With the experience of more than 20 year as doctor, Bapak Zainal Gani started a small business in herbal medicines in 1999, named ‘Herba Bagoes’. This family business produced 35 types of traditional medicines, which employs 14 workers. ‘This business has keeping busy during my retired time but I am not alone, my daughter, Annis Kartika Dewi help me. She is an agronomist. Anytime I need certain information on particular plants I can easily got them from her’ proudly said by Bapak Zainal.
By joining their different skills, Herba Bagoes produces the no-side affect, quality medicines with relatively cheap prices. In a month, the business resulted about 40 million rupiah. Bapak Zainal grows its own plants located uphill - 10 km away from his house. Even tough it is a small business, but Herba Bagoes apply a maximum standard in Herbal production called (CPOTB-Cara Pembuatan Obat Tradisional yang Baik), it was an expensive procedure, but I see it as investment.
Dont miss another inspiring episode of Cabe Rawit in Liputan 6 Pagi SCTV, Monday March 31 2008. For more information of Herba Bagoes please visit its website in http://www.herba-bagoes.com/ or visit its workshop Jl. Letjen Sutoyo No. 65 Malang, Jawa Timur 65141, Tlp 0341 - 491170 or directly contact dr. Zainal Gani/ Ir. Annis Kartika Dewi (08123352095).
Cabe Rawit Team www.liputan6.com/caberawit/
On the occasion of the opening of the Swiss Embassy in Prishtina, Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey was paying a visit to Kosovo. In addition to attending the inauguration, she embarked on a comprehensive programme of visits.
On her agenda was a visit to the commercial college in Gjilan. It was here that her attention was particularly drawn to a teaching module; a practice company, in which business students, are learning in a permanent and realistic simulated environment. One of the students, who had lived as a refugee in Switzerland for a year, guided the Federal Councillor through the virtual enterprise.
Purchasing, sales, book keeping, marketing, administration – the students are absorbing all the skills a firm needs to survive in the marketplace. Swisscontact helped to set up this firm and to connect it to a worldwide network of practice companies. Federal Councillor Calmy-Rey successfully tested the model by making an ebanking payment in its name.
Zurich/Nairobi
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has recognized a project implemented by Swisscontact in India for its contribution to the protection of the ozone layer. Even today, this remains the key factor in the elimination of CFCs from air conditioners and refrigerators throughout the sub-continent.
Twenty years ago, the first 27 countries signed the Montreal Protocol for the Protection of the Ozone Layer. In 1992, India acceded to the Protocol. The country now had to find ways and means of reducing the emission of ozone-depleting substances. Amongst the worst polluters were air conditioners and refrigerators. At the time, many of these were cooling exclusively by means of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
New coolants for new appliances
In the 1990s, within the framework of an earlier project, the industry was motivated to use alternative coolants and insulating materials, in order to reduce the CFC content. In 2003, the Indian Government prohibited the manufacture of cooling appliances that used CFCs.
To identify an ozone-friendly solution for the millions of CFC cooling appliances that were already in service (and would remain so for some time to come), Swisscontact, on behalf of SDC, implemented the HIDECOR (Human and Institutional Development in Ecological Refrigeration) Project.
Between 2001 and 2004, working closely with private partners, more than 10,000 service technicians were given further training. Many of them were active in the informal sector, as independent small entrepreneurs. They learned to re-cycle the coolants – which had never been done before in India – and to replace them with an environmentally-friendly hydrocarbon-based alternative.
More than 10,000 service technicians receive further training
To ensure that the service providers knew not only how cooling appliances had to be converted, but were also able to buy the modern hydrocarbon-based coolants, the market had to be built up first. “To convince manufacturers and importers that that this business is profitable was one of our toughest challenges,” recalls Manfred Egger, at the time the Swisscontact Project Leader. Since 2004, our Indian partners have been implementing the work of the Swisscontact Project throughout the rest of the country. The stated goal of the Indian Government is to ensure that by 2010, all cooling appliances in the country will be CFC-free.
31 Projects rewarded
To mark the 20th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol, the Ozone Secretariat, which is responsible for overseeing the conversion, rewarded a whole array of initiatives with a prize: “The Montreal Protocol Exemplary Project Recognition”. The Jury, comprising representatives of UNEP, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and the World Bank, honoured a total of 31 projects.
Manfred Egger has moved on to become Swisscontact’s Country Representative in Vietnam. He was very pleased to be reminded with an award of the successful project in India nearly three years on: “This recognition shows that the project is still effective today.”
Ambulant Knowledge in West Africa
The Swisscontact Knowledge Management Award 2007 goes to West Africa, for the successful transfer of knowledge from the vocational training fund in Mali to the one in Benin and finally to the one in Burkina Faso. Also receiving awards were the regional Indonesian Project-Management-System, the Start-up-Kit for Kenyan Micro Finance Institutions, and the Local Economic Development-Project in Sri Lanka.
For several years, Swisscontact has accorded knowledge management a high priority and as such, the prize carried with it a certain prestige, in addition to the award of 2,000 Swiss francs. Proof that profit-oriented companies also hold Knowledge Management in high regard was demonstrated when Marianne Sulzer, Head Knowledge Managment, introduced the only member of the Jury who is not a part of Swisscontact: Bruno Herrmann is responsible for the knowledge management sector at Swiss Re. “A team with 80 players”, she added. The other jurors were Swisscontact collaborators: Marianne Sulzer, the leader of knowledge management, her colleague Martin Dietschi and Markus Kupper, head of operations.
Four award-winning projects
It must have been very difficult for them to reach a decision, as they placed two separate projects in joint third position. Véronique Su and her Team in Kenya had drawn up a set of information pointers and guidelines that made things much easier for newly established credit and savings cooperatives during their first three years of existence. The first Swisscontact Local Economic Development Project in Sri Lanka has turned out to be a great success story, particularly the greatly improved efficiency of the local public administration offices. In the meantime, the main task of the project manager, Jay Seneviratne, is to orchestrate the dissemination of the project. Indeed, before receiving the award, he had already stressed: “Even more important than the chance of a prize is the fact that the project is running so well”.
To cope with the growing workload of the regional Swisscontact offices, the one in Indonesia has come up with an IT solution. This enables the people working in the various branches in Indonesia and those in the HQ in Zurich to have an instant overview of the ongoing projects at any particular time, as well as the allocated resources and the obligations arising. The tool allows the continuous organisation of the projects, as well as their analysis and control.
Trans-national network of knowledge
„And the winner is…”, announced Marianne Sulzer, “West Africa!” It is there that, within just a few years, the idea of a national vocational training system for the crafts sector funded by a country-wide fund has spread from Mali to Benin and thence to Burkina Faso. Of course, the project did not find its own way there, and it was Swisscontact who matched it to the relevant circumstances and appropriate project partners. In the meantime, the people in charge of the vocational training funds in the three countries have been dealing directly with one another. This is tangible proof that the knowledge network is functioning correctly.
The proposal had been presented by Ralph Rothe, the country program manager in Benin. As he accepted the golden statuette and the winner’s cheque for 2000 Swiss francs, he began by stressing that this project was not just about Benin, but about West Africa. Tania Haidari, who is the leader of the vocational education project in Mali, then elaborated: “We want to develop and extend knowledge management and expand into other areas. For example, we are also very keen to strengthen the exchange between micro finance projects in the three countries.” Nevertheless, the prize money will remain in Benin. Ralph Rothe invited the 12 training centers throughout the country to participate in a competition. “The best center will receive the money,” he explained.
Swisscontact, together with the Economic Development and Financing Facility (EDFF) have launched a new program, called Peningkatan Ekonomi Kakao Aceh (PEKA). Addressing the development of the cocoa sub-sector in the Aceh province, this program will reach out into five selected districts and 12.500 cocoa farmers throughout the province.
Prior to the program’s implementation, the MoU between […]
H.E. Mr. Heinz Edmund Walker, the new Swiss Ambassador, and Mr. Joerg Schneider representative of SECO (State Secretariat for Economic Affairs) visited Swisscontact on February 9th 2010. The Regional Director for SE Asia, Mr. Peter Bissegger gave a briefing on Swisscontact activities and achievements.
Five years after the tsunami, SPAN comes to an end in December 2009. At the occasion of the project phase-out, Swisscontact invited the Government and development partners to a seminar on ‘Business Recovery in Aceh’ that took place in Jakarta on the 17th of November 2009. The purpose of the event was to share results […]