Harvard training for Sri Lanka’s development drive officials

January 7, 2016, 6:57 am 

By Lynn Ockersz

'Sri Lankan officials who would be playing a key role in fast-tracking this country's economic resurgence effort would be sent to the Harvard University's Centre for International Development in February for advanced training, Niranjan de Silva Deva Aditya (Nirj Deva), the Lankan-born Vice President of the International Development Committee of the European Parliament and an adviser to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said. Deva Aditya is a driving force in the Sri Lanka Economic Forum which will be launched today at Cinnamon Grand, with high profile local and international participation.

Deva Aditya who is also the chairman of the European Parliament Delegation to the Korean Peninsular, besides being a former Member of the UK Government and a former Member of the UK Parliament told The Island Financial Review in an exclusive interview that the Forum being launched today is of tremendous importance to Sri Lanka. Besides fast-tracking Sri Lanka's economic growth drive it would be also all about putting this country on the correct development path. He explained that everything wrong is currently happening in Sri Lanka with regard to economic advancement and doing business. 'The wrong macro-economic models, the wrong checks and balances, the wrong approach to climate issues and many more wrongs are all here, he said.

'Sri Lanka must convert itself to an FDI-driven economy from one that is heavily dependent on loans but to get there you need to put in place here the correct investment climate. Foreign investors do not come to this country out of any fondness for it. If at all they come, it would out of consideration that they are getting a high return on their investment. All that would happen if we are a business-friendly country where 'Ease of Doing Business' would be an everyday reality, Deva Aditya explained. 'Currently our Ease of Doing Business ranking leaves much to be desired.'

'It is a joy to do business in Vietnam, a fast-growing economy in Asia. You need to go to only one official in Vietnam to get your investment project off the ground. But in Sri Lanka the foreign investor is faced with a plethora of rules and regulations and is driven from pillar to post to get his business going. In Sri Lanka you are expected to meet the Grama Sevaka first besides going to numerous other officials and institutions to launch your business. How nonsensical it is to get an investor to go to the Grama Sevaka? Where in the world do such things happen? Deva Aditya asked.

'These numerous bureaucratic bottlenecks and delays an investor faces in Sri Lanka are only opportunities for corrupt practices. We have to meet foreign investors half way by making the necessary changes to facilitate the Ease of Doing Business. If we streamline the process of launching businesses here we would get the relevant financial investment, new technologies and capital along with the necessary expertise. If we remove unnecessary regulations, we could facilitate investments. It takes seven years to launch a power plant in Sri Lanka, whereas it takes only three months to do so in Britain. 

'One of the aims of the Forum is to train and educate this country's key officials and relevant stakeholders to facilitate and accelerate the growth process in Sri Lanka. Some of the attendees at the Forum would be ministers, deputy ministers, secretaries to ministries and officials from the President's and PM's offices, to name just a few. Our officials would interact at the Forum with some of the best minds on the development experience, most of them from Harvard University's Centre for International Development. Harvard is the conference. They are all being brought down by George Soros, Founder/chairman, Open Society Foundation. Some of the other leading lights in development and related fields who Sri Lankan personnel will get the opportunity to interact with and learn from are: Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and Professor of Economics, Graduate School of Arts and Science, Columbia Business School, Ricardo Hausmann, Director, Centre for International Development, Harvard University and Ljubica Nedelkoska, Growth Lab Research Fellow, Center for International Development, Harvard University, Deva Aditya explained. 

Some other key aims of Sri Lanka which the Forum is expected to facilitate are: the creation of a million new jobs with good wages, identifying options governments have for overcoming macroeconomic vulnerabilities and fiscal imbalance, identifying policies which have been used elsewhere to transform comparative advantage and developing industries that can expand while paying higher wages, to name a few themes.

http://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/s-9097

CLIMATE

Climate change bites Kenyan tea farmers

You wouldn't typically expect heavy rainfall and frost in East Africa. But the Earth's climate is changing - and this is affecting one of the world's largest tea-producing regions, in central Kenya.

For Joseph Mwangi and his wife, picking tea early in the morning has become more difficult lately. "We have been experiencing frost on the leaves," Mwangi says. "This makes it hard to work, because the frost stings our hands," he added.

Mwangi and his wife Alice Muthoni (pictured above) earn their living as tea-pickers in Makomboki, central Kenya. Due to the frost, they have had to start picking tea leaves two hours later. But this presents new problems to the couple.

"When I start working late, I only manage to pick 40 kilograms of tea leaves a day, as compared to 70 kilograms in the past," Muthoni says. "This reduces my pay for the day," she points out. To earn $1, she has to pick 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of tea leaves.

The tea that the couple picks is delivered to the Makomboki Tea Factory. Evans Muchiri, a production manager at the factory, says that due to weather changes, they have recorded a 16 percent drop in tea harvested so far in 2015, compared with 2014.

Frost damages the tea leaves, making them unsuitable for harvest

Local experience backed by international research

Kenya used to provide the ideal climate for tea cultivation: tropical, red volcanic soils and long, sunny days. In fact, central Kenya is the the world's third-largest tea-producing region.

In 2013, tea farming contributed up to $1.3 billion (1.2 billion euros) to the national economy, while more than half a million smallholder farmers depend on the cash crop for income.

Tea grows best in mountainous regions, so Makomboki - at an altitude of just more than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) - used to provide good conditions. But tea also requires temperatures of 16 to 29 degrees Celsius (60 to 84 degrees Fahrenheit), along with stable rainfall - and this has become increasingly unreliable in recent years.

A study by the Kenya's Tea Research Institute indicates that in 2012, the worst year recorded, almost one-third of the harvest was lost.

"Climate change is already having a negative impact on the lives of tea farmers in Africa," says Alexander Kasterine, who heads the Trade and Environment Unit at the International Trade Centre (ITC).

"Rising temperatures and extreme weather conditions are reducing tea productivity," Kasterine adds.

Mulch improves soil conditions for tea plants

The Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) - a not-for-profit organization that works toward making the tea industry more sustainable - says climate change is expected to reduce the land suitable for tea production in tea-growing areas 40 percent by 2050.

Planting trees for tea

To enhance the tea farmers' livelihoods, ETP created a partnership with ITC and other nongovernmental organizations, and founded a project to help farmers mitigate and adapt to climate change effects.

Among other things, the program trains farmers and tea factory managers in both carbon standards compliance and adaptation to climate change.

One of the partners is Makomboki Tea Factory. Farmers here are trained on conservation and management of water, including drip irrigation and soil conservation. They use biogas instead of wood, reducing carbon emissions.

"We are encouraging farmers to plant trees and mulch their crops," says Joseph Gitau, an assistant at Makomboki Tea Factory. The Rainforest Alliance then issues certificates to participants upon completion.

Gitau explains that planting trees at tea farms helps in reducing the effects of frost on the tea leaves. It's quite simple: The frosts falls on the tree leaves instead of the tea leaves. Meanwhile, mulching improves soil fertility, preventing soil erosion and frost at the roots.

Tree-planting can help conserve tea plants

Successful solutions

The Makomboki factory is not only trying to adapt to climate change, but also to mitigate it. Earlier on, the factory had been using 2,000 cubic meters (2,600 cubic yards) of wood per month as fuel for drying tea, contributing to regional deforestation.

But now, the factory has switched to alternative energy sources. "We use sawdust, rice husks, biomass, and macadamia and cashew nut shells, as well as briquettes made from sawdust and rice husk," says Evans Muchiri.

The new initiative has saved more than 30,000 trees, while lowering operational costs of the factory by 20 percent.

Kenya's Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Authority recently awarded the Makomboki factory for its best practices on climate change adaptation and mitigation.

And as the factory comes up other strategies to adjust to changing climatic conditions, this not only helps the environment and the agriculture sector at large: It also makes the lives of tea-pickers like Jospeh Mwangi and his wife Alice Muthoni a lot easier, right away.

This story was sourced through the Voices2Paris UNDP storytelling contest on climate change.