This groundbreaking Mongolian Human Development Report – the country’s first – went beyond just chronicling Mongolia’s state of development in statistics and graphs. It placed the story of the Mongolian people during the transition years (post-1989) at its heart, using photographs, stories and case studies to detail the bigger narrative at play.
Designed, laid out and published in Mongolia, the report broke with the practices of many other international organisations, who would publish outside of Mongolia – denying local companies much-needed work. The report’s costs helped to kick-start a publishing boom in the country and significantly raised standards in design and layout. The foundations laid down by the project producing the report ushered in a new age in publishing for Mongolia.
The report’s launch was innovative, not only being distributed for free across the country, but also part of a multimedia campaign including television programming, public posters, town hall meetings and a ‘roadshow’ featuring the report’s researchers and writers.
The initial print run of 10,000 copies was doubled as demand for the report increased. To the surprise of many, once hearing about the free report, herders would travel to the capital, Ulaanbaatar, to pick up their copy. The report proved people cared passionately about the development of their country and that development concepts are not to be the secret domain of ‘development practitioners’.
The MHDR 1997 was so popular it had two print runs. It has been cited in many books, journals and publications. It was the first exhaustive account of the country’s turbulent transition years and mapped the extent of poverty in the country.The Human Development Report Mongolia 1997 is available in many library collections around the world. In this case, the Oulu University Library Finland. The award-winning UN/UNDP Mongolia Development Portal was launched in 1997. It quickly became the go-to source on Mongolia’s development challenges.CTV News: “Canada named best place to live on this day in 1997”. I considered it an enormous privilege to be given the opportunity to work with fellow Canadians on sharing our experiences with Mongolia during the 1990s crisis.
“On this day in 1997, Canada was on top of the world. Or at least, on top of the United Nations’ annual ranking of the best places to live in the world.
“CTV News archival footage captured a proud moment for Canada on June 12, 1997, as then-National News anchor Lloyd Robertson hailed the UN ranking as a “report card to be proud of.”
“It’s not quite straight As but Canada is still at the head of the class,” Robertson said. “In fact, it’s No. 1 in the world.”
“Canada beat out France, Norway, the United States and Iceland for top spot on the UN human development list, which ranks countries based on a variety of factors linked to quality of life.
“It was the fourth straight year Canada topped the list.
“Canada earned top marks in the life expectancy, health, education and income categories, which helped propel the country’s overall Human Development Index score to No. 1 in the world.”
Mobile phones are more and more part of daily life in the South’s slums – even for the poorest people. One result is that it has now become possible to undertake digital mapping initiatives to truly find out who is where and what is actually going on.
About one-third of the world’s urban dwellers live in slums, and the United Nations estimates that the number of people living in such conditions will double by 2030 as a result of rapid urbanization in developing countries. How to improve their living conditions and raise their standard of living is the big challenge of the 21st century.
With just over five years until the 2015 deadline to meet the Millennium Development Goals (http://www.undp.org/mdg/), and the current economic downturn reversing some gains, any tool that can make development decisions more precise has to be a benefit.
People are now turning to the growing penetration of digital technologies into slums and poor areas to find solutions. With mobile phones available across much of the global South, and plans underway to expand access to broadband internet even in poorly served Africa, it is becoming possible to develop a digital picture of a slum area and map its needs and population.
Put to the right use, this powerful development tool can fast-track the delivery of aid and also better connect people to markets and government services.
In November, an NGO called Map Kibera (www.mapkibera.org) began work on an ambitious project to digitally map Africa’s largest slum, Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya .
The partners behind Map Kibera are Humanitarian OpenStreetMap, JumpStart International, WhereCampAfrica, the Social Development Network, Pamoja Trust, Hands on Kenya and others.
Estimates place the number of residents in Kibera at one million, but nobody really knows how many live there (UN-HABITAT). The slum is typical of such deprived areas, lacking in health and water resources and plagued by chaotic traffic and housing. Few fully grasp where everything is in the sprawl.
While data does exist on the slum, it is not shared or collated into one source. The Map Kibera project uses an open-source software programme, OpenStreetMap (http://www.openstreetmap.org/), to allow users to edit and add information as it is gathered. This information is then free to use by anybody wanting to grasp what is actually happening in Kibera: residents, NGOs, private companies and government officials.
This will literally put Kibera on Kenya’s map.
The mapping team started with 12 young people recruited in Kibera to start the work in November of this year. They will be trained and also receive support from the growing Nairobi technology community.
“The project will provide open-source data that will help illustrate the living conditions in Kibera,” said Map Kibera’s Mikel Maron. “Without basic knowledge of the geography of Kibera it is impossible to have an informed discussion on how to improve the lives of residents of Kibera.”
Workshops will communicate with local residents and show them the findings available from the map. Paper maps will be distributed to residents and then updated as new information comes in. It is critical local people are kept informed to build trust and avoid conflict. As can be seen from the Google Street Views (http://www.google.co.uk/help/maps/streetview/) controversy, nobody likes to be mapped without their permission or consent.
Like Kenya, Brazil has a long history of sprawling slums sprouting around its cities. Called favelas, they are complex places, with both rudimentary dwellings and elaborate mansions. Walking into a favela can be a journey through the dreams and aspirations of generations of people, often reflected in their dwellings. Favelas have many services, including hospitals, and there are restaurants and coffee shops. In short, while they are not in the official development plans, the favelas are vibrant economic entities and home to hundreds of thousands of people.
But since they are chaotic and undocumented by official maps, the economic and social development of the favelas is hindered as even basic services like mail delivery are difficult to provide.
An NGO called Rede Jovem (http://www.redejovem.org.br/) is deploying youths armed with GPS (global positioning system)-equipped (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System) mobile phones to map the favelas of Rio de Janerio. To start with, they are mapping five favelas: Complexo do Alemão, Cidade de Deus, Morro do Pavão-Pavãozinho, Morro Santa Marta and Complexo da Maré.
“The main goal was to mark public interest spots on a map and show places like schools and institutions and hospitals and restaurants,” Natalia Santos, the executive coordinator for Rede Jovem, told MobileActive (www.mobileactive.org) . “We wanted to spread the news about what slums do have, so all the people can get to know that the slum is not just a place for violence and marginality and robbery.”
The mapping process works like this: the mappers physically travel around the favela and upload information on each, individual landmark (restaurants, roads etc.) as they go. They use Nokia N95s mobile phones that are connected to Google Maps (www.maps.google.com).
According to Santos, reporters enter the information on the map displayed on the phone, and they can video or photograph to add more detail. They are using Wikimapa (www.wikimapa.org.br), and Twitter (www.twitter.com) to log the information.
As Rede Jovem recruited young mappers, they discovered an interesting fact: the male reporters (aged between 17 and 25) were frightened to enter a favela with a mobile phone for fear of either being mugged or being stopped by the police. Because of this fact, all the mappers are young women.
They are ambitious for the future despite their funds running out in December. “We want everyone who has a cell phone with GPS to be a wikireporter,” said Santos .
How important it is to the favela residents to be recognised like this can’t be overstated. “I think they are very happy because they’re seeing that they exist,” said Santos. “And the mailman says that now he can deliver the mail.”
Published: December 2009
Resources
Mobile Active.org: MobileActive.org is a community of people and organizations using mobile phones for social impact. They are committed to increasing the effectiveness of NGOs around the world who recognize that the over 4 billion mobile phones provide unprecedented opportunities for organizing, communications, and service and information delivery. Website: http://www.mobileactive.org
Google Android: Get inventing! This software enables anyone to start making applications for mobile phones. And it offers a platform for developers to then sell the applications to others. Website: http://www.android.com/
Ushahidi: is a website that was developed to map reports of violence in Kenya after the post-election fallout at the beginning of 2008. The new Ushahidi Engine is being created to use the lessons learned from Kenya to create a platform that allows anyone around the world to set up their own way to gather reports by mobile phone, email and the web – and map them. It is being built so that it can grow with the changing environment of the web, and to work with other websites and online tools. Website: http://blog.ushahidi.com/
Textually.org: is the entry point of three weblogs devoted to cell phones and mobile content, focusing on text messaging and cell phone usage around the world, tracking the latest news and social impact of these new technologies. Website:http://www.textually.org/
Betavine Social Exchange has launched. It’s a matching site for NGOs looking for mobile solutions, and developers who can help build them, all brought to you by Vodafone. Website:http://www.betavine.net
The story first appeared in the UN e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions in 2009. It was simultaneously published on the Vancouver, Canada-based crowd-powered news website, NowPublic. It was then published in the UN magazine Southern Innovator.
In the Northeast Asian nation of Mongolia – landlocked between Russia and China – the traditional diet is based on the nomadic ways of its herders. Rich in meat and milk products, it is a diet that has evolved from the need to survive in a harsh climate doing hard physical labour – winter temperatures can drop below minus 50 degrees Celsius.
Social changes brought about by Mongolia’s economic journey since embracing free markets and democracy in the early 1990s have led to a growing urban population. The capital, Ulaanbaatar, has seen its population balloon for a variety of reasons – from collapsing rural economies to environmental disasters to the need to find work and opportunities – and is estimated to be over a million, out of a national population of just 2.6 million (World Bank).
Mongolia is experiencing serious food security problems due to factors including economic inflation and weather-related disasters, and is also confronting problems common to many countries in the age of globalization. According to the World Diabetes Foundation, 10 percent of the population is at risk of the disease, which it calls a lurking catastrophe.
As the paper “Lessons from a small country about the global obesity crisis” by Kelly D. Brownell and Derek Yach notes: “Globalization changes many features of modern life, including diets. As trade changes, diets can become more secure (hunger becomes less of a problem), but the cheapening of calories, the reliance on imported food, and the influence of food marketing drive up consumption and drive down nutrient density. Obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases are not far behind.”
In response to these problems, increasing awareness of healthy lifestyles has led to some new business ventures in Ulaanbaatar. This past summer, saw the opening of an organic vegetarian restaurant and shop: the Organic Café Shop, reports Green Traveler Guides.
Started by business partner-sisters Bayarmaa Jarantai and Enkhmaa Jarantai with nephew Lkhagvasuren, the modest four-table restaurant and shop is a mini-revolution for a country as meat-loving as Mongolia. It serves up organic vegetarian meals and sells certified organic products. The spark of inspiration came when Bayarmaa read three books on the macrobiotic diet translated into Mongolian. The macrobiotic diet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrobiotic_diet) avoids highly processed foods and uses grains, beans and vegetables as its staples.
The cafe’s menu includes: vegetable salads (shredded cabbage, bell peppers, carrots and seasoning), stir-fried vegetables with tofu and asparagus soup, 10-grain soup, eggplant, and Mongolian vegetarian fried vegetables. Prices range between 2,500 Mongolian tugrug and 4,500 tugrug (US $1.75 and US $3.00).
The vegetables are sourced locally from Mongolian farmers and gardeners and are chemical-free. While not officially certified as organic, they are effectively that.
The shop sells certified organic products from China. The products include rice, grains, sugars and jams. (Made-in-Mongolia organic produce is a business opportunity waiting to happen: so far there are no certified organic packaged-product producers in the country).
But despite the Organic Café Shop’s good intentions, it is not immune to the country’s food security issues: Bayarmaa admits to being puzzled about how she will be able to continue to source the fresh vegetables she needs during the harsh winter months. Ulaanbaatar is the coldest national capital in the world and fresh produce has to be imported at considerable expense.
Another enterprise promoting healthy living in Ulaanbaatar is the Ananda Café and Meditation Centre (http://www.anandacenter.org/), a vegetarian restaurant and yoga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoga) centre. Yoga is the traditional physical and mental discipline from ancient India used to keep physically fit. It is a form of exercise that appeals to a wide age range and can be done pretty well anywhere.
The Ananda Centre offers courses in yoga and meditation, vegetarian cooking classes and nature retreats.
Global Food Security Crisis: A joint UN website with frequent updates on the global food crisis and how to respond. Website:http://www.un-foodsecurity.org/
Ananda Yoga Centre: Part of the increasing awareness of the importance of a healthy lifestyle, this yoga and meditation centre is located in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Website:http://www.yogamongolia.org/
Ger: Mongolia’s First Web Magazine (And A Pioneering Web Project For The United Nations).
Global magazine Southern Innovator profiles innovation culture ending poverty
60-page color magazine gives snapshot of fast-changing world
Southern Innovator (SI) is a new magazine for a fast-changing world. It profiles and celebrates the innovators across the global South finding new ways to tackle poverty, create wealth and improve human development and achieve the millennium development goals (MDGs). In its first issue, Southern Innovator features the people who are re-shaping new technologies – from mobile phone ‘apps’ to Internet technologies – to overcome poverty and to improve the quality of life in some of the poorest places on earth.
SI is based on intensive research and is produced by UNDP’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation (www.southerninnovator.org). The Unit is the leading organisation in the world tasked with the goal of sharing knowledge across the global South. It organises events including the yearly South-South Expo (www.southsouthexpo.org), a roaming celebration and gathering of Southern innovators previously held in New York and Geneva, Switzerland. This year’s Expo will be held in Rome, Italy (5 to 9 December 2011).
SI is being distributed around the world through the United Nations network and partners and reaches some of the poorest and remotest places as well as the vibrant but stressed growing global megacities. It is hoped the magazine will inspire budding innovators with its mix of stories, essential information, facts and figures, images and graphics. The magazine will evolve based on reader responses and this first issue is very much the beginning of a journey. As became clear while researching this first issue, many things can change in a short space of time. Few could have imagined the rapid take-up of mobile phones in Africa and how these phones have become integral to development goals across the continent.
SI magazine is a quarterly publication and the next issues will launch in September and December of this year.
A summary for publication is here:
“Southern Innovator (ISSN 2222-9280) is a quarterly magazine published by the United Nations Development Programme’s Special Unit for South-South Cooperation. Launched in May 2011, SI is a new magazine celebrating creativity and innovation emerging from the global South. It explores entrepreneurial solutions to development challenges and uncovers the trends and events shaping the rise of the South in order to spur action on ending extreme poverty and toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).”
We hope you enjoy the magazine and find its content interesting and illuminating: a snapshot of a fast-changing world awash, as we found out, with innovators, creators and do-ers making their world a better place.
For more information on Southern Innovator contact Cosmas Gitta at cosmas.gitta@undp.org or editor David South at southerninnovator@yahoo.co.uk.
United Nations General Assembly: Sixty-ninth session, Item 24 (b) of the provisional agenda, Operational activities for development: South-South cooperation for development, 17 July 2014. The research informing Southern Innovator Magazine played a part in the formulation of the UN’s post-2015 development agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
David South Consulting 
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