OLPC instructors teach students how to use their laptops in Kigali, Rwanda. Photo: cellanr (flckr)

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame wants to secure a piece of the growing technology market that has already brought so much change to sub-Saharan Africa, and he’s starting young.

Kagame recently announced that he would provide a laptop for every child in his country between the ages of six and 18, reports The Economist. The magazine suggests the move is based on both economic as well as educational motives: The President has made it clear that he intends to have 50,000 computer programmers by 2020 as a result of the laptop program.

To reach that goal, he is working with the American non-profit One Laptop per Child (OLPC), an organization that is the first of its kind to provide durable and affordable laptops to many in the developing world. According to their website they believe (as I do) that a laptop can be a key for children to engage in their own education more fully than traditional rote learning. OLPC claims their laptops offer a way for the user to connect with both their local and greater communities in order to expose them to a world that is often not available.

The more practical economic benefits of such a program are also apparent. The president has already purchased 100,000 laptops from OLPC, according to the Economist, and plans to buy 1.2 million more as early as 2012. Over the long term, the initiative will create more jobs for computer teachers and repairmen.
And Government agencies and businesspeople have already started programs to help educate a computer-savvy population reports The New Times of Kigali.

Understandably, the plan has been criticized by many who think the money would be better spent on more visible and perhaps more necessary projects for the impoverished nation, including food distribution, health care subsidies and infrastructure development. Although the country must never lose focus on these persistent problems, there must also be room for the Rwandan Government to take risks on other fronts. The overall benefits of education are difficult to quantify but are nevertheless unquestionably valuable. Technology markets are on the rise throughout Africa, and President Kagame doesn't seem to want to let this opportunity pass.

Cotton farmers in western Africa have been badly affected by a global drop in prices. Photo: 10b travelling (flickr)

Falling cotton prices hurt African farmers far more than their American counterparts. And American subsidies may be to blame for the Africans' pain, according to a documentary on Dev.tv, a nonprofit media outlet.

American farmers profit by growing more cotton since the U.S. government has promised them a fixed price no matter how much they produce. But American subsidies cause the market to be flooded with cotton, according to an industry expert in Benin, Bernard Adikpeto. "Because the U.S. subsidizes its cotton production, its farmers put a surfeit of 1 million tonnes in the market in 2001, leading to a drop in cotton prices."

On the other hand, African farmers don't get any subsidies, so they are hit hard when cotton prices fall in the free market. Consequences are especially bad because this crop is a crucial source of income in countries of Central and West Africa. For example, the cotton industry in Burkina Faso employs more than 2 million people and generates 40 percent of the nation's export revenue. Nearly 40 percent of Chad's population is involved in producing cotton, and two-thirds of its total export comes from this crop. In all, more than 10 million African farmers have lost income since the price of cotton fell worldwide.

What's ironic is that African farmers are losing money while selling a product they produce more competitively than others. Central and West African countries produce cotton at half the cost of the U.S. and Europe. Yet, these African nations bear a loss of $1 billion in the cotton economy every year.

To learn more on this topic, you can watch the documentary below :

Eritrean child receiving a vaccine. Photo: daveblume (flickr)

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $10 billion-commitment over ten years to vaccinate children in developing countries on Friday. The nonprofit is calling on world leaders to join in this effort, aimed at drastically reducing the number of deaths of children under 5 years old.

There are economic benefits to reducing child mortality in developing countries as well. Countries with lower child mortality rates tend to be more economically developed, according to the World Health Organization.

Cassandra Nelson helps to distribute high-energy biscuits to locals at a hospital in Port-au-Prince. Mercy Corps

Yesterday the banks reopened in Haiti for the first time since the earthquake rocked the small island on January 12th.

Mercy Corps' spokeswoman Cassandra Nelson, who is on the ground in Port-au-Prince, stressed the importance of the banks reopening in her latest post on the Mercy Corps blog. "This means a lot to the aid effort, because there are a lot of people in Port-au-Prince who have some money — maybe not a lot — but they were having to live on handouts simply because they couldn't access their money." Without cash on hand, even wealthier Haitians were forced to seek handouts while the banks were closed.

As cash became more readily available throughout the day, Nelson saw the street economy reinvigorate from the rubble of damaged store fronts. Hawkers selling bananas and mangoes are helping restart the flow of food and resources within the country, allowing aid agencies to focus on those who are most in need of help.

You can keep up with the latest news about Mercy Corps' relief efforts in Haiti by clicking here.

A Chicago bucket drummer illegally plays his tunes for a little cash. Photo: grendelkhan (flickr)

The term “shadow economy” tends to invoke images of sly back-alley business deals. But in reality, the term encompasses everything from bucket drummers on the streets of Chicago to the woman who sells tamales at my workplace. Because of the recession and layoffs, a growing number of Americans and illegal immigrants have been forced to try and make ends meet in this informal market.

It is staggering to learn how large the shadow economy really is: about a trillion dollars and rising, according to a recent Christian Science Monitor article that explores many aspects of the informal market. Economists are curious about where all this money is ending up, and what it is doing to the economy as a whole.

Some argue that a rise in the shadow economy unfairly increases the competition with local small businessmen — people who are already struggling with a damaged economy, reports the Monitor. But others from the International Monetary Fund claim that the competition actually increases the efficiency of both markets. They believe that the shadow economy makes goods and services more available and affordable than in formal markets. Their studies also show that roughly two-thirds of the money illegally generated in the shadow economy is actually spent in the official economy.

In the end, it boils down to the fact that the majority of those working in the shadow economy are the same ones who have been excluded from the official economy — typically because of socioeconomic status. In October, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate had reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent nationwide. For many Americans and illegal immigrants who have been the hardest hit by this recession, the shadow economy is often the only way to get by. The trillion-dollar size of the informal market is yet another signal that people everywhere are struggling.

Could Wall Street's bull charge for good? Photo: iHeylen (flickr)

If Wall Street's excesses contributed to the decline of the nation's economy, could the same profit-driven environment really spawn a new generation of do-gooders?

Absolutely, says Wall Street Journal columnist David Weidner, and it's a process that's already begun, exemplified by those who seek profit by selling to poorer consumers. (I wrote about this general trend for Global Envision in "Slashing Health Care Costs, and Slashing, and Slashing", "How to Irrigate on a Shoestring", and Selling to the Poor, On Terms They Can Afford".)

Such entrepreneurs may be guided by a social conscience when they choose the products to fund and invest in and they may be willing to wait a little bit longer to turn a profit, but profit is still the end goal. "This new breed of Wall Streeter has turned the maxim 'greed is good' into 'greed can do good,'" explains Weidner.

A paragon of this model is The Acumen Fund, a non-profit venture fund that invests in business and entrepreneurial solutions to poverty. Its projects include replacing kerosene lamps with the safer and more affordable LED lamps, and pay-per-use toilets in Kenya.

Heidi Krauel, The Acumen Fund's founder, goes further "This is one of the new faces of capitalism," she says. For those just beginning to enter the world economic system, this is certainly good news.

Black males have the highest unemployement rate in the U.S. Photo: Jaci Berkopec (flickr)

Men — and black men in particular — are being disproportionately affected by the economic downturn in the U.S. According to statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the unemployment rate for black men is nearly 19 percent, Latino men come in at 12.8 percent and white men at 10.4 percent. The national unemployment rate reached 10 percent in November.

The Economist explores why jobs are more scarce for black men than other groups in a recent article.

There is no shortage of explanations for the gap. States with weaker labor markets, like South Carolina and Michigan, also tend to have larger black populations than low-unemployment states like Iowa and Montana.

Predominantly black neighborhoods are often a long way from where jobs are concentrated, in largely white suburbs, so those without cars cannot get to them.

Networking is another important factor in finding a new job. The Economist points out that black men aren't finding jobs through personal contacts as often as white or Latino men.

It's hard enough to keep a business afloat these days, much less develop a hit product for one of the largest department store chains in the U.S. But that's exactly what the women of Rwanda are doing with a basket weaving business whose end product is sold in Macy's, reports CBS news.

It certainly isn't your average African aid project. When Terry J. Lundgren, Chairman and CEO of Macy's, first heard about the project from American founder Willa Shalit, he expected to see a charity. What he got instead was a proposal.

"I was prepared to make a donation," he said. "And [Shalit] said, 'no no. We don't want a donation, we want a business.'"

It's precisely this business aspect that makes the project sustainable. Last year, the women sold 40,000 baskets in the U.S., and their income is double the Rwandan national average. (View a photo essay about the weaving process here).

You can learn more about these inspiring women in this video:

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Officially, Detroit's unemployment rate is 27 percent. But this number doesn't factor in people that are underemployed or are unemployed and have given up on the job search more than a year ago. In reality, the Detroit News says, unemployment is closer to 45 percent if you factor in these groups. That's nearly half of the motor city's workers.

Detroit mayor Dave Bing commented on the situation in a statement for the Detroit News:

Jobs are the key to revitalizing Detroit ... The statistics tell part of the story, but we can't run from the reality that the need for jobs and investment is far greater than any statistic could measure.

A Detroit street. Photo: NoneOther... {Captured In Lights}...(flickr)

Samasource works with entrepreneurs in developing countries like Jon Grosier in Kenya. Photo: Appfrica (flickr)

Students around the world face a particular paradox these days: what's the good of an education if there's no work to be found afterward?

Samasource — a small non-governmental organization based in San Francisco, California — is hoping to change this. They are partnering with U.S. companies and connecting them with people looking for work in places like Kenya and Pakistan using a several different methods, among them crowd sourcing website called CrowdFlower through which workers are paid small amounts for tiny increments of work (such as a few cents for filling in one blank in a spreadsheet).

As Samasource tells it, it’s a win-win situation: the cheap labor allows U.S. firms to cut costs, while providing higher wages for their 500 or so beneficiaries than they would likely have earned otherwise. So far, Samasource has focused on work in developing countries like Kenya (where the organization works with Somali refugees), Zambia and Pakistan — but also plans to expand into Mississippi, the poorest state in the U.S., notes the web magazine Reality Sandwich.

In all cases, Samasource's efforts hinge on the idea that work — not handouts — is what changes lives. "When you look at what the developing world really needs, it's a connection to markets," says Janah on the blog "Boing Boing." Markets provide an outlet for skills like English and computer literacy that students around the world have worked hard to obtain, and a livelihood for those who can put them to use.

An HIV positive woman marches in Cape Town, South Africa. Photo: Trevor Samson/World Bank Photo Collection (Flickr)

Earlier today, South Africa's President Jacob Zuma announced an ambitious plan to combat HIV/AIDS. Zuma called for more HIV testing centers, better treatment facilities and emphasized the need to identify and treat HIV-positive children younger than one year old, CNN reports.

Zuma's plan ends a decade of neglect imposed by his predecessor Thabo Mbeki. The former president adamantly refused to recognize that the HIV virus led to AIDS and blocked necessary medication from entering his country. A study mentioned in Forbes Magazine suggests Mbeki's policies lead to the deaths of more than 350,000 South African adults and 35,000 babies.

The speech was welcomed by the international community. Without skipping a beat, the United States pledged $120 million to supplement President Zuma’s new policies.

Catching on to a bright idea. Photo: Chealion (flickr)

Reuters reports that despite the recession, American consumer spending on products that are considered "green" has in fact been going up.

U.S. supermarket sales of environmentally sustainable or "ethical" products — from energy-efficient light bulbs to organic produce — will rise about 8.7 percent in 2009 to nearly $38 billion

Reasons behind going green range from personal health to global warming, but Scott Bearse, of the financial consulting group Deloitte, thinks there may be more to it. He tells Reuters, "[t]he financial crisis reminded people of the unintended consequences of collective behavior."

Malawi's economy has deep roots in the small family farms that pepper its landscape. But farmers often can't earn enough from cash crops like tobacco, sugarcane, peanuts and tea.

The Clinton Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) hoped to change this when they started working with rural Malawian farmers in 2006. As they explain on their website, they encouraged the farmers to grow soy instead of peanuts, which is more nutritious, gets better yields, and is easier to grow.

In one particularly impoverished district, CHDI also worked with a group of local farmers to build a large commercial soy farm. Collectively, the farmers could get a better deal by buying in bulk, which drove down the price of seeds, fertilizer and irrigation tools. CHDI also used the farm as an informal classroom, showing locals how the different cultivation techniques were used.

After only two full years in the country, CHDI reports that for many farmers, harvests have more than doubled under the new system, with income not far behind. One of these farmers shares her story in the video below.

In a country as poor as Malawi, where an estimated 53 percent of the population lives on less than $1.25 a day, that extra income provides farmers with many opportunities that had previously been out of reach.

A photo of what is believed to be William Kamkwamba's first windmill. Photo: whiteafrican (flickr)

When I was fourteen, I was busy going to drama rehearsals, shopping at the mall and fighting with my brother. But when William Kamkwamba was fourteen, he built a windmill to bring electricity to his rural village in Malawi by studying pictures in a library text book and using whatever materials he could find.

Watch this video, from Yes! Magazine, for his truly inspiring story:

You can follow William's current projects on his blog and and support his work in Malawi by donating here.

Plasmodium falciparum (malaria) parasite taking over red blood cells. Photo: Eric Fortin (Flickr)

A team of engineers at the University of California at Berkeley are pushing the limits of cell phone technology with the development of their newly minted Cellscope.

The device is a six-inch microscope that attaches to a cell phone’s digital camera lens to take high resolution microscopic images of blood and sputum samples. The Cellscope's compact size and durability makes it ideal for use in the field, nearly eliminating the health worker's need for expensive tabletop microscopes.

The Cellscope team, led by Principal Investigator Dan Fletcher, has been able to reliably identify pathogens from two of the most prominent diseases in the underdeveloped world — malaria and tuberculosis. Combined, the World Health Organization estimates that the two diseases kill 2.7 million people each year, although both are treatable if caught early. (The vast majority of malaria and tuberculosis cases are found in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia respectively.) The Cellscope offers healthcare workers in remote areas a valuable diagnostic tool, aiding in reliable early detection of these two diseases.

Right now the Cellscope is still being tested in the field. But the UC Berkeley team hopes that in time, data captured by the Cellscope will be uploaded to a central database, allowing medical workers to track the spread of diseases more efficiently than ever before.