From Benin City to global stages: what Rema's journey teaches us about rural potential

When we talk about rural areas, we often associate them with limited opportunities, economic struggles, and slow-paced lifestyle. However, raw talent and unique cultural identity are hidden in these communities. When nurtured, they can thrive on global scale. A perfect example of this is the story of my favorite singer, Divine Ikubor, popularly known as Rema. The Nigerian Afrobeat sensation rose from Benin City to international fame. In my opinion, his journey reflects the reality of many rural areas worldwide: full of talent just waiting to be discovered.

 

The singer’s beginnings were undeniably humble. He was born in 2000, in Benin City, Nigeria, a region that isn't traditionally known for producing mainstream music stars. Like many people from smaller towns, Rema had to navigate economic and social challenges while chasing his dream. According to the World Bank’s “Nigeria Poverty Assessment 2022”, about 40% of Nigerians live below the national poverty line. In many regions, especially in the north, access to quality education and basic infrastructure such as clean water and electricity remains limited. To make matters harder, the Afrobeat sensation lost both his father and brother at a young age, forcing him to take on responsibility for his family. Before his breakthrough, he worked multiple jobs to support them.

 

What makes Rema stand out globally is his ability to blend Afrobeat with international influences while staying true to his Nigerian roots. Rural communities have rich cultural histories that can become assets rather than obstacles. For example, rural tourism seems to be growing worldwide, as people are increasingly interested in authentic experiences: learning traditional farming techniques, attending local festivals, and exploring indigenous arts. By embracing these traditions, rural communities can turn their heritage into a source of income and pride. 

 

Just like Rema’s talent was waiting to be recognized, rural areas worldwide are filled with people whose potential remains unseen due to lack of exposure. Technology and social media are slowly changing this narrative. The singer used to make music as a teenager and post it online. One of his freestyles went viral and caught the attention of music executives, which led him to sign with Mavin Records, the label that launched his international career. Similarly, South African singer Tyla also gained international recognition through her 2023 hit “Water”. The song amassed over 10 billion views on Tiktok.

Rema’s journey is inspiring but it’s not just about music. It is a case study about how potential can flourish with the right mix of talent, opportunity, and technology. For rural communities to thrive, they need more than just ambition —they need support. In that context, Nigeria has taken steps to support its booming creative sector. Initiatives like the Creative Industry Financing Initiative (CIFI), launched by the Central Bank of Nigeria, provide financial support to young creatives in music, fashion, and film. Similarly, the African Creative Blueprint, backed by a $3.5 million USAID investment and run by Ascend Studios, provides training and mentorship in TV production and other creative fields.

But despite these good intentions, initiatives like CIFI and the USAID-Ascend partnership are often centered in urban hubs, where exposure, and industry connections already exist. For a gifted musician in a rural area with no stable internet, no mentors, and no recording gear, these programs can feel out of reach. In her blog post, Sophie Roppé made a good point about rural festivals like Bonnaroo and Hinterland: they’re not just music events —they’re economic catalysts and cultural lifelines for smaller communities. Similarly, if countries like Nigeria could host festivals outside of urban centers, it could celebrate local talent and stimulate local economies.

If Nigeria truly wants to nurture the next generation of creatives, it must dig deeper. Funding is a start, but it must be followed by real infrastructure, decentralized mentorship, and digital access that reaches every corner of the country. Like Rema, rural talent is ready to shine. The question is: Are we ready to invest in it?

Ndala and Cyclone Freddy: the harsh reality of climate change

On March 13, 2023, Ndala, a village in northeastern Mozambique, was almost entirely submerged in water. Heavy rains caused the river running through the village to overflow. The torrent of water and rocks cleared everything in its path: houses and people inside them, roads, bridges, livestock, and vehicles. The cause of these tragic events was Cyclone Freddy, the longest tropical cyclone on record. Two years later, Ndala still faces the effects of the storm. The population endures isolation, illness, and deepening poverty. The cyclone injured many, tore families apart, and destroyed livelihoods. 

 

The people most affected by extreme weather, particularly in places like Mozambique and across Africa, are often the least responsible for the climate crisis. Those affected live in communities with the least resources to adapt to climate disasters such as Cyclone Freddy. As a result, these countries and population pay the heaviest price for climate change with their lives. 

 

This vulnerability is not unique to Mozambique. In his blog post “Rural vulnerabilities in a changing climate”, Ryan Chen highlighted how rural areas with weak infrastructure are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. He cites Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, where drought is worsening due to it. Similarly, Ndala also lacks infrastructure and has trouble dealing with flooding. 

 

The increased frequency of floods and droughts directly impacts agriculture, threatening crop yields and livestock, primary sources of income sustenance for many rural communities in Mozambique. The cost of adapting to these drastic changes strains already limited financial resources of rural communities.

Malawi, a neighboring country of Mozambique, was also impacted by Cyclone Freddy. Recognizing the previous challenges, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the government of Malawi launched a US$53 million agricultural development program in 2023. The initiative aims to commercialize agriculture, enhance small-scale farming resilience, and improve food security and nutrition across the country. As part of this effort, the seven-year Sustainable Agriculture Production program will equip farmers with the skills and resources needed to combat food insecurity, increase income, and improve rural livelihoods. In addition, the program allows funds to be reallocated to address immediate needs such as repairs to infrastructure that was damaged or destroyed by climate disasters. 

Nevertheless, while the IFAD has been actively involved in improving food security and resilient livelihoods for rural transformation in Mozambique, it didn't provide direct assistance to the country following Cyclone Freddy.

 

Climate disasters often lead to migration. Cyclone Freddy left thousands in Mozambique without homes, forcing them to migrate in search of safety and stability. However, under international law, these people do not qualify as refugees because their displacement is climate-related rather than a result of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group, as defined by article 1 of the Geneva Convention. 

Climate-displaced individuals are classified as internally displaced persons (IDPs) if they remain in their country or migrants if they cross borders. Under the Geneva Convention, refugees are entitled to the right to seek asylum, non-refoulement (not being sent back to danger), access to healthcare, education, and work in host countries, unlike IDPs and migrants.

 

This legal gap has sparked an ongoing debate about the legal recognition of “climate refugees”. The UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) advocates for the expanded definition of refugees to include those displaced by climate change. However, many countries that ratified the Geneva Convention oppose this change, fearing it would increase migration and legal obligations. Amnesty International argues that concerns over mass migration are overblown. Instead, the organization emphasizes the need for humanitarian assistance, as climate change continues to displace communities worldwide. 

 

The case of Cyclone Freddy and Ndala underscores the growing urgency of this debate. Moving forward, the international community can no longer afford to ignore the impact of climate change on rural communities. Without action, climate migrants will remain trapped in legal limbo, denied the protections they desperately need.

Coronavirus surging in rural Africa

 The Associated Press reports from Zvimba, Zimbabwe, about 70 miles from Harare.  

For Pelagia Bvukura, who lives in a rural part of north-central Zimbabwe, COVID-19 had always been a “city disease,” affecting those in the capital, Harare, or other, distant big towns.

“There was no virus for us. We only used to hear it was in Harare or other towns or when city people died and we buried them here,” she said recently, referring to the custom in Zimbabwe where those who move to the city often are buried at their family’s rural home.

That is changing now. A new surge of the virus is finally penetrating Africa’s rural areas, where most of the continent’s people live, spreading to areas that once had been viewed as safe havens from infections that hit cities particularly hard.

With facilities in the countryside ill-prepared to fight the coronavirus, residents like Bvukura worry that the next graves being dug could be for their neighbors — or even themselves.

* * *  

“It is now on our doorsteps. It’s scary. We don’t know how to protect ourselves. We have never dealt with such a problem before,” she said.

Racial unrest out of rural South Africa

Lynsey Chutel and Monica Mark report for the New York Times from the Republic of South Africa, the Orange Free State.  The headline is "Killing of White Farmer Becomes a Flash Point in South Africa."  An excerpt about the murder of a young, white farm manager who was found, "strangled and tied to a pole on a farm."  Police say the killers were part of a livestock theft ring, and that the motive was robbery, not racial animus.  It sounds like many white farmers are unconvinced:  

But the killing of the farm manager, Brendin Horner, has become the latest flash point for racial conflict in South Africa, where the segregationist apartheid regime fell almost 30 years ago. Tension is particularly high in rural farming areas where white people still own a vast majority of the farms and Black people still serve as their often impoverished laborers.

Groups representing white farmers accuse the South African government of deliberately failing to protect them. Some white activist groups say that what they call “farm murders” represent the beginning of a “white genocide” aimed at driving whites out of South Africa.

Suddenly, (small-scale) farming is hip everywhere (including the developing world)

An alternate headline might have been:  African millennials follow in the footsteps of their US counterparts (or might it be the other way around?).  In any event, the catalyst for this post is Sarah Maslin Nir's New York Times story, dateline Agotime Beh, Ghana, "Millennials 'Make Farming Sexy' in Africa, Where Tilling the Soil Once Meant Shame."  Here's the lede:

After he graduated from university, Vozbeth Kofi Azumah was reluctant to tell anyone — even his mother — what he planned to do for a living. 

“I’m a farmer,” he said, buzzing his motorcycle between freshly plowed fields on a recent afternoon. “Here, that’s an embarrassment.” 

In some parts of the world, farmers are viewed with respect and cultivating the land is seen as an honorable trade. But in a region where most agriculture is still for subsistence — relying on cutlass, hoe and a hope for rain — farming is a synonym for poverty.

But Mr. Azumah is among a growing number of young, college-educated Africans fighting the stigma by seeking to professionalize farming.

The entire story is well worth a read.  An interesting factoid:  60% of Africa's population is under the age of 24, but the average age of a farmer is 60.  This trend is similar to that in the US, where farmers are a rapidly aging group.  Seems like that might be changing, albeit slowly, on both continents; at least one can hope.

Drones deliver contraceptives to women in rural Ghana

Here's the lede for the New York Times Women in the World post:

Inspired by Amazon’s vision of unmanned delivery drones, public health specialists have created Project Last Mile, a scheme that uses drones to deliver contraceptives to women living in remote rural areas in Ghana. Project Last Mile, which is jointly funded by Coca-Cola, UNFPA, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the United States Agency for International Development, has been so successful in its mission flying birth control, condoms, and other medical supplies to rural areas in Ghana over the past few months that the program is now set to expand into six other African countries. Governments in Tanzania, Rwanda, Zambia, Ethiopia and Mozambique have even expressed interest in taking over the program in their countries and paying for it themselves.

The story notes that delivery to rural areas that previously took two days can now be accomplished in just half an hour.

Boko Haram and the rural/urban dichotomy

In the midst of my distress over today's NYT story about the widespread rapes by Boko Haram militants in northeastern Nigeria, I was intrigued by the mention of "rural" in the story's lede.   

Hundreds of women and girls captured by Boko Haram have been raped, many repeatedly, in what officials and relief workers describe as a deliberate strategy to dominate rural residents and possibly even create a new generation of Islamist militants in Nigeria. 

In interviews, the women described being locked in houses by the dozen, at the beck and call of fighters who forced them to have sex, sometimes with the specific goal of impregnating them.

What is odd—and frustrating—is that journalist Adam Nossiter does not circle back in the story to explain the emphasis on "rural."  Is he suggesting that Boko Haram seeks only to dominate rural places and their residents?  or that it is only the rural places and residents that the militant muslims have thus far succeeded in dominating?  The story's only other mention of spatiality as it relates to the rural/urban axis is this one:

As the group has lost control of towns and thousands of people have fled in recent weeks, a grim picture of that treatment has emerged: hundreds of women and girls as young as 11 subjected to systematic, organized sexual violence.

Perhaps the point is that, until recently, the towns and villages of this region have been easy pickings for Boko Haram—that the Nigerian government has not devoted the resources to protecting these spatially dispersed residents who are presumably harder to reach.  Perhaps these places have been seen as less worthy of the government's investment in protecting them because fewer lives are at stake.  Perhaps it is the "space tames law/the state tames space" phenomenon I have associated with rurality.

This also reminds me of the attention that has been paid to the challenge that rurality and remoteness has created in Nepaelse efforts to respond to the earthquake there last month.  Read more here, here and here, along with this story about the reverse migration wrought by the natural disaster.

Souq day, the most important day of the week

The trucks arrive early in the morning, around 4:30 a.m. By 6 a.m. the dusty field in the middle of town is transformed into a small tent city. By 3 p.m. they will all be gone and the field will be littered with trash. It’s Sunday or what I call ‘souq’ day in Had Ait Mimoun. Had Ait Mimoun is a small village in Morocco. It was my home for two years while serving in the Peace Corps. I estimate the population to be around 1,000. However, on souq day the number easily swells to 2 or 3 times that.

Souq means marketplace in Arabic. It generally refers to an open-air market place. Imagine a swap meet/farmers market hybrid. You can buy anything and everything there, from groceries to clothes to household goods. The souq can be daily or weekly. There are even specialty souqs, where the entire marketplace is devoted to one kind of product like the spice souq in Marrakech. The weekly souq is the most common form. Vendors travel around a souq circuit in their respective regions and each village in the area has souq one day per week.

The souq is of tremendous importance to a village like Had Ait Mimoun. The souq is the only opportunity for villagers to buy fresh food. In Had Ait Mimoun, there are only three small stores called hanouts. A hanout is nothing more than a walk up window where you can buy staple items like milk, eggs, flour, oil, sugar, and tea. And the milk and eggs are not always guaranteed to be in stock. A weekly souq eliminates the hardship of travelling 30 kilometers to the nearest city to buy food and goods.

A key difference between shopping at a hanout and the souq is price. At the hanout, all the prices are fixed. There is no negotiating. At the souq, the prices are flexible and fluctuate with your bargaining skills. Prices are always negotiable. If you buy in bulk or all your produce from one vendor you can usually get a lower price. I witnessed people argue over price down to the half Dirham (1 Dirham = $.11). Five cents may not seem like a lot, but in Had Ait Mimoun every Dirham counts. Vendors even sell on credit. They keep a ledger of what is purchased, the price, and by whom.

A good majority of the villagers work in agriculture. By no coincidence payday is on souq day. On souq day the farm managers come to town with large wads of cash. The field workers seek them out one by one and get their money to live off for the next week. By days end most of that money is gone.

Souq day is about more than just shopping for food. It is an important day for community. It’s guaranteed that the whole village will be flooded visitors. Relatives visit with each other. Business deals are negotiated. The Sheriff comes to town. The normally vacant cafes in town are full of people chatting over a cup of tea or coffee.

I had a souq tradition. Every Sunday I would wake up early because my bedroom window was on the perimeter of the souq field. I would get up and buy sfinge. Sfinge is fried dough like a doughnut but without a sugary topping. Then I would go shopping with my host mother. I was always looking for the most outrageous thing I could find. The best souq find I made was a knockoff Dolce and Gabbana belt. It was thick white leather and had a gaudy belt buckle. The buckle was shiny chrome and in the shape of my initials DG in cursive font. After navigating the souq my host mother would make a large lunch and we would share it with friends and relatives.

I miss the souq. It is one of my fondest memories of Had Ait Mimoun. I forged good relationships from the vendors I shopped from. I spent a lot of time talking and visiting with people on souq day. Most of my cultural and language competence came from my experiences on souq day.

Souq:

Hanout:

Mobile courts take justice to remote areas--in Congo, no less

NPR reported yesterday on a conference in London about rape as war crime and what can be done to stop it.  This is a very important event, as this issue is near and dear to my own heart.  Indeed, just a few hours before I heard the story, I was interviewed by Film at 11 about some work I did in 1996 for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, investigating sexual assaults that occurred as part of the Rwandan genocide in 1994.  The feminist in me is very excited about this conference.

But the story also intrigued and pleased the ruralist in me where Ari Shapiro reports:

Karen Naimer, who directs the Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones with Physicians for Human Rights, recently saw how the attitudes toward this issue have changed. She was in Congo, at a mobile court that brings justice to remote villages. 

"We were in this small town of Kahele, and 19 female survivors came. And they were waiting for their day in court," says Naimer. 

Two militia members were on trial, accused of holding 400 women in the bush as sex slaves for a year. Women showed up with babies they had borne in captivity. Naimer sat with the victims as they waited to testify. 

"And what was so striking to me as I spoke with them quietly was their deep desire to face their perpetrators and to demand justice," says Naimer. "That cathartic process comes at such a cost for them. The kind of community, rejection, stigma they face, they were willing to endure that because this moment in time is so necessary for their personal healing."

I have written some about the issue of access to justice for rural people (and have a piece on that topic forthcoming in the South Dakota Law Review), and sometimes the struggle is for literal, physical access to a court.  It is about getting to the courthouse.  So I am intrigued by this idea of a mobile court.  I guess one could liken it to the judges who still "ride circuit" in a number of rural areas in the United States, going from courthouse to courthouse over a region or district to hear motions and conduct trials.  But I guess I didn't expect something this novel and innovative to come out of the Congo.  I'm impressed.

Cross Posted to Feminist Legal Theory.

From rural to urban in Rwanda

That is a theme of this piece by Nicholas Kulish in the New York Times, Rwanda Reaches for New Economic Model.  The lede follows:

On the 12th floor of the Kigali City Tower, a modern blue-glass office building on the side of one of this capital’s famous hills, the latest endeavor in the effort to transform a tiny rural economy into a financial and high-tech hub is trying to find its footing.

* * * 

Beneath the heights of Kigali City Tower, the rusty corrugated iron roofs on the ramshackle one- and two-story buildings below testify to the challenge of Rwanda’s goal: becoming a middle-income country. Beyond the city limits, an estimated 90 percent of the population is still employed in the country’s terraced green hills, growing bananas, sorghum, potatoes and other crops, much of it subsistence farming.

I was in Rwanda working as a gender consultant for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the fall of 1996.  The photo shown is from that time.  It was taken near Ruhengeri, as I hiked up to see the mountain gorillas one week-end.

Hunting as classed? classless? classy?

This story by Felicity Barringer in the New York Times last week-end was a revelation for me--a revelation about the complex linkages between class and hunting.

Barringer's story is ostensibly about how the state of Utah doles out hunting licenses and manages wildlife, so I figured I'd write a post for Legal Ruralism about those issues.  As I read the story, however, I was struck by the fact that hunting is not only a working class pursuit--as it has been popularly perceived in recent years.  Remember Bittergate during the 2008 presidential race?  If not, refresh your recollection here and here, and mull the title of Joe Bageant's Deer Hunting with Jesus:  Dispatches from America's Class Wars.  Indeed, Barringer's story pits those one might think of as "regular Joe hunters" against rich hunters, which means people of all socio-economic strata hunt, albeit with some different motivations, trappings, and prey.  (I don't think those paying big bucks in the Utah auction are after the squirrels Ree shot in Winter's Bone to feed her younger siblings).

Barringer writes:

More than any state in the West, Utah has expanded hunting opportunities for the well-to-do and has begun to diminish them for those seeking permits directly from the state.  

Essentially, "those with means can buy public licenses through private outlets, paying thousands of dollars to move to the head of the line."  While Utah officials acknowledge this, they say their "increasingly free-market model" results in more revenue they can use for conservation.

The Utah system uses two market-oriented means to allocate hunting licenses, while apparently maintaining the standard lottery for inexpensive permits--though fewer of these are available than in the past.  One aspect of the Utah system essentially co-opts ranchers, who formerly complained "bitterly to state officials about elk and other game eating forage meant for cattle." Now, however, Utah entices "ranchers with an allotment of vouchers for lucrative hunting licenses that they can sell for thousands of dollars as part of a private hunt on their land."

Doling out these vouchers for hunting licenses, as Utah has done for the past decade, has created incentives for private land owners--the ranchers--to "nurture big game on their land and not get frustrated with ranching and sell their land to developers."

A smaller and even more controversial aspect of Utah's scheme "allows private nonprofit groups to auction off a few hundred licenses to the highest bidder or run their own drawing in exchange for supporting conservation projects."  Utah's wildlife officials say the schemes are resulting in "more wildlife for all."

Hence the schemes are good for the wildlife census but, as Barringer suggests, not necessarily for "social welfare," which I take to mean relations among the classes.  To illustrate her point, Barringer's story features Todd Huntington, a dentist from central Utah.  Where I come from (the working class, in rural Arkansas), dentists are fat cats--they are among the privileged.  But this dentist is complaining that he can't compete with the rich(er) for the opportunity to hunt.  Though he recently secured a $35 permit to shoot a male deer, he had failed to garner a license in the prior two years' random drawing.  Barringer quotes Huntington:

When I was a teenager, anybody could buy a tag down to the hardware store and away you went. Now you have to have a degree in wildlife-speak to work your way through all the regulations to be able even to apply.

And so I return to the class angle on all of this--specifically, class as both cultural and material.  Of course, I've long been aware of private game reserves and other upmarket and exclusive hunting opportunities for the super-rich in places like Africa and Alaska.  But it's interesting to me that even in places like Utah (whose game I, as a novice, may be under appreciating), hunting has become the province of the more affluent who are able--with the state's help--to price the "little guy" out of what some see as the market for free meat.  All of this is more complicated still, class-wise, when you consider the trend among the Mark Zuckerberg set to kill their own meat.  Read more here, here and here.  And the way Presidential candidates and other politicians have used hunting outings to bolster their street cred among the "everyman set"is yet another lens on who hunts and why.  Read more here and here.

So much for the Deer Hunting with Jesus-type depiction of hunters "having no class." Clearly, some hunters are "classy" (and rich!).

Now that I think about it some more, Barringer's story shouldn't have surprised me after all.  The great outdoors--including wildlife--have become just another place where urbanites' interests trump those of the rural (think the rural prison building boom and toxic waste dumps in rural locales) in ways that often also mean the interests of the wealthy trump the interests of those who have less money and power.  Wildlife now represents another "product" that urbanites and the wealthy (e.g., George W. Bush, John Kerry, Mark Zuckerberg) consume, leaving scraps for the rural and working class.    

Read earlier posts about hunting trends here, here and here.  Here's one called "Privatizing bison," which raises some of the same access and public-private issues as Barringer's Utah story, but in the context of Montana and Yellowstone National Park.

Cross-posted to ClassCrits. 

Corruption and power struggles in South Africa, right down to the lowest level of government

This front-page story in today's New York Times tells of bribery and corruption in the Republic of South Africa, with a focus on lower levels of the government.  The dateline is Oshabeni, in KwaZulu-Natal, where a local African National Congress (ANC) leader, Dumisani Malunga, was murdered in early September this year.  Malunga was killed the night he was chosen as the ANC candidate for  a seat on the local council, and the man who murdered him was a rival for that local ANC endorsement.

Journalist Lydia Polgreen briefly describes the past two decades of South African history, including profound and worsening poverty, inequality and unemployment that have plagued the nation in recent years.  Accompanying the diminution of economic opportunity has been a rise in corruption, which has trickled down to rural communities like Oshabeni.  Polgreen writes:

In the ranks of public servants, the post of rural ward council member in a speck of a town like this one would seem no great prize. The job pays about $150 a month, and its occupant must digest a steady diet of complaints from residents about the most fundamental ailments afflicting South Africa: schools that do not teach, taps that do not deliver water, crime that the police seem helpless to stop, jobs that are impossible to find. 

But ward councilors are also a conduit for development projects in their areas, and they can influence the awarding of government contracts. The potential upside — earnings from bribes or surreptitious deals — is high.

Polgreen notes that since 2010 "nearly 40 politicians have been killed" in KwaZulu-Natal alone, "in battles over political posts."  That figure represents a three-fold increase over the prior three years, while  murders of political officials and candidates have also risen in Mpumalanga, North West, and Limpopo provinces.

Bill Clinton as a bridge to the enigmatic rural and working class white voters

I've been trying to get caught up on reading the stack of New York Times that has been accumulating as I get into the groove of the new semester.  In doing so, I came across this story about Bill Clinton, as philanthropist and "other, on September 5, the day he spoke at the Democratic National Convention and nominated Barack Obama for a second term.  The story twice mentions the DNC and Obama's need for Clinton as a bridge to "rural and white working-class voters."  Here are the relevant passages:

For many Democrats, Mr. Clinton's renewed stature and his appeal to rural and white working-class voters, a vital group that Mr. Obama has struggled to connect with, make him both an ally of the current administration and a constant reminder of its political shortcomings.

A few paragraphs deeper in the story, journalist Amy Chozick returns to that same phrasing:

[Clinton] likes to use the Zulu greeting sawubona ("I see you") when he is traveling in parts of southern Africa, and he often received the response ngikhona ("I am here").  It is that sort of personal connection that helped him lure rural and working-class voters back to the Democratic Party in 1992, and is that touch that many political analysis say Mr. Obama lacks, a perceived gap that Mr. Clinton said he had tried to help with. 

For the record, the word "rural" appears two other times in the story, which is also about Mr. Clinton's philanthropic work in Africa.  Chozick refers to two places Clinton visited on a July swing through four African nations:  "an off-the-schedule stop at a model village called Nyagatovu in rural Rwanda" and "a rural brick-making area a half hour outside Kampala."

It seems unusual for a journalist to use a descriptor like "rural" in reference to places in the developing world--even when they are rural--perhaps because "rural" is the default in the developing world.  Maybe Chozick was more mindful than usual of the rural-urban divide even in Africa, having focused on it for the other purpose in this story.  On the other hand, I caught at least one other recent headline using "rural" in a similar way:  "Series of Deadly Earthquakes Rattle 2 Rural Chinese Provinces."

Opening Day of UN's Commission on the Status of Women: Focus on rural women

The following post was written by Lauren McIntosh, a third-year law student at Pace University. Lauren and I are two of the observers designated by the American Society of International Law to attend the United Nation's 56th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Rural women are a focus of the 56th Session, which means that agriculture is, too.

Monday marked the beginning of the 56^th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW56) at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. This year’s priority theme is the empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development, and other current challenges. This theme seems more relevant than ever now that the world’s population has exceeded 7 billion (expected to reach 9 billion by the year 2050), with rural women making up one-fourth of the population.

The Honorable Marjon V. Kamara of Liberia, the Chair of CSW56, opened the session in the General Assembly Hall with the delegates from the Member States of the United Nations and representatives and observers from national, regional, and local organizations in attendance. During her opening statement, Kamara emphasized that much normative work on gender equality remains to be done in the political realm at the international level, and actual implementation at the national level is also a major task. This includes bridging the gap between the promises made at the international level and their implementation at the national level; thus, the real work begins after CSW56 when the delegates return to their home countries. Furthermore, she stated that the goal of gender equality is not a task to be undertaken only by women, but it is the responsibility of society as a whole to work towards achieving this goal.

We also had the honor of hearing from Michelle Bachelet, the first Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of U.N. Women and the former President of Chile (photo above). She stressed that the session’s priority theme is pressing as it includes issues relating to human rights, equality, and justice for a quarter of the world’s population; furthermore, empowering rural women is not just good for women, but advances the interests of all members of society. Although they are often overlooked, rural women are actually on the front lines of many pressing global issues, such as climate change and its effects on agriculture. The Arab Spring and other such movements have also shown us that we must open up the political process to all members of society, especially rural women. Strides have been made, and more women now work and participate in politics at the international, national, and local level, but this is not enough, as rural women also need economic independence. In this realm, Bachelet noted, rural women have seen less progress. For example, women farmers receive only five percent of agricultural extension services. She also quoted a rural woman who expressed another challenge:

When the land is in my husband’s name, I’m only a worker. When it is in my name, I have some position in society.

One especially interesting point raised by Bachelet was the important role a cell phone can play in the life of a rural woman, as it is a means to acquire services and carry out business. A recent study showed that 41 percent of women reported an increase in income and professional opportunities because of their cell phones. Ultimately, in order to achieve economic independence, rural women need better access to basic infrastructure and technology. Bachelet concluded by stating:

I know that equality is possible. It will take time. It will take our concerted and collective effort. But I am convinced that if we put our energies into empowering women and advancing gender equality, we will create a new and better future.

As both Kamara and Bachelet emphasized in launching CSW56, much work lies ahead. After this encouraging start, the delegations, observers, and attendees moved on to smaller group discussions, roundtables, and panels to get on with that important work.

Cross posted to Agricultural Law and IntLawGrrls.

My publications about CEDAW's Article 14, which is entirely about the rights of rural women, are here, here, and here.

A hypothesis for a cure to the brain drain

Young farmers, or the lack thereof, has come up several times in class. First, we discussed the rural brain drain and its affects on the farm industry. Recently, we talked about young people choosing farming as a career--even in cases where they had no prior exposure to the industry. While the Federal government does provide a certain amount of assistance to these farmer-hopefuls, they clearly have a steep learning curve to till. South Africa, however, seems to have the right idea in addressing that problem.

A recent NY Times article, Sowing the Seeds of Food Security, discusses a South African education policy that uses growing crops as a teaching device. It's called the Organic Classroom Program and for three years it is part of the primary education curriculum in Cape Town. Operated by Schools Environment Education and Development, the program uses organic gardens to teach students science, geography, and economics. The school cafeteria then actually uses the food grown by the students.

While the interdisciplinary benefits are intriguing, the program specifically does what US primary education has not for many years: it teaches young people the principles of agriculture. While South Africa might not be a perfect analog for the United States, the lack of horticulture, agriculture, and similar courses in primary education could be why people just aren't interested in farming. More obviously, it explains why so many young farmers don't know what their doing.

Currently 45% of American farmers are over 55, and experts speculate the average age to only rise. Although the South Africa Department of Agriculture did not have age statistics (at least that I could find), one case study speculates their average age at around 40 years old. A full 15 years younger. While there are certainly different factors at play, it isn't unreasonable to think that the emphasis South Africa puts on agriculture is partly responsible. Of course SEED is relatively new, but a program doesn't become a mandatory part of primary education without some significant societal backing.

And maybe there is a larger sociological aspect here. If primary education is supposed to be the state's device for the inculcation of values, then it places value on more "cosmopolitan" subjects. When I was a high school senior I took AP Calculus BC, AP English, AP Physics, and similar classes that I can't recall. Advanced Horticulture was not offered. Students are indoctrinated with the value of a college education--in fact the need for a college degree. And while there are many college agricultural classes (especially on a campus like UC Davis), the modern idea of education is not one based on farming. Rather, students value AP tests and SAT scores not soil and seed.

Moreover, the law of most states makes primary education mandatory. It takes up about eight hours of their day, even more where they are involved in extracurricular activities. School is the center of their respective universes. If it doesn't include classes on growing, farming, and similar subjects then how can we ever expect people to be interested in the subject.

A "rural woman who made it on grit"

That's how the story, by Barry Bearak in today's New York Times, characterizes Ntsiki Biyela, a KwaZulu Natal woman who won a scholarship to study wine in 1998 and who, 11 years later, was named South Africa's Woman Winemaker of the Year in 2009. The "made it on grit" phrase presumably refers in part to the fact that the South African wine scene is dominated by whites, and also to the fact that Biyela undertook the study of wine even before she knew what it was. (Read Bearak's report for more details on this improbable occurrence).

Here's how Ntsiki Biyela describes her two worlds, which straddle not only rural and urban, but also black and white, European and African:

“I live in two worlds,” she said recently. “I’m still able to fit in the village, speaking Zulu and eating pap. I also fit in the European-style world.”

She pondered the difference. “In the European style it’s about striving, the ‘me life,’ everything about me. In the village, it’s all about the community.”

Maternal health challenges in rural Mozambique

Listen to an NPR feature here. The story highlights rural-urban differences in the availability of health care. An excerpt featuring one such contrast follows:

In the countryside, more than half the babies born are delivered like Belita's was: not in a health facility, but at home. The women are often attended by a relative or friend, but not by a skilled health worker. The risks are great for both mother and child.

So the government is trying to encourage women to have their babies in maternity units, like the one at the Rural Hospital of Monapo.

The irony in this government policy becomes apparent as the story goes on to describe the grim conditions in the Monapo hospital, including blood-stained sheets, lack of a fetal heart monitor, and no doctor on duty. Then comes the contrast with an urban facility:

As unforgiving as conditions are at the Monapo rural hospital, some 40 miles away in the city of Nacala, there is a brand-new hospital painted a creamy yellow. It's spotless.

the story goes on to describe how Mozambique is dealing with a doctor shortage by training nurse practitioners to perform a range of surgeries, from c-sections to hysterectomies, at hospitals like the one in Ncala.

A second story, this one announcing this NPR series on maternal health and providing more details about the Mozambique situation, is here.

Lessons from North Africa

North Africa is in a turmoil. Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution started it, achieving regime change via civil resistance and political protest demonstrations. Cairo's Tahrir Square protests followed in Egypt, toppling Mubarak's U.S.-backed administration. But so far, few of the media circling this hot spot of news material has pointed out the significance of these two countries' rural poverty at the root of their initial discontent.

This report on NPR (and only a few others, such as Al Jazeera) stated the obvious: rural Tunisians fared worse than their urban counterparts. As this blog post already stated, to a large extent, Ben Ali's regional neglect and cronyism caused investments from the West (U.S. and E.U., mostly) to flow to the cities, with little or not trickle down to the rural central and southern regions. Maybe it was just that trickle down economics does not really work. Or maybe the neglect of the countryside stemmed from a rather sinister motivation. As NPR said:

Ben Ali came from the Tunisian coast, so there was an added sense in the rural areas that the ousted dictator favored the coastal resort towns while people here got nothing.

Reuters reported similar sentiments from rural Egypt:

The protests may have begun with an educated youth and liberal, urban elite, but a tour of the Nile Delta suggests discontent is more widespread. ... The capital and its central Tahrir Square has been the epicentre of protests, but cities across the Delta north of Cairo, those far to the south and others to the east have also had streets filled with demonstrators demanding Mubarak go. ... Two-thirds of Egypt's population is under 30. That age group accounts for 90 percent of the jobless. Protesters want wealth from economic liberalisation, promoted by the former cabinet, to spread beyond a business elite linked to the ruling party.

To further complicate the picture, not only is the Egyptian population, but as this blog post points it out, it is also increasingly rural.  Young, rural, and unemployed.  These reports seem to indicate that the rural-urban divide in North Africa is also a class-based divide, a disparity of opportunity, of the presence of diverse businesses and supportive institutions. Sound familiar?

We discussed earlier that even though the rural U.S. is discontent, an increasing amount of that discontent is aimed at policies that have little to do with economic opportunity. Thomas Frank argues in What's the Matter with Kansas? that the formerly progressive population of Midwestern, agrarian and rural states, such as Kansas, were "won" over by the Conservatives, who succeeded in mis-educating the working classes there, and managed to transfer their discontent to unobtainable, culture-war issues.

I tend to agree with this view. Even if one disagrees, however, it is hard not to realize that the economic discontent over the loss of rural opportunity may, one day, fuel a revolt here in our own country. Are we, Americans of the coastal regions, resolved to ignoring our own good people for decades? In other words: are we like Ben Ali?

For better or worse, Mubarak's Egypt resisted the urban juggernaut

This story from the New York Times reports that Egypt is the only "large country to have become less urban" during the past three decades. The headline is "For Egypt, a Fresh Start, with Cities." An excerpt follows:

When Hosni Mubarak took power in 1981, Egypt was indeed more urban than the rest of the world. About 44 percent of its population lived in cities. In East Asia, by comparison, only 26 percent of people lived in cities.

Since then, the cities of Asia have expanded rapidly, drawing in millions of peasant farmers looking for a better life — and, more often than not, finding it.

Journalist David Leonhardt informs us that while nearly half of East Asians live in cities, only 43% of Egyptians do.

More interesting than these statistics is Leonhardt's discussion of the apparent benefits of urbanization--especially in the developing world--because cities "make us smarter" and are--according to those he quotes--important engines for economic growth. Read more here.

Just a click away

Photographs are literally a click away. Pressing one’s fingers down on a camera preserves an image, a memory, and potentially history. Photographs of rural life capture nostalgia, sentiment, and sometimes a real human life. Rurality, as we know, diverges greatly not only within America, but also between countries where rurality may be a way of life. In this blog post, I would like you to consider the contrasting photographs of rural America and rural South Africa, and my humble attempt to discern what can be learned from these photographers’ eyes.

South African photographer, Zwelethu Mthethwa’s camera documents the rural-industrial peripheries, where many South African migrants live. His philosophy is one of exchange and collaboration - and in an interview he states, “It was important that I offered them the chance to decide how they wanted to be photographed, and in this way it became, in a sense, about giving them back their dignity and authorship.” Looking at his photographs, it is evident that he gives each individual an assertive voice. The men, women, and children are positioned in the center staring directly at the camera, while surrounded with their possessions. The undeniable conclusion is that the camera gives these individuals in a world that is undergoing industrial changes. In fact, Mthethwa says in his interview that for many of these people, the photos became a living document.

It is important to note, however, that Mthethwa’s photographs separate the place from the individual. In fact, most of his photographs are just about the individuals, rather than the land. Perhaps this is because Africa is quickly industrializing, and land is less nostalgic than maintaining the individual identity of one’s culture and family.

In contrast to Mthethwa’s photographs are photographs taken by various individuals documented in SlowExposures. SlowExposures is a festival created by Chris Curry and Nancy McCrary as a way to capture the rural South through photography. Specifically, the goal of the program is “to remind visitors and residents to ‘slow down’ and allow the images to surprise, educate, reacquaint, and challenge their perception of the rural South.” Similarly, the photographs taken of the rural South portray individuals in the center frame, staring squarely at the camera – almost directly challenging our assumptions of them.

One difference, however, between the photographs of Mthethwa’s and those of these photographers is that SlowExposures seems to enhance the beauty of the surrounding areas of the rural South. Many of the photographs play upon the beauty of the area and the objects that are part of the region – such as doors, homes, animals, and even junk. Perhaps, as we have discussed in class, this is based on preserving our nations nostalgia or preserving our environment. Regardless, it is hard to deny that these photographs evoke a feeling of a long lost era that wants to be recaptured.

Mthethwa and SlowExposures seek to do the same thing – capture places, regions, and a people that tend to be forgotten in our world today. In fact, I would go so far as to say that their photographs are important because they do capture a memory of a time and place that still exists, and this allows us – the people who have steamrolled ahead – to be aware that the rural still is evolving and still maintains a place in this world.