[afro-nets] A Better Way to Fight Poverty: Test Case in Kenya

[Janet Feldman <kaippg@earthlink.net>]

A Better Way to Fight Poverty: Test Case in Kenya
-------------------------------------------------

http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/documents/Time%20Magazine%20M
ar%2014%202005%20-%20The%20End%20of%20Poverty%20(small)1.pdf

(here is a PDF based on the book, "An End to Poverty", by Jef-
frey Sachs)
http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/endofpoverty/
(Sachs and Columbia's "Earth Island Institute")

A Better Way to Fight Poverty
NY Times

Kenya has never seemed to be able to live up to the potential of
its rich farmland and staggeringly beautiful valleys. Its gov-
ernment is corrupt. Its capital, Nairobi, has become a haven for
street thieves and muggers. Some 56 percent of the population
lives below the poverty level. Malaria, which could be as treat-
able as strep throat, kills one in five children every year be-
cause the government grossly shortchanges its public health sys-
tem. All in all, it is a classic case of how African governments
can squander foreign aid.

But far from the noise, pollution and public and private crooks
of Nairobi, the village of Sauri, practically smack on the equa-
tor, is an example of a better way to do things. It is one of
two test cases for the United Nations' ambitious program to cut
poverty in half by 2015. Sauri's story shows how direct aid can
largely bypass governments, getting money and help straight into
the hands of the people who not only need it the most, but also
know what to do with it.

Anne Omolo, the head teacher of Sauri's sole primary school, ar-
rived six years ago to find a student population that was list-
less, miserable and performing poorly in national exams. Some
500 children were enrolled, but attendance was low. She soon re-
alized the problem. "They were hungry," she said.

So on her own, she started a food program. She went to the vil-
lage parents who could afford it and asked them to bring in corn
and beans. But almost half of the school's students were orphans
whose parents had died of AIDS, and they couldn't afford to con-
tribute food. So Mrs. Omolo and the 10 other teachers dug into
their own pockets.

Eventually, they scraped together enough to feed about 100 stu-
dents. It was a terrible choice. "Not everybody could eat," Mrs.
Omolo said. So she fed the top two grades - seventh and eighth
graders - because they would soon be taking national exams to
move on to high school. Students from the younger classes went
to the windows to watch their older schoolmates eat.The result
was instantaneous. Attendance among the older children shot up
to 100 percent, and their test scores followed suit. Sauri went
from 68th out of 353 schools in the district in 2000 to 7th in
2004.

"This year," Mrs. Omolo says, "we will be No. 1." Part of the
reason for her confidence is that this year, every schoolchild
will eat. Sauri was chosen last year to be one of the United Na-
tions' test villages - Koraro, Ethiopia, is the other - to show
how poverty in Africa can be ended through programs that help
villages directly. For the next five years, Sauri will receive
$250,000 a year for agricultural, educational and health pro-
grams.

Much of the money will go to help farmers improve their crop
yields. Farms are already looking better, thanks to people like
Patrick Mutuo, a Kenyan soil expert who travels there from Ki-
sumu four days a week to teach the farmers how to get the most
out of their land. Because of Mr. Mutuo and his band of agricul-
tural extension workers, Monica Okech's six acres of corn,
ground nuts and beans are lush and green. Mrs. Okech, a fiercely
independent 50-year-old whose husband left her in Sauri years
ago, has planted leguminous trees and plants throughout her
farm. These plants provide natural fertilizer for what was once
depleted soil. Mrs. Okech now feeds 10 villagers, and is build-
ing a chicken coop. The United Nations plan, spearheaded by the
economist Jeffrey Sachs, seeks to expand the program to the en-
tire district, and then all over Africa. But that will happen
only if rich countries make good on their promise to ratchet up
foreign aid to 0.7 percent of G.D.P. by 2015. Britain, France
and Germany have all put out timetables for meeting the goal.
The United States, the world's richest country, has yet to do
so.

In the meantime, the people in Sauri work on their farms while
trying to ward off killers like malaria, hunger and AIDS - some
25 percent of them are infected with HIV. But all it takes is
for the villagers to look across the valley at the anemic farms
and dismal test scores of their neighbors to know that they are
still the lucky ones.


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