World Cup Competition off-the-pitch

Am writing this post as the plucky Bafana go one up against the pitiful French. After the Henry affair, no prizes for guessing where my sympathies lie. I have been so far mostly watching the world cup on the BBC’s Match of the Day program and have been mightily impressed by thier welcome efforts to raise awareness about issues of poverty, inequality, discrimination and the shameful injustice of apartheid.

Alan Shearer has been dispatched as a no-nonsense interviewer and he has a refreshingly honest, unpretentious, from-the-hip style. Their short reports on the Robbin Island soccer team and the plight of a struggling rap artist from the townships were particularily good. Compare this editorial treatment to the drivel over on ITV where James “God I’m so bloody Hilarious” Cordon brings dumbed down TV to new depths of drivel (Bafana just scored again! Au revoir les Bleus).

Can the ‘real’ economy please stand up

Off the pitch, the FIFA World Cup has seen a tense standoff between South Africa's formal and informal economies as they compete for their share of the spinoffs, but declaring a winner may be hard. FIFA itself has come under serious fire for it’s heavy-handed fiscal demands - aka greed - on the South African nation.

Cities like Cape Town and Johannesburg have struggled to balance the concerns of street traders, whose livelihoods depend on selling sweets, foodstuff and other goods at transportation hubs and intersections, with the demands of hosting the international competition.

As early as 2008, city officials started relocating traders away from traditional vending areas that would be near stadiums and fan parks; the traders mobilised in response, with varying success.

South Africa's official unemployment rate is around 25 percent but independent economists put it as high as high as 40 percent, so the informal sector has been a refuge for those unable to get a steady job. The Human Sciences Research Council has estimated that the informal economy accounts for about 7 percent of gross domestic product.

“Will my children eat soccer balls?”

Renovations to Cape Town's Green Point stadium, just outside the CBD, and to the main transport hubs and the Grand Parade – a plaza opposite City Hall where vendors have done business for decades - meant informal traders were relocated, several times.

The disruptions were bad for business; the new Green Point market is expected to accommodate only about a third of the vendors who previously traded there.

In Soweto, Johannesburg, the Soccer City Traders Association had been supplying food to construction workers at the flagship stadium since work began there. When the association received an eviction notice in February 2010, it banded together with 33 other similar organizations in Gauteng Province and marched on FIFA's Local Organizing Committee (LOC) headquarters.

Carrying banners and placards with slogans like "Will my children eat soccer balls?", traders demanded formal employment opportunities with FIFA affiliates, allocated vending sites at venues, and a stop to relocations. Similar marches took place in Cape Town. 

"You feel like they are taking away your job," said Soccer City Traders Association vice-chair Cecilia Dube, a widowed mother of four who also supports her sister's children and elderly parents. "This is the only way I am getting bread on my table."

This echos a widely held opinion that the informal sector has provided economic opportunities that the formal sector has not, including better wages and independence. According to the International Labour Office, about 70 percent of South Africa's informal traders are women.

Change of fortunes 

Dube said their luck changed just five days before the World Cup started on 11 June, when the City of Johannesburg told selected traders they had been allocated space in the stadium precincts, at FIFA-branded fan fests, and public viewing areas.

"Informal traders have been trained and accredited by the City's Department of Economic Development, and these are the traders who are trading in the designated areas," said Sibongile Mazibuko, head of the City of Johannesburg's 2010 department. She said these traders were largely those who had worked in the vicinity of stadiums during construction or renovation.

FIFA regulations stipulate exclusion zones, which mean traders have to be located further afield from the stadiums and teaming crowds.

I asked a friend just returned today about the benefits of the World Cup and he was quiet clear. “Infrastructure improvements benefit us. They don’t benefit people in the townships. You can now get from the airport to the centre of Joburg by high-speed train in ten minutes or drive on a new motorway to Pretoria in 25mins – that doesn’t mean diddly squat for people living in townships without running water or toilets”.

/PC with additional info from IRIN news.

Ancient Killer still on the loose

In 1998, after three years of assignments in the Caucasus region of the former Soviet Union, I tested positive for Tuberculosis (TB) during a routine medical. I had picked up my infection in the prisons of Georgia where I had been visiting detainees held in relation to the internal conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Luckily, my infection was latent, and after treatment I was given the all clear.

Others are not so lucky. They do not have access to proper diagnosis, treatment or care and an incredible 1.7 million people die every year from a preventable age old disease which continues to be a massive modern day killer.

Among those dying from TB each year, 200,000 are also living with HIV. They are suffering what is commonly called “co-infection". Eastern Europe, Central Asia and - more recently - southern Africa are often considered as the most affected areas but the fact is that TB is also on the rise in Latin America and Asia – especially India and China - making it a prevalent global challenge.

It is worth repeating that TB is a disease that is curable if identified on time and when the correct treatment is provided. When no action is taken, because it is a highly contagious disease, everyone infected with TB will contaminate another ten to fifteen other people around them.

These facts clearly show the necessity for more effective prevention. Engaging with communities at risk is one of the most efficient ways to fight the disease but that is too often a rare approach.

Conventional global prevention campaigns do exist. Some of them are excellent such as the one involving the Portuguese football player Luis Figo. They do a lot to remind everyone that TB is still around today.

However, these mainstream campaigns also need to be complemented by action on the ground working together with the most vulnerable, including stigmatized groups because of their origins or because of their socio-economic status. As for HIV, we won’t reduce the number of TB cases as long as entire groups within our society are in the dark about the dangers they face.

It is precisely these marginalized groups that we work with when conducting awareness-raising campaigns. Once we identify community members who are infected with TB, volunteers help them get proper treatment. Even more crucial, they also visit them on a regular basis to make sure that they follow their treatments, they bring them nutritious food - when necessary - as well as psychosocial support. This is all the more important since TB patients can also be stigmatized and discriminated against within their own community. This is well portrayed in the video embedded in this post which documents the fantastic work being carried out by community-based volunteers in South Africa. There are also a number of TB survivors who go on to carry out influential advocacy and bring greater awareness and support to the struggle against TB.

If you woke up tomorrow morning and heard on the morning news that 12 Boeing 747s had crashed causing the death of all passengers on board I do believe you would be horrified and the world would be numb with shock. If you were to wake up up every single day to that same news for one year it would be barely conceivable. That's exactly the number of people dying from TB. We do not see them on the nightly news because they are hidden - hidden by poverty and stigma. At least on the 24th of March, World TB Day, we can take some time to find out more about this ancient modern day killer and see what more can be done to Stop TB.

/PC