Liberia Day 2

Another very full and informative day.  The Liberians are hopeful about and inspired to rebuild their country.  The are so glad to not be war torn and to be in the recovery phase despite the long road ahead.

After delayed jet lag and only two hours of sleep, we drove about three hours outside of the city.  We were schedule to make a stop to learn about a clean energy project.  I have to admit, I wasn't very excited and thought we would be in an institutional building learning about abstract concepts related to a power grid.  How naive of me!
Another very full and informative day.  The Liberians are hopeful about and inspired to rebuild their country.  The are so glad to not be war torn and to be in the recovery phase despite the long road ahead.

After delayed jet lag and only two hours of sleep, we drove about three hours outside of the city.  We were schedule to make a stop to learn about a clean energy project.  I have to admit, I wasn't very excited and thought we would be in an institutional building learning about abstract concepts related to a power grid.  How naive of me!

 We stopped in what seemed like a remote village, but was really off of one of the few main roads.  We were greeted by local villagers and gathered under shelter made of sticks and leaves.  We then learned about two efforts to provide better energy to the poor.  The first is solar power technology which is a little light assembled inside of a sawed off water bottle.   Right now they use a dangerous contraption of oil for light. I was actually thrilled to see this because I had posted an article from the NYT on this same technology being used in Kenya.

Next, we learned about coal burning methods that were much more efficient and cleaner than the environmentally negative and inefficient way villagers across Liberian are doing it now and about new more efficient and safer cook stoves.   We are talking about stoves that resemble something like what we consider a beefy camp stove which is  a step up for people here.  Because this village is a large resource of coal, workers are being trained to fabricate the technologies for enterprise.  These new technologies take a change in mind set.  Interestingly, it is the younger mothers who are more willing to make this change even though it's faster and healthier for their family and community.

We then went onto the town of Buchanan.  The road was only paved about 70% of the way and would be considered and shanty town by our standards, but it is the third largest town in the country. Besides taking a wooden boat ride across the river where we had to squat down in the space between the wooden plank seats so we would not tip over, we learned about the current ocean erosion going on due to climate change.   Over 350 houses have fallen into the ocean in the last four years.  This ties into the poor environmental habits of the coal burning just mentioned.

After passing out on the ride home, I rallied for a dinner with Laura from Project Healthy Children (CHP) who is working on methods to fortify food with micronutrients in developing countries.  At a Copenhagen conference with the worlds leading economists, providing micronutirents was one of the top three ways identified as making lasting change in the developing world. Eleos Foundation is currently supporting their work.  It's a long process with many players, but the current Minister of Health is in favor of this project which will help things go faster. This would eventually be sustainable once all the methodology is put in place. Kristof has written about the important work CHP is doing, as well.

What strikes me about all of the projects we have seen is how relatively new they all are.  This is because up until a few years ago there was no infrastructure of any kind.  If successful, each one of these projects can be integrated into this infrastructure as the country develops.  This, combined, with the relatively small size of the country, is what makes Liberia unique and with so much potential.

Finally, I want to clarify that although a large part of this trip, and of the Eleos Foundation, is about creating sustainable and scalable models that benefit the people of Liberia, That doesn't mean there is never a time for aid, it's just not the long term solution.


Tomorrow is market/micro finance day.