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EARL GAST: (Applause.) Good afternoon. My name is Earl Gast. I'm the assistant administrator
for USAID's Africa Bureau.
We're very pleased today, and I have the honor of introducing the Honorable President Joyce
Banda of Malawi, who will be our keynote speaker today. She joined us yesterday and was part
of the panel, but she is our keynote speaker for today. She, as many of you know, is the
newest head of state in Africa and also happens to be the second female president of Africa.
So we're very pleased that she is joining us today to be the keynote speaker.
We had a very lively discussion with her yesterday, and I can assure you all that she has great
passion for development and for the people of Malawi. So it is with great pleasure that
I turn the stage over to the Honorable President Joyce Banda. President Banda, the stage is
yours.
PRESIDENT JOYCE BANDA: (Applause.) Thank you.
Dr. John DeGioia, president of Georgetown University; Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator
of USAID; Your Excellency Chief Justice Richard Banda, Retired; Honorable Ephraim Chiume,
minister of foreign affairs; Your Excellency Steve Matenje, ambassador to the United States;
Your Excellency Jeanine Jackson, U.S. ambassador to Malawi; distinguished ladies and gentlemen:
Good afternoon.
I would like to thank Dr. Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International
Development, and Dr. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University, for hosting this significant
gathering and for inviting me to address this gathering. I'm indeed delighted to be here
with so many eminent people representing diverse sectors and organizations, both public and
private, bringing together our competencies and experiences to address the critical issue
that will determine the way forward for our world's emerging economies.
We have gathered here at this point to discuss what we might do together to address the problems
that confront our common humanity, frontiers in development. One of the fundamental problems
that face ñhave faced Malawi is the persistent reliance on two primary products, maize and
tobacco, with little or no value adding. This has made the economy vulnerable to price fluctuations
and weather conditions.
Despite the good track record where the economy grew at an average of 7.6 percent per annum
between 2004 and 2009, Malawi has experienced deteriorating record of both political and
economic governance in the past three years. There was persistent shortage of foreign exchange,
fuel and utilities, like electricity and water, which have negatively impacted on business
and people's livelihoods.
The nation experienced poor observance of human rights and deteriorating diplomatic
relations with Malawi's neighbors and its development partners, where most of development
support was either withheld or cancelled altogether. The nation saw a growing anger and discontent
among citizens against the manner in which the country was being managed. The country
witnessed high-level corruption, patronage, threats to government critics, passing of
unpopular laws, among others.
Due to the above challenges, many businesses are either closed or scaled down, thereby
shedding off workers. The economy became unattractive to private and foreign investment due to high
taxes and unfriendly policies towards business. The government had adopted zero-deficit budget,
with punitive policy measures on its citizens and business. Spending on social programs
for poverty reduction, such as health and education, was low and constraining to poverty
reduction. All the gains that were achieved between 2004 and 2009 had reversed. The most
affected are the rural and urban poor, informal businesses and small and medium enterprises,
including women and children.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, in the midst of all this tension and despair, the
people of Malawi suddenly lost their state president, Professor Bingu Wa Muthalika, may
he so rest in peace. And I was suddenly faced with the 48-hour crisis of succession. I saw
that the people of Malawi needed hope for their future. They needed a dream. Malawi
had become the frontier that would become a star performer of the world over a failed
state.
In those 48 hours, one thing was very clear in my mind. I had taken oath in 2009 to be
the vice president of the Republic of Malawi, and I was elected. And in my oath, I had sworn
to protect and preserve the constitution of Malawi. But the constitution was also very
clear that if anything happened to the president, the vice president shall take over. And I
told myself that the job had already been given to me; I just needed to wake up, get
out of bed at 6:00 in the morning on 7th of April and take the job. (Laughter, applause.)
Thank God, our transition was peaceful, constitutional and successful. That made me reflect on the
journey that Malawians have taken for a very long time, the journey to overcome poverty,
the journey to overcome nepotism, the journey to overcome oppression, and yes, the journey
to unlock our potential as Malawians to realizes our destiny.
As a Malawian who is deeply conscious of the history and struggles of Malawians, as a Malawian
woman who knows the humiliation of Malawian women, as a Malawian who has championed the
plight of rural people, the plight of urban poor, the plight of marginalized girls and
boys, and as a Malawian human rights activist who has championed for the advancement of
the oppressed, and indeed as a Malawian diplomat who has campaigned for the Malawian people,
I can attest to the fact that the history of we Malawians is intimately intertwined
with the history of Africa and that of the world.
Martin Luther King once said, and I quote, "I have a dream," end of quote. So me too;
I have a dream. I see a Malawi where our citizens enjoy their freedom, dignity and sense of
pride. My ñ (inaudible) ñ told me that the best dreams that come true are those that
are in color. So my dream is in color, too; it's not black and white. (Laughter.) I see
Malawians maximize their capacity to realize their social, political and economic environment.
I see Malawi government eradicate poverty of its people through economic growth and
wealth creation.
I also have a dream, distinguished ladies and gentlemen. I see Malawian citizens getting
jobs not because of where they come from, but because they qualify for them. I see businesses
winning tenders not because they have bribed, not because they sponsored the ruling party,
political party, but because they qualify to deliver. I see opposition leaders being
respected. I see freedom upon our people.
And I also have a dream. I see children going to school and not spending time in their parents'
gardens during school time. I see the girl child excelling in high education like her
brother. And I see our education system delivering quality education. I see our health system
delivering quality health care. I see industrialization and commercialization in agricultural sector.
I see economic growth and wealth creation.
And yes, I also have a dream. I see fuel in our filling stations, and I see electricity
all day long. And I see clean water delivered to our people. I see young children in rural
areas playing on computers, and this is a wild dream. (Laughter.) I see industries mushrooming
across the country, and indeed, I have a dream.
So distinguished ladies and gentlemen, if anyone had told me nine or 10 weeks ago that
I would be standing here representing the Republic of Malawi and its people as their
president, I would have been astonished, in total disbelief. I am both grateful and humbled
that this task has fallen on me at this critical time in the development of Africa and Malawi
more especially.
The Malawi government seeks to do two things: one, to put Malawi back on the path of rapid,
sustainable and broad-based economic growth and development with economic opportunities
and services for all; and secondly, to build the foundation for strong, democratic and
accountable government with checks and balances on power and government that is responsible
to its people. We will espouse the values of integrity, honesty ñ (inaudible) ñ selflessness
and stewardship in our leadership whilst embracing three cornerstones of unity, equity and development.
As I've said before, the agenda of my government is to eradicate poverty of our people through
economic growth and wealth creation. This will be achieved by transforming the structure
of the economy to accelerate job creation and economic empowerment of the vulnerable
citizens within a decentralized and democratic environment.
In the past two years, Malawi experienced social and economic challenges of poor political
and economic governance. Notwithstanding, I'm proud to say that my government has put
in place measures aimed at addressing these challenges very decisively. In the short term,
we're working on a comprehensive economic recovery plan. Here, we are dealing with sustainable
monetary and fiscal policies, including foreign exchange rate adjustment and expenditure control.
The Malawi government is implementing measures to cushion the general population against
negative social-economic impacts that have arisen by floating the currency.
In the mid- to long-term, the Malawi government is focusing on establishing a fresh, more
diversified and productive economic model, which will reinstate traditional drivers of
growth that can generate foreign exchange and grow the economy. Government has decided
to promote a private sector-led economy. This will be implemented within the framework of
the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy that anchors our development policies, priorities
and strategies.
The second phase of MGDS has just been approved by my administration and will run from 2012
to 2016. The strategy isolates the following nine priorities within priorities, namely
agriculture and food security; transport infrastructure; energy, industrial development, mining and
tourism; public health, sanitation, malaria and *** and AIDS management; integrated rural
development; green-built irrigation and water development; child development, youth development
and empowerment; and finally, climate change, natural resources and environmental management.
In implementing the MGDS, the country is also able to measure its development achievements
against the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. As soon as I took office, I did not waste
time to do the ñ (inaudible). My government has taken a deliberate policy position on
the following: immediately restore the rule of law where impunity will no longer be tolerated.
In this regard, government has repealed the oppressive laws that were passed by the previous
government. Government has committed itself to resolving the issues that led to the suspension
of development support. I have immediately have constituted a commission of inquiry into
the death of Robert Chasowa, a Polytechnic student who was mysteriously found dead and
will ensure that the inquiry into the 20th July demonstrations is brought to a conclusive
end. Why did our 20 people die at the hands of broad police brutality? The commission
is on track to complete its report, and I'm schedule to receive the report later this
ñ next week. My government is committed to releasing it to the public and acting on its
findings.
We have normalized our bilateral and multilateral relations with our development partners, including
restoring relations with the United Kingdom and re-engaging the IMF. The British government
has already resumed support to Malawi. We have also normalized our bilateral relations
with the government of Mozambique. During my state visit to Mozambique a few weeks ago,
we have signed two bilateral agreements, including the resumption of the discussion on the interconnector
energy project.
My government has reopened dialogue for the reinstatement of the Millennium Challenge
Compact Account with the United States government. The MCC office is Lilongwe is now open again.
We are hopeful that the MCC board meeting later this month will reinstate the program
with Malawi. This program will give the much-needed encouragement to the private sector in the
country. The benefits of the MCC program are enormous to our energy sector.
I have also appointed the Malawi Electoral Commission commissioners from all political
parties, according to the law. The Malawi electoral commissioners are ready to start
their work. Government will continue with interparty dialogue to ensure political stability.
I have opened up the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation to cover all Malawians, including opposition
parties, and to act as a public broadcaster other than a mouthpiece for one ruling party.
I have dissolved the National Initiative in Civic Education organization under the ñ
(inaudible) ñ boards, which were illegally constituted, and government has invited fresh
nominations according to the law.
Since the passing of the late president, I received a lot of requests to institute an
investigation into the alleged coup attempt during the 48 hours after his death. By public
demand, I decided to immediately set up a commission of inquiry to investigate the circumstances,
intent and extent of the said alleged coup and put the matter to rest as a nation. The
same commission of inquiry will inquire into the death of our president, his Excellency
Bingu wa Matharika, just to find out if there's anything that we could have done to save his
life.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, as a first priority, I have launched a national austerity
drive. And since I believe that I should lead by example, I have cut back on government
expenditure through a number of ongoing measures. For example, we are selling the presidential
jet. This has been the talk this week. (Laughter, applause.) Government ministers, officials,
as will our state-owned corporations, executives will have to cut back on excesses if it has
started with me. Overseas travel shall be approved only as a matter of national necessity.
I have asked my advisers on how we can reduce the presidential motorcade to sizeable necessity.
In dealing with these social issues, I have established the Presidential Initiative on
Maternal Health and Safe Motherhood. This initiative seeks to address the gap in community
involvement; support for local leaders' involvement, especially chiefs; training health personnel,
especially nurses, midwives and community-based workers; strengthening the capacity of health
services providers, including building of holding shelters; installation of electricity
and procurement of equipment; advocate for girls' education; national and global attention
on family planning and the incubation of innovative projects, including nutrition, *** and AIDS.
To address issues of job creation, skills development, food security, crop diversification
and promotion of export value products, I have set up the Presidential Initiative on
Hunger and Poverty Reduction. Here, women and youth will be mobilized into cooperatives
and will be trained in vocational skills, given opportunity to access capital and provide
linkages to markets.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, as a nation, we need to aim more to ensure that we meet
the legitimate aspirations of the majority of our people. To achieve this, we have identified
those things that should be a development guide for Malawians over a generation. These
include enabling environment for business. We have put an end to predatory tax audits,
unfair and arbitrarily abused procedures by the Malawi Revenue Authority. Government will
review and simplify tax regime to make it more encouraging for business investment and
support job creation. Procedures for licensing, work payments and visas will be reviewed and
simplified to encourage foreign investment and tourism.
The second one is aggressive ñ an aggressive electrification and energy program. Further
to our efforts in re-engaging the MCC Account, where Malawi will restructure the energy sector,
the government has reopened negotiations with the World Bank and the Mozambican government
on the interconnection to the Mozambique power grid, which will provide a mid-term solution
to our power challenges. Government encourages independent power procedures to invest in
various opportunities that the country has, including solar, wind, biomass and hydro.
In particular, government is exploring to engage a strategic investor to drive our energy
sector.
The third one is increased exports. Starting this year, cash crops production will be intensified.
Government has identified rice, groundnuts, pigeon peas, sweet peas and sunflower as the
key nontraditional crops that we will focus on for the export market. This administration's
overall goal in the agriculture sector is to generate agricultural growth and wealth
creation through advances in science and technology, including biotech parks and mechanization;
commercialization and promotion of regional markets; crop diversification; engagement
of new crop of entrepreneurial leaders dedicated to our country's agricultural improvement
and improving infrastructure while ensuring food security and sustainable use of natural
resources.
Reorganizing industry. Government has started to reorganize our industry as a basis of growth
and to allow private sector to lead the growth. Government business in the market is too big,
and there is need to reduce government space in the industry by promoting private sector
growth.
Identify and promote drivers of growth. This administration has identified key sectors
as drivers of growth. These include agriculture, mining, infrastructure development, human
capital development, industrialization, tourism and private sector development. Heavy emphasis
has been put on ensuring boosting agricultural productivity, diversifying exports and private
sector development, investing in and promoting other areas of economic potential, including
fisheries, livestock, timber, technology and innovation.
Reorganize our foreign policy. Government will upgrade our diplomatic missions to be
able to identify relevant emerging technologies and markets for our industrialization program.
We are establishing a Diaspora Department in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to harness
the efforts of Malawian diaspora and African diaspora in general to meaningfully participate
in the economic development of our country.
Repositioning telecommunications, information and technology. Malawi needs a strong telecommunications,
information and technology platform in order to launch its industrial program. The ***
platform is to integrate security, banking and insurance, taxation, deeds office, immigration,
courts, traffic licensing, business registration, national registrar, education and health sectors
in order to realize integrated planning and monetary. The *** program will take a long-term
view to support initiatives to change the structure of the economy. Government is taking
deliberate effort to building telecommunications infrastructure in the rural areas to support
rural development initiatives and broaden the formal economy.
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, learning a lesson from the protracted recession of
the late 1970s and 1980s and the recent global financial crisis, the developed countries
have also realized that to stimulate the global economy, they must cultivate vast new markets
in the developing world. The countries of the developing world, including Africa, have
also been formulating a fundamental change in approach and your attention to their endeavors
to solve global economic problems. They have come to realize that reciting a litany of
grievances, denunciations and using confrontational language is counterproductive in dealing with
the developed countries. They have now resolved to adopt a completely rational approach and
resume dialogue with the north on the business of partnership of equals. The developing countries
have realized that their lack of unity has not served the cause of development, and are
now more determined to present a united front to their counterparts in the north, with whom
they would like to reopen the dialogue.
Accordingly, the African Union proceeded to craft the concepts and modalities that would
provide the basis and the framework of each new initiative. By the way, the African Union
summit is not taking place in Malawi. (Laughter.) It launched ñ (applause) ñ a vigorous advocacy
for its views and initiatives and attended to important housekeeping tasks such as the
establishment of effective organizational mechanisms, guidelines and procedures. It
also decided to restore the issue of economic cooperation to the top of its agenda without
neglecting the political aspect of its mission. Of necessity are issues of inflows of capital,
especially in areas of manufactured goods and modern economic sectors. This calls for
need to address the issue of the transfer of technology as an essential part of achieving
Malawi's development. Malawi will develop centers of excellence in business, in health,
in education, in agri-processing and tourism. We should write a development agenda with
specific driver projects in the subsectors. Here, the focus is around energy, mining,
infrastructure, water resources, tourism, finance and insurance, roads and rail projects,
as articulated above.
Internally, my administration will provide strong political leadership based on the spirit
of Umunthu and will deliberately promote a highly skilled public service that is backed
up by effective systems, which will be able to provide steady national direction for sustained
development. My government will work to promote corporate governance and create conditions
conducive for investment and trade, as discussed earlier.
Issues of fight against corruption, rule of law and observance of both political and economic
governance are critical to promoting private investment and the growth of the ñ an effective
and vibrant public sector. We aim to establish open and competitive and dynamic economic
structures that will mobilize individual initiative and dynamic private enterprise. To achieve
this, I'm hosting a national dialogue on the economy from 29th of June to 1st of July 2012,
where we will draft a fresh, diversified and productive economic model, which will reinstate
traditional drivers of growth and thereby develop a national philosophy to write a consensus
within and across political parties, civil society, business, organized labor, strategic
private investors and development partners in order to radically turn around our economy.
My government is determined and ready to deliver an agenda that will change the frontiers in
development for Malawi.
In closing, let me end with a personal story. Throughout 30 years, I have served the people
of Malawi. I have based my leadership on the principle of stewardship. I've tried, as much
as possible, to be a servant of the people at all levels that I've worked, and I've tried
to be with the people, to be the voice for the poor and the voiceless. Indeed, I have
tried to fight for the cause of unity, justice and equity and, yes, to serve humanity with
integrity. So when I took office as president of my country on April 7th, it was natural
for me to ñ that this value system forms the core of my leadership as president. That
is why this far, my emphasis has been on healing the nation from its wounds of tribalism, partisan
politics, distrust between the people and their leaders, and on ensuring that I have
a government that listens to the people, is accountable to the citizens and delivers on
its development agenda.
The 30 years working with Malawians, particularly at a grass-root level, have taught me that
leading people implies a social contract. The people and you, as their leader, are in
a relationship that is based on trust, because you both believe that you need each other
and that you will meet each other's expectations. It is a love affair, as I said yesterday.
You fall in love with the people, and the people must fall in love with you. And once
that happens, nothing can change them. Ask the leadership in Malawi that tried for three
years to get the people away from me. They failed miserably because we were in love.
(Laughter.) The people will stand with you if you stand with them. (Inaudible) ñ the
presidency places a huge load of expectations on my shoulders. But as a woman leader, I
will try as much as possible to ensure that my social contract with the people is not
broken. I will walk with the people.
Africa as a continent has embraced women's leadership. The events of my sister Sirleaf
being in office successfully and many other African women holding other senior office
ñ or positions and performing well prepared Malawi to embrace women's leadership. This
has made my life easier because people no longer doubt women's leadership on the continent
of Africa. I enjoy a network of support from other women leaders in various positions globally.
In my difficult years as vice president of my country, it was people like Mary Robinson,
President Sirleaf, Dr. Ngozi Iweala and many others that sustained me. When I took over
the presidency, Secretary Clinton was among the first people to call me and offer her
support.
Let me end by thanking Malawians, rural and urban, rich and poor, civil society organizations,
men and women and youth, for standing with me and for giving me support during difficult
times. I thank my fellow women, among them Mary Robinson, Helen Clark, Secretary Clinton,
Dr. Ngozi Iweala, Ellen Sirleaf and gender networks across Africa and beyond.
Most importantly, as I said yesterday, I would like to take this opportunity to thank USAID.
And because yesterday I didn't have an opportunity to explain why, allow me to conclude by saying
exactly what I mean. In 1989 USAID sponsored me to come to the U.S. on a study tour. I
had come from an abusive marriage and had now gotten married again to this fine gentleman
sitting here. (Laughter, applause.) A friend of mine, Getul Manguera (ph), asked me once,
where did you get this husband? (Laughter.) I said, don't bother looking; they stopped
making that model a long time ago. (Laughter.)
But it became very clear in my second marriage that there were so many women that were locked
up in abusive marriages across Africa, and where divorce is not acceptable, had no courage
to walk out. And I wanted to do something about the situation. And USAID provided me
that real opportunity, to come to the U.S. on a study tour. And during those six weeks,
I interacted with women's organizations. And by the time I left this country, I was very
clear in my mind that I was going to go back home and mobilize fellow women and form an
organization that was going to push government for equal opportunity in business. I didn't
know that what I was starting ñ I thought I was starting a club in Blantyre. When we
asked for permission, we were then under the dictatorship. It took 18 months for us to
get an approval to start a ñ (inaudible) ñ organization of businesswomen. But there
was a condition in that approval. They asked us that if we wanted to form an organization,
it had to be a national organization. Looking back, I think they just wanted us to be overwhelmed
and give up the whole idea. But then I had friends in USAID, so I went and met Carol
Peasley, who was then director ñ country director of USAID in Malawi. I was very young.
I was in my 30s, very green. I didn't even know that you donors, you want us to say things
in a certain way. (Laughter.) I had no idea.
So when I walked into her office, she was holding a pad and a pen to listen to my story,
and two sentences into my presentation, I knew that I had succeeded in making a total
fool of myself ñ (laughter) ñ because she folded the pad and put it away. I went out
and I came back and I said, I want you to support me to conduct a Needs Assessment survey
across Malawi to find out what women are looking for, what women are lacking, how many women
are in business, what is the support they are looking for. She said, now you're talking.
(Laughter.) That is what I wanted you to say.
From that time ñ it's a long story, but we worked together on this ñ (inaudible). They
have been there for me, and I have always said everywhere that I am a product of USAID.
(Applause.)
Thank you very much for being there for me. And finally, it is my appeal to the international
community for their continued support. And I'm sure that our Malawi is indeed a frontier
in development. May God bless you, and thank you for your attention. (Applause.)
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Madam President. And now, in our final few moments before lunch,
please welcome our final two presenters of the afternoon. Please welcome the president
for Games for Change, Asi Burak. (Applause.)
ASI BURAK: Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Asi Burak, and I'm co-directing the organization
called Games for Change. And I think it's the first time I'm speaking after a president.
(Laughter.) And I'm sure that when you looked at the program, when you looked at the agenda
and you saw mobile games, you had kind of a double-take and ñ what it's really about.
And I hope that, step by step, in a very short presentation, I'll guide you through it, and
at the end you'll come to me and say, oh, we're convinced, makes a lot of sense ñ mobile
games and development.
I want to start by giving the context of the project, so we'll play a short video, a trailer
for the Half the Sky cross-media campaign based on the best-selling book by Nick Kristof
and Sheryl WuDunn.
(Video playing.)
SHERYL WUDUNN: The challenge that women and girls face around the world is not an easy
topic to talk about, but we really think it is the moral challenge of the century.
SUSAN SARANDON: These problems exist because we've created them, so it's up to us to fix
them.
SECRETARY HILLARY CLINTON: The way that Nick and Sheryl use stories to break through the
indifference that still ñ (end video).
MR. BURAK: So that technology didn't work for us. Can we move ñ can we move to the
slides, please?
MR. : (Off mic.)
MR. BURAK: Oh, maybe we'll try again.
(Video playing.)
MS. WUDUNN: The challenge that women and girls face around the world is not an easy topic
to talk about, but we really think it is the moral challenge of the century.
MS. SARANDON: These problems exist because we've created them, so it's up to us to fix
them.
SEC. CLINTON: The way that Nick and Sheryl use stories to break through the indifference
that still exists when you talk about women and girls is exactly the right way to go about
it.
GEORGE CLOONEY: We understand the story, always. This is how people get engaged.
MS. WUDUNN: Nick and I wanted to galvanize people into action because we know it takes
a world to bring about this change. We're utilizing every tool and platform available
to get the message across.
NICHOLAS KRISTOF: We're going to be going on a journey to some of the places in the
world where the repression of women and girls is truly at its most extreme.
OLIVIA WILDE: I read "Half the Sky" and I thought, that's really what I want to do.
I want to go and see things for myself.
MR. KRISTOF: You've had the traffickers hold a gun to your head.
MS. : You're going to take their own money. The girl is their money. (Inaudible) ñ they're
not happy with you.
MR. KRISTOF: It still does seem as if something is wrong if thousands of ñ thousands of girls
are getting ***, and in all of Freetown, only one *** was prosecuted ñ (inaudible).
MR. : (Inaudible.)
GABRIELLE UNION: You know what lasts longer than beauty?
MS. : (Inaudible.)
MS. UNION: Being smart lasts a lot longer than being pretty.
MS. : This little hospital built on a garbage dump has reduced maternal mortality rate of
the women who come here to one-quarter of the national average.
MS. : We need to be able to have our voices heard.
MS. : Our biggest challenge here is to create opportunities.
MS. : Convince the mothers every single day of her existence that your daughter does not
have to be bound by fate. She needs to be allowed the power to create her own fate.
(End video.)
MR. BURAK: OK, thank you. (Applause.) Thanks. So what you saw here is the trailer for really
a very ambitious multimedia-part project that you'll see the premiere of the TV show two
nights on PBS October 1st and 2nd, and then all over the world. And we're also launching
a Facebook game in November.
But I want to speak here about the mobile games project and the short video that we're
doing in the developing world. So in tandem with everything we're doing to raise global
awareness and kind of, you know, follow the theory of change that Nick Kristof and Sheryl
WuDunn have in terms of raising awareness all over the world, kind of putting the pressure
on policymakers, we also thought, why not create high-quality media for the people most
affected by the issues? So we started with those two projects, the mobile games and the
videos that I'll show you now. And we did one discovery trip in India last year, in
India, and then a following one in East Africa.
And the idea was to go beyond the stats. So we all hear the stats about mobile usage and,
you know, how dominant this media is and that it doesn't have much competition from other
media. But we wanted to see how they use it as well. And what we learned in many cases
is that there is a family-shared device. And we learned that the kids are actually using
the device for 30 minutes or one hour a day. And when we asked them, what are you doing,
guess what? They are playing games. And when we told them, so what happens if we bring
you educational games, they said, oh, that's great; my father will give me 30 minutes more.
(Laughter.) And this is what we decided to do. So we decided to do very focused feature
phone games. This is another picture that shows that even before we coded one line,
we went to the communities and sitting with the kids to understand, you know, how do they
respond different things? Obviously ñ (inaudible) ñ and cultural differences were very important.
And another thing I want to say is that game are not just for kids. So Facebook, which
is now the most emerging platform on the planet ñ 300 million people play Facebook games
ñ it's more than people that play PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo combined ñ is dominated by
women. Fifty-five percent of gamers are women. And the average Facebook gamer is 39 years
old women ñ I mean, woman. So what we're doing here is also trying different things.
So one of our games that I'll show you in a second is actually for pregnant women are
on maternal health. And these are pictures that CEDPA that is working with us, the NGO
on the ground, took while testing it in a clinic. So imagine, you know, the nurses basically
bringing the women the mobile games and trying to do this intervention. And the game that
you just saw is called "Nine Minutes." So I'm sure for many women here in the audience,
it sounds like a great concept, but unfortunately, it's just in the virtual world. And "Nine
Minutes" is basically compressing the nine month cycle into a nine-minute session. (Laughter.)
And every minute is one level, one month. And basically what we did is we took the brochure,
the very boring pamphlet of what you need to do and what you shouldn't do, and turned
it into a fun action game. And just for the techies here, that you understand, each game
like this need to be compressed to hundred, 200 kilobytes. So it's like a Word document,
basically.
And the other game we made is Worm Attack around the intestinal worms, deworming. We
work here with Deworm the World, did a very big campaign. The reason we went for this
is that it appears in "Half the Sky" as one very, very strong intervention, that there's
a solution, and it's just a matter of awareness. And this is a game for kids, for kids 7 to
12. And the idea here is very simple. What we're showing them is the worms as the enemy,
and all they need to do is place those pills and get rid of them. And they do it very fast,
and they treat a few kids in the process, and at the end of the experience, we basically
tell them, you know, go to your parent or teacher if you want to really get that pill
for free, which usually is distributed in schools.
The third one, very quickly, the Patels, the all-Indian family ñ we have an equivalent
in East Africa. That one took a different approach ñ less about action, more about
kind of a choose-your-adventure scenario, and you play through the family members, and
you understand the role of the girl in the family, and dealing with issues as extended
education, marriage, family planning, all in kind of playing a scenario that could end
in different ways. So there's no black and white. It's really understanding the consequences
of choices.
I want to finish with distribution, obviously a huge challenge when you do something like
that. And here, public-private partnerships are not just a slogan; they're really a way
to deal with it and get to as many people as we can. I'll give you the one example of
the deworming campaign. So we have, obviously, the support of the Kenyan government. It is
standing behind a five-year national campaign. We have Deworm the World, the NGO, that is
reaching the kids through ñ in schools and is working with us and has the devices. And
we have Safaricom that is also putting their games on the app store. So we have two ways
to reach people. One is just like we reach consumers, that they download the app, but
we have another one through the NGO that is much more (high-tech ?), deep and embedded
in the program. And in Kenya, we have the potential to reach 5 million kids a year over
five years.
Thank you very much. This project, believe it or not, is funded by USAID, and actually,
it's not only a matter of funding, but it was really shaped with USAID. When we came
with our materials and all the global awareness intentions, we basically came together to
the idea of making those very specific interventions through gaming to the people on the ground.
And we think it's only the start with those three games.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
MR. : And now our final presenter. Please welcome the founder and CEO of Afroes Transformational
Multi-Media and Consulting, Anne Gthuku (ph) Shongwe. (Applause.)
ANNE SHONGWE: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I don't plan to stand very long between you
and lunch. But I'm following two very powerful presenters who are basically leading exactly
what I want to share with you.
The first is that I too have a dream. And my dream is that Africa can be without poverty
in my lifetime. You can try to guess what my lifetime would be, how old I am right now,
but in my lifetime I know that we will see the end of poverty.
What's standing between the end of poverty is the usual story: despondency, lack, disease,
you know. You know the story. You're development folks. And that's bothered me. As I've traveled
the world ñ I worked for the United Nations Development Program for 15 years. I worked
for a USAID contractor in my long, long, long ago life. And I just was always concerned;
surely can we stand here and just watch and observe these young African kids, despondent,
lack of hope, and all we do is sort of sit there and just keep hoping and creating beautiful
islands of excellence?
And so I have just been so excited with the new news. And the new news is that Africa
is rising. That was the cover of The Economist in November. The only thing about that is
that it's only a small percentage that is rising. We still have plenty, plenty of people
in the African continent, of young people, who still need to work with to be able to
take forward. But I believe that that hope lies in young Africans. I believe that they
ñ if they become the custodians of Africa's future, we can actually make a difference.
A movement of young Africans, I think, is what we need.
Imagine if we had a movement of young Africans who made it their responsibility to want to
end poverty in their communities rather than sit by the side of the road and hope that
a job will drop on their lap, that actually, with the kind of tools and skills they need,
they can create the opportunities and find the partners to work with them and build that
in their communities. We've seen that happen in our work, so it's possible to do.
Imagine if they chose to end violence against women and children in their communities. We've
seen that too in our projects. It's possible. And finally, that's Kibera (ph), very famous
informal settlement in Kenya. And again, people live in crazy environmental contexts right
there, but imagine that they made it their responsibility to make their world a better
place in terms of the environment. And again, we've done some work around environmental
justice as well.
So the beautiful story, the hope really, is that it's not even 500 million; it's 700 million
Africans right now; 400 million of them are young. They have mobiles in their pockets
and in their hands, 400 million across Africa. Many of them are low-end feature phones. I
think we have 1 out of every 5 that is a ñ is a smartphone. But they've got feature phones.
And like Asi was saying, we can reach them on those phones. And again, there is a story.
What are they doing on the phones? This is iHub research from Kenya. The greatest activity
on the phones is games.
And so we at Afroes today power possibility amongst young people. We work to unlock the
potential of young people, and we use games to do that.
So let me just share with you one quick project that we've just completed. We partnered with
United Nations Women on their campaign to end violence against women across Africa.
You know, you see the statistics; 30 percent of boys in a particular research believe that
gang *** is cool. And so we embarked on this game, Moraba. Moraba is short for Morabaraba,
and Morabaraba is Zulu chess. It's played ñ it was created by herd boys as they ñ
as they waited for their cows grazing, and they would play this game on ñ it's like
a board game. So we took that game, because we want to promote indigenous African stuff
as well, and we adapted it with 60 different questions related to gender-based violence.
And it answers three different goals. The one is identifying gender violence concepts;
what is ***? What is the age of ñ legal age of consent? Motivate action ñ what do
you do if your friend is ***? Where do you take them? How do you deal with that? What's
the first thing you need to do? And then changing mindsets and challenges around ñ and myths.
Many of you have heard the famous story about how because of ***, men believe or many men
have been sort of under the impression that if you have sex with a young ***, you'll
be cured ñ so correcting some of those myths which are perpetrating gender violence. And
so that's the game, and essentially, you play the game, and as you play the Moraba, the
board game, questions pop up; it's a ñ multiple-choice questions, and you get an answer, and if it's
right, you get a "tick," and it ñ and it reinforces the correct answer. If it's wrong,
you get a "mmm," but it gets the right ñ it reinforces the right answer. So it keeps
ñ it keeps teaching you what's the right thing.
Here's a ñ well, oops. Supposed to be a video there, and I don't even know where the ñ
(pause) ñ going to work, or shall we fly? I just wanted you to see in this video, we
work directly with schools. We've been ñ and community groups to be able to actually
understand what their context is, but also to be able to promote the games. And so what
this video is that I was hoping we could see is a video that sort of shares what the experience
was for young schoolkids. And if it works, that's fine. If it doesn't, we can move on.
Is it on? (Inaudible.) OK.
The story about Moraba right now is ñ oh, there we go. The story about Moraba right
now ñ (chuckles) ñ is that we ñ oh, there we go. Sorry.
(Video plays.)
MR./MS. : (Inaudible.)
MR. : What's the game about?
MR./MS. : Rights and responsibilities and relationships.
MR. : Rights, responsibilities and relationships.
MS. : (Inaudible.)
MS. : (Inaudible) ñ if you're trying to sell something or try to educate us on something,
you need to focus mainly on something that we're interested in, something that we go
onto, something that we enjoy doing, because that way you get our full attention. And gaming
is actually a good idea. It was a good ñ a good message.
(Video ends.)
MS. SHONGWE: So how do we know that these games have any impact? Measuring impact was
a big issue for us, has been a big issue for us with all our games. So we built into the
game a high-score system that logs in the way in which they're answering the questions.
And we also have user surveys that we do because we've got a team of young people that actually
go out and do the distribution and engagement with young people.
And so if you look at this ñ this is just the log of some of the questions that I had
at the back end, and we were able to actually see, you know, how they're doing in each ñ
for each play. And every time they play the second time, you could see the improvement
in their learning.
One interesting testimony that came out of this was a young man who, you know, approached
us and said, before I played Moraba, I didn't know I was a ***; I thought that, you know,
the kind of interaction that you have with young girls ñ (inaudible) ñ but she says
no, and it's part of the negotiation; I didn't understand that that was ***, so now I know,
and I'm telling my friends that we are all part of this *** group, right? So we've
got lots of testimonies about that kind of impact.
Just to sort of wrap up, we've built three different games. There has been Moraba on
gender-based violence; we've built another one, Champ Chase, on child abuse, and another
one called Haki right now that we're doing in Kenya on social justice. And what we've
found and what we've learned from this experience is that it's great to have these different
games, but we want to be able to ensure that we're creating new value-based leaders of
Africa.
And so what we're trying to do now and what we're moving towards is building an actual
ñ what we're calling Ongoza. "Ongoza" means lead in Kiswahili. It's a mobile institute
that using gaming technology to create games for change, games for learning that will build
skills, that will enable, create challenges that are real on the ground so that they can
go out and actually deal with and solve the problems that are on the ground. And you know,
we're looking for partnerships with development ñ the learning institutions, development
partners, with different brands, because there's lots of them who've been very keen to also
join in this process.
We've started a concept of the design labs, which we are hosting twice a year, where we
bring together techies and young people and experts and content folks, and we sit down,
and we actually start creating content together. And this will be hosted on our platform, our
Afroes Live platform. We have these young fellows who go out and do distribution and
gather data, and it's a great community. We're hoping to build this out to 2000 by the end
of the year. And partnerships ñ we need all of you on board. USAID, I would love to say
what Asi said at the end of his presentation, this would not have been possible without
USAID. So ñ (chuckles) ñ we're looking forward to building these kinds of partnerships.
And just to wrap up, we've had lots of partners that we've already worked with. Distribution
is a very, very interesting problem in Africa, and you can't just go to one place. So we
are working with about five different distribution partners, mobile operators, mobile devices
and stores, MXit, which is a 50 million platform for games in South Africa, and then young
people in communities.
And you know, finally, I believe that it's possible for us to change Africa. I believe
that it is possible for us to just get these young people engaged and committed and beginning
to make different choices in their lives. We have a goal of reaching a hundred million
in the next five years, and I think it's possible if we can just sort of band together and make
it happen.
So I thank you. (Applause.)
MR. : Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, lunch is now served in the tent on the front lawn. We will resume
our program promptly at 2:00 p.m.
(END)