Advance Aid: a cause worth getting blogged up about

Aha, this is much better: a really heartfelt description of why That charitable cause is worth getting excited about, from an email to me from one of its Directors, David Dickie:

It really is a good concept and one that can engender a culture of trade not aid on the continent of Africa. Our basic mission is simple: sending aid to Africa does not work; the only solution is to create real and sustainable employment there which will create lasting sustainability. The first project we have been involved is the opening of a plastics factory in Kenya which will create 300 jobs in Nairobi on day one. Believe me, this is a big deal out there and will lift lots and lots of families from the poverty trap.

We are really ready to spread the word now and need to use the cheapest and most efficient media for doing this. If there is a way in which you could help us get the word out there, that would be great.

Check out www.advanceaid.org for some more info.

I wish Advance Aid all the best for 2008—it sounds like they are indeed doing very valuable work. I can't help but feel, though, that they could do very well to blog (etc.) about it from the rooftops themselves and leverage social web tools to spread the word. I would certainly favourite them in Blog Friends if they joined, as I'd love to track and share with friends how they get on. : )

Mobile moolah

Om Malik reports another example of the convergence of "real" and "virtual" currencies:

Necessity, they say is the mother of invention. It couldn’t be more true in case of Africa, where pre-paid airtime is fast becoming the ‘virtual’ currency for Pan-African trade, overcoming conventional currency exchange and lack of banking infrastructure. It started out as phone users in Nigeria, especially in the rural areas trading minutes, but then the transactions took a mercantile trend.

Instead of paying cash, people started paying in airtime. Minutes became moolah and since the trend has caught on, and is being used for cross border trade as well.

Networked technology enables us to codify and transact information in a systematic way. It stands to reason that people will find more and more ways to tie the ephemeral values of that information to tangibly valuable things and services. And they don't need banks or governments to mediate the process (although the taxman is bound to take an interest soon enough!).