Back in July 2009, ActionAid launched a nationwide hunt to find our next outreach blogger for Project TOTO. Eight months, 52 nominees, 12 finalists and three challenges later, we’ve made a decision.

But there’s a twist.

After putting our 12 finalists through three carefully designed challenges we were unable to identify a single perfect outreach blogger.

Instead we found two.

But before we reveal who they are, a quick reminder of the criteria we’ve used throughout this selection process:

1)       Writing skills: Since our blogger will be required to not only teach others about social media, but also to blog themselves, strong writing skills was a major consideration.

2)       Passion for the cause: The role of an outreach blogger is not easy. We needed people that would go the extra mile for ActionAid to make the outreach blog a success.

3)       Social media skills: In the end, Project TOTO is about using social media to give people a voice. Our ideal candidate needed a strong understanding of the technological and networking elements of social media.

4)       Social network: Talking about poverty is pointless if nobody is listening. We needed someone that knows how to spread messages online. The larger the network they have or could create, the greater the impact.

5)       Cultural sensitivity: Teaching others requires mutual understanding and trust. Cultural sensitivity was going to be vital to ensure the project runs smoothly and that the knowledge transfer is effective.

And the winners are:

Much to our delight, the majority of our shortlist scored well on all of our selection criteria. But two candidates stood out above the pack – Joel Katz and Sharna Bremner.

At first we considered choosing between them, but decided instead to choose both. In fact, sending two bloggers makes a lot of sense.

Two bloggers will help us cover more ground and train more locals. This is important, as for our next outreach blog we plan to not only train local ActionAid staff, but also members of the local community.

Two outreach bloggers will also give TOTO followers in Australia two different perspectives on our work and the challenges locals face.

Where are they going?

ActionAid’s next outreach blog will be in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.

With a population of 13 million, Dhaka is the largest city in Bangladesh and one of the most densely populated cities in the world. Although Dhaka’s urban infrastructure is the most developed in the country, it is also home to a number of urban slums.

ActionAid’s next outreach blog will be located in one of these slums in which ActionAid Bangladesh works. Joel and Sharna will be tasked with training local youth who live in the slum to blog about their experiences and daily life.

We’ll provide more details on this later.

When are they going?

ActionAid will work with Joel and Sharna to find a suitable time for deployment. At this stage, we’re aiming for a trip between May and July 2010. The trip will last between 1-2 weeks depending on the training needs of the local community.

What now?

We’ll continue to update followers of Project TOTO through Twitter, Facebook and this blog.

Our next step is to create a blog training guide to be used by Joel, Sharna and future outreach bloggers.

We also need to agree on a date of deployment and an itinerary in-country.

Finally, we need to source suitable technology for the outreach blog. This most likely will include a laptop or netbook along with a number of video-capable digital cameras. Feel free to join the discussion on suitable technology.

If you have suggestions or would like to contribute to Project TOTO, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can email us directly, comment on this blog or chat to us on Twitter or Facebook.

TOTO Challenge #3 required the shortlist fundraise for Project TOTO to help us reach our $10,000 target.

This challenge was not just about testing each nominee’s creativity, network of influence and social media skills, but was also a practical necessity.

The $10,000 fundraising target aimed to cover the costs of setting up the next outreach blog – including sending the next outreach blogger on their training mission and setting up the outpost with appropriate technology.

Prior to this challenge, supporters of Project TOTO had generously donated over $1,300. Our nominees were tasks with making up the difference.

What they raised

In the end, our nominees managed to raise over $5,000 for Project TOTO, taking our total to just over $6,500.

Although it was an excellent effort from our nominees, we are still left short of our $10,000 target. We must now figure out whether we can squeeze all our costs for the next outreach blog into the reduced budget. More on that later.

So who won?

Four nominees successfully completed Challenge #3 – with widely varying results.

Before we tell you who we’ve judged to win, it’s worth remembering our judging criteria:

1) Funds raised: first and foremost, this challenge was judged based on how much money each nominee raised by the cut-off date.

2) Creativity: a secondary criteria was how creative the nominee was in their fundraising. In particular, the judges were looking out for innovative fundraising techniques that could be scaled up for use in the charity sector more generally.

Based on these criteria, the judges agreed the deserving winner was…

Emily French

Emily raised an impressive $2,205 mostly by hosting a series of fundraising events – including a brunch, Trivia Night, and BBQ. She also secured donations on Everyday Hero from family friends and from the company McKinney Rogers. Finally, Emily decided to de-clutter her life, and raised funds by selling items on eBay.

ActionAid is eternally grateful for the effort, time and dedication Emily injected into this challenge – not to mention her success in raising the most money of all nominees.

Here’s what Emily had to say about her winning fundraising drive:

“I made a decision early on in my fundraising process that I was not going to rely purely on goodwill donations to raise money for ActionAid. Given that I am a student and virtually everyone I know is also a student, I was well aware that my peers were not in the best position to be donating money as they are sustaining themselves on student loans. Instead, I planned a number of events so that people felt they were getting something back for their money. Having said that, some family friends were wonderfully forthcoming with their donations and I am so grateful to them for their generosity. Thank you to everyone who attended my events, sent donations or offered words of support and encouragement – I couldn’t have done it without you!”

How did the other nominees go?

In their own ways, each of the other nominees, who took up the fundraising challenge, did a stellar job. Putting in significant time, effort and planning. Here they are in no particular order…

Sharna Bremner

Sharna used a particularly brave strategy of only asking people to donate one dollar to the cause. She then spread the word about this micro-donation drive through social media – using Twitter, Facebook and her personal blog, to spread the word.

The gamble paid off, with a total of $1,227 raised on the Everyday Hero website. Some friends also donated directly to ActionAid’s Haiti appeal in Sharna’s name – raising an additional $107.

Interestingly, although Sharna was only asking for single dollar donations, most people gave considerably more – typically $5 or $10 and even up to $50.

To keep up the momentum, Sharna then threw in another $5 for every $100 raised – encouraging supporters to break the next $100 milestone.

This is one strategy ActionAid may have to test out ourselves one day…

Here’s what Sharna had to say about her strategy:

“As January is usually a fairly expensive time of year for most people, my fundraising strategy was to ask people to donate just one dollar. I set up a page on the Everyday Hero website to receive donations and using social media, I sent out requests for donations. I created an event on Facebook, sent out emails and also used Twitter and my personal blog. I asked all of my online friends to donate just one dollar, and then ask all of their friends to do the same. I hoped to not only raise money but also awareness of ActionAid’s work and Project TOTO. By simply using social media, updating my Facebook status or Twitter account to request donations, I raised $1,120.00 via the Everyday Hero website.”

Father Dave

Father Dave’s fundraising strategy definitely had the most “punch” to it, organising a charity Boxathon on Australia Day, with proceeds going to Project TOTO.

Promoting the event through posters, email and a story in the local paper, Father Dave fought an incredible 50 rounds against 30 different boxers – all in the name of charity.

He even managed to get some of the biggest names in Australian boxing to take him on – including Nader Hamdan, fresh from TV’s The Contender Australia boxing series, Solomon Haumono, the Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation Heavyweight Champion, and Australian Light Welterweight Champion Solomon Egberime.

Fighting Father Dave raised an impressive $1,513 for his efforts. He says he would have raised more had his intended live 0nline streaming of the event worked out – alas the technology failed. Don’t worry Father Dave, we were impressed enough you lasted 50 rounds!

Check out video from the event on Father Dave’s website www.fatherdave.org (click on Ezine link)

In Father Dave’s own words:

The box-a-thon was a great success and I want to thank each of you who sent me emails and text messages of support, and most especially those who sent donations to help support the work of ActionAid Australia. I completed 50 rounds of boxing.

My hands and feet were throbbing for the next couple of days but, frankly, it was the easiest money I’ve ever raised, and I do plan to do another box-a-thon same time next year if not before. Next time I may attempt twice as many rounds! Of course the beauty of the event was not just the funds raised but the way it brought together people in the community to support the event, and most obviously the way some of our most prominent boxers showed up to give their support.

In truth I have great faith in the ability of fighters to combat poverty and injustice. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I believe you can’t really make a difference in this world unless you are a fighter. Fighters know the meaning of hard work and persistence, and, most importantly, they know how to get up again and keep battling after they’ve been knocked down.

Joel Katz

Always the musician at heart, Joel decided he’d sing his way to TOTO riches. Wearing hand-made ActionAid t-shirts and singing a TOTO tune, Joel and his supportive girlfriend took to the streets of Sydney.

Unfortunately, as it happens, the streets of Sydney aren’t always that generous and Joel ended up raising a modest $120. But his well-branded busking helped raise many questions about ActionAid and Project TOTO.

If passion and hard-work could pay the way for the next outreach blogger, then Joel’s effort would have funded the whole trip.

Here’s how Joel explained his strategy:

“Me and my amazing girlfriend approached this Challenge from another angle, as I wasn’t too comfortable asking my friends and family for donations, especially in light of the Haiti tragedy. We made-up posters and t-shirts promoting ActionAid’s ‘Toto Challenge’ witha the web address, and hit the streets, guitar and bongos in hand. Busking our way around Sydney we spread the ‘Toto’ word and busted out some tunes, too. Sadly, I discovered that wandering minstrels don’t make much, and after a few days, bloodied fingers and worn out vocal chords, our misshapen collection hat wasn’t overflowing with cash. But we got heaps of questions about the challenge, and lots of people saying they’d check out the website.”

In summary: amounts raised by each volunteer

Emily French – $2,205

Father Dave – $1,513

Sharna Bremner – $1,227 (+$107)

Joel Katz – $120

Want to help us reach our $10,000 target? Donate to Project TOTO

TOTO Challenge#2 required the shortlist to create 60-second video blogs on how technology could be used to fight poverty.

This was arguably a much more difficult challenge for the shortlist than the previous blog challenge, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it took many out of their comfort zones. Although some of our finalists had experience with video-blogging, it was new to several members of the shortlist.

Another factor that made this challenge difficult was the restriction of 60-seconds to answer a fairly big question. Although we set the 60-second limit originally to try and make the challenge easier for nominees (that is, less demanding on their time), in retrospect a longer time limit would probably have made it easier for many.

Despite these constraints, the shortlist did well to deliver creative, well-research video-blogs – most of which received well over 100 views each by time of judging.

>>Check out the responses to TOTO Challenge#2

And the winner is…

For the judges there was one clear winner for this challenge – Joel Katz.

His video was well shot, beautifully edited and was set to great emotive music (played by Joel himself). This was, by far, the most engaging video, with a clear, positive and inspirational message.

The only hesitation for the judges was the message itself. In short, Joel’s message is that with just a simple digital camera and an internet connection, anyone in the world can tell their story and start a global conversation.

But does this really address the brief on how technology can be used to fight poverty?

The judges concluded that it did. After all, that is what Project TOTO is all about: allowing people in developing countries to tell their stories to the world and to start a truly global conversation on the fight to end poverty.

Good work Joel. Well done and well deserved.

>>Check out Joel’s winning video

What about the others…

Although Joel was the clear winner, the judges had praise for all the videos submitted. Here’s what the judges had to say about the efforts of the remaining nominees (in no particular order):

Emily French

The judges felt Emily provided the most powerful and interesting examples of how technology can been used to fight poverty. The presentation was simple, yet effective, with excellent choice of music.

Laurel Papworth

Laurel explained three great examples of how mobile phones are changing technology use in developing countries. Although Laurel did well to fit so much quality content into 60-seconds (and received the highest number of video views) the format was not as engaging as some of the other submissions.

Father Dave

Father Dave’s interview with pastor Ray Minniecon was a great way of exploring the issue of technology and poverty in an Australian context. Although he used an engaging format, the 60-second time constraint didn’t allow much time for an in-depth exploration of the issue so it felt a bit rushed.

Renee Barnes

Renee did a great job of explaining why mobile phones are so important in developing countries. Although the judges felt the pace of the video was a bit slow, Renee managed to tell a coherent and relevant story through a simple mix of photos, text and background music.

Sharna Bremner

By far the most entertaining music track! Hands down. Also, an interesting angle on the “technology” question. Unfortunately, Sharna tried to pack too much information into the 60-second timeslot making it almost impossible to read all the text, which reduced the impact of the message. Now if only we could get that damn song out of our heads…

David Rooney

David’s use of text-to-movie technology was highly original and entertaining – and proved the old adage “the medium is the message”. The judges liked the “on the internet nobody knows you’re a Kenyan” message, but felt the link between using technology such as this and fighting poverty was not very strong.

>>Check out all the responses to Challenge#2

>>Check out the original brief for Challenge#2

Let’s talk technology. Specifically, what technology ActionAid needs to procure for our next outreach blog.

What is the minimum tech package any decent blogger requires?

Well, obviously they’ll need a computer. In this case, a laptop with decent batter life will probably work best – allowing the blogger to travel around and post their blog from anywhere with a decent internet connection.

While we’re on the issue of internet connection, does the blogger need any sort of hardware to help them connect to the internet? Would a wireless modem be required? Or is relying on WiFi and using the ActionAid office internet connection sufficient?

Now, although a blog could theoretically be maintained with just an internet connection and a laptop – it would mean having a text-only blog, which might be bit dry. We’d probably want to add a bit of colour with pictures. But how best to take those pictures?

Many laptops come with in-built cameras that could be used to take photos – but that’s not going to be particularly practical if to take one happy snap you need to boot up the lappy. Is it?

So the TOTO tech package should probably include a portable camera.  For web-images all a blogger would need is a relatively simple digital camera, yeah? Of course  battery life would be important here as would be the ability to store lots of photos without having to download them to a computer all the time.

Should the camera also have video capability?

Speaking of video, how practical is video as an ongoing tool for the outreach blog to use? Is the time taken to edit video and upload it not worth it? Not to mention bandwidth! But video is such a compelling medium. How can it be made simple and effective? What software would they need?

So, is that it? A laptop and a digital camera with video capability?

But what laptop and digital camera would work best for durability, battery life and cost-effectiveness? Do we even get into the Mac v PC debate?

Suggestions anyone?

Below is ActionAid’s third and final challenge to the Project TOTO nominee shortlist. Nominees have until Friday, 29 January 2010 to complete this challenge.

Instructions:

Raise funds to help establish the next outreach blog

This challenge is not just about testing your creativity, network of influence and social media skills, it is also a practical necessity.

ActionAid has set a target of $10,000 if we are to make the next blog outpost a reality. This includes the costs of sending our next outreach blogger on a training mission to one our program countries which will include training local staff and partner organisations and equipping that outpost with appropriate technology.

Supporters of Project TOTO have already generously donated over $1,300 to the project. But more is needed.

Your mission is to fill the gap by using your passion and social media skills to fundraise for Project TOTO.

How you go about this is completely up to you. We’d love to see some creative fundraising and use of social media, but if you think a sausage sizzle will work better, go for it.

If you need a little help getting those creative juices flowing, check out some fundraising ideas from ActionAid in the UK: http://actionaid.org.uk/index.asp?page_id=100053

The funds raised will help make social media history, by supporting ActionAid’s outreach blogger program. The program aims to develop the capacity of poor communities by teaching them new communication skills and giving them a new medium through which to discuss, learn about and claim their rights.

Challenge #3 will be judged based on the following criteria:

- Funds raised: first and foremost, this challenge will be judged based on how much money each nominee has raised by Friday, 29 January 2010.

- Creativity: a secondary criteria is how creative the nominee was in their fundraising. In particular, the judges will be looking out for innovative use of social media for fundraising purposes that could be scaled up for use in the charity sector more generally.

How to collect donations:

You are free to collect donations using any mechanism you like. For simplicity, however, ActionAid has already created an EveryDay Hero account for Project TOTO: (http://www.everydayhero.com.au/event/totochallenge)

You can quickly create your own Project TOTO fundraising page on EveryDay Hero here: http://www.everydayhero.com.au/project_toto

If you chose to use another system for collecting donations, please let ActionAid know so we can ensure we track donations and make the process as simple as possible.

Remember, donations over $2 are tax deductible if you follow the appropriate procedure. Once you have decided on your fundraising approach, please contact ActionAid for advice on wording and legal requirements to ensure supporters receive their tax deductible receipt.

Important note:

Participation in this challenge or the amount of funds raised in no way guarantees that you will be chosen as the next Project TOTO blogger as this is about fundraising for Project TOTO as opposed to any individual person. Therefore, your fundraising material must not suggest you will definitely be chosen as the next outreach blogger. This is important to ensure donations are tax deductible.

Once all costs for Project TOTO are covered, surplus funds will be used to contribute to ActionAid’s work.

Below are the responses to TOTO Challenge #2 (60 second video on how technology can help fight poverty) from our Project TOTO shortlist.

To help ActionAid judge these clips, please post a comment at the bottom of this post telling us which video you liked most and why.

Remember what we’re looking for is:

- Quality of content: Does the video blog provide interesting ideas or examples of how technology can be used in the fight against poverty?

- Entertainment value: Is the video blog entertaining to watch? It doesn’t have to be funny or heavy on special effects, but it does need to be engaging enough that people would watch the video from beginning to end – and potentially pass it on to friends to watch.

- Video views and star ratings: How many people watch the video and how popular is it? This is both a test of the quality of the video (a more interesting video will be more popular) and your ability to distribute content to people who are interested (seeded in the right networks, the video will get more views).

Now check out the clips…

Emily French

Father Dave

Joel Katz

Laurel Papworth

Renee Barnes

Sharna Bremner

David Rooney

Don’t forget to leave a comment telling us which video you liked most and why?

When ActionAid asked our Project TOTO shortlist to blog about the link between climate change and poverty, we really didn’t know what we’d get back.

In the end, we received nine well crafted blogs that reflected the huge diversity of people in our shortlist. We had climate change sceptics, climate change converts and climate change champions.  We also had discussions about horse poo.

Some blogged about their own personal experiences, while others took a more academic approach to exploring the issue. Most importantly, all provided excellent food for thought – as reflected in the over 130 comments that had been posted by fans (and detractors) in response at time of judging.

As we await the conclusion of crucial Copenhagen climate negotiations, these blogs have provided many Australians with an alternative perspective on climate change that they wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise. For this, ActionAid is eternally grateful to all the bloggers.

And the runners up are…

The judges agreed (eventually) on two runners up for this challenge. The runners up submitted very different styles of posts, but deserve special mention for their own reasons.

In no particular order, the first runner up is Emily French for her The Inextricable Link between Climate Change and Human Rights post. Emily clearly put a lot of research and thought into her post and the result is a comprehensive examination of the subject. Although tending towards the ‘academic’, it is still written in plain English and clearly engaged a lot of readers to think about the clear links between climate change and poverty for the first time. Great effort Emily.

Our second runner up is Michael Quall for his voice of the voiceless post. By far the most passionate post from the shortlist, Michael’s writing is infused with a deep understanding of the causes of poverty and injustice – and why climate change (and the world’s reluctance to tackle it) is yet another a symptom of inequality.  Although his post attracted strong criticism, this is also a sign he touched a cord with people – an important ingredient in writing for change. Setting aside his penchant for lower case, his writing is punchy and enjoyable to read.

And the winner is…

And without further ado, the clear winner of Challenge #1 for all the judges was Sharna Bremner for her Dummies Guide to Climate Change and Poverty post.

Sharna’s post was well researched, down to earth and informative. It was also a pleasure to read. The use of 9/11 as a lead-in was a clever way of giving readers an instant grasp of the scale of the disaster climate change is bringing to this world.

The “Dummies Guide” structure also made a complex and, often, confusing topic very clear. Her post could easily be a reference point for those researching the link between poverty and climate change in the months, and years, ahead.

One of the many comments on Sharna’s post sums up quite nicely why she deserves to win this challenge:

I found this particular blog to be one of the more engaging entries for this challenge. Not only was it well written and insightful, the simple, easy-to-understand language and format made me actually WANT to read it. Usually I find articles regarding such topics to be contrived and full of scientific mumbo jumbo, making me simply skim them or not read them at all. Sharna, you have managed to turn a fairly dry topic (no offence ActionAid!) into enjoyable reading. Not only that, you managed to teach me a thing or two without me realising I was learning! I’ve already passed on some of your little stats to others particularly, as others have stated, the 9/11 statistic which really made me stop and think. Definitely thought provoking stuff! Well done!

Good job Sharna!

For more information on this challenge and the judging criteria, see our original brief for TOTO Challenge #1.

The below post is from Laurel Papworth in response to TOTO Challenge #1

DISCUSSING CLIMATE CHANGE

Hmmm. “climate change” – does anyone NOT have an opinion? Even if it’s “I wish they’d shut up about climate change” it’s still on our radar, in a big way.  We have the time and education and resources to debate the issue in the pubs, loungerooms, bars, gyms, and on Twitter. If we want to. Our choice. Yet not every country has the luxury of being able to stop and discuss global issues at a local level.

DEVELOPING COUNTRIES PRIORITIES

Some people are not in urban Australia, paying $3.08c carbon offset for your business flights interstate, and paying an arm and a leg for the new eco-friendly lightbulbs.  Those people might be forgiven for thinking the whole climate issue belongs to those who “consume” – rich countries, fat cat companies & governments. For those that are not “consumers”, who live hand to mouth, well, how can climate change be under their control?

But here’s a question: those facing true poverty hardly consume enough to have a carbon footprint, right? At the moment 76% of the world’s resources are consumed by the richest 20% of the planet – 1.6 billion (1/4 of humaninity) live without electricity. And even if every developing nation placed their entire population in factory work, who are we to tell them “no, don’t, you’ll speed up climate change”? Yet how can we sit idle while the world goes to hell in a hand basket? Hardly seems fair does it?

A problem that doesn’t have a solution. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

THE GREAT HORSEPOO DEBATE of 1898

Talking of problems without a solution: when I think of Copenhagen and the world’s leaders schmoozing and planning, looking for an agreement on how to deal with climate control issues, it reminds me of the great horsepoo debate of 1898. What’s that, I hear  you say? I’m glad you asked:

• Nineteenth-century cities depended on thousands of horses for their daily functioning.
• All transport, whether of goods or people, was drawn by horses.
• London in 1900 had 11,000 cabs, all horse-powered.
• There were also several thousand buses, each of which required 12 horses per day, a total of more than 50,000 horses.
• Similar figures could be produced for any great city of the time.* (The Freeman)

London, England, 1898.  Was the UK a developing country?? Or a developed country – for the time? Your call. It’s all semantics to me…

• The problem of course was that all these horses produced huge amounts of manure. A horse will on average produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day. Consequently, the streets of nineteenth-century cities were covered by horse manure. This in turn attracted huge numbers of flies, and the dried and ground-up manure was blown everywhere. In New York in 1900, the population of 100,000 horses produced 2.5 million pounds of horse manure per day, which all had to be swept up and disposed of. (The Freeman)

Why am I talking about horses and horse poo? Because the first international inter-urban planning conference was held in New York in 1894, bringing together world leaders and problem solvers. If major cities were going to be, in 50 years, under nine feet of manure the conference attendees believed that the world was in major …. doodoos.  And – although the conference was meant to run for ten days – they closed the doors after only THREE days. Everyone shook their head – they could see no solution to the major problem of the day. The world sits down to think yet fails to find a way through.

Horse vs Car, Developed vs Developing (From Flickr: Laor)

But of course the problem that had no solution, simply went away. Or at least, we replaced it with other things – innovation, motor cars, carbon emissions, climate change. Yay for us.

Innovation may not come from middle America Ford and or European Daimler this time round. Our problems without solutions may be solved by Harish Hande of Selco Solar Light, Bangalore, India

Poverty is the greatest threat to our environment. The poor use some of the most inefficient technologies and polluting fuels – not because they are cheap but because they don’t have a choice.

Today’s debate on the climate change treaty is seen as between the developed world and the developing world. It has led the rich in developing countries to hide behind the poor and the poor in developing countries to be short changed. The reality is we all have a vested interested in getting this treaty right – rich and poor.

We have before us a wonderful and unique opportunity – to implement climate change solutions that will also reduce poverty, like affordable solar energy systems. My social enterprise, Selco India has provided 112,000 solar home systems to low income households and institutions. We ensure that the systems are affordable by partnering with microfinance organisations that provide small loans. We have also set up a pilot fund to guarantee the deposits on solar systems for very poor families. Nothing can compare with the thrill of someone switching on a light for the first time and knowing how this can change their life!

I don’t know: Is this a developing/developed nation issue? Or are those terms relevant to the time and problems facing those nations at that time? Can we solve problems with a Bali road map and a conference? Will the problem simply go away? Be swapped for another problem? Or will new technologies, social entrepreneurship, microfinancing (peer to peer loans) from unexpected quarters save our skins?

My personal opinion? Solve poverty, solve inequity. Allow nations that don’t have legacy infrastructure to leapfrog into a new more sustainable age, even if they overtake us. And if we rely on Copenhagen to solve our problems, we’ll be under 50 feet of horse manure in no time at all. What say you?

The below post is from Harriet Riley in response to TOTO Challenge #1

The Poor Poor Polar Bears: Far from being a problem for other species, climate change is already robbing people in developing nations of their homes and livlihoods

It’s good to be back in Copenhagen for the COP15. This is the place I came to two years ago trying to answer one simple question; how do you run a functional society? Being happy, prosperous and good-looking to boot is something the Danes have always been famous for, and this stable home-life has freed them up to play advocate on the international stage for more generous aid projects and green development. No doubt these were the people to answer my question. But my quest left me mildly unsatisfied –it was one of those ‘simple’ questions, after all, the type that only the United Nations, ancient Greek philosophers and myself ever seem to bother with– and I’m hoping that this time, at the climate summit, I can find a better answer.

In early 2008 I found myself seated with 99 other bright-eyed young people in an airy lecture theatre of the CPH Business School. We are attending the Copenhagen Consensus Youth Forum hosted by the infamous Bjørn Lomborg of ‘Sceptical Environmentalist’ fame. In front of us, a panel of Nobel Prize winning economists nodded and hummed as they tried to explain, in terms we would understand, just what was wrong with our complicated world.

The debate ended in a way that seemed all too amicable for a question of that magnitude. The economists’ task had been to rank ten threats, all very real and very destructive challenges facing the global community, in the order in which we should spend money on stopping them. The threats were hunger and malnutrition, terrorism, conflict, subsidies and trade barriers, water and sanitation, disease, women’s rights, education, air pollution, and climate change. The idea was to get the most bang for our international buck; little investment, big return. In other words, what’s the least we can do to save the most lives?

At first, this economically rationalist approach seems sensible; fortifying food aid with basic vitamin nutrients and improving agriculture in developing nations are cheep and effective lifesavers, so hunger and malnutrition get ranked as the number one priority. Diseases like malaria can be cured with $1 bed nets, so they get second place. To halt climate change before it destroys society, meanwhile, would require a total re-do of the global economic system. That’s an expensive option, so it gets ranked last on our planetary shopping list, to be purchased if we have to money left over from our other projects.

But hang on, you’re thinking; climate change needs to be dealt with now if we’re going to stop it before it gets out of hand. Yes, and to be completely honest with you, that ‘now’ is about a five year window, in which we have to halt all our greenhouse gas emissions, full stop. Using the Copenhagen Consensus approach is a bit like saying ‘we’ll buy a roof for the house if we’ve got the money left over from buying a nice dinner table to go under it.’ But surely that was too obvious to point out to Nobel Prize winners, let alone all these clever young people now passing a microphone from hand to hand, so each could offer their two cents.

There was Bulgar from Mongolia, who lamented the plight of small nations out-traded by their superpower neighbours; there was Oshi from Ghana who despaired at wars soaking up natural resources; and Taylor from the United States who bemoaned the use of self-terminating seeds by industrial agribusiness. They argued their national case studies well, but I, the sole representative of the entire Oceanic continent, was finding it difficult to pinpoint exactly what was doing us, let alone all the other continents too, the most harm. Everything seemed to contribute to making every other thing worse. Bad water and sanitation meant more disease. A lack of gender equality meant poorer maternal heath. Conflict encouraged terrorism, encouraged conflict, and limited education left everyone sicker, hungrier and angrier. Why were we separating these problems when they so obviously fed each other, created each other?

And climate change, oh climate change was not just the icing on the cake, it seemed to have become the cake itself, like brandy soaked through a Christmas pudding and set alight. It was going to increase the range of malaria-baring mosquitos tenfold. It was going destroy two thirds of the world’s arable land. Far from making poverty history in the 21st century, climate change was going to open up a whole new age of need.

So that’s my unfinished business in Copenhagen, I want to make the point to every diplomat, every activist, and every academic that I meet patrolling the barricades; these are not separate problems. Climate change and poverty, along with everything on the list from the Copenhagen Consensus, form an interlocking lacework of challenges entangling the world like a spiders web. It’s as if today, thanks to the legacy of colonialism, two world wars and the global financial system we’re facing one big self-creating crisis.

So lets take a look at some of the ways that problem works. There’s the local level; the immediate effects that climate change will have on those living in poverty, and then there’s the global level; the ways in which poverty and poorer nations are speeding up climate change.

The Local
How climate change leads to poverty

The World health organisation estimates that 150 000 people are dying each year as a direct result of climate change. These deaths are caused by disease, sea level rise, heatwaves, natural disaster and starvation. That’s the thing about climate change, its effects are so varied that, in theory, by the end of the next decade it could have destroyed the livelihood of nearly every person below the poverty line in the developing world. The best way to explore these permutations is to focus on one group of people, for example, women.

The United Nations Population Fund recently released a report on women and climate change, which demonstrates the way in which an already disempowered group suffers first and most when crisis strikes. Women constitute the majority of the world’s agricultural workforce, and it is through a loss of agricultural productivity that our species will feel the most basic, and dangerous effects of climate change. Women’s vulnerability stems from their lack of ownership over resources and a lack of formal education, leaving them more likely to be displaced from the land they depend upon.
While men with transferable skills and an education can migrate to find work, women are left behind to combine domestic duties with a second job in the community. When clean water becomes harder to find in a drought, it is the women who must search further a field to feed their dependants. Typically, it is girls who are pulled out of school to help with this task. Lowered nutrition levels and unclean water mean the family is more susceptible to disease, problems that are again magnified by the threat of extreme weather. And who would have thought that climate change could influence the prevalence of HIV/AIDS? As farms collapse, men from rural areas leave to find work in the cities, returning HIV positive. Meanwhile, women turn to prostitution to pay for food. The more people become mobile because of the crisis, the more the disease spreads.

In societies with entrenched gender inequities, women cannot gain access to the decision making bodies responsible for dealing with climate change, meaning there are very few chances for them to play a part in addressing the issue.
But solutions do exist, and NGOs from around the world including ActionAid, are working with local people to enhance their own adaptive capacity.

Women from Bangladesh to Papua New Guinea have started using the one form of capital they have in abundance, each other, to form community climate response networks. These networks have panted mangrove barriers to stop storm surges, put houses on stilts in flood prone areas and developed arid agricultural techniques to deal with drought. Taking turns to monitor the radio for extreme weather warnings, and researching what’s in store for next year’s crops, they have also devised evacuation strategies for their villages. For some the empowerment that comes from tackling climate change may be the first step out of poverty. When communities pull together in the face of a crisis, they have the potential to tackle other challenges too, such as their long-term education and health options.

The Global
How poverty leads to climate change

No wonder nutting out a treaty like Kyoto’s replacement in Copenhagen is so tricky; to really solve climate change, we need to solve poverty, and vice versa. The poorer a person is, the less choice they have about their occupation. In many developing nations, from South East Asia to Africa, felling trees for firewood and clearing forest for agricultural land are the only sources of income available. This depletes precious carbon sinks and releases more CO2 into the atmosphere. In a lot of ways, this local survival strategy mirrors the behaviour of their governments at the international climate talks. Developing countries are known as Annex IIs, and they have argued that they need fossil fuels to raise their people out of poverty. Under the Kyoto Protocol, they were under no obligation whatsoever to cut their carbon, in spite of China being the world’s largest emitter. Instead, Annex II nations have only to put forward projects for the Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs), in which Annex I, meaning rich nations, pay for projects overseas, such as reafforestation or wind farms, which will allow them to emit more at home.

The problem with these Mechanisms is that the projects being payed for are often already in development. Rich nations also use them to avoid making changes to their own industries, and meet their reduction targets by paying foreign businesses to run CDMs. All this results in no net reduction of emissions, and no actual development. The same looks likely to happen in the new treaty, with Annex II nations refusing to participate unless wealthy countries pay for them to do so. Technology transfer to small African and South American states makes good sense, but it’s little wonder that Europe and America are unhappy about footing the bill for China, India and Brazil’s promised eco-revolutions.

On top of this, it was recently revealed that rich nations are double-booking their aid budgets for the Copenhagen Summit, promising to fund climate adaptation in developing nations with money already set aside for poverty alleviation. NGOs were outraged and have launched a campaign targeting the host nation Denmark, demanding that they set an example by ensuring their contribution to international adaptation funds is not drawn from the same coffers as their aid budget. It’s a sensible demand, but one that’s not likely to be met. The Scandinavians, along with the Netherlands, are currently the only nations meeting the globally agreed target of 0.7% of GDP for foreign aid, which should place in perspective just how difficult it will be to convince Annex I nations to give still more to fund climate adaptation.

The only argument that might convince stingy governments, rich and poor alike, is a principle we learned in high school economics, that a stich in time almost always saves nine. The sooner they spend up on climate adaptation and mitigation, the less they have to pay in the future. The maintenance costs for our planet –its people and the ecosystems that sustain them– increase each year that they are left to degrade, meaning that a big spend on climate change now would save money in the long term when the problem gets worse.

This was one of the key conclusions drawn by Lord Stern in his famous report; pay now, or pay a helluva lot more later. And there is another argument, too. The Stern report did not include an assessment of the profits, the global income if you like, that would derive from an increase in productivity brought about by better health, education and gender equity in developing nations. In other words, green action has the potential to make money and, need it be said, improve quality of life for billions worldwide.

So, how do we help our governments to realise this? By using the same techniques campaigners and concerned citizens have always used; our votes, our consumption choices, and taking action through NGOs. That’s what I’m in Copenhagen to do, work with an NGO and, of course, answer my question about functional societies. Based on the way women in Bangladesh are stepping up to the climate challenge, as well as on the tight knit teams here at the COP15, I’d hazard a guess that it has something to do with working together. One big problem; one big community solution.

The below post is from Sharna Bremner in response to TOTO Challenge #1

I need you to do me a favour. Why, you ask? You don’t know me, why on earth should you do anything for me? Well, maybe you shouldn’t. But just indulge me.

Close your eyes and imagine, if you will, an attack like the one that occurred in the United States on September 11, 2001 happening each and every week. Horrific right? According to the World Health Organization (www.who.int) approximately 150,000 people died in the year 2000 from causes that were directly related to climate change.

That’s almost 3000 people, or the equivalent to the death toll of 9/11 every single week. These deaths however, are the ones we rarely hear about because they weren’t particularly spectacular in nature or they didn’t occur in the “Land of The Free”. These deaths are deemed by the media, and it seems the world, to be less important than what Britney or Paris were up to last night. So why is it then that an anti-poverty agency like ActionAid is focusing on climate change? Why do they care?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you would have heard the facts. The burning of fossil fuels is causing the earth to heat up, we’re slowly but surely causing the destruction of the planet, sea levels are rising; we need to recycle more and emit less carbon etc, etc, etc. Now, I could dazzle you all with big, important sounding scientific words and graphs and charts that make me seem more intelligent than I am. But I didn’t really understand myself exactly why climate change would matter to an anti-poverty agency such as ActionAid until I was given this challenge and I’m going to assume most of you reading this are in the same boat. So here it is. A few basic facts in simple, easy to understand terminology: a sort-of Dummies Guide to Climate Change and Poverty.

Climate Change = Hunger and Thirst

• Changing seasons, drought and flooding, all caused by climate change, will result in low crop yields according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (www.ipcc.ch). In fact the IPCC predicts that yields could decline by 50% in some African countries by 2020. In areas that are already suffering from food shortages, further scarcities would be nothing short of catastrophic.
• The IPCC also predicts that by 2020 supplies of water will no longer meet the demand, affecting over 300 million people in Africa and South America alone. Water shortages would not only mean increased dehydration and illness but would impede the growth of crops, perpetuating a vicious cycle of hunger. In Australia we worry about the drought because our lawn is no longer green. Imagine not being able to drink. At all.

Climate Change = Disease

• The World Health Organization (www.who.int) forecasts that the health of 235 million people is affected by climate change due to malaria, diarrhoea and malnutrition. These issues also account for a large portion of the 150,000 deaths I mentioned earlier. These deaths aren’t occurring in Australia, or the U.S. or the U.K. They’re taking place in Africa or Asia or South America. In countries where health care is unaffordable or nonexistent. It is estimated that over 85 percent of the dead are children. That’s around 350 kids per day by my calculations. Think of one of those kids next time you hop in your car when you could walk somewhere. 
• As the climate changes, diseases migrate. They may have previously been bound by geographical boundaries but as temperatures rise or fall or rain levels increase or decrease, diseases pack up and move on. Oxfam UK (www.oxfam.org.uk) notes that a temperature increase of 1ºC causes cases of diarrhoeal disease to increase by 8 percent in Lima, Peru. This is a direct link between disease and climate change. Something to think about next time you turn up that air-conditioning or heating huh?

Climate Change = Disasters

• A World Bank Independent Evaluation (www.worldbank.org) in 2007 found that natural disasters are increasing as a result of climate change and estimated that 90% of those killed and 98% of those affected live in Africa and Asia, in countries that lack the resources to alleviate the effects. The Evaluation also found that between 1996 and 2005, disasters caused $667 billion in losses worldwide. Those losses were 20 times greater in developing countries then those in developed countries.

The poor, it seems, are suffering sooner, harder and longer than those of us in the lucky countries of the world. And it is for precisely these reasons that an anti-poverty agency such as ActionAid is focussed on climate change. For the poor, climate change is happening now, not in the future as we would like to think.

I was lucky enough to visit the Philippines earlier this month, a country that was hit by three major typhoons in the weeks leading up to my visit, resulting in the deaths of hundreds and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.

I met a group of Canadian’s who had been helping with the rescue and recovery efforts in the affected areas and they kindly offered to talk to me about what they had seen and done. I think what I was told by one of the guy’s sums it up pretty nicely: “Do I think climate change plays a part in these disasters? Possibly. I’m not a scientist so I can’t really say for sure but there definitely seems to be a link. And it seems that it’s affecting those who can least afford it, like here in the Philippines. As for climate change sceptics, would you really want to be wrong? Yeah, the science might not be precise, it might not be exact. But I certainly wouldn’t want to dismiss it all together and see what I’ve seen happening here happening all over the world. Isn’t it worth trying to fix the problem just in case?”