Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
17 July 2019
Post No. 100
The Week’s Contents
• “Quadranscentennial” Year and Project – In Focus on 20/07/2019: CENFACS As Analytical Centre (Act No. 4)
• Summer Festival, Seven Days of Development in July 2019 – In Focus for this Year: Can Democratic Transition Transform the Lives of Poor people in Africa?
• Coming out this Summer: The 64th Issue of FACS Newsletter, Issue Entitled as Inequalities of Poverty Reduction – Make Them Disappear
… and much more!
Key Messages
~ “Quadranscentennial” (“Q”) Year and Project – In Focus on 20/07/2019: CENFACS As Analytical Centre (Act No. 4)
Our “Q” Year and Project continues this week and month with the fourth Act, which is CENFACS as Analytical Centre – the Analytics Act. This Act is about the analytical work of CENFACS in its capacity to analyse poverty situation as well as examine the responses brought to poverty over the last 25 years.
It is also about the working tools, indicators, theories, models and frameworks we have been using over the last 25 years in order to measure poverty, results in terms of poverty reduction and prospects for policy development as part of the analytical work.
We have assembled the various elements making this fourth Act for your readship, information which you can find under the Main Developments section of this post.
~ Summer Festival, Seven Days of Development in July 2019 – In Focus for this Year: Can Democratic Transition Transform the Lives of Poor People in Africa?
The 11th Event of our Summer Festival, known as the Seven Days in Development in July (7DDJ), will focus for this year on Democratic Transition in Africa and its Transformative Effects on Poor People there.
This year, Africa is undergoing a new political landscape whereby some countries would hold elections for the first time after so many years or decades of democratic vacuum. This is the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo that is transiting to democratisation processes. Other African countries would have enhanced their democratic processes with improved elections like Nigeria. Others (such as Algeria) are still keeping on arguing on the best possible terms and conditions for their democratic process.
Whether they reconnected with democracy through their first elections since sometimes or improved their electoral process or even are still discussing their idealistic electoral system; all these countries are in the process of democratic transition until they reach a full democracy model. Democracy is unfinished business cycle that has different stages: a beginning, improvement, peak and maturity.
However, in this democratic trajectory or experience there are expectations and demands to meet. One of them is life transformation for or the needs of poor people. Can these democratic processes which have started or been improved or even been in discussion deliver life transformation for poor people?
This is main menu of our Summer Festival of Thoughts, Actions, Shares and Spreads for this year. It is our Seven Days of Development in July 2019. This Summer Festival of Thoughts and Actions against poverty and for sustainable development will be held between the 22nd and the 28th of July 2019.
For more on this year’s Summer Festival including how to participate, please read the notes under the Main Developments section of this web post.
~ Coming out this Summer: The 64th Issue of FACS Newsletter, Issue Entitled as Inequalities of Poverty Reduction – Make Them Disappear
For various reasons, support, services and products directed to reduce poverty do not always reach people in need in the same way, pace, speed, time and value everywhere. This concerns as well the institutions, infrastructures, opportunities, resources, assets and systems to deal with poverty. This can create inequality in poverty reduction wittingly or unwittingly. This is not only between men and women.
The 64th Issue of FACS, CENFACS bilingual newsletter, will be dealing with the lack of equal support to the poor in the process of ending the lack of income, of material possession, sufficient consumption and energy, education, housing, etc.
The Issue deals only with poverty issues created and exacerbated by economic inequalities of support, institutions, infrastructures, opportunities, services, products, access etc. These issues make the reduction of poverty slow, difficult and sometimes impossible. The Issue does not deal with affluent people seeking more rights to maintain their lifestyle, image and social status.
The Issue will discuss possible ways out by making these economic inequalities to disappear. As it is said, these probable ways will be discussions and exploratory paths but not ready-made solutions to inequalities which are very complex matters, especially in developing societies like of Africa.
More about the Issue’s contents will be released in due course. However, to enquire and or reserve a copy, please contact CENFACS.
Extra Messages
~ All-in-one Impact Feedback: Only Two Weeks to Go!
We only have two weeks left for our Analytics month. We are for the second time appealing to you to tell us in your own words and numbers your perceptions, feelings and experiences about the programmes and projects we ran in the last 345 days preceding the beginning of July 2019.
Although we have selected 22 projects 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 experiential support!
~ CENFACS Analytics Dashboard: Key Performance Indicators
Besides Poverty Relief Metrics, we can as well measure the relationships of inputs to outputs, of support to outcomes and impacts as instruments giving information about the level of achievement in poverty reduction work.
We can work with Africa-based Organisations to measure their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) whereby we can together define and establish a set of KPIs to track and measure.
We can even green their KPIs by also tracking their sustainability and green indicators. This could help them improve their green and sustainability policies on the road of reducing carbon print or emissions.
Measuring what they receive or buy to what they produce can enhance their organisational value as poverty-relieving and sustainability-enhancing organisations. This can create or increase trust and further support for them.
~ Summer SHOPPING and DONATIONS at http://cenfacs.org.uk/shop/
Every occasion or every season is an opportunity to do something against poverty and hardships. Summer, which is a Happiness season at CENFACS, is a marvellous time to spread a little extra happiness to those who do not have.
You can give your unwanted and unneeded goods to CENFACS’ Charity e-Store, the shop built to help relieve poverty. You can buy second hand goods and bargain priced new items and much more.
CENFACS’ Charity e-Store needs your support for Summer SHOPPING and DONATIONS.
You can do something different this Summer Season by SHOPPING or DONATING GOODS at CENFACS Charity e-Store.
You can DONATE or SHOP or do both:
√ DONATE unwanted GOODS and PRODUCTS to CENFACS Charity e-Store during the summertime and or any time of the year
√ SHOP at CENFACS Charity e-Store to support good and deserving causes of poverty relief during the Summer period
Your SHOPPING and or GOODS DONATIONS will help to shine the lives of those living in poverty with happiness and joy.
Main Developments
• CENFACS as Analytical Centre
Our project of celebration of CENFACS’ 25 years since existence continues this month by looking at the analytical aspects of CENFACS. This is the fourth Act of the “Quadranscentennial“ (“Q”) Year and Project (Analytics Act).
In the previous Acts (Acts 1, 2 and 3), we took an historical and storytelling approach to travel back to year 1994 to explain what made CENFACS an organisation it is today. These were the Protection, Volunteering and Creation Acts respectively.
In this fourth Act, the Analytics Act, our approach will be explanatory and analytic while still keeping history in our mindset. This July Act will be about how CENFACS as a centre analysed the poverty conditions of people in need we worked with and their organisations, poverty data as well as what we tried to do about these issues.
To proceed with the Analytics Act, we will be dealing with fourth areas of analytical remembrance: analytical attributes of CENFACS, the way in which CENFACS made patterns in data to speak and work for poverty reduction, data sharing and making sense of patterns in data management.
• • Analytical attributes of CENFACS
There are five as follows.
1) CENFACS as an analytical centre
Over the last 25 years, the particularity of CENFACS was and remains to be able to do research, interpret and communicate the findings and significant patterns in data (whether they are small or big ones) and applying these patterns towards effective decision making process in poverty relief matter.
CENFACS dealt and deals with a set of data that follows a recognizable form. In other words, a series of data that repeats in a knowledgeable form. In doing so, we tried to find out whether or not there was a link between two variables, whether or not certain groups have attributes.
In this process, we used and continue to use basic mathematics or numeracy, statistics, accounting, development theories and paradigms, models for planning and forecasting, learning and development to find patterns in data. We produced charts, tables, metrics, reports and other analytic tools as part of dealing with patterns in data.
As a matter of fact, we analysed and summarised patterns in data about poverty issues in Africa. We analysed for example the patterns in data of African children as international migrants. We noticed there was a recognizable or common form in them regarding the migration reasons. One of the reasons was the search for better life or as some may call it the syndrome of better life.
These analyses and summaries can be found in our newsletter titled FACS and in our various publications including our website. Some of them are put in the public domain while others are designed for in-house purpose only. We also used these findings in data to produce and conduct our advocacy work. This is because to speak on behalf or with people, we need evidence (sometimes hard one) in the form of data.
2) CENFACS as a data researcher
Over the last 25 years, we researched and collected data as well as consolidated them into a single place that can be easily retrieved and instantly evaluated. As a researcher, CENFACS did systematic investigation to collect information on meaningful patterns in data on poverty and sustainable development issues.
This is why research and development are central in what we do as an organisation.
3) CENFACS as a data interpreter
We did not only collect data. We also made and continue to make sense to numerical data we collected while analysing them before presenting them. In this process, CENFACS explained the meaning of patterns in data used for poverty relief and sustainable development as well as to formulate policies and enhance good practices.
An example of this use over the last 25 years was our ability to use data in our translation service (French to English and vice versa) to convey users’ idea of the meaning of poverty relief. In this respect, our translation service was and continues to be a valuable tool for poverty relief.
4) CENFACS as a data communicator
CENFACS was (and will remain) the place to be for the exchange of data from one place to another via computers, posts, e-mails, phones, digital messages etc. We exchanged the data and information we analysed to make known the patterns in poverty relief. We exchanged them within CENFACS, between CENFACS and other stakeholders (such as Africa-based organisations, African Diaspora organisations, UK non-governmental organisations, voluntary and community organisations, funders etc.).
It is not by chance that CENFACS won the Communication Awards in 2007.
5) CENFACS as a data decision maker and applying organisation
CENFACS did not only find patterns in data in the last 25 years, it also applied these patterns in data to complete its decision making process on poverty relief and sustainable development.
Examples of this application can be found in most of our advocacy work where we constantly used patterns in data to guide and shape our advocacy.
• • Making patterns in data speak and work for poverty reduction
CENFACS did not let the data speak for themselves. On the contrary, we made them speak and work for the poor. We did it in alliance with them. CENFACS made sure that the order or model of data was fitted for the purpose of poverty relief and sustainable development.
Examples of making patterns in data speak and work for poverty reduction include the ones we collected and analysed about the civil war in Rwanda in 1994, the wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1990s and the 2000s, floods crisis in various parts of Africa etc.
In this process of giving meaning to data, where we did not produce data ourselves we did not only rely on what organisations that produced them said about them. We verified their data and analyses while comparing them with others from other reliable sources.
However, one of the drawbacks in dealing with data (both primary and secondary) was that we noticed repetitive lacks of available statistical apparatus or the lacks of local structures to produce reliable data in Africa, especially in situations where we were unable to produce our own statistics.
Sometimes, we had to rely on stories from local people, particularly on issues related to gender matters. This is why we are recently looking for new forms of data in places of wars and environmental disasters where children have been affected to find out whether or not they are meeting sustainable development goals.
• • Data sharing and storage
The “Q” Project is also a celebration of data sharing. We used both primary and secondary data. Most of our primary data came from projects we run in the last 25 years. For secondary data, we used statistics produced by multilateral agencies (such as the United Nations’ agencies), Africa development agencies, community and voluntary organisations and non-governmental organisations. We also got data supplied by our own Africa-based Sister Organisations with whom we shared data. We finally borrowed data from various academic sources working on similar issues like ours.
Our programme entitled “Building Bridges Building Bonds” is about working in harmony with other organisations for mutual understanding on issues of poverty while sharing experiences and through that sharing data as well.
In 2005, we embarked on advancing Africa’s cause and poverty issues by networking with African Diaspora and civil society organisations through ADVAD (African Diaspora Voices), AFFORD (African Foundation for Development), Connections for Development and BOND (British Overseas NGOs for Development) and other community organisations from the Black and Minority Ethnic background. This networking enabled us to access data and to pass on our data as well.
Since then, we continued to share data and information with organisations working on similar issues while being mindful of the previous and new general data protection regulations.
Our celebration is finally about data storage through our Skills Data Bank for the CENFACS Community. Thanks to the various projects we ran in the past 25 years, we installed a data system whereby people or the community can voluntarily register their skills, abilities and talents so that when opportunities arise from the market we can match their skills to the market occupational opportunities offered.
So, our “Q” Year is a remembrance of both data sharing and storage.
To sum up, the Analytics Act is the celebration on how CENFACS dealt with patterns in data in order to respond to its own need and the needs of those living in poverty in Africa and the UK.
More on CENFACS’ analytical work will be given on the 20 July 2019. In meantime, we would like to thank all those who helped us in our analytical journey until today.
Thank you very much for their support.
• Summer Festival, Seven Days of Development in July 2019 – In Focus for this Year: Can Democratic Transition Transform the Lives of Poor people in Africa?
Welcome to the Seven Days of Development in July 2019 Festival,
CENFACS’ Summer Festival of Thoughts and Actions on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development
This year’s event feature:
Can Democratic Transition Transform the Lives of Poor people in Africa?
THINK ♦ ACT ♦ SHARE ♦ ADD VALUE ♦ SPREAD
We have already introduced this Summer Festival. We would like to add only the following. This Summer Festival is about how poor people and their organisations (especially those from the voluntary and community sector) can use the space provided by democratic transition in Africa to meet the basic life-sustaining needs of education, shelter, food, health, sanitation, environment etc.
The focus will be on poor people and their representative organisations although other areas of democratic transition will make part of our thoughts.
• • Event Guide & Programme
~ 7DDJ Registration
Entry to the 7DDJ2019 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 on Democratic Transition. 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: Life transformation
Life transformation under democratic transition: From democratic transition to poverty reduction in transition
Lead thought: Day 1 will be about the expectation that transition to democracy can rise in terms of the improvement of people’s life including the reduction and ending poverty to an extent that there could be hope of poor people’s life transformation.
Day 2: Democratic transition experiences
Democratic transition experiences in Africa: Learning and development for poverty relief
Lead thought: Democratic transition opens up some spaces for freedoms and capabilities for everybody to improve their own lives. There could be something to learn from people who experienced this as well as something to look forward.
Day 3: Links between democracy and poverty reduction
Relationships between democratic liberalisation processes (or liberal democracy) and poverty reduction in societies in mutation
Lead thought: Theoretically speaking, it could be argued that there is a correlation between transition to liberal democracy and poverty reduction. In practice, it will be advisable to check this link in case of African societies
Day 4: Poor people’s democratic experiences
Poor people’s lessons and experiences of local democracy in Africa: How poor people can make democracy work for them
Lead thought: There are examples and legacies of local democracy across and in many parts of Africa including in deprived and poor areas. It will be interesting to know the experiences of poor people in making them meet their ends and needs
Day 5: Rule by poor people
Rule by the poor people as a transformative force: its scopes and limits
Lead thought: By definition democracy is the rule by people. Again, it will be interesting to know poor people, who are sometimes been assumed to be powerless, use their democratic power to transform their own lives for good.
Day 6: Poor People’s democratic aspirations
How democratic transition can or cannot achieve poor people’s aspirations for freedom from poverty and hardships
Lead thought: It could be simplistic to assume that every time there is a democratic transition, the meeting of the aspirations of poor people will follow. It could be a good idea to investigate the conditions under which any form of democratic transition can help materialise the democratic aspirations of poor people.
Day 7: Democratic services and products by African organisations
How Africa-based Organisations can use the windows of opportunity created by democratic transitions to provide democratic activities, services and products to further reduce and or end poverty in Africa
Lead thought: Democratic transition can come along with it a wealthy window of opportunities. It could be worth to look at how African organisations use the new political space to provide democratic services and goods to tackle poverty and hardships
• • Supporting the 7DDJ2019 event
7 Ways of Supporting 7DDJ2019
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 Democratic Services and Goods for Poor People in a Changeable Political Landscape in Africa
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 2019 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: 05/08/2019
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: How Democratic Transition Can Transform the Lives of Poor people in Africa
The 7DDJ2019 Events Team
FOR ONLY £1, YOU CAN SUPPORT CENFACS AND CENFACS’ PROJECTS, JUST GO TO http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/
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 2019.
With many thanks
