The boundaries of today’s war on terrorism are highly obscure, making it highly improbable for US forces to avoid civilian casualties, in places like Somalia, and others perceived to harbor terrorists.

Terrorists, some of whom may have genuine causes, systematically utilize violence and intimidation while disguised as civilian non-combatants. In other words, terrorists imbed themselves within civilian populations and then execute attacks.

Thus, the ground of warfare in the war against terror in located within the civilian population as determined by terrorists using crude means to achieve political objectives.

Terrorists use civilians as both shields and sacrificial lambs in order to carry out their objectives.

The fact of the matter is that the war on terror absolutely has no rules of engagement. In military operations, the rules of engagement determine when, where, and how force shall be used. Terrorists operate literally in the shadows of civilian populations, and utilize wanton methods that put civilians in the line of fire.

In spite of the military might of US forces, there are severe problems to directly engage with terrorists in places like Somalia and others. The US forces face little choice except to track terrorists within civilian populations.

And therein lies the challenge.

Defining who is and who is not a terrorist within a crowd of people can be a daunting task, and despite any wholesale exercise of discretion, mistakes are bound to be made.

To complicate matters, the painstaking process of trying to identify terrorists within the civilian population places US soldiers in the line of potential terrorist attacks.

Hence, US forces have to rely mainly on military intelligence, some of which may be seriously flawed, putting civilians at the risk of a US military attack.

Given the amorphous nature of the war on terror, it is really chance and luck that rule the day, as opposed to the strict execution of military strategy intended to limit the killing of civilians.

So, while some attacks by US forces can yield intended results, others can go awry, especially when terrorists place themselves within the proximity of civilians.

Put simply, there are no easy answers to preventing civilian deaths in the formless war on terrorism. The war has no definite character or nature, and civilians find themselves caught in between like pawns in a chess game.

In order to limit the extent of civilian deaths, the US has to incorporate locals to verify intelligence information on the location of terrorists. But this cannot be a full-proof measure as local sources of information may be acting in cahoots with terrorists, and therefore divulge intelligence information to the very terrorists. As a result, planned attacks targeted at terrorists will only hit innocent civilians.

US soldiers are literally caught between a rock and a hard place with very little in their sophisticated weaponry to define or determine the rules of the war on terror.

As a result, US soldiers are forced to go on an all-out hunt for terrorist groups and personalities hidden within communities, rendering the killing of civilians unavoidable.

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.” 

~ Anatole France

Although the female condom has been heralded as a way for women to protect themselves from HIV and STI infections, its impact has been severely limited due to several reasons including its design, cost, access, stigma, and lack of political will.

Given the fact that women are the most affected and infected by HIV (in 2007, women represented half of all HIV infections worldwide, and 61% of HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa) it is an imperative that evidence-based measures be undertaken to reduce their vulnerability.

The female condom is an essential sexual reproductive health tool that women can control but, disappointingly, it remains confined to the fringes of the response to the global AIDS epidemic.

According to a report by the Center for Health and Gender Equity titled “ Saving Lives Now: Female Condoms and the Role of US Foreign Aid” the US has an important role to play in the procurement, distribution and programming of female condoms.

As a leading provider of funding for HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care, and reproductive health supplies worldwide, the US can promote the wider use of the female condom, including reducing the cost which is beyond the reach of many of the affected women. 

The report notes that there is little knowledge among policy makers and advocates about what the current US role is and, thus, a lack of understanding of what more the US should do.

“Bureaucratic obstacles, funding restrictions, and a lack of high level commitment to female condoms have significantly hindered the expansion of U.S.-funded female condom distribution efforts,” says the report.

“The U.S. government has no policy guidance encouraging missions or contractors to promote female condoms, which has meant that female condom procurement is dependent on a few field-level champions who are committed to the method,” adds the report.

Currently, international donors and government are investing millions of dollars and energy into promoting initiatives such as male circumcision, and little attention is being paid to promoting female condoms which allow women to initiate protection.

“While the unique nature of female condoms in providing women with their own source of protection should be reason enough for donors and governments to promote the method, female condoms hold other advantages as well. They fill their own niche, as consumers often alternate their use with that of male condoms, thus increasing the total number of protected sex acts,” states the report.

“They can be used by women living with HIV who do not wish to become pregnant, to protect against superinfection and to reduce the chance of HIV transmission to seronegative partners.”

In addition, female condoms also provide an additional option for protection during anal intercourse for men who have sex with men and heterosexuals, says the report.

In spite of the apparent benefits of the female condom, there are still major challenges in promoting its use.

Apart from the fact that female condoms are prohibitively expensive in many parts of the world, users find them noisy, physically unappealing, or difficult to use.

“However, female condoms are a cost-effective mechanism for HIV prevention when measured against thevcosts of potential HIV infections or other HIV prevention mechanisms. Also, as more and more female condoms are produced and purchased, their cost will drop,” states the report.

With greater financial investment and commitment, the design of the female condom can be improved increasing the likelihood of uptake by women.

Furthermore, there is need for educational and social marketing programs aimed at reducing the stigma associated with use of the female condom as well as improving consistent and accurate use.

According to the report, civil society groups can be extremely valuable in developing effective programming because of their access to populations vulnerable to HIV infection and their experience working with these groups.

The report makes the following recommendations to improve US’s role in the distribution and use of female condoms:

• USAID and OGAC should issue policy guidance promoting female condom procurement and programming within US-funded development programs, including PEPFAR. As a signatory of ICPD, the US should promote female condoms as a vital tool to prevent both pregnancy and HIV infection.
• The US should expand technical assistance for female condom logistics and procurement to additional countries to increase HIV prevention efforts.
• The US should apply intensive programming efforts to an additional three countries for scale-up and replication. These efforts could be used to create a more realistic assessment of global female condom needs for scale-up.
• The US should increase HIV prevention efforts by expanding the scope of female and male condom promotion to encompass the general public. Programming for female condoms will depend on each area’s epidemiological profile, and should be free of messages and attitudes that stigmatize condom use.
• The US should invest more funds in female condom promotion and programming. The US should subsidize female condoms for PEPFAR-funded programs.
• At the country level, the US should include civil society, especially women’s health and rights groups, in stakeholder meetings and encourage financing mechanisms that increase government-civil society collaboration in female condom programming.
• Congress should remove all earmarks and funding directives for abstinence-only, abstinence-until-marriage and fidelity prevention programs and fund comprehensive, integrated, and evidence-based HIV prevention programs that include female condoms and that promote and protect women’s health.

“There are countless ways of attaining greatness, but any road to reaching one’s maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity.”

~ Philip Guedella

To many people, the word “habit” evokes negative images. But according to an article in the New York Times, our habits can in fact be a source of creativity and innovation.

Making something fresh out of old habits is very simple: you simply have to ignore the old habits and strive to build better ones. The benefits of taking that route are numerous, and include making your mind better acquianted to innovation, and possibly greatness.

Habits – whether negative or positive – are developed over time and tie themselves around your being, defining who you are. Put simply, habit is a form of behavior that in time occurs automatically or unconsciously. In popular lingo, habits are often regarded with disdain.

That is if we strive to break the habits we have already formed and map new ones. The process of establishing new habits injects new sparks into the brain thereby helping an individual to think in a breakthrough manner.

“Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits,” says the article titled “Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?”.

“In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.”

Establishing new habits takes energy, commitment and time but instead of investing your time in fighting off old habits, the key to success is to develop a new repertoire of behaviors.

In other words, it is important to develop a vision of the new behaviors that one want to incorporate into their life, and then meticulously follow that plan.

According to the New York Times report, old habits get ingrained into the hippocampus, and cannot be fought.

“Don’t bother trying to kill off old habits; once those ruts of procedure are worn into the hippocampus, they’re there to stay. Instead, the new habits we deliberately ingrain into ourselves create parallel pathways that can bypass those old roads,” states the article.

Creating new habits helps to make your mind to be fascinated with wonder, so to speak, which is a quality essential for innovation and new discoveries,.

“A good innovational thinker is always exploring the many other possibilities,” the article quotes Dawna Markova, author of “The Open Mind” and an executive change consultant for Professional Thinking Partners.

The article adds that real change occurs only when we are stretched into doing something that is awkward, that is, something that significantly takes us away from the path that we have been traveling.

According to the report, learning new things challenges our brains to create new pathways and, in the process, avoiding mental problems.

All ideologies end up killing people. If you separate love from nonviolence you turn nonviolence into an ideology, a gimmick. Structures that are not inhabited by justice and love have no liberating or reconciling force, and are never sources of life.

~ Jean Goss

Zimbabwean culture, like many cultures in sub-Saharan Africa, places a high value on procreation. Child-bearing is regarded as a rite of passage into becoming a normal adult member of society.

As a result, reproductive health choices and practices often play second fiddle to pressures to reproduce that are exerted by traditional and cultural norms. Usually, these pressures are covert so they tend to be ignored in the design of reproductive health programs and interventions.

Reproductive health generally implies that people are able to have a responsible, satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so.

But in Zimbabwe, men and women’s ability to exercise this right is curtailed by the unseen force of tradition and culture.

In many parts of the country, a woman is expected to have been married at roughly age 24, and within two years of marriage is expected to have a child. Young women, in spite of their educational status, are under immense pressure to fulfill this social expectation. On the other hand, a man who goes beyond 30 without getting married or having a child attracts significant social ridicule.

Failure to procreate especially in a marriage, even if it is by choice, is interpreted in negative light and is equated to reproductive health failure. For a man, becoming a father is associated with a sense of achievement, and failure to reproduce severely undermines the sense of masculinity. A woman’s place within a marriage is regarded as secure when she reproduces. If she fails to do so, she can become ostracized within the household and community.

“Failure to reproduce can strain family and other social relationships, particularly when the negative views of extended family members are taken to heart,” says a study conducted in Zimbabwe in 2001 titled Culture, Identity and Reproductive Failure in Zimbabwe.

“Generally speaking, about one year after entry into marriage or a stable sexual partnership, others expect there to be a child, irrespective of the reproductive choices of the partners.”

It is clear that traditional and cultural attitudes play a significant role in how both men and women construct their reproductive capabilities and choices.

As Danielle Toppin notes “given the often covert nature of socialization, certain gendered behaviours are often left untouched, resulting in reproductive health policies that fail to meet the specific needs of women, and of men”.

In Zimbabwe, the family, a primary unit of socialization, is often the root of pressure for men and women to prove that they can reproduce. The desire to conceive in order to gain social acceptance is given preference to adopting tools and methods that promote safe sex.

The social pressure on women to become pregnant and give birth leads them into conditions of vulnerability, where they have to acquiesce to their partner’s sexual demands. It can also lead men to have multiple sexual encounters exposing them to a high risk of contracting HIV.

Put simply, the effectiveness of sexual and reproductive health tools is inhibited by culturally and socially constructed layers that define people’s sexual behaviors.

However, instead of being an impediment, culture can be used as a stepping stone to promote reproductive health rights. To have effective reproductive health programs, therefore, a full understanding of a given society’s values and beliefs is required.

There’s need for an approach that is sensitive to contextual, cultural, traditional and gender practices that impact on reproductive health choices.

The traditional, spiritual and cultural beliefs that shape and define sexual identities and attitudes towards sexual and reproductive health need to be given serious attention in the design of programs and interventions. Traversing the cultural and traditional can be very difficult and requires a lot of sensitivity, investment and patience.

It’s imperative to involve the target communities in the design and implementation of reproductive health policy, planning and practice in order to challenge cultural norms that may put women and men at risk. 

“Without AMBITION one starts nothing. Without WORK one finishes nothing. The prize will NOT be sent to you. You have to WIN it. The man who knows HOW will always have a job. The man who also knows WHY will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but PRINCIPLES are few. The man who grasps PRINCIPLES can successfully select his own METHODS. The man who tries METHODS, ignoring PRINCIPLES, is sure to have trouble.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

The bottom line (no pun intended) is that being generous is a habit that can be developed - and if entrepreneurs take the time to invest in it, it can radically transform their own lives, and that of the people around them.

Developing a reputation as a generous entrepreneur is a product of purpose, vision, character and conviction. If an entrepreneur is simply after building personal reputation without being truly generous, the chances of failure are numerous.

Put simply, generosity must be based on good intentions aimed at promoting the common good within the community.

An entrepreneur needs to clearly understand why they are being generous otherwise they risk being accused of manipulation. Indeed, many entrepreneurs engage in generous acts so that they can attract media attention in order to increase the market value of their company.

However, an entrepreneur needs to understand generosity alone will not provide enough fuel to make the business, no matter how well intentioned it is.

1. It’s a Habit

Generosity is a habit that needs to be developed. An entrepreneur must have a clear vision about being generous, and they must work hard to achieve it. As part of this vision it must be clear to the entrepreneur that generosity is not some sort of a media stunt aimed at boosting the fortunes of the business. Generosity must be practiced in its own right and not as a hidden agenda.

2. Make Money

Business exists to make money. An entrepreneur’s generosity must be a natural extension of the success of the business. There is no point trying to be generous when the business is going broke. Besides operating a profitable business only allows the entrepreneur to be increase the opportunities to be generous with wealth.

3. It’s Not All About Money

Even though the business needs to be functional, its important for the entrepreneur to recognize that money is not always needed to enagage in generous acts. The entrepreneur can dedicate their time to social causes. They can give of their time and knowledge for free.

Take, for example, a business person can start a mentoring programme program for young high school students to learn more about how to start a business. That, in itself, will increase the reputation of the entrepreneur as someone willing to sacrifice their time to share knowledge and expand the cake of opportunity.

4. Make It a Part of the Business Plan

Being generous must not be left to chance. Rather, it should be incorporated into the business planning processes. An entrepreneur must from the outset know what they are able to be genereous with in the evolution of the business. As entrepreneurs get lost in the money-hunt, it can be easy for the ideal of generosity to get lost. Making generosity a part of the business plan will force the entrepreneur to be obligated to the process of generosity.

5. Have a Cause

Undoubtedly there are loads of humans needs in the world, and no-one entrepreneur can resolve the problems. It is important for an entrepreneur to be passionate about a cause so that they do not appear like a hoax. An entrepreneur must embrace the cause with vision and courage, and be able to contribute time and resources to make sure that it is realised.

Many entrepreneurial endeavours have a latent value, something that they add to society, and when an entrepreneur can identify it, they can use that as a starting point for generous activities.

6. Start Inside

This is perhaps the important tip on developing a reputation as a generous entrepreneur because everything that a business does reflects the character and content of his or her life. When a paradox exists between an entrepreneur’s generosity and their private life, it can spell doom. The entrepreneur must always make a conscious effort to ensure that they are generous with employees and family.

As the old adage goes, if it doesn’t begin in the home, it will not go far. Generosity must begin within the entrepreneur’s own organization.

In essence, generosity can open up new opportunities for the endeavors of the business person.

At the same time, generosity has a boomerang effect which can help to propel the fortunes of a business.

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.