Simple Swaps to Help Global South Countries
It’s believed that around one in every 11 people go to bed hungry each night, that’s around a third of the world’s population. The world’s hungriest countries at present are Haiti, Mali, Sudan, South Sudan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Yet there is more than enough food for every person on earth. In fact, more food is thrown away than is needed to feed every hungry person.
Although many Global South countries face deep challenges from poverty and hunger (often caused by war and freak weather due to climate change), just ‘throwing money at big charity’ is not the answer. The good news is that there are more effective and empowering ways to help.
From choosing Fair Trade food and drink, to giving directly to people (without big charities), you can do something to help!
Africans don’t want to rely on westerners, they want to grow food on their own land. Climate smart agriculture does this, by supporting seeds and training for drought-tolerant crops and rainwater harvesting, to restore desert to lush land to grow healthy food at little cost.
This also provides resilience when droughts and floods hit. Recently in Tanzania, floods have killed nearly 150 people, the main city relying on ‘rain-fed agriculture’ for income. Floods have left people (and donkeys) starving, due to.
Rainforest Alliance has a good article on the benefits of climate-smart-agriculture:
- Rainwater harvesting does what it says on the tin – ensuring that on rare occasions when it rains, that water is kept to water plants and soil, rather than evaporating into the ground.
- Contour planting is used especially for tea plantations. Planting on hills or natural terraces helps to reduce soil erosion.
- Planting shade trees helps crops to flourish in hot weather. It also helps farmers grow multiple crops. You’ve likely heard of shade-grown coffee, where farmers can also grow say bananas at the same time, so get more bang for their buck, at local markets.
Why ‘Gifting Animals’ Is Not a Good Idea
Giving animals may seem kind, but giving cows and goats to (lactose-intolerant) people in developing countries that already suffer over-grazing is not a good idea. It creates more mouths to water and feed, can spread disease and result in fights, where animals are ‘cash crops’.
A better alternative is to grow teff, the world’s tiniest grain that is also super-high in protein. In Ethiopia (where we imported food from during Live Aid to feed our livestock), around 40% of people are starving.
Yet the country has 50 million cattle, sheep and goats and 35 million chickens. All consuming food and water, which causes overgrazing, deforestation, erosion and desertification.
You can feed way more people with plants than livestock, so donating to plant-based food charities means that your money feeds more people:
Animal gifting is madness. Environmentally unsound and economically disastrous. The grave consequences of introducing large numbers of goats and other domestic animals into fragile, arid environments is well-documented.
It’s grossly irresponsible to continue with these schemes, as a means of raising quick money for charities, over the Christmas season. The World Land Trust
How Solar Power Helps Global South Countries
If you want to make a difference, support one of the companies below, all of which use profits to fund solar power in developing countries. In Africa, millions use dangerous expensive kerosene or chop firewood, which causes deforestation. Far better (in hot sunny climates) is free solar power, to bring heat and light, for cooking and studying.
Little Sun is a solar lamp that gives 5 hours of bright light (or 40 hours of dim light), after 5 hours of charging. For each one bought, one is donated to a rural household in Ethiopia.
Turn off lights when not needed to avoid light pollution and prevent bird strike.
Power a Life makes pocket phone chargers and Wee Pal Power Bank (made from recycled plastic bottles). Again, profits help solar charities.
Wonderbag is an African-made slow cooker, which needs no electricity. Just bring a pot of food to the boil, and food cooks, using heat retention technology.
The Little Coffee Company female farmers up to 125% more than Fair Trade minimum. It donates solar lamps to remote areas of Africa, for each pack sold.
Avoid caffeine for pregnancy/nursing. Use a sink protector mat to avoid grounds clogging sinks (bin grounds, as acids could harm compost creatures).
I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until the oil and gas run out, before we tackle that. I had I had more years left. Thomas Edison (American inventor who died in 1931). He would not be that impressed.
Belu (filtered water for offices and hospitality)
Belu is an amazing social enterprise, that offers both filtered and bottled/canned water for offices and the hospitality industry (restaurants, hotels etc). And uses profits to help provide clean water in Global South countries. Just imagine is everyone switched over, what good it could do?
We could take this even further. Just imagine if all schools, hospitals, nursing homes, doctor surgeries, gyms, council offices and government buildings also switched. It would reduce a huge amount of plastic waste, keep water sourcing local, and help the many people abroad without access to fresh clean water.
Over 700 million people in the world have no access to clean safe drinking water, with around one million women and babies dying each year, due to lack of clean places to give birth.
This has knock-on effects like diseases when washing hands or using toilets (Who Gives a Crap? offers recycled toilet paper, that gives 50% of profits to fund clean toilets abroad).
Every 2 minutes a child under 5 dies, from diarrhoea caused by dirty water. And climate change is making things worse (Reform UK does not believe in taking action on climate change, so more children would die, to create fossil fuel profits).
Belu Water Filtration Systems
Star of the show is Belu’s water filtration systems. These enable you to serve up fresh filtered water, without needing to buy any bottles or cans for staff, customers or patients. There are over 70 wholesalers that you can order from, listed on the website.
The company offers a range of machines, and can provide filtered water both front and back of house, with marketing materials and user instructions for staff. It also offers water dispensers for offices, meeting rooms, restaurants and restrooms.
There are options for chilled, still, sparkling and hot water available. Free-flowing filtered water also can boost revenues, as you will not be buying in bottled water for your business.
Bottled and Canned Waters
The still and sparkling mineral waters are from Powys (Wales) in glass bottles (if you want plastic, there are recycled plastic bottles available, just be sure to recycle them to avoid litter). Same with any plastic packaging.
Alternatively, you can serve up water in cans made of 68% recycled aluminium.
You don’t have to crush cans, but do pop the ring-pulls back over holes before recycling, to avoid wildlife getting trapped.
Natalie Campbell (Belu’s CEO)
Natalie Campbell is the CEO of Belu Water, and what an inspiration she is! This young black woman is not only helping to provide clean fresh water to countries that need it, but even stood for London Mayor in 2024, receiving the most votes for an independent candidate.
Her policies for London included creating 10 new neighbourhood centres in each borough, that would be home to 1300 police officers. No doubt someone who would have been pleased is TV presenter Selina Scott, who at age 74, was recently mugged in broad daylight by a group of smartly-dressed men.
She had to walk miles after the attack (they stole her purse, so she had no money) because the local police station had closed down four years ago. And the planned visit to her the next day was cancelled, due to lack of a police car.
