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投稿者 : ld-sylff

Strengthening Journalists’ Election Reporting Skills as Ethiopia Transitions to a Democracy

May 18, 2020
By 24666

In November and December 2019, Mulatu Alemayehu Moges, PhD, now an assistant professor of journalism and communication at Addis Ababa University, organized a training workshop for Ethiopian journalists ahead of the country’s first general election under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, originally scheduled for May 2020. Moges sees the political transition to a democracy under the new prime minister as an opportunity for better-trained journalists to make a significant contribution to free and fair elections.

* * *

I was interested in training and capacitating Ethiopian journalists on various themes. While I was working as a journalist in the local media, it was very clear that the Ethiopian media faced many problems. For instance, while most journalists had attended formal journalism school, they were not ready to apply the principles they learned in practice. Most were also not able to make full use of the technological advances being made in journalism, and there was a need to make reporting more professional.

The author facilitates the training.

In 2018, I served as a resource person for the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia and facilitated two training programs for journalists and communication officers on the election, media, and democracy. Through this experience, I realized that journalists and communication officers lacked a thorough understanding of the election process, particularly, the ethical principles, legal issues, and other technicalities that were very important in election reporting.

From my discussions with experts on the electoral board, I also realized that one of the reasons for the low turnout and the disqualifying of some votes was a lack of clear understanding about the election process and voter engagement.

Last year, I was invited to train journalists and communication experts on the media, democracy, and elections, giving me an opportunity to observe the skills and knowledge of the trainees, particularly on election reporting. The experience prompted me to write a proposal to the Sylff Association.

For Free and Fair Elections in Ethiopia

Training on election reporting is important for several reasons. First, Ethiopia has been undergoing a political transition since Abiy Ahmed became prime minister. This transition has opened new opportunities for Ethiopian politics, making the upcoming general election highly anticipated and very competitive. Most opposition parties have been allowed to return to the country, and they are now freely restructuring and reorganizing themselves for the election. The government has opened up the political discourse, giving not only political groups but also individuals a chance to express their ideas freely through the media and other outlets.

The current government of Ethiopia has promised to end the kind of malpractices seen during earlier elections and to have a free and fair election. This makes it all the more important for the media to make a positive contribution to the election process, since freedom of expression and a free media are imperatives for a free and fair election. Media pluralism and the professionalization of journalists are crucial, and they should be addressed before the election campaign begins.

Among the key questions to be considered are how citizens are accessing neutral information about competing candidates, their political parties and policies, the election process, and voting guidelines; whether the political parties are freely carrying out political debates on the public media; whether the media is serving as a platform for such communication during the election period; and how well the journalists are trained in providing information about election processes to the general public in a timely and unrestricted manner. Accurately reporting on the political campaign and providing voters civic education are determining factors for ensuring both a fair election and high turnout. It is up to the media to connect the electoral commission and the candidates with the voters. This shows how the media can play an indispensable role in the election.

Training Ethiopian Journalists

All the above-mentioned points motivated me to apply for a Sylff Leadership Initiatives grant to facilitate training workshops for Ethiopian journalists who are expected to report on the upcoming election. The training program aimed to have an impact on 100 journalists on election reporting and on educating the public. In the workshops, experts were invited to make presentations on issues related to election reporting, the media, democracy, ethics of election reporting, election and media laws, access to information, and the right to information during the election. Participants were also encouraged to engage in group discussions.

Participating journalists engage in a group discussion.

The main objective of the workshops was not to train all Ethiopian journalists but, considering the budget and time, to approach editors and senior journalists in influential positions in their media organizations. Reaching out to these editors could be expected to have a trickle-down effect on junior journalists in two ways.

The first is that participating journalists may be able to arrange and facilitate similar workshops in their respective outlets. With this expectation, the organizers shared all the training materials with the participants, and some have already conveyed their insights to their colleagues. Two participants from the Amhara media agency, for example, have organized a training program at their organization.

The second is that since they are in senior positions in their media organizations, these participants will have many opportunities to mentor and coach journalists who are working under them. From my own practical experience in the Ethiopian media, journalists learn a lot from their seniors. This is another way that the workshop can have an impact on even those journalists who did not attend the training.

Such mutual teaching and learning were also observed during the training sessions. Some of the participants were very experienced, having worked in journalism for two decades and covered the last three general elections. There were senior editors and program producers who shared their practical experience in the Ethiopian media with other participants. In addition, having diverse training participants from community radio stations and both the public and private media across the country made the discussions lively and interactive. In some cases, journalists drew from their practical experience to substantiate the points they were making on the subject matter being discussed.

Sharing past coverage experience during a group discussion.

When the project was being designed, I expected at least 40% of the participants to be women. For unforeseen reasons, though, the number of female journalists enrolling, particularly in the first round, was very small. They were nevertheless very active during the training sessions, engaged in raising issues and questions and providing answers. They were also active in presenting ideas during the group discussion.

A presentation by a female participant.

Expected Outcomes

The media, especially the mainstream media, plays a major role in raising awareness among the voting public. Radio, for example, still claims large audiences in Ethiopia, and a substantial share of people access information from radio programs. Some of the participating journalists worked at radio stations at the national, regional, and community levels, and they learned important lessons in educating voters and the public.

From this fact, the project can be said to have played a role in potentially increasing voter turnout around the country, and particularly the rural areas where people tend to be less educated. This can also lead to greater participation of youths and youth groups as journalists cover issues related to the electoral process, election guidelines, and ethical practices.

In the civic education section of the training, issues related to values, attitudes, and behaviors of electorates and candidates were thoroughly discussed, so these trained journalists will know how to behave during an election. Usually, youths are the ones who will take to the streets to demonstrate if they feel that an election was rigged or perceive irregularities in the electoral processes. By applying what they have learned in the workshop, journalists may be able to minimize the risks of electoral fraud and its consequence.

Last but not least, the project will play a direct role in the democratization process of the country. Free and fair elections are the foundations of a democratic system, so this project will have a multifaceted significance.

Organizing the training workshop was not an easy task, and it was not without its challenges. But we were able to hold it in a timely manner thanks to the cooperation of many parties. I would like to particularly thank the Sylff Association, UNESCO, and the Ethiopian Broadcast Authority for making my dream come true. The workshop would not have been successful without their support, encouragement, and follow-up.

Related article on the Ethiopian Press Agency website:
https://www.press.et/english/?p=15482#

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

On Principles in Japanese Law

May 12, 2020
By 24601

Using an SRA award, Miloš Marković, a 2017 Sylff fellow from the University of Belgrade, visited Japan between November 2019 and January 2020. His main goal was to explore and assess the application of legal principles in the modern sense as constitutional rights in Japan by interviewing legal scholars as well as lawyers and judges there.

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Historical and Motivational Background

The distinction between legal rules and legal principles has been in the center of much theoretical thought in the past few decades. The beginning of a broad discussion was marked by Dworkin’s major challenge of legal positivism.[1] Eight years later, Alexy brought the topic to a whole new level by developing a theory of constitutional rights as principles.[2] The principles theory even evolved into a full-fledged theory of law.

The main difference between these rules and principles is how to resolve their conflict. When two legal rules come into conflict, one of them is abolished or excepted. Only one of two norms prescribing different deadlines for the same complaint may be valid, not both. When two legal principles come into conflict, both remain valid and neither is declared an exception, yet one overweighs the other under the specific circumstances of the case. Freedom of trade and the protection of customers may intersect and conflict and determine the outcome of the case, yet neither has absolute priority in application over the other.

The author, left, with one of the interviewees at a law firm in Tokyo.

When I first approached the topic of legal principles in the course of doctoral studies, it was clear from the start that the comparative dimension would play a major role in the research. Legal systems to be taken into consideration were as usual French, Austrian, German, and American. However, the major legal systems in the Far East has always inspired curiosity among European lawyers. Unfamiliar customs, different religions, exotic dishes, and undecipherable scripts keep China, Japan, and Korea mostly under a veil of unknown for people in Serbia and other European countries. Legal transplants from the West in the cultural environment of East Asia seemed to drift farther away from their original meaning than elsewhere. After completing two research stays in Austria and Germany, the main reason for my choice of Japan as a host country to investigate legal principles in a comparative perspective was the historical influence of German law.

The modernization process in Japan began in 1868 with the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, which had ruled the country for two and a half centuries.[3] Faced with the threat of being colonized by Western countries, the Meiji government set out to establish a modern legal system in conformity with European tradition and renegotiate unfair commerce treaties.[4] France was believed a leading European country with comprehensive legal codes, and French scholars were invited to draft codes for Japan. For the first time, Japanese words had to be invented for the concepts of right, freedom, and liberty, as well as property over land. However, the French drafts triggered strong criticism for violating the traditions of Japan, so the government decided to rely more on German scholars. Ultimately, the whole legal system was modeled on German law. The first Constitution of Japan was enacted in 1889, and the first Civil Code in 1898. Japan thus became a civil law country.

Having in mind that German law exercised influence in Japan in ages past, I reckoned that the modern principles theory as developed by the German Federal Constitutional Court might have already been accepted independently by the courts in Japan due to the shared legal tradition. A comparison of statutory norms and judicial decisions should point out differences and similarities between major legal systems and thus prove the universality of the principles theory. That hypothesis motivated me to set sail for the land of the rising sun.

Original copy of the Constitution of Japan enacted on May 3, 1947, as the new constitution for a post–World War II Japan.

Choice of Methodology

My primary method consisted of interviews with Japanese scholars and judges to learn what they know and what importance they assign to the principles theory. However, things did not go completely as planned for two reasons. First, the language barrier made online communication with both courts and faculties practically impossible. Since contact e-mails turned out to be unavailable on official websites and some letters remained unanswered, plans to arrange a meeting on my own were thwarted. Second, the physical barriers at the entrances of law faculties prevented access without invitation and thus hindered me from seeking assistance independently.

Consequently, meetings were exclusively arranged on the recommendation of an acquaintance or the supervisor himself.[5] Such recommendations prompted better preparation and substantial interest on the part of the interviewees. Everyone put much effort into disentangling complex questions and discussing them on a practical level. All in all, I had fewer yet longer, better, and more insightful discussions with lawyers in Japan than originally envisioned.

My secondary method was supposed to be to gather data via computer analysis of judgments based on the word “principle.” However, it turned out that decisions of Japanese courts are rarely translated into English. In addition, fieldwork showed that a reliable translation of a judicial decision requires long work, rich legal knowledge, and mastery of both languages, and thus much money. As a result, the original proposal ran ashore. To overcome the obstacle, I turned to books on Japanese case law and searched myself for principles hidden within the reasons adduced.

Research Findings

My research in Japan confirmed the hypothesis that every legal system necessarily includes principles besides rules. At the outset of each interview, Japanese judges tended to understand principles as unwritten legal norms and were majorly averse to the idea that they play a role in the decision-making process. The only reasons for a judgment should be rules as prescriptions. However, when confronted with hard cases, judges usually admitted that rules are insufficient to justify a decision. They must then reach out for more general rules or the purpose of a rule. When asked to solve a conflict between such abstract norms, judges agreed that such conflicts cannot be solved by abolishing one of them or declaring one an exception.

Interviewed judges keenly defended the position that a solution to each case can be found in rules by means of an adequate interpretation. The meaning of each norm can be narrowed or broadened in order to exclude or include different cases and provide a solution. An interesting detail from the conducted interviews was the opinion that the first and foremost norm in the Japanese Civil Code, “good faith,” represents a rule. Such reasoning shows that judges tend to regard every case from the standpoint of only one norm. However, it is inevitable that norms sometimes overlap or intersect, in which case only a cluster of norms may provide a basis for decision. Principles come into play when such a conflict is irresolvable by means of abolition and exception.

An illustrative example is the “After the Banquet case,” in which the Tokyo District Court had to decide about an alleged violation of privacy.[6] A novel was published by the famous Japanese author Yukio Mishima. Although the names were altered, practically everyone could recognize that the model in the book was Foreign Minister Hachiro Arita. The court obviously had to balance between right to privacy and freedom of speech, or freedom of artistic expression, as Japanese lawyers like to put it. In 1964 Japan obtained its first judicial recognition of the right to privacy. Mishima lost the case and tried to bring the case to a higher court, but the foreign minister died, and a settlement was reached between the two sides. From the standpoint of principles theory, it is important that no right was abolished or declared an exception. The discussed judgment is clear evidence that in Japanese law some norms function as principles, and those are primarily constitutional norms awarding rights.

The author in front of the Akamon gate built during the Tokugawa Shogunate. The gate is located at one of the entrances of the University of Tokyo’s Hongo campus, where he was based during his research in Japan.

It was remarkable to find an analogous case in Europe. Photographs of Princess Caroline of Monaco were published in several magazines. The case was brought before the German Federal Constitutional Court. In order to reach a decision, the court had to balance two constitutional rights: freedom of speech and right to privacy.[7] For the majority of photos the freedom of speech was given priority due to the status of the complainant as a public personality. However, three photos where the complainant was with her children were deemed to infringe disproportionally on their privacy, which is why priority switched to the right of privacy. The main point is that the first principle overweighed the second and vice versa under respective specific circumstances, yet both principles remained valid and no absolute hierarchy was introduced. Had the court abolished one of the conflicting norms or declared one to be an exception of the other, those norms would have been treated as rules.

Related news on the Sylff website:
https://www.sylff.org/news_voices/27360/

[1] Ronald Dworkin, “A model of Rules I,” Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978), 14–45.

[2] Robert Alexy, Theorie der Grundrechte (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1986), 71–154.

[3] James L. McClain, Japan: A Modern History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), 119–207.

[4] Shigenori Matsui, The Constitution of Japan: A Contextual Analysis (Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2011), 7–13.

[5] In that regard, I am much indebted to Professor Yasunori Kasai and Professor Masayuki Tamaruya, as well as the Sylff Association.

[6] Judgment of Tokyo District Court, 1964, Kaminshu 15-9-2317. There is no translation of the sentence available online. I am much obliged to Professor Hitoshi Nishitani for the particulars of the case.

[7] https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/EN/1999/12/rs19991215_1bvr065396en.html

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

Life of Transcarpathian Hungarian Women Working in Kolkhozes under Socialism in the 1950s

April 30, 2020
By 27333

Julia Orosz, a 2019 Sylff fellow at the University of Debrecen (Hungarian Academy of Sciences), focuses on the situation of Hungarian women in Transcarpathia in the post–World War II communist era in her PhD dissertation. She has been dealing with this topic for many years, and as a Sylff fellow she has broadened her basic research topic by examining the connections and differences between the circumstances and opportunities of women living in the communist era, comparing it with the position of today’s young girls in the fields of further education, women’s work, career development, family formation, and childbirth. In this article, she gives a little insight into the lives of women living in the communist era.

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Transcarpathia has been the westernmost region of independent Ukraine since 1991, bordering four countries (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania). It currently covers an area of 12,752 square kilometers. Transcarpathia’s twentieth-century history is extremely versatile, as it has undergone several changes of empire. Under the 1920 Trianon Treaty, the area was separated from Hungary and came under Czechoslovakia’s control. Due to the border revision goals of Hungarian foreign policy and the First and Second Vienna Awards (1938 and 1940), by the time of World War II (1939–1945) the separated territories were returned to the motherland, but the outcome of the world war again changed this. By virtue of the Soviet-Czechoslovak Convention signed on June 29, 1945, the region became part of the Soviet Union, and the decree of the presidency of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union of January 22, 1946, declared it to be the Transcarpathian territory of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.[2] Transcarpathia was thus put into the mold of communism, as were all countries undergoing or forced into socialist development, which influenced the political, economic, and social life of the region.

Topographic map of Ukraine. Transcarpathia is located in the western part of the country, with the regional headquarters in Uzhhorod. (Source: https://www.prntr.com/ukraine-map.html)

I chose Transcarpathia for my study for two reasons: firstly, it is my motherland and I am interested in the history of my ancestors, and secondly, due to its location and nationality, Transcarpathia is a specific area that connects the East with the West. Although Ukraine has not had an official census since 2001, recent estimates put the population of Hungarians in Transcarpathia at 120,000–130,000. In 1941 the Hungarian population was 233,840, but according to the 1946 county census (which is not an official census), the number of Hungarians had dropped significantly to 66,000 by that year.[4] This decline in population is mainly explained by the high death toll on the fronts, the mass escape, and the abduction of Hungarian men to Soviet labor camps (the Malenki Robot) in 1944.[5] All of these contributed to the decline in the male population and the transformation of female roles. In many cases, women were forced to take over the place of men and to manage the family alone. In addition, government policy on women contributed to the transformation of women’s roles.

The Stalin Constitution of 1936 stated that women should enjoy equal rights with men in all areas of life. A well-built network of propaganda sought to emphasize to people that communism had led to the breakdown of decades of barriers and the opening of opportunities for women. As an era, I deal with the period from 1944–45 to the 1950s, as the 1950s are the most characteristic and most dictatorial chapter of the communist regime. In the Stalin era, the new female ideal was the stanovist top worker, someone who excelled at her workplace and was able to cope with more difficult physical jobs, even masculine ones, and this was the example to follow.[6] It was the responsibility of the press to promote it, so it should not be surprising that women workers in a wide variety of fields became frequent figures in the newspapers. Of course, these reports could only glorify the communist power and the opportunities offered by the system.

One example among many is Etelka Bálint, a former kolkhozist at the Lenin kolkhoz[7] in Bereg. Etelka said: “During the capitalist rule, I had no goals. My life was miserable, I worked for kulaks.[8] But the situation changed in the years of the Soviet system. I was given freedom. I entered the kolkhoz. I am provided with annual bread, and as a team leader and as a board member I take part in managing the kolkhoz. As a simple working woman, I was given leadership and the right to freedom and happiness.”[9] In 1948, she was honored with the Order of the Red Flag of Work for high grape yield.[10] The Soviet government was also keen to reward women with various honors, such as the Lenin Order, Red Flag Order, and Socialist Labor Hero, to emphasize their merits to the state and society. The party leadership wanted to prove that, regardless of their social status and qualifications, women who work and are committed to the development of the country are rewarded.

The active builders of communism. Top half, left to right: Margit Katkó, leader of the group for the Rimavské Janovce Vineyard, Socialist Labor Hero, Lenin Order–honored worker; Ilona Kosztel, burner of the Berehovo brick factory; and Gizella Titka, a stanovist at the furniture factory in Berehovo. Bottom half, left to right: Maria Hrobák, commander of the Kalinin kolkhoz in Berehovo, recipient of the Lenin Order; Malvin Kovács, brigade commander of the Berehovo garment factory; and Maria Papp, group leader for the Muzsajj Vineyard, recipient of the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.[11]

However, there are some differences between the portrayal and idealization of women by the communist party leadership and the real, everyday life of women. As there are few written sources about women’s daily lives and activities, and what is to be found was produced under very strong ideological pressure and censorship, I have sought to supplement archival sources and contemporary press publications with reminiscences. Today, we are fortunate enough to be able to visit people who have lived during the socialist era and, through their personal experiences, gain interesting information that is not always evident from archival materials and official documents. This not only gives us a more complex picture of the era, but also allows us to interpret and understand people’s lives.

The author, right, with an interviewee.

After 1945, the major turning point in gender roles worldwide was the influx of women into paid employment,[12] which of course does not mean that women had not worked before. In the socialist countries, the state tried to treat the mass employment of women as an achievement of equality, whereas the real reasons were the difficulty of living, the postwar labor shortage, and the need for employment. Because of low wages, a single salary was not enough to support families, and because of the state’s extensive economic policy and strong industrialization, it was necessary to employ every person of working age, so that more women could be employed.

My informants are simple, ordinary women, born in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. They come from peasant families with many children, where the father was the breadwinner and the mother worked in the household. As children and young girls, they lived through World War II and its effects. Because of a lack of opportunity, they have a low level of education, and most of them were employed as farm workers in the kolkhozes or in various branches of industry.

Transcarpathia was a strongly agricultural region. With the sovietization of the area, individual and private farming was abolished and the so-called kolkhozes appeared, providing the only job opportunities in the villages. Stalin considered it important to actively involve women in socialist production: “The issue of women in kolkhozes . . . is an important question, comrades. I know that many of you underestimate women. . . . However, this is a mistake. . . . It is not only about half of the population being women. First and foremost, the kolkhoz movement has raised many outstanding and talented women to leadership positions. . . . Women have long since risen to the forefront from previously lagging behind. In kolkhozes, women represent great power. Keeping this power under restrictions . . . is a sin.”

Agricultural girl group, Szernye. Róza S. is on the right in the middle row.

One of my interviewees, Róza S., was born in 1933 in Serne.[14] Her father was a farmer who died in 1944 as a soldier of the Hungarian army, and her mother raised three children as a widow. Róza spoke with poignant sincerity about their daily problems: “My mother would go out to the meadow and climb the tree. From there she would cut off the dry branches, tie them, and bring them home on her back so that the three kids would not freeze.” Róza had a difficult childhood, so she only completed five classes, plus one repetition. At a very young age, she was already working as a farm worker in the kolkhoz. “I was a very good student. They [her two older brothers, Janos (born 1928) and Balázs (born 1930)] persuaded me to go to school if they couldn’t; at least I would be able learn and go to school. I did not go; I chose to work. . . . I was fourteen, and I went to work on the field. . . . We carried the bobbins together. Well, by the same time the next year everyone had become a worker at the kolkhoz [in Serne, which was formed in 1947). Life became very, very difficult. . . . They took our land, and everyone was forced to work there. They did not ask if you wanted to give up your land. Some resisted. Their land was sown in the spring, and it was harvested by the kolkhoz in the autumn.” My interviewee was a milkmaid, a farm worker in her youth, and went to work at the kolkhoz tobacco plantations. “Every day we went to plow, we went barefoot, we didn’t have slippers like that. . . . Back then, it wasn’t really machine plowing, just hand plowing.” In 1955 Róza, as a group leader, was able to represent a group of local kolkhoz girls at a Moscow agricultural exhibition as a result of her abundant crop yield. “I even went to Moscow for an agricultural exhibition. They took me from the kolkhoz because I was a group leader. We were girls, only girls. We had a good crop of beets, we had beets that weighted ten kilos. Well then, they got me out there.”

Roza S., fourth from left, as a milkmaid.

Roza S., front row center, in Moscow, 1955.

Similarly, Jolán B. had no easy youth.[15] Born in 1943, Jolán had seven siblings. They lost their mother early, and she was fifteen years old when her mother’s duties fell on her. (As her four older brothers were already married, she had to care for her two younger brothers, born 1945 and 1947, and her younger sister, who was ten years younger than her, having been born in1953).

Jolán B. working on the hen farm.

“One would go to school in the morning in boots and come home at noon, then the other would go to school in the same boots. This was our life. . . . For my sister, I was able to alter what I had outgrown.” Jolán worked at the kolkhoz for 30 years: 8 years on the hen farm and the rest on the vegetable-producing brigade.

There were also many women in Transcarpathia who were placed in higher leadership positions by the party leadership. Such was the case of Jolán Antal, president of the Marx kolkhoz in the village of Szolovka. The kolkhoz was formed on October 11, 1947, with the participation of 16 families, and by August 21, 1948, the peasantry of the whole village had joined. The president gushed about the greatness of the kolkhoz system: “All our hard work is done by machine, and this year we have been harvesting with a combine. As a result of Soviet agro-technology and well-organized joint management, the land gives twice as much as it used to before to individual farmers. . . . As the kolkhoz grows, people can live in a better way. Of course, it was difficult for us in the beginning. But we’ve gotten over it. No one would replace his present life with his old life. After the poverty, prosperity and post-oppression freedom came.”[16] Other individuals who have gone through the era remember things a little differently. Erzsébet B., a 1931-born resident of Velyka Dobron, recalled: “The Russians came in, took the land, cleaned out everything, took away all the animals. . . . I was still a girl when the kolkhoz was formed [in 1949]. We went to the field. . . . We had to hoe cabbage, potatoes, everything with a hand hoe; we had to break the corn by hand. . . . In the winter we only went to do tobacco. . . . They didn’t pay us a salary, just the norm. . . . It was very little, but back then everything was cheap.”[17]

Erzsébet B. at the age of 14 in Nagydobony folk costume.

In the 1950s, women were welcomed to work where previously only men worked. Many were engaged in heavy industry, construction, mining, turning lathes, and welding, but the greatest spotlight of the era was given to the women operating tractors. According to historian Zsófia Eszter Tóth, they wanted to symbolize that women are completely equal to men and that they are capable of the same performance in any job.[18] As the tractor operating industry was not very attractive to women, all means of propaganda had to be used to promote the profession, such as Soviet role models like Pasa Angelina, articles, movies, posters, brochures, songs, and poems. While studying the press, I found that there were quite a few women in Transcarpathia who had completed courses at the Machine and Tractor Station and worked on a tractor, but there was no published information indicating that most of them were forced to do so. “We are proud to be the first tractor operating women in Transcarpathia. We all follow the shining example of Pasa Angelina, known worldwide for her work victories. None of us would have thought yesterday that we girls and women would master the tractor operating profession.”[19] So said Sarolta Szalontai, the female brigade commander of the Rákosi GTC. Most of my 32 interviewees so far worked in various kolkhozes in Transcarpathia, and they recalled that it was not common for women to be tractor drivers; they know or have heard about singular cases, but for some reason women were forced to do so and only temporarily.

According to my interviewee Jolán B., her sister-in-law Gizella Szijjártó, the wife of her eldest brother, drove a tractor: “My sister-in-law lived in Heivtsi,[20] and when she was a girl, her father was a kulak. . . . They were treated very strictly. When her father was taken away as a kulak to Donbas,[21] they wanted to take my sister-in-law also, so she had to enroll in a tractor driver course in order to not be taken away. There was a school here in Dobrony where girls also went, and my sister-in-law worked on a chain tractor. . . . Not for long, but she worked . . . to not be taken to Donbas.”

Over the centuries, women’s roles have also constantly evolved. In traditional society, women’s primary tasks were childbirth and parenting, along with running a household and caring for the family. Their activities were mainly confined to the home. In the twentieth century, significant changes took place in this area. With the influx of women into paid employment, they faced the problem of double burden bearing. It was not easy for women in the 1950s. Working women were given only six weeks’ maternity leave before childbirth and after. In reality, however, this did not really make life easier for young mothers.

As Gizella D. (born 1941) and Gizella T. (born 1942) shared with me: “The decret [maternity leave] lasted for two months before and two months after. Four months off. We got two hours for breastfeeding a day, so we could go home and breastfeed, and then we had to go back. . . . We also washed the diapers. . . . We had no pampers [disposable diapers] as we do now. Today’s world cannot be compared to [those days].”[23] In order for women to be able to work with young children, the state had to ensure that the children were properly accommodated. In the 1950s kindergartens opened, and even seasonal nurseries were organized in Transcarpathia for farm laborers. But places were limited, so many women could only work if their children were with the older generation at home, and many grandparents helped with child-rearing. Jolán B. talked about the problem of women’s dual burdens: “I almost went into labor on the farm. I worked up until December 25 and went to the hospital on January 1. . . . Then my mother-in-law agreed to take the boy, so I went back when he was two years old. . . . The kindergarten only accommodated twenty-five children.” Jolán Sz., who was born in 1937, had a similar story: “Even the day before giving birth, I was in the kolkhoz. After I gave birth at night, I didn’t go for a month. My mother-in-law looked after the little girl. Then when my son, Sanyi, was born on January 1, I was back at work by February. . . . Only twenty children were admitted to kindergarten in such a large village, so I tried to get a place for them in vain; there were none.”[24]

In addition, it is important to bear in mind that households were not at all mechanized. They were lacking the most basic household appliances (such as refrigerators and washing machines), without which we could not imagine our lives today, and which make it easier to do household work. “When we butchered the pigs, as there were no refrigerators, we would lower the meat into the well, where it was cold,” recalled Erzsébet. B. The washing was also done by hand. According to Emma K., born in 1935: “When we bought our first washing machine, in 1968 or when it came to fashion, maybe 1970 . . . we were so happy, but we had to bring the water in and warm it, and then take it back out. But that was good too.”[25] Not everything was available in grocery and clothing stores. “I remember we went to the mountain to work. Easter came, and we were seven girls in a group. . . . We went from Popovo to the mountan in Koson on foot, we worked all day and then went home on foot in the evening. . . . There was a black shop . . . [where] sometimes there was a little sugar. Then we went in . . . and asked Uncle Samu [the shopkeeper] to give us some sugar. He says there isn’t any. Uncle Miska [chairman of the local cooperative] comes and says, what’s up girls? We told him that Easter is here but we don’t have a single piece of sugar, not even for a small milk bread. . . . He says to Samu to weigh half a kilo of sugar for every girl. . . . We lived that way.”

The long decades of the communist era have transformed the structure of Transcarpathia and destroyed the well-functioning peasant lifestyle. Over the years the local population has grown accustomed to and adapted to the new regime, which has become embedded in people’s daily lives. There are many similarities in my interviewees’ life histories and opinions about the era. They were simple, conservative female workers, representing a traditional family model. They have undergone several regime changes, and they vividly remember the tragedy of World War II and the process of collectivization. Their stories can make us feel as though we are hearing the stories of the same people about their difficult postwar lives, their everyday lives, and the opportunities available to them as citizens of the Soviet Union.

[1] József Molnár and István D. Molnár, Population and Hungarians of Transcarpathia in the light of the census and population data, (Berehovo, 2005), 8.

[2] Oficinszkij Roman, “Transcarpathian Ukraine, 1944–1946,” in Transcarpathia 1919–2009: History, Politics, Culture, ed. Csilla Fedinec and Mikola Vehes (Budapest, Argumentum: MTA Institute for Ethnic-National Minority Research, 2010), 233, 243.

[3] Patrik Tátrai et al., “Impact of migration processes on the number of Hungarians in Transcarpathia,” Engravings 7, no. 1 (2018): 26.

[4] Molnár and Molnár, Population of Transcarpathia, 9.

[5] Molnár and Molnár, Population of Transcarpathia, 11.

[6] Mária Schadt, “Emerging working woman,” Women in the fifties (Pécs, 2003), 13.

[7] Kolkhoz: a collective farm or agricultural cooperative of the Soviet Union.

[8] Kulak: an affluent, large-scale farmer. Kulaks have been called out by communism as enemies of the people.

[9] “What the Soviet government did,” Soviet Village 1, no. 47 (October 4, 1950).

[10] “Our kolkhoz star workers: Etelka Bálint Aladárovná is the group leader of the Lenin kolkhoz,” Soviet Village 1, no. 16 (June 17, 1950): 2.

[11] “The active builders of communism,” Red Flag 6, no. 20 (450) (March 9, 1950): 3.

[12] Victor R. Fuchs, On economic inequalities between the sexes (Budapest: National Textbook Publisher, 2003), 28.

[13] Joseph Stalin, from a speech at the first congress of top collective kolkhoz peasants. In Lenin-Stalin: Party and party building, Collection of Lenin and Stalin (Szikra, Budapest: 1950), 655.

[14] Interviewed in Batiovo on April 22, 2015. Róza’s native village, Serne, is located in the Transcarpathian region of Mukachevo, Ukraine. It is situated 20 km southwest of Mukachevo on the banks of the Serne stream.

[15] Interviewed in Velyka Dobron on October 27, 2019. Jolán’s native village, Velyka Dobron, is located in the Uzhhorod region and is the biggest Hungarian-speaking village.

[16] Katalin Osvát, “Two Hungarian kolkhoz peasant women from the Soviet Carpathia,” Women's Magazine 2, no. 40 (October 5, 1950).

[17] Interviewed in Velyka Dobron on December 9, 2019.

[18] Eszter Zsófia Tóth, Daughters of Kádár: Women in the socialist period (Budapest: Open Book Workshop, 2010), 58.

[19] Victory of Stalin 2, no. 21 (62) (Mar. 14, 1951).

[20] Velyki and Mali Heivtsi are located in Transcarpathia, 17–18 km from Uzhhorod.

[21] Donbass: an abbreviation referring to the Donetsk coal basin, an industrial region of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Ukraine.

[22] KTÁL. Fond. P-14, opisz 1., od. zb. 737. 8.

[23] Interviewed in Batiovo on July 24, 2015.

[24] Interviewed in Velyka Dobron on February 9, 2017.

[25] Interviewed in Batiovo on December 14, 2016.

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

Resilience Spaces: Rethinking Protection to Address Protracted Urban Displacement

April 23, 2020
By 25334

Using an SRA grant, Pablo Cortés Ferrández conducted participatory action research (PAR) in Altos de la Florida, an informal settlement for internally displaced persons in an urban area outside Bogota, Colombia. He is making a firsthand analysis of the humanitarian conditions in the settlement to uncover challenges and propose pathways to improve interventions through protection and resilience approaches.

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Capacity building for urban IDPs (internally displaced persons) and host communities is emerging as a new way of working to confront the root causes of protracted displacement in unsafe, informal settlements in Colombia. Despite the challenges, these urban contexts provide an opportunity to advance the complementarity, connectedness, and localization of humanitarian and development aid.

View of Altos de Florida and Soacha on the outskirts of Bogota, the capital of Colombia.

“I was displaced by the paramilitary from Llanos Orientales to Chocó in 2005,” says Yomaira, who lives with her husband and three children in Altos de la Florida, an informal settlement in urban Soacha, just outside the Colombian capital of Bogota. “Three years later we fled to the urban areas of Buenaventura and then again in 2012 to Bogota due to increased violence. In 2014 we started to build a house on this hill because the cost of living in the city was too high.” Yomaira’s narrative reflects the experience of many families for whom armed conflict prompted just the first of many internal displacements: 5.8 million people remain displaced in Colombia as of the end of 2019.[1]

The Root Causes of Displacement

In Colombia, initial displacements due to armed conflict or generalized violence often results in displacements again to urban areas, where families seek protection and economic opportunities. An estimated 87% of the country’s IDPs come from rural areas, and they wind up in the only places that they can access due to their vulnerability: the informal settlements,[2] where more than half of the IDPs live.[3] Both authorities and humanitarian, development, and peace actors need to better understand these supposed urban refuges.

This article is based on a research project implemented from 2015 until 2018 in Altos de la Florida, including surveys of 211 households, 98 in-depth interviews, 3 social cartographies, and 3 focus group discussions.[4] Altos de la Florida is a neighborhood in Soacha, a municipality of approximately 1 million people, the largest of the cities surrounding Bogota. Over two-thirds of its population was living under the poverty line as of 2010.[5]

According to the city’s development plan, 48% of the municipality—378 neighborhoods—are deemed “illegal” by local authorities. The IDP population in the municipality stood at around 50,000 in July 2018. Since the outbreak of the economic and political crisis in neighboring Venezuela, at least 12,300 Venezuelans have joined the ranks of Soacha’s displaced people.

Altos de la Florida suffers from the common pattern of social and spatial segregation in a poverty area with low-quality housing, services, and infrastructure: 72.9% of households are in conditions of structural poverty. The neighborhood as an urban community, formed by 1,011 families of around 3,657 people, has two main characteristics: 52.49% are less than 25 years old, and 48.81% are women.

An article in a local daily linked so-called social cleansing with the murder of the son of a community leader in Altos de la Florida.

From One Informal Settlement to Another

The UNHCR and UNDP have diagnosed Altos de la Florida as a “vulnerable community due to the informality of the neighborhood.”[6] The informal nature of these urban settings limits the capacity to reduce vulnerabilities, yet the planning secretary of the mayor’s office refuses legalization.

Due to the absence of political will, households lack tenure security and have no official proof of home ownership. The neighborhood faced eviction attempts in 2009, and the lack of basic services and infrastructure in Altos de la Florida increases residents’ vulnerability. According to my survey results, 97.1% of households do not have access to drinking water except for a tank trunk, around 300 children need a kindergarten, and there are no primary health centers in the area—in fact, Soacha’s hospital has only 250 beds for 1 million people.

Altos de la Florida is regarded as an urban territory without state.[7] Urban violence increases protection risks. Informality combined with the settlement’s geostrategic position, and the absence of local authorities makes the neighborhood a strategic location for nonstate armed actors. According to Forensis data, the homicide index in Soacha was 40.58 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2016, the highest in the department of Cundinamarca. The profile of victims follows a common pattern seen in other urban contexts in Latin America: 91.5% are men, and 44.3% are between 20 and 29 years old. Interpersonal violence also represents a significant challenge with 2,898 cases per year, the fourth highest behind the cities of Medellin, Cali, and Barranquilla.

The lack of political will, the structural vulnerabilities of communities in informal urban areas, and high levels of insecurity are the causes of new urban displacements, both intra- and inter-urban. Re-victimization and re-displacement are the two main characteristics of this vicious cycle. Intra-urban displacement is the victimizing event with the greatest impact on the urban dynamics of the conflict in Colombia.[8] Urban IDPs are forced to flee their informal settlements due to violence, only to arrive in other settlements with similar protection risks. Informal settlements are therefore at once expelling zones and arrival areas for displaced populations. In socially and spatially segregated Altos de la Florida, IDPs represent 30%–40% of the population.

A man in Altos de la Florida building a brick house.

Promoting Community Participation

Humanitarian, development, and peace actors have increased their interest in urban contexts in recent years. Despite increasing knowledge, though, a lack of experience and challenges inherent to urban settings continue to undermine humanitarian and development interventions. International humanitarian aid began in 2001, when World Vision International established a presence in Colombia. In 2006 UN agencies and the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) started their intervention. Particularly interesting was the UN Human Security Program (2010–12) and the UN Transitional Solutions Initiative (TSI) project (2012–16).

In the settlements, a protracted and supply-driven emergency response has caused people to become dependent on external aid. Emergency assistance is an essential form of humanitarian aid, mainly for displaced families, but protracted aid can discourage community participation and increase the gap between assistance and development. According to one development worker operating in the neighborhood, to avoid creating dependency, “it is necessary to promote sustainable public policy solutions and the participation of IDPs in the political, economic, and social life of the host community.”[9]

The dependency of community leaders on humanitarian assistance also undermines social cohesion in the neighborhood. Limited consultation and lack of coordination decreases the effectiveness of the intervention. Past project evaluations have found that “international cooperation is insufficient and requires the integral intervention of the State.”[10] Therefore, achieving a durable solution for urban displacement requires closer collaboration between the humanitarian sector and local authorities, along with strong political will at both the local and national levels.

Resilience Spaces as a Protective Approach

In urban informal settlements, humanitarian, development, and peace actors must work in a weakened and less cohesive social engagement environment, exacerbated by sporadic violence. These circumstances lend themselves to short-term responses and silo-approaches to deal with emergencies, further increasing dependence among the communities that receive support. Poorly integrated responses have limited capacity to address complex urban crises. Cooperation between humanitarian and development actors and engagement with national and local actors are essential, given the potentially limited capacity and political will of certain municipalities.

The protracted vulnerability of urban IDPs and host communities in informal urban contexts has revealed the need for real change in humanitarian aid, particularly as fragile situations are exacerbated by urban violence. Protracted urban displacement requires better connectivity between humanitarian and development efforts, and the needs of IDPs should be balanced with those of the host communities. Current debates show a growing consensus around new and comprehensive approaches. To face the challenges of protracted urban displacement, interventions must go beyond immediate humanitarian needs and should aim to reduce the vulnerabilities of both IDPs and local host communities.

Humanitarian aid should be committed to not only ensuring survival but also supporting people to live in dignity. “Resilience spaces” were developed as a complementarity approach in the UNHCR’s Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas (2009), combining assistance and recovery by not only addressing urgent needs but also strengthening local capacities. The framework combines a top-down protection approach with a bottom-up capacity building approach through three areas of intervention: creating education, economic, and labor opportunities; strengthening social cohesion; and, supporting leadership capacities.

Such resilience spaces have been set up in Altos de la Florida, resulting in the creation of two important grassroots organizations in the informal settlement: Comité de Impulso, a fortnightly meeting among community leaders, dwellers, IDP associations, and humanitarians; and Florida Juvenil, a youth community organization engaged in break-dance, theater, and football activities.

Resilience has emerged as one of the strongest responses to the humanitarian and development divide. In Altos de la Florida, the joint work of humanitarian and development actors, in collaboration with national and local counterparts, aims to achieve collective results in the short to medium term (three to five years) to reduce risk and vulnerability. The situation in Altos de la Florida features three criteria that are on the rise in modern humanitarianism and deemed essential in urban responses to displacement: complementarity, connectivity, and sustainability.

A youth theater group supported by Fe y Alegría in Altos de Florida.

In Altos de la Florida, international actors strengthened rather than replaced local and national systems. The complementariness of response included collaboration with local and national aid providers in affected territories, empowerment of leaders of both local and national NGOs and community-based organizations, as well as inclusion of authorities and municipalities at the urban level. Going beyond complementarity, connectivity can not only to bridge the humanitarian-development divide but also incorporate approaches like resilience, which is key to strengthening local capacities. Sustainability, evident through positive long-term results for the supported individuals and societies, depends directly on this capacity for collaboration among the actors and the strengthening of local and national capacities.

Currently, there is consensus in the humanitarian community that in urban contexts populations can be protected by strengthening their capacity. In this sense, humanitarian action has a particular and perhaps unique role in protecting the population through strategies that allow people to build their resilience. Resilience approaches bridge lingering disparities and disconnections between humanitarian and development responses in urban interventions. The approach observed in Altos de la Florida helps better articulate an urban response around the construction of resilience as an instrument of protection. This protection, in turn, represents a comprehensive strategy to address the root causes of urban displacement.

Resilience space in Altos de la Florida supported by the Jesuit Refugee Service.

[1] IDMC (2019), ‘Global Report on Internal Displacement 2019’, IDMC, p. 44, https://bit.ly/2WNKeKQ.

[2] CNMH (2010), ‘Una nación desplazada. Informe nacional del desplazamiento forzado en Colombia,’ CNMH and UARIV, p. 38, https://bit.ly/29uyNzv.

[3] IDMC (2015), ‘Global Overview 2015. People internally displaced by conflict and violence,’ IDMC, p. 20, https://bit.ly/2TSq3ZK.

[4] This part of the project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 691060.

[5] UNDP (2010), ‘Política Pública de Desarrollo Social Incluyente. Municipio de Soacha,’ UNDP.

[6] UNHCR and UNDP (2017), ‘Documentación proceso de integración local comunidad Altos de la Florida, Soacha,’ UNHCR and UNDP, https://bit.ly/2SQ0vgc.

[7] Laura Tedesco (2007), ‘El Estado en América Latina ¿fallido o en proceso de formación?’ Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior, Vol 37.

[8] CODHES (2013), ‘Desplazamiento forzado intraurbano y soluciones duraderas,’ CODHES, p. 18, https://bit.ly/2EEfmpf.

[9] Interview, April 4, 2016, with a UNDP TSI coordinator in Soacha.

[10] Econometría Consultores (2016), ‘Evaluación externa del programa “Construyendo Soluciones Sostenibles-TSI,”’ Econometría S.A., p. 19.

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

Seventh “Voices” Booklet Now Online and in Print

April 22, 2020

Voices Vol.7 (7.1MB.)

The Sylff Association secretariat is pleased to announce the publication of the seventh edition of Voices from the Sylff Community as a PDF file and in print format.

The latest edition contains 25 articles uploaded on the Sylff website between June 2018 and October 2019. Eighteen were submitted by the awardees of various support programs. They offer valuable hints on how the awards can be used to further fellows’ research and social engagement activities. You will also find reports, including many photos, of the 25th anniversary ceremonies and related events at nine universities in China. Rounding out the booklet are two pages of photos featuring the many outstanding fellows whom members of the Sylff Association secretariat met in 2018-19.

The booklet can be downloaded as a PDF file here.

We Want to Hear Your “Voice”

We are always eager to learn about the academic achievements and social intiatives of all fellows. Please send your contributions to the Sylff Association secretariat (sylff [a]tkfd.or.jp) to be shared through the Sylff website and Voices booklet. (replace [a] with @).

Guidelines for writing a Voices article can be downloaded here.

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Voices from the Sylff Community
April 2020, Vol. 7

CONTENTS

Sylff Support Programs: Sylff Project Grant (SPG)
Developing an Inclusive Distribution Model	Yutaka Tokushima	Keio University
Making a Significant Difference to Early Childhood Development in South Africa	Louis Benjamin	University of the Western Cape
Sylff Support Programs: Sylff Leaders Workshop
[Report] Fall Session of Sylff Leaders Workshop 2018–19	Keita Sugai	Sylff Association Secretariat
Holistic and Empirical Approaches to Ensuring Food Security	Nuruddeen Mohammed Suleiman	University of Malaya
An Amazing Experience in Effective Teamworking and Accountable Leadership	Nermeen Varawalla	INSEAD, The Business School for the World
Sylff Leaders Workshop: Not Only a Global Partnership but a Global Friendship	Anna Plater-Zyberk	Jagiellonian University
Designing Food for the Future	Kabira Namit	Princeton University
Thoughts Regarding Local Foods	Nomingerel Davaadorj	National Academy of Governance
A Journey in the Land of the Rising Sun	Ayo Chan	Peking University
Sylff Support Programs: Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI)
Carceral Logics and Social Justice: Women Prisoners in India	Rimple Mehta	Jadavpur University
Catalyzing Cultural Revitalization in Western Province, Solomon Islands	Joe McCarter	Victoria University of Wellington
Sylff Support Programs: Sylff Research Abroad (SRA)
Political Reconciliation in Postcolonial Ghana	Frank Afari	Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies
Listen to Your Uber Driver: A Comment on the Economic and Emotional Vulnerability of Uber’s Silent Partner	Emma McDaid	UNSW Business School
Beyond the Treasures? Beyond the Nation? Museum Representations of Thracian Heritage from Bulgaria	Ivo Strahilov	Sofia University “St.Kliment Ohridski”
Sylff Support Programs: Local Association Networking Support (LANS）
JU-SYLFF LANS Meet 2019	Amrita Mukherjee, Sreerupa Bhattacharya, Moitrayee Sengupta, Sawon Chakraborty, Sudeshna Dutta, Sujaan Mukherjee	Jadavpur University
Program Report on the LANS Meeting	Luisa Alejandra Gonzalez Barajas	El Colegio de Mexico
Sylff Fellows as Agents of Change	Socrates Kraido Majune	University of Nairobi
The 2018 Inaugural Sylff Fellows Networking Event in Auckland, New Zealand	Tess Bartlett	Massey University
Across the Community
Potters’ Locality: The Socioeconomics of Bankura’s Terracotta	Soumya Bhowmick	Jadavpur University
Toward an International Academic Career	Mihoko Sakurai	Keio University
Dr. Yohei Sasakawa: An Inspiration to All	Joyashree Roy	Jadavpur University
Sylff’s Silver Jubilee in China
Milestone Administrators Meeting in Beijing	Yue Zhang	Sylff Association Secretariat
25th Anniversary Ceremony and Commemorative Symposium	Yue Zhang	Sylff Association Secretariat
Four Universities Celebrate 25th Anniversary	Yue Zhang	Sylff Association Secretariat
Four Universities Celebrate 25th Anniversary in 2019	Yue Zhang	Sylff Association Secretariat
Appendix: Support Program Awardees in 2018-19
2018-19 in Pictures: Leaders with a Mission

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

The State and the Rights of Individuals: Pursuing Research at the Graduate Institute Geneva

April 16, 2020
By 25314

Using an SRA grant, Benedikt Behlert spent four months from September 2019 to January 2020 as a junior visiting fellow at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland, which proved to be highly beneficial for his PhD project on the administrative procedures required to protect human rights.

* * *

My PhD project on “The Necessity of a Conversation between the Administration and the Individual: The Relevance of Procedure to International Human Rights” asks the question whether international human rights law requires states to have in place structured decision-making procedures for their administrative bodies. Such procedures are often perceived as a nuisance by the two sides involved—the administration and the individual confronted with it—and as an unwelcome hurdle in reaching their objectives.

The Maison de la Paix, home of the Graduate Institute Geneva.

This perception clouds the value of administrative procedure, however, which can protect individual rights against arbitrary state action. This protective potential is realized first and foremost by involving the individual in the decision-making process, such as by granting them a right to be heard and requiring reasons for a negative decision. This is the insight from which my normative analysis of international human rights law commences.

The different ways in which individuals are potentially confronted by administrative bodies are numerous. Beyond “everyday encounters,” such as when an individual applies for a permit, there are complex and sensitive human-rights issues like the ongoing “migration crisis” that highlight the relevance of this inquiry.

What does international human rights law say about the relevance of procedures for the protection of the rights of migrants and refugees? Does it require institutionalized procedures to examine whether a person’s claim for asylum is well-founded? What should such procedures look like? A thorough understanding of the general relationship between the laws governing international human rights and administrative procedures should help answer such questions about specific encounters between state administrations and individuals.

Comparison with Constitutional Rights

One chapter of my thesis draws inspiration from German constitutional law, in particular, the German doctrine of constitutional rights. The connection between administrative procedure and German constitutional rights has been discussed for more than 40 years. The ideas and arguments found in this discourse are by now well-developed, and given the striking structural and substantial similarities, they might provide valuable insights for human-rights-based arguments.

The goal of this comparative exercise was to learn something about the structure and nature of international human rights law, which will inform the subsequent part of my thesis where I try to construct an international-human-rights-law-based argument in favor of procedural rights and obligations.

However, looking for inspiration from one’s own jurisdiction carries a certain risk for the international lawyer. The outcome of research may be too heavily influenced by one’s own background and thus irrelevant to the international legal discourse. In order to avoid falling into this trap, I decided to write the part of my thesis focusing on the similarities and differences between constitutional rights and international human rights in a highly international research environment.

I had the great honor of spending four months at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva as a junior visiting fellow. With its very diverse faculty and even more diverse student body, the Graduate Institute Geneva—also a Sylff institution—was just the right place for me to get the inspiration and critical feedback I needed.

The view from my workplace at the Graduate Institute Geneva.

The Benefits of an International Research Environment

I reviewed pertinent German constitutional law literature and international human rights law literature during my stay. The vast number of resources available at the Graduate Institute and its library were a great help. Most importantly, however, I had the chance to talk to researchers at various levels—PhDs, postdocs, and professors—from different disciplinary and national backgrounds, both informally and in more formal settings. Everyone at the International Law Department was extremely welcoming and helpful. In numerous talks with members of the world-renowned faculty and fellow PhD students, I received valuable input.

Furthermore, I gave a presentation in a roundtable session at the International Law Department, which was followed by an engaging and stimulating discussion. Not only did all these talks enable me to think about the German ideas more critically, but they also helped me to find more effective ways to present my findings to an international audience, which is the eventual target of my thesis.

Beyond the direct benefits for my research, my time as a junior visiting fellow at the Graduate Institute helped to broaden my horizon more generally. Almost every day, a high-level event with leading figures of international politics took place in the grand auditorium, exposing me to many interesting and informed analyses of current issues and crises. The junior visiting fellowship thus enabled me to better perceive my research within the bigger picture of international studies. Finally, the support which the International Law Department and the visiting fellows office provided was outstanding, very personal, and made my stay comfortable and easy.

Being a junior visiting fellow at the Graduate Institute Geneva was a splendid experience. I am certain that my thesis will reflect the inspiration and input I received during my stay. I am immensely grateful to the Sylff Association for funding my stay in Geneva with a generous SRA award, and I can only encourage other fellows who have not done so to make use of the extraordinary opportunities the Sylff Association provides!

Jonction, the place in Geneva where the Rhône and the Arve meet.

Behlert's related article "Forced Migration in Transition: Perspectives from Social Science and Law" can be read at www.sylff.org/news_voices/27466/.

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

Insights into the Dynamics of Diplomacy in the Future

April 14, 2020
By 19817

Didzis Kļaviņš, a Sylff fellowship recipient in 2012, is a senior researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Advanced Social and Political Research Institute, University of Latvia. He is currently conducting a research project on the transformation of diplomacy in the Baltic and Nordic countries. The aim of the comparative research is to analyze the nature of the changes in the ministries of foreign affairs in six countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland. In this article, Kļaviņš shares a number of observations from his ongoing post-doctoral research project.

* * *

During the last two decades, changes in diplomacy have been widely observed. Commercial diplomacy, digital diplomacy, and city diplomacy are just some of the types of diplomacy that characterize the scale and variety of changes. Although sometimes it may seem as though diplomacy—as an instrument of foreign policy and diplomatic practice—has accordingly experienced significant changes or is experiencing them right now, diplomacy development trends in recent years prove that the largest changes are still to be expected. The issue is related with the readiness of each country and its ability to adapt to such changes. By taking the multifaceted nature of international relations and unpredictability into account, this article aims to raise some of the main issues in diplomacy, the meaning of which will continue to grow and require increased attention in the coming years.

Photo of Denmark's Tech Ambassador visiting the United Nations Headquarters.

New Technologies and Artificial Intelligence

Undeniably, in the future, new solutions in technology and communications will significantly change the nature of diplomatic communication. Operativity in the circulation of information and the availability thereof will change the dynamics of diplomatic work by requesting an even faster response on the part of foreign affairs services. More attention will also be paid to the selection of information and the verification of facts by using the newest technological solutions. Moreover, the integration of the information technology (IT) infrastructure of foreign affairs services with the IT systems of other governmental institutions will be one of the most current issues. There is no doubt that the introduction of new technological and communication solutions in each and every ministry of foreign affairs (MFA) will require large investments of financial means in comparison to the benefits acquired by society from the use of such technologies in foreign affairs.

Significant changes in MFAs will be determined by the solutions of artificial intelligence, which are now enjoying their victory procession in the field of technologies and which are used more and more in the improvement of public administration work. It may be that in the coming years, the use of AI in foreign affairs will significantly affect the work of diplomatic and consular services. Already now, the solutions offered by artificial intelligence indicate that changes will be revolutionary. Machine learning, neural networks, virtual assistants, and chatbots will not be unknown in diplomacy, a prediction that is backed by the research published and forecasts expressed during recent years. Thanks to innovative methods and algorithms that efficiently process large amounts of data and ensure significantly high speed, one of the main benefits of AI will be the automation of processes. Although for the time being AI hardly appears on the agenda of foreign policy as indicated by Ben Scott, Stefan Heumann, and Philippe Lorenz (2018), this situation will rapidly change in the very near future, and AI will become one of the central themes in the creation of foreign policy, including the modernization of diplomatic practice.

Bearing in mind the current development of artificial intelligence, it is important not to postpone looking at the issues of how it might be possible to better integrate AI with the needs of the MFAs.

It is also quite possible that many countries will begin by using AI solutions for the needs of the consular service, commercial diplomacy, and public diplomacy. Examples include the provision of information regarding the work of the consular service, help in emergency situations abroad, safe travel, export possibilities abroad, and the formation of the state image via a virtual assistant or chatbot. The possibility cannot be excluded that AI solutions will be used in the management of crises. In general, the rapid development of technologies and diverse innovations will require a more operative response and operation of the MFAs. It will mean in turn that the possibilities of communication technologies will allow society and mass media to request even faster and more decisive foreign policy actions from the ministries and governments in general, including more operative activities by the foreign affairs services.

The Significance of Diplomacy in Public Administration

Although nowadays more or less every government ministry and agency directly cooperates with other public administration institutions, it is predicted that in the future even more involvement in the coordination of foreign policy issues and involvement of other state institutions in solving external issues will be expected from every MFA (Rana 2011; Hocking, Melissen, Riordan, and Sharp 2012, 2013). With regard to the provision of support to other state institutions, great importance will be given to the use of the “whole of government” approach (WGA) in the formation of international issues and administering of public administration. It for the MFA to no longer perform the “gatekeeper” role between foreign policy and interior policy and to become a support institution or a platform for other public administration institutions instead. The types of support may vary from the coordination of interinstitutional issues to servicing all government institutions. Tom Christensen and Per Lægreid (2007) are just two of the well-known WGA researchers who underline the significance of horizontal coordination. In the future, many MFAs are expected to focus on coordinating foreign policy issues between the institutions involved; this is in line with the nature of the national diplomatic system, namely, the MFA as a part of the wider governmental system in the implementation and coordination of foreign policy issues (Rana 2011; Hocking, Melissen, Riordan, and Sharp 2012, 2013; Hocking and Melissen 2015; Hocking 2016, 75).

Dynamics of Change in Diplomatic Representations

Looking at the possible development of diplomacy, it may be predicted that employees in diplomatic missions abroad will have to deal with wider themes—for example, use of the newest communication technologies in the creation of the country’s image, use of artificial intelligence in the promotion of national competitiveness, and the formation of science and innovation diplomacy—which means acquiring new and diverse knowledge. Emphasis will also be placed on the implementation of WGA, which in turn means that employees from other ministries and agencies will be working more and more in embassies and other representations. It may be further predicted that the functions of ambassadors will become broader, because they must also support the activities and operations of the representatives of other institutions in the host country along with new agenda issues in foreign affairs. According to Kishan S. Rana (2011, 136), an ambassador will fulfill the role of the leader of the state team abroad. There is no doubt that diplomats abroad will have to be even more involved in the creation of the country’s image by using innovative communication solutions, including AI technologies.

The importance of public diplomacy will also become more topical. Along with the foregoing, diplomatic services will be required to promote economic and commercial diplomacy even more. In order to be able to promote export growth and attract investments, the MFAs will be forced to more actively use the accrued contacts and communication with representatives of the diaspora. The study by Ieva Birka and Didzis Kļaviņš (2019) on the role of diaspora diplomacy in the Baltic and Nordic countries is a good example of the importance of dialogue with diaspora communities abroad, including launching initiatives for growth and export purposes. It is predicted that in the future, all abovementioned activities of the diplomatic service will be more deeply integrated with the model for performance management and activity reporting.

In Conclusion

By projecting the transformation of diplomatic practice in the coming years, it may be predicted that, in general, diplomacy that includes a variety of themes and functions—which is described as integrative diplomacy in the literature—will become dominant (Hocking, Melissen, Riordan, and Sharp 2012). Demand for the proactive service of foreign affairs and the implementation of WGA will promote structural and functional changes in the MFAs of many countries. Taking into account the fact that services will become even broader, it cannot be denied that one of the innovations could be the establishment of more and more specialized ambassadorial positions (for example, the designation of Tech Ambassador in Denmark). It may also be predicted that more external experts will be attracted to the field of strategic communications and creation of the country’s image.

Since September 2017, Casper Klynge is the first Tech Ambassador in Denmark and the world to be spearheading the government’s decision to elevate technology to a foreign policy priority as part of the Danish “TechPlomacy” initiative. (Photo courtesy of the Office of Denmark’s Tech Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark)

References

Scott, Ben, Stefan Heumann, and Philippe Lorenz. 2018. Artificial Intelligence and Foreign Policy. Berlin: Stiftung Neue Verantwortung.

Rana, Kishan S. 2011. 21st Century Diplomacy: A Practitioner’s Guide. London: Continuum, 2011.

Hocking, Brian, Jan Melissen, Shaun Riordan, and Paul Sharp. 2012. “Futures for Diplomacy: Integrative Diplomacy in the 21st Century,” Clingendael Report 1: 1-79.

Hocking, Brian, Jan Melissen, Shaun Riordan, and Paul Sharp. 2013. “Whither Foreign Ministries in a Post-Western World?” Clingendael Policy Brief 20: 1-7.

Christensen, Tom, and Per Lægreid. 2007. “The Whole-of-Government Approach to Public Sector Reform,” Public Administration Review 67 (6): 1059–1066, doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2007.00797.

Hocking, Brian, and Jan Melissen. 2015. “Diplomacy in the Digital Age,” Clingendael Report: 1-58.

Hocking, Brian. 2016. “Diplomacy and Foreign Policy.” In The SAGE Handbook of Diplomacy, edited by Costas M. Constantinou, Pauline Kerr, and Paul Sharp, 67-78. London: SAGE.

Birka, Ieva, and Didzis Kļaviņš. 2019. “Diaspora Diplomacy: Nordic and Baltic Perspective,” Diaspora Studies, Epub ahead of print, doi.org/ 10.1080/09739572.2019.1693861.

Note: This work was supported by the European Regional Development Fund project “Post-doctoral Research Aid,” project title “Comparative research on foreign ministries in Baltic States and Nordic Countries (2012–2015),” research application Nr. 1.1.1.2/VIAA/1/16/082 and research agreement Nr. 1.1.1.2/16/I/001.

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

Support Programs and COVID-19

April 6, 2020

The Sylff Association Secretariat is deeply concerned about the alarming spread of COVID-19, declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. We are also concerned about fellows who are engaged in or have been selected for funding to undertake activities under a Sylff Support Program, as well as those planning to apply in fiscal 2020 (April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021). We intend to minimize the potential impact of the coronavirus to Support Program participants and candidates by adopting a flexible approach, as outlined below.

Current Participants of a Support Program

If the current situation prevents you from completing your activities as proposed under any Support Program, either partially or entirely, please contact sylff[at]tkfd.or.jp (replace [at] with @) to share details and discuss ways to deal with the situation.

If You Are Thinking of Applying

Sylff Research Abroad (SRA)

We plan to conduct two selections rounds in fiscal 2020, but we are postponing our announcement due to uncertainty caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Please check our website and our Sylff News updates for announcements on when we will begin accepting SRA applications.

Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI)

If you submit an SLI application after April 1, 2020, and are selected for a grant but cannot complete your project, either partially or entirely, please consult with the Sylff Association Secretariat. Projects may be postponed for up to one year from the original implementation date. If this deadline cannot be met, we will ask the SLI fellow to terminate the project for the time being and settle the project budget. If an opportunity to carry out the original plan appears at a later date, we will, as an exception, accept a reapplication and consider funding the project under a new plan.

Sylff Project Grant (SPG)

Screening of SPG applications after April 1, 2020, may be delayed due to factors that could make implementation of the SPG proposal impossible. If the review is cancelled, applicants will be asked to submit a new application with a reorganized plan and schedule when the COVID-19 situation stabilizes.

Local Association Networking Support (LANS)

A LANS application submitted after April 1, 2020, will be duly reviewed and accepted if it meets LANS requirements. However, LANS organizers may need to reschedule or cancel their plans during fiscal 2020. We will accommodate postponements of events up to March 31, 2022 (end of fiscal 2021). LANS organizers may retain the budget disbursed by the Secretariat up to this date, but we may need to reexamine the amount awarded to account for any changes in the number and locations of participants.

We want to help fellows make the most of the Support Programs even at this difficult time. Please note, though, that there may be delays in reviewing your applications, including for Support Programs not cited above. We ask for your understanding and hope you’ll keep posted of updates.

Contact sylff[at]tkfd.or.jp (replace [at] by @) if you have any questions or concerns.

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

Empirical Research on Financial Crowdfunding at a Leading Research Organization for Alternative Finance

March 31, 2020
By 26667

Wanxiang Cai, who received a Sylff fellowship at Chongqing University in 2016 is currently enrolled in a PhD course at the School of Economics, Utrecht University, Netherlands. His research area is entrepreneurship. Using an SRA award, he visited the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, a leading research center in the field of fintech.

* * *

In recent years, crowdfunding has emerged as a source of online entrepreneurial finance. Although crowdfunding has attracted the attention of both researchers and policymakers, as an emerging form of entrepreneurial finance, we still have very limited information about its global pattern. My PhD research is about the governance of financial crowdfunding, and I suggest it is important to analyze the relationship among social capital, legal institutions, and financial crowdfunding at the macro (national), meso (platform), and micro (campaign) levels. It is essential for me to collect data about financial crowdfunding at the platform and national levels to finish my thesis.

Kings College of the University of Cambridge.

The Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) is a leading research center in the field of fintech. It publishes several international industry reports every year. The center collects data from more than 1,000 fintech companies around the world and provides information about the development of the alternative finance market in different countries. These reports are the most comprehensive publications in this field and have been extensively cited in academic papers. Furthermore, the CCAF has established favorable relationships with policymakers around the world, including the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in Britain, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the World Bank. Thus, visiting the CCAF can not only help me collect essential data for my research, but also offer me a chance to have a deeper understanding of the industry and get more great insights from policymakers.

The author, left, with several members of the benchmarking report project.

After communicating with Tania Ziegler, the lead in Global Benchmarking at the CCAF, we reached the agreement that I would visit the CCAF and help them write the global benchmarking report, and in return, they would provide me with their survey data for my research. Furthermore, they would also give me a chance to discuss my research with several senior researchers at the University of Cambridge, including Professor Raghavendra Rau, who has a very high reputation in finance. Thanks to Sylff Research Aboard, I had the chance to visit the University of Cambridge and had a great time at the CCAF.

The Mathematical Bridge at the University of Cambridge.

I started my visits on September 1, 2019. I was shocked by the beauty of the city and the sacredness of the university. It was always sunny during my first two weeks in Cambridge, which is unusual in Britain, as it rains all the time. Several colleges are scattered along the banks of the River Cam, including Trinity College, where Issac Newton studied hundreds of years ago. An enormous number of visitors walked along the river, while the students in Cambridge shared with them the glories of the university, such as its history, famous alumni, and recent academic outcomes. These students looked very confident and felt so proud of their university, making me eager to start my research at Cambridge.

I began my research immediately. The first thing that I had to do was to collect data from a vast number of alternative finance platforms. The annual alternative finance report is based on these survey data. Thus, I contacted the founders of the platforms to see whether they were willing to get involved in our research. We collected data from more than 1,600 platforms around the world. Then we summarized how the market volume had changed over the last few years in major countries, as well as platform owners’ opinions about potential risks and regulatory changes. Based on this data, we also provided some preliminary analyses of what affects the growth of the alternative finance market. For example, we found a significant relationship between proper legal protections and the development of the alternative finance market. The information obtained in this way helps me to gain a deeper understanding of the global alternative finance market and is beneficial to my future research.

Meanwhile, I enrolled in an online course called Fintech and Regulatory Innovation. Through this course, I have gained new knowledge about fintech, especially from a regulatory perspective. More importantly, other students in this course are policymakers from around the world. During their discussions, I learned enormously from them. All the students come from central banks or other financial institutions, and they have great insights about the governance of fintech. They not only showed their expertise and experiences in the fintech topics but also raised questions about the future development of the market and potential research on these topics.

In addition to the above, we have discussed my research with several researchers. I have discussed one of my current papers with Wanxin Wang, a PhD candidate at Imperial College London. She also studies the topic of crowdfunding, and in fact, my paper is built on her recent paper published in a top journal. Her paper shares many similarities with mine, and she provided me with several suggestions for my research. I have also talked extensively with Dr. Rui Hao. She is very interested in my research, and she also helped me get a chance to interview policymakers worldwide. We decided to work together on a research project about how the regulations on equity crowdfunding will change. Unlike traditional entrepreneurial finance (e.g., venture capital and business angels), crowdfunding mainly consists of small investors who have limited knowledge about finance and investments, making it difficult to make proper regulations on financial crowdfunding. On one hand, overly strict legal protections on investors may harm small firms and entrepreneurial initiatives. On the other hand, legal protections can resolve extensive information asymmetry between investors and entrepreneurs. Thus, we have decided to conduct interviews on dozens of policymakers around the world. Using qualitative research methods, we would like to study how the regulations on financial crowdfunding will develop in the future.

Lastly, I conducted a study about how equity crowdfunding affects traditional entrepreneur finance. As an emerging form of entrepreneurial finance, we know less about the influence of equity crowdfunding compared to traditional entrepreneurial finance. First, equity crowdfunding may substitute traditional forms of entrepreneurial finance, such as venture capital, business angels, and private equity. Alternative, it may compensate traditional entrepreneurial finance, as it mainly supports small companies. This study contributes to my PhD research, as it explores under which legal conditions equity crowdfunding can contribute to the development of traditional entrepreneurial finance. Using the data from the CCAF and other databases, I have done some preliminary analyses. I have also discussed the idea and methods with Professor Raghavendra Rau. He gave me several comments, and I am improving this paper based his useful input.

In a nutshell, I have benefited extensively from this visiting. I have made friends, shared my research, got feedback, and gained a deeper understanding of my research. I appreciate that the Sylff Association has provided me with the scholarship to support my research at the CCAF. I am confident that other scholarship winners will also benefit from the Sylff.

Christmas dinner at the CCAF.

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投稿者 : ld-sylff

The Greenhouse Enterprise

March 31, 2020
By 19669

Sylff fellow Sennane Gatakaa Riungu implemented a project to empower a local community in Kenya with funding from Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI). The project seeks to provide capacity building and agribusiness training for community members in Maara constituency, Kenya Riungu’s home community—to equip them with the tools and information needed to develop agricultural business enterprises. Aside from her professional work, Riungu has been engaged in empowering her home community with others for over 10 years by utilizing her vast networks outside the community. The result of the project found both great outcomes and challenges to be addressed to fulfill a long-term goal.

* * *

In the words of Simon Winter, Senior Vice President of a non-profit organization for development: “If we’re serious about ending poverty and feeding a growing planet, it’s imperative that we focus on the 2 billion people who live and work on small farms in the developing world. Often, the best way to support these smallholders has less to do with things they can do to improve their farms and more to do with the systems in which they operate.

“What happens at the farm level is important, and farmers need access to knowledge that enhance productivity inputs and tools. But to create sustainable growth in agricultural industries, that can provide opportunities for increasing economic benefits for farmers now and in the future, we need to take a broader approach to development that targets the entire market system.” ( “Beyond the farm: Promoting agribusiness as a way out of poverty,” The Guardian, February 1, 2013) https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/feb/01/agribusiness-mozambique-cashew-farming

The Roots

Hailing from a community whose largest population depends on peasant farming for their livelihoods, I had a question that lingered in my mind continually: how can what is described by Winter and myriad other like-minded scholars become a reality? Maara is a constituency located in Tharaka Nithi County in the Eastern side of Kenya. Maara as a constituency has a population of approximately 78,000 per the 2009 census. Whereas the upper part of the constituency enjoys favorable climatic conditions, being on the windward side of Mount Kenya, the larger population engages in small-scale subsistence farming that yields only enough produce for household consumption. The majority of the constituents are unfamiliar with the agribusiness concept, which could make a big difference in their household income and improve their socioeconomic status if well applied.

Map of Maara constituency. It is one of the three constituencies in Tharaka-Nithi County

A view of Maara Constituency, Kenya.

Given the community’s physical location, the agrarian nature of its economy, and the educational levels of most of its population, I researched slowly and grew convinced that creating an agricultural business model that incorporates most members of the community will go a long way in assisting the community members in this area to overcome some of the major economic challenges that they currently bear—mainly poverty—and bring a new dawn of sustainable economic empowerment for them.

Prospects and Action

Together with some of the colleagues with whom I had seen the birthing of the Makuri Development Forum (MDF), a community based welfare organization based in Maara Constituency in 2013–2014 and a brainchild of a conference funded by Sylff Leadership Initiatives), we formulated the concept of providing a practical avenue through which some of the community members would gain knowledge and learn practical skills in agribusiness. The goal of the project is to provide a practical avenue for an agricultural enterprise model where community members can train and build capacity on agribusiness-related concepts with the long-term objective of establishing a sustainable agricultural enterprise hub for the younger generation in Maara constituency. Overall, the project aims at economically empowering the constituents in Maara constituency through agribusiness.

With the above focus in mind, we formulated a double-edged approach: On the one hand, members of the development forum who are connected with other community development organizations would attend an educational workshop that can provide them with relevant information on agribusiness as an economic enterprise. On the other hand, it was expected that a self-sustaining model of greenhouse farming as an example of a functional agribusiness enterprise would be set up within proximity of the community for all interested members to access and have a hands-on experience in this regard.

It has often been stated that most developing countries have a weak culture of entrepreneurship. To assist us in demystifying this myth, I contacted the proprietors at the East Africa Seed Company (EASEED), which has been successfully running agribusiness-related enterprises in Kenya for over 40 years. Fortunately the company’s director, Mr. Jitendra Shah, and co-director, Ms. Nima Shah, were willing to take on the risk of spreading their wings further to encompass the training element of local potential entrepreneurs in my community. Through the director and as part of their corporate social responsibility, EASEED has a goal of training at least 10,000 youths across the country on agribusiness-related enterprises. The Makuri Development Forum members were able to benefit greatly from this venture through a one-day training held on July 13, 2019. The agronomists from EASEED engaged gainfully with at least 60 members of the community-based forum. The company has further pledged to continue providing seeds and related farm inputs at subsidized costs to interested participating members and groups in the community.

The training session held in July 2019.

A greenhouse set up in the project for practical training.

Following the successful training session, the gained skills were expected to be put to practical use. The community development forum engaged PHFAMS Africa, a professional horticultural farms advisory and management services organization, to conduct the construction of the greenhouse. The greenhouse was set up within weeks of the training session, and the first seedlings of tomatoes and capsicum were transplanted within 21 days after that. The first crop is in season, as can be seen from the photographs presented below, and has delivered in bounty as expected.

The crop in season, week 2.

The crop in session, week 4.

Tomatoes as of October 2019.

Tomatoes in early November.

Tomatoes on the day of harvest.

The Output

The impact of this work is already apparent in the community, with some of the community-based organizations already gearing up to set up more greenhouses in the locality. The desired outcome is that more greenhouses will bring increased economic activities in the constituency, which will lead to revitalization of the local business sector and the broader community.

The first harvest was made on a Sunday in the presence of a visiting SLI Program Coordinator, Ms. Aya Oyamada. It was expected that the harvest from the initial crop would be sold at very reasonable costs to the members of the community. Given the intricacies of storage of a bumper first harvest, however, this was transported to the capital city of Nairobi to a wholesale buyer who purchased the entire lot in one go. This included more than 200 kg of capsicum and over 100 kg of tomatoes. Subsequent harvests have been sold to the community grocers at reasonable prices.

The demand for the produce is very high, leading to quick plans of setting up a second greenhouse in the coming months by other group members. Other nonmember constituents have also shown great interest in this model of farming. At this juncture, the initial income will go toward the maintenance of the greenhouse for subsequent crops and continued demonstrations as a continuous effort to provide any additional information or required support to the members and other interested constituents. A second training session is scheduled for March–April 2020.

With the momentum gained, it can be projected not only that the presence of agriculture-based enterprises will rise in the community but also that there will be an increase in other income-generating activities, such as the setting up of agrovets and like enterprises that will in future cater to the foreseen demand of agricultural inputs and implements in the area. This in turn will translate to better incomes for the community members and significantly improved livelihoods in every other aspect.

The author with a basket filled with capsicum.

The Challenges

As expected with these kinds of projects, some challenges have also ensued. One of the major challenges that we faced in the initial construction of the greenhouse was the negative mindset held by the community members toward crops grown in a closed setup like a greenhouse. As mentioned before, the majority of constituents have been practicing small-scale farming for subsistence use for decades. This means that they have also used traditional methods of farming, in which the yields were low and a majority of the yield was affected by disease and pests. With the greenhouse setup, the output seemed too perfect for the community members. A crop that had not been attacked by pests was perceived as almost “unsafe” for human consumption. This is a myth that we are continuing to debunk through training sessions and smart farming method demonstrations.

The other challenge that we are thinking through is the development of a constant supply of produce for the market that we have now established. Our first harvest was sold in the capital city of Nairobi, which is about three hours away from the constituency. The first wholesale buyer has been asking for more produce, as he was impressed with the first produce that he bought. On the other hand, the local market has now awaken to the availability of a good produce in the neighborhood, and most of the grocery stores are also demanding more. At the moment, we provide at least a harvest every week for the local market. This means that we have been unable to supply on wholesale to our initial client in Nairobi.

With the interest generated from the produce, we are mobilizing resources to set up more greenhouses in the community with the other members from the initial founding groups of the development forum. The constant demand is a good sign that the agribusiness concept will actually pick up and become a sustainable venture for the constituents. Our five-year plan is to be able to establish not only a sustainable client base but also sustainable production of different varieties of horticultural produce for the market. Our current challenge is therefore a positive one: grappling with the high demand for the produce. We believe that with the sustained effort, we will be able to address the foregoing challenges to establish a business model that will elevate the status of the quiet community that lies in Maara constituency.

Youth in the community working in the greenhouse.

In summary, we can safely conclude that “We just need to think and act [in and] beyond the farm.”