How can you inspire innovation while making a contribution towards achieving some of the Millennium Development Goals? TrustAfrica is proud to be a co-sponsor for a conference entitled "The Business of Social and Environmental Innovation" (BSEI) which will take place at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business in Cape Town, South Africa on November 14-16, 2011.

The conference will bring together academics, entrepreneurs and practitioners who will present scholarly contributions, as well as case studies, on the projects they have been working on to address these challenges. BSEI seeks to identify and highlight some of the existing partnerships, both formal and informal, that occur between the private sector, governments, civil society and academia; share best practices; and inspire creative thinking and innovative approaches to pressing social and environmental issues.

The conference will start with an optional fieldtrip to explore some of the Cape's townships where participants can get a feel for the social needs and business opportunities there. During the proceedings, participants will be able to choose from parallel sessions where scholarly papers will be presented; dedicated sessions and dynamic discussions with entrepreneurs and practitioners will also be offered.

Seven of the papers that will be presented are from studies paid for by the Investment Climate and Business Environment (ICBE) Research Fund, a project supported by TrustAfrica and the International Development and Research Center (IDRC).

For more information on the Conference, including how to register and costs, please visit the Conference Website. A reduced conference registration fee is available to students.

On the outside, Dr .Nestorine Compaoré has the comportment of a high-ranking government official. Intelligent, thoughtful, well-dressed, articulate, she is at ease speaking to everyone. One could easily believe that she came to her current position as a civil servant through the usual channels. However, once Dr. Compaoré begins to discuss her favorite subject, gender, the activist in her emerges. Her eyes light up, her speech quickens and you can almost see the ideas travel through her as she transmits them to the listener.

Her story is unusual in that there was no straight line that took her to where she is today. From 2002-2009, she was working three full-time jobs: gender advisor for the Center of Democratic Governance in Burkina Faso, gender consultant at the Dutch Embassy, and lecturer on gender at the University of Ouagadougou. However, she was dissatisfied with the available information on gender in Burkina Faso and realized that her country needed better gender resources. She decided to end her consultancy and create the Center for Research and Intervention in Gender and Development (CRIGED). Using her own financing, as well as fundraising, little by little she developed the center to where it is today.

"I realized that most experts have good ideas, but if you don't have a site, people can't transform their ideas into action; they lose energy," she said. "When I worked with civil society, it gave me an opportunity to push for a cause I believed in. That's why I changed my position from the donor side to civil society."

CRIGED is a technical center for research on gender and development; it provides technical support to all stakeholders including government, civil society, universities, women's networks, etc. It also provides monitoring and evaluation on issues of gender and development, and serves as a tool for capacity building of organizations, including advocacy work and activities related to impacting gender policies. With the support of TrustAfrica (including several grants to build capacity for gender organizations) and a host of other donors, CRIGED has become the "go-to" resource for information on gender issues in West Africa.

After developing such a successful organization, one would think Dr. Compaoré would at last feel satisfied, but fate had other plans. In early 2011, she was asked to be Minister for the Promotion of Women.

"When I changed sides to join civil society, I realized I lost a lot of power, in terms of the consideration and attention I had from previous colleagues and ministries because I was no longer a donor--just someone who wanted change."

Dr. Compaoré views her position as Minister as a chance to work within the system to affect change. "This position gives me an opportunity to improve the legal provisions, build capacity of actors, CSOs, ministries, the first lady, even the President himself. It is important to sensitize people on gender."

Few people can work for civil society, donor organizations and the government on a cause they feel passionate about. Her experience has afforded Dr. Compaoré a unique vantage point on how to win in the struggle for gender equality. "I started to understand things differently, because sometimes I think we judge people without knowing their constraints. When you know their constraints, instead of being confrontational, which discourages them and affects them in the wrong way, you can be more comprehensive and constructive."

We are proud to showcase our latest video, a documentary on our Enhancing Women's Dignity project, which seeks to stop gender violence and increase women's political participation in seven French-speaking countries in Central and West Africa.

The film was shot on-location in several of the project countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and Mali, where it documents the activities of women who are leading the way to improve their socio-economic conditions and increase their political representation. The project began in June 2009 with an MDG3 Fund grant from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since then, TrustAfrica has administered grants to organizations that work to increase women's participation in politics and public administration and halt violence against women. In total, there have been 39 grants, impacting the lives of thousands of women.

In an effort to strategize around the growing dissatisfaction with the structures of democracy and governance in Africa, in particular the roles played by the African Union (AU), the International Criminal Court (ICC) and others, TrustAfrica is convening a strategy meeting on the ICC and Africa in collaboration with the MacArthur Foundation and the Center for Citizen Participation on the AU. The meeting, organized under the theme "Advancing International Criminal Justice in Africa: State Responsibility, the ICC, and the AU--Towards an Effective Advocacy Response," will take place in Nairobi, Kenya on November 14-16, 2011.

The meeting provides an opportunity for stakeholders, including CSOs, policy experts, scholars and individual activists to devise a civil society advocacy strategy that will effectively respond to the ICC backlash in Africa and give funders a better sense of how to engage in collaborative grant-making around these issues. Kenyan Chief Justice Dr. Willy Mutunga has agreed to deliver the Keynote speech. Participants will be drawn from all five geographic sub-regions of Africa, as well as the African Diaspora.

Coming at a time when African States under the AU have threatened to withdraw from the ICC, the strategy meeting aims at developing ways to promote more constructive debates about the ICC within the AU and move the discourse towards promoting national-level accountability for international crimes through entities such as the ICC.

For further information regarding the outcome of the meeting, please check the TrustAfrica Website.

Together with the Southern Africa Trust, we have published a 429-page book about the legislative environment for civil society in 18 countries in Central, East and Southern Africa. Edited by Bhekinkosi Moyo, our program director, (Dis) Enabling the Public Sphere: Civil Society Regulation in Africa (Volume 1) also features a foreword by Graca Michel. It is available in hardcover, softcover and PDF format. The book was formally launched at recent dialogues in Dakar, Senegal, and Pretoria, South Africa.

Ezekiel Pajibo joined TrustAfrica in September 2011 as the Project Director for the Liberia Civil Society Initiative. Mr. Pajibo comes to us from Witts University where he was a Research Fellow for the Encyclopedia of Genocide in Africa project. A graduate of Howard University in the US, Mr. Pajibo has a remarkable track record in the fields of civil society advocacy and policy research. In the early 1980s (during the military rule of Samuel Doe), he served as the president of the Liberia National Students Union (UNSU) and was imprisoned by Doe and spotlighted by Amnesty international as a prisoner of conscience. He also worked for the Africa Faith and Justice Network as well as the American Friends Service Committee and as a consultant for AFRODAD, MWENGO and Human Rights Watch. At the end of the Liberian civil war in 2003, Mr. Pajibo returned home and worked as a consultant for the Open Society Institute and subsequently served as the Executive Director of the Center for Democratic Empowerment. He has written extensively and seminally on civil society issues and is a highly-respected champion for human rights in Africa. He speaks English, French and Krao.

Sue Telingator, Communications Specialist, comes to us with over 27 years of experience in the communications field.  Most recently, she was the Development Outreach and Communications Specialist with USAID/Senegal.  She has also worked for UNICEF and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Namibia.  In addition to being an author and ghostwriter, Ms. Telingator has worked as a journalist for the Chicago Tribune, among several other publications.  She also served as President of the National Writer’s Union in Chicago, where she helped in the fight for writer’s e-rights resulting in a landmark Supreme Court decision against The New York Times.  She holds a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College, Columbia University and Master’s degrees from DePaul University in the US, and the Network University in The Netherlands.  She speaks English and French.

Digital storytelling is a 21st century take on the traditional art of storytelling - and foundations have never had more tools at hand to bring their work to life on screen. The EFC's first-ever webinar will focus on the value that digital storytelling (whether produced or funded by foundations) can have in achieving greater impact, whether it be for policy change, advocacy, learning, or engaging vulnerable or marginalised groups.

Two expert speakers will present case studies of how their respective organisations are involved in digital storytelling, what the benefits have been and why other foundations can benefit from capturing the essence of their work on camera.

Speakers:
Vivian Paulissen, Youth and Media Programme Manager, European Cultural Foundation
Susan Telingator, Communications Specialist, TrustAfrica

Social networking sites are a great way to stay in touch with TrustAfrica — and to exchange ideas with others who share an interest in democracy and development in Africa. On Twitter and Facebook, we post short, timely reflections about issues of the day. On Picasa, we showcase photos of our events and the work of our grantees. On YouTube, we present interviews and videos about our work and the challenges facing Africa.

Contributions to TrustAfrica, a 501(c)(3) organization that has earned the GuideStar Exchange Seal, are tax deductible in the United States to the full extent allowable by law. Please consider making a donation today to qualify for a tax deduction this calendar year.

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TrustAfrica is the proud recipient of a $1.5 million grant from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to support a project entitled "The Learning Innovation Fund." The project will provide small grants and technical assistance to local organizations in four countries to improve literacy and numeracy skills for children during their first four years of primary school.

The project will target Senegal and Mali in West Africa and Uganda and Kenya in East Africa. These four countries provide an opportunity to pilot the project in both English and French thus offering a comparative learning opportunity. Additionally, the governments in these countries have demonstrated interest in development policy reform, opening the door to possibilities for future policy advocacy and the potential for scaling up proven innovations.

The primary goal of the project is to foster innovative learning approaches and environments for early learners who are currently not well served by existing education systems. Targeting children ages 5 - 11 years-old, the project will specifically seek to:

1. Significantly improve the literacy and numeracy competencies among early learners through cutting-edge innovations that are successfully piloted in different geographic locations and contexts;
2. Identify the enabling factors and feasibility probability for taking early-learning innovations to scale within the focus countries through outreach;
3. Strengthen the effectiveness of organizations that produce the early-learning innovations, through technical assistance provision, and peer-learning opportunities; and
4. Promote dissemination of the innovation results among relevant policy stakeholders.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) from 13 African countries, as well as several international organizations, convened in Nairobi, Kenya on November 15 - 17 for a strategy meeting on advancing international criminal justice in Africa. In light of the International Criminal Court's (ICC) focus on Africa, while ignoring crimes in other parts of the world, refusal to listen to requests to defer cases by the African Union (AU), and other issues, several AU member states have become non-cooperative and have threatened to withdraw from the ICC.

"Advancing International Criminal Justice in Africa: State Responsibility, the ICC, and the AU--Towards an Effective Advocacy Response," hosted by TrustAfrica, the CCP-AU, and the MacArthur Foundation, provided an opportunity for stakeholders, including CSOs, policy experts, scholars, and individual activists, to devise a strategic response to the ICC backlash and help engage funders in collaborative grant-making around these issues.

The convening included a candid appraisal of the historic relationship between the ICC and Africa and purposefully sought to shift the discourse from reactive to proactive, including how to address genuine concerns with the ICC's record in Africa without undermining the progress made so far on the continent.

In his keynote speech to the meeting, Kenyan Chief Justice, the Honorable Dr. Willy Mutunga called on CSOs to not lose sight of the fact that the ICC is a court of last resort, designed to step in where national institutions have failed. He therefore urged participants to work to strengthen institutions of governance on the continent, in particular robust investigatory, prosecutorial and penal institutions to deal with issues of impunity and serious crimes against humanity.

The ICC was represented by the Head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division of the Office of the Prosecutor who gave a comprehensive description of the ICC's mandate, as well as a specific analysis of the current cases pending before the Court.

In keeping with the conference's intention to develop concrete plans for action, participating CSOs identified a range of advocacy and capacity building strategies at the national, continental and international levels. They also highlighted the need to enhance networking to effectively address cross-cutting issues. In addition, working groups were proposed to spearhead specific thematic interventions at various levels.

All in all, the conference was successfully able to focus attention on this critical issue and motivate stakeholders to continue to improve mechanisms to end impunity and seek justice, peace and reconciliation for victims of atrocities.

On January 17, 2012, as part of its mission, among others, to close the digital divide, TrustAfrica donated used computer equipment, televisions, air conditioners and cooking equipment worth approximately $20,000 to a local NGO, SENECLIC, to be distributed to needy schools. SENECLIC specializes in refurbishing used equipment and training school beneficiaries in repair and maintenance so that the equipment can remain viable.

"We believe that this batch of equipment will contribute to the wellbeing of beneficiaries," said Akwasi Aidoo, Executive Director of TrustAfrica. "An active citizen is an essential element for a prosperous and sustainable society and we hope this donation will help young children to become engaged citizens," he said.

The head of Seneclic, Mr. Ababacar Diop, added that Information and Communication Technology is a powerful tool which he hopes to advance by populating classrooms in Senegal with multimedia. "The main objective of Seneclic is to affect over 8,000 elementary schools in the national territory," he said.

Pictured, left to right, Ababacar Diop, Director of Seneclic and Akwasi Aidoo, Director of TrustAfrica, hold one of the laptop computers that was donated.

On November 10-12, 2011, TrustAfrica was one of the co-sponsors of the United Nations Development Programme's 3-day workshop in Dakar, Senegal on how civil society can more effectively promote accountability of governments through governance assessments. In its role as both producers and users of governance data, civil society is perfectly positioned to intervene when it comes to public institutions, actors and policies, based on the evidence before it. Governance assessments help identify opportunities and diagnose deficits in governments but there needs to be a better understanding of how to translate this knowledge into practice.

The conference brought together more than 120 civil society practitioners, researchers and development practitioners from more than 30 countries, and representatives of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). It was organized by the UNDP Partnerships Bureau/Civil Society Division, the Bureau for Development Policy/Oslo Governance Centre and the Regional Bureau of Africa, with support from the UNDP-France Trust Fund together with four leading partners in the field of civil society and governance: TrustAfrica, CIVICUS, CONGAD and the African Governance Institute.

On December 5, 2011, more than 150 guests entered the doors of City Hall in Monrovia, Liberia to sit down for dinner with two very special guests. President of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee joined dignataries, civil society representatives, members of government, friends and family to listen to music, enjoy fine dining, hear speeches and receive good wishes on the eve of their departure to Oslo, Norway to accept their awards. The occasion, organized through the Liberia Civil Society Initiative of TrustAfrica, was an opportunity to bring civil society and the government together and take pride in all the accomplishments Liberia has made since the war ended.

Pictured: TrustAfrica Staff pose for a photo with Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee (center).

On February 28, 2012, TrustAfrica will host "Financing for Gender Equality: The Role of African Foundations" as a parallel event for the United Nations Commision on the Status of Women meetings held that week. The event will take place from 8:30 to 10:00 AM, at the Church Center, UN, in New York City. It will feature an exciting panel of presenters, including H.E. Ms. Bissi Adeleye-Fayemi, Co-Founder of the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF) and First Lady of Ekiti State, Nigeria, Ms. Roselynn Musa, Program Manager, Africa Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET), and Dr. Akwasi Aidoo, Executive Director of TrustAfrica. It will be moderated by Ms. Theo Sowa, Interim CEO, African Women's Development Fund. Hope to see you there!

Moustapha Diop, Finance Associate. Moustapha Diop joined the finance department of TrustAfrica in November, 2011. After various internships in various sectors (public and private), he joined the prestigious firm of Deloitte Touche Tomatsu Limited to serve as a financial auditor for five years where he gained considerable experience in several sectors including the NGO sector. Mr. Diop has a degree in polytechnics and trade in Ivory Coast with a specialization in audit and management control. As for extracurricular activities, Mr. Diop was Chairman of the Leo Club Stella Abidjan.

Timing Lama, Administrative Assistant, Liberia Civil Society Initiative. Timing Lama joined Trust Africa in November, 2011. Previously, she was an Administrative Assistant at AEP Consultants, Inc. a private firm in Monrovia, Liberia. Timing has a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Don Bosco polytechnic (Now Stella Maris Polytechnic) in Monrovia and is currently pursuing a master's degree in Business Administration (MBA) at the University of Liberia Graduate School. She is fluent in English.

Social networking sites are a great way to stay in touch with TrustAfrica — and to exchange ideas with others who share an interest in democracy and development in Africa. On Twitter and Facebook, we post short, timely reflections about issues of the day. On Picasa, we showcase photos of our events and the work of our grantees. On YouTube, we present interviews and videos about our work and the challenges facing Africa.

Contributions to TrustAfrica, a 501(c)(3) organization that has earned the GuideStar Exchange Seal, are tax deductible in the United States to the full extent allowable by law. Please consider making a donation today to qualify for a tax deduction this calendar year.

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