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STEVE CHIOTAKIS: The United Nations has had a goal for nearly a decade to, among other things, help cut extreme poverty around the world, part of its so-called Millennium Development Goals. And a recent report shows there’s been some success. This week, world leaders will get an update on many of the goals as they meet in New York. They’re hoping the global economic downturn hasn’t derailed what they’d set out to do.

From Johannesburg, reporter Gretchen Wilson has more.

GRETCHEN WILSON: In one corner of this inner-city park, there are rows of raised garden beds. Mabule Mokhine points to leafy green vegetables.

MABULE MOKHINE: Chard, spinach… And I see now, because it is spring, there is strawberry. That is strawberry

Mokhine is with The Greenhouse Project, a non-profit that teaches city dwellers how to grow food on their balconies and rooftops. Not because it’s cool. Because they’re hungry.

MOKHINE: The incidence of HIV and AIDS, it just left a number of households being run by children, you know.

The first Millennium Development Goal is to cut in half the number of people in extreme hunger and poverty by 2015. At this rate, most countries in southern Africa aren’t going to make it.

Josee Koch is with the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme.

JOSEE KOCH: The commitment and effort is there. It’s just that the problem is so huge.

Still, countries around the world have made headway on the goals — to provide basic education for all boys and girls alike, to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to reduce child and maternal mortality rates. The summit buzz is about the billions of dollars needed to go further.

But in the wake of the global financial crisis, the question is: Who’s going to pay for it?

KOCH: The only way forward is to really make sure that trade does get more equal.

Many in southern Africa say they don’t want charity as much as they want investment, access to markets, and loans for their small businesses. This kind of economic development doesn’t depend on donations, which can be squandered by dishonest governments. And though the U.N. doesn’t have a big stick to force governments to meet the goals, citizens do.

Nokothula Magudulela is with Amnesty International.

NOKOTHULA MAGUDULELA: People can march. They can write petitions. They can litigate. People need to raise their voices at their local level.

That kind of leverage will be crucial in the next five years, as countries strive to achieve the Millennium Development Goals — the biggest coordinated effort in human history to reduce extreme poverty.

In Johannesburg, I’m Gretchen Wilson for Marketplace.

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STEVE CHIOTAKIS: People in the southern African country of Mozambique are celebrating today, after their government reversed a price hike on bread. The increase was in response to how much more the country was having to pay for wheat and grain. It sparked food riots, with demonstrations and clashes with police. Thirteen people died in the violence. Reporter Gretchen Wilson is with us from Johannesburg. Hi Gretchen.

GRETCHEN WILSON: Hi Steve.

CHIOTAKIS: What’s happening right now in Mozambique?

WILSON: Well, Mozambique’s planning minister is saying the government will reverse the 30 percent price hike on bread. He also says the government will suspend salary increases for top officials. And you might wonder about this. Why is this such a big deal? Why were people burning tires and dodging rubber bullets just over bread? But you really have to understand the local context. Rolls of bread are a staple food for Mozambicans. And the government’s price increase jacked the price of one bread roll to 20 U.S. cents. This is in one of the poorest countries in the world. The average full-time worker makes just a little more than a dollar a day.

CHIOTAKIS: With the reversal things are quiet. Could things heat back up again?

WILSON: Certainly. The bigger issue is certainly not resolved. This is an ongoing clash about food security and the ability of poor nations to feed their citizens. Mozambique, for example, grows only about a third of the wheat it needs to make those bread rolls. So this story is not just about Mozambique, it really has its roots in another country more than 5,000 miles away.

CHIOTAKIS: Which country is that? And how is that affecting food prices in Mozambique?

WILSON: Well you really have to look to Russia. Global prices for wheat skyrocketed after Russia canceled all of its wheat in exports. Droughts and fires there hampered wheat productions. And that’s what prompted the price hike on Mozambique’s bread rolls. The government now says it’s going to subsidize the purchase of wheat to keep bread prices the same. It’s also going to maintain the price of other imported foods — things like rice and certain vegetables by cutting customs duties and taxes.

CHIOTAKIS: All right. Reporter Gretchen Wilson from Johannesburg. Gretchen, thanks.

WILSON: Thanks Steve.

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STEVE CHIOTAKIS: South Africa’s president is in China today. South African officials say the two countries are set to sign some key free trade deals. The visit is just South Africa’s latest effort to reach out to several of the world’s fastest growing economies. Reporter Gretchen Wilson is in Johannesburg. She’s with us this morning to talk about it. Hi Gretchen.

GRETCHEN WILSON: Hi Steve.

CHIOTAKIS: Tell us more about this visit. What’s at stake with this visit?

WILSON: Well, South Africa’s like many African economies. It grew steadily in recent years, but quickly had to downshift when the global economy slowed down. That’s because overseas markets cut back on commodities, things like copper, platinum and aluminum. President Jacob Zuma’s message in China is that Africa’s biggest economy is open for business. He’s looking for new investment and he wants to create jobs and infrastructure back home. He also wants to narrow the trade deficit with Beijing. He’s hoping that China will buy more from South Africa than just raw materials. Zuma’s really made it a priority in recent months to visit each of the so-called BRIC countries — that’s Brazil, Russia, India and China. And this is his last stop on that tour. He really wants to nail down South Africa’s place among the emerging economies, and he wants those countries to see South Africa as a gateway into the rest of Africa.

CHIOTAKIS: Well then, Gretchen, how’s his visit being received back home?

WILSON: Well, it might have been a huge deal originally, but his message was really hijacked when the main economic story in South Africa became the government worker’s strike that’s going on now. More than a million teachers and nurses went on strike last week to demand wage increases, so state schools are empty, hospitals are actually operating on skeletal crews, and volunteers are keeping emergency rooms running.

CHIOTAKIS: And bottom line, what are they striking about?

WILSON: Well, they want a greater stake in the country’s growth on the international stage. So while Zuma’s negotiating trade deals with China, government employees are saying they want a piece of that success, they want to hold out for a higher wage increase than the 7 percent that the state is offering.

CHIOTAKIS: Reporter Gretchen Wilson from Johannesburg, South Africa. Gretchen, thanks.

WILSON: Thanks, Steve.

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STEVE CHIOTAKIS: American oil company Anadarko has discovered oil off the coast of the African country Mozambique. It’s the first time oil has been discovered near this part of East Africa. It’s still unclear whether getting the oil out of the sea floor will make any kind of economic sense.

From Johannesburg, South Africa, Gretchen Wilson reports.

GRETCHEN WILSON: The Texas-based company says this initial find proves the presence of oil in the region.

Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world. And the government sure could use some additional money from an oil find. Money that could go to clinics, schools and computers. But many in Africa worry that the discovery of oil isn’t always a blessing, but a curse.

Toms Selemane is with the Center for Public Integrity in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. He’s worried about the possible environmental damage from oil drilling and about how much money the oil companies will give back.

TOMS SELEMANE: The discussion now is what can be done to ensure that these multinationals are really contributing to the national economy.

That’s not necessarily happening in some African nations, including Sudan and Nigeria, where oil’s discovery has also ignited armed conflict.

Mozambique’s oil management will be watched closely by Washington. The U.S. government estimates that by 2015 a full quarter of U.S. oil imports will come from Africa.

In Johannesburg, I’m Gretchen Wilson for Marketplace.

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Steve Chiotakis: In Israel today, members of the international diamond industry are meeting. They’re part of what’s known as the “Kimberley Process”. The group will be discussing whether to expel Zimbabwe, because human rights advocates say the country’s found a loophole in the crackdown on “conflict diamonds.” Reporter Gretchen Wilson has more from Johannesburg.

Gretchen Wilson: Zimbabwe’s government wants all of its diamonds certified as conflict-free. Because despite its political and economic problems, there’s no war going on in the country. The trick is the Kimberley Process was created to stop rebel groups from entering the diamond trade.

Tiseke Kasambala is with the advocacy group Human Rights Watch. She says the monitoring group hasn’t figured out what to do when it’s the governments themselves that are responsible for forced labor.

Tiseke Kasambala: They’re struggling to expand its mandate to deal with governments that extract these minerals by committing abuses against their own people.

When Zimbabwe’s government discovered the huge potential of diamond mining region four years ago, more than 30,000 locals rushed in. The government first brought in police to secure the area. Then the army.

Kasambala: They came in with guns, with helicopters and with dogs.

Some observers say if the Kimberley Process doesn’t take action against Zimbabwe, it will be a death blow to the body’s legitimacy, and will leave no international group to effectively monitor the world’s diamond industry.

In Johannesburg, I’m Gretchen Wilson for Marketplace.

curity guards walked out less than two hours before kick-off. The issue was a wage dispute with their employer, a subcontractor.

World Cup organizers quickly bussed in more than 1,000 police trainees. Most fans didn’t even know there’d been a narrowly-averted crisis. Security workers in another host city, Durban, have also cried foul. They say they were paid less than $30 for an 18-hour day.

South Africa doesn’t have one blanket minimum wage. Instead, it has a series of nation-wide wage agreements “which lay down minimum standards for particular grades for particular kinds of work,” says Patrick Craven with the country’s trade union federation.

Craven says it’s still unclear whether the companies paying security guards are shirking labor laws. “In the past, the security industry has been notoriously bad for mistreating its workers,” he says.

Local organizers say these police trainees will provide security in these cities until further notice. Security guards are calling on the international soccer association, FIFA, to confirm what they should be paid by subcontractors.

After years of anticipation, hard planning and $5 billion worth of infrastructure-building, South Africa kicks off World Cup 2010 with high hopes for prosperity. This is the first time the tournament will be played on African soil, and South Africa is hosting the event 16 years after its transition to democracy and years of steady economic growth.

South Africa is the largest economy on the African continent, with a population of 49 million. But South Africa is a highly unequal society, and critics have blasted the extravagence of World Cup preparations, which include Johannesburg’s new $400 million stadium. The South African organization Institute for Security Studies says money used for World Cup infrastructure was enough to build 60,000 low-cost houses for the benefit of 250,000 people, reports The New York Times.

Beyond drawing zealous fans from around the world, the World Cup has also drawn business opportunists from across Africa — countries like Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Somalia. In small neighborhoods dominated by a poor population, xenophobia is starting to flare up against small-business owners. Some immigrants have set up small convenience stores in informal settlements and urban areas, sparking jealousy and resentment from the community. While these entrepreneurs often do relatively OK for themselves, reports say they’ve been a target of verbal and written warnings; neighbors insist they must leave before the World Cup is over or face vigilante violence.

More than 40 percent of South African’s don’t have jobs, with higher volumes of the unemployed living in poor neighborhoods.

The South African government has revived a high-level committee to address threats against small-business immigrants. Police are informed and aware, and community groups are working to address the root causes of the tensions. Many hope these remain rumors and that World Cup excitement and positivity can help dissipate the issue.

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Kai Ryssdal: Soft drink sales were down 2 percent in this country last year. So this month Coke is trying something new. What are being called Freestyle soda fountains. Machines that will let you mix and match more than 100 flavors, just in case you ever wanted pour yourself a fruit punch Coke or a diet raspberry Sprite.

In the developing world, though, the key innovation for marketing soda is as simple as letting customers grab their own bottles. Gretchen Wilson reports now from Johannesburg, South Africa.

Gretchen Wilson: The neighborhood of Alexandra is only three square miles, but it is home to nearly half-a-million people. Most are unemployed, and here people protect what little they have. You often find steel bars on the windows of shacks.

Here, store owners keep even soft drinks behind bars. Often they sleep in their shops with guns to prevent late-night raids.

LAURENTI MOTHIBE: Crime is an issue for this community.

Laurenti Mothibe wants to change that. He works for ABI, the local bottler of Coca-Cola. His job is to get shops to sell more of his product. But how he does it tells a bigger story about trust and business in the world’s poorest communities.

At a local convenience store, Mothibe points to an upright refrigerator branded with the Coke logo, in front of the counter, right near the street. So anyone can grab their own soda.

MOTHIBE: As we see, there’s no security guards, there’s nobody sitting, watching over the cooler.

Here, that’s radical. A bottle of soda is only a dollar, but when you’re broke, it’s a luxury item. Mothibe is persuading dozens of shop owners to put those new coolers in front of their stores and to trust consumers to pay instead of run.

Patricia Ndlovu is a widow who’s run the shop for 12 years. And she balked when he approached her five months ago.

PATRICIA NDLOVU: Mmm, a cooler outside! No, aye! Mm, mm.

Even when she got the fridge, she couldn’t believe the company was serious.

NDLOVU: They find me putting the cooler inside. They say, “No Mama! You are supposed to put the cooler outside!” I say no, hay, no because they are stealing it.

But she kept it outside. And not a single bottle has been stolen.

Isaiah Sakwara likes choosing his own soda from the fridge.

Isaiah Sakwara: As a customer, it shows they believe in us, so you definitely won’t steal.

From India to Brazil, global businesses are finding profits by trusting consumers in the poorest communities in the developing world, what’s known in business circles as the “bottom of the pyramid.”

TASHMIA ISMAEL: There is actually spending power in that four billion people that were written off from formal marketing strategies.

Tashmia Ismael is with GIBS, the business school of the University of Pretoria. She says the best “bottom of the pyramid” models are partnerships with local communities.

ISMAEL: They get the benefit of income and employment. You get the benefit of building brand loyalty and a sustainable future market.

Of course, the bottler’s real mission is to sell more soft drinks.

But Laurenti Mothibe says the way to do that is by empowering these shop owners.

MOTHIBE: We want to turn them into proper business people.

He’s talking about people like Sam Sebila, who used to sell sodas out of his family’s refrigerator. ABI built up Sebila’s storefront, gave him a street-side cooler, and started delivering to him directly. His soft drink sales have tripled. He says his wife can now buy whatever groceries she wants.

SAM SEBILA: I afford to pay everything with the profit I get here. I’m so proud.

Critics say the poor really need their money for education and health care, not consumer goods. But Mothibe says building up micro-businesses — and reducing crime — is key to economic growth.

MOTHIBE: If we’re serious about uplifting communities, this is what every single company should be doing.

ABI is already taking this model to other townships across the country.

And among its advocates is Patricia Ndlovu, the skeptical widow who now sells a $1,000 of soda every month. She’s paying for her children to go to school.

NDLOVU: I’ve been an example to other ladies that no matter even the husband is not there, but you can still pull up your socks and be a strong woman and work hard.

She says she never dreamed of this kind of success, but her new reputation for trusting people is paying off.

In Alexandra, Johannesburg, I’m Gretchen Wilson for Marketplace.

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Kai Ryssdal: For the past seven years, a pair of lawsuits has been making its way through the federal court system. Five multinational companies, names you’ll definitely recognize, have been accused of working with the former apartheid government in South Africa — of selling it the tools that government then used to brutally suppress the South African population. When the cases eventually go to trial, perhaps by early next year, they may become a new standard for corporate accountability overseas. Gretchen Wilson reports from Johannesburg.

GRETCHEN WILSON: Apartheid was legislated racial segregation, enforced from the 1940s until the early 1990s. Often with brute force. Mpho Masemola remembers the bad old days.

MPHO MASEMOLA: There were a lot of massacres by the apartheid agents shooting innocent people.

In 1984, he was a 20-year-old activist for democracy. His movements were tracked by police, and he was arrested.

MASEMOLA: And during my interrogation, I was brutally assaulted. And they break my bones. And I was electrocuted in my private parts.

He survived other forms of torture that led to ongoing medical conditions in his bladder and his eyes. His right hand lies shriveled at his side. He gulps down anxiety medication. He can’t find a job.

Masemola is one of 13 named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against five companies: Ford, General Motors, IBM, and two German firms, automaker Daimler, and weapons maker, Rheinmetall.

Tens of thousands of South Africans like Masemola could be included in this litigation for suffering what’s known as “gross human rights violations” during apartheid.

MARJORIE JOBSON: Things like extrajudicial killings, rape, abduction of people, torture.

Marjorie Jobson heads the Khulumani Support Group for survivors of apartheid violence, which supports the litigation. She says these firms knowingly sold South Africa’s government the tools to carry out these atrocities.

For example, she says IBM designed computer technology to track and restrict the movement of millions of black South Africans, including people like Masemola.

JOBSON: The actual hardware, the maintenance contracts and all the software to run this system were all developed by IBM.

The U.N. passed a mandatory arms embargo against South Africa in 1977. But plaintiffs say years later Ford Motor Company and General Motors Corporation were selling the government armored vehicles.

They say Daimler-Benz even had a secret plant — underground — to make such vehicles.

John Ngcebetsha is a lawyer for the plaintiffs:

JOHN NGCEBETSHA: So that is a violation of international law. Because they knew exactly that those vehicles would have been utilized to kill our people.

He says Rheinmetall sold weapons to South Africa using complicated trade routes. And then exported an entire munitions factory.
Rheinmetall, Ford, and IBM declined Marketplace’s requests for interviews. Daimler said in a written statement that the company — quote — at no time cooperated with the South African Security Forces for the perpetuation of apartheid — unquote. General Motors said in a written statement that it had adamantly opposed apartheid. Still, lawyers for the South African plaintiffs expect to prevail in the courts.

NGCEBETSHA: We are confident that we will be able to lay a very strong precedent for global accountability of business.

Plaintiff Mpho Masemola says he prays the suit will succeed. His family survives on a welfare check of less than $200 a month. And he wants monetary reparations from these corporations. But what’s more important is the message it sends to companies.

MASEMOLA: Stop supporting torture, stop supporting the governments that are illegal.
South Africa’s democratic government used to oppose the litigation, fearing it would scare away foreign investors. But last month, the new administration reversed its decision, and said it would be willing to help negotiate an out-of-court settlement.

In Johannesburg, I’m Gretchen Wilson for Marketplace.

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Bob Moon: What in the world did we ever do without the Internet? Across North America, three-quarters of us are regular visitors to the World Wide Web. In Africa, on the other hand, not so many. In fact, not even 7 percent of Africans are connected. Those who are have to rely mostly on expensive satellite networks, or sluggish cellphone-based technology. The few broadband networks that do exist are way oversubscribed. But as Gretchen Wilson reports from South Africa, the arrival of some fiber-optic cables may spark a new telecommunications boom.

GRETCHEN WILSON: Cafe Galu is an Internet cafe in central Johannesburg, Africa’s richest city.

Manyano Mahlakata is a 19-year-old college student. His university has Internet access. But it’s so slow, it’s virtually unusable. So he comes here twice a week to get online.

MANYANO MAHLAKATA: Like go to Facebook, go to Google, check my mail.

It costs a dollar an hour. A lot for his tight student budget. Today, he and his friends crowd around one computer terminal. Even here, they sometimes wait 45 seconds for a page to load.

MAHLAKATA: Sometimes I just get bored and then I just log out and end up not checking what I want to check.

What’s considered high-speed Internet in Africa is about 50 times slower than what people are used to in the U.S. And it’s often more expensive because lethargic telecom monopolies have dominated African markets. Alison Gillwald heads Research ICT Africa, a network of technology policy groups.

ALISON GILLWALD: We haven’t seen the kind of dramatic penetration of services that one might have seen in East Asia, for example, nor have we seen the price reductions that one would hope to see. And that’s very often because the markets really haven’t been fully liberalized.

But things are starting to open up. And connection speeds are about to increase. Two huge fiber-optic cables have been laid on the floor of the Indian Ocean linking networks in Europe and Asia to coastal ports in Southern and Eastern Africa.

AIDAN BAIGRIE: Basically allowing countries that haven’t had direct access to broadband before, an opportunity to connect with the rest of the world.

Aidan Baigrie is with Seacom, a private venture that built one submarine cable. It’s 10,000 miles long and offers service providers international connections at a fraction of previous costs. Baigrie says that as Africa’s local networks tap into all this new bandwidth, Internet services will become faster and more affordable.

BAIGRIE: It allows us to offer world-class services that before we couldn’t offer.

Things that Americans are already used to. Like powerful company Web sites, online videos, and Internet-based phone calls. All services that will help Africa better compete with Asia and the West.

BAIGRIE: Bringing broadband to Africa opens up a whole new era in business. One of the challenges for international corporations or even small businesses looking to expand or outsource in South Africa is the huge cost of infrastructure, especially telecommunications.

The arrival of Seacom and other fibre-optic cables has been hyped up in recent months. And consumers in many parts of Africa are anxious to see the impact of the higher speeds. The cable won’t solve all problems straight away, especially in regions where the underground cable networks are old and weak. Or if a computer is really out of date.

The next step is for telecommunications companies on the continent to update their local infrastructures. Some governments are already doing this.

In Johannesburg, I’m Gretchen Wilson for Marketplace.