Why reach out on the internet, if not to be part of a community? Statistically small, and spread out across the country though we may be, we all share a unique perspective. For months, my family and I found strength and comfort, information and provocative thoughts within our virtual community.
A morning or evening ritual has become "checking in" on blogs and boards. When contemplating my own blog and how I could add something of value to the community, the first thought was to make my daily surfing habit available and accessible to everyone:
THE BIGGEST ETHIOPIAN ADOPTION BLOGROLL ON THE INTERNET!
Other new features include:
SWERLFEEDS!
Every "Ethiopian Adoption Blog", "Other African Adoption Blog" and "Parent(s) Who've Adopted Transracially Blog" that has a feed has been subscribed to and is now a CLICK AWAY.
This saves you from having to subscribe to this list yourself! Make it YOUR morning/evening routine.
SWERLALERTS!
This is basically an "e-mailing" list -- for timely alerts, like "Hey, this person of interest is going to be on TV in a few hours" or for important site information. It will be used VERY SPARINGLY.
AMAZON STORE
This is a focused place for recommended books and products of interest to families like us, including books for adults and kids about adoption and race, products for co-sleeping and multicultural toys and gifts.
Our community has tremendous untapped economic, social and political power. Not conventional politics, where I'm sure everyone differs wildly, but specific to trying to uplift humanitarian efforts and stop easily treatable infectious diseases in Africa, eliminate racism domestically and support transracial families. For example, if I donate or buy something off the internet, I always try to go through a blog I like.
One question as I go forward is: "how much advocacy (for the above topics) do I include?" And, what causes? I've been working on two other link categories -- responsible shopping and non-profits. Literally, the list is endless and impossible to vet. Feedback is welcome.
After all, we're a community, so let's discuss!
Friday, March 30, 2007
Community
Thursday, March 22, 2007
A Family Affair
No Small Feat posted some interesting thoughts about public reaction to transracial international adoption. Check it out!
World Water Day
From UNICEF:
Please join us in taking a moment today, on World Water Day, to reflect on and raise awareness about the millions of children around the world who lack clean water.
Despite the apparent abundance of clean water in the United States and most of the developed world, more than 1 billion people around the world lack clean, safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation services. Some 400 Million children struggle to survive without safe water and basic sanitation, two basic health necessities we take for granted in the developed world.
UNICEF, with its formidable resources and global influence, is uniquely placed to lead the effort in providing sophisticated, large-scale, and permanent solutions to help those children threatened by unsafe water supplies and disease.
We invite you to view our photo essay about UNICEF's programs that provide clean water and sanitation to the world's most vulnerable children.
Take action and share your thoughts on our blog about how UNICEF's low-cost, high-impact water and sanitation programs save children's lives. By increasing awareness about the global impact of the water crisis, you are making a difference.
Thank you for your support and all you do to help UNICEF save kids' lives!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The Great Starbucks Debate!
In February, Starbucks officials said they wouldn't oppose efforts of Ethiopian farmers to trademark their coffees.
Oxfam later said, "Starbucks has balked at signing a voluntary licensing agreement and has refused to engage in good-faith discussions with Ethiopia about the trademarking initiative."
Frankly, I don't know what to think about the whole Starbucks dust-up. I've followed it closely. It seems to be this: Starbucks holds copyright on some "brands" of Ethiopian coffee beans (Ethiopia being the birthplace of coffee.) Oxfam is a British-based non-profit that is helping to organize collectives for "fair trade" -- the selling of goods at above-market prices. People who dig the free market feel this is tantamount to socialist-style price fixing. Other people (including the humanitarian arm of the Catholic and Lutheran churches), feel it is protecting the dignity of farmers and helping to strengthen democracy.
Currently, Oxfam is supporting the Ethiopian government's attempt to copyright four "brands" of beans, based on where they are grown, (the same way that the Champagne area of France has a copyright on their "brand" of sparking wine).
Starbucks, a company that tries to have a very "responsible" corporate identity, was accused of using back-channel pressure to prevent this from happening. They denied it, but always added that they felt their corporate attempts at educating farmers on better growing practices would be better for the farmers than these Oxfam-style collectives and that they paid above-market for their beans, anyway. Sincere or corporate smokescreen - anybody know?
Finally, Starbucks vowed publicly that they wouldn't interfere (don't know if they ever admitted that they HAD interfered...?)
IF ANYBODY OUT THERE KNOWS MORE, COMMENT!!!Starbucks targeted by Boston nonprofit
New Mexico Business Weekly - 2:31 PM MDT Wednesday, March 21, 2007
On the day of its annual shareholders meeting in Seattle, Starbucks Corp. has been targeted by a Boston-based nonprofit that's working to help Ethiopian coffee farmers trademark their coffees.
In full-page ads Wednesday in The Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Oxfam America of Boston said Seattle coffee giant Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) "refuses to sign an agreement recognizing Ethiopia's ownership of the trademarks of the country's coffees."
Oxfam says it's working with the farmers to obtain trademarks of famous Ethiopian coffees, including Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe.
Obtaining the trademarks, Oxfam officials said, would give "farmers a greater share of the retail value of their coffees."
"If Starbucks is seriously committed to humanity, it needs to change its position and agree to negotiate a licensing agreement with Ethiopia that respects its ownership of its unique coffee trademarks," said Seth Petchers of Oxfam, in a statement.
In February, Starbucks officials said they wouldn't oppose efforts of Ethiopian farmers to trademark their coffees.
Oxfam later said, "Starbucks has balked at signing a voluntary licensing agreement and has refused to engage in good-faith discussions with Ethiopia about the trademarking initiative."
This story was first reported by the Puget Sound Business Journal, an affiliated publication.
Ethiopia's First Plumpy'nut Factory Opens
Click on the UNICEF graphic to help end malnutrition!Until American companies "get on it and become competitive," he said, major manufacturing of the revolutionary food will remain minimal.
(Thanks to "spooky06" for the tip!)
Article by Indrias Getachew, UNICEF
UNICEF correspondent Sabine Dolan reports on Ann M. Veneman's inauguration of Ethiopia's first Plumpy'nut therapeutic food factory.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman inaugurated Ethiopia's first Plumpy'nut therapeutic food factory in Addis Ababa on February 20. The inauguration marks a joint venture between UNICEF, U.S. Fund for UNICEF board member Amy Robbins and the Hilina Enriched Foods Processing center.
Plumpy'nut is a high-protein and high-energy peanut-based paste used for the treatment of severely malnourished children. An estimated one and a half million children in Ethiopia are severely malnourished. At full capacity, Hilina Enriched Foods will produce up to 12 tons of the paste.
"Today as we open the doors of the fourth, and largest, factory in Africa that will produce Plumpy'nut, we are taking a step in the right direction in addressing the issue of malnutrition," said Veneman.
Generous solution
In 2005, Amy Robbins donated $1.3 million to UNICEF to allow the purchase and import of 267 tons of Plumpy'nut to Ethiopia. Formulated by French scientist Andre Briend in 1999, Plumpy'nut has been used to save children's lives in major emergency situations in Darfur, Niger and Malawi.
Plumpy'nut requires no preparation or special supervision so an untrained adult such as a parent can deliver it to a malnourished child at home, allowing governments to reduce the amount of money spent on therapeutic feeding stations. The paste has a two-year shelf life when unopened and stays fresh even after opening.
Though Plumpy'nut is relatively inexpensive and easy to transport, Robbins discovered that huge costs were incurred from its importation and that limited capacity at the French plant made it difficult to ensure timely food supplies from Europe.
To solve the problem, she donated $340,000 towards investment in the needed equipment to manufacture Plumpy'nut within Ethiopia.
Yesterday she visited a mother in South Omo, Ethiopia whose 10-month old baby was struggling with malnutrition but gaining weight by eating Plumpy'nut. "It was impressive because you see your investments, your partnerships are really tangible in the happy, healthy children and that expands to happy mothers and entire communities," said Robbins.
"I am a mother. I have four sons who are living in New York City and I am very disturbed by the fact that my sons have everything and there are so many children in the world who have nothing. And so I thought there was an opportunity to take the business expertise that I gained in New York and bring it here to Ethiopia."
Increased recovery rates
Malnutrition contributes to more than half of all child deaths in Ethiopia. The country's 2005 Demographic and Health Survey shows that 47 percent of Ethiopia's children are stunted, 38 percent underweight and 11 percent wasted.
"Recovery rates for severely under-nourished children have been as high as 90 to 95 percent by using Plumpy'nut as a therapeutic intervention," said Veneman. "Therapeutic foods are also helping AIDS patients who need adequate nutrition to absorb life-prolonging ARV treatment."
The under five mortality rate in Ethiopia has declined to 123 out of every 1,000 live births from peak levels in 1990 when one in every five children died before the age of five.
"Ethiopia has seen improvements in addressing malnutrition yet widespread hunger continues to exact an enormous cost in terms of human suffering and lost potential," said Veneman.
February 23, 2007
I had never heard of Plumpy'nut, but is sounds amazing. Why isn't it better known and better utilized? An article from ABC News may hold the answer:
Peanut Paste Saves Starving African Children
A Peanut-Based Food Paste Has Revolutionized the Treatment of Malnutrition in Africa
By KATE KLONICK
Oct. 1, 2006 — - It seems underwhelming in its plastic silver package, but Plumpy'nut, the peanut-based therapeutic food paste, is more than enough for hundreds of thousands of malnourished children.
Plumpy'nut, generically known as ready to use therapeutic food, or RUTF, is the invention of André Briend, a French pediatric nutritionist currently working with the World Health Organization.
For years, powdered milk laden with vitamins had been a solution to malnutrition. But preparing the milk required hygienic environments and refrigeration, which usually necessitated inpatient treatment, and was costly and time consuming.
Teaming with Michael Golden, an Irish nutritionist, Briend, who then worked for Action Against Hunger, sought to create a take-home, spoil-proof, preparation-free food to treat malnutrition.. In 1999, Plumpy'nut, a thick, edible, pastelike substance containing peanuts, vegetable oil, milk powder, vitamins and minerals, was created.
Each packet -- roughly the size of a cereal bar -- contains 500 calories of perfectly proportioned proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Two packets a day for two weeks are enough to nourish and rehabilitate a starving child.
Plumpy'nut Goes to Africa
Though the product was created almost seven years ago, it became widely used only in 2005 when the relief group Doctors Without Borders introduced it in Africa.
"It went a bit slowly," said Milton Tectonidis, a Doctors Without Borders special nutritionist. "They first came up with the product as an alternative to milk, tested it on inpatients, ran a number of trials ... and found the results were excellent."
By 2003, the group started giving Plumpy'nut to outpatients, said Tectonidis. "We worked with other NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] to test it out. In each case, it treated 1,000 or 2,000 patients, and we took inspiration from them. When we came out with it in 2005, we treated 60,000 in four months."
Since then, several hundred thousand malnourished children have been rehabilitated with Plumpy'nut, which is handed out in weeklong supplies -- a total of 14 packets -- to the mothers of starving children.
Perhaps more important than the number of children who've been helped by the peanut paste are the resources it has freed up in a resource-scarce environment.
"If you calculate the cost with all the staff and the water and the electric and the hygienic processing and construction," said Tectonidis, "it comes out as much more to treat inpatient than out-patient."
Instead, precious medical attention and relief resources can be devoted to the critically ill or those wounded in war.
Problems With Peanuts: Allergies in Africa
While widespread distribution of a peanut-based product like Plumpy'nut could pose a danger to allergy-prone children in the United States, that is not a concern on the African continent.
"Food allergy seems far less common in poor countries than in rich countries," said Briend. "This well-known observation has been explained by different factors, but apparently, crowding and repeated exposure to infections seem to play a role."
The dearth of allergies and asthma in developing nations, and the rapid growth of these ailments in industrialized countries (registered peanut allergies in the United States doubled from 1997-2002), is largely attributed to the hygiene hypothesis, a topic addressed in an April 2002 article in Science magazine called "Allergy, Parasites and the Hygiene Hypothesis."
"The lack of intense infections in industrialized countries, owing to improved hygiene, vaccination and use of antibiotics, may alter the immune system such that it responds inappropriately to innocuous substances," explained the article.
"After several years of using this product," said Briend, "and feeding several hundreds of thousands of severely malnourished patients with it, I never heard of a place where it was a real issue."
Buying the Basics
Recently, another product was developed. EZ Paste, generically known as BP-100, is similar to Plumpy'nut but does not contain peanuts. It does not have a commercial manufacturer.
As of 2006, only one company, the French-based Nutriset, was manufacturing Plumpy'nut and its individual ingredients for self-assembly.
"There should be hundreds of them," said Tectonidis, making products like Plumpy'nut.
But until American companies "get on it and become competitive," he said, major manufacturing of the revolutionary food will remain minimal.
Plumpy'nut costs roughly 25 cents per packet to manufacture, making a two-week supply (the amount usually needed to make a significant difference in malnutrition) costs roughly $7.
But by using peanut and milk surpluses in countries like the United States, where farmers are often paid to destroy their surplus crops, Tectonidis hopes to be able to buy the ingredients for RUTF wholesale, which would cut manufacturing costs in half.
"There could be a program where they get the raw materials for free and distribute it to the people all over the world," he said. "As long as they agree to sell the product without charging for the raw materials, we could get the product down to 10 or 12 cents a package."
The United Nations World Food Program could help such a collaboration, which Tectonidis said is urgently needed. "Young children in poor countries are dropping like flies due to acute malnutrition," he said.
Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Through the Computer, a Connection
I stumbled across this today and was touched:
I think sometimes, when we are caught up in becoming a family, we can unintentionally separate our children's birthplace from our children... This new development -- finding someone intimately connected with their birthplace, someone who understands firsthand the situation there -- well, it's pretty intense.
Read the post at Holding Still: internet magic.
What I Learned from Harlow's Monkey
Like many husbands, I was the reticent one, when it came to adoption. Unlike most, my reticence came from only one concern -- that I wouldn't be up to the task. That after a wonderful childhood, I'd encounter a daughter who felt unprepared to be African-American, but wasn't accepted as white, and would be doomed to be forever alienated by both cultures. And it would be my fault -- for "sins" of commission, adopting her in the first place and "sins" of omission -- not giving her the tools she needed to explore her African-American identity, her "blackness", as it were. If I could rule the process myself, I would have a few additional requirements for adoptive parents who wish to adopt transracially or transculturally - including proof that they had actively worked on investigating their own whiteness and that they have the ability to educate themselves and act as allies in the issues and concerns of communities of color. Because just loving and being "open" to a child of another race or culture is NOT ENOUGH. And just hoping that as a parent, one would be able to help them with racial "self-esteem" is NOT ENOUGH. Adoptive parents must be part of a larger movement of anti-racist work. If as a white adoptive parent, you can not picture yourself working within the political movement of your child's race or culture, then I believe you must take a hard look at why that is. This goes way, way beyond issues of whether you can love your child, or parent them if they have "special needs" or even whether you live in a diverse neighborhood or read books to them about their culture or take them to culture camps. This is about realizing that your little one is a member of a group of people with a long history of struggle at the hands of whiteness and you, as a member of that oppressive group, must be willing and able to step up and actively work towards dismantling those very structures. This means you will be risking your own membership in the elite group of whiteness; others who are part of the dominant structure will begin to challenge you, call you a traitor and try to bring you down. It won't be easy. You may even risk losing friends and family who won't agree or understand. In the White Racial Identity work by Helms* and Carter**, they point out that many white people who become actively involved in dismantling racism face a stage where they have to learn to give up their membership in the dominant white reference group and yet accept they will not be accepted as members of a community of color - having to exist being "betwixt and between." If adoptive parents can understand this, they might begin to understand the "betwixt and between" that their transracially adopted children will deal with in their lives. This is tough work. My advice for pre-adoptive parents who think I am being unreasonable in suggesting they engage themselves in active anti-racist work? They should reconsider whether they are really about the child or their own needs. Nobody ever said that this work was going to be comfortable or easy.
Having been very close to some transracial adopted kids myself, some of whom had issues, some of whom didn't, I wanted to do more research before initiating the process.
I searched for any kind of study of adult transracial adoptees, and immediately came across The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's The Gathering of the First Generation of Adult Korean Adoptees: Adoptees' Perceptions of International Adoption by Madelyn Freundlich and Joy Kim Lieberthal.
Check it all out. It is fascinating. For me, it also validated my concerns (how's that for a nice way of putting "scared the hell out of me"?). I wasn't SURPRISED, as I said in my first post, I keenly understand racism at work in our world. But I'm not the victim, my daughter will be. Here's the pertinent part:Experiences with Discrimination
Thoroughly freaked out, I hit the Transracial Adoptee blogs. I, evidently, am not alone in this, as almost everywhere I turned, I heard a variation on the complaint, "This blog is for me and my fellow Transracial Adoptees, and it's getting ruined by overly-sensitive adoptive parents, or ready-to-adopt parents, flaming my comment board." Ouch. (Twice the Rice, another great blog, candidly disclaims that she "doesn't do advice".)
The majority of respondents reported that they had experienced some form of discrimination while they were growing up. Race (70%) was cited more often as the basis for discrimination than was adoption (28%). A number of adoptees provided comments in response to the question, "If you felt any type of discrimination as you were growing up, are there any thoughts you would like to share about that experience?" The comments reflected a range of experiences. A few adoptees stated that they did not experience discrimination ["I feel like an oddball who grew up without experiencing any discrimination"]. Others recounted experiences with discrimination that they described as mild ["I didn't feel injured or threatened because it was infrequent or fairly mild;" "The only thing that bothered me was that a lot of people asked me if [or assumed] I was Chinese or Japanese;" "The discrimination was mainly the minor kinds of teasing that many children experience because of their peculiarities. Mine happened to be because I was Asian"]; as persistent ["It wasn't blatant -- just the everyday little things (ridicule, stares, comments, assumptions) which accumulated over a lifetime simply wore you down;" "Very sad memories of the constant teasing of my ethnicity, more frequent in elementary school but more intense in high school"]; or as severe ["It was very humiliating, degrading and painful"]. Some adoptees highlighted certain factors as most central to the discrimination they felt:
Adoptees described different responses to discrimination. Some stated that experiences with discrimination did not significantly affect them because of inner strength or that these experiences made them stronger:
Other adoptees reported a negative impact from their experiences with discrimination:
Having not flamed, but understanding the anxiety that would lead to defensiveness, that would, in turn, lead to flaming, I tried to find some middle ground (for the Buddhists in the crowd, the "middle path") between doing it badly and not doing it at all.
I came across Harlow's Monkey, an unflinching but thoughtful blog, written by a Korean Adoptee and social worker. My earliest posts, in a large part, were my "answers" to hers, my reflections on how her language impacted my thought process. The best thing that I can say is that she is smart enough and informed enough to channel emotions which adoptive parents often view as open hostility into lucid, well written, but intellectually and emotionally uncompromising views from the transracial adoptee's POV. Our childrens' POV (or possible POV). Most importantly, she is not someone who opposes international transracial adoption out of hand. She points to that middle path. So I tried figuring out how to encapsulate her world-view. Luckily, she just did it herself, deep in her recent post:
My conclusion is that we are going to be DIFFERENT. We will not be WHITE families. We won't even be "Multi-Cultural" families, since, as I stated in a previous post, our kids don't have the leverage to introduce their own culture into the family. We are swirled (or "swerled" in my Google-friendly parlance). It is OUR JOB to make the families Multi-Cultural, and that means leaving our "white" selves behind and embrace a culture, tastes, expression and history of another race and another culture, even though we will never be able to embody that culture. In other words, we must make sure that our household offers a MIXED experience, even though we, ourselves are NOT.
In order to hopefully make our homes more of a comfort zone for our children, we need to venture far out of our own. If we are asking our kids to be different, we need to do the same.
Monday, March 19, 2007
What's a "BOP"?
Oh, those wacky economists at the WORLD BANK (in this case, a branch of said global bank, the private sector INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL GROUP, and their buddies at the "think tank" WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE). They have come up with a fun new acronym for "dirt poor". It's called BOP, and it means... um, well, I'll let them explain:The 4 billion people at the base of the economic pyramid (BOP)—all those with incomes below $3,000 in local purchasing power—live in relative poverty. Their incomes in current U.S. dollars are less than $3.35 a day in Brazil, $2.11 in China, $1.89 in Ghana, and $1.56 in India.1 Yet together they have substantial purchasing power: the BOP constitutes a $5 trillion global consumer market.
THE WORLD BANK is one of those weird shadowy organizations that is always mentioned, always on the scene. Sometimes seemingly doing good, sometimes evil, sometimes... well, who knows? It's the kind of joint that makes the X-FILES seem almost credible. Although ostensibly a global organization, it is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The US is the biggest shareholder and the Executive Branch usually picks the president (currently former Deputy Secretary of Defence, Paul Wolfowitz). Ostensibly, the BANK is there to help ease the third world into the global economy, but is often charged with being an agent of "economic imperialism" -- i.e., making the third world a comfortable place for multinational companies to get cheap resources and labor. As for the WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE, well, anytime anybody mentions "think tank", I'm reaching for my foil-lined hat -- not that I think they're reading my mind, but, y'know, just to be cautious.
One thing that IS clear about the WORLD BANK brand of third-world economic development. It believes wholeheartedly in the free market system -- unfettered capitalism. Money is cool, but sometimes I do think charity h
as its place. Certainly, Bono's guru, Jeffrey Sachs argued strenuously in The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time that the free market alone could not bring Africa to health or build a coherent infrastructure. Before you label Sachs a "pinko", keep in mind, he also argued that a little sweatshop labor is okay, as it represents an important step onto the bottom rung of the global economic ladder.
Side note, The End of Poverty is an amazing book. If you've already read There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children, you've already exposed yourself to the human, micro dimension of extreme poverty. The End of Poverty is the macro picture: the "whys" and "hows". It is, by turns, hopeful and depressing, in that it provides a roadmap, then explains why, due to political and economic realities, of which the WORLD BANK is part, that roadmap will not be followed.
Back to the BOPS. Here's what the IFC has to say about charity and public works projects vs. free market capitalism:There are distinct differences between a market-based approach to poverty reduction and more traditional approaches. Traditional approaches often focus on the very poor, proceeding from the assumption that they are unable to help themselves and thus need charity or public assistance. A market-based approach starts from the recognition that being poor does not eliminate commerce and market processes: virtually all poor households trade cash or labor to meet much of their basic
Why is this important? Because this is the subtext of our approach to sub-Saharan Africa. This touches on Africa's debt load to the WORLD BANK and other institutions. It is part of the reason that the US decided to go it alone, with its partially redundant USAID organization instead of becoming a partner with the rest of the world with the GLOBAL FUND. This factors into the Ethiopia and Oxfam vs. Starbucks debate , which segues nicely into the larger "free trade" vs. "fair trade" debate.
needs. A market-based approach thus focuses on people as consumers and producers and on solutions that can make markets more efficient, competitive, and inclusive—so that the BOP can benefit from them.
Traditional approaches tend to address unmet needs for health care, clean water, or other basic necessities by setting targets for meeting those needs through direct public investments, subsidies, or other handouts. The goals may be worthy, but the results have not been strikingly successful.
Most crucially, this "charity" vs. "capitalism" debate is the HUGE philosophical wedge in health care, where both Clinton and Bush put patent protection ahead of human lives, for the benefit of the pharmaceutical companies and at the expense of those crazy BOPS. Thanks to the voluntary wealth-redistribution program of one Mr. Bill Gates and the undeniable sex appeal of Bono, the "charity" side seems to have scored some points, what with the decision to not patent that recently announced malaria medication and all. Maybe there are brighter days for Bops, just ahead.
Who's a BOP in sub-Saharan Africa? According to the report, just about everybody:Africa has a slightly smaller BOP market, at $429 billion. But the BOP is by far the region’s dominant consumer market, with 71% of purchasing power. It includes 486 million people—95% of the surveyed population.
In plain English, Africa has the least money of anywhere in the world to spend, and 95% of it's people live at the bottom of the pyramid. Elsewhere, it mentions that within the base of that pyramid, more live at the $500 a year range than at the $3,000 a year cut-off. Interestingly, if you inverse the numbers, you'll see that Africa's top 5% has a massively disproportionate 29% of the spending power.
The IFC report does adequately address some of the, granted, self-evident effects of extreme poverty:• Significant unmet needs. Most people in the BOP have no bank account and no access to modern financial services. Most do not own a phone. Many live in informal settlements, with no formal title to their dwelling. And many lack access to water and sanitation services, electricity, and basic health care.
The report passionately (well, passionately for an economic briefing) that the multinational companies and various stock markets are kissing off $5 TRILLION unless they can figure out ways to tap into this "BOP" market. Enlightened self-interest or greed, there is definitely a value to figuring out how to eliminate the "high cost of being poor" and bring better food, water, power and medical care to the extremely poor. The key, it seems, is product and marketing innovation.
• Dependence on informal or subsistence livelihoods. Most in the BOP lack good access to markets to sell their labor, handi-crafts, or crops and have no choice but to sell to local employers or to middlemen who exploit them. As subsistence and small-scale farmers and fishermen, they are uniquely vulnerable to destruction
of the natural resources they depend on but are powerless to protect (World Resources Institute and others 2005). In effect, informality and subsistence are poverty traps.
• Impacted by a BOP penalty. Many in the BOP, and perhaps most, pay higher prices for basic goods and services than do wealthier consumers—either in cash or in the effort they must expend to obtain them—and they often receive lower quality as well. This high cost of being poor is widely shared: it is not just the very poor who
often pay more for the transportation to reach a distant hospital or clinic than for the treatment, or who face exorbitant fees for loans or for transfers of remittances from relatives abroad.
The fascinating case of "strange bedfellows" is that may of these principles could also work for NGOs and public works programs.BOP business strategies that work:
I have not worked in the non-profit arena, or tried to (as the report highlights) become a major telecom in a politically disrupted country. The problems seem huge.
• Focusing on the BOP with unique products, unique services, or unique technologies that are appropriate to BOP needs and that require completely reimagining the business, often through significant investment of money and management talent. Examples are found in such sectors as water (point-of-use systems), food (healthier products), finance (microfinance and low-cost remittance systems), housing, and energy.
• Localizing value creation through franchising, through agent strategies that involve building local ecosystems of vendors or suppliers, or by treating the community as the customer, all of which usually involve substantial investment in capacity building
and training. Examples can be seen in health care (franchise and agent-based direct marketing), ICT (local phone entrepreneurs and resellers), food (agent-based distribution systems), water (community-based treatment systems), and energy (mini-hydropower systems).
• Enabling access to goods or services—financially (through single-use or other packaging strategies that lower purchase barriers, prepaid or other innovative business models that achieve the same result, or financing approaches) or physically (through novel distribution strategies or deployment of low-cost technologies).
Examples occur in food, ICT, and consumer products (in packaging goods and services in small unit sizes, or “sachets”) and in health care (such as cross-subsidies and community-based health insurance). And cutting across many sectors are financing strategies that range from microloans to mortgages.
• Unconventional partnering with governments, NGOs, or groups of multiple stakeholders to bring the necessary capabilities to the table. Examples are found in energy, transportation, health care, financial services, and food and consumer goods.
Where do multinational corporations fit into Africa? Where does charity end and economic sustainability take root? Are co-ops and local control the answer, or privatization and work-for-hire in factories and the like for recognizable brands?
Is there a place for industrious Americans with a strong connection to Africa to figure out how to combine spending power and ingenuity to help encourage economic independence and growth?
Just because I'm thinking about these things doesn't mean I have any answers. I don't even know if I have the right questions. I have a respect for the free market, but a concern about the "unfettered" part, as often human suffering is not listed as a column on the annual report.
that the free market alone could not bring Africa to health or build a coherent infrastructure. Before you label Sachs a "pinko", keep in mind, he also argued that a little sweatshop labor is okay, as it represents an important step onto the bottom rung of the global economic ladder.
, you've already exposed yourself to the human, micro dimension of extreme poverty. Sunday, March 18, 2007
Underwear, Toothbrush, Books?!?
If you or someone you know is traveling to Ethiopia during 2007, Zethiopia and Ethiopia Reads challenge you to TAKE ONE BOOK with you, because we believe that education is hope and books can change lives.
Thanks to t s e n a n e and her wonderful blog Ethiopian Adoption Travelogue for the tip-off:
TAKE ONE BOOK is a new initiative that wishes to make it a habit for all those traveling to Ethiopia to fill up the excess space in their suitcases with BOOKS.
USAID places Ethiopia's literacy rate at 22%! Ethiopia Reads is a non-profit that believes Ethiopia's future lies in education, specifically, giving Ethiopia's many young people the opportunity to learn to read.
The feisty grass-roots organization is changing the culture of Ethiopia by establishing libraries and other literacy programs, including publishing books in local languages and offering continuing education programs to help educators in Ethiopia nurture a love of reading. Their crowning achievement is the SHOLA CHILDREN'S LIBRARY, the first free children's library in Addis. In 2006, the library logged 60,000 visits!
Ethiopia Reads urges:If you or someone you know is traveling to Ethiopia during 2007, Zethiopia and Ethiopia Reads challenge you to TAKE ONE BOOK with you, because we believe that education is hope and books can change lives.
There are, of course, other ways to help this amazing organization, including a tax-deductible cash donation, via their PAYPAL button, or via check.
For more information on the TAKE ONE BOOK campaign, please contact Catie Dupont at ethiopiareads@aol.com.
Books can be dropped off at Shola Children’s Library. Shola is located in Beklo-bet, behind the Dashen bank off of Debre Zeit road.
Another fine idea is to buy PULLING THE LION'S TAIL by Jane Kurtz. Jane was raised in Ethiopia and is one of the founders of Ethiopia Reads. She has written a slew of books about Ethiopia. 100% of her profits from this title goes to Ethiopia Reads.
Ethiopia Reads has some other fun ideas to help:
P.O. Box 2677
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
There will be a overseas rate for sending materials to Addis Ababa so be sure to take the package to the post office so the amount of postage can be computed.Steal this graphic, link it to http://ethiopiareads.org! Pass the word!
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Swerl POV: Angelina Jolie
Show of hands, folks -- how many of you have gotten ANY form of the "Brad and Angelina" jokes? You tell family and friends of your news -- you got a referral, you got your homestudy approved, etc., and the response is "Better hurry before Angelina takes all the cute ones!" or "Didn't you hear? Ethiopia is soooo yesterday, Vietnam is where it's at!"
Now that Angelina has brought home Pax, international transracial adoption is once again bracing for another round of ANGELINA: LOVE HER OR HATE HER. Currently, she is the public face of our extended "ITA" family -- how does that make you feel? (This is not rhetorical, seriously, COMMENT!)
How do you feel when international adoption is reduced to the following (all culled from the comment section of TMZ.com:She collects kids like lap dogs or an "accessory". This month's accessory of the month is a Vietnamese kids. Next month, it will be a Laotian kid. Pretty soon she'll open up her own orphanage for her adopted kids taken care of by "nannies".
"That kid over there would go good with my Vera Wang outfit!"
And, most directly:HOW BOUT ADOPTING FROM THE COUNTRY YOU LIVE IN, HELLLLOOOO AMERICAN CHILDREN ARE JUST AS NEGLECTED AS VIETNAME (sic) OR NAMIBIA OR F***ING CAMBODIA! IT SEEMS LIKE THIS B**** "BUYS" BABIES LIKE ITS A F***ING FAD...
And there it is... FAD. After soul-searching, agonizing decisions and a commitment to a very visible, potentially difficult lifestyle, this irreversible choice to add to your family through international, transracial adoption is being reduced to the most ephemeral media hype.
A complicated, emotional topic is reduced to a referendum on a celebrity. News, in the 24 hour cycle, gets turned into opinion, then drama -- "why not adopt from America?" "what is she trying to prove with her multicultural kids?" "who's the next celebrity to jump on board the 'trend'?" We are then either compared to, or asked to answer for, a woman we don't know -- sometimes by those in our families, communities, churches or schools.
One explanation is that there IS NO FAD. Angelina grew up with a narcissistic, often absent father. She acted out in showy, self-destructive ways, then, while filming a movie in Cambodia, realized that life exists beyond the Beverly Center Mall. She felt pulled to adopt a Cambodian child. Her husband at the time wasn't on board with this idea, and the marriage dissolved over this issue. She felt the need to do humanitarian work, to honor all those kids still in orphanages or refugee camps. A combination of that work and the realization that she had more love to give caused her to adopt more children. She met a guy. They fell in love. They had a baby. She does not feel a difference between her biological child and her adopted children. In fact, when pressed, she admits that the contrary is true -- her adopted children have been in her life longer, so, in some ways, she feels a stronger connection to them. She once again feels capable and willing to adopt, and would also like her oldest child to have a male playmate with whom he can relate. She adopts again. She keeps it quiet until the last moment. She gives money to the orphanage that helped raise her new son.
EVERY person who adopts internationally can relate to elements of this story. Is Angelina perfect? Who is? Does she mean well? Who cares? Did she bend rules? She said she didn't, but we all know how harrowing the process is, and everyone, to some extent, pads their case (who actually lives up the their portrayal in the letters of recommendation, for instance?) Finally, we know OUR OWN motivations. This is why it is so hurtful when, through the prism of Angelina, international transracial adoption is portrayed as...
...buying babies
...treating children as ego-stroking accessories
..."collecting" foreign children
...less valid than pregnancy
...a gross attempt to play "martyr" or "saint"
...insensitive to or rejecting of American kids in foster care
...a profound, life-altering decision(life-altering for us AND our children) made with all the thought that one would give a haircut (does it make me look "cool"?).
How does the media coverage of Angelina affect you?
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
NPR: Ethiopian-American Artists Make Their Mark
Click over to NPR to hear and read about a vibrant and successful new generation of Ethiopian-American artists. You can hear the whole report, which aired on "Morning Edition", hear or read excerpts from the novel by Dinaw Mengestu (pictured left), The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, listen to music by hip-hop artist Gabriel Teodros and see the work of "art world star", painter Julie Mehretu.
NPR: Ethiopian-American Artists Make Their Mark
About Dinaw Mengestu
MySpace: Gabriel Teodros
About Julie Mehretu
'Tadias' Magazine
Sunday, March 11, 2007
US Army in Ethiopia: DISCOVERY'S "Our Children's Children's War"
At 9:00 PM, Eastern time - TONIGHT (Sunday, March 11th, 2007), Ted Koppel explores the future of the war on terrorism, in the special "Our Children's Children's War" on Discovery.
When promoting the show on "Meet the Press" this morning, Koppel showed a clip, in which Special Forces were on the ground, training Ethiopian soldiers. He explained that a few weeks later, those forces helped contain the Islamic extremist rebels in Somalia. More interestingly, he mentioned the Army is now focusing on intervening in Africa to a greater extent, doing both humanitarian work and, obviously, offering military training and support. Koppel explains that the Army views this as the future of the war on terrorism -- training and motivating indigenous forces to do the brunt of the fighting against Islamic extremists.
Read and watch more on his DISCOVERY site.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
"The Frog Princess" will introduce the newest Disney princess, Maddy, a young African-American girl
Answering calls from many in the African-American community, as well as all of us at a loss to explain to our transracially adopted daughters why the incredibly popular DISNEY PRINCESSES line of toys and products didn't have a princess for them, Disney announces a new feature film, "THE FROG PRINCESS". In keeping with the rest of the films that spawned princesses, but in a major departure from Disney's previously-stated plans, the film will be produced as a "2-D" cartoon, not as a computer-generated movie.
Here's what Disney had to say:
March 08, 2007
DISNEY'S 2009 ANIMATED RELEASE "THE FROG PRINCESS" TAPS INTO STUDIO'S RICH FAIRY TALE LEGACY
OSCAR-WINNER RANDY NEWMAN TEAMS UP WITH ACCLAIMED VETERAN DIRECTORS MUSKER & CLEMENTS
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana – (March 8, 2007) -- The Walt Disney Studios will continue its fairy tale legacy in animation by taking moviegoers on an all-new "once upon a time" musical adventure with its 2009 release of "The Frog Princess," it was announced today by Dick Cook, chairman of The Walt Disney Studios, and John Lasseter, chief creative officer for Disney and Pixar Animation Studios.
A musical set in the legendary birthplace of jazz – New Orleans -- "The Frog Princess" will introduce the newest Disney princess, Maddy, a young African-American girl living amid the charming elegance and grandeur of the fabled French Quarter. From the heart of Louisiana's mystical bayous and the banks of the mighty Mississippi comes an unforgettable tale of love, enchantment and discovery with a soulful singing crocodile, voodoo spells and Cajun charm at every turn.
"The Frog Princess" is based on an original story written by Disney's acclaimed filmmaking duo John Musker & Ron Clements ("The Little Mermaid," "Aladdin," "Hercules"), who will also direct. Oscar®-winning songwriter/composer and New Orleans native Randy Newman ("Toy Story," "A Bug's Life," "Toy Story 2," "Monsters, Inc." and "Cars") will write songs and the score for this project. Peter Del Vecho, a 12-year Disney animation veteran, will produce.
Commenting on the announcement from The Walt Disney Company's 2007 Annual Meeting of shareholders, Cook said, "We're pleased to be here in the heart of New Orleans to announce 'The Frog Princess,' a great story with all the ingredients that go into making an extraordinary motion picture experience. Like many of Disney's most popular fairy tales, it has elements of magic, fantasy, adventure, heart, humor, and music. The film's New Orleans setting and strong princess character give the film lots of excitement and texture. We're also thrilled to have John Musker, Ron Clements and Randy Newman lending their talents and creative energies to this project. John and Ron helped to usher in Disney's second golden age of animation nearly two decades ago with 'The Little Mermaid,' and are on track to create the Studio's next great fairy tale adventure."
John Lasseter added, "Aside from being longtime friends and colleagues, John and Ron are two of the most influential and imaginative filmmakers in the animation medium, and I am so excited to be working with them in bringing their creative vision for 'The Frog Princess' to the big screen. They've come up with an original story that is deeply rooted in the fairy tale tradition, and it's filled with great humor, emotion, and musical moments. Randy Newman brings fun and excitement to every project, and I couldn't think of a better choice to deliver some wonderful New Orleans style music."
Maddy, the animated heroine in "The Frog Princess," will also join The Walt Disney Company's venerable court of beloved Disney princesses as they continue to enjoy the royal treatment at Disney's theme parks, consumer products, publishing, Internet and other businesses worldwide.
'American Idol' to Aid Poverty Fight in Africa, America
Originally posted on the LA TIMES: QUICK TAKES
written by Greg Braxton, March 10, 2007
"American Idol" will stage a two-night charity event next month to benefit organizations that help children and young people in extreme poverty in America and Africa.
The top-rated Fox series is partnering with the Charity Projects Entertainment Fund for "Idol Gives Back," which will be broadcast April 24 and 25.
The first night will feature the top six "Idol" finalists performing songs that can be considered "life anthems." The second night will bring performances by Gwen Stefani, Josh Groban, Pink, Michael Bublé, Annie Lennox, Il Divo and popular movie character Borat Sagdiyev (Sacha Baron Cohen). Viewers that night will also be able to make donations via toll-free lines and the Internet.
The money raised by the two shows will be distributed equally between the U.S. and Africa.
According to other sources, Bono is also planning on taking part in some way. In addition to donations, the show's sponsors will donate amounts dictated by the number of votes received.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Black Children, White Parents
I must admit that I do now have some concerns about the capacity of a large number of these [WHITE] adoptive parents to help their [African-American] children learn to deal effectively with the problems that will most probably arise as a result of being black in America.
This article was originally posted on NEW YORK HOME STUDY
White Parents - Black Children
by Miriam Vieni
For more information, contact
Miriam Vieni, New York Home Study Service at miriamvieni@optonline.net
Many years ago, I wrote an article which appeared in Social Work, defending transracial adoption as a solution for homeless black children. I was writing in response to an article by a black sociologist who was highly critical of the practice of placing black children with white adoptive parents.
I still believe that a black child, placed with loving white adoptive parents, is better off than he or she would be in an institution or a foster home, even if the foster parents are black. I also believe that the potential success of a foster home must be judged on an individual basis rather than on the basis of race alone.
However, our family has been through several changes since I wrote that article and in addition, I have a good deal more contact with white couples in the N.Y. metropolitan area who have either already adopted black children, or who are contemplating such an adoption. I must admit that I do now have some concerns about the capacity of a large number of these adoptive parents to help their children learn to deal effectively with the problems that will most probably arise as a result of being black in America. There is no doubt in my mind that the white parents of black children whom I have met, very much love their children and will therefore be able to help them develop a basic sense of worth and identity. They will guide their children toward the fulfullment of their individual potentialities.
The problem is that this is not enough. The family must act as the primary agent of socialization, helping its members to absorb the surrounding culture and providing role models so that children can learn to behave in socially constructive ways. Helping a black child to become a complete human being is a very difficult job because our society (1) arbitrarily defines certain individuals as black (2) segregates such individuals into a separate caste and (3) makes unreasonable and often conflicting demands on them. It becomes the function of the parents to make the basic racial insanity of white society explicit to the black child so that he does not internalize destructive values.
One of the issues which seems to cause tremendous difficulty for white adoptive parents is the definition of their children as black. Social agencies, which prefer to place light skinned or “interracial” children with white couples, often add to the problem. White adoptive parents, often, have not begun to think actively about racial issues or determine what their feelings about race are, until the black child is already in their home and the world outside the home has started to send confusing, unpleasant or absolutely negative messages into the home. Because, like other white Americans, adoptive parents perceive the races as separate entities and identify themsleves as being white, they are quick to capitalize on whatever white ancestry their black child may have, and to emphasize the child’s “white” characteristics as a link between the child and themselves. I have heard parents say that their black children have been mistaken by others as their biological children or that the child is not “just” black because one of his parents or grandparents was white. They miss the point that most black people in America have white ancestry, that here, there is no such thing as a “pure” black child, that if you look at a large number of black people, you will see many with features or characteristics that can be recognized as Caucasian. But always, to white Americans, it is the bit of BLACK ancestry that defines an indiviual and their actions toward him, and feelings about him will be influenced by their perceptions of him. A majority of white Americans are so concious of race, that dark skin, in and of itself, often causes them to define an individual as “black” whether or not he actually has any African ancestry.
This complicated and confusing reality is what we will have to help our black children understand. They need to know that people’s negative responses to them are not caused by something inside them, but by the sickness and fear inside the people who are responding negatively. They also need to learn that it is irrational to first define a person according to his race or skin color and then, only later, to perceive his uniqueness and become aware of his personal characteristics.
Another issue which seems to worry a lot of transracially adopting parents is where they should live. Many opt for an “integrated” neighborhood where, they believe, their interracial family will “fit in” comfortably. Because they identify themselves as white and often have white children as well as black children, they try very hard to find an area with a “good racial balance.” Just like most other white Americans, they mean a neighborhood where there are an equal number of black and white families, preferably, more white families than black families to “approximate the natural racial percentages in America.” They worry about racial balance in the schools their children attend and are concerned if they believe “the races are polarized.” They pride themselves on living in a community “where there are many kinds of people living in harmony.” All of it is a beautiful dream, the dream of naive white Americans who have not had to deal with the realities of being black in America.
Black people know the reality for the nightmare it really is. Ther know that if more than a few of them move into an area, white people begin to flee. They know that it is close to impossible to maintain a racial balance in schools because once the percentage of black children rises above 20 or 25 percent, white people take their children out of the schools and the percentage of black children rockets to 90 percent as a result. They know that if white people see a large number of black children in a school, then they are sure that the school must, by definition, be bad; that if there is a large percentage of black people living in a neighborhood it is considered by white people to be undesirable. They know that economic and political forces cause the deterioration of neighborhoods, not their black inhabitants, and that they have to fight every inch of the way to keep their neighborhoods safe and the quality of education in their schools high because white society tends to “dump” its problem population into areas where large numbers of black people live.
Some white parents of black children choose to remain in all white communities. Often the choice is dictated by economic pressures or is made because of family ties or other deep roots in the community. But sometimes, the choice is motivated by fear of living in racially integrated communities or reluctance to take on the problems involved in living in such neighborhoods. We do not yet have the results of research to tell us how the lives of adopted black children are affected by such choices on the part of their parents. We can only guess that black children, growing up isolated from other black people, may feel alienated from them because they have not learned the typical modes of verbal and non-verbal communication, and the implicit system of values and knowledge communicated among black people. While white America will define these individuals as black and the will be expected by both blacks and whites to function comfortably within black groups, they will not have the techniques to help them do so. Adoptive parents, who have been hearing about the importance of “black identity”, often try to expose their children to Black History or teach them about “black culture.” The children may then KNOW ABOUT black people but they will not KNOW black people unless they have daily contact with them. Many parents, who normally would have no contact with black adults, try to seek out black friends or find black playmates with their chidlren. There is, of course, an artificiality to these contrived situations, but they are honest attempts on the part of adoptive parents to handle the problem of their children’s isolation.
I believe that the most positive situation for the adopted black child occurs when the adoption is an outgrowth of the parents’ awareness of the reality and implications of race relations and when the adoptive parents have struggled with their own internal attitudes BEFORE the child comes into the home. I certainly would not expect anyone to have completely resolved the problems. Parents of black children function under unbelievable pressure from society and from within themselves. They have to develop a clear and consistent philosophy concerning black/white relations in the U.S., separate from their feelings about their adopted black children. I strongly suspect that part of this new philosophy is relinquishment of the strong identification with whites. It is not that one no longer recognizes that he or she is white but rather, that this racial definition is no longer of prime importance. This is a new way for most white adoptive parents of perceiving people. If they have white children, their attitudes must extend to thtem. There is a corollary to this which may seem contradictory. One must be committed to help in whatever way is possible, in the struggle of black people to attain their rightful place in America. Racism in our society is not only a personal problem–it is institutional. Our own adopted black children will never be completely safe and secure, nor will our adopted or biological white children, until all of the people in our country can look forward to a life of dignity.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Swerl Activist Spotlight: Bono Recognized by the NAACP
Bono used his acceptance speech for the NAACP's Chairman's Award on Friday, March 2 to draw attention to the ongoing health crisis in Africa, encouraging those with strong religious principles to be at the forefront of fighting AIDS, malaria and extreme poverty. He also referred to the NAACP and ONE forming a stronger alliance.
Listen to the end, it's quite inspiring:
Swerl Africa Heath Alert: New Malaria Drug to Save Millions
Malaria Drugs Could Cut Deaths in Africa
By MARIA CHENG
The Associated Press
Thursday, March 1, 2007; 6:13 AM
LONDON -- The first affordable combination anti-malarial drug tailored for children will soon be available across Africa, potentially saving millions of lives, the nonprofit organization and the pharmaceuticals giant who worked to develop it said Thursday.
The new medication, known as ASAQ, combines two of the most effective drugs known to treat malaria, artesunate and amodiaquine.
ASAQ is the result of a $21 million, two-year project by the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative and pharmaceutical manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis. To make the drugs available where they are most needed, the new drug is not patented and will be available to anyone who wants to manufacture it.
"This drug will save lives," said Dr. Bernard Pecoul, executive director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative. "The aim of this project was to develop a product as adapted as possible to the malaria situation in Africa."
The drug already has been registered in Morocco, and has been authorized in 10 other African countries.
Every year there are as many as 500 million cases of malaria worldwide with more than 1 million deaths. The disease primarily affects children under 5 in sub-Saharan Africa.
If ASAQ and other drugs like it are made widely available, along with other anti-malaria weapons such as bed nets impregnated with insecticide, the number of malaria cases in Africa could be dramatically cut.
Instead of cutting two different pills intended for adults into child-appropriate sizes _ a less-then precise method _ health care workers will now be able to give children a single pill.
The drug comes in four formulations, including versions for infants and children over 13, or adults. ASAQ merges two pills into one, making it easier both to prescribe and to take. Children will need to take one tablet per day for three days.
"Having a fixed-dose combination is a significant advance," said Dr. Chris Hentschel, president and CEO of the Medicines for Malaria Venture. "The fewer pills people have to take, the more chance they will actually take them."
In addition, the problem of resistance developing should be lessened. Experts worry that when patients have multiple pills to take, they may not take all of both sets of pills, which can lead to the development of resistance. But because ASAQ combines two drugs in one, there are fewer concerns about patients taking their full doses.
ASAQ is the first of numerous malaria treatments in the drug development pipeline, which marks a new era in anti-malarials.
"We need a greater diversity of drugs to drive the prices down to affordable levels," said Dr. Sylvia Meek, technical director at the Malaria Consortium.
As a result of new partnerships between public and private sectors, as well as an injection of funds from organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, there is a newfound drive to develop new drugs for Africa, which has previously been seen as unprofitable.
ASAQ is cheaper than other currently available fixed-dose combinations, and will be available at-cost price to countries battling malaria, international organizations, and non-governmental organizations.
The pills cost less than 50 cents for children, and less than $1 for older children and adults. Even at these relatively low costs, however, that may still be too expensive for Africa.
"Only 5 percent of people who need anti-malaria drugs get them," said Dr. Nick White, a malaria expert at Mahidol University, Bangkok. "That's pathetic and we need to do better."
Malaria is one of the top three killer diseases in Africa. It is transmitted to people from mosquitoes and usually causes symptoms including fever, vomiting, headaches, and other flu-like symptoms. If left untreated, the disease can be fatal.
