THE REGIONS
In this section:
Schoolchildren in Guinea Get New Books, Improved
Teaching Through U.S. Program
Onions, Carrots, Eggplant, Squash Raise Incomes
for Small Farmers in Honduras
Industry 'Cluster' Helps Sri Lanka Rubber Product
Bounce into World Markets
Tours of Aid Sites Aim to Counter Radicals
AFRICA
Schoolchildren in Guinea Get New Books, Improved Teaching Through U.S. Program
 |
|
A representative from Dillard University helps a schoolgirl read
her new book, which is illustrated and designed especially for Guinean
children.
Laura Lartigue, USAID/Guinea |
CONAKRY, Guinea—As the school year starts, every
first and second grader in this West African country will
have his or her own textbook to use in class.
Some 500,000 textbooks—paid for by USAID—have been
distributed to schools throughout Guinea since May. The books
are the fulfillment of a promise made by President Bush's
Africa Education Initiative to provide African children access
to quality textbooks and teaching materials.
The Africa Education Initiative aims to increase the number
of young girls in school, train teachers, and produce and
distribute textbooks and pedagogical materials.
Guinea, the first of six African countries to benefit from
the initiative's textbooks, has a critical shortage of teachers
and classroom materials. It is also seeing more and more students
enroll in elementary school, as the government places greater
emphasis on education.
"Providing quality textbooks in sufficient quantity
helps us fulfill an essential part of our program—improving
educational quality—and will help our children succeed
in school," said Minister of Pre-University and Civic
Education Galema Guilavogui.
Developing the new textbooks in Guinea is critical to promoting
education, said Kadiatou Bah, one of the authors of the textbooks,
which were produced by the Guinean Education Ministry with
technical assistance from USAID and Dillard University, one
of the historically black U.S. colleges and universities.
"We were able to design learning activities and illustrations
that are relevant to Guinean children's lives," Bah said.
Only 41 percent of Guinean adults are literate.
Rural children, especially girls, are often left out of the
classroom. Only 58 percent of children outside of cities attend
school.
To encourage Guinean girls to attend and stay in school,
USAID is offering $600,000 in scholarships this fall to some
6,000 girls. The money covers the costs of uniforms, school
supplies, and learning materials.
The Agency plans to add an additional $250,000 to carry out
complementary activities promoting girls' education, mainly
through community projects, the celebration of national girls'
education day, and a mentoring program.
Teacher training programs to improve the quality of elementary
education are also being carried out with the Ministry of
Education. USAID is training 25,300 teachers in new instructional
methods to increase student achievement in reading, writing,
mathematics, and science. Teachers are also learning how to
use interactive radio instruction and how to address sensitive
HIV/AIDS-related topics.
Since 2001, the Agency has sponsored a national program to
improve reading instruction in grades one and two. Teachers
are taught techniques to better engage students. For reading
comprehension skills, for instance, they are taught word games
so that students can read and respond to colorful poster-sized
books and storybooks.
The books include animal fables and stories about families,
places, and situations familiar to young children. An accompanying
guide shows teachers how to use the materials and generate
additional support materials. More than 90 percent of first
and second grade teachers nationally say they use the program
and are seeing improvements in their students' reading abilities.
Laura Lartigue contributed to this article.
LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN
Onions, Carrots, Eggplant, Squash Raise Incomes for Small Farmers in Honduras
 |
|
Workers harvest onions at Roland Avila's farm in San Marcos de
Colón, Honduras
Ricardo Lardizábal, CDA |
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras—After a year of farming
onions, Rolando Avila, from San Marcos de Colón in
the southern region of Honduras, has made enough profits to
expand his business.
Some 21,000 small farmers are participating in a program
with the Agribusiness Development Center (CDA), in which the
Agency over a six-year period is investing $13.2 million.
The center helps farmers move away from traditional crops
such as coffee, sugarcane, corn, rice, and beans to other
higher value crops. Among the new crops being grown are peppers
(jalapeño and tabasco), carrots, cucumbers, eggplant,
squash, sweet potatoes, and yucca.
Since the project began in 2000, CDA has helped generate
$12.09 in new sales for every dollar of USAID investment.
Avila is among 140 farmers who the CDA helped to grow yellow
onions—a crop that is produced for the local market to
substitute for imports.
The center helps independent onion growers like Avila get
contracts with leading onion importers and distributors. Now
Honduran onion farmers are competing with existing overseas
onion suppliers such as the Netherlands, Spain, and Canada.
"This new activity has helped me to get ahead and solve
my economic problems," said Avila, whose profits were
$26,000 at the end of his first onion harvest.
He is now investing in a drip irrigation system and a pump,
hoping to increase production next year.
"I have big expectations with the investment I have
made in the expansion of the farm," he added.
The CDA helped Avila set up an onion nursery and then walked
him through the first year of harvesting and selling the crop.
It also linked him to a group of producers who have a contract
with importers and distributors.
Now the onion farmer is expanding the planting area for his
second cycle of onion production. He has six permanent employees,
and can afford to hire another 30-40 on a temporary basis
during the planting and harvest season.
Agriculture diversification will be crucial for the Honduran
economy to be able to export to regional markets and the United
States under the Central American Free Trade Agreement, which
was signed earlier this year, said Mission Director Paul Tuebner.
For Avila, the switch to onions has been sweet. Before, he
planted beans and made most of his income from dairy production.
But falling dairy profits drove him to look for other options
to earn a living.
Avila used to earn about $1,100 per year from beans and $2,500
per month from dairy production—money that barely covered
the feeding costs for his 35 cows.
Aside from farmers, the CDA works with packhouse operators
and exporters.
ASIA AND THE NEAR EAST
Industry 'Cluster' Helps Sri Lanka Rubber Product Bounce into World Markets
 |
|
Lankaprene samples in an oven undergoing tests for volatile matters
content. The test ensures removal of water and residual moisture
from rubber. It is one of two Lankaprene specification tests conducted
at the Central Specifications Laboratory of the government-run Rubber
Research Institute of Sri Lanka. All Lankaprene producers send their
rubber samples to this laboratory for quality control and specifications
testing.
Gemunu Amarasinghe |
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—European and U.S. makers of
surgical gloves and other rubber products are eyeing a new,
high-quality variety of latex being produced from the country's
traditional rubber tree plantations.
Lankaprene, a rubber of superior visual quality and improved
consistency, fetches a substantially higher price than the
traditional latex crepes or mats that Sri Lanka's rubber industry
has produced for some 70 years. A recent order received a
price of $2 per kilogram—80 cents more than the price
for traditional latex crepes.
To make Lankaprene, fresh field latex is bulked, strained,
and diluted with filtered water, and a fraction is separated
to remove non-rubber ingredients. The latex is then washed.
The result is a product of unique properties such as high
purity, lighter color, and pleasant odor.
Sri Lanka's rubber industry had seen significant declines
in production and prices. The land on which rubber trees are
grown had also diminished, and the latex crepe was increasingly
losing market to synthetic products.
In 1999, USAID invested in the Competitiveness Initiative
Project, which is reviving several Sri Lankan industries,
including rubber. Today, 13 of the country's 17 latex crepe
producers are making Lankaprene. Four plants have been modernized,
and 30 people were trained in manufacturing and quality control
of Lankaprene.
The program helped form a rubber industry "cluster,"
and has held half a dozen workshops that brought together
rubber growers, processors, manufacturers, shippers, packers,
public-sector research institutions, and workers.
The cluster concept in development aims to get all sectors
working together so all can increase production and profits.
"No single Sri Lankan firm acting on its own was capable
of engaging in a product development and marketing venture
with a U.S. firm. Even meeting the shipment quantity orders
would have been difficult for the average firm," said
Lionel Jayaratne of USAID/Sri Lanka. But "the consortium
of Sri Lankan firms are now proving to be a reliable partner
in the process of developing and responding to the new applications
of [Lankaprene]," he added.
In July 2003, members of the rubber cluster traveled to Akron,
Ohio, to look for potential customers. Trial batches of Lankaprene
are now reaching the United States. Production of the new
product is expected to generate $16 million in export earnings.
Sri Lanka's rubber industry employs 300,000 people. Some
60 percent of the 100,000 metric tons of latex crepes are
made by small growers.
Rubber producers intend to plant an additional 40,000 hectares
of land, increasing production by about 78,000 metric tons
per year.
The competitiveness project—carried out by Nathan Associates
Inc. and their subcontractor, J.E. Austin Associates Inc.—works
with eight industry clusters.
EUROPE AND EURASIA
Tours of Aid Sites Aim to Counter Radicals
 |
|
A tour of USAID activities in the southern Kazakhstan
city of Shymkent January 20-22 included local religious
leaders. The local mullah shown here told visitors about
the benefits of a recently installed USAID-funded water
system.
Rebecca Rridgeman, USAID |
ALMATY, Kazakhstan—To counter the rising influence
of radical, anti-American groups in this mainly Muslim region,
U.S. officials are bringing journalists, religious leaders,
and other influential local figures to visit U.S.-sponsored
development projects.
Modeled on USAID religious outreach in Bangladesh, the year-old
program in Central Asia has taken religious leaders and journalists
on tours of projects in two cities in Kyrgyzstan, one in Tajikistan,
and one in Kazakhstan. Another 10 tours are planned over the
next year to regions of Kyrgyzstan, southern Tajikistan, and
Turkmenistan.
Next year, the mission will also provide funds to bring together
community and religious leaders, such as imams.
USAID has spent over the past decade about $1 billion on
health, democracy, small business development, rule of law,
and community outreach in Central Asia.
"America will face challenges from Islamic radicalism
for years to come," said regional Mission Director George
Deikun. "USAID brings to bear the very best of America.
Involving influential religious leaders in development activities
helps to mitigate the influence of potentially terrorist organizations
among vulnerable communities."
A tour in May, for instance, presented reporters to a media
company where a USAID program to support the independent press
had trained journalists and provided equipment. The tour included
a visit to a microcredit lending program and meetings with
two people who took out and repaid loans to grow their businesses.
The reporters also visited a school that USAID supplied with
civic textbooks that teach democratic principles and a tuberculosis
hospital where the Agency trained doctors to better diagnose
and treat patients.
"The most common question is 'Who or what is USAID,'"
said Saskia Funston of USAID's Central Asia regional mission.
"By introducing the media to our programs, the positive
face of USAID foreign assistance is delivered directly to
the local population. Similarly, by educating religious leaders
in our purpose and scope of activities, they too are able
to spread the word."
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 saw a renaissance
of religious activity in Central Asia, as many people returned
to the Muslim faith after years of being repressed by the
antireligious Soviet system.
But recently, increased activity by radical groups such as
the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and Hizb ut-Tahrir
has alarmed the region. There have been several bombings,
including a suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent
in July 2004.
Hizb ut-Tahrir's membership numbers about 15,000-20,000 throughout
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Western
intelligence sources estimate IMU's membership at 3,000-5,000.
Funston said this increased presence of radical groups makes
it "critical to initiate a dialogue with religious leaders
and the media." Past participants of USAID-funded tours
in the region agree.
"We should all come together to make it work," said
Shokirjon Valiev, an imam from the Kokand region of Uzbekistan.
Back to Top ^
|
