Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

12 September 2018

Post No. 56

 

 

The Week’s Contents

• Virtual Open Day and Hours: How They Work

• Summer Reports

• Abstract for the 61^st Issue of FACS Newsletter, Autumn 2018 Issue

 

… and much more!

 

Key Messages from the Week’s Contents

~ Virtual Open Day and Hours (VODHs): How They Work

Our Virtual Open Day, which is every Fridays of September 2018, is held from 10 am to 2 pm.

You can access VOHs by contacting CENFACS.

You do not need to register with us.

Every Fridays, you can either email, phone or text between 10 am and 2 pm.

~ Summer Reports

Last week, we started to unlock or unpack our Summer holiday data and to prepare to tell our Summer holiday stories.  This week, we are going further in putting our unlocked or unpacked data in support of Summer experiences or stories. 

From this week until Thursday the 20^th of September 2018, we are simply asking those who can to share with us and others their Summer experiences; experiences about what they did during the Summer break and think that it is useful for sharing. 

For further details on the kinds of experiences or stories you can share or give, please read under the Main Developments section of this post.

~ FACS Newsletter, Autumn Issue, No. 61

The Autumn Issue for our bilingual newsletter FACS is entitled “Poverty Reduction through Mobile Money and Digital Financial Inclusion in Africa”

We have chosen this theme because of what the increasing use of mobile and digital technologies is trying to achieve for people in need, particularly but not exclusively for those of Africa. 

The Issue looks at the extent to which money transfer and digital financial inclusion through these technologies, are trying to pull out people from poverty and hardships.  Our focus will be on our areas of intervention in Africa with Africa-based Sister Organisations. 

The theme of mobile money and digital financial inclusion is also in line with CENFACS New Media and Digital Communication programmes.

For more on these programmes, please contact CENFACS.

We have provided an abstract about this Issue and the kinds of contents that will make it.

For further details about the Issue, contact CENFACS.    

 

Main Developments from the Week’s Contents

•• Abstract for the 61st Issue of FACS

The title of the 61^st Issue of FACS is:

Poverty Reduction through Mobile Money and Digital Financial Inclusion

The abstract for the 61st Issue is as follows.

There is a number of works and evidences that show that mobile money and digital financial inclusion contribute to the relief of poverty worldwide and in Africa in particular.  We are not disapproving these works or evidences.  What we are trying to look at in this 61^st Issue of CENFACS’ bilingual newsletter – FACS – is how we can make this contribution better and or how to capture the nature of the relationships between poverty reduction and mobile money on the one hand, between poverty reduction and digital financial inclusion. 

The 61^st Issue of FACS is a step forward in highlighting and including two important points regarding the contribution of mobile money and digital financial inclusion to poverty reduction.

The first point is about capturing the effects and impacts of mobile money and digital financial inclusion on poverty reduction. 

There is a difference between accessing (or opening) mobile money accounts and transaction accounts on the one hand and reducing poverty on the other hand.  Likewise, the record number of registered mobile money accounts is not always a reliable indicator of poverty reduction.  Equally, the deployment of active mobile money accounts is not all the time a matching representation of poverty reduction.  Furthermore, the BIG picture of mobile money economy in terms of volume of transactions is not always the Small images of poverty reduction and poor people’s stories. 

For example, in its snapshot of the mobile money industry, the GSMA (1) – Groupe Speciale Mobile Association – indicates that there were 338.4 million of mobile money registered accounts for the whole Sub-Saharan Africa  in 2017 (p.17).

From the above astronomic figures, one should not deduct that for the same year 338.4 million of people were lifted out of poverty.  Opening a mobile money account does not necessary lead to poverty alleviation.  Poverty and poverty alleviation are more complex things compared to what one may think.

The second point developed in the 61^st Issue is about the successfulness of mobile money and digital financial inclusion as models for poverty relief. 

Once one has made clear in their mindset that the link between mobile money and poverty reduction, or the link between digital financial inclusion and poverty reduction, is a complex issue; then one can now start to think if they are able to reduce poverty through mobile money and digital financial inclusion.  In other words, how many people to be pulled out poverty so that mobile money and digital financial inclusion as models for poverty relief can be said successful?  This success should be measured by the numbers of poor people out poverty and the improvement in their quality of life; but not by the volume of business transactions of their economies.

In the light of the above, the 61^st Issue is about working with our Africa-based Sister Organisations to be careful about the claim or case for poverty reduction.  It is about putting our feet on the grounds by getting the impact and data right about the people and communities who have been effectively relieved from poverty because mobile money and digital financial inclusion.  This could lead to the redefinition of poverty and its multi-dimensional aspect in the digital era. 

The 61^st Issue engages poverty relief supporters and readers with the following contents:

Mobile money accounts versus traditional bank accounts in relation to poverty reduction; Mobile money and gender inclusion; Links between digital financial inclusion and poverty reduction; Mobile phone as a centre piece in the process of poverty reduction; Mobile-enabled insurance and savings services to reduce poverty; Mobile money markets and sustainable development for the poor in remote areas; Engaging Africa-based Sister Organisations with the links between mobile money and poverty reduction;  Projets d’inclusion financière, de numérique et d’argent mobile pour la réduction de la pauvreté en Afrique, Mobile credit services and eligibility criteria for the poor, especially for women; Financial literacy skills and digital inclusion to reduce poverty; Meeting the financial needs of the poor through cash digitalisation etc.

The above engaging contents will help to explore ways of capturing the effects and impacts of mobile money and digital financial inclusion on poverty reduction on the one hand; and finding out how successful are mobile money and digital financial inclusion as models for poverty relief in pulling as many as possible people out of poverty. 

To reserve a copy or to get further details about the Issue no. 61, please contact CENFACS.

(1) GSM Association, 2017 State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money, 2018

•• 2018 September Advice service continues…

as planned for both UK and Africa projects. We have provided below basic activities making the contents of advice services.  While this Advice-giving support is running, we are conducting Summer 2018 Reports as well.

The following are the areas covered by CENFACS‘ September 2018 Advice-giving Activities 

• Areas of Advice for Individuals we cover

We can provide advisory support on a wide range of issues which includes:

post-regional economic integration and economic transition skills, financial literacy and information, consumption and buying information, conversion of technical skills, domestic violence, HIV/AIDS awareness, education and training, educational development of children, cultural barriers, knowledge and respect of the British rule of law, opportunities for enterprises and credit access, social integration and behaviour, self-help development projects etc. 

• Areas of Advice for Organisations we cover 

We can provide advisory support on the following areas:

project planning and development, investment in capacity building and development, resource mobilisation for African Sister Organisations for the Post-REI (Regional Economic Integration) times, sources of international fundraising, climate finance and digital finance, online fundraising strategies etc.

You can request advice online by just filling an advice form at www.cenfacs.org.uk/services-activities and by posting it to CENFACS and CENFACS will get back to you.

 

•• Summer 2018 Reporting In Your Own Words

The 2018 Summer Reporting activity is a further experience reporting, sharing, learning and development opportunity for those who have not yet informed us about the outcomes of projects pending for reporting, personal experiences to be shared, lessons to learn and development trends to spot.

Giving Development Experiences, Stories & Reports about Summer 2018

As we are nearly reaching the end of Summer 2018, we would like our users and supporters as well as those who sympathise with CENFACS’ cause to share with us and others their experiences, stories and reports over the following

∴ Run, Play & Vote projects 

You can feedback the outcomes or Action-Results of your Run, Play and Vote projects if you ran for poverty relief during Summer 2018 (or organised a Run activity), played the CENFACS League For Poverty Relief and or have already voted your 2018 African and International Poverty Relief Manager.

∴ Volunteering & Creation Stories 

You can also share your volunteering stories with us and others if you did volunteer during the Summer break. Likewise, if you had any creation adventure you can tell us about it.

∴ Summer programmes: Happiness and Appeal projects

Summer programmes are another area of feedback.  You may prefer to report on your use of Happiness projects and your response to our Humanitarian Relief Appeal during Summer 2018.  If this is the case, then report your experiences on these areas.

∴ Other Experiences & Stories Reporting

Finally, you can report or feedback on any moving experience or transformative story you have had during Summer 2018; experience or story you think may be of help to us and others.

For example if you did Trending in Poverty Reduction (i.e. following the direction of poverty reduction) through Tourism with us or alone, you can report this as well.

You can report your experience via e-mail, over phone and through social media networks or channels of communication (e.g Twitter).  

Using less papers but e-mails or even online technologies when responding to us is in line with our sustainability policy and practice on saving the environment, which is part of our Environment and Conservation activity.  

Also, as we are in CENFACS’ Year of the Local People or the Local Year Campaign, we would be more than happier to hear any stories that involve local people where they happened.

Thank you for supporting us with your Summer 2018 experience, story and report In Your Own Words.

 

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 2018.

With many thanks

 

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

05 September 2018

Post No. 55

 

 

BACK TO… LA RENTREE

The week beginning 03 September 2018 is our welcoming week. 

We are welcoming our users, supporters and other stakeholders who came back from Summer break and holidays. 

We are also welcoming back those who are or have been working during this Summer time. 

We are finally welcoming back those who lost touch with us for various reasons and would like to come back.  

Welcome back to all of you! 

 

 The Week’s Contents

 • New for September 2018: Back-to-relief Initiatives

 • Unlock your Summer Holiday Data and Tell your Story

 • Advice-giving Month

 

… and much more!

 

Key Messages from the Week’s Contents

The key messages from our weekly communication and menu, which is often made of three courses, is as follows.

New for September 2018: Two New Back-to-relief Initiatives 

1/ Virtual Open Days for Back to Relief 

It is not always easy for people, especially those who are not feeling well and parents with small kids, to physically move and meet service providers if this service provision cannot come to them even if the need is pressing.  This is why we are organising these virtual days to enable those in need to virtually access services. 

Virtual Open Days are a back-to-relief initiative organised by CENFACS during this September 2018 to enable people in need to access our advice service and other similar services in order to reduce or end poverty linked to their situations or conditions of life.

For more on CENFACS’ Virtual Open Days and how they work, contact us.

2/ Support for Children of Conflict- and Climate Change-affected Areas in Africa in the New School Year

Another back-to-relief initiative for this September 2018 is Support for the Children of Conflict- and Climate Change-affected Areas of Africa in the New School Year.  This initiative comes about the humanitarian relief appeals we launched this year for nine African countries: two countries from Central African region (the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic), three islands East Africa (Madagascar, Mauritius and Comoros) and four countries from the Lake Chad Basin (Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria).  All these appeals were launched under the Light projects.   

The appeals were related to countries stormed by destructive environmental events and or armed conflicts.  While one can still ask the progress made to save and rebuild lives in these stricken countries, one can also question about the support that the children of the stricken areas within these countries are receiving and/or received.  This questioning is relevant as we are in September when a new school or academic year starts. 

So, during this September we will be working on this back-to-relief initiative to explore ways of keeping education alive for these unfortunate children living in those stricken areas.

For further details about this initiative, contact CENFACS.     

Unlock your Summer Holiday Data and Tell your Story

Throughout our July and August communications, we have been asking everybody to store and keep their Summer data so that when we all return we can report back or share our Summer experiences. 

Now some of you are back, we can feedback our poverty-relieving and development experiences of using Happiness projects, of any creations we made and any volunteering stories, if we volunteered, over the last two months.  One can report back a personal Summer experience as well. 

For those who managed to store their Summer data and who would like to share their experiences, this is the time to start unlocking your Summer data and preparing to tell your Summer story.

Sharing your experiences with us in this way helps to keep the CENFACS Community active.  It also contributes in carrying out prescriptive analytics that enables to use smart data discovery capabilities to predict market developments and trends to help relieve or possibly end poverty and hardships within our community and beyond. 

Please share your poverty-relieving and development experiences with us.

Advice-giving Month

September is our advice-giving month for both our UK and Africa services. Whether you are African and Minority Ethnic People living in the UK or Africa-based Sister Organisations, you can receive advisory support from CENFACS under our Individual Capacity Development programme (for individuals living in the UK) and Organisational Capacity Development programme (for Overseas Africa-based organisations).

Under these two programmes, we provide advice throughout the year. However, the month September is a special one as it is our Advice-giving Month in accordance to CENFACS development calendar.  Advice can be received online, via phone and e-mail or by appointment at CENFACS’ office space.

 

Main Developments from the Week’s Contents

Back to Relief ∴  Back to  the Upkeep of the Nature ∴  Back to Advice

•• Back to Relief this September 2018

As previously mentioned, most of our projects and programmes are organised to take into account the lives and needs of our beneficiaries; supporters as well.  They are now back for the New Academic Year and New Relief, year for which we have prepared projects and programmes to meet their existing, challenging, changing and emerging needs – the back-to-relief projects and programmes.

This applies to both our UK and Africa Capacity Building and Development programmes.  If you are one of our beneficiaries or supporters we wish you Happy Return!  

•• Back to the Upkeep of the Nature this September 2018

September is also the month we resume our advocacy work on the upkeep of the nature.  This advocacy starts from the protection and care of animals in Africa from illegal killings, extinction and poaching.  In the last week of September 2018, we will focus on saving endangered animal species through our “Save Animals” advocacy; the Gorilla, Elephant and the BIG CATS projects being part of that advocacy.

•• Back to Advisory Support this September 2018

Advice is CENFACS’ main theme for September.  We provide advice to both individuals and organisations as mentioned above. 

Advice service for Individuals

Some of you are aware that most of CENFACS services in the UK are designed to support multi-dimensionally poor children, young people and families (CYPFs). After the long summer break and from September onward, many of them will come back to start their life again. They will go back to school for CYPs and to work and training for parents and guardians. 

They may need support to restart or look for occupational opportunity or even just resume their routine activity in September. Their needs could include things such as finding a new school for children, registration to health services, finding accommodation, accessing training opportunity or employment etc.

We can provide advisory support to them. Where our capacity is limited, we can refer and/or signpost them to relevant specialist services and organisations to help them meet their needs. We do it under CENFACS’ Capacity Advice service which was established since 2003 (through CENFACS’ Capacity Advice and Development project for Croydon’s African and Minority Ethnic People)to help individuals gain various types of help.  

The types of help we provide include: translation, interpreting, advice, guidance, signposting, referral and advocacy. You can contact CENFACS for the range of issues included in this service and to find out if your problem can be dealt with.

Advice service for Organisations 

The same advice service applies to overseas and Africa-based Sister Organisations. Under our international advice service, we can advise them on things such as capacity building and development, project planning, fundraising and grant-seeking leads, income-generation, sustainable development, monitoring and evaluation.  

Again, where our capacity to advice is limited, we can refer and or signpost them to relevant international services and organisations. This advisory support for Africa-based Sister Organisations is throughout the year and part of our work with them. However, they can take advantage of our advice-giving month to seek further advice on any of the above matters.

To access advice services, contact CENFACS.  To register for or enquire about advice services, go to www.cenfacs.org.uk/services-activities.

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 2018.

With many thanks

 

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

29 August 2018

Post No. 54

 

 The Week’s Contents

• The Lake Chad Basin Appeal

• Tourism as Enhancer of Sustainable Development

• All-in-One Feedback (Users’ and Supporters’ Experience): Report on Reports

… and much more!

 

Key Messages from the Week’s Contents

The Lake Chad Basin Appeal for Peace, Food and Water

The top sustainable development story of this week’s communication is what is happening in the Lake Chad Basin where millions of people have been displaced since 2017 because of long-neglected conflicts and environmental degradation of the Lake.

CENFACS is appealing for something to be done to end this displacement and improve the living conditions of the victims of these conflicts and peoples of the Lake Chad Basin.  The case of Lake Chad Basin is a perfect example of the combination of environmental degradation with the shrinkage of the basin and regional conflicts between extremists and regional armed forces.   This part of the world desperately needs peace, food and water as well as rebuilding.

For more on this appeal, read under the Main Developments section of this post.

Tourism as Enhancer of Sustainable Development

Our Trending month continues with Tourism as an enhancer of sustainable development.  In the last four weeks, we spent time in following the direction of poverty relief through tourism.  The remaining two days of our Trending activity will be devoted to tourism as a way of improving sustainable development. 

We are following the multi-dimensional aspects of sustainability and how they relate or correlate with tourism.  Our focus is not only on how tourism enhances sustainable development generally, but also on how it improves the quality of life or boosts the development that meets the needs of the poor and their future generations specifically.

For further details on this two-day trending activity and Trending in Poverty Relief through Tourism, contact CENFACS.

All-in-One Feedback – Users’ and Supporters’ Experience: Report on Reports

This week’s development news is finally the report on your report about the experiences you had about CENFACS projects and programmes and their impacts.   It is about giving you the news about your report or say as users, supporters or web readers about All-in-one feedback we asked you during our Analytics month last July.

Again, read under the Main Developments section about the news on your feedback.

 

Main Developments of the Week’s Contents

• The Lake Chad Basin Appeal

What this appeal is about

It is about supporting the displaced people around the Lake Chad region as a result of ongoing deadly conflicts between armed militancy and predatory armies of the region.

The appeal is not an awareness-raising campaign about poverty, but it is an appeal to do something against poverty and hardships in the Lake Chad Basin.

CENFACS would like to appeal to you to address a long-neglected conflict which rose into violent extremism and dire insecurity within this region.

What is the Lake Chad Basin conflict?

The Lake Chad Basin includes the following countries: Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria.  The Lake Chad has been shrunk by nine-tenths as result of climate change, population growth and irrigation.  In addition to this natural calamity or shrinkage, the Lake is now subject to other misfortunes related to high level of insecurity.  The insecurity is mostly caused by deadly conflicts between group activists or extremists and regional armies.  This has led to the displacement of around 10 million people since 2017 according local sources.

What CENFACS would like you to do

Whenever there is a general humanitarian relief appeal, there is always some concern about asking and giving money.  In the contrary, whenever CENFACS appeal to do something about people and communities in desperate need, it is not always about asking people to donate money.  Money is not always a king to change deprived lives.  Little or simple things can be the real change makers. 

There are simple things that one can do to influence the situation on the grounds where there is suffering.  These things could include:

making a telephone call to someone who can change lives on the grounds, advocacy, lobbying, campaigning, raising your voice about the issue in a gathering, making the issue top story of your communications, and exchanging views on the social media platforms about the issue.  

It is all about communicating or talking with those who may have the powers to change lives and things on the grounds to do something. 

In fact, in today’s world of digital and online technologies, it has become even more easier than before to support whether through social media platforms or other networking outlets; to engage people in discussions, thoughts and actions to do something.  These little or small things can make BIG impacts on the lives of sufferers. 

The above named things are the ones CENFACS want you to do in order to bring a glimmer of hope to the displaced people around the Lake Chad Basin.  One can think of those kids, displaced in this region, who may not have (even for ever) the opportunity to enjoy education this September or in their life, let alone the fact of being homeless and have lost all your belongings including your family members as a result of continuing conflicts and environmental degradation in the region.

What supporting the Lake Chad Basin can achieve: Peace, Food and Water

Supporting this highly deserving cause of poverty relief and sustainable development will be a gift to be treasured by those who will receive it as it will help to achieve the following benefits:

√ Helping poor displaced families to make a living

√ Restoring agriculture, fishing and livestock which are dying with the shrinkage of the Lake and the conflict-driven region

√ Stopping children and young people for earlier becoming forced fighters and helping them to return to and gain education for peace and sustainable development

√ Enabling farmers to earn a living, to self-help and self-sustain

√ Feeding the hungry displaced persons and amongst them children and women

√ Reducing migration due to climate change, insecurity and financial challenges

Above all, addressing the root causes of the insecurity in the region         

Your support can help refill the Lake Chad with water and bring hope of peace, food and water for the displaced peoples of the Lake Chad Basin, the poor from conflict-affected and climate change-stricken region.

Thank you.  

 

 

• Tourism as way of enhancing sustainable development

Recalling the last 4 Trending activities in following the direction of poverty relief through tourism

In the last four weeks, we followed the direction of poverty relief through tourism.  Our follow up was much about trying to understand and check the relationships between tourism and poverty reduction than anything else. 

In our journey, we particularly looked at the following trends: tourism as way of reaching out to the poor, tourism as maker of job opportunities and supporter of pro-poor growth, tourism as trade creator and income generator, and tourism as means of relieving rural poverty.

The focus on these trends was on what tourism can and cannot bring to the poor and poverty relief.  It stems from these trends that tourism does bring substantial contribution to the lives of the poor.  Tourism may not totally eradicate poverty, but it is additional path of reducing it.

Following the direction of sustainable development through tourism

Another area of relationships with tourism for our Summer 2018 Trending is sustainable development.   The remaining couple of days of our Trending month will be spent on this trend.

Tourism can enhance the process of sustainable development for the poor.  To follow this trend, we are going to use the conventional definition of sustainable development as given by Brundtland and others (1), which is

“a development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brandtland et al., 1987).

By following the direction of international sustainable development for the poor from this perspective, it is possible to find that tourism can help achieve pro-poor economic growth while preserving the quality of the environment for all (including for the poor).  Tourism can help meet the social and economic needs of the poor while saving the natural or environmental resources for the generations to come to meet their own needs.  Tourism can help reduce environmental degradation while supporting poor people to produce, consume and trade goods and services in a sustainable way.

The above trend concludes our Trending month for this year.  For those who are interested in following the direction of poverty relief and sustainable development with CENFACS, please let us know. 

(1) Brundtland et al. (1987) Our Common Future, World Commission on Environment and Development (The Brundtland Report), Oxford University Press, London

 

• Brief News about Analytics Report

All-in One Impact Feedback: Users’ and Supporters’ Experience

Last month was our Analytics month.  As part of the Analytics month, we asked some of you to report or give some feedback in your words on the experiences you had about the projects and programmes we delivered in the last financial year.  Some of you did respond and others did not.  We would like to thank those who responded.  

After analysing the information you provided and looking back what happened in the last financial year, we would like to share with you some key information from the preliminary findings about your say and our look at last year’s poverty relief work.

The key news we want to share with you are as follows:

1/ There will be some changes in our projects starting from Autumn 2018. 

2/ Some of the projects will disappear as they have been completed or the need has been met or even they are not anymore required.   

3/ We will progressively introduce new projects to meet emerging and or unmet needs and demand of the community.  One of them will be a new advocacy to follow the global trade rounds to support small African traders.  

4/ When these changes come into force, we shall let you know. 

However, the main household brand projects making the poverty-relieving pitch at CENFACS will remain. 

Please note that the above preliminary news are not the full project and programme reports neither an annual report.

 

• More news: CENFACS Campaigns

There have been some questions about our services and activities, in particular about the campaigns we are running.  To answer the questions raised, we have included and provided summaries on our website, under the Services and Activities page, the main campaigns that we are running.  They are five, not in particular order:

African Children’s Sustainable Development Goals, Halving Poverty, Climate Protection and Stake for African Children, World Anti-Poverty System, and Autumn Leaves of Action to Upkeep the Nature in Existence.

To find out more and or get involved in these campaigns, please contact CENFACS.

 

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 2018.

With many thanks

 

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

22 August 2018

Post No. 53

 

The Week’s Contents

• TRENDING in Poverty Relief: Tourism like a means of reducing rural poverty

• Virtual RUN to reduce poverty

• Summer Volunteering TRIPS to the need

…   And much more!

 

Key Messages from the Week’s Contents

Tourism like a means of reducing rural poverty

The last piece in a series of our Summer 2018 Trending in following the direction of poverty reduction is to look at how tourism helps tourists or visitors to connect with rural lives and livelihoods. 

Rural areas in Africa are where the majority of poor people live in Africa compared to the urban areas.  Tourism in rural areas is a good example of including rural poverty into holidays making or  experience for those looking forward to these kinds of tourist expeditions.

For more on tourism like rural poverty reliever, please read under the Main Development section of this post.

Virtual RUN to reduce poverty

This year, we are introducing virtual Run to broaden the scope of our physical activity project of running to reduce poverty.  This new injection is about bringing into our project the running activities carried out in the virtual world or digital and computer worlds or other worlds; activities that may contribute to our efforts in helping to reduce poverty. 

Our focus on physical aspect of the Run project still remains the same including its key spirit, which is of undertaking a basic physical activity of running to help reduce poverty.  However, in real world there are people who would like to do things physically, but for various reasons they may not be able to do so.  Because of that, there is an alternative to do it virtually with CENFACS. 

For further details and to inform us about virtual Run, refer to the notes under the Main Development section of this post.

Summer TRIPS to volunteer for needy people and communities

These are the kinds of experiences we expect people to do over the Summer period especially for those who want to spend their Summer time differently, particularly but not exclusively by doing something about poverty.  We recommend this type of experiences under our volunteering scheme known as All in Development Volunteers Scheme (AiDVS). 

Under CENFACS’ AiDV Scheme, one can take seasonal opportunities like of Summer to volunteer or do some internship on poverty relief and sustainable development.  Where the person decides to go far away to visit needy communities or volunteer to our Africa-based projects, CENFACS would facilitate and liaise with its Africa-based Sister Organisations where the projects are based to smooth the volunteering process or visits to the projects under mutually agreed arrangements and conditions.

For details about AiDVS, contact CENFACS.  If you have visited or volunteered for projects recently and would like to share with us your experience, please contact us as well.

 

Main Developments from the Week’s Contents

• Virtual Run to reduce poverty

CENFACS’ Run to Reduce Poverty is a physical activity project that aims at improving physical activity and mental health and well-being of the participants while helping to reduce poverty.   However, for various reasons they are people who would like to support the relief efforts about poverty through run, but they may not be able to do it if the only way of doing it is through physical activity.  These people who may be experiencing handicap to do physical activity of running to help reduce poverty could include the following:

~ People/parents caring for very young children

~ Pregnant women

~ Elderly people

~ Disable people

~ Those who are not physically fit or mobile to run

~ Those who do not have opportunity to physically run

~ Under certain conditions and circumstances, we can also consider those who use outdoor and indoor fitness equipment to virtually run.

For these deprived-to-physically-run people, they can virtually run to help reduce poverty with CENFACS.  If you are organising this kind of virtual activity or event, let us know.  It is also better to advise us that the people participating in the virtual run are the physically deprived ones we listed above or they have a serious handicap prohibiting them to undertake any physical engagement.  

• Tourism like a means of reducing rural poverty

It is well known and documented that poverty is more widespread in rural areas than in urban ones of Africa.  Most poor people live in rural areas there.  And if you are tourist and would like to associate your travel with a poverty story or a touch of poverty, then surely where most of the poor people live are the places to visit.  These places can be the rural areas and the peripheral areas of the urban centre. 

Generally speaking, tourism and tourists need food and agricultural products like any humans to live and enjoy their holidays.  Rural areas are as well the places where come food and agricultural products.  By buying and consuming food and agricultural products, tourists connect and generate demand for agricultural products.  In this respect, tourists to the rural areas can help reduce rural poverty and boost rural income even the economy.  Tourism in rural areas is as well a learning curve or experience of new cultures, foods, environments, ways of life and products. 

Finally, whether you are following the direction of poverty reduction as tourists or virtually running to reduce poverty or even volunteering to the local needs; please do not forget to record your data or simply what you are doing.  Please keep images, videos, films, photos and voices of what you think is relevant to share as stories with us and others when you return.

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 2018.

With many thanks

 

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

15 August 2018

Post No. 52

 

 

The Week’s Contents

• TRENDING for Poverty Relief: Tourism as Outreach to Local People

• Online TRACK to CENFACS e-Charity Summer Shop

• TRIPs for Fieldwork Research

 

   … and much more!

 

Key Messages of the Week’s Contents

Tourism as a way of reaching out to the poor

Our journey in looking at the direction of poverty reduction by following Tourism is now in phase 3.  In this phase 3, we are observing tourism as a way of reaching out to the local people, especially those in need. 

For more on tourism as outreach, please read further under the Main Development section of this post.

Summer goods donations and buys

Every season is an opportunity to do something about the environment and poverty.  You can recycle or donate your unwanted or unused goods and presents to do something about the environment and or poverty.  You can also buy goods to meet the same ends.

This Summer you can online track CENFACS e-charity shop to help the environment and poverty relief.  If you are a fun of online tracking and shopping, you can take an online course of action or online path or even course of travel to save the environment and reduce poverty with CENFACS.

Instead of you physically going to physically shop or donate your goods, you can from the comfort of your home buy or donate goods to CENFACS e-charity shop to help the deserving cause of poverty relief and sustainable development.

To support us either by shopping or supplying us with products or goods you no longer want or use so that we can sell and raise the money for the good cause of poverty relief, please go http://cenfacs.org.uk/shop/

TRIPS for fieldwork research

Trips to the local need this week include as well those travels made or to be made to conduct fieldwork research in Africa and anywhere else in the context of poverty relief and sustainable development projects. 

These fieldwork researches or practical experiences to gain knowledge and skills could be of varying forms such as observation and collection of raw data, interviews, group discussions, practical activities to support overseas development projects etc. 

If you are a researcher and did or are doing some fieldwork research on sustainable development and poverty reduction, and think that your work can enhance CENFACS’ work, you could share with us your experience, research findings or outcomes.

To share the experiences and results of your fieldwork research, just contact CENFACS and CENFACS will get back to you.

 

Main Development of the Week’s Contents

Tourism as a way of outreaching all

The last two weeks of Trending in Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development, we followed the direction of poverty relief through tourism and tourists to the local need with tourism as helper and enabler for poor people to participate and contribute to growth (week one) and as trade creator and income generator (week two).

This week, we are pursuing the same direction of poverty relief through tourism as a way of reaching out to the poor.  Tourists to the local need can help to meet local needs and those who are in need locally.  They can reach out to them by a variety of means which could include:

√ Income-generating activities run by local people

√ Getting in touch with local arts, cultures and designs

√ Visiting locally-run projects and made creations

Tourism reaching out to the poor is a concept telling us that tourism is not only about visiting rich areas and tourist sides whereby the tourists walk through like in a path drawn for them.  Tourism as outreaching all is about getting in touch with all the realities of the place, and amongst these realities are poverty and hardships as well.  By connecting to both the local rich and poor, tourists to the local need can have a balanced perception of the place.  This can also enrich their holiday experiences and outcomes. 

In fact, doing something about poverty is not only about donating money or goods.  It is also about buying things made by the poor, valuing their creations and makings and caring about the environment they live in.  In this respect, tourism and tourists to the need can reach out poor people in this way.  So, tourism with a local eye on the poor can lead to doing something against local poverty and hardships.    

To follow or track the direction of poverty relief through Tourism with CENFACS this August, contact CENFACS.

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 comments about our weekly posts.

We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support during 2018.

With many thanks

 

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

08 August 2018

Post No. 51

 

 

The Week’s Contents

• Trending for Poverty Relief: Tourism as trade creator and income generator

• Children, Youth and Family Happiness Projects

• Summer Moments

   … and much more!

 

Key Messages from the Week’s Contents

August trends at CENFACS

Our integration theme of Track, Trip and Trending is in the week two.  The main focus is to get the three components of this integrating theme working and running at the same time.  Our sharing and engaging two keynotes (that is Track and Trip to the need) of this main integrating theme are in progress. 

We are asking to all participants to not forget to keep records of their activities as well as to put in place some monitoring tools to measure and communicate the impacts of their work.

Tourism as a trade creator and income generator for the poor

The third keynote or project identifier of August month is Trending for Poverty Relief, that is the following and tracking of the direction in poverty reduction (Trending) through Tourism.  

After introducing our trending keynote and starting to follow the direction of poverty relief through tourism in creating employment opportunities for the poor and supporting pro-poor growth, we are now this week dealing with tourism as a trade creator and income generator for the poor. 

It is about looking at the value or decency of tourism in creating trade and generating income for the poor.  As said above, this is the second phase of August trending activities on tourism and tourists to the need. 

For more on tourism as trade creator and income generator, please read further under the Main Development section of this post.

Children, Young People and Family Happiness Projects

Our Happiness season is moving smoothly with Children, Young People and Family Happiness Projects.  Likewise, our fundraising campaign for the season (Appeal Projects) is still open to everybody who wants to donate and support the deserving causes of poor children, young people and families over this Summer time.  For further details on support, go to http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/

DONATE NOW! Thanks! 

As said previously, our development calendar operates in such a way to take into account the living patterns of our users and stakeholders.  Most of them would normally be in holiday at this time of the year. 

We hope that for most of them, who are in holiday or have taken a summer break at this time of the year, are enjoying their breaks or holidays.  From CENFACS’ part, we would like to wish them Happy Summer wherever you/they are (at home or away).  For those who have to work at this time of the year, we also wish them well in their work or whatever they are doing to survive.

Our Six Summer Happiness projects are still running.  For those who are using them, please mind the integrity, spirit and principles of these projects.  They are designed to support you throughout this time of the year; time which could be easier for some but not for everybody. 

Summer Moments

Holidays or breaks can sometimes bring along with them times of significance or value to remember and perhaps share.  If you having those moments that you think they are valuable experiences that may bring inputs to our poverty relief work and are worth sharing with us, do not hesitate to capture them.  As you know, you can capture them through a mobile phone, video, short film, voice etc.

CENFACS would be delighted to hear from your holiday story or experience and valuable moments.   Again, have some wonderful moments with your summer holiday or break. 

Main Development of the Week’s Contents

Tourism as a trade creator and income generator for the poor

Last week, we started to look at how tourism and tourists to the local need can help poor people to participate and contribute to growth, particularly by accidentally offering opportunities to poor people to get involved in tourist employment opportunities.  We say accidentally because tourists do not chiefly come to travel to an area to reduce poverty.  But, they can make it happen.

This week, we are pursuing the direction of poverty relief through tourism as a trade creator and income generator for the poor. 

Tourism has the capacity to create trade opportunities for everybody including poor local people as poor people can grab the opportunity of tourists in their local areas to trade their products and services.  However, the question remains about the future of this trade creation.  As long as trade created by tourism helps to reduce poverty, this is a progressive direction in reducing and perhaps ending poverty.

Tourism offers as well income-generating opportunities for the poor as poor traders or businesses can trade to raise income, however small it may be, for their families to fight poverty and hardships.  However, the issue raises here is the sustainability or viability of this employment or occupancy to make ends meet.  As long as this helps to reduce poverty, it is step forward in the direction we are following to check if tourism helps reduce poverty.

In both cases, we need to get the data (in numbers and words) as well.  It is not enough to reduce poverty.  We should find out by how much as we follow tourism and tourists to the local need in helping to reduce poverty and hardships.

To follow or track the direction of poverty relief through Tourism with CENFACS this August, contact CENFACS.

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 comments about our weekly posts.

We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support during 2018.

With many thanks

 

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

01 August 2018

Post No. 50

 

The Week’s Contents

• Track, Trip and Trending Month

• Seven Days of Development Feedback 

• FACS, Issue no. 60 is out now

… And much more!

 

Key Messages of the Week’s Contents

Stakeholders’ and Users’ Experiences Reporting

Our Analytics month of bringing light to what worked, what did not work and of measuring what we achieved in our last financial year has come to an end.  For those who have not yet responded to our request, they can still submit their feedback by the 15^th of August 2018 while we are studying the information and feedback we have received so far. 

Seven Days of Development in July Festival (7DDJF) 2018

Our Summer 2018 Festival of Thoughts and Actions is now closed.  We would like to thank all of you for your contribution.  Seven days were many days to think but if we want to do something about poverty and sustainability we need to time and days on our work.

Although the Festival is closed, we would like to ask you again to provide a feedback about the experience you have had with it.  You could also say, if you can, something about the previous Festivals so that we can improve the ways these days of poverty relief and sustainable development thoughts and actions  are prepared and run. 

Our feedback formula remains the same as for the Analytics month.  It consists of you using your own words to tell and share what you think of the Festivals.  We would you to keep your freedom to tell us what you think.  

The 60^th Issue of FACS

The 60^th Issue of CENFACS’ bilingual newsletter, FACS, is now out under the title of Odyssey of Climate Finance and Insurance for African Children.  The Issue deals with the question of financial and insurance responsibilities we need to take towards the children victims of the adverse effects and impacts of climate change.

We have provided, under the Main Developments Section of this post, the keys highlights of the main contents making this Summer Issue.  However, for those who get further information to can request a full version of this Issue by contacting CENFACS.

 

 

Main Developments for the Week’s Contents

•• Track, Trip and Trending

Before saying what is on during the month of August 2018, CENFACS would like to thank you again for your likes, comments and shares about our heated 7DDJF (7 Days of Development in July Festival) of Thoughts and Actions on EFFECTS OF TRADE TARIFFS ON POVERTY RELIEF AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, Festival held from 22 to 28 July 2018.

We would like also to thank those who responded to our All-in-one Impact Feedback, which is now closed. We shall look at and analyse all the responses received and appropriately reflect on some of the points raised by all feedback respondents in our analytics. Again thank you so much for your support.

August is CENFACS’ Track, Trip and Trending month. We do Track at CENFACS as we believe that every one of us can undertake basic physical activity of running or racing to help reduce poverty. Our project known as Run to Reduce Poverty is designed to meet that end.

August is also the month we carry out some Trips to our projects. We visit our projects all over the year, but August is the time we highlight this. It is the month of the year we walk again to the need, to the people, communities, organisations and livelihoods in need.

We thirdly deal with Trending in August as we spend time looking at what we can call Trendy Development. Trending in Poverty Reduction helps us to follow the direction of poverty reduction work. This August we are going to follow this direction by looking at TOURISM in reducing poverty and enhancing sustainable development.

Track to reduce poverty
This is delivered through the project Run to Reduce Poverty and Vote your African Manager of Poverty Reduction. These are all-year round projects. However, because of the weather conditions (sunshine) and nature of August (holidays time for many of our supporters) we put a particular emphasis on the Run aspects of these all-year round projects, over this month. We expect those who sign up to the Run element to take actions and run it by themselves. After summer, they can report back to us or at any convenient time before the end of the year.

Trip to the local need
This is the second aspect or part of work over the month of August at CENFACS. We expect and advise our supporters to visit some of our projects and initiatives whether in the UK or in Africa during and around the month of August. Because we are in CENFACS’ Year of Locals or the Local Campaign Year, our Trip this year will be to the local needs.

Trip to the need and project includes some of the experiences undertaken by CENFACS All in Development Volunteers through field work involvements and project visits, to reach out to unreached, underserved and unserved people and communities particularly those living in remote areas of Africa.  It is the kind of experiences that we recommend to future volunteers to have and report back in September or after. These trips also help us to check if we are on the right track at helping to reduce poverty and at tracking our records for the work on the ground.

Because the theme of trending for this Summer is Tourism to the need, we are going to link Trip to the need with Tourism. Call it Trip or Tourism to the need. If you are one of our tourists to the need, please do forget to feedback your Summer 2018 tourist experience.

Trendy sustainable development
Sustainable development does not need to be trendy, but we can follow the trends in sustainable development and poverty reduction. During this August we are dealing with Trending in poverty reduction through tourism and its capacity of lifting people out poverty. We mean by that we are following the direction of poverty reduction by using tourism.

We are going to use the definition of tourism as provided by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), quoted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on page 11. UNCTAD (1) say that the UNWTO defines tourism as

“the activities of persons identified as visitors. A visitor is someone who is making a visit to a main destination outside his/her usual environment for less than a year for any main purpose [including] holidays, leisure and recreation, business, health, education or other purposes […] This scope is much wider than the traditional perception of tourists, which included only those travelling for leisure” (United Nations and UNWTO, 2010). Visitors can be either same-day visitors or overnight visitors.

So, tourism and its respective impacts on poverty reduction are what will be trending at CENFACS as follows:

• From 01/08/2018: Tourism as a job creator and pro-poor growth supporter

• From 08/08/2018: Tourism as a creator of trade and income-generating opportunities for poor people

• From 15/08/2018: Tourism as outreach to the poor

• From 22/08/2018: Tourism as connector and generator of demand for agricultural products

If you are interested in this trend, please share with us your experience or comments about it.

Further explanation about this August month’s activities can be obtained from CENFACS.

(1) UNCTAD, Economic Development in Africa Report 2017: Tourism for Transformative and Inclusive Growth, 2017

 

•• FACS, Issue no. 60, Summer 2018 

Key Highlights –

The Key Highlights making the contents of the 60^th issue of FACS are given below.

The rights-based approach in the climate finance claims (Page 1 & 2 of FACS)

To protect the economic and environmental rights of poor people, children in particular, a rights-based approach can be used.  This could mean that resources, assets and wealth are allocated in such a way to meet the climate needs of the poor, poor children. 

The Financial Odyssey can make it to happen as it helps to convince not only the experts of climate change and child rights but also the general public the relevancy of supporting with finance and insurance the children victims of climate change.   

Prioritising Climate Finance for African Children (Page 3 of FACS)

In one of its publications, UNICEF (2) suggested ways of ensuring that children are prioritised in the climate and build a climate resilient future for the world’s children.  Amongst these priorities were: child rights as guiding principles, ensuring children’s rights and vulnerabilities, ensuring children’s voices are considered, ensuring equity for children.

If we have to monitor and evaluate these priorities since UNICEF spoke about one can wonder where we are now.  Prioritising the needs of the world’s children and amongst them, African children, is still a long and tortuous journey in order to meet the insurance expectations and needs of the world’s and African children.

(2) UNICEF, Climate proof children: Putting the child first in climate finance, Sept. 2011      

Affordability of climate insurance policy for children (Page 4 of FACS)

To improve the affordability of insurance for poor and vulnerable children, there should be human rights-oriented considerations that need to be taken into account.  The reduction of insurance premiums needs to be considered as well.

Children victims of climate change from poor countries cannot afford to cover themselves, neither their parents and or carers are able to meet the cost of the effects and impacts of climate change.  Likewise, neither of them can buy insurance policies related to new technologies to protect against the often huge effect and impact of climate change.

Peut-on financer et assurer les enfants contre les aléas climatiques en Afrique? (Page 5 et 6 de FACS)

Les victimes climatiques ont besoin plus que de l’aide financière

Quand il y a une catastrophe naturelle (telle que les pluies torrentielles, une sécheresse aiguë etc.), il peut évidemment y avoir des victimes.  Parmi ces victimes, il peut y avoir des enfants tel que l’on a vu dans certains pays africains tels que la République Centrafricaine, la République Démocratique du Congo, le Tchad etc. 

Ces victimes peuvent être déplacées, perdre leurs logements et leurs possessions sans oublier des fatalités et des problèmes de santé qu’elles peuvent subir.  Ces victimes ont plus besoin de compréhension que de l’aide financière.  Elles ont besoin d’une compréhension des problèmes fondamentaux liés climats et leurs conséquences sur elles.  Car, très souvent l’aide au climat est considérée ou assimilée au don non pas à une obligation locale ou nationale ou encore internationale.

Un avis partagé

Il y a toujours un débat parfois controversé s’agissant de droits de financement des victimes des aléas climatiques.  De même que l’opinion est divisée sur la question de droit d’assurance contre les effets néfastes des hasards climatiques surtout quand il s’agit des enfants. 

Il y a des thèses qui totalement rejettent l’idée d’un droit de financement et d’assurance contre les aléas climatiques, simplement parce qu’elles estiment ça coûte trop cher.

Il y a par contre des courants de pensée qui font ménagent avec l’idée d’un paiement financier et d’une couverture climatique par l’achat d’une politique d’assurance.

En ce qui concerne le CENFACS, nous pensons que les enfants victimes des effets et impactes néfastes des aléas ou hasards climatiques méritent bel et bien un paiement financier et une couverture d’assurance.  On peut financer et assurer les enfants contre les aléas climatiques en Afrique comme ailleurs.

Notre position ressort d’une simple réflexion qui est celle de la responsabilité non seulement morale, mais aussi financière et d’assurance par les êtres humains envers la nature et la planète terre.  Nous agissons à travers ce que nous appelons l’odyssée de finances et d’assurance climatiques pour les enfants africains, ou tout court l’odyssée financière.

Point n’est besoin de rappeler que les changements climatiques sont en majeure partie l’oeuvre des êtres humains que nous sommes.  Cela étant, en qu’êtres humains nous avons tous la responsabilité non seulement morale mais aussi financière et actuarielle de faire quelque chose pour ceux qui souffrent  à cause de nos actes. On peut faire quelque chose en essayant de convaincre le public sur le bien fondé de cette responsabilité financière et actuarielle.

L’odyssée financière est un long, tortueux et périlleux chemin que les enfants victimes des effets et impactes des changements climatiques doivent prendre pour convaincre non seulement les experts et preneurs de décision en matière climatique mais aussi le commun du mortel à adhérer à l’idée d’un paiement financier et d’une couverture climatiques à leurs égards.  En agissant de cette manière, on peut réduire la pauvreté ou précarité liée aux changements et aléas climatiques.  C’est ça l’odyssée financière.   

L’odyssée de finance et d’assurance climatiques pour les enfants africains ou l’odyssée financière

L’odyssée financière est une exploration et un état d’esprit des questions en suspens et exigeant des réponses et actions appropriées demandées par les enfants victimes des effets et impactes négatifs résultant des changes climatiques, de sorte qu’une justice financière et d’assurance est faite pour eux.

L’odyssée financière se place dans la perspective de l’odyssée d’autonomisation des usagères de CENFACS (et leurs familles) du projet “Ce que les femmes veulent” ou 3W (What Women Want). 

L’odyssée d’autonomisation est un compte rendu de familiarisation aux processus et expériences de plusieurs années que les usagères 3W (et leurs familles) ont eu en étant confinées chez soi et en sortant de ce confinement pour saisir les opportunités d’utiliser leurs potentialités pleinement, en passant par l’isolement vers l’intégration, pour survivre et réussir à vaincre sinon à réduire la pauvreté.

Cela étant, l’odyssée financière est une extension et partie de l’architecture de l’odyssée d’autonomisation qui permet d’habiliter les enfants victimes des effets et impactes des changements climatiques à travers une compensation financière et une couverture assurance.

L’odyssée financière est donc une journée, qui vaut la peine, pour convaincre les esprits de plusieurs personnes pour accepter ou du moins accommoder l’idée que financer et assurer les victimes climatiques n’est pas seulement un don ou une oeuvre de bienfaisance, mais c’est plutôt un prix à payer par chaque être humain qui affecte négativement et excessivement le climat et la planète terre.  Cet effet négatif va à son tour avoir un impacte néfaste sur la vie des enfants et le futur.

Dans cette journée ou ce combat pour une justice financière et d’assurance, les enfants africains sont un échantillon de travail représentatif des autres enfants du monde qui sont aussi négativement et excessivement affectés par les changements et aléas climatiques.

Tout comme l’odyssée d’autonomisation, l’odyssée financière est faite des relations ou rapports de force et de structure dans cette dynamique de réduction de la pauvreté parmi les bénéficiaires de l’odyssée financière.  Ceux-ci sont des résistants autour des idéaux de paix, protection et durabilité à travers des projets de communion ou de camaraderie.  Elle contient le pouvoir de résistance pour la mobilité sociale et le changement de même que le développement durable.

Pour plus d’informations ou pour soutenir les odyssées financière et d’autonomisation, contactez le CENFACS.

Mapping of climate finance flows for children (Page 7 of FACS)

To speak about the climate finance flows channelled to children programmes, one needs to consider risks and the building of resilience. However, are children victims of climate change received a fair and sustainable share?

To know that it is better to define climate finance.  According to the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), it is climate finance as capital flows directed towards emission reductions, climate resilience, and development and implementation of enabling policies (p.18).

When considering this definition, it is worth saying that there is a need for adequate access to affordable financing suited to low-emission, climate-resilient infrastructure.  This is to such an extent that in what is spent, for example to promote efforts to reduce or limit greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) or enhance GHG sequestration), one can question how much of it benefit children.

How to make climate risk insurance work for African children (Page 8 of FACS)

To make climate risk insurance work for African children, it is important to fund climate-resilient development pathways that benefit them.  It requires the development of anticipatory, absorptive and adaptive capacities.  It also requires the development of some principles around and on which people can agree.

As said in the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative (3) in its recommendation “climate risk insurance can support poor and vulnerable people in a concrete way in finding climate –resilient development pathways” (p.49).

The Munich Climate Insurance Initiative gives seven principles to make it happen. This is the way one can make climate risk insurance for children and particularly but not exclusively African children.

(3) Munich Climate Insurance Initiative, Making Climate Risk Insurance Work for The Most Vulnerable: Seven Guiding Principles, United Nations University-Institute for Environment and Human Society Publication Series Policy Report 2016 No.1

Mobilisation of Climate Finance for Children: Climate Finance Statistics (Page 9 of FACS)

The 2017 UK Climate Finance results show that international climate fund programmes have supported people to cope with the effects of climate change.  £2.2 billion public and £500 million private finance were mobilised for climate change purpose in developing countries between 2011/12 and 2016/17.  34 million people were supported to cope with the effects of climate change (4). 

However, these data do not show the allocation in terms of how much of this fund was allocated to the needs of children victims of climate change and how many of children were supported.

(4) DFID UK, 2017 UK Climate Finance Results, July 2017

Voluntary Offering (Page 10 of FACS)

You can generally support the work of CENFACS through donation.  Besides donation, there are other ways of supporting which include: communication and media, public relations, volunteering and internship, training, research and development, legacies, gifts, sponsorship, premises, digital aid, events, direct marketing, recycling, web advertising, mobile technologies etc.

You can specifically support our advocacy related the Financial Odyssey.

For further details about supporting us and current initiatives that need support go to  http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/

To further read and receive a copy of Summer 2018 issue (60^th) of FACS and or previous issues of FACS – or to subscribe to our mailing list, please provide your name, e-mail address and interest/focus by completing our contact form on the home page of this site. 

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 comments about our weekly posts.

We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support during 2018.

With many thanks

 

 

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

25 July 2018

Post No. 49

The Week’s Contents

• Unveiling Happiness Projects

• Seven Days of Development in July 2018 Festival 

• All-year Round Projects at Summertime

… and much more!

Key Messages from the Week’s Contents

Happiness Projects Unveiled

After introducing last week the general theme for our Happiness Projects for this Summer, we are now unveiling them by providing you with their  summaries.  The general theme of this year’s Happiness Projects is Happiness of Locals. 

Their summaries have been given below.  However, full details of these project proposals are available on request from CENFACS. 

To access and or support them, just contact CENFACS.

Seven Days of Development in July 2018 Festival –

The Effects of Trade Tariffs on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development

Our Festival of Summer Thoughts and Actions on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development has started. For those who are having problems with the logistics and material organisation of this Trade event, they need to report the issue so that we can deal with it. 

Just a reminder, it is not enough to ask questions when intervening.  It is better to answer questions from points raised by others.    The Festival is not only about questioning.  It is also about attempting to answer unsolved or unanswered questions as well as taking actions.  It is in this way we can effectively contribute to the event and make an impact on poverty relief and sustainable development.

All-year Round Projects at Summertime

Besides our Summer Programme for multi-dimensional children, young people and families; we have All-year Round Projects.  Indeed, Summer is the appealing time to perform life sustaining activities such as running, playing games and brainstorming to decide on the right people as best persons to help relieve poverty.  And the metrics at CENFACS around this time of the year should indicate that this time is the busiest one to run these activities.

For those who are playing the CENFACS Poverty Relief League, they have normally reached the 16ths of this development game.

Another reminder, it is not enough to undertake these activities unless one keeps records on what they are doing.  To keep records, you can take pictures, record a video and run a short film on what you are doing.  Do not forget keep data about your activities (both in numbers and words).  Likewise, write some short notes on any evidence (pictures, video clips, recorded messages etc.) with names and dates about places where they happen and people involved.

Main Developments of the Week’s Contents

Unveiling Happiness Projects

The 2018 Edition of Summer of Happiness, Peace, Protection and Sustainability is out now. 

Here are the summaries of the Happiness Projects making it.  As said previously, these projects can help in achieving some joyful, helpful and hopeful Summer plans, goals and outcomes.  

 

Wishing all multi-dimensionally Poor Children, Young People and Families Happy, Vulnerability-free, Peaceful, Safe and Sustainable Summer Days. 

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 comments about our weekly posts.

We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support during 2018.

With many thanks

 

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 22^nd 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 10^th 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

 

Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!

11 July 2018

Post No. 47

 

The Week’s Contents

• Analytics month continues…

• Seven Days of Development in July Festival

• Africa-based Organisations and Wealth Accounts…

… and much more!

 

Key Messages from the Week’s Contents

Project Supporters’ and Users’ Experiences

Our Analytics month continues with this week’s Say by Project Supporters and Users telling us the experiences they have had with the programmes and projects we selected to conduct monitoring, evaluation and review.  We are asking Project Supporters, Users and other stakeholders to provide their views using their own words.  This Say is about how they perceived and interacted with the products and services we presented to them over the last 345 days.

The selected programmes and projects for the purpose of monitoring, evaluation and review are listed in the main development section of this communication. 

Wealth Accounts as Tools for Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development

This week is also the start of a new engagement with Africa-based Organisations; engagement aiming at tracking wealth (i.e. infrastructure, forests, minerals and human capital) with the possibility of using them to reduce poverty.  We will be trying to work with them to explore the extent to which they can use Wealth Accounts as Tools for Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development.  

For more on wealth accounts as tools for relief and sustainable development, contact CENFACS.

Seven-Days-of-Development-in-July Festival

Our preparation for this Summer Festival (Seven Days of Development in July Festival) is still in progress.  They will be seven themes for thoughts for seven days as usual, one theme per day, starting from the 22^nd to the 28^th of July 2018.  These are the days of thoughts and actions against poverty.  We shall soon publish the daily themes and supporting information regarding this Festival of Thoughts and Actions on the Effects of Trade Tariffs on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development.  

 

Main Developments of the Week’s Contents 

All-in-One Impact Feedback: July Monitoring and Evaluation

Tell it in your own words!

This exercise is meant to enable Supporters and Users (you might be one of them) to share with us and others the outcomes and learning experiences resulting from the use/application of the projects we have chosen from our Programmes for feedback purpose. 

Please seize this opportunity to provide your own lines of thought for improvement, adjustment and development by sharing with us and others the outcomes and/or experiences resulting from the communications we have had with you and or your use/application or participation/support concerning the programmes and projects below. 

We would like to know how effective and efficient did you find in these programmes and projects, and what lessons, experiences did you learn and development for the future of our poverty relief work in coming years.

We would very much appreciate if you could provide us a feedback (via e-mail, text, phone, web comments or reviews etc.) in your own words regarding the way in which the named programmes and projects below have affected you and/or the people you recommended to use them. 

Remember, we can only help reduce poverty and do the changes we all want if you tell us what you think.

Please consider our request for feedback and for your report. 

8 X 2 (EIGHT SELECTED PROGRAMMES AND TWO SELECTED PROJECTS FOR EACH PROGRAMME: In total 16 Projects to feedback)

We have selected the following programmes and projects for feedback, 8 Programmes and 2 projects in each programme for your SAY:

1/ Selected projects under African Integrated Sustainable Development programme

♦ Autumn 2017 Appeal to Support Projects for Needy People and Organisations

♦ Summer Humanitarian Relief Appeal to Support Needy Children, Young People and Families in Africa

2/ Selected projects under Peace, Protection and Sustainability programme

♦ Climate Protection and Stake for African Children

♦ African Children and Sustainable Development Goals: Generation Global Goals (3G) project

3/ Selected projects under African Rebuilding and Sustaining Infrastructures and Lives programme

♦ Light Projects: Lighting a Blaze of Hope for the Victims of Conflicts in the African Central Republic and Region (CARRA Appeal), for the Conflict and Flood Victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC Appeal)

♦ Rebuilding Africa: Restoring Lives in the African Islands of South-East

4/ Selected projects under Poverty-Environment programme

♦ Save Animals project with the Big Cats Campaign

♦ A la Une (Autumn Leaves of Action to Upkeep the Nature in Existence) Campaign  

5/ Selected projects under Individual Capacity Building and Development programme

♦ Basic Community Support (Advice-giving Service)

♦ June Month of Environmental Sustainable Creative Initiatives: Creating and Innovating for the Transitional Economy

6/ Selected projects under the Twenty-tens Poverty Reduction Programme – Revised Version (2017 – 2019)

♦ World Anti-poverty System

♦ All-year-round projects

7/ Selected projects under the New Media and Digital programmes

♦ Digital and Social Media Campaign: The Role of Mobile Phone for Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development

♦ CENFACS’ Online Store

8/ Selected projects under P-REI Transitional Capacity Building and Development Programme: Support Infrastructures, Develop Capacities and Create Impacts

♦ Project MISATU (Project M): Making Impactful Support to Africa Together with Users

♦ TRIANCONTADI Project (or Project 32 or The Simple Road to a Post-Regional Economic Integration Thriving Development World project): Together for Renewal of Infrastructures in Africa to Create Opportunities and Needed Transformations for Alternative Development Intergenerational

Thank you for considering our request of feedback and for your support.

Details and summaries of the above selected programmes and projects are available from CENFACS for request. 

This feedback is due by the end of July 2018.

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