Awhile ago I introduced the organization KIVA microlending to Culture Kitchen. KIVA a microlending agency that connects small businesses with small investors like you and me. KIVA works with local partner organizations to find businesses around the world that look promising and want loans to expand. Loans can be a few hundred dollars all the way up to a couple of thousand dollars. Investors like me can put as little as $25 into the pot and KIVA combines these small amounts of money until the loan is filled. They then disburse the money through their partner organizations and keep track as the business pays back the loan. When the loan is paid back you can either take back your money (you get no interest) or you can reloan to another business.

I started loaning to businesses through KIVA over a year ago. And I have felt like my loans have really made a difference to families around the world. I want to share with you one of the amazing success stories I have been a part of and I hope that it will inspire you to participate in KIVA's efforts.

Empire Zone brings the latest piece of news from the piece of work that is our State Assembly.

ALBANY — Speaker Sheldon Silver and fellow Assembly Democrats quietly introduced legislation late last month that would grant lawmakers a raise of nearly 21 percent, increasing their base pay to the second highest in the nation among state legislators.

No, this was not announced in a press release.

Of course not.

At the urging of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, also a Democrat, Mr. Silver agreed to hold off on the legislation for the moment, pending the outcome of a fight between the governor and Senate Republicans over campaign finance reform.

From CNN we find out the true intentions of the standoff with the soldiers from Britain. Publishing fees and CD promotions. Now Bush as more reasons to attack. Not only are they trying to make nukes they are producing books and video that are bad quality. What more do we need to attack? We had a whole lot less for Iraq.

This article should explain:

Iran plans to release a book and CD detailing the arrest and detention of 15 British sailors and marines whom Tehran blames for illegally crossing into Iranian waters, an Iranian military spokesman said.

The book and compact disc are "being prepared and will soon be distributed," Gen. Ali-Reza Afshar said in a written statement.

The British personnel were seized on March 23 while patrolling the northern Persian Gulf for smugglers. They were granted amnesty last Thursday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said they were freed as an Easter gift and in respect for the recent anniversary of the Prophet Muhammed's birth.

While in custody, some of the captives confessed on video to straying into Iranian territorial waters. They recanted those confessions once they returned to Britain on Thursday.

In an interview published Monday, the only woman among the detained crew told Britain's Sun tabloid that she feared she was being measured for a coffin while in detention, according to Reuters. (Full story)

At a time when extremists are increasingly dominating the situation in the Middle East, sometimes it is good to remember the efforts for PEACE between Palestine and Israel.

According to Guysen.Israël.News:

Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas met on Saturday evening in Jerusalem to renew their commitment to agreements signed previously. The two leaders also agreed to work to reach a political arrangement of two states based on the Road Map...Ehud Olmert and Mahmoud Abbas agreed on several points during their suprise meeting in Jerusalem on Saturday evening, according to Nabil Abu Rudeina, advisor to Abbas.

For those who want to help moderate Muslims and Jews achieve a lasting peace in the Middle East, what follows is something I wrote back in July that is just as important right now.

Israel, Palestine, Lebanon...all are nations that deserve full recognition and viability. Forget sides. Forget who started what. Forget borders. I am not aiming for a solution. I am aiming for the conditions that will allow a solution to be possible and lasting. I don't care, for the purposes of this effort, who committed what terrorist act or which government is the worse. I care about people, whatever their religion or culture, and I care that people will continue to die if something isn't done. Political solutions from the top have failed since 1948, devolving repeatedly into war. Time for bottom up efforts.

I have been absolutely horrifed by how the world is decending into chaos, even as our great leader is giving unwanted massages to the German Chancellor, and how so few people can find the compassion and balance to sympathize with Israelis, Palestinians and Lebanese alike. Our world leaders, from Hamas to Kadima to Hezbollah to Bush, are failing. The result is death and chaos. The solution...just may be you and me and a thousand other regular people who care.

Sometime back I began a project that I called an Integrated, Grassroots Development project for East Africa. People responded well to it and one of the beneficiaries was Kiva.org whose efforts to generate microloans to small businesses originally in East Africa, now globally, were greatly aided by the blogsphere. Inspired by this I tried generating interest in a more global effort, which didn't get as much attention. I now want to apply my ideas regarding Integrated, Grassroots Development to the horrible situation in the Middle Easte. If not now, then when? If not us, then who? It is up to us.

In my ongoing efforts to generate grassroots involvement in creating a better vision for development in Africa, I am passing this along:

Call for Abstracts
The G8�s Response to Africa: Is it Making a Difference?
November 2006 (exact date TBA)
At the University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
Deadline: August 1, 2006
http://www.gsc.upenn.edu/programs/ip.php#g8

2005 was a monumental year for addressing issues surrounding global poverty, particularly the problems plaguing Africa. While the Live 8 concerts raised public awareness, the G8 summit at Gleneagles attempted to address and eventually resolve these global matters. This "Group of Eight" nations, which initiated its annual meetings in 1975, has been discussing major issues for the past 30 years. These issues have ranged from the building of safe nuclear power plants in Russia to addressing the imminent dangers of global warming. More recently, their attention has turned to Africa. As in previous years, the 2005 summit discussed the G8 Africa Action Plan which includes: improved governance and the building of effective states in Africa; building peace and creating security across the continent; improving opportunities for good health and education; and finally, increased aid and debt relief. The Millennium Development Goals, intended to be fulfilled in 2015, were also raised to the forefront, with a particular emphasis on: halving extreme poverty and hunger, universal primary education, halting and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, reducing child mortality by two-thirds, and cultivating a global partnership for development. Reinforcing these goals, the leaders of the G8 agreed to write off certain national debts, double aid to developing countries, provide universal child health care and education, and universal access to HIV/AIDS treatments.

A year has passed since these agreements were reached. The question remains: Has anything changed? What has been done thus far? What action has been taken to implement change and how? What do these plans hold for Africa? Will they alleviate the developmental pressures that the African governments and the African people face? Or will they simply diversify the already-apparent symptoms of poverty?

This two-day conference will commence with our keynote speaker, Kwesi Botchwey, executive chairman of Africa Development Policy Ownership Initiative, and visiting professor of International Development Economics at Tufts University. Professor Botchwey was also the Minister of Finance for Ghana from 1982 to 1995.

The conference proposes to investigate the complex issues surrounding poverty, debt relief, healthcare, and other related matters in Africa in a cross-disciplinary setting. Accordingly, we are inviting abstracts from all disciplines found within the humanities, the sciences, and the social sciences. Graduate students, scholars, and practitioners are encouraged to submit abstracts. Before August 1, send poster proposals and presentation abstracts to: G8 Conference Abstracts, Graduate Student Center, The University of Pennsylvania, 3615 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA, 19104-6221. In addition to the abstracts, please include information about yourself: past/present university affiliations, publications or description of research, and contact information.

In my last article on this topic, I reintroduced KIVA and showed how 1.) what they do really can help create successful small businesses in East Africa and how those businesses help the community in which they exist, and 2.) how our efforts on the blogsphere have helped KIVA become so successful that they cannot keep up with the outpouring of help. But they are also bringing on the businesses in need of loans faster than ever, so jeep checking back. Congratulations to all who are making this such a success.

In this diary I want to reiterate the context in which KIVA works and how we also have to help that context. This will partly be a reiteration of diaries I have written before, explaining why I am calling for an "integrated" approach to development that we in the blogsphere can participate in. This is my vision of how you and I can change the world from the bottom up.

KIVA works to create small businesses in developing nations so that those small businesses can be the foundations of stable economies. But the areas that we are talking about are facing massive problems: considerable environmental degradation, lack of education, economic exploitation by the developed world, etc. And currently there is also massive famine. Within this negative context, I question the value of KIVA's approach. Can the small businesses they help survive long term within such a negative context?

The solution is not to give up. Nor is it to hope the UN and governments of developed nations will come to the rescue. The efforts of the UN and developed nations have mostly simply put developing nations deeper into debt and profited mainly big corporations. This is not to say that the UN and developed world have done nothing. But their approach has too often been inappropriate and ill timed resulting in debt and instability in the very nations they seek to help. I propose a grassroots approach where regular people like you and me help through small scale efforts to improve the context within which groups like KIVA operate. You and I, by pooling our efforts, can help the environment, the role of women, the education and the availability of food without having to hope that George Bush suddenly decides Africa is worth helping.

My proposal is this: a coordinated effort by the progressive blogsphere that will focus on several interconnected issues with a view towards REGIONAL and COMMUNITY based development. I have been proposing the target area of Uganda/Kenya/Tanzania (roughly the Rift Valley/Lakes region of East Africa) as a trial run for this idea because of the critical environmental issues, the presence of excellent groups like Kiva, and the fact that these nations are just stable enough have a chance for becoming actually prosperous if the immediate crises can be survived. In a later diary I will discuss, in the spirit of KIVA's expanded efforts, an expansion of my own proposal.

Here I cover ways we can help deal with the famine, environmental issues (including population control), women's rights, education and economic development (focusing on small businesses, the bedrock of any healthy economy). Pick your favorite issue and PLEASE act upon it in a big way. If we ACT, we will make a difference.

An outline of my proposal:

I. Dealing with the immediate famine: East Africa needs food. Now. That cannot be ignored. The scale of the famine is huge and so far is not being addressed by the international community anywhere near adequately. The only way they will get it is if human beings from all over the world, including us, help them out. You and I can start by helping to get East Africa food aid. A donation to Oxfam is probably the best thing you can do to help East Africa in its most immediate crisis.

II.Dealing with the environmental root causes of drought and famine: What are the root causes of this famine? People can point to several. But fundamentally there are some fundamental problems that quite simply trump all other root causes. Currently Africa is facing, simultaneously, a rapid decline of its fresh water lakes, a rapid decline in its forests, and a rapid increase in population. The combination creates an environmental situation that inevitably will lead to more and more droughts and hence to more and more famines. These environmental issues are on all levels the most important long-term issues that need to be addressed. No economic development plan, no food aid, no political changes from within can end African instability if these environmental crises are not addressed. These African environmental issues are also part of a global trend. The entire WORLD is facing a decline in fresh water sources, decline in forests and increased population and these trends are leading to wars, famines, and global warming.

Across the globe, one of the most destabilizing factors in any society's history, be it Japan or Haiti or Kenya, is deforestation. Sane forest management, after economic problems caused by deforestation, is one of the secrets of Japan's success. Bangladesh, on the other hand, faces an annual cycle of devastating floods followed by devastating droughts because of deforestation in the Himalayas. The theme of the devastating effects of deforestation and the benefits of forest management and reforestation recurs often in Jared Diamond's book Collapse though it is also obvious to anyone familiar with the problems of a nation like Bangladesh. Diamond simply argues it more formally and globally than I have heard before. And, of course, deforestation is also one of the factors contributing to global warming. One of the most important thing that any human being can do to help Africa as well as the world is to contribute to forest management and/or reforestation.

The NY Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has three programs trying to preserve the forests, lakes and wildlife of East Africa. Their focus is on BOTH the environment and the human populations in the area, integrating the economic and social needs of communities with the needs of the environment. One program focuses on preserving the entire regional environment in Albertine Rift region of Africa, mostly centered on Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo. This is one of the most critically threatened regions of Africa's environment. Preservation of this region is critical for the economy and freshwater supply of the region, the ecotourism industry of the region, and for preservation of the world's forests as a buffer for global warming. I strongly urge a donation to the WCS Albertine Rift Program. A second program focues on the preserving the Uganda environment in particular. The third program focuses on preserving the entire habitat of the mountain gorilla, an effort that includes some of the East African environment that provides the watershed for the nations we are focusing on. I include this program partly because it covers some of the same environmental regions as the other two programs, but also because the preservation of the Mountain Gorilla is another of my pet projects. So this is an opportunity to urge people to help two of my pet projects: helping East Africa and saving the Mountain Gorilla.

Overpopulation is also a global problem, as many pointed out in the diary on Daily Kos discussing the politics of African famines. We are all familiar with Planned Parenthood, which addresses BOTH population issues and issues of women's reproductive rights and health. To those who view Africa's and the world's problems as primarily a population issue, Planned Parenthood's International organization will be of considerable interest to you. I also can recommend Engender Health, a wonderful group that deals with population issues within the general context of women's and children's health. But this concatenation of population and women's issues leads to my next section.

III. Women's Rights: One of the most important measures of development is the place of women in society. As a first approximation, women's rights go along with development. A more equal role of women in society seems to correlate well with improvements in health, education and prosperity. The equation is not simple, but women's rights are, in my view, an integral part of stable, sustainable development. Furthermore, in addition to access to family planning services (see above for International Planned Parenthood Federation for this), the best means for controlling population increase is through women's literacy and economic empowerment.

So, I want to highlight some groups in East Africa that are addressing women's rights. The Uganda Women's Network (UWONET) is an advocacy and lobbying coalition of National Women's NGOs, institutions and individuals in Uganda, founded in 1993. UWONET was born out of the East African Women's Conference held in Kampala in 1993. Their aim to "engender policies, laws and programmes, structures and processes in order to address the needs of both women and men leading to the achievement of gender equity and equality." In Tanzania, Kivulini Women's Rights Organization is a registered Non-Governmental Organization based in Mwanza, Tanzania. In Kiswahili, Kivulini means "in the shade." The word implies a place under the tree where people discuss and support each other.

IV. Education: Education is one of the most important aspect of any individual person's or any society's formula for success. In East Africa, education is not free. School fees prevent many individuals from getting even a basic education. Girls, in particular, are poorly served by education in Africa. You can help sponsor the secondary school education for a child in Kenya or Tanzania, though in this case you have to send a check to the Canadian Harambee Education Society. Find out more on their website.

V. Fair Trade Export Economy: In addition to small business that are the foundation of the local economy, we need to help the developing world enter the global economy not just as exploited victims, but as partners in fair trade. This movement is still in its infancy, and there are not many products that you can purchase from East Africa through fair trade. But there are some. Here are a handful of products you can purchase that are fair trade and will help the economy of East Africa:

Fair Trade Coffee from Ugaqnda. Most of us love coffee. Why not use your addiction to help out farmers in Uganda?

Fair Trade baskets from two companies in Uganda. Very beautiful looking items, if you are into baskets.

How about cool handicrafts from several companies in Kenya? All fair trade, these companies sell items like sculptures, jewelry and drums.

And there are a couple of handicrafts companies in Tanzania as well  selling fair trade items.

Finally, SERRV International has wonderful fair trade items from around the world, including many from East Africa. Baskets, coffee, tea, nuts, musical instruments, jewelry, etc. from cooperatives around the world. Great company!

Thank you to all who are joining me in making a difference.