Climb It for Climate – Tyengboche Gompa to Dingboche

Several of us sat in to listen to the monks chanting morning prayers in the Gompa. The ridge above it is festooned with prayer flags and little stupas and clay ovens for burning the incense from the juniper bushes during festivals. There was a fantastic view back down the valley we’d climbed the day before and across to Khundre village on the far side.

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Climb It for Climate – Namche Bazaar

Called a “rest day” to help us acclimatize to the altitude, it involved a three hour walk to a tea house on the hillside far above the township. We had our heads in the clouds, so could see none of the magnificent peaks surrounding us, but the diversity of flowers was more than enough compensation. Our resident botanist Louis has identified 3 species of blue gentians, many daisies and edelweiss.

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Climb It for Climate – Phakding to Namche Bazaar

Early morning rain soon cleared to a cool cloudy day. We set off early, with the sound of the rushing Dudh Kosi river beside us, fresh from the Khumbu glacier. Vistas of river, trees, stone walls, neat fields of cabbages and corn, sal trees, bamboo, wild ginger, wild raspberries and strawberries, fields of corn five feet high, pines, epiphytes, ferns, mosses: just stunning.

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Climb It for Climate – Kathmandu to Lukla

Up at 4am, bumping across town in the dark to find the airport still shut. Dawn as we made our way inside, through a creaking security system.  Many helpful hands relayi our vast pile of luggage into the main hall.

Our overnight challenge was reducing our weight to 10kg per person, with 5kg allowed for hand luggage. Tara Air changed its restrictions, after several unfortunate crashes in and out of Lukla.

I’ve sadly abandoned half my dried fruit and nuts, struggling to save kilos, but kept ten precious beanies and jumpers.

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Climb It for Climate – Everest – Stage 1

Bangkok Airport, 9.30am Tuesday 3rd September.

The adventure has begun with the thrill of my enormous waterproof duffel bag vanishing down the conveyor belt.  Thai Airways kindly allow travellers an extra 10kg for charity, enabling me to bring 50 beanies and baby jumpers – lovingly hand-knitted by a friend in Adelaide for cold Nepali orphans.

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Four decades in the life of the world

It was 1978. I was a young whipper-snapper working with Community Aid Abroad (now renamed OXFAM Australia). I’d heard a stirring speech by Peter Adamson on ABC radio, and now I was excited at the prospect of meeting the man in person. I was not disappointed. His towering intellect and his ability to weave a spell-binding story combined to make his visit one of the most memorable of my life.

This remarkable man was the founding editor of the New Internationalist magazine, which had been launched five years earlier, and he was in Australia to inspire people with a vision of progress in human development, and to promote the magazine.

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World Bank opens up its data sets

The New Internationalist has long been a critic of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and rightly so. A wide range of IMF and World Bank activities in the past have had dubious benefits, and in some cases have worsened rather than improved the situation for the world’s most vulnerable people. Governance has been a particular concern, with Boards of the institutions dominated by directors from rich nations.

But change has been afoot at the Bank for some time, and a more open approach has slowly emerged, particularly with regard to the data sets that the World Bank has collected since its formation in 1944. It’s a tremendously important development, because the data that is selected – and the way in which it is presented – can promote vastly different approaches to development.
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Improving the effectiveness of Australia’s foreign aid

Eliminating barriers against grassroots NGOs

First up, I must confess my ‘interest’ in this topic.  I am co-secretary of the WA Branch of the Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan, SAWA. Founded in Adelaide, there are now SAWA groups in every State. We raise money for several projects, including a Vocational Training Centre in Kabul which educates women in literacy, computing skills, handicraft skills and English. The only money we raise that does not go to our causes is the auditor’s fees and postage for the newsletter. Our partner organisation in Afghanistan is OPAWC, the Organization for Promoting Afghan Women’s Capabilities. Because of their vision for women’s empowerment, OPAWC staff receive regular death threats from the Taliban and other fundamentalist forces. They describe their program of ’empowerment’ as not ‘short-lived or humanitarian’ but focused on improving the capacities of women, who only require ‘a door to walk through, and we are the ones who could help them and open the door and let them walk through it’.

In her book, Raising my Voice, Malalai Joya talks of warlords, drug lords and NGO lords. In the recent ABC 4 Corners program on Afghanistan, one commentator claimed that less than 5 per cent of the money promised after September 11 has actually gone to improve the lives of ordinary Afghans. Continue reading