THE REGIONS
In this section:
Kenyan Girls Sponsored to Study Abroad
Haiti’s Storm Cleanup Progresses as Part
of $118M Dedicated to Caribbean Floods
Jordan’s Stock Exchange Booms with U.S.
Support
Albanian and Serbian Kosovars Working to Build
Roads and Future Together
AFRICA
Kenyan Girls Sponsored to Study Abroad
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Maasai Education Discovery Founder Ledama Olekina (third
from left) joined Agnes Kainet Kisai, Eunice Sitatian
Kaelo, and Evelyn Nashipae Nkadori in December for a
blessing ceremony before the three women left Kenya
for the United States.
Maasai Education Discovery |
NaroK, Kenya—Their Maasai community in Kenya
calls them the “big three”—a trio of young
women whose academic excellence won them full scholarships
to Chicago State University (CSU).
Eunice Sitatian Kaelo and Agnes Kainet Kisai, both 18, and
Evelyn Nashipae Nkadori, 19, joined the freshman class at
CSU after arriving in the United States on New Year’s
Eve 2004. Each says she hopes to become a doctor, return home,
and serve the Maasai, a semi-nomadic people who live in the
grasslands of Kenya.
Education among the Maasai is not always accessible. Even
when it is, girls are often kept home to care for younger
children and assist older women with domestic duties. But
now hundreds of Maasai families are educating their daughters
through a USAID-funded organization called Maasai Education
Discovery (MED).
MED Founder Ledama Olekina, a Maasai tribesman who studied
at U.S. colleges, realized few Maasai girls would be able
to follow in his educational footsteps because few made it
to secondary school.
“Unless we invest in educating Maasai girls, many of
them will end up being put under the knife [circumcised] and
married off,” Olekina said. “That’s why I am
dedicating my time to ensuring that, one by one, Maasai girls
are educated.”
In 1999, MED started working with schools and families to
recruit 60 girls, retaining them in the upper grades with
scholarships and other support. With help from the Ambassador’s
Girls’ Scholarship Program (AGSP), which is run by USAID,
MED has expanded to 527 girls.
The CSU students were in the AGSP, a part of President Bush’s
Africa Education Initiative that is providing 250,000 scholarships
to girls.
Expectations for the big three are high: The women are the
first in their communities to go to college. During a ceremony
before they left, Kenyan elders blessed the young women, presented
them for schooling, and gave them land—a gift in Maasai
culture usually reserved for men.
“Traditionally, Maasai warriors are given spears to
go and bring us cows and make us proud,” said Eunice’s
mother during the blessing ceremony. “Because today you
are the man—the first born. God has helped us, and, through
MED, we are giving you a pen so that you can go and make us
proud and bring us more cows, like the warriors did.”
The women were told to come back armed with knowledge to
help their communities: “Walk with one foot in the Maasai
culture and the other outside.”
CSU President Elnora Daniel said she is committed to the
students’ return home and is sensitive to the brain drain
that contributes to shortages of trained professionals in
Africa.
Nkadori said: “I am the new face of the Maasai girl,
and I will do all I can to help educate my community and my
people positively, and to ensure that I am a person who will
be regarded as a source of hope in my community.”
She and the other coeds say they are adjusting to their
new lives. In a recent email to their hosts at USAID, one
reported, “[other students] call us the chicken-eaters
because that is all we eat. We don’t recognize anything
else. But next week we are going to try something else—something
really American.”
LATIN AMERICAN AND THE CARIBBEAN
Haiti’s Storm Cleanup Progresses as Part of $118M Dedicated
to Caribbean Floods
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Though flood waters have receded in Gonaïves,
Haiti, there are plenty of reminders of the damage from
Tropical Storm Jeanne, including this mud-soaked roadway.
Jason Girard, USAID |
Gonaïves, Haiti—While much of the world
focused on tsunami cleanup efforts in South Asia in early
2005, residents of this Haitian city were trying to recover
from their own recent natural disaster.
Tropical Storm Jeanne hit the Caribbean three months before
the Dec. 26 tsunami. Low-lying areas were pounded by the initial
rains and wind and then deluged when rainwater plunged from
the country’s rugged mountains. Gonaïves and Port-de-Paix,
a city at the north end of the island, were leveled.
More than 3,000 Haitians died—including 2,326 in Gonaïves—in
the widespread flooding.
Recovery is progressing. USAID has provided about $118 million
to Caribbean countries for hurricane relief and reconstruction
efforts, including in Jamaica, Grenada, the Bahamas, and Trinidad
and Tobago.
Haiti received $46 million for two phases of assistance.
The first phase used $8 million for immediate needs, such
as food, temporary shelter, medicine, and emergency healthcare.
The second phase provided $38 million to reconstruct roads,
public buildings, drainage canals, homes, and other projects.
Much of the assistance has been channeled through USAID
partners CARE, Catholic Relief Services, the World Food Program,
and World Vision, said Jerry Barth, senior advisor on Haiti
for USAID.
Food distributions continue for approximately 80,000 people
each month. Moreover, many of the humanitarian organizations
supervise cash-for-work activities, where displaced Haitians
are hired for reconstruction projects, often in their own
communities.
“In early January, we had as many as 5,000 Haitians
working under these programs,” Barth said. “At one
time, we had 100 work teams moving and clearing some 15,300
cubic meters of mud from the city centers.”
The storm destroyed or damaged 5,000 homes in Gonaïves
and had a lesser impact on 35,000 others. The city’s
hospital and almost all of its 397 elementary and 54 secondary
schools were damaged as well. With the entire watershed already
denuded because of deforestation, an estimated 70 percent
of the region’s agricultural areas were damaged.
“In one neighborhood, as soon as the crew started working,
the entire neighborhood joined in with its own tools to assist
the cash-for-work crew,” Barth said. “It’s
said to be one of the cleanest areas in town.”
Outside of Gonaïves and Port-de-Paix, irrigation pumps
are being repaired, seeds are being distributed to farmers,
canals are being rehabilitated, and road repairs are being
planned.
Other areas are still reeling from the storm, including
the villages of Ti Carenage and Etang, where farmers lost
80 percent to 90 percent of their crops. Repairs to a small
irrigation canal have improved the situation, but a drought
has made other repairs burdensome.
“We have our work cut out in Haiti, but reports are
surfacing that many Haitians who did not have access to hospital
care are now receiving competent medical attention,”
Barth added. “Just as important, some areas of Gonaïves
seem to be bustling with even more economic activity than
before the floods.”
ASIA AND THE NEAR EAST
Jordan’s Stock Exchange Booms with U.S. Support
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Investors look at the new plasma screens provided by
USAID to automate the Amman Stock Exchange dealings
and provide real-time stock data and market news.
USAID/Jordan |
AMMAN, Jordan—Trading volume over the Amman
Stock Exchange (ASE) increased by 400 percent, while the size
of the market grew by more than 130 percent during the past
five years.
In 2003, the ASE generated more than $3 billion of wealth
for some 500,000 investors, making it the best year in more
than two decades. Market capitalization is now more than $13
billion and represents 136 percent of GDP—a level unusual
for developing countries and more often seen in richer nations.
The developments are in part the result of a series of USAID
efforts aiming to build up and reform Jordan’s capital
market sector and its three institutions: the ASE, the Securities
Commission, and the Securities Depository Center (SDC).
When established as a private, independently run market
in 1997, Jordan’s capital market suffered extensive problems
of insufficient liquidity, a weak regulatory system, and a
poorly functioning trading system and securities depository.
Paper-based trading and accounting systems were error-prone
and inefficient. This slowed trading volume and led to declining
investor confidence.
But with USAID support since 1999, Jordan’s capital
market executives have
- introduced a new securities law
- updated legislative bylaws and regulations to meet global
standards
- opened Jordan’s securities markets to foreign investment
- put in place technological systems to protect investors
The SDC is now responsible for the registration, safekeeping,
transfer of ownership, deposit, and clearing and settlement
of all securities traded on the ASE.
USAID also introduced a computerized system and central
registry as replacement for the existing paper-based stock
trading system. The ASE now offers remote real-time trading
and market information and instantaneous quotes, enabling
Jordan’s capital markets to compete in the international
securities arena.
The Securities Commission, ASE, and SDC are now connected
to hundreds of brokers and list companies through a network
created and installed by a USAID project.
“The new system is more fair and efficient, and our
customers are much more satisfied and have started to invest
even more with us,” said Amer Mouasher of the Jordan
National Bank brokerage firm.
USAID/Jordan has funded training to help market participants
use new technologies. The mission has also coordinated public
awareness campaigns about the new regulations and investment
opportunities and created websites with information on investor
protection laws, market data, and company information.
Dr. Bassam Saket, executive chairman of the Securities Commission
said, “USAID is our link to the benefits of international
experience and lessons learned from abroad. Also, it has been
our partner in developing our market to international standards.”
In recognition of its compliance with international trading
standards, the ASE in 2004 was made an affiliate member of
the World Federation of Exchanges. It will become a full member
after enacting a few additional runs and policies.
EUROPE AND EURASIA
Albanian and Serbian Kosovars Working to Build Roads and
Future Together
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Left to right: Vahdet Kadiri (municipal engineer),
Myrvet Derguti (municipal director of planning and development),
Kujtim Thaqi (contractor-owner of the company Euroing),
Muharrem Thaqi (employee of company), Zlatko Nakalamic
(member of community working group), and Hetem Geci
(MISI project engineer).
Gojko Ilic, Mercy Corps |
HOQE E MADHE/VELIKA HOCA, Kosovo—Ethnic Albanian
and Serbian Kosovars in this village—called by its Albanian
and Serbian names because Kosovo has no official language—worked
together for a month last fall to pave the village’s
main road.
It is one of 42 USAID-funded infrastructure projects that
help these ethnic groups, as well as Roma, Bosnians, Turks,
and other minorities, work together.
A $2.5 million grant to Mercy Corps over the past year encourages
people of various ethnicities to return home and live together
peacefully following the 1999 conflict. It is helping communities
learn how to lobby higher officials for services, hold public
meetings, determine local priorities, conduct an open bidding
process, and manage projects like paving a road.
The concepts seem to have taken hold, U.S. officials say.
In the town of Kamenice/Kamenica, Serbian, Albanian, and
Roma Kosovars took a month in the fall of 2004 to build a
simple sewerage system.
“Were I to live here another 10 years, I am sure that
without this project I wouldn’t have had the chance to
make these contacts with people of different ethnicities,”
said resident Hajdin Krivaqa. “But now we have done it,
and we have established very good relationships with each
other.”
In Budrige e Ulet/Donje Budriga, residents worked to build
a school annex.
Nebojsa Savic, a Serbian Kosovar from the community working
group, said villagers learned about selecting a company based
on qualifications, not along ethnic lines. “We will always
give our vote to the best company bidding, even if it is an
Albanian (Kosovar) company,” he said.
Serbian forces in 1999 tried to push out ethnic Albanians
living in the Serbian region of Kosovo, creating an international
conflict that ended with a NATO-led bombing campaign. Since
then, Kosovo has been governed by the U.N. Interim Administration
Mission in Kosovo. About 90 percent of Kosovo’s 1.9 million
residents are ethnic Albanian.
Since 1999, many Serbian Kosovars left for other Serbian
lands. But as villages in Kosovo try to rebuild themselves,
some are coming back.
Esat Haxhijaha, an Albanian Kosovar who is mayor of Rahovec/Orahovac
municipality spoke in Serbian to Serbian Kosovars at a recent
road dedication: “We welcome everybody to come back and
live together. We are at the point we have to think for the
future.”
Before the conflict, Rahovec/Orahovac was home to some 5,000
Serbs. Today only about 1,200 remain. Many of the Albanians
who used to live in the municipality were killed by Serb forces
during the conflict.
At the road dedication in Hoqe e Madhe/Velika Hoca in late
2004, the six Kosovars who worked together on the road paving
project posed together for a photograph, smiling. Among them
were Serbian Kosovars and Albanian Kosovars.
“This project…is not just about infrastructure—it’s
a project about bringing people, communities, and municipalities
together,” said USAID/Kosovo Mission Director Ken Yamashita
at the dedication ceremony.
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