By Lindsay Dworman

Last year, when members of Winrock’s child labor team in Malawi attended a workshop on fuel-efficient cookstoves organized by Winrock’s clean energy team, what their two projects had in common wasn’t necessarily obvious. What soon became clear, however, was that advancing one project’s goals helped achieve the other’s, and together they are having an even greater impact on Malawian families.

Since 2011, Winrock has been combating child labor in tobacco growing in Malawi, where poverty, lack of awareness and a struggling education system have combined to make life more difficult for the nation’s children. Achieving Reduction in Child Labor in Support of Education II (ARISE II) — a multi-year partnership among Japan Tobacco International (JTI), Winrock International and the International Labor Organization (ILO) ― helps eliminate and prevent child labor by addressing factors that drive smallholder farmers to employ children in tobacco growing.

A cookstove training in Malawi, where Winrock’s clean energy team has been working since 2012. Photo by Katie Gross.

In addition, Winrock’s clean energy team has been working since 2012 through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-funded Capacity Building and Technical Assistance on Clean and Efficient Cooking Practices project to build the capacity of organizations around the globe, including in Malawi, to reduce exposure to household air pollution. The project seeks to increase the use of clean, affordable and safe home cooking and heating practices, such as fuel-efficient cookstoves. The benefits are tremendous.

The chitetezo mbaula, a portable, clay, wood-burning stove, is a popular model in Malawi. It saves about 40 percent on firewood compared to an open fire, lasts up to two years, and retails for $1 to $2 USD, making it accessible in a country where 51 percent of people live in poverty. The cookstove’s design also significantly reduces smoke, reducing household air pollution and diminishing related health issues. The decreased demand for firewood also helps reduce deforestation, which has caused devastating floods, soil erosion and food insecurity in Malawi.

These cookstoves save about 40 percent on firewood, retail for $1 to $2 USD each, and significantly reduce household air pollution. Photo by Katie Gross.

So what do fuel-efficient cookstoves have to do with child labor? As Winrock’s ARISE project is showing us, quite a lot. Increasing access to economic opportunities for parents is a key component of Winrock’s approach to reducing child labor. One method is through ARISE’s Women’s Agribusiness Groups, which provide mothers from vulnerable families with training and initial capital investments for savings groups to develop their own businesses.

One of the businesses is Chitetezo mbaula cookstoves. Inexpensive to build and affordable to buy, the stoves are highly marketable, providing a sustainable source of income for families. The cookstoves also help address child labor in other ways. Women and children are responsible for collecting firewood, yet due to extensive deforestation they must travel increasingly long distances to gather it. This hurts women’s ability to run their businesses and children’s ability to attend school. By significantly reducing the need for firewood, the cookstoves give children ― especially girls ― more time for school.

Seeing connections across issue areas isn’t always easy. Yet as Winrock’s work in Malawi is proving, finding these connections may help us discover critical solutions to achieving our projects’ goals ― and then some.

By significantly reducing the need for firewood, which women and children collect, cookstoves give all children ― especially girls ― more time for school. Photo courtesy JTI.

By Ben Amick, Senior Adviser, Winrock’s Business Development and External Affairs Group

Editor’s Note: Winrock is empowering Asian farmers through mentorship and support. You never quite know where that innovation will lead.

When I first met the Rat Hunter Team in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, it had some cardboard cutouts and an idea — a contraption that team members hoped would scare rats into traps alive and unharmed so they could be sent to Vietnam for human consumption. In this part of the world, rats are as big as cats, and yes, people eat them. Healthy, live specimens go for about $1 per kilo, while nicely skinned and cleaned rats fetch a little more.

At this stage, the Rat Hunters — Likun Meas, Chanthy Leang, Rachana Phauk and Lydet Pidor (the lone male in the group) — were a longshot, up against stiff competition, including a vegetable cooler built from organic materials that is already on sale in Cambodia.  Still, the judges of the Cambodian regional makerthon thought the Rat Hunter’s idea was innovative enough to award it first place.

The team knew they would face fierce competition at the finals, the InnovASEAN Makers Summit in Singapore. They were Cambodia’s first team to join this regional event, organized by the Southeast Asia Makerspace Network. Other Southeast Asian cities have much more established maker movements.

But the Rat Hunters had moxie. And they had help. Winrock and partner Ki Chong Tran from Arc Hub (the first 3-D printing company in Phnom Penh) agreed to mentor three teams competing in the finals in Singapore — the Rat Hunters and two teams from Vietnam.

At our first strategy meeting with the Rat Hunters, Ki Chong and I asked lots of questions: What sounds are best at frightening rats?  What’s the difference between a field rat and a city rat? And who’s brave enough to actually catch a few rats?  (All of the team members were.)

Chanthy Leang of the Rat Hunter team talks with farmers about a new way to protect their rice fields from rodents.

By mid-September, Winrock’s Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub had connected with each team to advise on the advantages of lean startup, human-centered design approaches and how to ask customers open-ended questions. When the Rat Hunters did this, they learned that farmers would be willing to pay for a device if it could better help them capture the rats, which eat a sizable portion of their rice harvests. While out in the field, the team also located an indigenous rat trap made of fish netting that could be easily made by local distributors.

But the Rat Hunters were still stumped on what sound would best flush the rats and send them fleeing into the trap. A snake hiss didn’t work, nor did other bells and whistles. The Rat Hunters were getting discouraged. Ki Chong and I met with them to explore options. We were in for a big surprise. The team had assembled an amazing amount of information and data about traps, rat biology and the scope of the problem facing farmers. By the end of the meeting, Ki Chong and I realized that this knowledge alone was impressive and the team just needed a roadmap.

Members of the Rat Hunter team test out their new sounds.

Over the weeks that followed, the Rat Hunter team went back to the field to start testing new sounds. When they tried the sound of a growling cat, the rats came running out of the field. Eureka! The team quickly developed a prototype, a device that emitted growling cat noises on one side of a field with a set of rat traps on the other side.  When I asked if the rats would scatter and run in every direction, Chanthy assured me they would not. Rats run in straight lines unless they come to a wall, she said, which is why they do so well in mazes!

The team priced the Rat Hunter at $40, a price smallholder farmers said was fair if the product worked as advertised. Farmers could defray some of the cost by selling the rats they caught. The Rat Hunters developed a business plan along with a series of steps to further test and develop their product.

These rats were trapped during testing of the Rat Hunter product.

Finally, the big day arrived. Each team was amazing, but the Rat Hunters were the most impressive. Though they started as the underdog, they worked hard and produced a crisp, knowledgeable prototype, plus a marketing strategy and business plan they could scale in just a few weeks. When they won, the entire auditorium erupted in joy.

Winrock is proud of the Rat Hunters and all the teams who competed. The sky is the limit for these young entrepreneurs.

Rachana Phauk, Likun Meas, Chanthy Leang and Lydet Pidor of the Rat Hunter team at the InnovASEAN Makers Summit in Singapore. The team was awarded a $1,000 first-place prize from the Southeast Asia Makerspace Network.

Read more about the Rat Hunters:

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/31337/cambodia-takes-the-win-in-regional-innovation-challenge/

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/turning-winning-rat-trap-hot-product-119629/

http://makezine.com/2016/08/29/making-the-future-in-cambodia/

http://geeksincambodia.com/interview-sea-makerthon-winners-team-rat-hunter/  

http://innovasean.singaporemakers.com/makerthon-finalists

By Mary Grady

As Salaam Alaikum from Marrakech, Morocco! At the opening ceremony for the 22^nd UN Climate Change Conference (COP 22), dignitaries welcomed delegates from around the world with a call to action at what is being hailed the “COP of Implementation.”  Even in the rain, the positive reception to the call to action was evident.

The city of one million will swell by over 15,000 people over the next two weeks, all converging on the Bab Iglhi. Originally the main gate into medieval Medina, the Bab Ighli is host to a newly erected modern tent city spanning several city blocks. It is the site of COP exhibits, national pavilions, civil society events and official negotiations.

Opening day excitement is in the air as delegates swarm the mazelike alleys of the Medina and the main promenade heading to and from the Bab Ighli. There’s a lot to be excited about. In less than one year since the adoption of the Paris Agreement last December, the Marrakech COP is celebrating three meaningful achievements, all of which represent the high level of engagement and participation of countries to curb climate change.

First, the Paris Agreement cleared the double threshold for entry into force on October 5th with ratification by 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of global emissions. The U.S. and China both ratified the Agreement at a September G20 meeting in China, a critical step in the entry into force because the two nations represent almost 40 percent of global emissions. The Paris Agreement became official on November 4, accelerating the schedule for completion by two years to 2018.

The Paris Agreement is the culmination of years of negotiations to develop international consensus in the climate fight and to raise ambition for actions and results. It establishes a different framework from Kyoto in that all signatory countries commit to non-binding nationally determined contributions (NDCs) of their own choosing. Article 6 of the Paris Agreement provides the foundation for parties to use markets to pursue “voluntary cooperation” (carbon emissions trading) to achieve their NDCs.  The Agreement combines the NDCs with international rules and common accounting approaches to ensure transparency and integrity. At COP 22, the detailed work to establish the rules for implementation of the Paris Agreement will begin.

Second, on October 6 the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) approved an Assembly Resolution to develop and implement a global market-based mechanism to achieve carbon neutral growth for international aviation starting in 2020. This will be accomplished with the use of carbon offsets under an ICAO Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). Currently, 66 states representing over 86 percent of international aviation activity have agreed to participate in the CORSIA starting in 2020, including the U.S. and China. The historic accord will result in emissions reductions of 2.5 billion over the next 20 years.

Third, on October 15 more than 140 nations approved the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer. The reduction of ozone depleting substances (ODS) under the Montreal Protocol spurred production of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), refrigerants and foams used in air conditioning, refrigeration and insulation. HFCs do not deplete the ozone layer, but are thousands of times more potent to the atmosphere than CO₂ and are the fastest growing source of global emissions. The landmark Kigali Amendment establishes a timetable for all countries to reduce the production and use of HFCs, and is critical to achieving the Paris Agreement’s target of holding global warming below 1.5°Celsius.

The ICAO Resolution and Kigali Amendment are both essential to meet the global emissions reduction targets set forth in the Paris Agreement. In addition, a combination of “bottom-up” approaches are also needed. According to the World Bank, increased international carbon trading could reduce the cost of climate change mitigation by 32 percent by 2030. In short, markets can help deliver the hundreds of billions of dollars needed for climate change mitigation and adaptation.

National policies and markets to price carbon are necessary to meet goals. California’s Global Warming Solutions Act is a model for achieving results while growing the economy and incentivizing innovation in low-carbon technology solutions. Private sector and non-state voluntary action is critical to deliver results across the energy and transportation sectors as well as in agricultural production and for the conservation and restoration of ecosystems.

As the work begins to establish the rules for Paris Agreement implementation, the American Carbon Registry is excited to participate in the discussion and share our experience in the voluntary and regulated carbon markets.

Au revoir for now from the ‘Rose City.’

Mary Grady, Deputy Director, American Carbon Registry, an enterprise of Winrock International

November 9

Aviation & Carbon Markets: The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) deal and the way forward

Hosted by International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)

Panelist: Mary Grady

The Role of Carbon Markets to Incentivize the ODS Destruction and the Use of Certified Reclaimed Refrigerants and to Accelerate the Transition to Low GWP Refrigerants and Foams

Hosted by American Carbon Registry, Winrock International

Moderator – Mary Grady

November 10

Reimagining Environmental Commodities: Technology’s Impact on Standards, Verification and Reporting

Hosted by International Emissions Trading Association (IETA)

Speaker – John Kadyszewski, Director, American Carbon Registry

Taking the Clean Energy Transformation from NDCs to Action

Hosted by U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Energy hosted event (BCSE)

Speaker – John Kadyszewski, Director, American Carbon Registry

November 11

Compliance Carbon Markets Built on Voluntary Offset Program Innovation and Infrastructure

Hosted by American Carbon Registry, Winrock International

Panelist – John Kadyszewski, Director, American Carbon Registry

November 16

Global Landscapes Forum

John Kadyszewski, Director, American Carbon Registry

Jessica Orrego, Director of Forestry, American Carbon Registry