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... JOBS!! JOBS!! JOBS!! ...... We're looking for bright, competent and creative people to fill two posts based at EMG, Cape Town...
... we host a conference to promote the participation of civil society in the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and the South African National Action Programme
... a new publication on the sustainable harvesting of wild rooibos tea
... our report-back from a recent meeting of the SA Civil Society Water Caucus
... still plugging the last few well-priced copies of our book on global warming
... the latest on the Water Dialogues South Africa
... EMGs work in fair trade
... local dam-affected communities engage with World Commission on Dams recommendations
... all you need to know about the MDGs
... more on our rural development projects
!!! JOBS !!!We are opening two new positions to start 1 August 2008 (negotiable). These will be 2-year contracts, renewable depending on performance and availability of funds. Both posts will be based at EMG in Cape Town. 1) Project manager – Water Advocacy
and Outreach Ideally, you will
Read to full description here... Remuneration R13 500 – R18 500 per month, depending on skills and experience. Your email application must include your CV (maximum 5 pages), contact details of 3 referees, and a motivation letter, and must indicate clearly which of the two position you are applying for. Send to info@emg.org.za by 20 June 2008. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. 2) Researcher – Water and Climate
Change Ideally, you will
Read to full description here... Remuneration R11 000 – R15 000 per month, depending on skills and experience. Your email application must include your CV (maximum 5 pages), contact details of 3 referees, and a motivation letter, and must indicate clearly which of the two position you are applying for. Send to info@emg.org.za by 20 June 2008. Only short-listed candidates will be contacted. Desertification WorkshopEMG, as a partner in the international DryNet network, will host a workshop in Johannesburg at the Kempton Park Conference Centre from 17 - 19 June 2008. The workshop is titled: Sustaining the land, sustaining our communities: a National Workshop to promote civil society participation in the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the South African National Action Programme (NAP) to Combat Desertification. The workshop will include presentations of case studies, discussions
and analysis, a lobbying training workshop, a "Market Place",
where all participating organizations have an opportunity to exhibit
or sell their wares, and a gala evening. Click here for the formal invitation and respond to Karen Goldberg at karen.goldberg@gmail.com Wild Rooibos TeaThe commercialy grown "Nortier" variety of rooibos tea is fast-growing and high-yielding, but less resistant to pests and drought than the other naturally occuring varieties. Because of the increasing market for rooibos, much of the plant's natural habitat has been put under intensive mono-crop cultivation and the only remaining habitat for wild tea is in the marginal mountainous areas. Like the wild tea, small-scale "coloured" farmers were pushed into these mariginal areas by successive apartheid laws. EMG facilitated a programme of action-research with small-farmers of the Heiveld Co-op and Wupperthal Tea Association to identify, characterise and map populations of wild tea. Wild rooibos is much in demand by European markets and attracts a high price, and the farmers were keen to develop a sustainable harvesting strategy. The knowledge built up in this action-research programme has been collected in a publication. The English version of "The Sustainable Harvest of Wild Rooibos" is now available online (2MB PDF). Afrikaans hard-copies are available through EMG. Reflecting on strategies and tactics - A national workshop for civil society organisations active in water servicesReflecting on the world is what we as civil society do all the time, but reflecting on ourselves is something more of a challenge, and this was the theme of the Workshop hosted by Environmental Monitoring Group and South African Water Caucus on 1 November 2007 in Kalk Bay, Cape Town. It was something of an experimental process. A number of people had been asked to each prepare and present a case study of a particular approach to improving water services -- direct protest, petitions, dialogue, legal challenges, demonstration projects, etc. The idea was to see what could be learned from listening to and discussing each of these different cases. The rules were simple. Listen and be “present”. Participants were asked to try to understand the dynamics of each of the cases without judging, looking for faults, offering advice, or trying to solve the problem in "your" way. For red-blooded activists, this was not always easy, but the aim was to illustrate the range of strategies used by civil society organisations, how these could shed light on a complex situation, and what could be learned about the "bigger picture". Approaching the workshop this way was an attempt to find an alternative from the kind of analytical SWAT-analysis which often dominates meetings of activists -- resulting in a long list of unsolvable problems, and hurried resolutions which are seldom translated into action. The case studies presented illustrated a range of different approaches. The Water Dialogues is an example of research, conversation and relationship building. Masibambane could be seen as advocacy in implementation, with an emphasis on supporting local government. The assumption behind Citizens’ Voice is that if people are educated and aware of their rights, they will demand better services and help regulate local authorities. The Phiri Prepaid Meters case study is an example of direct action, leading to litigation. EMG hosted the meeting. Victor Munnik facilitated and Liane Greeff took the photos. Download the Proceedings (PDF 327KB) and the Case Studies (PDF 99KB). A Brief Guide to Global WarmingWe have less than 10 copies left of Jessica Wilson and Stephen Law's best-seller A Brief Guide to Global Warming published by Robinson. This light-weight, easy-to-read "idiots guide" about a hot and heavy-weight issue is still available at the discount price of just R60 (plus R10 postage). ...So get your copy by sending an email to Zainab Adams at zainab@emg.org.za. An if we're sold out, don't panic. You can still order it from your local bookstore or on-line from Amazon. Title: A Brief Guide to Global Warming .... And thanks to those of you who have been so kind about our little effort and have given us such encouraging feedback. One of those people is Brenda Martin, currently coordinating the 90 X 2030 Project, who says she keeps a copy of our little book in her bag at all times! Check out their informative and inspirational website. The Water DialoguesLocal authorities all over the world face many challenges in ensuring effective, equitable and sustainable delivery of water and sanitation. Different approaches have been used to meet these challenges, with the involvement of the private sector perhaps the most controversial, and pitting the "water as a human right" activists against the "water as a commodity" technisists.... with little middle ground. In this context the Water Dialogues process came to life, as an initiative with a uniquely South African flavour, but one that is also part of an international process. The South African process is moving into its most challenging phase. Three initial case-study areas were identified and the research process began. Perhaps not surprisingly these yielded as many questions as answers, but also gave us all a much better sense of how to focus the remaining case-studies.... which begin in earnest early this year. The Working Group continues to meet regularly and a "Forum Meeting", which is an opportunity to involve a much wider audience, is planned for early June 2008. EMG has been active in helping to establish the South African Water Dialogue process and is also represented on the International Working Group. Since the Water Dialogues itself is not an organisation with any legal standing, EMG agreed top act as the "acounting agent" in managing funds and employing personnel. Fair tradeEMG has been helping the Association for Fairness in Trade (AFIT), a network formally launched in May 2005, to provide a platform for small-farmers and farmworker organisations to engage with the rapidly growing fair trade system in South Africa. At the recent AFIT Annual General Meeting in December 207, the assembled members reaffirmed their committment to the network and its priorities -- and of course we are all delighted by the response of donors to our pleas for financial assistance. 2008 looks set to be an exciting year of training, exchange visits and more effective lobbying and advocacy. South African fair trade stakeholders meet in October 2007 for the Annual General Meeting of Fair Trade South Africa (FTSA). A new Board was elected (some old faces, some new) and shortly thereafter, it was able to confirm the appointment of a full-time CEO in the person of Boudewijn Goossens. Apart from managing FTSA's ambitious programme, he and the Board will also steer the creation of new legal entity to manage the licencing of FLO products in South Africa which will at last allow local producers to get their labeled product onto local shelves, and will also open the door for FLO labelled goods from African, Asia and Latin America. The World Commission on Dams in South AfricaFor the last 3 years, a multi-stakeholder group of South African government, industry and civil society has been looking at how to integrate the findings of the World Commission on Dams (WCD) into our national policy and practice. EMG's key role in the South African Initiative on the WCD was to facilitate the involvement of dam-affected communities and civil society groups in this process. EMG published the final report on behalf of the Initiative, which makes recommendations to government and other stakeholders. The next steps are to test these in practice. In the pipeline.... An audio-visual account of the stories of people forces to leave their homes, fields and ancestral burial grounds over 20 years ago to make way for the Inanda Dam. Thanks to the dam, residents and households in Durban have enjoyed a reliable water supply. Those who had to move into hastily constructed tin shacks are still fighting to get compensation... or at least some recognition of the sacrifice they made in the "greater common good". Also planned for the end of the year, a documentation of some of the experiences, both good and bad, of people and communities across the African continent who had to make way for large dams. MDGs??What are the Millennium Development Goals and why should you care? We don't think you should stop the important work you are doing, or change your focus to fit in with this particular international agreement. But we do think that the level of global political support for the MDGs may offer civil society organisations a range of opportunities -- be they funding, advocacy, mobilisation, etc..... EMG is happy to share with you our publication entitled The Millennium Development Goals: A guide for civil society. You can download it directly (220KB PDF). Hard copies are unfortunately no longer available. |
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Rural developmentSmall-scale rooibos tea farmers have, for generations, been harvesting wild rooibos tea for their own use and to blend with the tea that they cultivate. But the increase of mono-crop cultivation by "commercial" farmers has seen the small-scale farmer become the de facto custodians of the last remaining populations of naturally ocurring wild rooibos. The conservation of this wild genetic stock, and the ecosystem that it form part of, has obvious benefits -- not just t othe small-scale farmers, but to the rooibos industry as a whole and to the wider ecosystem. EMG is working with small-farmers to develop a wild rooibos marketing strategy that will ensure that it is sustainable managed. Wild harvested rooibos is only one source of income for the small-scale rooibos farmers. Farming on marginal and semi-arid lands can place a lot of pressure on delicate ecosystems. At the same time the farmers and their dependents are more suseptable to the vagaries of weather and climate. EMG works with both the Wupperthal and Heiveld small-farmer communities to develop strategies for conserving the natural resources aound them, particularly soil, water and biodiversity. Over the past few years, EMG has facilitated regular meetings between small-scale rooibos farmers and academics to understand more about climate change and the strategies available to farmers to adapt to a changing climate. A process is now underway to collect and document the vulnerability of this farming community and the adaptation strategies they have identified. |
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