Monthly Archives: January 2010

The following Guest Post contributed by Ken Powell, CEO of General Mills was previously published in the Richmond Times Dispatch on January 14 2010. It shows how public-private partnerships, such as CARE and General Mills working together can actually make a real difference to people’s lives. I find it encouraging to see  the emphasis on providing scholarships, houses for teachers and village savings and loans associations These are proven ways to boost education and local economies and to help people to help themselves. General Mills will also be providing food technology expertise to Africa through partnership with USAID and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief

The partnership will link the technical and business expertise of General Mills and up to nine additional food companies with up to 200 small and medium-sized mills and food processors in 15 sub-Saharan African countries. The partnership aims to improve the ability of these small and medium-sized enterprises to produce high-quality, nutritious and safe food at affordable prices. The partnership, which could potentially reach a value of $21 million, will also benefit an estimated 1.6 million smallholder farmers who supply these businesses.(PEPFAR, USAID and General Mills Partner to Improve Food Processing in Africa)

Please visit joinmyvillage.com and read more about the project and be part of it. Interactivity between online participants and recipients in Malawi is one of the keys to this project.

Join My Village channels the power of online communities to help real communities in Malawi ignite hope, inspire action, and create lasting change. General Mills is ready to donate up to $500,000 to empower women and girls through CARE’s work – and your actions and donations will make it happen. $200,000 is already working hard in approximately 75 villages in the Kasungu region of Malawi. The remaining $300,000 is waiting to be unlocked by you!

YOU can make a difference!

In Africa, Empowering Women and Nourishing Lives

As a girl growing up in Malawi, Astrid Kalinde had two big advantages: She was incredibly smart and she could run like the wind. Her parents, forced by financial considerations to choose just one of their 12 children to send to elementary school, picked her.

Astrid excelled in academics. She won the district relay race six times. But despite her gifts, Astrid faced countless barriers to success. The nearest high school was too far away for her to attend — and she was living in one of the world’s poorest countries, where life expectancy is a mere 44 years and the average woman lives on less than $2 a day.

At 51, Astrid now lives in extreme poverty. Yet she remains undaunted by her circumstances. She hopes to one day open a grocery and tea room in her village of Katenje. “I am a joyful person,” she explains. “Once I open my tea room, people will not want to go anywhere else.”

In Malawi, Astrid sadly has few resources with which to start her business, even with her ample drive and talent. As governments, businesses, non-governmental organizations, and individuals work to help the developing world battle poverty, we must realize that empowering women like Astrid is the strategy we must embrace.

Women constitute a disproportionate share of the impoverished. According to United Nations statistics, 70 percent of the world’s poor are women. And even though women are responsible for two-thirds of the world’s working hours, they earn only 10 percent of the income and own less than 1 percent of the world’s property.

They also suffer from a serious lack of access to education. Women represent two-thirds of the adults who cannot read or write; girls account for 55 percent of the children not attending primary school.

The plight of women has only been worsened by the global economic downturn. The International Labour Organization estimates that the current recession has left an additional 22 million women around the world without employment.

Addressing these disparities isn’t just a matter of fairness. It’s basic economics. Providing women in the developing world with education and financial freedom has been demonstrated to increase per-capita income, agricultural yields, school enrollment, as well as childhood nutrition.

In fact, just five years of education for girls boosts child survival by up to 40 percent — and every year of primary school education a girl receives increases her wages by 10 percent to 20 percent in later life.

Understanding the value of investing in and empowering women, General Mills has partnered with CARE, a leading international humanitarian organization, to launch Join My Village, an initiative designed to create and fund economic and educational opportunities for girls and women in 75 Malawian villages.

Money raised through the Join My Village program will provide a minimum of 150 four-year education scholarships to top female students. It will pay for construction of at least 15 houses for female teachers.

It will also fund at least 150 village savings and loan associations. In turn, these investments will help 2,400 members and their families pool their resources and make small business loans to each other.

Already, more than $80,000 has been raised as part of the Join My Village program. Additional funds can be “unlocked,” one dollar at a time, simply by visiting JoinMyVillage.com. This is money that will help Astrid start her tea room and allow others in the village to invest in their futures as well.

It is part of General Mills’ larger commitment to extending a helping hand to Africa. Over the next three years, General Mills expects to contribute $5.4 million in cash and technical assistance to improve food processing in Africa — part of a unique public-private partnership focused on food technology with the U.S. Agency for International Development and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Why? Because we feel we have an obligation to help — and because our employees want us to help. As one of the world’s largest food companies, we have technical and business expertise we can share with African food processors to help address hunger for African families — and our employees are eager to volunteer their skills and knowledge to support this effort.

Extending opportunities to the developing world — especially empowering women — is part of our mission of Nourishing Lives. Our vision is to inspire other leaders to harness the ingenuity and resources of the private sector to address head-on the problems faced by the developing world.

Women like Astrid are making a difference in communities all over the world. Initiatives like Join My Village can help them succeed.

Ken Powell is the chairman of the board and CEO of General Mills.

Suggested Books

• Malawi Moonsmoke: Changing a Part of Our World — One Life at a Time
• Malawi, 4th: The Bradt Travel Guide