Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
03 November 2021
Post No. 220
The Week’s Contents
• The Month of the Economics of Education and Skill Formation (Skills Development Month) 2021
• Skills Data Bank
• “A la une” (Autumn Leaves of Action for the Upkeep of the Nature in Existence) Campaign, Themed Activity and Note No. 4 from Week beginning 01/11/2021: Use of Herbicides and Pesticides on Plants
… And much more!
Key Messages
• The Month of the Economics of Education and Skill Formation (Skills Development Month) 2021
November is the Month of the Economics of Education and Skill Formation (or in short Skills Development Month) within CENFACS. It is the month that we recognise the economic value of education as well as of the non-economic benefits from education even if there could a dispute about these values or benefits. It is also the month we pay particular attention to the technology of skill formation; month in which we try to find out how skills are formed and how technologies relating to them can help us to further reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development.
So, our November work on economic issues relating to education has just started this week. This work will first be about the link between education economics and poverty reduction, then between education economics and sustainable development. This work will include the identification of causal relationships between African organisations’ work and outcomes in educational projects.
In this identification, we shall refer to the human capital theory which will be the theoretical and working paradigm to be used this month. In other words, all along this month we shall work on this assumption: the importance and capacity of education and training (skills development) to help reduce poverty and enhance sustainable development.
Skills formation and development will be about forming new skills (that is any abilities to perform an activity in a competent way) to continue to fight poverty, for example coronavirus-induced poverty. Skills formation and development will indeed include skills to build forward. In other words, as we are working within the framework of Build Forward Better Programme, the skills we will be dealing with are those that will help us to build forward from the health and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. This variety of abilities or skills will make our human capital.
When we say us we mean CENFACS Community, individual users and Africa-based Sister Organisations in the process of building forward better together from the economic and health threats and consequences brought by the coronavirus pandemic.
Under the Main Development section of this post, you will find further information about this first key message.
• Skills Data Bank
As part of our Skills Development Month, we would like to let you know that you can register your skills to our data bank; which is repository containing information about CENFACS and the data of the CENFACS’ Community. The register is free. Skills and information are stored on it in accordance with the latest regulations on data protection.
Knowing the skills that one possesses, it makes easy when opportunity arises to match them with registered skills. It also helps to point those in need of support to the right and relevant a skilful person and direction.
To register your skills to make up the CENFACS’ Community of skilled people, please contact CENFACS.
• “A la une” (Autumn Leaves of Action for the Upkeep of the Nature in Existence) Campaign, Themed Activity and Note No. 4 from Week beginning 01/11/2021: Use of Herbicides and Pesticides on Plants
The fourth action to take in order to Safeguard Crop Wild Relatives is to do with the use of pesticides, particularly herbicides. Before dealing with the sub-actions relating to this action, the use of pesticides; let us briefly clarify some concepts.
• • Brief understanding of pesticides and herbicides
In the Oxford Dictionary of Environment and Conservation by Chris Park (1), pesticide is defined as
“A chemical (such as an *insecticide, *fungicide, *rodenticide, *herbicide, or *germicide) that is used to kill or control *pests, such as *insects, *weeds, or *micro-organisms” (p. 336)
The same dictionary tells us that herbicide is
“A chemical *pesticide that is used to control or kill specific unwanted plants, particularly *weeds” (p. 210)
Often, herbicide and or any other types of pesticides are used on plants for various reasons. There are benefits in using pesticides (like herbicides); benefits which include the following: improvement in productivity, protection of crop losses and yield reduction, vector disease control, quality of food quality, increased production of food and fibre, etc.
Besides these benefits, there are negative impacts from their use on humans, animals and plants themselves. It is the negative impacts of their use on plants that we are concerned with in the context of the theme of “A la une” Campaign and the sub-theme of Safeguard of Crop Wild Relatives. What are these negative impacts?
• • Negative effects from the use of pesticides, particularly herbicides, on plants
Dr Elaine Ingham quoted by Aktar et al. (2) argues that
“Overuse of chemical fertilisers and pesticides has effects on the soil organisms that are similar to human overuse of antibiotics. Indiscriminate use of chemicals might work for a few years, but after a while, there aren’t enough beneficial soil organisms to hold onto the nutrients”
Many other studies document negative effects such as pesticide contamination in the food stuffs (e.g. lettuce, apples, tomatoes, etc.) with high residue levels exceeding the maximum residue limit (that is the highest level of a pesticide residue that is legally tolerated in or on food or feed). Also, the incorrect use of pesticides can contaminate soil, vegetation, water and other ground water. Knowing that these effects or impacts can happen, what is mostly important is to take actions.
• • Actions for the upkeep of plants from bad use of pesticides and herbicides
Aktar et al. (op. cit.) argue in their conclusion that
“The best way to reduce pesticide contamination (and the harm it causes) in our environment is for all of us to do our part to use safer, non-chemical pest control (including weed control) methods”.
Doing our part to use safer, non-pest control needs to be translated into concrete actions such as the following:
√ Stop the contamination of air, soil and non-target vegetation or plants
√ Investigate outbreaks and accidental exposure to pesticides by plants
√ Conduct correlation studies between health plant and pesticides
√ Develop cohort analyses
√ Conduct randomised trials of intervention procedures
√ Collect valuable information by monitoring the minimum residue level on plants
To the above mentioned actions relating to the use pesticides, one may need add other actions that specifically focus on the use of herbicides on plants. For example, Tu et al. (3) in their guidelines for herbicides when arguing about the Nature Conservancy, they speak about it. It is possible to pick up from these guidelines these three actions:
√ Use herbicides only if they are safe
√ Use herbicides only to do more conservation good than harm
√ Develop safety protocols for storing, mixing, transporting, handling spills, and disposing unused herbicides and containers before obtaining herbicides.
Briefly, the message conveys via this fourth action about the Safeguard of Crop Wild Relatives is to only use herbicides if they do not threaten the health and wealth of Crop Wild Relatives in the short and long term time.
To support this Fourth Action relating to the Safeguard of Crop Wild Relatives and to the “A la une” Campaign, please contact CENFACS.
Extra Messages
• Go Relief with CENFACS’ Charity e-Store!
CENFACS Charity e-Store has been still opened since the lifting of the rules on wearing face coverings in England in July along with most other COVID-19 restrictions.
Under the current COVID-19 approach of enabling personal risk-based judgements, we are nevertheless following the strict restrictions and guidance regarding the control and surveillance of COVID-19 as well as the protection and saving of lives.
For the health and safety of everybody, all goods donations will be quarantined for at least 72 hours.
We have enhanced our sanitation and cleaning methods and practices.
We hope you are doing the same in the interest of public health and safety.
Please do not hesitate to donate goods or purchase what is available at CENFACS Charity e-Store.
Many lives have been threatened and destroyed by the coronavirus pandemic. Those who managed to survive need help. We need help as well to help them come out poverty and hardships caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
To donate or purchase goods, please go to: http://cenfacs.org.uk/shop/
• Be.Africa debates the imperative need for the use of pesticides in Africa
There are those people who argue that it is imperative to use pesticides to increase the quantity of food available in order to tackle hunger and famine in Africa. Against this view, there are those who do not believe that famine and communicable diseases in Africa will be resolved via pesticides on plants.
CENFACS’ be.Africa would like to hear your opinion on this.
To tell and share your view on this debate, please contact CENFACS.
• Climate Protection and Stake for African Children – Phase 3 (CPSAC-P.3): Glasgow Steps It Up
Our process of advocating better climate deals for children, particularly but not exclusively African children, in the context of global climate talks continues this week as we are following what is happening during the climate talks which are now in progress in Glasgow.
After hearing and listening to what everybody has said so far, we would like to highlight what Sir David Attenborough (4) said on 01 November 2021. It is great to hear and listen to him reminding the world at the opening World Leaders Summit of COP26 in Glasgow the following:
“No nation has completed development, because no industrial nation is yet sustainable. We all have a journey to complete. Nature is a key ally. Whenever we restore the wild, it will recapture carbon and help us bring back balance to our planet”.
If no nation has completed development and nature is a (our) key ally, then there is a need to ensure that we should not only leave to children and future generations to complete development. Likewise, we should not hand over to them unfriendly world to the nature. Therefore, giving a climate protection and stake to these children and future generations is not only a necessity but it is imperative. This should not be empty words. Instead, this should be materialised by concrete actions in our time.
Having said that one can hope that 28 Climate Campaigning Points made in our Compendia of Climate Advocacy will be considered at COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow. One can also expect that Glasgow could step it up and make it happen for children and the generations to come.
To support CPSAC-P.3 and the sub-theme of ‘Glasgow Steps It Up’ as well as any of the 28 Climate Campaigning Points of CENFACS’ Compendia of Climate Advocacy, please contact CENFACS.
Novembre, c’est le mois de Développement des Compétences au sein du CENFACS
Nous profitons de cette occasion pour vous inviter à enregistrer vos habiletés, qualifications et expériences avec la banque de données de CENFACS.
Avec vos habiletés, qualifications et expériences ainsi enregistrées et connues, nous pouvons vous informer sur les offres et demandes du marché de réduction de la pauvreté.
En plus, nous pouvons directement adresser nos usagers à vous ou à vos services ou activités.
Pour enregistrer vos habiletés, qualifications et expériences; veuillez contacter le CENFACS à l’adresse suivante:
www.cenfacs.org.uk
N’oubliez pas ceci: la communauté CENFACS, c’est aussi une communauté d’habiletés.
Merci
Main Development
• The Month of the Economics of Education and Skill Formation (Skills Development Month) 2021
• • Month of November within CENFACS
November month has two features within CENFACS which are: Skills evaluation and training implementation.
• • • November as a month of skills evaluation
November at CENFACS is the month of education and training; which revolves around the development of skills for life, for work, for poverty relief and sustainable development. It is the month during which we look into ourselves and try to assess, explore and learn the skills we need in order to further help reduce poverty in a sustainable way amongst ourselves and re-engage with the business of sustainable development.
• • • November as a training implementation month
November is also the training implementation month during which we pay attention to the following: educationally related projects or projects that involve training, skills development and acquisition of new knowledge to help users and our Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) to empower themselves with the educational tools and training resources they need to further help reduce poverty.
For example, one of the skills development project to support ASOs is skills to work from home or distance learning and working skills during and after the pandemic and lockdown times as well as when there is handicap for people to meet in-person and work.
• • Poverty as a lack of skills and knowledge
It is known that poverty is not only material or the lack of monetary income; it is even more the lack of knowledge, skills, knowhow and technologies than anything else. Therefore, knowing and learning a skill can help to further reduce poverty, particularly but not exclusively COVID-19-induced poverty, and can set one on the right course of the development process. In this respect, there could relationships between economics of education and poverty reduction, between skill formation and poverty reduction.
• • • Relationship between the economics of education and poverty reduction
The economics of education is generally defined as the study of economic issues relating to education. The paradigm used in the economics of education is human capital theory. This theory suggests that investment in education and training lead people to become productive.
However, education and training do not only lead to the improvement of productivity. They can also pave the way for poverty reduction. As people get more educated and trained, these further education and training can provide them with the means to overcome poverty. As a result of this, there could be relationship between the economics of education and poverty reduction.
There could disagreement about this link between the two. However, despite this disagreement we are working on the assumption that education and training can lead to poverty reduction.
• • • Link between skill formation and poverty reduction
Let us briefly try to understand skill formation by highlighting its definitions. One of its definitions comes from an online dictionary at the website igi—global.com (5), which explains the following
“Skill formation is the process by which individuals achieve and develop innate or acquired skills to cope with everyday life challenges. Besides heredity, it includes formal and informal training activities and life experience”.
From this definition, it is possible to deduct that individuals who are poor can use their innate or acquired skills to cope with the challenge of poverty by developing survival and coping strategies. If they continue to use their skills and those strategies, they can navigate their way out of poverty. When they reach the point at which their skills and strategies effectively enable them to reduce poverty, then one could argue about the link between skill formation and poverty reduction.
• • CENFACS and its work on skills development
As far as CENFACS is concerned, we strive to support those who want to learn a skill while we at CENFACS as an organisation plan our own training, learning and development programme from time to time when we can access both funding and training.
The focus for this November 2021 will be on enhancing skills to build forward better from the continuing side effects of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns.
• • Skills to build forward better
There are models of building forward from any major crises (like the coronavirus or other ones). Depending on the model chosen, one may have a set of skills matching this model in order to deliver their project or programme (here build forward projects/programme).
After surveying the different existing models of building forward, we come to the conclusion that we shall approach the skills to build forward by following this sketch: planning – implementation – data analytics – monitoring and evaluation.
However, build forward projects and programme are not only about CENFACS, they are also about CENFACS users. Because of that, we are going to include the creation/generation of ideas to create extra income to meet the financial pressure towards the end of the year.
Therefore, we shall have the following skills focus:
skills to plan your build forward projects/programme, skills to implement them/it, skills to collect and analyse data from projects/programme and skills to generate little extra income.
The following table summarises our plan (Wednesdays’ Skills Focus) for approaching skills this month. It highlights a skills set to focus on from every Wednesday of each week of November 2021 starting from 03/11/2021.
Wednesdays’ Skills Focus
Wednesday Skills Focus
03/11/2021: Skills to prepare a plan to build forward (Planning Skills)
10/11/2021: Skills to execute a build-forward plan (Implementation Skills)
17/11/2021: Skills to analyse your build-forward data (Analytical Skills)
24/11/2021: Skills to create income (Income-generating Skills)
The above skills will be built and developed in such way…
∝ To ensure that the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic sits on sound and sustainable foundations
∝ To help project beneficiaries to make steady progress in their journey and work of reconstruction from the COVID-19 impacts while preparing them to stay resilient to future similar shocks and crises
∝ To correct the asymmetrical and disproportional legacies of COVID-19 containment measures and lockdown restrictions since many of our community members have been unevenly and unjustifiably hurt by these measures and restrictions
∝ To adopt green and clean pathways for poverty reduction and low carbon emissions development
• In Focus from Wednesday 03/11/2021: Skills to Prepare a Plan to Build Forward
To build forward, one needs a plan of action. Planning is about setting up objectives, organising activities that will contribute to these objectives, finding and allocating resources or inputs to these activities, and measuring the outputs or outcomes to be achieved.
From the above elements of planning process, one can have the following types of skills:
(a) Skills to set up objectives
(b) Skills to organise activities
(c) Skills to acquire and allocate resources or inputs
(d) Skills to measure or count outputs or outcomes
All these planning skills will help one to build forward better. Let us briefly look at them.
• • Planning Skills to build forward better
• • • Skills to set up objectives
To build forward, one needs to have some statements on how they are going to achieve their aims or have something they are aiming at or wishing for to happen. These things constitute objectives. It means one should have naturally acquired or developed through training the dexterity or talent to form aims or goals to be achieved in their plan of building forward. For example, one can have brainstorming skills.
• • • Skills to organise activities
Objectives require people to do something about them to be achieved or to materialise. In other words, one may require skills to organise time, things and people in order to meet these objectives. An example of these skills could be organisational skills.
• • • Skills to acquire and allocate resources or inputs
To organise any activities, resources or inputs must be available to achieve build forward better projects/programme. These resources could be acquired or existing. Because they are available, the issue is then how to allocate or distribute them between competing ends or uses in the process of building forward better without wasting them. To do that, it requires skills. Amongst the required skills are economic skills which will enable you to allocate scarce resources between competing uses.
• • • Skills to measure or count outputs and outcomes
It is not enough to allocate resources unless one is able to spell out the outputs (or services) and facilities they are delivering, and these are the outcomes or the changes and effects that arise from their work. To deliver services and facilities, they may need sales skills or user care skills. To show the changes and effects of their build forward better projects and programme, they could use statistical literacy skills and presentation skills.
To summarise, the above skills are just few of the planning skills available. If any of our community members and or Africa-based Sister Organisations are working on their build forward better projects and need some support, they can let know. CENFACS will be willing to work with them and help them meet their aims of their build forward projects.
To get further insight into Skills Development Month at CENFACS, please continue to read our weekly posts.
For those who would like to register their skills on CENFACS Skills Data Bank, they are welcome to do so. This registration will help in matching the support in terms of skills and the needs in the community.
_________
• References
(1) Park C., (2010), Oxford Dictionary of Environment and Conservation, Oxford University Press, Oxford & New York
(2) Aktar M. W., Sengupta D. and Chowdhury A., (2009), Impact of pesticides use in agriculture: their benefits and hazards at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2984095/#CIT0139 (accessed in November 2021)
(3) Tu et al. at https://www.invasive.org/gist/products/handbook/07.HerbicideGuidelines.pdf (accessed in November 2021)
(4) Sir David Attenborough (2021), Extract from a speech made at the opening World Leaders Summit and Ceremony of COP26 in Glasgow on 01/11/2021
(5) https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/is-entrepreneurship-a-bio–social-phenomenon/92105 (accessed in November 2021)
_________
Help CENFACS keep the Poverty Relief work going this year.
We do our work on a very small budget and on a voluntary basis. Making a donation will show us you value our work and support CENFACS’ work, which is currently offered as a free service.
One could consider a recurring donation to CENFACS in the future.
Donate to support CENFACS!
FOR ONLY £1, YOU CAN SUPPORT CENFACS AND CENFACS’ PROJECTS, JUST GO TO :Support Causes – (cenfacs.org.uk)
Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made or make comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support throughout 2021 and beyond.
With many thanks.
