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  • Ecotourism to Heal the Scars of the Past

    Ecotourism to Heal the Scars of the Past

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The legacy of underdevelopment during the communist era in parts of Eastern Europe is now being seen as an advantage in the global tourism trade. Well off the beaten path for tourists, areas as diverse as Chechnya and Romania are working to turn their rustic rural hinterlands into a strategic advantage in grabbing the market for ecotourists. Ecotourism – tourism that takes people to fragile and beautiful areas – is one of the tourism industry’s fastest growing areas.At stake is the lucrative and ever-growing world tourism market. Global tourist arrivals passed 800 million in 2006, with tourism in the world up by 5.5 per cent (World Tourism Organization), earning US $680 billion globally. In 1993, just seven per cent of travel was nature tourism; that share has now passed 20 per cent.

    Romania, now a member of the European Union, boasts rural countryside like Europe of old: all hillsides are common land and there are no walls or fences to impede the view. Life is heavily dominated by agriculture and the rhythms of farm life.

    Southern Transylvania is a high plateau of wooded hills and valleys and shielded by the Carpathian Mountains.

    “The Carpathians of central and eastern Europe,” said Achim Steiner, head of the UN Environment Programme, “are among the world’s richest regions in terms of biodiversity and pristine landscapes. I have no doubt that the Carpathians, like the Alps, the Himalayas and the Rocky Mountains, will become world famous for walking, hiking, climbing, wildlife watching, photography and similar leisure pursuits.”

    In order to preserve this way of life and generate income, various schemes are encouraging low-key tourism. This takes the form of renovating decaying farm buildings for guesthouses. The guesthouses are kept clean and simple and the focus is on typical local food like hearty stews and soups and pork sausages.

    Much of this has been paid for by the Mihai Emenescu Trust, a charity seeking to preserve the traditions of the Saxon villages.

    Patrick Holden of the Soil Association, a patron of the Mihai Eminescu Trust, thinks the organic agricultural methods of the local farmers could be a model for the rest of Europe.

    Romania is also part of the Organization for Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), which is taking the lead in promoting ecotourism as an economic development option.

    Ex-communist nation Bulgaria has also turned to ecotourism, launching its “Ecotourism: Naturally Bulgaria” campaign in September.

    Even the once-war-torn Russian republic of Chechnya is trying to radically re-shape people’s perceptions. It is hard to believe, but the former site of a bitter civil war that left the capital Grozny in ruins now wants to be Russia’s Switzerland.

    Shatoy region in southern Chechnya, during Soviet times, saw 20,000 visitors every month to ski, ride horses, and hike in the Caucasus Mountains. The new government plans to spend UK £40 million on new hotels, reconstructing old holiday camps, building spas and health centres. The region’s head of government, Mr Khasukha Demilkhanov, is confident that natural beauty can compete with the West: in the Argun Gorge, he pointed out to the Guardian newspaper, the scene is reminiscent of a 19th century woodcutting. Stone towers litter the hills, alpine meadows are full of wild flowers, the mountains are snow-capped and new roads have been built.

    The Chechens hope to start with Russian holidaymakers and extreme tourists from the West, before moving more into the mainstream market.

    Published: October 2007

    Resources

    • Ecotourism.org: The International Ecotourism Society.
    • Ecotourism Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan has put together a dedicated website on ecotourism.
    • Planeta: one of the first ecotourism resources to go online (since 1994) and still offers plenty of information for those wanting to start a business.

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/african-tourism-leads-the-world-and-brings-new-opportunities/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/20/africas-tourism-sector-can-learn-from-asian-experience/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/02/07/boosting-tourism-in-india-with-surfing-culture/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/09/27/caribbean-island-st-kitts-goes-green-for-tourism/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2023/02/03/environmental-public-awareness-handbook-case-studies-and-lessons-learned-in-mongolia/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/21/from-warriors-to-tour-guides/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/23/kenyan-safari-begins-minutes-from-airport/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/08/07/mongolian-green-book/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/10/10/a-solution-to-stop-garbage-destroying-tourism/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-2/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/03/05/southern-innovator-issue-5/

    https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2023/01/17/war-peace-and-development-may-2018/

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

    Environmental Public Awareness Handbook: Case Studies and Lessons Learned in Mongolia by Robert Ferguson.
    Environmental Public Awareness Handbook: Case Studies and Lessons Learned in Mongolia by Robert Ferguson.
    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2023

  • Kiva: New Gateway of Loans for the Poor

    Kiva: New Gateway of Loans for the Poor

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    The rise of social networking websites has created new opportunities for the poor to gain access to much needed credit. Kiva.org is pioneering a new way for entrepreneurs in the South to obtain for their businesses unsecured, no-interest financing from lenders worldwide. By just a click of the mouse a person anywhere in the world can lend as little as US $25 or more to aspiring entrepreneurs in developing countries.

    Kiva, which means “agreement” or “unity” in Swahili, was founded by Matthew and Jessica Flannery after time spent in East Africa. They built upon the idea of Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Mohammud Yunus’ Grameen Bank but took it a step further by tapping into the resources of the web. It works by allowing potential lenders to search for an entrepreneur via the website. Each entrepreneur’s business idea is explained, a photo of the entrepreneur is posted and the amount of the loan they require and how much they have raised so far are clearly displayed. It is then a simple matter of the lenders using their credit cards to make a loan online. Kiva then transfers all the funds to their local partners (microfinance institutions) which, in turn, disburse the loans to each business. All entrepreneurs are screened for their trustworthiness and the viability of their business. Loans are usually between 6 to 12 months and lenders receive regular email journal updates from the business they sponsor. Gradually, the loan is paid back and the lender is returned the full value of the loan.

    The process is so simple that one may ask, “Does this really work?” Take the story of Nicholas Kristof, columnist for the New York Times who recently accounted his experience with Kiva.org in his New York Times Op-Ed piece, “You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor”. Through Kiva.org he chose two entrepreneurs, a baker and an owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan and lent them US $25 each instantly making himself a business partner with total strangers. He recently visited Afghanistan to see their progress and found two thriving businesses. Mr. Abdul Satar, the baker, borrowed a total of US $425 from a variety of lenders, Nicholas being one of them, and was able to open a second bakery with four employees. Mr. Abdul Saboor who runs a small TV repair shop now has a second shop with two new employees.

    By harnessing a user friendly website to make instant cash loans, Kiva has come up with one of the simplest and most direct ways to help poor entrepreneurs who need start up capital. It was first tried out in Uganda about a year ago where partnerships were forged with local microfinance institutions that examined and evaluated each business before they were posted on the website. It has now attracted close to 18,000 lenders contributing an average of US $82.

    “I believe the real solutions to poverty alleviation hinge on bringing capitalism and business to areas where there wasn’t business or where it wasn’t efficient,” co-founder Matthew Flannery told the New York Times. “This doesn’t have to be charity. You can partner with someone who’s halfway around the world.”

    Published: April 2007

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022

  • Old Adage Gets New Life

    Old Adage Gets New Life

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Education is recognized as critical for development and improving people’s lives. Universal primary education is a Millennium Development Goal and countries are now allocating more funds for primary education across the global South. However, the options available to youth after primary education are often very limited.

    The World Bank estimates that only nine percent of youth in the developing world will be able to go to a university or benefit from higher education scholarships. For the vast majority of youth, getting a job is often the only viable option to securing a livelihood; but in most developing countries the number of formal sector jobs is low and the only option is self-employment. Acquiring relevant training and practical skills can be crucial to becoming successfully self-employed. But where will the training and skills come from and who will provide it and pay for it?

    This dilemma is being addressed by the “self-sufficient schools” concept. The model combines entrepreneurship and vocational education through school-based businesses that blend training and revenue-generation. The principle is simple: entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial skills are taught by successful entrepreneurs.

    The model is being pioneered in several countries and has been successfully applied by UK-based charity TeachAManToFish in Ghana and Paraguay, targeting rural youth from farming families through a network of 250 vocational experts and institutions in 45 countries. The approach promotes a model for making education both more relevant and financially sustainable in rural communities.

    Self-sufficient schools share several characteristics: they produce and sell goods and services; they focus on developing an entrepreneurial culture; they make a direct connection between theory, practical work and financial reward; they encourage learning by doing; they strive to keep improving in order to remain economically competitive; students are encouraged to work cooperatively; and students receive support after graduating, often in the form of microfinance for their new businesses.

    In the South American nation of Paraguay, the Fundacion Paraguaya – San Francisco Agricultural High School – run by an NGO committed to poverty reduction through supporting entrepreneurship – found that small-scale farmers not only knew how to produce food, they also knew how to make a prosperous living out of it when given the right tools. Taking over a school previously run by a religious order, the NGO had the opportunity to put the concept to the test.

    The organization’s head, Martin Burt states, ”It is not a matter of knowing how to grow the crop, or raise the animal; it is a matter of how to make money and then how to be financially successful doing farming in poor countries.”

    The Paraguayan school is half way through its five-year plan, and already is covering two thirds of its recurring costs from the production and sale of goods and services, including specialist cheeses.

    Published: May 2007

    Resources

    • A paper on the concept of self-sufficient schools: Click here
    • CIDA City Campus, Johannesburg, South Africa: CIDA is the country’s only “’free’, open-access, holistic, higher educational facility” and is “operated and managed by its students, from administration duties to facilities management. In addition every student is required to return to their rural schools and communities, during holidays, to teach what they have learnt.”
    • The First International Conference on Self-Sufficient Schools is being planned by TeachAManToFish. Expressions of interest are sought from all individuals and organizations interested in taking part in the conference. Email conference@teachamantofish.org.uk for more information.

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022

  • New Battery Back-up Technology Targeting Developing Countries and Remote Regions

    New Battery Back-up Technology Targeting Developing Countries and Remote Regions

    By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

    SOUTH-SOUTH CASE STUDY

    Africa’s greater global engagement and economic growth in the past few years has started to draw attention back towards the continent’s dearth of reliable power sources and inadequate power infrastructure. While demand grows at a fast pace, sadly political instability and lack of security in many countries scares off foreign investors and multinational companies who could help to expand capacity. This leaves people running small enterprises and organisations – especially in rural areas – significantly neglected. According to Zandile Mjoli, senior general manager for resources and strategy at South African utility Eskom, two-thirds of Africa’s 700 million people live in rural areas, and less than 10 per cent of the rural population has access to electricity. Each one per cent increase in available power will increase GDP by an estimated two to three per cent.

    The extent of the looming crisis in 2007 can be seen in the problems of the Southern African Power Pool, which coordinates power production and trade in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). It predicts an energy shortfall in 2007 that will force countries like South Africa and Mozambique, which have provided about 40 percent of Zimbabwe’s power requirements for example, to scale down on exports in order to meet rising demand from their own domestic markets.

    Plug Power is a research and development company in the US specializing in clean, reliable energy products for areas where power supply is unreliable or non-existent. It uses fuel cell technology to build back-up power supplies for telecommunications, utilities and uninterruptible power supply needs like refrigerators and medical supplies. It is now targeting Africa with its new GenCore back-up fuel cell system using ultra capacitor technology, basically the mechanism by which the fuel cell stores electricity. It is specifically built for remote regions with severe climates where the limited lifespan of a battery and harsh weather conditions can lead to power supply disruptions.

    Fuel cells use chemicals to create electricity and heat similar to batteries, but when hydrogen is used, they only produce clean water as a by-product. Most importantly for those working in development, it provides a continuous power supply as long as the fuel is provided. Plug Power’s system allows for hydrogen to be taken from multiple sources to power the cells.

    Published: January 2007

    Website: http://www.plugpower.com/

    Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP’s South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.

    Creative Commons License

    This work is licensed under a
    Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

    ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

    © David South Consulting 2022