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The artist formerly known as Peace Dividend Trust (yours truly) has a new name! (And, to the disappointment of many of us, it’s not “Russell” or “Cartographers Without Borders.” Which is what I was pulling for.) Why do we have a new name? Because our name sucks.
1) It is hard to spell (our #2 Google search hit is Peace Divided Trust).
2) It gives you no idea what we do.
3) It misleads people into thinking we focus on “peace” not markets and entrepreneurs. And we like “peace,” we do, it’s just not our main currency.
4) Which leads to endless invitations to peace forums. Endless.
5) But the entrepreneur, market, finance types avoid us like the plague.
6) We never set up that trust fund, making the third word an increasingly awkward vestigial appendage.
7) Non-English speakers can never pronounce it.
8) The majority of people outside of political science and economic circles don’t know what a “peace dividend” is.
9) Among those who do, many link it to the end of the Cold War and the movement opposed to the US military industrial complex.
10) The guys behind this site think we are supporting the US military industrial complex and won’t sell us the www.peacedividend.org domain.
11) There is no easy translation of Peace Dividend Trust into French, Creole, Tetum, Pashtun, or Dari.
12) And reducing it to an acronym only drops us into a very crowded alphabet soup.
13) I could go on, trust me.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, unless that rose is named Peace Dividend Trust.“
Our new name?
Building Markets. (Which has, funnily enough, been the name of our blog for quite some time.)
Because that’s what we do. Feedback welcome ;) The domain for this tumblr will change later today, but we’re still the same folks doing the same good work to build post-conflict markets and support developing entrepreneurs.
03-29-12: PDT Global is dead. Long live Building Markets!
FYI
(Source: buildingmarkets.org, via buildingmarkets)
The artist formerly known as Peace Dividend Trust (yours truly) has a new name! (And, to the disappointment of many of us, it’s not “Russell” or “Cartographers Without Borders.” Which is what I was pulling for.) Why do we have a new name? Because our name sucks.
1) It is hard to spell (our #2 Google search hit is Peace Divided Trust).
2) It gives you no idea what we do.
3) It misleads people into thinking we focus on “peace” not markets and entrepreneurs. And we like “peace,” we do, it’s just not our main currency.
4) Which leads to endless invitations to peace forums. Endless.
5) But the entrepreneur, market, finance types avoid us like the plague.
6) We never set up that trust fund, making the third word an increasingly awkward vestigial appendage.
7) Non-English speakers can never pronounce it.
8) The majority of people outside of political science and economic circles don’t know what a “peace dividend” is.
9) Among those who do, many link it to the end of the Cold War and the movement opposed to the US military industrial complex.
10) The guys behind this site think we are supporting the US military industrial complex and won’t sell us the www.peacedividend.org domain.
11) There is no easy translation of Peace Dividend Trust into French, Creole, Tetum, Pashtun, or Dari.
12) And reducing it to an acronym only drops us into a very crowded alphabet soup.
13) I could go on, trust me.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, unless that rose is named Peace Dividend Trust.“
Our new name?
Building Markets. (Which has, funnily enough, been the name of our blog for quite some time.)
Because that’s what we do. Feedback welcome ;) The domain for this tumblr will change later today, but we’re still the same folks doing the same good work to build post-conflict markets and support developing entrepreneurs.
03-29-12: PDT Global is dead. Long live Building Markets!
(Source: buildingmarkets.org, via buildingmarkets)
The artist formerly known as Peace Dividend Trust (yours truly) has a new name! (And, to the disappointment of many of us, it’s not “Russell” or “Cartographers Without Borders.” Which is what I was pulling for.) Why do we have a new name? Because our name sucks.
1) It is hard to spell (our #2 Google search hit is Peace Divided Trust).
2) It gives you no idea what we do.
3) It misleads people into thinking we focus on “peace” not markets and entrepreneurs. And we like “peace,” we do, it’s just not our main currency.
4) Which leads to endless invitations to peace forums. Endless.
5) But the entrepreneur, market, finance types avoid us like the plague.
6) We never set up that trust fund, making the third word an increasingly awkward vestigial appendage.
7) Non-English speakers can never pronounce it.
8) The majority of people outside of political science and economic circles don’t know what a “peace dividend” is.
9) Among those who do, many link it to the end of the Cold War and the movement opposed to the US military industrial complex.
10) The guys behind this site think we are supporting the US military industrial complex and won’t sell us the www.peacedividend.org domain.
11) There is no easy translation of Peace Dividend Trust into French, Creole, Tetum, Pashtun, or Dari.
12) And reducing it to an acronym only drops us into a very crowded alphabet soup.
13) I could go on, trust me.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, unless that rose is named Peace Dividend Trust.“
Our new name?
Building Markets. (Which has, funnily enough, been the name of our blog for quite some time.)
Because that’s what we do. Feedback welcome ;) The domain for this tumblr will change later today, but we’re still the same folks doing the same good work to build post-conflict markets and support developing entrepreneurs.
03-29-12: PDT Global is dead. Long live Building Markets!
(Source: buildingmarkets.org)
(This is a post by Matt Jones, originally posted to our blog on November 29th.)
Right now is an exciting time in Liberia. Completely apart from the presidential elections – the country’s first election to be primarily administered by the National Elections Commission since the end of the civil war in 2003 – there are a lot of exciting development projects underway. Despite continuing to rank at the very bottom of countries in terms of GDP per capita, Liberia is near the top of the rankings in one very important index: it’s one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Donor funding and aid activities continue to account for amajor part of Liberia’s monetary inflows. The Government of Liberia has signed billions of dollars-worth of investment deals and concession agreements with some of the largest companies in the world for resources like iron-ore (such as BHP Billiton, ArcelorMittal, and China Union,), palm oil (like Sime Darby) and off-shore oil exploration (such as African Petroleum and Chevron). This is in addition to the long-term presence of Firestone Rubber, the wood-chip power generation investment of Buchanan Renewable Energy, and other investments in agriculture, gold and diamond mining, and timber. Also of significance, the National Port Authority has signed a 25-year partnership with APM Terminals to improve Monrovia’s Freeport and France’s Total is rapidly expanding across the country with a local-franchise model for its retail service stations. The majority of these multinationals are just now setting up operations in the country, giving PDT a greater ability to help connect them to local suppliers. There is a lot of interest among the public and the business community in Liberia about how locals and local businesses will benefit from these huge investments—especially at a time when Liberia’s official unemployment rate hovers between 80-85% and its per capita GDP has yet to reach one dollar per person per day. This is what the Marketplace project sets out to tackle: to maximize the impact of aid, donor, and investor activity by having more of the money designated for Liberia to be spent in Liberia. Connecting local businesses with these buyers is a major part of PDT’s Marketplace initiative. As a foundation for this, we are in the process of building the most comprehensive supplier directory of businesses ever created in Liberia. Since September, we’ve verified over 250 businesses in central Monrovia. Over the next year, we’re planning to register all businesses in Liberia, which will be listed online at Liberia’s Peace Dividend Marketplace. We have set a goal that by January we will have at least 1,000 businesses registered in our directory from all across Liberia and the businesses we’ve spoken to are as excited as we are to be a part of our initiative’s full launch next year.
Liberia is also projected to have one of the world’s top ten annual economic growth rates in 2012. The timing of the Peace Dividend Marketplace launch in Monrovia is not only exciting, but also quite fitting.
While it’s been a hectic few months of setting up operations – from finding office space, to recruiting and training staff, to simply introducing ourselves to buyers and suppliers – most of whom had never heard of us before – we are off to a great start. We have an incredible team that has been interacting with local businesses to educate them on PDT’s online directory and services.
Scott Gilmore of PDT (via tumblingfromthecave)
Preach, bossman.
(Source: buildingmarkets.org, via tumblingfromthecave)
We’ve got a problem at PDT. We’re very good at some things, like helping to create jobs, championing local entrepreneurs, and foosball.
We can do this…
But we’re very bad at other things, like telling our story, the stories of the people we help, and karaoke.
…but not this.
And that’s where you come in. We are looking for a journalism fellow. To be as accurate and objective as possible and to distinguish it from other, lesser fellowships, we’re calling this one the:
“Best. Fellowship. Ever.”
[Cue jazz hands]
Eligible Applicants: You. Especially if you are currently attending j-school.
Application Procedure: Do not send us an earnest cover letter. Do not send us your padded CV. And please please please do not get your Mom to call us. Instead, upload a 60 second YouTube video explaining why you’re going to be a great foreign correspondent. Add the tag “PDT’s Best Fellowship Ever” to your video, and you’re done. The successful applicant will have the charisma of Anderson Cooper, the story-telling prowess of Hans Christian Anderson, and the production skills of Wes Anderson:
Fellowship Description: The successful candidate will be provided with a stipend and will be asked to perform the following tasks:
- Plan and prepare for a 2-week foreign assignment covering PDT’s work abroad. Working part-time and remotely with PDT staff, this phase will be wrapped up by late December.
- Travel to PDT’s country offices in Port au Prince, Monrovia, and Kabul. There our team will look after your logistics and accommodation, and help you arrange interviews with the local entrepreneurs we’ve helped, and the people they employ. Ideally, this will be undertaken between December 26th and January 9th. (You’ll be spending New Years Eve in Kabul, sure, but on the upside you’ll still get to be home for Christmas.)
- Blog about your travels, the entrepreneurs you meet, and the things you see.
- Edit and produce short video spots (30-90 second) based on these interviews, and…
- Write a dozen 200-500 word pieces telling their stories. (To be completed, along with the videos, by February 1st, 2012.)
Application Deadline: Post your slick video by December 14th, and 2 weeks later you’ll find yourself ordering a whiskey and singing karaoke at the legendary Gandamack Lodge in Kabul. It’s that simple.
Do it. Do it up.
(via professorbutterscotch)
Great video by PDT Global on aid ineffectiveness.
Look, it’s us! Thanks for sharing, K :)
Aid and where it is spent: “The money might have been spent on Afghanistan, but it was not spent in Afghanistan…..However, untied aid is now starting to reach the ground because of a new “Afghan First” policy implemented by donors in Kabul. They believe that Afghans who are in work are less likely to join the Taliban, and have decreed that aid procurement should use local labour and local goods to rebuild Afghanistan, whenever possible.
The concept of genuinely untying aid – to allow it to be spent locally and to create jobs – has spread to other development missions, most notably to Port au Prince. There, local officials are now talking about a “Haiti First” policy, and are pressuring aid agencies to spend their money in Haiti, not just on Haiti. The impact can be seen on the ground already, as local entrepreneurs are allowed to compete for international contracts, to create employment, to pay taxes, and to build a peaceful future.”
Lets hope so.
PDT Bossman Scott Gilmore wrote this piece for the Guardian about the types of tied aid that still exist, and how combatting them really (really really) works.
Marching forward
Will van Engen for National Post Farhad Saafi, 23, reopened his father’s long-shuttered clothing factory after a Canadian NGO funded by CIDA tipped him off about an army boot tender. When the contract is over, he plans to “put a big padlock on the gate.” In the 10 years since the invasion of Afghanistan, foreign donors — including Canada — have spent more than US$57-billion in aid there. But what kind of country is Canada leaving behind? As the recipient of the 2011 Michener-Deacon Fellowship for public service journalism, which underwrote her research, Jane Armstrong spent seven weeks in Afghanistan this summer assessing what Canada’s aid contribution has achieved. This is the final part of a four-day series. Jane Armstrong KABUL • The assembly line at Farhad Saafi’s factory outside Kabul is running full tilt once again. Afghan workers are bent over a conveyor belt, pasting rubber soles to suede army boots. Mr. Saafi hired 700 employees to work 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, to meet his production deadline. Kabul Melli Trading won a multimillion-dollar U.S. military contract to produce 200,000 boots for the Afghan National Army. The deal resurrected a clothing factory founded by Mr. Saafi’s father in 1979, but idled by decades of war. That feat put his 23-year-old son in rare company. Most military and reconstruction contracts go to Western companies, leaving Afghan businesses out in the cold. A Canadian non-governmental organization, Peace Dividend Trust (PDT), tipped off Mr. Saafi about the boot tender and helped him win the business. The achievement means jobs and profits stay in Afghanistan, Mr. Saafi says. “Now the army can say, ‘These boots were made in Afghanistan.’ I provided jobs to 700 people — all Afghans.” Kabul Melli Trading is a rare Afghan business success story. But the source of Mr. Saafi’s good fortune won’t last forever. Western military and aid money, which has sustained the Afghan economy for a decade, has peaked.
(Source: news.nationalpost.com)
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