Bikes make life better

I loved this film from the Bikes for People, the US’ national bicycle movement.

They’re asking people to sign a simple pledge in support of bikes and cycling and this little video was part of their promotional efforts.

The pledge reads:

I am for bikes. I'm for long rides and short rides. I'm for commuting to work, weekend rides, racing, riding to school, or just a quick spin around the block. I believe that no matter how I ride, biking makes me happy and is great for my health, my community and the environment we all share. That is why I am pledging my name in support of a better future for bicycling—one that is safe and fun for everyone. By uniting my voice with a million others, I believe that we can make our world a better place to ride.

Which sounds like a very good pledge to take to me.

So good that its inspired me to join the London Cylcing Campaign, my home town equivalent of Bikes for People. In fact I'm rather embarassed that I have't already.

I commute to work daily on my bike and know cycling makes my life better. And like the pledge says I know that together we can make our world and my city a better place to ride.

On a more policy related note the campaign plans to encourage people who make the pledge to lobby their representatives to increase federal investment in bike infrastructure.

I hope they're successful.

New Year Greetings

At the start of another year, like most of us, I’m thinking about the last twelve months and what I want for the coming year.

My partner and I joke about our recurring resolutions: to learn a new language and go to the gym. We’ve dropped them from our lists but still harbour a secret desire to accomplish both.

The fact that like almost everyone I know, I find myself voicing the same wishes, hopes and fears for the year ahead as I have every year I remember is not necessarily a bad thing. I suspect it points to the things of importance and value which endure, like our desires for friendship, health, happiness and new experiences.

Despite my consistent failure to get to the gym and master new languages I’m lucky enough to have all of these things in abundance and feel the utmost gratitude to the people and circumstances which have and continue to make that possible.

So I want to share my appreciation and gratitude for all the experiences and opportunities I have in 2011. I’ve got lots of aspirations for 2012 but they’re not developed enough and I’m not confident enough to share them here. Suffice to say that if the more public ones come to fruition I’ll share them here.

The illustrations I posted at the start of this post were by the amazing and much loved illustrator Quentin Blake whose work I adore. He’s a supporter of Survival International and produced the cards for them to sell.

Survival was founded in 1969, following an article by Norman Lewis in the Sunday Times Magazine about the genocide of Brazilian Indians. Since then Survival has been helping tribal peoples protect their lives, lands and human rights and deserves widespread support.

A revolution in reading

Some good news, in the last ten years significant progress has been made in increasing the enrolment of the world’s out of school children in primary education.

Since 1999, the number of children not enrolled in primary school has fallen by 39 million. Even in the poorest countries, primary school net enrolment ratios have increased from an average of less than 60 percent in 1990 to over 80 percent in 2008.

However, we shouldn’t let these gains mask the enormity of the challenge that still lies ahead and the unfinished global agenda of providing good quality education to all the world’s children.

67 million children still not in school

And unfortunately the bad news is that there are still 67 million children who don’t get the chance to go to school and we need to do everything in power to help them to do so.

And alas it’s not as simple as getting all these kids into school, we also need to do more to ensure that when they get to school they actually learn something.

In school, but not learning

Unfortunately many children who go to school across the developing world fail to acquire the most basic skills, including crucially, the ability to read and write.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, a child with five years of education has a 40% chance of being illiterate and in Mali, Pakistan, and Peru, more than 70% of children in the primary grades cannot read at grade level.

Being able to read is the foundation of future learning and is both a survival skill and route to further advancement. People who can read enjoy better health, make more money, create safer and more stable democracies, and serve their communities more effectively.

Boosting children’s literacy

Drawing on lessons learned from reviews of children’s reading skills in nearly 50 developing countries worldwide, Save the Children led by our colleagues from the United States created Literacy Boost.

Literacy Boost has three pillars: assessment, teacher training and community action.

Assessment helps our programme find out how well kids:

• Know their ABCs
• Sound out words and letters
• Read and understand sentences

Training supports teachers learn how to:

• Keep students engage and interested in reading
• Help young children focus and pay attention
• Use games, songs and other fun activities in lessons

Community action helps create an enabling environment which has more print, creating a stronger imperative to read and more opportunities for children to do so, including by:

• Providing books and learning materials and supporting communities to create their own
• Sponsoring reading camps, “reading buddies” and other community bases learning activities
• Organizing workshops to help parents support their children’s reading

In all the places where Literacy Boost has been implemented which includes Pakistan, Nepal, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Mali and Ethiopia, the programme has seen huge gains in children’s reading skills and ability.

Impressive results in Ethiopia

On a recent trip to Ethiopia I had the opportunity to visit schools where Literacy Boost was being implemented.

The teachers were among the most knowledgeable and confident I’ve seen. They were using interactive methods to teach letter recognition and all their students were thoroughly engaged.

They’d also produced lots of material for their classrooms including alphabets and word cards which they were using to support their teaching.

It was clear that these teachers and their students were part of a global revolution the aim of which was to ensure every child leaves school able to read. I couldn’t think of a better and more transformative goal and will be doing everything I can to help make it happen.

A version of this post was originally published by Save the Children.

New hope for Global Partnership for Education

Last week in Copenhagen, representatives from 52 countries committed substantial resources that will help to transform the lives of millions of children.

They were meeting at the first-ever replenishment event for the newly named Global Partnership for Education.

Donor governments pledged an initial $1.5bn for the multilateral Global Partnership for Education. At the same time, developing countries attending the event promised to raise domestic basic education spending by more than $2bn.

Bucking the trend

Leading up to the pledging conference I voiced concerned that we’d see a sharp downturn in bilateral funding for education. While this remains a concern in some countries, five leading donors – France, the European Commission, Germany, Australia and the UK – have reversed this trend and promised significant increases in their bilateral support to education.

I was particularly proud of the role played by the United Kingdom at the event which became the Global Partnership for Education’s single largest donor.

In addition to a financial commitment of £150 million, the UK’s Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for International Development, Stephen O’Brien, outlined the UK’s broader commitment to closing the global education gap, especially for girls.

Sound investment

The UK’s investment in the Partnership makes sense. Over the next three years, the funding received by the Global Partnership for Education in Copenhagen will help put 25 million children into classrooms for the first time, train 600,000 new teachers, and significantly reduce illiteracy for primary school aged children.

Education is vital for child and maternal health – and the long-term impacts of Global Partnership’s support during this period include saving the lives of 350,000 children and 14,000 mothers.

What we’ll do

I was also really proud to represent Save the Children in Copenhagen and to be able to share our aims for education over the next three years.

Speaking on behalf of the entire Save the Children family I indicated that we will:

• increase access to primary education for 1.36 million children in conflict-affected fragile states, half of whom will be girls
• improve the quality of the learning environment for all children attending Save the Children supported schools
• support the acquisition of early-grade literacy skills for more than 550,000 children benefitting from Save the Children’s Literacy Boost.

$1 billion

Between 2012 and 2014 some 35 million children and their adult teachers and carers will benefit from our education work. The value of our work over the period will exceed $1 billion.

We’re able to be this specific about what we’ll achieve because we’ve developed systems to track our contributions and their impact.

Vital contribution

“In Copenhagen, we saw a transformative outcome for the world’s children to which Save the Children has made a vital contribution,” said Carol Bellamy, Chair of the Global Partnership for Education.

“Without education, our efforts to save lives, empower women, grow economies and promote stability will fail in the long run. Developing country leaders understand this and today promised to significantly increase domestic education budgets,” she said.

“Leading donors answered the call by raising their bilateral commitments and kick-starting multilateral financing for the Global Partnership for Education. And civil society, including Save the Children have shown how they intend to support practical action for children and grow the public support for and political commitment to education,” said Carol.

Building the future

The funding committed at the event together with the broader efforts outlined by donor and developing country governments still falls short of the resources and action required to get all of the world’s children into school.

But it lays a solid foundation on which to build. And build we will.

Becoming a modern day Medici, on a shoestring

I always come away from a visit to New York with countless ideas and inspiration but my most recent trip was definitely the most fruitful.

The city felt as though it was overflowing with events, projects and energy, some of which I’ll share here over the next few days.

One of those things is Kickstarter which I discovered in an article in last Sunday’s edition of the New York Times Magazine.

Until I’d read the article I had only the vaguest knowledge of internet based attempts to source funding for projects – apart that is, from exclusively charitable sites - and I certainly hadn’t heard about Kickstarter, which describes itself as the largest funding platform for creative projects in the world.

In the last two years various artists, filmmakers, musicians, writers and designers have used the site to raise more than $75 million for 10,626 “creative projects”. That money has come from 813,205 “backers” — individuals making mostly modest contributions (the most common is $25) to support specific efforts. The selling point of “crowd-funding,” as this phenomenon has come to be called, is that it is an alternative to the wealthy patron or the grant-giving foundation.

Unlike some sites Kickstarter isn’t about investment or lending. Project creators keep 100% ownership and control over their work. Instead, they offer products and experiences that are unique to each project in return for their patron’s support.

The other significant thing about Kickstarter is that, event hough it mightn’t look like it, someone’s in charge. Carefully selecting and curating the projects that ultimately get on the site and profiled in their weekly emails.

In addition to the role that Kickstarter plays in this respect they’ve developed relationships with a range of existing creative communities that curate and profile projects around specific themes.

Homegrown for instance is a gathering place for folks who celebrate the “culture” in agriculture and share skills like growing, cooking and food preservation. It's chosen projects include a team documenting the remarkable transformation of an old Chicago packing facility into a completely self-sustainable non-waste fish hatchery, vertical garden, aquaponics farm, and microbrewery, alongside ‘Milk Not Jails’ which hopes to forge an improved economic relationship between urban and rural New York by expanding the dairy industry-- not the prison system.

And then there's + Pool, one of Kickstarter's many successful projects proposed a pool that uses and filters the very water that it floats in.  A pool that makes it possible to swim off the shores of New York. In river water, that’s clean.

And there’s a slew of creative organisations curating arts projects that span the spectrum, including lots of fine documentary photography projects which is a particular interest of mine.

The breadth and quality of creative ideas and endeavour profiled on the site is incredibly compelling. But the fact that if I’m sufficiently impressed or moved by a project, for a small contribution I can support it is the proverbial cherry on top. It’s not just a case of hearing about great ideas but also a direct and very immediate way of supporting them.

It brings people with excellent ideas into contact with people who might well like them enough to support them, but without the bureaucracy, costs and distance that other forms of support and organisation impose.

Quoted in the New York Times article Lewis Winter, a designer in Melbourne, Australia makes for a good, albeit generous, illustration of why people support Kickstarter projects.  He  has given financial support to 373 projects (including three portrait commissions, an interest of his). “My motivations probably aren’t that different to the Medicis’ . . . just my budget,” Winter told the Times via e-mail. His average pledge is about $15, and his most generous was $140. “I think Kickstarter helps people do something a lot of us have forgotten how to do — ask our neighbors for help,” he continued. That said, he also had some caveats about the crowd as patron in the digital age, noting that projects typically get many more Facebook “likes” than actual backers: “Apparently a whole lot of people like something so much they’re not even willing to give it a dollar.”

In the interests of full disclosure I haven’t given any projects money yet either, but I’m preparing too, and cooking up some requests for support in the process.

In the mean time I’m spending an awful lot of time on Kickstarter and always come away impressed and inspired, there’s a lot of creative and enthusiastic people in the world, and that in itself is no bad reminder.

Education: key to South Sudan's future

In just a few days, on July 9, South Sudan will become the world’s newest nation.

There’s no doubt that South Sudan will start its new life as a member of the community of nations at a significant crossroad: it faces both immense challenges and immediate threats.

Yet it also has a unique opportunity to break with a past blighted by war and chart a new course.

Decisive leadership by the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) and resolute support from the international community could transform the lives of southern Sudan’s people and make the new nation a human development success story.

Education, education, education

Education has a vital role to play in that success.

As one of the new country’s founding fathers, Dr John Garang, constantly emphasized, it is through education that people and countries build the  skills needed to strengthen self-reliance, expand choices, and create shared prosperity.

But education illustrates both the immense challenges and the opportunities facing the new country.

South Sudan starts independent nationhood close to the bottom of the global league table for educational opportunity, especially for young girls. It has some of the world’s lowest primary school enrolment rates, highest dropout rates and widest gender disparities.

However, these daunting challenges need to be set against the immense opportunity that the country also faces.

Since the 2005 peace agreement, the primary school population has risen four-fold, by over 1 million children. More teachers are being recruited, classrooms are being constructed and many children are getting their first textbooks.

Supporting schools

On my recent visit to South Sudan I saw first hand how we’re supporting these efforts, training teachers, building schools and providing books.

For its part the government has also set the goal of achieving universal primary education and doubling the secondary school population by 2015 and is putting in place plans to improve quality.

The targets are ambitious but they reflect the aspirations of the country’s leaders and the heartfelt belief of its population that South Sudan’s future will be best secured through education.

Steady financing

And we know that they are right. The successful creation of an education system that extends opportunity for quality education to all will transform the lives of South Sudan’s people.

Seizing these opportunities will require not just national political leadership, but sustained support from the international aid community.

Countries emerging from armed conflict need secure and predictable long-term development financing, backed by support for peace and security.

Funding issues

All too often, the governments of post-conflict countries are provided with short-term, unpredictable humanitarian aid, which is of limited value in delivering effective results and building capacity.

The slow pace of disbursement under a pooled fund administered by the World Bank has hampered financing for education.

And the overall aid effort suffers from under-financing, fragmentation, weak coordination and a failure to put in place long-term financing commitments.

Building the future

On the eve of independence we’re urging the international community to support education in the world’s newest nation with the creation of a consolidated pooled fund, with a specific funding stream for education and the development of an aid partnership with a guarantee of long term, predictable aid.

There is a real opportunity to exploit the window of opportunity created by the peace agreement and South Sudan’s imminent independence to set the country on a trajectory that offers hope, development, shared prosperity and common security for all.