Democracy in Hard to Reach Places

By Cece M. Fadope

June 2009 -- In recent years, African countries have embraced the notion of participatory democracy. Inherent in a government by the people is the right to participate in political processes regardless of locale, rural or urban. But while rural communities yearn to participate in public affairs, they also tend to be hard to reach because of poor road conditions. They have limited electricity supply, poor access to education, healthcare and employment opportunities. Therefore, rural communities enjoy even less of the fragmented political freedoms that may be available in African countries.

The 2009 West African Regional Conference on Smart, Appropriate and Resource Efficient Technologies and Products for Rural Communities, to be held in Abuja, Nigeria includes efforts to ramp up dialogue with, and among rural communities towards political participation. We invite your comments regarding democracy and political activities in your rural community:

* What leadership attributes do people in your rural community value?
* How do people in your rural community access news and information about political developments locally and nationally?
* During elections, does voter education in your rural setting foster the understanding of issues that affect your life?

Please send us your comments and questions to: info@democracy-africa.org.

Microlinks Breakfast: the Market Facilitation Approach

By Prince White

This morning, June 25, 2009, USAID’s Microenterprise Development office hosted a breakfast seminar, which is part of a monthly series that focuses on enterprise development. This month’s seminar was entitled, “Organizational Capacity: Why the Value Chain Approach May Fail,” and the presenter was Ka-Hay Law from Engineers Without Borders Canada. Law’s main argument was that organizations take a failing approach to market intervention.

Law’s experiences from Zambia exposed her to the reality that the standard and most common approaches to market intervention may not and usually do not produce long term systemic change. Moreover, she has observed markets returning to their basic failing conditions soon after organizations complete their projects and leave. Law argues that the value chain approach may assist some individuals in the short term; however, for long term gains the nature of the relationship between actors in the market must change. Law and Engineers Without Borders Canada’s solution to the problem is the adoption of a market facilitation approach.

The market facilitation approach evolves increasing the relationships and the networks in a market and taking a less direct role in business success. Furthermore, Law’s approach is to increase local organizations’ capacity to encourage and develop effective, working relationships in the market place. She expressed five roles that facilitators may find themselves in are a coach, relationship builder, business person, innovator and communicator. An interesting point which came from an audience member during the question and answer session dealt with the evaluation of the effectiveness of market facilitation. His point was that, from the work that he was involved with at the OTF Group, he had observed trust to be an important measurement of success. He described encountering individuals at the beginning of a market facilitation project that held so much distrust toward each they did not want to sit next to each other, or even be in the same room together. By the end of the project they were able to effectively work together to achieve their respective goals.

Law’s presentation was interesting and insightful. It dealt with issues germane to the development of African business and improving efficiency in non-government organizations. The presentation was recorded and it along with the PowerPoint and a paper will be available online later this month HERE. Next month’s seminar takes place July 23, 2009. The title is “Integrating Gender into Agricultural Value Chains: Experiences from Kenya and Tanzania,” with Cristina Manfre and Deborah Rubin.

Why read this blog?

This blog is intended as a showcase and forum for ideas which will help the development of democracy in Africa. In the weeks and months ahead we will share stories of triumphs and disappointment, we will share insightful ideas and critique basic assumptions that are taken for granted. We will be bringing ideas and opinions from all over the globe in an effort to sift through the plethora of energies devoted to aiding Africa. If you have a story, idea, or opinion please feel free to comment or contact us and we may invite you as a guest writer or editor, thank you for reading and we look forward to what the future may bring.