Learning Chinese in Liberia

Surely a sign of the times: Chinese officials operating in Liberia are offering free Chinese language lessons to young Liberians - and anyone keen to learn the language more generally:

As in much of Africa, China is heavily engaged in post-war Liberia, rebuilding roads with funding from the World Bank, managing hotels and restaurants, trading in medicines and other businesses.

Chinese mineral firm China Union became the largest investor in Liberia when it signed a $2.6bn deal to go into iron-ore mining earlier this year. There is even a Chinese-language radio station broadcasting across the country for the increasing number of migrant workers and expatriates.

The growing trade ties explain why the Chinese embassy and the Ministry of Youth and Sports have decided to put on free two-hour classes in the afternoon, five days a week.

While some may tout such lessons as an exercise in colonialism (an argument which many Liberians are likely to put forward themselves), such skills training may in fact be the harbinger of increased opportunity for the country's citizens, allowing them not only greater mobility in terms of movement to China, but also enabling them to eventually communicate with the Chinese thereby engaging in more meaningful business negotiations. Perhaps I'm feeling exceptionally optimistic this morning, or perhaps the Chinese are actually (finally?) working towards making their "mutually beneficial" partnership with Liberia precisely just that.

The crusade for women's rights

The issue of women's rights is one that doesn't appear frequently here at China in Africa, but rest assured that such a lack is not for want of concern or interest. My undergraduate thesis centered on women's land rights in Africa - particularly Kenya and Botswana - and examined especially the conflict between customary and statutory laws, and the entitlements women enjoy under each. Somewhere between trying to understand Chinese foreign policy, parsing out the do's and don'ts of foreign aid, and attempting to decipher a U.S. policy towards Africa (a recent undertaking, to be sure), however, I seem to have placed the issue on the back burner.

A recent NYTimes article by Kristof and WuDunn has seemingly lead me back to the cause. As the piece aptly notes, focusing on women and girls may well be the most effective way of combating global poverty and extremism. For instance:

A series of studies has found that when women hold assets or gain incomes, family money is more likely to be spent on nutrition, medicine and housing, and consequently children are healthier.

This, as opposed to circumstances under which men control the assets. It has been found that men often engage in unwise spending, with the poorest families in the world spending approximately 20% of their incomes on a combination of alcohol, prostitution, candy (candy!!), sugary drinks and lavish feasts - and only 2% on the education of their children. For this reason among others, we are seeing a growing number of microfinance projects directed specifically at women. Additionally:

It has long been known that a risk factor for turbulence and violence is the share of a country’s population made up of young people. Now it is emerging that male domination of society is also a risk factor; the reasons aren’t fully understood, but it may be that when women are marginalized the nation takes on the testosterone-laden culture of a military camp or a high-school boys’ locker room.

Indeed, some scholars believe that the reason Muslim countries have been disproportionately affected by terrorism has little to do with Islamic teachings about infidels or violence, and more to do with low levels of female education and participation in the labor force. I haven't yet had the chance to gather my thoughts on the matter, but a cursory glance at global terrorist hubs and their corresponding women's rights (to the extent that we can even call them that), seemingly lends much credence to the claim.

Kristof and WuDunn ultimately argue that women's rights must be brought to the forefront of the international development agenda, as it is women who perhaps represent our best hope in the fight against global poverty. Fight on, sister, fight on.

[Image: BBC]

Noteworthy…. the aid edition

Via Mo'Modernity Mo'problems the newest 'twinning' aid initiative: toilet aid

Broadband has arrived in East Africa. The 2,790 mile East Africa Marine System underwater cable connected Mombassa with Fujairah in the UAE on 12 June and is expected to become fully operational within three months. A great map of the cable (as well as others) can be found here

Education and ... football for all?

Blood and Milk's Alanna has a great post on what aid workers can learn from missionaries (note: this has nothing to do with converting people!)

Noteworthy….

How professors think: inside the curious world of academic judgement

In its 2009 annual report, The State of the World's Human Rights, Amnesty International notes that it now considers poverty a human rights violation. Unfortunately, such a rights based approach is setting up new aid programs for failure.

Arguably the least welcome convert. Ever.

China is up to its old tricks again...

... while intern season has officially begun in Washington D.C. Oh dear.

Noteworthy….

A new alliance between Rwanda and Congo is drawing many former Hutu guerrillas home to live at peace among their former enemies. 

Freedom is not always good and the Chinese need to be controlled, says actor Jackie Chan. Is he being racist/cynical/horrible [insert accusatory adjective here], or did he merely articulate what many (wealthy) Chinese feel?

New research released by the London Councils suggests there are not enough places in London's schools for new pupils. Third world (education) problems are evidently not confined to the third world alone.

The biggest electoral show on earth is now under way in India. Despite the country's growing role on the international stage, foreign policy appears to play only a marginal role in the decisions of nearly 714 million voters.

Human rights through your local church

At least that's the idea in Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame is seeking to mobilize Rwandan pastors to protect human rights and pursue forgiveness. Kagame has even teamed up with Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to develop a five-to-seven year project aimed at attaining precisely these objectives. Via Opinio Juris Roger Alford writes:

I have spent the last two weeks working with a team of Saddleback lawyers who are implementing this impressive program. Having met with Supreme Court and High Court judges, Ministry of Justice officials, and over sixty of the top Rwandan pastors in the country, I am convinced that in a country where 82 percent of the population are Christians, there is no better vehicle for educating the general populace about human rights than the local church. At the invitation of President Kagame, Saddleback Church has been sending hundreds of volunteer professionals–doctors, nurses, lawyers, psychologists, etc.–to work with local churches to address Rwanda’s most pressing problems.

On the legal front, top government officials have identified three central problems: intra-family land grabbing, domestic violence, and sexual crimes. To address those problems, lawyers from Saddleback Church have drafted a human rights manual for local pastors they can use to educate their members about those issues. They have started with the issue of land grabbing, and future manuals will be developed that focus on domestic violence and sexual crimes.

[...] It is an impressive project. The result will be a manual that will be sent to thousands of Rwandan pastors with information on the rights of women and children and information on legal resources for families who struggle with land grabbing. Prevention is the principal objective, but for those who are in the midst of a land grabbing dispute, the manual encourages local pastors to work with government legal aid clinics, the National University of Rwanda, and the Christian human rights NGO International Justice Mission to intervene.

Time Magazine also ran a story on this back in 2005 which can be found here.

Noteworthy….

Chinese arms sales are on the uptick. The major markets?: the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. Wonderful.

Can Catholicism help Africa? Africans express their views on the religion's impact.

Just say 'no': China's Ministry of Commerce blocks Coca Cola's proposed acquisition of China Huiyuan Juice Group.

Bringing Sudan's forgotten judiciary back into the picture: a review of Abdullahi Ibrahim's book, Rectifying the Neglect of Sudan's Judiciary

Oh, now this hits close to home: Northwestern professors Jeff Ely and Sandeep Baliga are blogging at http://cheeptalk.wordpress.com. I have fond memories of sitting in Professor Ely's (I can't bring myself to call him Jeff...) microecon class back in the day. Admittedly, his blog appears infinitely more interesting than the course (I'm allowed to say that now, right?)

The end of the Chinese dream?

It's no secret that these are trying economic times for people everywhere, China included. Estimates released this week place Chinese unemployment at 20 million. 20 million rural migrant jobs, that is. Add to this urban unemployment and the soon-to-be unemployed graduates and we're in trouble. Could this be the end of the Chinese dream? 

Income inequality and education in China

According to a report released by PREM entitled Rising Income Inequality in China: A Race to the Top, income inequality in China has increased at rapid rates in the past two decades, as noted in Figure 1:

At the same time, strong growth has meant that all income groups have seen pretty substantial economic gains. Authors Luo and Zhu explain:

The dynamics of divergence across these sub-national areas have taken the form of a "race to the top"—meaning that all segments of the population, including the poor with low education in lagging inland rural areas, have experienced gains in average income

Moreover: 

for all eight provinces, rural poverty headcount more than halved from 50.1% in 1989 to 22.4% in 2004; urban poverty headcount fell by a-third from 19.0% in 1989 to 13.5% in 2004

Coupled with these phenomena, however, is an even more interesting one: as income inequality has grown in China, the distribution of capital in the form of education has actually decreased. In other words, access to education has become highly concentrated in wealthier coastal and urban areas and is a fundamental factor underlying the surge in income inequality. Indeed, the increase in returns to education often initially leads to an increase in inequality. As David Dollar observes, however, such changes will ultimately tend to reduce inequality if equality of opportunity, especially equality in access to education, can be achieved over time. 

Long story short: poverty reduction occurs not only when a country opens its economy to the world, but also when it is able to support a sound education system and an educated populace.