AID as a dolphin loop in the economic development.

AID
is the help, mostly economic, which may be provided to communities or countries in the event of a humanitarian crisis or to achieve a social economic objective. Humanitarian aid is therefore primarily used for emergency relief while Development aid aims to create long-term sustainable economic growth. Wealthier countries typically provide aid to economically developing countries.Foreign aid can also be in form of international millitary assistance

WHY DEVELOPED COUNTRIES GIVE AID

Although its not clear why donor countries give foreign aid, there is a possibility that the following are the reasons why they do it:

Moral obligation to the poor-the desire to alleviate worst physical manifestation of poverty in the world.

Threat to national security- the widening gap between rich and poor nations pose a security threat as the poor may rise against the rich therefore causing unnecessary wars. The aid tries to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

To win allies-countries like Japan give more aid to countries that vote in tandem in UN voting

Expanding world trade-foreign aid may act as incentive to make a country become a stable consumer for the donor’s exported goods therefore widening the international customers

To promote democratization-donor countries give aid to countries exercising democracy and fail to give countries with dictatorship governments e.g. Zimbabwe

To promote literacy-to extend basic education and increase manpower training in skills which are basic to development.

To promote human rights-donor countries usually give aid to developing countries to improve the rule of law and good governance. They withhold aid for those countries, which engage in gross violation of human rights.

To reduce environmental degradation-developed countries give aid to promote environmental management and conservation of natural resources. This reduces global warming and other associated environmental problems

To alleviate effects of natural disasters-foreign aid is given to reconstruct countries adversely affected by natural catastrophe’s e.g. tsunamis, wars e.g. In Middle East countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.


WHY DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ACCEPT AID

Increasing Resources for Investment. The main macroeconomic mechanism by which aid can promote growth is to enlarge the pool of capital available for investment and growth. Even in a favorable policy environment, however, foreign aid may permit domestic resources to be diverted from investment to consumption, with no net effect on growth. Empirical studies of this issue, as was indicated earlier, have yielded inconclusive results. Studies of individual countries are equally inconclusive: aid seems to contribute to saving in some cases but not in others.
Providing Public Goods. Foreign aid might help raise the level of investment in the economy by easing the constraints on public funds available for necessary public investments--that is, goods that are important for production and for which the returns cannot be captured and used to repay borrowing; public investments may include infrastructure such as rural roads. Foreign aid might also limit the strains on the domestic tax base and prevent costly distortions. For example, the recipient might levy tariffs to fund those public investments if it does not receive aid.
According to the Agency for International Development, the success of foreign aid in supporting public investment also varies widely. The Inter-American Highway in Central America was funded largely through foreign aid (though it was not called that at the time), and it has contributed enormously to improving the prospects of growth for Central American countries. But such projects have also failed. Many aid-financed projects languished after their completion, because the recipient government was unwilling or unable to provide adequate maintenance.
Increasing Human Capital. Foreign aid might be able to help a country develop its human capital--for example, by supporting elementary education or basic health care. Investment in human capital in developing countries is often more difficult to finance than are physical capital projects. Even in relatively rich countries, private investors are wary of lending for skills and education without a government guarantee for a return on investment. Foreign aid, however, may be able to provide targeted funds for enhancing human capital and thereby raise the economy's stock of skills and, perhaps, stimulate growth.
Foreign aid can claim some credit in this area. Aid resources have helped strengthen agricultural production by funding new crop varieties, irrigation programs, and extension practices. They have also played a role in sponsoring research, education, and immunization programs that have led to the control of various diseases such as smallpox, polio, diphtheria, and measles.
Ingredient of development-it supplements scarce domestic resources, helps transform economy structurally and contributes to the achievements of less developed countries take-offs in to self sustaining economic growth e.g. Taiwan, Israel which took-off as a result of foreign aid.
Military Assistance. Provides grants and loans that enable the government to purchase military equipment from the donor countries. Aid provides grants to countries for training foreign military officers and personnel. Funding for military-to-military contact programs and some peacekeeping operations also belongs in this category
Facilitating the Transfer of Technology. Another channel through which aid might foster growth is technical assistance and technology transfer. That type of aid promotes growth not by accumulating greater resources but by making existing resources more efficient and effective. Technical assistance programs may also include educating and training government officials who play a large role in creating the policy environment and using foreign aid. Helping developing countries to organize institutions that protect property and minority rights is another example. As in other cases, the success of such programs will probably depend on the political and economic environment in which they operate. For example, according to some analysts, "assistance to encourage agricultural production had a substantially higher payoff in the presence of realistic exchange rate and trade policies.

IMPACT OF FOREIGN AID

Aid has serious, distorting consequences in the political life of recipient countries. Aid is generally transferred to the government of those countries, which tends to increase the government's power, resources, and patronage relative to the rest of society and, consequently, the stakes in any struggle for control of that power. People will spend relatively more of their time focused on the outcome of political and administrative decisions, thereby diverting attention, energy, and resources from more productive outbreak of civil armed conflict.

In many cases, foreign aid has sustained governments in their pursuit of economically counterproductive political and economic policies. Such policies include the persecution of particular groups, restrictions on private trade and the inflow of private capital and enterprises, confiscation of property, price policies that discourage agricultural production, and the expropriation of foreign capital and enterprises. To add insult to injury, when the pursuit of such policies worsens the economic performance of an aid recipient, the country may qualify for still more aid because its situation is deteriorating.



LUCIEN BUTUBA

NATIONAL RAINBOW COALITION (NARC) AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN KENYA

The year 2002 General election was a decisive and very sensitive period in Kenya’s history. The nation witnessed a rather unprecedented awakening among its people and a more enlightened approach towards the issues affecting their lives, and this meant electing a more solution- and policy-oriented leadership. Issues such as economic, administrative, social all so suddenly came into vicious scrutiny. This meant it was the time to hold the leadership accountable for their deeds and misdeeds, and more importantly, choosing a more promising government. It was on this platform that a conglomeration of opposition parties called the National Rainbow Coalition campaigned to power, and among its very attractive leadership package was to provide jobs for 500,000 Kenyans every single year. To date, however, this dream is still only a distant one, and if anything the trend is towards retrenchments, the so-called ‘lay-offs’ and forced early retirements.

PRAGMATIC ISSUES ON UNEMPLOYMENT

Unemployment occurs when any of the factors of production (labor, land, capital, and entrepreneurship) are not employed in production of goods and services. Unemployment occurs when labor, a factor of production, is not being fully utilized to due to the unavailability of suitable jobs. It is strictly defined as a situation where people who are willing and able to work cannot find employment. Unemployment in Kenya has taken various forms, namely:

.Cyclical unemployment

This type of unemployment exists due to inadequate effective aggregate demand. It gets its name because it varies with the business cycle, though it can also be persistent, as during the Great Depression of the 1930s in the USA. Gross domestic product was not as high as potential output because of demand failure, due to ‘say’ pessimistic business expectations which discourages private fixed investment spending. Low government spending or high taxes, underconsumption, or low exports net of imports may also have this result. In this case, the number of unemployed youth exceeds the number of job vacancies, so that if even all open jobs were filled, some youth would remain unemployed. This kind of unemployment coincides with unused industrial capacity (unemployed capital goods).kenyan economists see it as possibly being solved by government deficit spending or by expansionary monetary policy, which aims to increase non-governmental spending by lowering interest rates.

.Frictional unemployment
This unemployment involves young people being temporarily between jobs, searching for new ones; it is compatible with full employment. (It is sometimes called search unemployment and is seen as largely voluntary.) It arises because either employers fire workers or workers quit, usually because the individual characteristics of the workers do not fit the individual characteristics of the job (including matters of the employer's personal taste or the employee's inadequate work effort). Some employers have used management strategies that have relyed on rapid turnover of employees, One kind of frictional unemployment would be called wait unemployment: This refers to the effects of the existence of some sectors where employed workers are paid more than the market-clearing equilibrium wage. Not only does this restrict the amount of employment in the high-wage sector, but it attracts workers from other sectors who wait to try to get jobs there.
Another type of frictional unemployment would be seasonal unemployment, where specific industries or occupations are characterised by seasonal work which may lead to unemployment. Examples include workers employed during farm harvest times or in disaster response Because the jobs that are lost are those that rely on the season, it is difficult to employ these workers.

Structural unemployment

This involves a mismatch between the young people looking for jobs and the vacancies available. Even though the number of vacancies may be equal to the number of the unemployed, the unemployed youth lack the skills needed for the jobs — or are in the wrong part of the country or world to take the jobs offered. It is a mismatch of skills and opportunities due to the structure of the economy changing. That is, it is very expensive to unite the youth with jobs. One possible example in Kenya is the present combination of the shortage of labour in industry and technology with an excess labor supply in teaching. Unemployed teachers cannot easily become industrialists, because of the need for new specialized training, the willingness to switch into the available jobs, and the legal requirements of such professions.Structural unemployment is hard to separate empirically from frictional unemployment, except to say that it lasts longer. It is also more painful. As with frictional unemployment, simple demand-side stimulus will not work to easily abolish this type of unemployment. The policies may be reinforced by the maintenance of high aggregate demand, so that the two types of policy are complementary.Structural unemployment may also be encouraged to rise by persistent cyclical unemployment: if Kenya’s economy suffers from long-lasting low aggregate demand, it means that many of the unemployed become disheartened, while finding their skills (including job-searching skills) become "rusty" and obsolete. Problems with debt may lead to homelessness and a fall into the vicious cycle of poverty .Technological unemployment (e.g. due to the replacement of workers by machines) might be counted as structural unemployment. Seasonal unemployment might be seen as a kind of structural unemployment, since it is a type of unemployment that is linked to certain kinds of jobs (construction work, migratory farm work). The most-cited official unemployment measures erase this kind of unemployment from the statistics using "seasonal adjustment" techniques.

.Hidden unemployment

Hidden, or covered, unemployment is the unemployment of potential young person that is not reflected in official unemployment statistics, due to the way the statistics are collected. In Kenya, only those who have no work but are actively looking for work are counted as officially unemployed. Those who have given up looking for work and those who are in learning institutions are not officially counted among the unemployed, even though they are not employed. The same applies to those who have taken early retirement to avoid being laid off, but would prefer to be working. Because of hidden unemployment, official statistics often underestimate unemployment rates.

.Classical unemployment
In this case, like that of cyclical unemployment, the number of job-seekers exceeds the number of vacancies. However, the problem here is not aggregate demand failure. In this situation, real wages are higher than the market-equilibrium wage. In simple terms, institutions such as "the minimum wage" deter employers from hiring all of the available workers, because the cost would exceed the technologically-determined benefit of hiring them (the marginal product of labor). Some economists theorize that this type of unemployment can be reduced by increasing the flexibility of wages (e.g., abolishing minimum wages or employee protection), to make the labor market more like a financial market.Conversely, making wages more flexible allows employers who are adequately staffed to pay less with no corresponding benefit to job-seekers. If one accepts that people with low incomes spend their money rapidly (out of necessity), more flexible wages may increase unemployment in the short term.

.Marxian unemployment
As Karl Marx claimed, some unemployment — the reserve army of the unemployed — is normally needed in order to maintain work discipline in jobs, keep wages down, and protect business profitability.


LUCIEN BUTUBA

The East African Telecentre Leaders Forum? EA-TLF comes at a time when Telecentre practitioners are increasingly interested in learning and sharing lessons, experiences and efforts through collaboration, partnerships and networking efforts. To maximize results the EA-TLF has been designed with two sessions; the e-discussion and the Face-to-face event in Siaya, Kenya.

Individual experiences, knowledge and opportunities will be Exposed and tapered into the face-to-face event to increase the event value.

This third EA-TLF is hosted by KenTel in collaboration with UgaBYTES Initiative under the theme; Promoting ICT for Rural Development; Meeting the Movement Challenges.

The discussion will run on two weekly sub themes with each facilitated by a team of resourceful persons on the subject. The team will post the opening keynote address, which will guide the practitioners during the weeklong discussion. The team will equally continue to refocus the discussion through providing daily summaries and guides for areas that may require further discussion or supportive cases. The sub themes are largely extracts of the main agenda of the face-to-face event.

During the e-session practitioners are encouraged to share their experiences and opinion or guidance on the issues under discussion using email submissions on the list. One-page showcases, best and worst practices may also be shared as email attachment. See below for e-session sub theme details.

Week 1: May 14th to 18th

Addressing internet connectivity challenges in the community
- Sharing bandwidth
-Increasing access to larger bandwidth
-Pay as you options to internet connectivity
-Learning from experiences, providing feedback
-Field examples of how it all happens

Week 2: May 21st to 25th
Addressing the management challenges in community centres
- Using good management skills to walk around Telecentre challenges
- The challenges of building good management skills in telecentres
-Learning from experiences, providing feedback
- Field examples of how it all happens
Conference Participants

Participation is open to all Telecentre Leaders who are subscribed
On the UgaBYTES mailing list ugabytes@ugabytes.org.



The online session has been Opened to all in order to promote unlimited common learning.E-discussion language is English

I call upon the youth who are GYCA and TIG members interested in the 3rd EA-LF conference E-discussion- to participate meaningfully .

In January 2007, Kenya passed a landmark legislation protecting the rights of people living with HIV. Kenya has also ratified major international treaties that guarantee the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS to non-discrimination, protection from violence and access to voluntary, affordable and quality medical treatment. However, despite all these, there is widespread abuse of rights of people living with HIV/AIDS, fuelled by lack of a national legal aid system and ignorance. Among those aware of their rights, majority lack the resources to seek justice in courts of law.

“Widespread human rights abuse linked to HIV in Kenya is continuing with impunity, so long as people living with HIV/AIDS and other vulnerable communities are either ignorant of their rights or cannot afford to seek justice in the courts or before traditional justice mechanisms”, states the review report, Ensuring justice for vulnerable communities in Kenya: A Review of HIV and Aids –related Legal Services.

The report by Open Society Initiative for East Africa (Osiea) warns: “Such impunity not only makes a mockery of justice but also can have public health consequences, as those vulnerable to human rights abuse face a higher risk of HIV infection. These rights mean little without access to timely and affordable legal services.”Osiea director, Ms Binaifer Nowrojee, felt that access to justice should be seen as both a human rights and a public health imperative. While the promise of increased HIV prevention, treatment and care services is providing hope to millions of people living with HIV/AIDS, lack of a national legal aid system is threatening to reverse the gains so far achieved in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Kenya.

The delivery of legal services has been left to private attorneys, paralegals and foreign funded NGOs. Consequently, people whose rights are violated face slow and corrupt courts, expensive legal fees and traditional authorities that are unaware of or unwilling to apply statutory law. The report states: “For people living with and affected by HIV, this means not only denial of justice .It means the denial of conditions in which they enjoy the highest standards of health”.

Increasingly, access to justice in Kenya is viewed more broadly than simply justice as dispensed by the formal legal system through the courts. It is also seen to include justice as dispensed by traditional structures that rely more on customary and religious law.

The legal empowerment of people living with HIV/AIDS and other vulnerable groups is more likely to be achieved where a combination of governmental and traditional leaders alike are educated about the legal and human rights dimensions of Aids. Economic empowerment and access to vital public services, moreover, should be at the heart of any effort to provide justice for vulnerable communities, says Nowrojee. The Authors are aware of the fact that establishing HIV-related legal services in a country that lacks a Government-sponsored legal aid system is an enormous challenge. They, therefore, recommend that practitioners with the motivation to provide legal services must be supported with training, financial resources and on-going mentorship. Health providers also require training and support to integrate legal and human rights principles into their work.” Just as it is possible to scale up HIV-related health services such as condom distribution, antiretroviral treatment and palliative, so is it possible to scale up HIV-related legal services,” states Jonathan Cohen, a project director of the Law and Health Initiative (LAHI) and co-author of the report with Ms Kristin Kalla, consultant at LAHI.

OSIEA recommended that:

• The Government of Kenya, bilateral and Multilateral donors working in Kenya take certain immediate steps to improve access to legal services for People living with HIV/AIDS, those affected and those at risk of contracting it. One of them is to incorporate legal and human rights advocacy into existing HIV/AIDS programmmes.

• The Government should also provide support to informal or traditional structures as the customary justice structures have great potential to protect the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS.

• The Government should support efforts to educate traditional leaders about human rights norms and formal laws governing HIV/AIDS.

• Lawyers, paralegals, judges and magistrates should also be trained on statutory laws applicable to HIV/AIDS



Lucien Butuba
Youth Agenda Consortium(network)

The sustained and long-term impact of HIV/AIDS epidemic is slowly eroding food security and damaging rural livelihood and therefore exacerbating poverty. With the majority of the population of Kenya living in the rural area the epidemic is plunging communities further into destitution as labor capacity weakens, income dwindling and assets depleted…




Lucien .