Power outages every day in Kampala and Tororo. Strangely enough, it’s a similar cause as the ones in Tanzania – ‘budget shortage.’ Here it’s because all the budget for electricity was spent on President Museveni’s re-election campaign. Tonight, I was drinking tea and chatting with my colleage/room mate because both our computers had ran out of batteries. Good does come out of seemingly bad happenings. The concept of “opportunity costs” pops up in the most unexpected places. In this case, […]
This morning, I woke up at 3:50 am to skype into a conference in Vancouver at UBC. I was one of the presenters at the panel for International Development Week called “A Day in the Life of the International Humanitarian.“ The theme was a ‘typical day’ of my work (and the 5 other presenters). Just the thought of a ‘typical day’ is quite interesting because the things I do almost always differ from day to day. But I did my […]
Land tenure in this city is just so messed up. Coming from two places where privatised individual ownership of land is the norm, it’s really, really hard for me to get my head wrapped around how badly the land reform was done in Dar es Salaam. The fact that the urban farmers I work with don’t actually farm on legal land is old news. But I recently heard that the ferry terminal downtown is going to be teared down, because […]
One of the groups of farmers we work with farm in a controversial area – the Msimbazi Valley. In the past few months, there’s been lots of media attention on the valley, mainly due to research findings (confirmed or not depends on who you ask) about the toxicity of the water and soil. The Msimbazi Valley runs along the middle of Dar es Salaam. It’s huge, with estimates of hundreds of, maybe even a thousand, people who directly make their […]
I recently read this post http://chrisblattman.com/2010/05/12/poverty-professionals-and-poverty/ (reading the full original paper is highly recommended…it’s only 6 pages long!) I’ve had the same question in my head for a long time, especially when I was ‘out in the field’ in Uganda and Tanzania. Seeing the UN and other aid agency workers driving around in expensive 4 wheel drives compared to the people who could barely afford bus fare that they were trying to ‘help.’ There is no wonder that resentment abounds. […]
A New Turn for Corporate Social Responsibility Tiffany Tong March 5th, 2008 Introduction The nature of corporations is to maximize the bottom line regardless of social and environmental consequences, because in an extremely competitive global market, failure to do so will result in forced exit from the market. Therefore, traditionally, the enforcement of rules has been viewed as the only way to protect society and the environment; voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been viewed as mere lip service that […]
Tiffany Tong March 19th, 2008 Which Country Made the Better Choice? China and India, the two Asian powerhouses where 37% of the world population lives, have become the miracles of economic development of the modern world (Current World Population (ranked), 2007). China and India have sustained GDP growth, unmatched by any other country in the history of human kind, of 9.4% and 7% average respectively for over a decade (Dahlman, 2007). The proportion of Indians living in extreme poverty (on […]
Is Worldwide Collapse Inevitable? By Tiffany Tong Current globalization and international trade practices, which are frequently unsustainable, will only prolong a worldwide collapse, as defined by Joseph Tainter, not prevent one. According to Tainter, a collapsed society is one that “displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity[1].” Sociopolitical complexity is the differences in power structures and levels of ruling class. The indicators of a loss of sociopolitical complexity are a decrease in social stratification, economic […]
The Chinese Mercantilists Tiffany Tong November 15th, 2007 China has been growing in GDP at rates that the world has never seen before. It took China less than 10 years to double its GDP, while it took Britain 58 years, the USA 47 years, and Japan 34 years (Hou & Hou, 2002). Countries that started market reforms at the same time as China have all seen less growth (Remmer, 1998). There are many speculated reasons for this apparent disparity: in […]
3 days of field work in Bwaise (one of the largest slum areas in Kampala) life changing? a bit career changing? more like solidifying We held a focus group with youth who are school dropouts, the hopelessness in their eyes about their situation on one hand, and the beautiful smiles when talking about their interests and dreams on the other…what a contrast…what an inspiration…what a cause to work for… at the same time, I knew the passion would die down…soon
