BAAG launch photo-journalism competition

The BAAG Afghanistan Journalism Competition is now open! 

We're asking journalists and photographers to partner together and send us proposals for an original and engaging piece of journalism on an Afghanistan development theme.  We're looking for stories that will depict the reality of Afghanistan - the bravery and determination of the Afghan people, the complexities of development in a conflict-affected, impoverished and mountainous country, the success stories and the challenges. It might focus on youth, on the unifying power of sports, on healthcare, women's rights programmes, theatre groups...

The best proposal, as judged by our panel of high-profile journalists and photographers, will be rewarded with an all-expenses paid trip to Afghanistan.  The winning journalist and photographer will be supported by BAAG, and our wide-reaching network of international and Afghan NGOs, activists and in-country experts, to gather the materials required to realise their proposed story.  

December 31st 2015 will mark one year since the withdrawal of international combat troops from Afghanistan.  BAAG will publish and promote the winning article and photographs to mark this occasion, and to offer an alternative to the military and security narrative. 

The competition is open to professional journalists and photographers resident in the UK or Europe.  More information about the prize, how to submit a proposal and other important details can be found on our Competition webpage.

The deadline for entries is 27th September 2015. Any queries, please send them to Jenny.humphreys@baag.org.uk

The competition announcement has been posted to ijnet.org (with 170,000 visitors per month) and to journalism.co.uk (200,000 visitors per month).  BAAG have also requested an announcement be included in the newsletter of the NUJ - National Union of Journalists.  

BAAG bombarding policy-makers! July-August update

The BAAG team has been making sure British (and European) policy makers and politicians are fully aware of development and humanitarian needs.  

On 27th July we sent briefing papers to the members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Afghanistan.  This group is formed of MPs who have an interest in Afghanistan - from a development, security, human rights or humanitarian perspective.  We organise 4 discussions for them a year, to highlight issues and concerns in these various themes and to provide the members with direct access to Afghan and international expert speakers.  With a new British government in place since May, we briefed the past and new APPG members on the priority development, rights and humanitarian needs as decided by BAAG and our 28 NGO member agencies.  

These papers can be viewed on our website.

We sent them to the 16 APPG Afghanistan members, and also to the Secretaries of State for International Development, Foreign Affairs, and Defence, and to the 4 Ministers of these three ministries. 

Copies were also emailed Linda McAvan, MEP and Chair of the European Parliament's International Development Committee. 

In addition to our own papers, we contributed to a briefing by Bond, the consortium of British NGOs.  Their State of the World's Emergencies report, for which we wrote the Afghanistan section, was sent to 50 MPs and Ministers in the week starting 20th July.

In addition to the policy makers, Bond used the report to highlight ongoing humanitarian crises to the public.  In the run up to World Humanitarian Day, Bond and various members including BAAG, engaged the public via social media, blogs and live chats.  BAAG participated in a live Tweet Chat on 18th August, discussing 7 key issues regarding humanitarian crises and responses across the globe.  An edit of the conversation can be viewed on Storify, and the complete discussion is available on Twitter. 

Green Liberty: First Six Months of M4D

Photo/story competition

The photo/story competition Decent life for all was been launched in Latvia in July, 2015. Both, professional and amateur photographers or journalists can join it by submitting a photo or an article/a story that has been created during or on the basis of the visit to a country eligible to receive official development assistance (ODA).

This competition gives the competitors an opportunity to enhance public understanding of development issues and to promote achievements made in the field of the development cooperation.

Submissions will be accepted until September 9, 2015. The author of the best story/article will be awarded by grant from the M4D project budget for making a trip to a country with lower income and getting inspired to write new absorbing stories.

E-bulletin

To enrich awareness of society and policymakers in Latvia about global interconnection, challenges and initiatives to solve them both globally and locally we have started to publish electronic information bulletin Development Cooperation News (DCN).

DCN is published electronically twice a year and features current development cooperation topics from the perspective of practitioners, opinion leaders and policy-makers.

The 1^st issue is dedicated to financing for development. It gives a chance to remind us and our readers about Riga Roundtable international conference Financing for Development: Role of EU Member States that was organized on June 11-12, 2015 and about the 3^rd International Conference on Financing for Development that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on July 13 – 16, 2015. This global and local news is published in the section EVENTS that jointly with other sections: POSITIONS, EXPERIENCE, OPINIONS, and RESOURCES shapes the structure of Development Cooperation News.

This 1^st issue is looking for answers on the following questions: How to finance equality among people and sustainable planet? What is an opinion of Latvian policy makers about financing for global development? To what extent micro credits can reduce poverty? What are we ready to sacrifice to get bigger investments?

Download the bulletin Development Cooperation News here.

The next – 2^nd issue of Development Cooperation News will be about climate change. 

International conference Riga Roundtable

Riga Roundtable Financing for Development: Role of EU Member States was welcomed by Green Liberty and organized by Green Liberty, Latvian Green Movement and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia in Riga on June 11-12, 2015.

Can we afford sustainable development and who should pay for it and through which revenue streams? Riga international Roundtable was organized to find answers to those questions at national and international level through bringing together over 50 participants – policy makers, media representatives, civil society and private sector activists, academics and educators from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Finland and UK.

During two days Riga Roundtable conference provided an agenda of several interconnected sections:

• Media breakfast,
• Keynote Speeches: Introduction to global agenda of the financing for development,
• Roundtable Discussion 1. Financing for Development: Alternative solutions,
• Roundtable Discussion 2: Financing for development: Country positions,
• Case Study Session: Successes and challenges of the financing for development.

See the short information about Riga Roundtable contributors – keynote speakers, roundtable discussion and case study participants, and moderators.

Information about the event was published in websites of EYD2015, Green Liberty, Latvian Green Movement, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, Newsletter of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, Latvian Rural forum, international magazine for decision makers The Baltic Course, LETA, Latvian Messenger, BAAG, and discussed in Facebook pages of Green Liberty and Latvian Green Movement.

  

Fair Trade event

On May 30 in cooperation with Humana People to People Latvia we organized an event HOW FAIR ARE OUR CLOTHES? The event took place in Cinema-gallery K-Suns, Elizabetes 83/85, Riga within the World Fair Trade Week 2015. 

This event invited everybody who cared about fair everyday decisions connected to our clothes. Clothes as everyday item are universal and necessary to everybody therefore they connect people. However, their connecting reality has a lot of unfairness and inequality where the world’s poorest people make expensive clothes that we can buy in popular brand shops. 

                                                                                                      

Event agenda:

      1.      Screening of the documentary movie THE TRUE COST by the director Andrew Morgan.

As the filmmakers say: “This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. The price of clothing has been decreasing for decades, while the human and environmental costs have grown dramatically. The True Cost is a groundbreaking documentary film that pulls back the curtain on the untold story and asks us to consider, who really pays the price for our clothing?”

We hope that this film has initiated participants’ thinking not only about unfairness in the world, but also about our position of being a clothes consumer. Thus, we wished to raise public awareness and critical thinking about clothes industry, about everyday choices connected to it, and about active position for fair everyday life in personal, local community, national, and global level.

    2.     Sustainable fashion doTalk - upcycling event for creating stylish sustainable clothing.

Sustainable fashion doTalks (modesTalka) are up-cycling events which are aimed to inform and actively engage people in creating stylish sustainable design clothing from reused or second hand garments.

This time fashion doTalk team ensured that there were enough clothes for upcycling process that participants didn’t need to take anything with them. We created simple things – bags from jeans and t-shirts, besides that, participants had an opportunity to work with colors and refresh old t-shirts. Fashion doTalk team helped with ideas and some practical support – work with needles and threads.

Information about the event was published in Green Liberty website, Delfi, Apollo, allevents.in, EYD2015, shared in TV3 News, and discussed in Facebook pages of Green Liberty and Humana People to People Latvia.

Find some photos from previous doTalk events:

• Fashion DoTalk in Livani, event where participants mainly created new bags:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/set=a.477357525619479.106292.335982383090328&type=3
• One of the first fashion doTalk from the contemporary art festival “White night”:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/set=a.357770287578204.81102.335982383090328&type=3
• The last fashion doTalk: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.919241258097768.1073741834.335982383090328&type=3

 EC Inception Seminar

On April 28-29 a representative of Green Liberty participated in the Inception Seminar, organized by European Commission.

The event aimed to discuss successful management of DEAR projects, involvement multiple partners from different locations, to identify learning points and good practice criteria. Participants were also informed of EC financial and activity/results reporting requirements, as well as improved visibility of the EU standards and communication on the EYD 2015.

Seminar was a successful learning and networking initiative that established partnership among national and international organizations.

Helsinki seminar

On April 22-24 three Latvian writing journalists together with their colleagues from other M4D partner organizations deepened their awareness and understanding about reflecting on global development issues in an Intensive Course on Development for Journalists in Helsinki.

The seminar organized by project’s Finnish partner organization VIKES was a great success because of its interesting content, discussions and workshops, organization and atmosphere.

The seminar encouraged several initiatives in Latvia: reflections by journalists in regional media (article To Look Broader), media lunch with representatives of Green Liberty and Latvian Green Movement where the learnings were shared and future cooperation plans created.

Tallinn seminar

On March 25-27 two Latvian film journalists took part in TV Documentary Format Development Seminar organized by Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR).

Participants from M4D partner organizations discussed various forms and modes of documentary films that could be made after visiting developing countries.

After the seminar it was discussed in media lunch with representatives of Green Liberty and Latvian Green Movement where the learnings were shared and future cooperation plans created.

The clips will be completed.

At the beginning of our program we promised that out each documentary topic we will also produce 3 different 4 minutes long short clips. As our program was started with delay we can’t produce these clips out of documentary materials but are forced to use different sources (as our big archive, materials from independent producers and from Internet). We also needed to have a new format for clips as they couldn't be about documentaries any more.

 (United Nations Photo)

But this situation offered an opportunity! As is written in our application: the general public needs more information about the important but also difficult and complex issues that are at the heart of this project (sustainable development, inter-dependencies, development cooperation) to understand how they are part of a global community and share same opportunities but also responsibilities, and how there is a role for everyone to play in overcoming global challenges. This information will be given in variety of ways. 

We chose to produce educational clips explaining the different and difficult topics in global development business (emphasizing the issues of basic living standards, equality, justice, peace and security as well as management of natural resources to build a more sustainable future).

                                                                            (United Nations Photo)

At the beginning of 1th of August we had the topics and ruff cuts for about 25 clips. We still need to smooth them. At the middle of month we have ten clips ready to presentation in our web-page. At the beginning of September we start airing them.

How we went to Kenya and found out that we can't do anything without Whatsapp*

Estonian Public Broadcasting is doing a documentary about mobile phones in Kenya for the Media for Development project. So author Tiiu Laks, director Märten Vaher and cameraman Meelis Kadastik went to Kenya's capital Nairobi and neighbouring towns in June 2015 to find out more about it. The film crew got a lot of help from a local production company Frinant Pictures, mainly from Kent Libiso, Anthony Andere and Mavado Ondivou'r. But also from Estonia's honorary consul in Kenya – Kadri Humal-Ayal.

Mobile phone penetration in Kenya is 80% and even the people living in Africa's biggest urban slum, Kibera, that we talked to, said that even though mobile phones are expensive, they do not even consider the option of not buying one.

As we set out to look for the best mobile application in Kenya, that helps to improve people's lives, it was soon clear that the only application that has managed to really affect Kenyans' lives is M-Pesa.

In Kenya, not that many people have bank accounts, because in rural areas, bank offices are far and in urban settings the queues in the offices are long. Young people living and working in the city have to send cash home to their families by bus or other means. Carrying around amounts of cash is a big security risk.

M-Pesa was launched in 2007 by Vodafone and it allows people to deposit money on their mobile accounts and send it to other M-Pesa clients in seconds. You can deposit or withdraw money via M-Pesa agents. A few years ago, there were 500 bank offices in Kenya, but 18000 M-Pesa agents.

All the people we talked to in Kenya, said that M-Pesa has helped improve their lives, because it solved all the issues that were mentioned above. And while these problems might not look like much to us, they were causing Kenyans a lot of headache.

Kenyans soon realised that via mobile apps (mostly SMS based), people can get help that is not provided by the state. We talked to a farmer in rural Kenya that is not connected to the power grid and gets her electricity from a solar panel that she pays for via her mobile phone. We talked to a company that provides farmers with information that helps grow the efficiency of their farm work. We talked to a start-up that gives free IT education to girls from slums and finds them internships afterwards. We talked to university students that are creating systems to digitalize police database, so that when you are pulled over for speeding, they can see if you have previous violations without having to take you down to the police station. Digitalization also helps fight corruption, because then every action leaves a digital fingerprint and it is harder to tamper with things then.

When we asked one of our interviewees if Kenyans adopt new technologies easily, he said: You can imagine that when they trust their money with a mobile phone, they would trust everything else with it as well. And that is very true.

Although Kenyan president urged African countries to give up foreign aid, it is still needed, even in the tech scene. Many of the start-ups struggle to find further funding and die out after a year. And many of the app developers still do not know how things should be done though user experience design.

But the spirit of Kenya is very much ready to get things going. As we witnessed every day - every Kenyan is a real entrepreneur and that is much needed to get things done in this quickly developing country.

* (7,5 % of Kenyans now have smartphones and they mostly use Whatsapp to communicate with each other, not like e-mails and sms like in the old world.)

Information bulletin Development Cooperation News by Green Liberty has been published!

Development Cooperation News (DCN) is published electronically twice a year with an aim to enrich awareness of society and policymakers in Latvia about global interconnection, challenges and initiatives to solve them both globally and locally. Thus, DCN features current development cooperation topics from the perspective of practitioners, opinion leaders and policy-makers.

The 1^st issue is dedicated to financing for development. It gives a chance to remind us and our readers about Riga Roundtable international conference Financing for Development: Role of EU Member States that was organized on June 11-12-2015 by the Green Liberty, Latvian Green Movement and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia and about the 3^rd International Conference on Financing for Development that was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on July 13 to 16, 2015. This global and local news is published in the section EVENTS that jointly with other sections: POSITIONS, EXPERIENCE, OPINIONS, and RESOURCES shapes the structure of Development Cooperation News.

This 1^st issue is looking for answers on the following questions: How to finance equality among people and sustainable planet? What is an opinion of Latvian policy makers about financing for global development? To what extent micro credits can reduce poverty? What are we ready to sacrifice to get bigger investments?

Development Cooperation News is one of  is one of the activities of Media4Development (DCI-NSAED/2014/338-309) that is a joint project between Mondo (Estonia), Green Liberty (Latvia), Estonian Public Broadcasting Company (Estonia), People in Need (Czech Republic), MVRO (Slovakia), House of Europe (Lithuania), VIKES (Finland) and BAAG (UK/Ireland) funded by the European Commission. The aim of the project is to raise the awareness of the general public about global interdependencies and challenges through media.

The publication Development Cooperation News is the sole responsibility of Green Liberty, the content of articles is responsibility of the authors and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

Download the bulletin Development Cooperation News here.

The next – 2^nd issue of Development Cooperation News will be about climate change.  

Ask and share: inga@zalabriviba.lv