With a population of 758,000, Guyana is the third smallest country in South America. It is at once considered a middle-income country and the third poorest in the Western Hemisphere. So why is Guyana poor? Tense History and Natural Riches Guyana has been ruled by the Dutch, the French and the British. It became an […]
As more than 80 percent of the population lives in remote areas with little to no modern facilities, Papua New Guinea struggles with poor water quality and a lack of awareness about basic human health necessities. With very little access to clean water, sanitation is poor and disease is rampant. As access to safe water and […]
Located in Central Europe, just south of Poland, lies the Slovak Republic – otherwise called Slovakia. After returning to a market economy at the end of 1989 after the Czechoslovakian “Velvet Revolution” and suffering some brief years of economic hardship after its separation from the Czech Republic, the country has implemented many economic reforms. Today, the 5.4 million […]
Estonia, a European country located near the Baltic Sea, has been a member of the European Union for 13 years. It is a parliamentary republic, but the country still struggles with the consequences of being under Soviet rule until 1991. Estonia has come a long way since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but there […]
According to the International Energy Agency, 1.2 billion people are without access to electricity globally. Over 95 percent are located in either sub-Saharan Africa or developing Asia, and 80 percent live in rural communities. Access to clean energy sources directly affects health, education and income, putting rural communities at a severe disadvantage. The Global Innovation […]
Education in Singapore has been receiving a lot of praise. When Singapore gained independence from the British, it was a low skill labor-driven market. However, over a period of 50 years, the government managed to create an incredibly advanced education system, where graduates went on into highly skilled jobs. How did this happen? A Success Story: […]
Chad is a landlocked nation within Africa and one of the world’s poorest countries. As 87 percent of the rural population lives below the poverty line, many raise the question, “Why is Chad poor?” While the answer is multidimensional, the following are three major reasons for poverty in Chad. 1. Climatic Variations As Chad’s climatic […]
It’s easy to make assumptions about a “developing” country from the comfort and privilege of a “developed” one. It’s hard to truly understand what it might actually be like to live in a country without everything a developed country is used to. Treading the murky waters of stereotypes, assumptions and clichés, here are some common […]
Build Change, a nonprofit based in the United States, is helping people in developing nations build earthquake and typhoon resistant buildings. The nonprofit was founded by earthquake engineer Elizabeth Hausler in 2004. The issue of resistant housing in developing nations had been on her mind ever since the 2001 earthquake in Gujarat, India. About 20,000 […]
Poverty in Libya is notoriously hard to define. An estimate based on surveys of sub-groups puts about one-third of Libya’s population below the poverty line. However, no specific figure exists. Libya’s economy is directly dependent on its political stability, as most countries are. The country struggled with a civil war starting in 2014 which impacted […]
