THE PILLARS
In this section:
Global Trust Fund Backs Seed Banks
Local Firms Helped to Protect Environment
Eye Surgeons Cure Nepalis’ Cataracts
Volunteers Spread Better Health Ideas, Techniques
in Guinea
ECONOMIC GROWTH, AGRICULTURE, AND TRADE
Global Trust Fund Backs Seed Banks
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Lab workers at a gene bank at one of the Consultative
Group of International Agricultural Research centers
in Mexico, sorting through seeds and selecting high-protein
corn kernels for preservation in cold storage units.
Cutberto Garcia Ramos, USAID |
Eight years in the making, a global seed bank trust to conserve
crop varieties from around the world became an independent
international organization October 21, 2004.
To demonstrate its commitment and to encourage other countries
to donate, USAID put $5 million of “earnest money”
into a World Bank account in the Global Crop Diversity Trust’s
name last year.
Once fully endowed, the Trust will provide about $12 million
annually to seed banks around the world, ensuring a stable
source of funding so that they can better store and catalogue
seed and plant samples. To date, the Trust has raised about
$51 million for a hoped-for $260 million endowment.
Preserving seeds of wild plants from which today’s modern
crops originate is crucial to protecting the world agricultural
heritage and richness, said Emmy Simmons, Assistant Administrator
for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade.
“Today we have the capability of analyzing life at the
level of the gene,” she said. “We need seeds characterized
and stored under good conditions so that they will be available
to future scientists.”
Seed banks, also called gene banks, help scientists track
existing seeds and create new varieties.
While working at the West African Rice Development Authority
(WARDA), scientist Monty Jones, for instance, combined African
rice seeds with Asian rice to make a variety that tastes better
and gives higher yields—“new rice for Africa”—which
won him the 2004 World Food Prize.
The traditional African rice varieties that Jones used had
been passed on mainly by women farmers, who liked their aroma
and taste. The heads were so big and fragile, though, that
the plants would tip over before farmers could harvest the
rice. Analyzing varieties stored and catalogued by International
Rice Research Institute (IRRI) rice gene bank in the Philippines,
Jones looked for characteristics that African rice lacked.
The new rice varieties have higher yields, less fragile heads,
and compete better against weeds. And, unlike the hybrids
of the past, this variety formed from two species produces
seeds that can be replanted. So farmers need not purchase
new seed each season.
IRRI and WARDA are part of the Consultative Group of International
Agricultural Research (CGIAR) centers, which have a rich trove
of seeds and plant material. The CGIAR’s gene banks,
which have more than 666,000 plant or seed samples, will receive
funds from the Trust. (See FrontLines June 2004, Mexico gene
bank story).
“The CGIAR has the largest and most organized system
in the world,” said Simmons, adding that within the CGIAR
network of donors, “We’ve been strong advocates
[for the Trust]. We funded initial activities and a feasibility
study.”
To help set up the trust, EGAT also gave a grant to the International
Plant Genetic Resources Institute, which hosted the new organization
until it became independent.
Agency staff also gave technical and policy advice. EGAT
agricultural expert Rob Bertram served as USAID’s negotiator,
alongside other U.S. government negotiators, helping to shape
the treaty that paved the way for the new international organization.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE
Local Firms Helped to Protect Environment
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A fishmeal production company in Pisco, Peru, one
of the many sites that have developed clean production
audits. These audits are used as know-how for small
and medium enterprises to use in the supply chain project.
This picture shows part of the prime fishmeal process:
rotary dryers, mill, and countercurrent dryer.
Miguel Franco, PA Consulting Group |
When
the growing number of small industries in Mexico and other
developing countries expand production, they often need help
in meeting international or even local standards for environmental
protection, which can be costly or beyond their technical
capacities.
Many
of these firms supply parts and materials to multinational
corporations, which prefer to purchase from contractors that
meet these standards.
In Mexico,
for instance, U.S. assistance helped a company printing aluminum
foil to find ways to treat wastewater from chemical processes
and to increase air circulation in solvent-rich environments.
One company
developed an internal process for treating wastewater and
recovering metals from copper and chrome electrolytic baths;
another found ways to reduce levels of enamel and varnish
needed to coat the interior surface of aluminum containers.
In Mexico,
the 100 largest multinational corporations—together with
their first-, second-, and third-tier suppliers—account
for more than 70 percent of all Mexican industrial production
for export.
Through
USAID support, American corporations are encouraging supplier
firms in Brazil and Mexico to improve productivity, reduce
waste, and meet local and international environmental standards
in production.
The Greening
the Supply Chain Initiative—a public-private alliance
with USAID and the World Environmental Center that brings
together companies like Johnson & Johnson, Alcoa Fujikura
Ltd (a subsidiary of Alcoa), and Dow Chemical—is working
with 13 suppliers in Brazil.
comes after completion of a pilot project with 25 small and
medium supplier firms in Mexico.
Multinational
corporations are required to meet international standards
and generally have the capacity to do so, but their suppliers
in developing countries are neither bound by international
standards nor have the ability to meet them if they were willing.
But non-compliance means a firm is less competitive on the
international market, which is why suppliers are now voluntarily
“greening the supply chain.”
“This
activity is unique in that supplier companies work largely
on their own, and they don’t need arm-twisting to recognize
what is in their own interests,” said Dr. Gilbert Jackson,
environmental protection specialist with the Bureau for Economic
Growth, Agriculture, and Trade. “They put in their own
investments and their own resources.”
Suppliers
are also participating because foreign investors and multinational
companies increasingly deal only with local supplies that
meet international standards.
Under cleaner production concepts, processes with excess time, material,
and energy are identified and then altered to reduce environmental
impact and overall production costs.
Training
workshops introduce cleaner production concepts and techniques
such as recycling, while follow-up visits bring additional
support and technical assistance.
The program
was first field tested by Johnson & Johnson.
USAID’s
investment of $150,000 was doubled by partner contributions.
Small
and medium-sized firms “probably have greater environmental
impact than major multinationals, but their production processes
are largely unregulated,” said Mark Jackson, director
of Alcoa’s Environmental Health and Safety unit. “This
initiative is a solution that will demonstrate increasing
results over time.”
DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
Eye Surgeons Cure Nepalis’ Cataract
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Dr. Geoff Tabin examines a postoperative cataract patient
who had been blind for many years prior to surgery.
Moments after the eye patch is removed, the patient
is able to count the number of fingers that Tabin holds
up.
Michael Amendolia |
KATHMANDU, Nepal—Ten years ago, Dr. Geoff Tabin
and Dr. Sanduk Ruit set out to eradicate treatable blindness
in the Himalaya Mountains. They have introduced new technologies,
performed surgeries, and trained doctors. Finally, they established
Nepal’s first outpatient cataract surgery facility, the
Tilganga Eye Center, which is now expanding through USAID
funding.
Nepal is now the first Asian country where more cases of
cataract are cured through surgery each year than the number
of new cases of the disease. This has helped tackle the nation’s
enormous backlog of 200,000 treatable cases.
“This is a tremendous achievement,”
Dr. Tabin was quoted as saying in the publication EuroTimes.
“But it’s not because Dr. Ruit and I go off into
remote areas and do 50 operations each, but because we’ve
always kept the emphasis on teaching—the training of
new surgeons and the retraining” of surgeons.
In September 2003, the doctors’ Himalayan
Cataract Project was featured in an hour-long National Geographic
documentary, Miracle Doctors. The film follows the doctors
to the small village of Kagbeni—in the remote Mustang
region of Nepal—as they perform cataract surgery and
restore sight to scores of blind people.
A similar feature ran in People magazine.
By winter of 2003, the Himalayan Cataract
Project opened two new surgery facilities in outlying regions:
one in Hetauda, Nepal, and one in Kalimpong, Sikkim. Another
is in the works in Xining, China.
At that time, USAID awarded the doctors a
grant through the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (PVC/ASHA)
office, part of the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian
Assistance.
ASHA helps schools, libraries, and medical
centers overseas through exchanges with U.S. professionals,
grants for building or renovation of facilities, and purchases
of scientific, medical, and educational equipment.
The grant helped expand the Tilganga Eye Center,
where demand outpaces physical capacity. The center is now
adding an outpatient clinic, subspecialty clinics, and educational
space for a new residency program. There are also plans for
three additional floors to house an operating theatre, recovery
beds, research space, and a microbiology lab.
There is now a complete set of American-standard
ophthalmic specialists on the faculty at Tilganga. The Himalayan
Cataract Project has supported fellowships for the specialists
in the United States and Australia.
The ophthalmologists will now train a new
generation of specialists. Tilganga’s first three-year
residency program in ophthalmology began this summer.
The project is self-sustaining, said Dr. Tabin.
“Lots of people we’ve taught are
teaching others, and even some of their students are now teaching
as well,” he was quoted as saying.
GLOBAL HEALTH
Volunteers Spread Better Health Ideas, Techniques in Guinea
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Nursing women in Bagui Center village gather for a
presentation on the importance of vitamin A for mothers
and young children.
Laura Lartigue, USAID |
BAGUI CENTer, Guinea—This village is one the
poorest and most remote in Upper Guinea, but local volunteer
healthcare networks have been able to improve nutrition levels
of mothers and children.
In 1999, Guinea ranked as the fifth worst country in the
world—out of 193 countries studied—in terms of the
mortality of children under age 5, according to a UNICEF report.
But by last year Guinea had improved by 17 positions on the
list to number 171, in part due to U.S. aid projects.
In the prefecture of Dinguiraye, for example, which includes
Bagui Center, the network of healthcare volunteers helped
cut malnutrition levels from 44 percent in 1996 to 17 percent
this year.
Volunteers deliver vitamin A supplements to all mothers within
a week of delivery and train local government officials, community
leaders, clerics, and agricultural groups—all of whom
then go back to their villages and talk about what they learned.
“I have learned a lot…over the past few years,
and I have noticed a difference in people’s health,”
said Mariam Diop, a village birthing attendant from Bagui
Center.
“During the dry season, there were many cases of measles,
and it killed many children in our community. Now we hardly
have any cases, and when it appears it doesn’t have a
devastating effect because children are in better health.”
Volunteers are teaching 50 women’s groups about mango
drying, other ways to process food, literacy, marketing, business,
agricultural production, and vegetable gardening. Another
50 male-dominated groups get similar on-the-ground support.
Sixty percent of the women’s groups are officially recognized
by the Guinean government, and as such can use their status
to solicit additional financial support from NGOs or other
governmental organizations.
“The first advice I give to women is to breastfeed right
from the beginning to make sure the baby gets colostrum, and
to keep breastfeeding exclusively for the first six months,”
said Binta Gack, a community health volunteer who also talks
to villagers about family planning.
In terms of overall health in Guinea, the numbers are still
grim, but their change is a significant improvement, given
the difficult living conditions, said Sandra Jordan, the Bureau
for Global Health country coordinator for Guinea.
“Guinea’s health statistics are among the worst
in the world, with infant, child, and maternal mortality at
very high levels,” Jordan said. “The country has
weak health systems, poor infrastructure, and the mission
has had to cope with the health issues in post-conflict Sierra
Leone and the Forest Region of Guinea, as well as with a burgeoning
HIV/AIDS rate.”
Conflicts in neighboring Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea Bissau,
and now Ivory Coast have spilled over into Guinea, which,
over the past ten years, has hosted up to a million refugees
from those countries.
USAID/Guinea is investing $6.2 million this year in NGOs
like Africare, Helen Keller, and PRISM in Guinea so that these
groups can continue to support the volunteer healthcare networks.
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