Big international meetings like this are huge undertakings and almost always take on a feeling of a many-ringed circus. There are many side shows and a dizzying array of strange and interesting events.

But at the center of it all, remains an important focus: the world's governments have come together to negotiate trade rules. Rich countries and poor countries, big and small, have gathered to see if they can hammer out a new global trade agreement.

This "round" of negotiations was launched four years ago in Doha, Qatar—hence it's called the "Doha Round." The explicit purpose of the negotiations was to help developing countries gain more from the global trading system. Currently, trade is dominated by rich countries. Less than 20 percent of the world's population captures 80 percent of the world's trade. The poorest countries get the least.

Oxfam's mission in Hong Kong is to make sure that the needs of poor people are heard, and that the negotiations reform fundamental inequities in the rules. My job is to try to lobby US officials, talk to US media, and coordinate with our friends from other organizations and activist groups. It’s a lot to manage.

Luckily for me, we have good hosts. Oxfam Hong Kong is doing an extraordinarily good job. As one of the most prominent nonprofit groups in Hong Kong—in fact in all of China—they have a very important role. They are taking the message of Make Trade Fair to the streets of Hong Kong, talking to citizens, teaching, and listening. They have even taken out billboard space on Hong Kong's sparkling subway system

Today we are learning that negotiators are preparing a "development package" of agreements that would help the poorest countries. This is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, these countries really need help. On the other hand, the negotiation will be a failure for development if rich countries can package some small concessions and sell it, rather than undertaking a much deeper reform, particularly of agriculture trade rules. More on that next time.

Must go to bed now. Tomorrow we're expecting to see Oxfam's familiar "big heads"—gigantic fiberglass masks of the leaders of the eight richest countries in the world—doing a fun stunt with some surprise celebrity guests. Also the trade justice movement will stage a large rally and march through the streets of Hong Kong. The negotiations will formally start. And I'll be speaking on a panel on food aid. So the show begins...

A five-person review panel, which included the former State Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) leader, Qu Geping, selected the winners.

The competition, which had a water conservation theme, awarded $123,457 to 16 organizations and individuals in Beijing. It was the first time since the competition?s start six years ago that a theme was identified.

Twenty-two projects from a field of 200 proposals were chosen as finalists. Awards were made for tertiary students? activities, and the category in which Green Watershed won.

Ford Motor Company "has seen the important link between water resources conservation and China's efforts to achieve sustainable development and build a harmonious society," said Dr. Yu Xiaogang, founder and head of Green Watershed, when accepting the award.

"It's an honor as well as an incentive for us to continue public participation, good river basin management, and environmental equity."

It is the second time this year that Green Watershed has been recognized for its work in China. In March, Green Watershed was one of 10 winners in a contest sponsored by Beijing's Economic Observer and Shell, which recognized groups that designed outstanding sustainable development projects in China.

The stories that follow testify to the fact that aid can be used effectively—in Africa and beyond. By investing directly in people, by helping them gain access to education, credit, and natural resources, by challenging the policies that perpetuate poverty, Oxfam puts the systems in place that can end poverty. Without this work—and your support—people remain hungry, poor, and lacking meaningful ways to change their lives.

Together, we have the chance to make that change.

She was writing her name in Chinese characters, painstakingly shaping each slope and spike, trying to remember what she learned in school.

She'd lived her 30 years in this remote village on a mountain with no official name. She was a picture of dignity in a place facing difficult times.

For generations the people on this mountain had cut and sold timber. Then, just a few years ago, the Chinese government banned logging to conserve trees.

It was an important decision for the environment, one that helped protect the watershed of Lashi Lake. But it eliminated some important interaction for the Yi people who live here. An ethnic minority who only met with the lowland Han people when they sold their timber, they risked being left behind.

To survive the logging ban, the Yi needed a plan.

Green Watershed, an Oxfam America partner, came up with one. After consulting with the villagers, they discovered potatoes could replace timber as a cash crop. And the women who formed the backbone of the community could learn to speak Mandarin and write Chinese characters so they could sell and trade the potatoes to the Han at the base of the mountain.

In May, I went to China, Cambodia, and Thailand to capture stories like these, illustrating Oxfam America's work in Asia. I had never been to the region before. Like so many in the West, I knew about the extreme poverty only from the media.

But suddenly there I was filling notebooks with the results of our work, watching village after village preserve their way of life using their own expertise:

Rice farmers in Cambodia finding a niche in the market, creating the first organic rice mill in the country. Burmese refugees studying law, risking their lives to document human rights abuses back home. Fishers living on the Tonle Sap lake measuring the impact of over-fishing and developments planned for their community.

I marveled at the dignity of these men and women. They just wanted what we all want: to make a decent a living and feed their families.

Some sought to do the work their families had done for generations, only to watch the developed world encroach on their waterways and flood plains. Some needed to diversify and adapt their way of life.

But for others, the plan was even more ambitious. Let's say these communities make enough to get by.

Then what?

Then, it turns out, Oxfam partners help them learn how to participate in development decisions. They diversify their work options and insist on better governance. They put money away and buy farm equipment, fishing boats, tuition for their kids. They build health clinics, schools, and courtyards for meetings, traditional dancing, and singing with family and friends.

In short, when poor people aren't so poor anymore, they can effectively plan for the future.

What I saw during my travels illustrated the vast range of work Oxfam and its partners do in the regions.

And surrounding it all are the many challenges—few resources, limited participation in decision-making, outside interference, droughts, floods.

But somewhere in between, the work gets done.

A woman writes her name. A village survives.

The environmental organization was one of 10 winners in a contest sponsored by Beijing's Economic Observer and Shell Corporation, which recognized groups that designed exemplary sustainable development projects in China.

An appraisal committee of economists, policy makers, NGO leaders, entrepreneurs, and environmentalists, selected the winners from a field of more than 100 contestants.

Green Watershed, an Oxfam America partner since 2000, won praise from the judges for their work in villages around the Lashi Lake. There, government conservation programs and dam developments threaten the livelihoods of local farmers and fishers, many of them ethnic minorities in China.

Based on their research and interviews with villagers, Green Watershed designed a project, which helped the people of Lashi Lake protect their environmental resources and make a living. Now former timber harvesters are growing potatoes, former fishers are nursing fruit trees and Chinese yams, and Yi and Naxi women are attending schools in their villages, learning to read, write and teach others innovative agriculture techniques.

Li Yue-Chun, 55, a Naxi woman, whose family was the first in her village to begin planting fruit trees and Chinese yams, said she now has hope her community will survive.

"Because of the riverway improvements, my land will never be threatened," she said.

Green Watershed is also working to form self-sufficient watershed committees in Lashi villages, which allow local people to advise their government representatives what kinds of plans would work best for them.

"The Lashi project is like a pilot for the whole of China," said Warwick Browne, Lead Regional Program Officer for Oxfam America's Mekong River Basin Management Program. "It represents what watershed management can be."

Dr. Yu Xiaogang, the director of Green Watershed, said the judges recognized the Lashi project because it demonstrated two key requirements. It could be replicated with just a modest amount of funding. And it involved the village's participation.

"They said this is a very alien concept in China—a process that involves the people participating in watershed management," Dr. Yu said.

Green Watershed received 10,000 Yuan (about $1,200) for the March 2005 prize.

Amid cheers from a throng of enthusiastic supporters and international media, Make Trade Fair won the day.

Oxfam's trade campaign was launched.

Within hours of the Hong Kong debut, events were held in 25 cities including Brussels, Dublin, Geneva, Mexico City, San Salvador, and Washington, D.C. These events ranged from press conferences and symposiums to a rock concert in London’s Trafalgar Square.

Oxfam's trade campaign seeks to unite concerned citizens around the world in calling for fair trade policies that will help move millions of people out of poverty.

Nobel Prize Professor Amartya Sen, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and musician and social activist Bono were among those who endorsed the campaign. "Oxfam has got it right," said Bono. "It wouldn't cost much to change the rules of trade so that poor countries can work their way out of poverty. But the world's leaders won't act unless they hear enough people telling them."

Also in this issue of EXCHANGE, writers Frances and Anna Lappé discuss their book Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, and we bring you updates on Oxfam's work with water and sanitation, drought in Ethiopia, and indigenous women in the highlands of Peru who are speaking out after decades of violence.