other members, and learn about exciting new things going on at GlobalWA.
And, you just might walk away with one of our fabulous auction items. Read more.
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
Associates in Cultural Exchange: Since its founding in 1973, Associates in Cultural Exchange has been working to make the world your community by helping people and organizations around the world create new connections and build interpersonal networks with those of other language and cultural backgrounds. www.cultural.org.
Humanosphere: Humanosphere is an independent, frequently irreverent, news site devoted to covering the people, organizations and issues focused on making the world a better place. www.humanosphere.org
Various Dates (May-Aug 2014): Seattle University // Introducing the Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership: Information Sessions
May 14, 2014: WCTA // 2025: What’s in YOUR Tank?
May 15, 2014: Construction for Change // 6th Annual Banquet
May 17-25, 2014: World Bicycle Relief // Africa Rides
May 19-21, 2014: FSG // Catalyzing Large Scale Change: The Funder’s Role in Collective Impact
May 22, 2014: iLEAP // Night to Ignite
May 22, 2014: Seattle University // Coffee Conversation & Seattle University Campus Tour
June 4, 2014: Partnering for Progress // Civic Theatre Benefit – Gypsy!
July 14-18, 2014: The University of Washington School of Law // Global Health Law Summer Institute
Senior Research and Evaluation Specialist – Landesa
Development Director (Part-time) – Infectious Disease Research Institute
Program Manager – Literacy Bridge
Volunteer – The Borgen Project
Communications Intern – PeaceTrees Vietnam
External Relations Intern – Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce
For more jobs and resources, visit https://globalwa.org/strengthen/careers-in-development/
May 14:
Howard Behar- It’s Not About the Coffee
May 15:
Networking Happy Hour with Friends of GlobalWA & Humanosphere
May 30:
GlobalWA Spring Member Celebration!
June 12:
We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: Expert Advice for Your Next Staff or Donor Trip Abroad
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Patsy Cline’s country music song “Stop The World and Let Me Off” makes for good lyrics, but not foreign policy.
A recent poll by the Wall Street Journal and NBC found the majority of Americans want to pull back from the world stage. After 20-plus years of wars and unproductive foreign interventions, perhaps there’s a good case for no longer wasting blood and treasure on other nations’ problems. We can, and maybe should, stop playing the part of the world police. But we live in an increasingly globalized world and, like it or not, we can’t get off.
Before we withdraw wholesale into our America First shell, let’s try to distinguish between our failed military incursions, drug wars and other exercises in force, on the one hand, and the benefits we all gain from engaging the world on the humanitarian front, as members of the same planetary community.
Those of us in the Northwest have a lot at stake when it comes to being good neighbors to the world. Not only are we already tremendously integrated globally through trade – in airplanes, coffee and software – we also have one of the largest humanitarian sectors in the country. We have literally hundreds of organizations large and small, and thousands of employees working around the globe who are dedicated to making the world a better place for everyone. We think this work makes for a better, safer and more humane world. We don’t want to get off; we want on. Continue Reading
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Jennifer Lentfer, Senior Writer for Global Washington member Oxfam America, writes about the unique role that Nigerian women are playing in their communities despite wars and, most recently, the abduction of hundreds of school girls at the hands of a militant group:
As Nigerian women bring international attention to the abductions, Gbowee describes the ability of women to keep society together and build peace, even in the midst of wars.
International media attention has gained momentum on the story of over 270 school girls who were abducted in Chibok, Nigeria by militant group Boko Haram in mid-April.
But Liberian peace and women’s rights activist and Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee wants people to know that from the moment the girls were taken away, the women of Nigeria have kept the pressure on.
Read the complete story here: http://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/2014/05/women-of-nigeria-pressure-leymah-gbowee-bringbackourgirls/
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It’s too bad that whenever the word, “succession,” finds its way into conversations at most nonprofit organizations, most view its utterance as code for someone needs to go.
When an inevitable transition does occur, these same organizations soon discover that having kept succession in the closet ultimately costs their worthy causes significant amounts of time, money and angst.
The nonprofit sector is no different than the other sectors when it comes to human resource matters and leadership. Most transitions in key positions aren’t planned. Messy exits can be a public relations challenge. And, transitions that should have happened earlier, but for personal or political reasons were avoided, creates a domino-effect of other’s choosing to vacate their positions instead.
While nonprofits face other common workforce realities such as a Baby Boomer generation retiring en masse and the difficulty of attracting and keeping up-and-comers, the nonprofit sector has a couple of quirks that make leadership continuity slightly more complicated: The first is that each of these realities can be applied not only to paid employees, but also to volunteers. The second is that without term limits and a commitment to succession, great causes can easily evolve into family-run businesses disguised as nonprofits. Continue Reading
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Photo Credit: Grameen Foundation
“I have no idea how I’d manage without it” is a sentiment often heard when speaking of our connection to handheld devices. Our smartphones tell us when to get out of bed in the morning, keep us connected with friends and family, help us navigate directions, and now have the ability to provide us with round-the-clock health advice from medical professionals.
One Global Washington member, Grameen Foundation, along with several other mobile health (mHealth) implementers, and core sponsor Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, another valued member of Global Washington, are tackling a project to help people living in the developing world have similar access to healthcare information.
The Mobile Technology for Community Health (MOTECH) Suite is a software project that allows mHealth solution-based partnerships to develop and manage health resources in a cost-effective and user-friendly manner resulting in better health outcomes. Continue Reading
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Running an effective awareness campaign was the topic at last week’s Global Washington Executive Director Roundtable. Jennifer Norling, Director of Development and Communications for Seattle-based Water 1st, was the presenter. She was speaking to the group in the aftermath of the organization’s successful World Water Day campaign that took place in March.
Water 1st chose to use Facebook to launch its World Water Day campaign. It asked its followers on the social media site to post self-portraits or “selfies” of themselves holding a piece of paper with the message “Because I don’t have to carry water 5 hours a day, I can” and asked them to fill in the blank. In the end, 200 people posted pictures and re-shared their messages in less than 24 hours. If you were using social media on March 22, I’m almost certain that you saw someone you know holding up their sign! Continue Reading
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Welcome to the April 2014 issue of the Global Washington newsletter. If you would like to contact us directly, please email us.
“Who else can bring together NGOs, companies, philanthropists, and universities to have meaningful conversations about development?”
“I met someone from a major corporation at the Global Washington conference, we had several meetings over the past year, and we’re now partnering on a project.”
“If it wasn’t for Global Washington, I wouldn’t know where to start when it comes to new ways to promote my organization. Twitter, Facebook…I didn’t know anything about social media!”
The above is a sampling of comments I’ve heard over the past few weeks about the unique value that Global Washington offers its members. I have to say that I was skeptical that a broad-based membership association could still be relevant and provide fresh programs after five years in existence. But, the excitement, endorsement, and potential for Global Washington’s future is very evident to me now.
The GlobalWA staff and board are undertaking an intensive, 8-week strategy refresh to evaluate the success of the past five years and build out a plan for the next five. We intend to develop a clear value proposition and a road map to reach our goals through meaningful offerings to our members. The overall vision to strengthen and promote those working in international development remains our central priority. We believe that a vibrant, innovative sector in our state will ultimately help to create a better world, both locally and abroad. Stay tuned for more on this over the next few months.
In the meantime, I encourage you to take advantage of our upcoming events. In addition to our monthly Executive Director Roundtable and monthly Happy Hour, we have two remarkable events in May. Howard Behar, former President of Starbucks International, will share insights on May 14 about the art of management—a topic relevant for business and non-profit alike. On May 30, we are honoring our members at our Spring Member Celebration to recognize the meaningful work you all do every day. Please join us!
This month, our newsletter highlights some of the work our members are doing in India. Next month, we’ll focus on Africa. I hope you will read these stories each month with pride in your own organization and in those who are working beside you, here in Washington State and around the world.
This is an exciting time for Global Washington and its members. I look forward to meeting all of you at one of our upcoming events!
Sincerely,
Kristen Dailey, Interim Executive Director
Does your organization have a staff member or partner from another country who will be visiting Seattle this year?
By Holly Koch
April 1 marked the official beginning of a first-of-its-kind component of India’s update to its 1956 Companies Act: a mandate that companies that have more than $830,000 in net profits are required to spend 2 percent of those profits on so-called “corporate social responsibility (CSR)” projects.
“These guidelines would be applicable to close to 8,000 companies,” said Sunitha Viswanathan, an associate at Unitus Seed Fund in Bangalore, India. Unitus is a Global Washington member.
What does this mean for development in India? According to Viswanathan, the mandate could result between $2-2.5 billion being set aside for CSR in the first year. “There are more than 400 million people in India who live on less than a dollar a day,” she said. “The current requirement to reduce this disparity is huge and the first year’s spend of $2.5 billion will not be able to cover for this.”
The goal, however, is not to solve India’s poverty struggles in the first year. “The idea is that the corporations are going to increase their net profits, which will ultimately lead to five years down the line, the amount may be $10 billion or $15 billion, and that’s something that’s going to significantly help all of the NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and the social enterprises,” said Viswanathan.
While the 2 percent CSR spend is a mandate, there are no official penalties for failing to comply. Companies are simply required to explain their lack of spending in their annual report. While this has many people worried, Viswanathan believes the social repercussions are enough to keep most companies in line. “This is not something that would be perceived very well in the market. It sends out an entirely negative signal in terms of corporate governance.”
Others, according to Viswanathan, worry “that a lot of corporates might just window dress and start accounting for things that are not really a CSR spend.” Some believe this type of green washing could be, in part, aided by the mandate’s vague description of CSR.
However, Viswanathan said the most pervasive worry in India surrounding the mandate is the potential inadequacy of many of India’s NGOs to properly scale up their operations. “A lot of NGOs are not run as professionally as most of these corporations would want them to be.”
The bridge that is being built between businesses and NGOs is vital. Not only do development challenges require funding, they also require effective programming. The partnerships forming in the wake of the CSR mandate are providing NGOs and social enterprises “the chance to tap into the brains of some of the most intelligent folks right now, which they probably didn’t have before,” said Viswanathan.
Because companies will share in both the successes and failures of the organizations they support, Viswanathan believes the relationship will greatly improve their efficacy. “This will actually necessitate a lot of discipline, making them a lot more stringent, and hold the NGOs accountable because corporates are not going to let them off the hook that easily.”
While it’s likely that India’s CSR mandate will see struggles in its first year, the potential rewards of its success will have a powerful effect on development in India, effects that may possibly motivate other nations to adopt similar requirements.
“I think when you bring about something as different as this, there’s going to be a lot of backlash, there will be hurdles and roadblocks as you go ahead, but there had to be a starting point and this is probably a good way to start,” said Viswanathan.
By Dean Forbes
The world’s largest democratic elections are taking place for five weeks in India, ending on May 12. An estimated 814.5 million Indians – and for the first time, nonresident Indians – are eligible to vote to choose the representatives to India’s lower house of Parliament, the Lok Sabha. The composition of that body determines which party chooses the prime minister and governs the country for the next five years. According to Election Commission of India officials, 65 percent of India’s population is expected to vote, while 20 percent of eligible voters will have the ability for the first time.
Voting is taking place by region. According to an election primer in The New York Times, the Election Commission of India has mobilized more than 10 million polling officials and security personnel to carry out the election. There will be about 930,000 polling stations. Voting is staggered and will be done in nine phases from April 7 to May 12. Voting will be done by electronic ballot. The results are scheduled to be announced on May 16.
Photo Credit: The Guardian
The race is ultimately between Narenda Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Rahul Gandhi of the INC (Indian National Congress), and Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Padmi Party (AAP). The INC’s historic political hold is now in question as “debate among analysts in Delhi largely centers on the margin of the BJP victory, not on its likelihood,” according to the The Guardian newspaper.
Following is background about the election from a primer published in the New York Times:
The major parties
India has a multiparty system with more than 50 regional parties and two major national parties, the Indian National Congress, which leads the governing coalition, and the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. The Congress party, which was formed in 1885, when India was still under British rule, has dominated Indian politics. The party played a leading role in the struggle against colonial rule, giving rise to some of the most prominent national leaders, including Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, who went on to become the first prime minister of India. The Bharatiya Janata Party, the other leading national party, is the main opposition in the Lok Sabha. Its roots are in the Hindu nationalist organizations. Modi is a member of one such organization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, and a self-described Hindu nationalist. The Aam Aadmi Party, or the Common Man Party, was born out of mass street protests against corruption that erupted in 2010 and 2011. Its leader is a retired civil servant named Arvind Kejriwal. The party surprised political analysts by winning 28 seats in the Delhi state elections, enough to seat Mr. Kejriwal as chief minister. But Mr. Kejriwal resigned just 49 days into his term, accusing the two main parties of failing to support an anticorruption bill.
How the government is formed and prime minister chosen:
The party that wins the greatest number of seats usually forms the government and chooses the prime minister. Getting a majority, or 272 seats, usually requires building a coalition with smaller parties. India’s multiparty democracy allows for the formation of alliances between political parties. Since the mid-1990s, coalition governments have been the norm as no party has been able to secure a majority on its own. Alliances are fluid and can change any time after the elections.
Some of the key issues:
Corruption. A slew of corruption scandals involving the Congress-led government, and an anticorruption push by the Aam Aadmi Party have left an impression on voters.
Economy. Slowing growth, persistent unemployment and high food prices have led to disenchantment with the present government.
Secularism. The ascent of Modi and his Hindu nationalist party has raised concerns that members of minority religious groups would face discrimination if the Bharatiya Janata Party comes to power.
By Holly Koch
Photo Credit: Splash, Murlidhar Girls School in Kolkata, India
On Seattle’s Capitol Hill, nestled between two colorful storefronts, is the door to Splash. Behind it is a staff with an unwavering dedication to the role clean water plays in the health and education of children in the developing world. “We know what clean water means for them,” explained Director of Strategy Peter Drury. “Healthier lives, more school, greater economic opportunity, and as adults, they’re going to demand clean water in the future.”
From its early beginnings as a manifesto on the pages of Founder and Director Eric Stowe’s notebook, Global Washington member Splash has become a formidable force behind clean water projects in some of the most impoverished regions in the world.
For example, Splash began working in China in 2007 with a focus on its more than 1,000 orphanages in 31 provinces. “By the end of this year,” said Drury, “we’re going to have secured clean water in every orphanage in China.”
To reach efficacy at such scale requires an austere examination of the practices within global development. “A great deal of international development work is focused on an initial gift, an act of seeming benevolence,” explained Stowe, “and then post-implementation there’s really this quick reduction of services for these same communities which often results in failed projects.”
With sustainable solutions as its objective, Splash commits a minimum of 10 years to its water projects, a guarantee comprising the hiring and creation of local teams, as well as all ensuring ease for spare parts, peripherals, water quality tests, service, and maintenance of its equipment, according to Stowe.
The quality of water is dependent upon Splash’s filtration systems, the same ones that global food-chains like McDonald’s use, which target biological contaminants. According to Stowe, the likelihood of the smallest bacteria (approximately .2 microns) getting through the .015 micron filter is akin to a basketball’s ability to penetrate a straw.
To ensure the continued quality of water to both the affected communities and to donors, in-country staff go to these sites every three months for the first two years, and every six months thereafter, according to Stowe. Reports on the projects they conduct are published on Splash’s online system for accountability, Proving It. This includes – and calls out transparently – the ones that fail.
“This transparency is meant to ‘lift the firewall’ between the organization and its donors,” said Stowe. “Every project we’ll ever undertake is going to fail at some point. It’s how you respond in the wake of that failure that makes the difference.”
Stowe’s devotion to transparency includes the sincerest form of flattery: the imitation and replication of successful strategies employed by other organizations in both the nonprofit and private sectors. At Splash, they ask themselves, “Is there a way that we can analyze how they’ve done what they’ve done, how they’ve scaled, how they’ve hired, how they’ve accredited, whatever the case may be, and adopt their practices accordingly?”
Splash recently launched operations in India, where the obstacles required the organization’s “look for the best; learn from the best” model. Where the Splash model in China benefits from Beijing’s unequivocal authority in determining ubiquitous national regulation, in India “every single state, and within those states, the regions, districts and cities, are acting so differently from what the national standards are,” said Stowe. “We don’t view it as one monolith; we view it as multiple types of development engagement, and are positioned to customize accordingly while still preserving the ability to scale.”
After analyzing the social and cultural landscape of India, Splash determined its proof point would be in Kolkata, India’s third largest city, and that the most urgent – yet solvable – need was within public schools. “In terms of numbers of children, in Kolkata alone, we’ll be in 2,000 schools serving half a million poor kids. Just think about that,” said Drury.
“In India, the goal is to recalibrate what the national quality standard is, and to eventually leverage Splash’s work in India as the model,” said Stowe. Splash has identified that the amount of funding by the Indian government toward similar projects is comparable to the needs of establishing the organization’s model at scale, an extremely promising fact.
As Stowe explained, the process of transforming water “from insanely nasty to incredibly safe” is the most straightforward of their tasks. It is governmental buy-in that will make or break a program’s longevity.
Combined with the “incredible chessboard” that is navigating behavior change, governmental advocacy, community mobilization, and the relationship building with staff and neighborhoods, Splash’s mission of achieving 100 percent coverage in its India program is nothing short of ambitious.
As Drury puts it, however, “We’re just getting started.”
By Gena Lux
It’s an oft-heard story: A young couple emigrates from India to the United States with aspirations of higher education and a better future for their children.
“Both of my parents were the first in their families to leave India,” said Sachi Shenoy, Executive Director and Co-Founder of GlobalWA member Upaya Social Ventures in Seattle. “My aunts, uncles, cousins all remained in India when I was a child.” Shenoy was born a U.S. citizen in New York and soon her father moved their young family to Houston, Texas to start a cardiology practice. “We spent our summer vacations in India.”
Shenoy realized from an early age that her life in America was vastly different from those of her relatives in India. She grew up in an affluent household while her relatives lived more modestly. As witness to her father’s tenacity toward education and work, Shenoy knew that whatever path she took in her life, she wanted to be in a position to provide for those less fortunate in India as her father’s medical profession had allowed him to do for many years.
Shenoy received her bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago and later earned an MBA in finance and entrepreneurship from her alma mater. While a student, Shenoy interned on Wall Street, gaining valuable experience in the world of finance. Upon graduation, Shenoy dove into financial services full-time and spent nearly a decade on Wall Street working in sales and trading and management consulting.
While completing her MBA, Shenoy also interned with SKS Microfinance, a non-banking financial company with a mission to eradicate poverty in India by providing financial services to the poor. While there she authored a business plan for the SKS Ultra Poor Program. Several years later, Shenoy moved to India fulltime for about a year to act as SKS Microfinance area manager. Upon returning to the U. S. in late 2007, Shenoy worked for the non-profit Unitus for three years as its Director of Global Programs. She continued to hone her craft working to alleviate poverty by overseeing Unitus’s Ultra Poor Initiative and Social Performance Management projects.
During the course of the Ultra Poor Initiative, Shenoy oversaw six different pilot programs that all aimed to reach and serve the poorest of the poor. She observed that the interventions that employed the poor – versus the ones that simply gave them food and healthcare subsidies – resulted in a faster and more sustainable improvement in their clients’ lives. “What the poor – even the poorest of the poor – need most is a ‘hand-up’ and not a ‘handout’,” Shenoy said.
This experience prompted Shenoy to co-found and serve as the Executive Director of Upaya Social Ventures, which she calls her “dream job.” The mission of Upaya is to create businesses that will generate jobs and raise communities out of extreme poverty. Upaya creates jobs by working alongside start-up enterprises, as well as consults with established organizations, aimed at alleviating disparities facing the ultra poor in regions throughout India. To date, Upaya has helped to build six businesses that have collectively created over 1,100 jobs.
Shenoy speaks with fervor about Upaya’s entrepreneurs and proudly displays the finished products from one of their ventures: dishware made out of dried leaves that come from areca palm trees, found in abundance in the state of Assam in northeast India. Upaya’s financial and technical support helped a local Assamese entrepreneur build a number of production units, complete with machines that produce leaf plates in different shapes and sizes. These small factories have created hundreds of jobs for the ultra poor in the state of Assam.
Shenoy and her team intend to see many more people living in severe poverty find steady employment as Upaya makes more connections with entrepreneurs and businesses throughout India.
Shenoy offers three valuable pieces of advice to recent graduates who want to focus on global outreach initiatives:
Gain corporate experience. Shenoy recommends recent college grads learn the soft skills on how to manage a business by actually working at one. She credits the experience and mentorship she gained from working at JP Morgan and PricewaterhouseCoopers as “critical” to her success as an entrepreneur.
Be familiar with business fundamentals such as accounting and finance. She recommends taking these classes while still in school or auditing a class at the University of Washington in order to understand the basic building blocks of business.
Know what you are advocating for, “immerse yourself in a region, know the culture, and know the language.”
Shenoy’s commitment and devotion to her work is palpable. “I hope to be doing this for the rest of my life,” she says about her work at Upaya.
To find out more about Upaya’s work throughout regions of India, and how you can help, visit Upaya Social Ventures.
By Holly Koch
Global Washington member Prosthetics Outreach Foundation celebrated 25 years of life-changing work – giving the gift of mobility in the developing world – at its March gala, and it used the occasion to announce the organization’s new name: Mobility Outreach International (MOi).
Originally focused on providing services in Vietnam, MOi has grown geographically to include Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Haiti. It has also seen substantial growth in its scope of services, the main impetus for its rebranding. However, “While we changed our name and our look,” said Executive Director Marion McGowan, “our core mission is the same.”
As a U.S. Army surgeon during World War II, MOi founder Dr. Ernest M. Burgess witnessed the devastating effects amputees face due to immobility. A prominent Seattle-based orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Burgess began the organization as a way to improve lives, as well as U.S.-Vietnam relations. In addition to providing physical rehabilitation services and orthopedic surgery outreach, more recently, MOi has grown to include a substantial clubfoot program, addressing a debilitating deformity annually afflicting one in 1,000 newborns. “It is life-changing,” said McGowan. “When you help that one individual regain their mobility, it creates a ripple effect that helps the family and the community.”
MOi treats, trains, and manufacturers locally. Patients can receive a new, custom-fit limb as soon as three days after their fitting. MOi partners with US surgeons to provide orthopedic surgery outreach and conduct on-the-job training with local surgeons. Additionally, in-country healthcare providers are trained in non-invasive techniques for treating clubfoot, and some components are manufactured locally to reduce importing costs and unnecessary bureaucratic delays.
As MOi examines the past and looks toward the future, McGowan said, “I think [Dr. Burgess] would be very proud of where this organization has gone and that we are continuing to help more and more people gain their mobility.”
To learn more about MOi, visit www.MobilityOi.org, call (206) 726-1636, or email info@MobilityOi.org.
KUOW’s Media Sponsorship program strives to provide a voice for diverse, thought-provoking ideas, people and experiences within our community. By providing in-kind media sponsorship to local nonprofit organizations and events, KUOW exposes listeners to a variety of cultural, artistic and community experiences throughout the Puget Sound region that entertain, promote discourse and increase participation in our community. Read more.
Knowing how to motivate and develop employees effectively can be a challenge for any manager. It’s also one of the keys to organizational success.
Don’t miss this informative session with Howard Behar, former President of Starbucks North America and Starbucks Coffee International. Behar will share highlights from his 20 years of inspiring greatness in his Starbucks teams. Read more.
You work every day to make the world a better place. Now it’s time to party!
We’re celebrating Global Washington’s first five years, and kicking off the next five in style.
Enjoy dinner, drinks and entertainment, mingle with other members, and learn about exciting new things going on at GlobalWA.
And, you just might walk away with one of our fabulous auction items. Read more.
Please welcome our newest Global Washington members. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with their work and consider opportunities for support and collaboration!
Orphans to Ambassadors: Orphans to Ambassadors provides disadvantaged and orphaned children the opportunity to rise out of poverty with sustainable education and practices. The skills, knowledge, and abilities that come from developing their own long-term resource solutions empower children and allow them to become ambassadors of goodwill and sustainability to other children and communities around the world. www.orphanstoambassadors.org
The SID LL.M. program builds upon the groundbreaking work of founder Roy Prosterman who pioneered land reform as a means to secure prosperity for the rural poor. It is the first graduate program at a U.S. law school to focus on international development law. Students learn through an innovative, hands-on, and practical program, designed to provide them with the skills needed to face the international development challenges of the 21st century. http://www.law.washington.edu/sid/
Various Dates (April-August):
Seattle University School of Theology and Ministry // Introducing the Master of Arts in Transformational Leadership: Information Sessions
April 25:
Upaya Social Ventures // An evening with Shashank: Indian Classical Music Virtuoso
April 27:
Bo M. Karlsson Foundation // Istanbul Night at Bistro Turquaz
April 29:
US Fund for UNICEF // Not My Life Film Screening
May 1:
UW School of Law // Now Accepting Applications for Masters of Law in Sustainable International Development (Deadline May 1, 2014)
May 1:
UW Evans School of Public Affairs // Effective Performance Management
May 1:
Global Visionaries // Deadline for Discount: Global Leadership Summer Institute 2014
May 3:
Global Visionaries // 13th Annual Auction and Dinner
May 3:
Etta Projects // Etta’s Auction 2014
May 4:
Water1st International // CARRY5 Walk for Water
May 7:
UW Evans School of Public Affairs // Government Communicators Forum
May 8:
One By One // Ninth Annual Dinner
May 8:
Big Water Consulting // Maps & Data Workshop for Nonprofits
May 27 – 30, 2014:
Collaborative Impact // Partnership Brokers Training
Product Marketing Coordinator – Committee for Children
Regional Communication Coordinator – Oxfam
Volunteer – Grameen Foundation
Legal and Loan Closing Intern – Global Partnerships
Central Asian Studies Intern – Ayni Education International
For more jobs and resources, visit https://globalwa.org/strengthen/careers-in-development/
April 17:
Networking Happy Hour with Friends of GlobalWA and Humanosphere
May 8:
Executive Director Roundtable
May 13:
New Member Orientation
May 14:
Howard Behar – It’s Not About the Coffee
May 30:
GlobalWA Spring Member Celebration!
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This post is part of a series developed by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs and GlobalWA member Landesa to highlight the importance of securing land rights for smallholder farmers. This series is running concurrently with the World Bank’s 2014 Land and Poverty Conference taking place in Washington, DC. Follow the conversation on Twitter with hashtag #landrights.
As discussions continue around the shape of the post-2015 development agenda and how to measure progress towards achieving new global goals, it is useful to step back and consider the story of the drunkard and the streetlight.
The story is that one night, a police officer sees a drunk man searching under a streetlight and he asks what the man has lost. The man responds that he lost his keys and they proceed to search together. After a few minutes, the police officer asks if the man is sure he lost them near the streetlight. The man responds, no, he lost his keys in the park, but he is searching near the streetlight because “that is where the light is.”
In our current dialogue regarding the framework to replace the expiring Millennium Development Goals, we have to guard against this “observational bias” – we need to select goals, targets, and indicators that represent the critical dimensions that must be addressed in the fight against global poverty and inequality, rather than choosing goals, targets or indicators that are less meaningful but can be measured relatively easily.
Although it is often extremely difficult to reliably measure what is truly important—we must and we can do better. Continue Reading