CURRENTS

Postcards from the rainforest: Iwokrama
The nation state and globalisation

Making music

T Walmsley/S till Pictures

Methane, mining and
model agreements

More than one way to catch a fish - spear fishing
in Dominica

region. The situational analysis and
white paper were presented at a region'
al symposium held in St Vincent and
the Grenadines in April, the purpose of
which was to develop an action plan on
implementing a region-wide fisheries
management and development initia­
tive.
The symposium discussed a number
of possible interventions that could be
included in a regional fisheries strategy,
including extension and training
programmes for fishers, research and
monitoring, maximising the added
value processing of fisheries resources
through import substitution and export
promotion, developing clearer national
fisheries policy statements, and increas­
ing the participation of fishers
themselves in resource management.
The potential exists for reducing
operational costs through the use of
appropriate technology, such as a
reasonably inexpensive four-stroke
outboard engine which can cut fuel
costs almost in half. Existing resources
could be enhanced through the use of
fish aggregating devices, which consist
of a float or raft from which pieces of
wood or vegetation are hung by ropes
trailing in the water. These attract
small marine life which in turn attract
small fishes. The larger fish which prey
on these smaller fish can then be caught
more easily. The devices, which can be
anchored or left to drift with a radar
tracking device, are used to catch fish
such as tuna, which move through the
waters close to the surface of the sea.
These and other issues were raised in
the symposium report, which was
distributed to OECS member govern­
ments. Follow-up activities are likely to
include specific projects to implement
the recommendations of the report.

Coal bed methane, an explosive gas
found in coalfields, can be a pollutant if
it escapes into the atmosphere.
Collecting the gas rather than allowing
it to escape could benefit the environ­
ment and also provide a commercially
viable alternative fuel to natural gas.
However, very few countries have so
far commercialised their reserves of coal
bed methane, for a number of reasons.
The wide geographical reach of coal
seams, and hence of the methane gas
inside them, may make the technically
complex extraction procedure unfeasible.
Often there is also a major legal issue to
be resolved: should these reserves be
considered, for regulation and taxation
purposes, as falling under petroleum or
coal and hard-rock mineral legislation?
This question is particularly sensitive
because, in order to collect the gas, a
company would require full access to the
area of land around the coal beds,
making the mining of coal difficult or
even impossible.
India is believed to have substantial
reserves of coal bed methane, which the
Government is interested in commer­
cialising as a way of meeting the
country’s increasing energy demands
while at the same time advancing
environmental protection. Like many
other developing Commonwealth
countries, India is seeking to attract the
interest of both foreign and domestic
private-sector investors in developing
its oil, gas and hard-rock mineral
resources, and has looked to the CFTC
for assistance.
Over the last year, the CFTC has
advised the Indian Government on the
licensing of the coal bed methane
reserves - the first such licensing in
India. The Commonwealth Secretariat’s

in-house economic and legal advisers
helped draft a model contract for the
commercial exploitation of the reserves,
and prepare promotional material to
raise awareness of their potential among
prospective investors. Bids are now
being invited from the industry.
India’s petroleum sector has received
similar attention in recent years.
Secretariat staff advised on terms for the
Government’s New Exploration
Licensing Policy. They also carried out a
comparative analysis of current issues
and practices in the decommissioning
and abandoning of petroleum installa­
tions at the end of their useful life. This
is of key importance to the protection of
the environment, since a clean-up
operation is necessary at the conclusion
of the production phase of petroleum
development.
The drafting of model agreements for
use in negotiations with investors is a
major aspect of CFTC technical
assistance in the mining and petroleum
sectors. Over the years, the Secretariat’s
in-house advisers have provided policy,
legal and economic advice to some 30
member governments. As well as
drafting legislation and model
agreements, this has included sitting at
the table with governments and multi­
national companies in negotiations for
long-term investment agreements.

Empowering landless
rural and urban poor
women
Women form the largest disadvantaged
group in the world. Globally, of the
estimated one billion people living in
poverty, more than 600 million or about
two-thirds are women. Poverty and
illiteracy have a distinct gender bias, and

The methane embedded in India’s coalfields could provide a new source of energy

il

Non-formal education could hold the key to empowering rural landless and urban poor women

women perform most of the unpaid
labour of production and reproduction.
This bias is compounded by the rapid
growth of urban populations, which
poses complex problems of poverty, illi­
teracy and deprivation for women who
have migrated from rural to urban areas
in search of employment. The urban
female population forms the largest
disadvantaged group in many developing
countries. In rural areas, the condition of
landless women is also frequently critical.
Many of these women are caught
between two different worlds - a world
determined by culture and tradition that
confines their activities inside the house
and around the family, and a world
shaped by increasing landlessness and
poverty that forces them outside the
home in search of employment. Most
women in developing countries are illequipped to make the transition into the
outside world. Their situation is pre­
carious, their economic opportunities
are limited, and their position in the
household structure and the economy
continues to be subordinate.
A workshop funded by the CFTC and
organised by the Commonwealth
Secretariat’s Human Resource
Development Division brought together
35 participants from nine member
countries in Bangladesh in April to
examine how non-formal education
(NFE) programmes can be structured to
meet the specific needs of rural landless
and urban poor women, particularly by
providing access to appropriate technol­
ogy and instruction in its use. NFE is an
integrated approach to education and
training, organised outside the formal
school/university system. It can include
literacy training, skills development,
group activities, information and
training on everyday issues, and work
towards improved health, status and
sustainable development. Some non­
governmental organisations (NGOs)
have already successfully demonstrated
that such functional NFE and skills

training can improve the socio-economic
status of disadvantaged women.
The Commonwealth has noted these
successes, but also the fact that there is
still a dearth of NFE programmes at both
national and international levels. Under
its Human Resource Development
Initiative, the Secretariat has therefore
taken up the challenge of spreading
information and formulating strategies
on how functional NFE programmes can
help solve the urgent and growing
problems faced by rural landless and
urban poor women.
The workshop participants, who were
from Ministries of Education, NGOs and
the private sector in their respective coun­
tries, were mainly practitioners directly
involved in the planning, design and
implementation of NFE programmes.
Guidelines were developed for the produc­
tion of training materials for NFE
programmes in the participating countries.
The training materials focused on clarify­
ing the concept of‘appropriate techno­
logy’; understanding gender, gender roles
and gender analysis and how they
influence women’s activities; and under­
standing indigenous technological skills
and the value of women’s existing work.
The workshop, which aroused interna
tional interest and received widespread
media coverage because of the socio­
economic significance of the topic, is part
of a series of Secretariat activities based on
the Foundation for the Future report, to
promote sustainable human resource
development.

Commonwealth seeks
volunteer professionals
The Commonwealth Secretariat is
calling for all professionals/experts,
including women, who want to
volunteer their services for technical
assistance programmes to register on its
roster of experts.

Since 1995, the Secretariat has run a
volunteer programme, the Common­
wealth Service Abroad Programme
(CSAP), to enhance its capacity to meet
the short-term technical assistance needs
of member governments through the
deployment of highly qualified
volunteers to supplement existing
technical assistance programmes. The
programme draws on Commonwealth
expertise and covers a wide range of
disciplines and professional specialisa­
tions. Candidates for assignments under
CSAP have considerable experience in
their field with necessary qualifications in
relevant disciplines.
The duration of assignments under the
programme ranges from one week to
three months or more. Volunteers are
contracted for assignments on a no-fee
basis but receive a daily living allowance
at UN rates and return economy class
airfares (and airfares for a volunteer’s
spouse, where assignments arc for more
than six weeks). Specialisations for which
volunteer experts arc sought and which
reflect Commonwealth priorities include
information technology, human resource
development, public service reform,
gender planning, natural resource
management and trade promotion.
For further information, please visit the
Commonwealth website:
http://www.thcctnnnwnwealth.org

and/or contact: T
he Senior Programme
Officer/(. CSAP, General Technical Assistance
Services Division, ( Commonwealth
Secretariat, Marlborough House, Pall Mall,
London SWIY 5HX, United Kingdom.
Tel: +44(0)171-747'6564;
Fax: + 44 (0)171 747 6515;
E-mail: csap@commonwealth.int

Women give a voice to
the rural voiceless
I he latest entrants into cyberspace are
women in villages across Africa who are
broadcasting the rituals of their daily
lives to the world.
“When you go overseas and hear
about Africa you think, ‘Is this the same
Africa we are talking about?’,” says
Zimbabwean journalist Jennifer
Sibanda. “All you hear is negativity poverty, wars, AIDS. You never hear a
positive thing. Now, through the
Internet, we are talking to the world.
We want women’s voices to be heard,
we are telling our stories directly and we
are giving a voice to the voiceless.”
Ms Sibanda is director of the
Federation of African Media Women,
which in March hosted a training

In the field
The Commonwealth Secretariat, through the CFTC, places experts in the field to assist in

the sustainable development of member countries. Between 15 January and 1 July 1999,
the following experts began short- and long-term assignments in the following countries:

Cameroon
Professor M L Arora of India has joined the University of Buea, Faculty of Social and Management
Sciences, as a Visiting Professor in Accounting. Professor Arora’s assignment is for two

years (14.02.99 to 13.02.01)
Fiji Islands
Mr M Butcher of the United Kingdom has joined the South Pacific Applied Geoscience
Commission, as a Distance Education Officer and Training Co-ordinator. Mr Butcher, who
was contracted through the British Geological Survey, is on a one-year assignment

(01.07.99 to 30.06.2000)
Malawi

MrSASugathasrilal of Sri Lanka has joined the Inland Fisheries Technical Co-ordination
Unit of the Southern African Development Community in Lilongwe. Mr Sugathasrilal’s

assignment is for two years (20.02.99 to 19.02.01 )
Sri Lanka
Dr I DSinghof India has joined the Plant Breeding Department of theTea Research Institute

in Talawakelle, as a Consultant in Plant Breeding. Dr Singh’s assignment is for two years
(18.01.99 to 17.01.01)

Vanuatu
Mr C Blackwood of Canada has joined the Office of the Ombudsman in Port Vila. Mr Blackwood’s
assignment is for one year (15.05.99 to 14.05.2000)

workshop on ‘Electronic Connectivity for
Women Workgroups’. The workshop,
which took place in Johannesburg, South
Africa, gave 11 women journalists from
Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique,
Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia
and Zimbabwe the opportunity to
improve their Internet skills.
The workshop was organised in col lab­
oration with the CFTC, the Southern
African Development Community, and
Sangonet, a Johannesburg-based Internet
service provider. The CFTC was interest­
ed in facilitating and giving value to the
traditional networks women have built in
Southern Africa, and in finding a more
modern way for the networks to work.
“We are not only developing our own
professional capacity, we are linking it to
the development of rural women in our
own countries,” says Ms Sibanda. “We
found we were always downloading and
never uploading. We needed more con­
tent about what is happening in Africa
on the Internet, and to popularise our
culture. There is so much knowledge in
rural communities, and we have to let
people know about the work being done
at this level.”
Problems along the Internet path
remain. The main languages of the
Internet are English and French, not local
African languages, which is a barrier to
wider local participation. A further barrier
is the skill required. Communications
technologies are still taking root in Africa,
and the Internet is new to most African
women in the media.

“Women always seem to be the last
ones to have these technologies and to
learn to use them for their develop­
ment,” says Ms Sibanda.
“These networks give us the opportun­
ity of sharing our experiences, developing
ourselves and removing ourselves from
isolation. Governments in our countries
can’t do everything. Media has a critical
role to play in development and in
ensuring that rural communities are heard
- and this is one way of doing that.”

Taking care of small
business
Small businesses are the mainstay of the
economics of most small states.
Mauritius, a typical Commonwealth
small island state with a population of
just over 1 million, has a vibrant small
business sector, with more than 5,700
small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
accounting for almost one-third of all
manufacturing employment in the
country.
This is a reflection of the marketfriendly trade and investment policies
Mauritius has pursued since the 1970s,
as well as its skilled and literate work­
force, relatively good infrastructure and
pro-business government policy
environment.
Recently the Government of Mauritius
has looked increasingly to the small
business sector to generate new exports

and employment. Although some
Mauritian SMEs have successfully broken
into export markets, many others lacked
the requisite technological and market­
ing capabilities to compete overseas.
Moreover, the authorities had just begun
some initiatives to encourage small firm
exports and were actively seeking a new
policy framework for SME export
development.
In mid-1998, Mauritius approached the
Commonwealth Secretariat for technical
assistance to boost the competitiveness of
its small and medium enterprises. With
funding from the CFTC and the
Government of Mauritius, a Secretariat
team undertook a diagnostic study of
SME exports and public policies. The
study mapped out the export record of
Mauritian SMEs, assessed their techno­
logical and marketing capabilities,
evaluated the progress of economic
reform and deregulation policies, and
examined the adequacy of SME support
institutions and services. Drawing on best
practice, the study also formulated a
three-year competitiveness strategy to
increase SME exports from Mauritius.
A draft report was prepared by
Secretariat staff in collaboration with an
external consultant and fine-tuned at a
roundtable in Mauritius in February,
involving more than 60 senior govern­
ment officials, heads of private firms,
representatives from business organisa­
tions and a Secretariat team. Among
the key strategies the report
recommends are further selective import
liberalisation and deregulation,
reductions in red tape particularly
regarding business start-up regulations,
and a reorganisation of the support
system for SMEs to create a Business
Link along the line of the model
developed in the UK.
The recommendations of the report,
which is entitled ‘Small Firm Exports and
Public Policies in Mauritius’, will be input
into Mauritius’s 1999/2000 National
Budget. The Secretariat hopes to under­
take similar work on small firms in other
Commonwealth developing countries.

Richard Gold, Director of the Commonwealth
Secretariat’s Export and Industrial Development
Division (right), formally hands over the CFTC
report to Moorthy Sunassee, the Mauritian
Minister of Industry and Commerce