AID AGENCIES BETTER LOCALIZE THEIR PURCHASES OF MATERIALS

AID AGENCIES BETTER LOCALIZE THEIR PURCHASES OF MATERIALS

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

 

$69 Billion is spent each year by international aid agencies for procurements of needed materials from external markets. The total amount is over half of aid funding for developing countries.

 

The advisory from experts who know the development processes in Africa is this: aid agencies better source materials locally. The behavior will impact as sound social development practice. Besides, the materials sourced from local markets do reduce the cost of materials.

 

I still recall, in my studies on economic history, when aid agencies infused massive aid funds supposedly on Philippine agriculture in the late 40s through the 60s. PH during those days was predominantly agricultural, with farmers and fisherfolks comprising past 75% of the population. Studies showed that the aid agencies bought tractors, fertilizers and seedlings from International Harvester and outside sources. The tractors alone provided headaches for the end-users, as they are hardly practicable in terrains that are hardly fit for them.

 

Let it be stressed that procuring materials in external market bring along with them inefficiencies. Besides, there could be corruption in the procurement processes, as they could favor certain manufacturers or producers that result to padding of prices. In the end, a very small portion of the aid funds actually go directly to the target beneficiaries, thus defeating the purpose of the development endeavor.

 

Below is the insightful report about the subject matter.

 

[Manila, 12 September 2013]

 

Source: http://www.scidev.net/global/aid/news/aid-agencies-should-go-local-when-sourcing-materials.html

Aid agencies should ‘go local’ when sourcing materials

Speed read

• Buying locally would slash costs, and identify locally appropriate solutions
• 20 per cent of aid purchases are still tied to firms in donor countries
• Local social enterprise experts firms to carry out policy reviews

Aid agencies should source development products from local manufacturers to help them make the most of their budgets and improve their impact, a group of small businesses, service providers and manufacturers from Africa said this week.

Development agencies spend around US$69 billion each year on procuring goods and services from external providers — more than 50 per cent of total official development assistance — according to a press release by AidEx, a global humanitarian and development aid event held annually in Brussels. But 20 per cent of bilateral aid purchases are still tied to firms in donor countries, resulting in project expenses increasing by up to 40 per cent.

The group of businesses participating in the AidEx Developing World Supplier Zone — an area of 25 free stalls designed to help businesses from developing countries reach an international buying audience — is now urging aid agencies to carry out procurement policy reviews that would compare the cost, delivery time and social benefits of obtaining goods and services through local providers. They are also calling for the removal of conditions that tie donors to procurement in donor countries.

“Aid agencies’ use of local suppliers is key to maximising business opportunities and upskilling communities.”

Ben Solanky

By using local businesses in Africa, aid agencies could lower transaction costs, shorten delivery times and improve the investment climate in the surrounding region, the press release said.

“It’s vital for aid organisations to seriously consider locally developed solutions in their procurement, as these companies’ offerings have already been tried and tested ‘on the ground’,” said Grant Gibbs, project manager at Hippo Water Roller, a water technology project in South Africa.

“Superimposing First World business models can underestimate differences in African infrastructure — particularly at the rural level — and lead to inefficiencies,” Gibbs added.

Simon Lucas, CEO of Reltex Africa, a humanitarian relief materials supplier based in Kenya, said the benefits of the organisation’s location in Mombasa, for example, are that it “can easily access raw materials and re-export finished goods through supply chain routes across East Africa.”

“This,” he said, “has led to reduced transportation times and decreased environmental impact for humanitarian aid deliveries.

“When looking at purchasing products from Africa, I urge procurement managers to look further than just the price and take into account the social benefits and economic input to the region.” 

Charles Mugasa, of Ugandan social enterprise start-up Chiabiz, said: “Aid agencies must prioritise local companies that have grassroots connections with the community if they are to realise their goals, otherwise the bureaucratic nature of governments can get in the way.”

And Ben Solanky, director of Global Hand, a non-profit matching service for public-private partnerships, added: “Aid agencies’ use of local suppliers is key to maximising business opportunities and upskilling communities.

Dialogue, openness and connectivity between for-profits and non-profits is crucial in Africa — to see the idea of ‘doing well’ become an economic reality.”

 

EXPATRIATES DISPLACED BY LIBYA CONFLICT NEED AID

EXPATRIATES DISPLACED BY LIBYA CONFLICT NEED AID

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

Too many expatriate workers are helping to build the Libyan economy and society to bring it closer to modernity. They comprise over 1/3 of the Libyan population of 6 Million+, and they include thousands of my fellow Filipinos. With the conflict between pro and anti-Kadhafy forces escalating, expats were so badly displaced along the way.

I hope I could have been interviewed by Kadhafy himself before the turmoil started. For I would candidly recommend to him to simply absorb en toto the expatriate workers in Libyan society and let them be a constitutive part of the population there. They have already enriched Libyan life in no small measures, so there’s no reason why they should be treated as foreigners forever.

But Kadhafy and the Arabic Libyans (Berber ethnicity largely) do not have on the agenda such large-scale citizen conversion out of the expats. And now, with the turmoil broiling hot to oust him, Kadhafy may be as blind as ‘three blind mice’ to even notice the expats who are fleeing the conflict.

Filipinos are a bit lucky in that, with just a score of thousands or so of my compatriots working there, the diverse embassies and consulates in the Mediterranean can act together to help them pull out quickly and go back to Manila. That precisely happened to the expat Filipinos, and so to the thousands of British, Chinese, Japanese, French, and other nationalities.

But not so for the Afro expats such as those coming from Ghana and Ethiopia. There are also those thousands coming from Bangla Desh, Pakistan, and other developing countries. They are in a calamity situation and they badly need humanitarian aid to salve their hunger and daily survival problems.

I guess the very employers of the expats were simply unprepared for the contingencies of a war situation. Nobody in the corporate boards of the employers could have foreseen what was to happen in Libya, and so the employers were caught flat-footed by the rapidity of the force majeure. The echelon officials of the employers pulled out all so suddenly, leaving behind many of their personnel.

Libya is too close to Europe which for now is in the best position to rush aid to those displaced expats. Egypt and Tunisia were burnt out by their own turmoil that overthrew their chief execs, so they are sadly unprepared for large-scale contingencies to help out the overflowing thousands of displaced expats.

Now, how far can Europeans share aid and in what form, as well as how far can they assist the expats to get back to their respective countries, remains to be seen. The lackadaisical action from Europe could backlash in due time, with the Afro and 3rd world expats finding every route they can to migrate to Europe instead, and eke out a life there as illegal migrants.

And Europeans better be quick in helping out. For several other Arab states are burning in infernal social turbulence, and they too can see expats as well as their own citizens migrating in huge waves to Europe for greener pasteurs.

[Philippines, 16 March 2011]

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INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY MUST INTERVENE IN LIBYA

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY MUST INTERVENE IN LIBYA

Erle Frayne D. Argonza

World opinion has been moving closer to approving a full intervention to oust Libya’s mad leader Kadhafy. As to what forms of intervention will be adopted, global leaders are still in the dark as of the moment.

I am not wont to see foreign intervention myself in the internal affairs of any country. This is a matter of respecting the principle of sovereignty, mutual respect, and cooperation among nations.

The Libyan case is different however. Arab citizens who were sick and tired of the authoritarian Kadhafy regime voiced their collective decision to oust Kadhafy via peaceful means, in the same way that Egyptians and Tunisians did before them. But Kadhafy chose to gun down and bomb to smithereens the peaceful protestors, and that constitutes the heinous crime of genocide.

Libya’s own anti-Kadhafy forces are allergic to direct intervention from outside, but given the situation that Kadhahy had stocks of billions of money to wage an enduring war of attrition, the cash-starved anti-Kadhafians better rethink their position. The mass slaughter in Rwanda finally ended precisely when a contingent of external forces sweepingly invaded Rwanda and deposed the mad leadership there, and the Rwandan precedent is there for the Oust Kadhafy rebels to study and follow.

True, economic progress did see the light of day during Kadhafy’s permanent incumbency. An infrastructure boom has been taking place prior to the protests. Just by looking at those glimpses of Libya provided by international news reporters, one is given the chance to witness the urbanization and good planning done in the rising cities there.

But Libya’s path to progress was done at the expense of civil liberties. The country is awash with gory narratives of how Kadhafy’s detractors were jailed, tortured, and brutally killed in prison camps. When Kadhafy is gone, investigators ought to conduct diggings of possible mass graves and show the world the deaths that took place as social price of Kadhafy’s version of economic progress.

Libya’s economy benefited almost exclusively from oil revenues, and whenever vast quantities of oil are concerned there also are the Anglo-European financiers working behind the scene to cash in on the Libyan oil. Even now, the same financiers have been manipulating the petrol spot market for colossal profits from out of oil price hikes, thanks to their front man Moammar Kadhafy.

We just hope that when Kadhafy will be ousted, the link between his Libyan oil billions and the Western financiers will be exposed to the hilt. I will be lauding the major media outfits if they will take on the cudgels of exposing the threads of greed as mentioned above, which I doubt will happen. So far, only the fringe groups have been doing the daring investigations if ever, such as the Executive Intelligence Review circle.

Meantime, the world community is talking about the Libyan conflict, and configuring courses of action to intervene in that ‘regime change’ phenomenon. What should be clear from the onset is that the Libyans themselves are the heroes of the Oust Kadhafy movement, even as the burden of reconstructing a badly damaged post-Kadhafy nation will fall in their shoulders.

[Philippines, 16 March 2011]

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CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR): CORPORATE DEODORANT OF ‘LATE’ CAPITALISM

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good afternoon from Manila!

The late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippines’ most brilliant and deviously cunning chief executive, was so elated one day during his tyrannical incumbency. The reason for the unusual elation was this: his soldiers captured Bernabe Buscayno, the first national head of the Maoist insurgent group New People’s Army or NPA, who was a prized catch for the strong man. After some military interrogation, Buscayno was directed to be brought to the presidential palace to face Marcos, who at one point in the encounter, asked Buscayno for a remark. Obliging like a school boy, Buscayno replied that “no matter how evil a person can be, s/he can still be transformed into a good person.”

The enormously witty man Marcos was dumbfounded by the witty remark from the Maoist rebel, for that comment made its mark so clear: Marcos is evil, yet he can still be reformed. Probably pissed off by the stubborn rebel, who never the least conceded to defeat so as to bow in obeisance in recognition of the chief executive, Marcos made sure that Buscayno will suffer miserably inside the prison cell.

You see, I cited that story of Buscayno, as a matter of reflecting on the rationale behind Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. Buscayno, who has been active in the cooperative movement in the Philippines after his release from prison in 1986 (the year Marcos was overthrown), could very well repeat his witty line when asked about CSR, with a curt reply that “CSR, no matter what evil may be behind it, can be reformed.”

Asians put greater stress on ‘becoming’ as a category more than ‘being’ (Westerner’s granite category), that is why we Asians are inclined to see positive reformations of things or beings whose evils may be irredeemable. And this I can say of CSR: it is an ideological deodorant for Big Business greed, but somehow it can be reformed. To use Organization Development language, it can be ‘re-engineered’.

CSR is already a re-engineering of philanthropy in fact, and belongs squarely to ‘late’ capitalism. Old fogey philanthropy operated with a Victorian underpinning: I possess the money, and you recipient are a Beggar who came to me. You are lucky enough because I am giving you part of my purse, for I have none reserved for you folks save for the theatres, performers and socialite circles thay may the better be served by my extra monies for posterity’s sake. …

Well, Big Business was able to re-engineer its image precisely by reformatting old-fogey philanthropy (which was a reformatted version of medieval charity of the pretentious church Orders or ‘corporations’). CSR appropriated the ‘social development’ practices (social technologies) of NGOs and peoples’ organizations or POs, stressed the supposedly core element of ‘compassion’, and voila! CSR was born! How effable, how sweet, how infinitely Angelic and Godly is this ‘new way’ of helping people by the Gods of Corporate World! Hail capitalism! Hail beneficent Gods!

Deodorant, pure deodorant! Take a look at Lucio Tan, who at one time was the top landlord-capitalist oligarch in the Philippines. A one-time Marcos croney, Tan made enormous fortunes from Marcos’ time to the present, probably with start-up capital coming from the dictator’s purse (but which Tan refuses to admit in public). Tan’s fortunes made him land in the Fortune 500 (world’s richest), yet he was also found wanting in the manner of paying taxes. His unpaid taxes may be worth P80 Billion (almost $2 Billion) today, and is still growing, yet not a single cent was paid to the state by this notorious oligarch for those ‘tax evasion’ cases…Yet Tan has captured the eyes of fund recipients from his CSR give-away items, even as he is fondly regarded as an angelic patron by the same armies of beggar recipients. (Beggar here means not the literal beggar, but the condescending image of oligarchs on recipients: filthy Eaters, ‘useless eaters’).

Capitalism is a system that is founded on greed and hoarding, and no sagely or wise personage, or the most evolved beings could ever rationalize capitalism as a system that will sustain the drive towards Nirvana or represents the final liberation of humans from their subhumanizing hovels of dense life. Besides, this current phase of capitalism—‘late’ capitalism—is now DEAD, and the dead system is rapidly crashing down. Only those materialistic ‘eaters’ whose perceptions are as delimited as their own astigmatic perceptions of reality principles can ever justify that capitalism is still working, for the reality we have today is that of ‘virtual economy’ of the most perverted, evil greed of all.

If CSR would have to survive the times, as ‘late’ capitalism is now DEAD, then now is the time to refurbish its image. Because its life is deeply embedded in the corporate purses, this image-change is hard to imagine at all. But being of the Asian-yogic way of life, being a mystic and development expert at the same time (though now in the twilight of social development engagements), I wish to give CSR a chance and see it grow along the trajectory of the hereafter that was declared by Buscayno: transformed from ‘evil’ to ‘good’.

I’d end this piece by clarifying to you a reality we know among mystics: demons can also return to the Path of Light. Yes, Fellows, those Belzeebub abominations, those Asuras or Demonyos, those Diaboli, or whatever term you may use for the same species of evil demented beings, many of those abominations have already returned to the state-of-balance and are now taking the Path of Light back to the Almighty I Am Presence (God)! Yes! CSR can!

[28 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]

AID FUNDS FOR AFRICA, ANYONE?

Erle Frayne Argonza

Magandang araw! Good day!

Aid commitments to the south by the more developed economies of the North have been among the news trends recently. There is, for instance, the commitment of $25 Billion per year for the whole African continent, a commitment that hopefully won’t fly in the air as mere political promise.

A relevant news concerns IMF-World Bank actions about the matter.

[30 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to DevEx database news.

 

IMF, World Bank & IFI Round-Up

Leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations are set to backtrack on their landmark pledge at the Gleneagles summit in 2005 to increase development aid to Africa to USD 25 billion a year. A draft communiqué obtained by the Financial Times, due to be issued at the group’s July summit in Hokkaido, Japan, shows leaders will commit to fulfilling “our commitments on [development aid] made at Gleneagles” – but fails to cite the target of USD 25 billion annually by 2010. This goal – which was repeated at last year’s G8 summit in Germany – was seen as an important boost for Africa. The ambitious plan was a cornerstone of former UK prime minister Tony Blair’s G8 presidency and championed by his successor, Gordon Brown.

Warning that rising food and oil prices pose a crisis for the world’s poor, Robert B. Zoellick, the President of the World Bank, is calling on President Bush and other leaders convening in Japan next week for the G8 summit meeting to make new aid commitments to avert starvation and instability in dozens of countries. Zoellick’s letter, obtained by NYT, came with a lengthy study of the impact of rising prices for food, fuel and commodities on the world’s poor. Zoellick said in his letter that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Food Program (WPF) had short-term needs of USD 10 billion. Zoellick’s letter calculates that, for the world’s 41 poorest countries, the combined impact of high food, fuel and other commodities is a ‘negative shock’ to their economies, reducing GDP by between 3 and 10 percent, causing ‘broken lives and stunted potential’ for millions.

The World Bank gave the go-ahead at a board meeting July 1 for the creation of a pair of global investment funds to back developing nations’ efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change. The Climate Investment Funds, led by Japan, Britain and the US and to be administered by the World Bank, are expected to start with total initial funds of USD 5 billion and become operational by the end of the year, it said. The approval of the Clean Technology Fund and Strategic Climate Fund comes days before a summit of G8 in Hokkaido, Japan, on July 8 where climate change issues are on the agenda. ‘The G8 is likely to broadly support the establishment of the climate investment funds,’ Warren Evans, Director of the World Bank’s environment department, told reporters.

A new IMF study, looking at the impact of soaring oil and food costs, said many poor and developing countries will likely have to change their economic policies in response to soaring commodity prices, AFP reported. The IMF Food and Fuel Prices–Recent Developments, Macroeconomic Impact, and Policy Response report found that poor households are most affected by food price inflation and “warned that the share of undernourished (people) in developing countries could rise rapidly above the current 40 percent of total population.” Energy and food values are still rising and the IMF said its research suggests the “problem is worsening.”

The World Bank’s private sector arm has launched a new fund it hopes will unlock as much as USD 5 billion in infrastructure investment for the world’s poorest countries. As part of its drive to reach deeper into some of the most forbidding markets, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) will use a pot of USD 100 million to cover the initial costs of power, logistics, and transport, ports and communications projects. Once a project is shown to be viable, it will be tendered to other investors, the Financial Times (UK) reported. Working with an initial partner, the IFC fund – known as InfraVentures – will cover start-up costs such as feasibility studies and legal fees. Half of its resources will be devoted to sub-Saharan Africa, with the remainder spread across Latin America and Asia.

NGOs & UN DEVELOPMENT

Erle Frayne Argonza

Good morning!

A global fund for natural disasters is among the top agenda of the world body and its partner NGOs. The frequency and ferocity of quirk earthquakes and cyclones has prompted concerned institutions to ‘call to arms’ and address the disaster effects properly.

A relevant news is contained below.

[29 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to DevEx database news.]

 

UN, NGO and General News Round-Up

The UN has proposed a USD 10 billion global fund to help poor countries cope with natural disasters the world body said were occurring with ever more frequency and ferocity, Reuters reported. A UN report on factors creating world economic insecurity said the existing response to floods and earthquakes of emergency appeals and voluntary contributions should be boosted with a permanent facility, possibly under UN auspices. In a trend some have linked with global warming, more than four times as many disasters occurred annually between 2000 and 2006 than during the 1970s, the report said. The damage costs were seven times higher at an average of $83 billion per year.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the G8 nations to stick with a three-year old pledge to raise African aid levels to USD 25 billion a year, after a report the leaders may be about to backtrack. “I would like to urge and emphasize that leaders of G8 should implement their commitment which was made at the Gleneagles summit meeting,” Ban said, referring to the G8’s 2005 summit. “When it comes to climate change … and the global food crisis, these campaigns should be led by the industrialized countries — they have the capacity, they have the resources, and I hope the leadership demonstrates their political will,” he said. Ban’s comments came ahead of the G8 summit in northern Japan on July 7-9.

Somali gunmen freed two UN aid workers from Sweden and Denmark – just hours after seizing them on June 28 in southern Somalia, UN and Somali officials said. The aid workers were released without ransom and were safe, a UN security official told Reuters. The two – who were working for a UN program to clear landmines – were kidnapped in Somalia’s Bakol region. Suspicion for kidnappings generally falls on clan militia and Islamist insurgents who are fighting the Somali government and their Ethiopian military allies.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized the outcome of last Friday’s run-off presidential election in Zimbabwe – which went ahead despite international appeals for a postponement given the violence and intimidation that preceded it – as illegitimate. “The outcome did not reflect the true and genuine will of the Zimbabwean people or produce a legitimate result,” Ban’s spokesperson said in a statement issued June 30 in Tokyo, where the Secretary-General was on an official visit.

The UN and African Union (AU) have appointed the Burkina Faso Foreign Minister, Djibril Bassole, as their new Darfur peace envoy. The UN said Bassole will conduct efforts to mediate between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels from the region’s city of Fasher. He replaces current UN and AU envoys Jan Eliasson and Salim Ahmed Salim. Recent peace efforts have faltered – armed men held 38 peacekeepers at gunpoint for five hours on June 30.

Last month’s earthquake in Sichuan, China, has caused some USD 6 billion in damage to the province’s agricultural sector, severely affecting over 30 million people in rural communities, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said June 30. The 7.9-magnitude earthquake of May 12 devastated the mountainous Sichuan province, killing an estimated 69,000 people and causing extensive property damage. More than 30 million rural inhabitants lost most of their assets, and thousands of hectares of farmland were destroyed, while millions of farm animals also died.