Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
18 July 2018
Post No. 48
The Week’s Contents
• Monitoring and Evaluation: Only Two Weeks to Go!
• Happiness Projects: Budgeting and Delivering Happiness
• Seven Days of Development in July 2018 Festival
… And much more!
Key Messages from the Week’s Contents
Monitoring and Evaluation: Only Two Weeks to Go!
We only have two weeks left for our Analytics month. We are again appealing to you to tell us in your own words your perceptions, feelings and experiences about the programmes and projects we ran in the last 345 days preceding the beginning of July 2018.
Although we have selected 16 projects (2 projects times 8 programmes) for monitoring and evaluation, we are not expecting people to provide feedback on all of them. People can only feedback on the project(s) and programme(s) they benefited from, they supported, they recommended users to us or interacted within. Please feel free to say what you experienced. Thank you for your support!
Happiness Projects: Budgeting and Delivering Happiness
The week is also of the continuation of our Summer programme for multi-dimensional poor children, young people and families. This continuation is through the second part of this programme which is Happiness Projects. In total, there are six projects to meet the needs of three types of beneficiaries: children, young people and families.
In our planning process of Summer of Happiness Projects, we started last week by budgeting Summer Holidays with what we call Happiness Budget. This week we are continuing the budgeting process while starting to deliver on other parts of the Happiness Projects as Summer Holiday is just around the corner. For those who are struggling with their Happiness Budgets, CENFACS is prepared to look into their Summer Budgets.
As we are in CENFACS’ year of Local People (the Local Campaign Year), the focus for these Summer Happiness Projects is Local Happiness or Happiness of Locals; that is what makes local people happy. In other words, what makes local children, young people and families happy (or unhappy) over Summer and beyond.
Seven Days of Development in July 2018 Festival
Our Summer Festival of Thoughts and Actions against poverty and for sustainable development will kick off on the 22nd of July as planned. The Festival’s main theme is Effects of Trade Tariffs on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development.
For more on this year’s Summer Festival including how to participate, please read the notes under the following Main Development section of this web post.
Main Development of the Week’s Contents
• Happiness Projects: Happiness of Locals
•• Understanding CENFACS’ Happiness Projects
This year, we are going to focus on Happiness of Locals. In other words, our centre of interest is what makes local children, young people and families happy (or unhappy) over Summer and beyond. To do that one needs to budget and deliver Happiness or Happiness Projects.
CENFACS’ Happiness Projects are poverty-relieving responses to bring joyful lives while reducing misery for poor children, young people and families over the summer period and beyond. The underlying principles or philosophy of these life evaluation projects are in line with the main factors or indicators that define happiness as both a social and personal concept as explained in World Happiness Reports edited by Helliwell, Layard and Sachs (1).
These editors distinguish the social foundations of happiness from personal happiness, although the two are complementary. They argue that the science of measuring and understanding subjective well-being and happiness indicates that to be happy, one needs to meet the following six key variables that explain happiness differences among countries which include: income, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on in times of trouble, generosity, freedom and trust. When talking about key determinants of happiness and misery, they again argue that happiness is caused by factors such as income, employment, health and family life.
CENFACS Happines Projects address the issues encapsulated inside the above variables and factors while keeping in mind first the needs of the CENFACS Community. This is because we think the way to keep people happier is to reduce as much as possible poverty and misery among them. Happiness is about ending poverty and misery. As our focus is on locals this year, happiness is finally about ending poverty and misery amongst locals.
(1) Helliwell, J., Layard, R., & Sachs, J. (2017 & 2018), World Happiness Reports 2017 & 2018, New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network
•• Delivering Happiness with 6 Projects for 3 Beneficiaries
6 Projects to bring Happiness to Local 1/ Children 2/ Young People 3/ Families
Summer is a holiday season of the year during which most of the schools are closed and families with children and young people in much needed help are forced to stay with them and or use this time of the year to take holiday. The usual routine of educational/academic establishments with their recreational activities is scaled down. Yet, these families are in need of seasonal activities and programmes for improving their well-being and happiness.
There are ways of ensuring that summer stays an interesting and enjoyable period for Multi-dimensionally Poor Children, Young People and Families. There are things that can be done to make summertime a season of Happiness, Peace, Vulnerability-free, Protection and Sustainability.
The following CENFACS summer 2018 initiatives can help in achieving some joyful and helpful summer plans, goals and outcomes.
CENFACS Happiness Projects include: 1) Happy Summer Break 2) Holiday with Relief 3) Removing Vulnerability Peacefully 4) Sustainable Summer 5) VISIBLENESS and ONUS (Concept projects) 6) Networking for Protection & Safeguarding.
This is a combination of skills, knowledge, resources, tools, boosters and tasters for poverty relief.
To the above Happiness Projects, we have injected our Local Campaign Year all over our Summer 2018 Programme. The injection of Locals all across is what makes Summer 2018 of its kind. It is about helping to improve life evaluation while taking action to enhance the same life so that Summer stays a season of Happiness NOT of Misery for unserved and under-served children, young people and families.
For details about CENFACS Happiness Projects 2018 and to access them, contact CENFACS.
• Welcome to the Seven Days of Development in July 2018 Festival,
CENFACS’ Summer Festival of Thoughts and Actions on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development
This year’s event feature:
Effects of Trade Tariffs on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development
THINK ♦ ACT ♦ SHARE ♦ ADD VALUE ♦ SPREAD
Perhaps the practical way to introduce this Festival is to provide you with the following quote from the World Trade Organisation (2):
“For tariffs, it is estimated that a 1 per cent decrease lowers unemployment by about 0.35 per cent, while for trade openness a 10 percentage point increase reduces aggregate unemployment by about three quarters of a percentage point (p. 111)”.
The above is the say from Dutt and others (3) and Felbermayr and others (4) who were quoted by the World Trade Organisation.
This quote tells us tariffs can have positive or negative effects on employment and in-working poverty. It also indicates that tariffs can have something to do with sustainable employment or development.
It is not surprising if the World Bank Group and World Trade Organisation (5) argue that
“… trade is equally – if not more – important for the almost one billion poor people living on less than $1.25 a day, who struggle to connect themselves to trade opportunities”.
This struggle can even be made difficult if this billion faces tariffs. And the increase in tariffs from some of the developed nations can only make matter worse for the poor including those living in Africa and elsewhere where there is a great need to reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development.
As the same World Trade Organisation put it in the same report:
“… a reduction in tariffs will reduce the price paid at the border for the good by the importer” (p. 124).
For example for poor cross-border traders, tariffs can have a significant effect on their earnings.
Having said that the Seven Days of Development in July 2018 are the days of thoughts on what customs duties on merchandise imports can do for or against poverty relief and sustainable development.
Without anticipating the outcomes of our upcoming thoughts, one can simply argue that it is possible to capture the share of gain or loss from tariff to reduce poverty and improve the state of sustainable development.
In the Seven Days of Development in July 2018 – the 10th of our Summer Festival of Thoughts event since its inception in 2009 – we are going to think, act and share ideas about how to help lift people out poverty and make strides on sustainable development despite unkind climate of trade tariffs and barriers.
We have provided further details below (under the Event Guide and Programme) about the way of engaging this Festival. You can engage with this Trade event where you are via emails, online, phone and social media.
(2) World Trade Organisation, World Trade Report 2017: Trade, technology and jobs (www.wto.org)
(3) Dutt, P., Mitra, D. and Ranjan, P. (2009), International Trade and Unemployment: Theory and Cross-National Evidence, Journal of International Economics 78(1): 32-44
(4) Felbermayr, G., Prat, J. and Schmerer, H.-J. (2015), Trade and Unemployment: What Do the Data Say?, European Economic Review 55(6): 741-758
(5) The World Bank Group and the World Trade Organisation, The Role of Trade in Ending Poverty, 2015
•• Event Guide & Programme
~ 7DDJ Registration
Entry to the 7DDJ2018 is FREE. There is no need to register.
~ Daily Themes
Daily Themes (DTs) provide a daily opening thought or starting point of the broad topic/issue of Effects of Trade Tariffs. Each DT will last all day and the only day it is planned.
~ Responses to 7DDJ Contributors
Each respondent will receive a reply to their contribution in the form of either an acknowledgement of their participation or a reaction expressed as an argument to their responses or even both. Also, they will be entitled to receive the summary report on this annual event.
~ Lead Thoughts
Lead thoughts are a general idea on the thought of the day. There are designed to lead to or generate more thoughts, potential research paths or investigative grounds that can be further explored to shade some lights to our Summer Thoughts.
MAKE YOUR IDEAS AND COMMENTS COUNT!
•• Daily Contents
Day 1: Role of Trade Tariffs
The role of tariffs (or import levy) on poverty relief and sustainable development
Lead thought: Day 1 will be about the function that an import levy can play on the process of reducing poverty and enhancing better life for both the current and future generations.
Day 2: Economic Protection
How to economically protect the poor from trade war and tariffs
Lead thought: After looking at the role of tariffs, we will then share ideas regarding the proposition that reducing tariffs and opening up markets for free trade can have beneficial effects on the process of poverty reduction.
Day 3: Trade Rules
Enforceable trade rules are good for poverty relief and sustainable development
Lead thought: There are perspectives that advocate that negotiated, monitored and well implemented trade rules are good for poverty relief and for sustainable development.
Day 4: Trade Tariffs and Gender Development
Unfair trade tariffs structure can contribute to gender poverty and unsustainable development
Lead thought: Do men and women face the same tariffs in export markets for the products they produce and sell?
Day 5: Levying imports or taxing the poor
How a levy on imports could become a tax on the poor and what is the relationship between the two.
Lead thought: Reducing the cost of trade can lead to the reduction of poverty. Increasing this cost through a levy can make it difficult for the poor.
Day 6: Effects of new-protectionist tariffs on export-earning capacities of poor African traders
How much damaging trade tariffs can be for poverty relief
Lead thought: Poor traders who rely on the revenue from the sale of their products can suffer from the newly emerging protectionist tariffs and trade war
Day 7: Net impact of trade barriers on foreign-exchange earnings of poor farmers
The real impact of trade tariffs on foreign-exchange earnings
Lead thought: Poor farmers who expect to earn foreign-exchange from the sale of their products and services may suffer as well.
•• Supporting the 7DDJ2018 event
7 Ways of Supporting 7DDJ2018
You could
√ Directly forward your thoughts, comments and views on any themes and topics of the event
√ Pass the message onto interested persons
√ Feedback on previous 7DDJF events
√ Promote the event around you and/or by using other means available to you and at your convenience
√ Help us re-cover the expenses of the event specifically and/or the running cost of CENFACS’ work generally
√ Regularly support CENFACS to enable us to continue our work
√ Support our new initiative about Improving Trade Capacity for Poor People
7 Ways of Proceeding with your Wish
Please choose below the kind of support you want to provide and let us know
√ Promote the event
√ Feedback CENFACS on previous events
√ Spread the news about the event
√ Help in the recovery of 7DDJ 2018 expenses
√ Fund CENFACS for its deserving work
√ Provide helpful and supportive comments/views
√ Support CENFACS in your own way
Please mail your intent to support and or support to CENFACS
Closing date for reply: 05/08/2018
Please read the above event supporting information and mail us your comments and views (on the themes of your interest) to facs@cenfacs.org.uk
Thank you for your continued support.
With best wishes and full of inspiration and creativity throughout our dedicated days of Festival of Thoughts and Actions on Effects of Trade Tariffs on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development
The 7DDJ2018 Events Team
Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support during 2018.
With many thanks
