This people will already know what needs to be done to help them make their situation better but its the resources and infrastruture that they invariably lack, not the desire.

Between 1990 and 2001, the number of people in sub-Saharan Africa living on less than $1 a day rose from 227 million to 313 million, and the poverty rate rose from 45 percent to 46 percent.

It is by assisting these communities by placing the basic building blocks needed to develop the solution to their particular problems. The Geo-POD facility provides these basic building blocks by placing three converted ISO shipping containers at the heart of the community in order to stimulate growth.It is through the increased level of business activity that the people can be helped to break through the basic $1 per day barrier.

Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rate of under nourishment in the world, with one-third of the population below the minimum level of nourishment. A basic cooking facility is provided with each Edu-POD container in order that all children can get at least one hot meal per day. Not only will this help to raise the level of nourishment the children receive but also help with concentration levels during education time.

Many of these countries are:

• Crippled by disease
• Exposed to drought-prone climates
• Located in areas not suitable for irrigation
• Tackling extreme isolation in mountains and landlocked regions
• Suffering from poor infrastructure

By helping a cluster of communities with the provision of a Geo-POD facility the various skills and knowledge held can be shared across them in a much more targeted and effective way to get the maximum benefit for these people even faster. It has education, health and trade at its very heart but also communications and the provision of food and clean water.

LJ Urban has designed a new eco-urban community of 35 LEED ND Certified homes in the urban core of Sacramento, its home town. The community is suggestively named Good, and for each home within it that gets sold, LJ Urban has committed to funding the complete training of a West African mason to build sustainable homes for families in Burkina Faso. By partnering with the Association La Voûte Nubienne (AVN), which has already trained about 60 local masons to build durable homes out of earth bricks and mortar, LJ Urban aims to go beyond just providing homes to impart enduring skills and jobs to the local community. Taking the notion a step further, LJ Urban has also opted to skip the expensive marketing campaign to promote its Good community, and to use that money to train more African masons instead. So, for every 100,000 people who visit LJ Urban’s new, dedicated website by July 1st, the company will fund the complete training of another local Burkina Faso mason—up to 20 in all through this viral approach.

The Good project was inspired by Toms Shoes, a project that donates a pair of shoes for every one it sells. “[That] approach captivated us because it broke through the ‘charity fatigue’ all of us have felt at one time or another,” LJ Urban’s team explains. “The question then became: ‘What if we could do something like that with our houses?’…” The project is also reminiscent of One Laptop Per Child’s (OLPC’s) “Give One Get One” campaign last year through which consumers could donate a laptop and get one for their own use at the same time. A model of giving to bring to your neck of the woods…?

Website: www.dosomegoodnow.com

Training could also be provided that gives the workers a trade skill and even a qualification that could help them when seeking employment. A certificate could be provided on completion of a six week placement.

The cleaning up of market places and traffic routes could help to raise the populations expectations of what their elected officials are doing on their behalf.

This would allow mass workforces to be assembled that collectively get things completed. The painting of walls, entire schools and important buildings would help the regeneration of designated areas.

The workers would be offered a minimum guaranteed wage for a fixed period of time. This will act as a springboard to employment for the majority of people and could lead into further training opportunities for those wishing to progress.

The main purpose behind a programme of organised civic works is to have a positive impact on both the communities helped and the individuals involved.

This programme will assist school leavers and graduates who are struggling to find their first paid job or salaried position. Therefore it is possible to integrate this concept in partnership with educational establishments such as universities.

This kind of civic service could also be used as an exemption from service in the military.

The developed world and its large institutions provide millions of dollars in financial support directed at infrastructure projects to developing countries. These range from road building programmes to railway, port and airport construction. However the support for programmes involving large developments are aimed at creating self contained and usually isolated communities, that rely on others to build the roads needed to connect them all together.

I would suggest that the mere fact of constructing a single road that will survive the environmental issues that will affect it, will act as a catalyst for construction and development. If you can provide the infrastructure that links everybody else’s developments together you have been the one to ensure the delivery or route to market for the public that these new ‘communities’ require to become profitable.

Various international studies have concluded that the building of a road enables both the movement of people and tradeable goods and the ability to improve the communication between different communities.

The building of a new route allows the flow of goods to be carried much faster than before as travel times between destinations become shorter and people are encouraged to set up businesses that create jobs. There is evidence to support the similiar impact a new road can have on reducing hunger. This is due to the fact that the distance involved from the food supplier to the end user is not usually the problem but how long the journey takes. With perishable goods the time from harvesting to consumption is usually very short.

Therefore the time required for transportation becomes more important than distance. On a dirt track, the truck may take ten hours to cover ten miles. However, on a tarmac road that ten hour journey can achieve several hundred miles either directly or through several shorter journeys. The daily workload for that delivery truck is dramatically increased and it is able to reach full profitability much sooner.

The high profile road construction projects in many developing countries are targeted at specific sections that require urgent work because they link key economic areas or assist the tourism industry by connecting airports to tourist activity areas.

A wider view needs to be considered in what constitutes a good road building programme. Is it because more tourists will be attracted but whose dollars never really help the local population. Or a road that allows economic development and job creation because it ties areas of potential growth together.

The award of road construction contracts is still widely open to corruption and after initial drawdown of funds, it is possible to see projects that have not even started and not on eperson or piece of machinery has ever been mobilised.