The spread of mobile technology has granted developing nations access to the digital revolution. This is called digital inclusion. From the digital revolution, we have experienced one of the most innovative new business models, networking. Companies like Facebook and Instagram are involved in social networking. Uber and Lyft specialize in transportation networking. Go-puff, Grubhub, and Door Dash all focus on food delivery networking.
What makes these business models unique to networking is that their products are simply information. Food, cars and people’s personal information, provided by the users themselves, is the secret. Networking companies need only to provide intuitive transfer of this information over the internet.
New companies across Africa are taking advantage of the networking business model. With increased digital inclusion for African farmers, there are new ways for transactions to be streamlined.
Hello Tractor!
The mechanization of agriculture is an important innovation to spread into developing countries. Unfortunately, many farmers in these countries cannot afford to outright buy a tractor and maintain it. Hello Tractor! creates a network between tractor dealers, contractors and farmers that makes mechanization a reliable and affordable investment for all.
Based in Nigeria, Hello Tractor! targets the 36 percent of the Nigerian population that is employed in agriculture. The physical product of Hello Tractor! is a device that attaches to tractors and monitors them, sending GPS and maintenance data to the Hello Tractor! software.
Farmers use the software by downloading a mobile application, to book the dates in which they need tractors. Once contractors send out their tractors, they can use the app to see if the tractors are being used properly. Tractor dealers also have access to the information so that they may perform maintenance when required.
John Deere supplied 10,000 tractors to Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture in 2018 and they are all managed by the Hello Tractor! systems. Ultimately, digital inclusion for African farmers can build trust between stakeholders.
Agri-wallet
Selling produce is a more arduous task than many may think. As the market expands, this risky and tedious process only puts more pressure on farmers. Digital inclusion for African farmers can settle this issue.
Between the farmer and the consumer, there exists a distributor. However, unlike how we think of big business deals in America, these distributors can not put down payments on produce. They must take weeks to sell the products to consumers and bring back the returns to the farmers after.
A solution to this problem is in high demand as 70 percent of workers in Kenya are employed in agriculture.
Agri-wallet fits nicely into a niche area between the Kenyan farmers and the market distributers. When farmers sell to their distributors, Agri-wallet pays up-front into the farmers’ banking app. Now, farmers can restock during this intermittent period of sales.
Convenient transactions and loans such as these would not be possible without the growing interconnectivity of mobile technology spreading into Africa.
Now, 4,000 farmers in Africa are benefitting from the services of Agri-wallet.
Farmer’s Pride
According to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, 3 quarters of Kenyan farmers have planted fake seeds at least once. Farmer’s Pride is a Kenyan company that will provide infrastructure and safe avenues for e-commerce among farmers and distributors.
A primary focus of Farmer’s Pride is “putting the area on the map” so that village-level farmers are more attached to society as a whole. Extra care for farmers, from digital access to insurance to local access to veterinary care for livestock, is what makes Farmer’s Pride such a promising franchise.
10,000 farmers have been connected through Farmer’s Pride, making an extra $2m income through their intervention.
These secure smartphone apps are promoting e-commerce, intelligent planning and proper resource management. When African farmers are given the opportunity to be included in the digital world, the entrepreneurial and economic prosperity we have enjoyed in America will become open to them.
– Nicholas Pihralla
Photo: Flickr
Kelvin Beachum Fighting to End World Hunger
As an offensive tackle in American Football, Kelvin Beachum is accustomed to being in tough circumstances. But as a child, he remained unaware of the harsh reality of food insecurity that his hardworking parents struggled with. His family grew up poor but his parents always found a way to provide, sometimes having to rely on government programs like food stamps or WIC (Women, Infants and Children) to put food on the table. Now, the football player does his part by giving back to ensure that fewer families have to worry about where their next meal will come from.
Beachum and World Vision
There are 795 million hungry people throughout the world, and malnutrition is the cause of almost half of all deaths of children under the age of 5. These sobering facts have inspired Beachum to take his cause for food security international. In the summer of 2016, he traveled to Honduras with World Vision, a global Christian humanitarian organization, to witness how another country deals with the issue of childhood hunger. He was surprised to discover that finding a source of clean water is just as difficult as finding food within the country.
During his travels, he visited a rural school where he witnessed a water tank system that is part of a World Vision water project and will eventually provide access to clean water for more than 200,000 people. In another community he visited, World Vision facilitated the growth of an economic empowerment project, which provides clean drinking water for the entire community as well as water for agricultural irrigation.
Beachum and World Food Day
Beachum also advocates for World Food Day, which is celebrated every year on October 16th to honor the founding of the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization in 1945. For World Food Day 2018, he created a match challenge for five food banks throughout the U.S. His plan entailed donating $5,000 to each food bank and doubling his donation if members of the community matched his contribution. Eventually, he reached his goal of $70,000, which provided 327,000 meals for hungry individuals throughout the U.S.
“It allows me to keep things in perspective,” Beachum states. “I was…on food stamps growing up…We had people who helped us out. So, for me, that keeps me grounded, honestly, because I was there.”
Kelvin Beachum and Feed the Future
His advocacy extends Feed the Future (FTF), the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative. FTF works with partner countries to break the vicious cycle of poverty and hunger by developing their agricultural sectors and working to sustainably grow enough food to feed their people. They are also leading the implementation of the Global Food Security Act of 2016, which promotes global food security, resilience and nutrition. FTF draws on resources and expertise from multiple U.S. federal departments and agencies, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The progress speaks for itself; it is projected that 23.4 million more people are living above the poverty line, 3.4 million more children are living free of stunting, and 5.2 million more families do not go hungry within the countries that FTF partners with. The Global Food Reauthorization Act, signed by President Donald J. Trump in 2018, ensures that funding continues for FTF so the assistance they provide for hungry individuals around the world will persist.
Conclusion
Through his advocacy and partnership with organizations such as FTF, Kelvin Beachum is breaking the mold of the stereotypical football player. His interest in humanitarian issues all started with a canned food drive in college and has blossomed into global efforts that are making real change. His hope is to inspire others to take action through advocacy, donations, and volunteering. “The world is going through a lot right now,” Beachum writes. “Anything [one] can do to bring light to it—that’s impactful.”
– Rachel Baum
Photo: Flickr
4 Instagrammers Showcasing Africa
Social media is a definitive way people connect with parts of the world they will never see in person. The image sharing site of Instagram is an example, garnering over 1 billion monthly users as of June 2018. Instagram has also been an effective method for users across the continent of Africa to broadcast their rich lives and careers. BBC author Adora Mba in October 2019 made a case for Instagram being beneficial for Africa as a way to challenge stereotypes, particularly in the countries of Ethiopia and Ghana. With the main focus on these countries, this article will highlight four Instagrammers showcasing Africa, and how they’re making a difference.
4 Instagrammers showcasing Africa
The power of photography can give insight into the culture of a people. The use of images has been a significant way people in the African countries of Ghana and Ethiopia have been expressing themselves to the world, and these 4 Instagrammers showcasing Africa are just a few examples of them. Advocacy can be done through people telling their own stories, and the platform of Instagram has been a way to introduce African life to the world in the 21st century.
– Natalie Casaburi
Photo: Flickr
6 Facts About Urbanization in Nepal
Nepal is located in South Asia with a population of roughly 29 million people. It is currently one of the 10 least urbanized countries in the world with approximately less than 20 percent of the nation being urbanized. However, at the same time, it is also one of the 10 fastest urbanizing countries not only in the Asia Pacific region but in the world. Here are six quick facts about urbanization in Nepal over recent years.
6 Facts About Urbanization in Nepal
A natural population increase is one of the primary reasons for the gradual transition from rural to urbanization. Natural population increase occurs when the infant mortality rate decreases and when people bear more healthy children. It can also occur as more people move from small villages to bigger cities.
People in predominantly rural countries, such as Nepal, are choosing to move to more urban areas for many different reasons. For example, wars may force many to move to places with better access to food, water and shelter for the safety of themselves and their families.
Towns and rural areas in Nepal are seeing urbanization increase between 5 and 7 percent each year. This is even more than the country’s capital, Kathmandu, with a 4 percent increase every year, and Pokhara, with a growing urbanization rate of 5 percent per year.
The most populated urban region of the country is Kathmandu Valley, consisting of 24 percent of Nepal’s urban population. In addition, Kathmandu Metropolitan City consists of 9.7 percent of the urban population.
There are three classifications of ecological regions in Nepal. Of them, the hill region has the highest percentage of urbanization at 21.7 percent, followed by the Terai region at 15.1 percent and the mountain region at 2.8 percent.
While the push for urbanization comes with benefits in efforts to create a higher standard of living for people, it is not without challenges. For example, slums populate many urban cities, which have very low-quality living conditions. Overcrowding, limited sanitation and limited access to clean water cause these poor conditions. This results in people having to use open sewers to use the bathroom, leading to other issues.
With urbanization becoming a more common trend worldwide, it can be easy to understand why the concept is appealing to many people who are from traditionally urban nations such as Nepal. The push to urbanize developing nations has positive intentions to not only help the individual citizens but to build countries’ economies so they can be a world power. However, it is also imperative that the country makes efforts to ensure that its citizens in more urbanized regions have access to adequate living conditions, as the act of urbanization alone does not guarantee this.
As demonstrated, many cities, such as the ones that have been recently urbanized in Nepal, lack clean sewage, acceptable air quality and proper shelter. In order to create a prosperous metropolis where Nepalese people can enjoy a high quality of life, people must take all these factors into account.
– A. O’Shea
Photo: Pixabay
The Truth About Starvation in Africa
The Causes
Hunger and malnutrition are not instantaneous, and there are many factors involved, such as poverty, drought, conflict and governance. Historically, famines and hunger crises from drought or war have plagued Africa’s poor since 1968. More often than not, extreme weather and climates will yield unsuccessful crops, which in turn subtracts from the profit that families can make from farming.
People suffering from poverty often cannot afford to purchase food, both in quality and quantity. Conflict and violence further instigate the food crisis by causing food insecurities and lessening the availability of food imports and incomes. Lastly, insufficient access to food can also be the result of poor governance and policies. Without proper leadership and guidance from governments, conflict and poverty can affect the quality, availability and affordability of food.
The Facts
As aforementioned, 20 percent of the African population—257 million people—suffer from hunger and famine. In the Sub-Saharan alone, 237 million suffer chronic undernourishment. As of June 2019, nearly 60 million children in Africa are underfed despite the continent’s recent economic growth.
Statistically, nine out of 10 African children do not meet the World Health Organization’s criteria for a minimum acceptable diet, and two in five children do not eat meals on a regular or scheduled basis. Children who suffer from such hunger also experience stunted growth and impaired cognitive development.
In truth, this is due to malnutrition, which is different from hunger in that while a child can fill its stomach with food and water, he or she will still suffer from a lack of essential nutrients that do not exist in the food they are eating. This is true for adults in Africa as well. While the number of starving, malnourished Africans is alarmingly high and ranging in the millions, however, the number of deaths from starvation in Africa is surprisingly low at approximately 400,000 deaths per year.
The Solutions
In order to prevent these numbers from increasing, the poor and the malnourished require accessible, affordable, good-quality food, as well as innovations to improve the harvests. In fact, the nonprofit World Vision has been doing so for over 40 years, providing emergency aid and long-term assistance to African communities and families.
In the event of a food crisis, World Vision offers food assistance, including emergency feeding those who are starving and treating malnourished children. It also provides fresh, clean water and sanitation to those in need. For the long term, World Vision offers business training and equipment to families to prepare them for another onslaught of adverse weather and gives families cash to support and provide for themselves.
In other words, with the right assistance, families and communities can avoid another hunger crisis and ebb the number of deaths from starvation in Africa. People either downplay or exaggerate the hunger crisis in Africa. The truth about starvation in Africa needs to come out.
– Yael Litenatsky
Photo: Flickr
Mental Health in Ecuador: Ending the Stigma
One of the numerous factors spurred by poverty is mental illness. In many developing countries, those who are mentally ill face ostracization and a lack of support from health care providers. Mental illness may cause substance abuse, which can create further mental issues that prevent those who are ill from seeking assistance. Additionally, people who are mentally ill and abuse drugs in countries or areas where gang activity is common are much more likely to join criminal groups and further exacerbate the prevalence of gang-related violence. Ecuador is no exception to these symptoms.
Government-funded health care provisions have largely overlooked mental health in Ecuador. Policy regarding mental health does exist, but the provisions are outdated and only 10 percent of the policy’s original content was put into action. Additionally, the policy’s provisions receive no regular public funding, even though much of Ecuador’s health care infrastructure is dependent on public funds.
The Stigma of Mental Illness
The mental health policies do allow health care institutions to treat those who are mentally ill, however, mental health typically receives less attention than other sectors of health care. The lack of attention towards mentally ill people links back to the social perception of mental illness in Ecuador. People in many developing countries often consider seeking medical assistance for mental issues wrong. People who do not have a mental illness may find it difficult to understand what it is like to live with one. Many ill people do not seek treatment due to stigma and explore alternative methods, such as drugs, to cope with their problems instead.
Many developing countries have only recently established mental health awareness. In the United States, social stigma still exists to an extent. However, the U.S. has established facilities to adequately treat the mentally ill. That is not the case in many developing countries. In numerous Ecuadorian provinces, people do not treat mental health institutions as primary facilities. Mental health is classified as a primary health care concern under Ecuadorian law, but only 25 percent of the population has access to these services.
Progress In Mental Health
However, Ecuador is making progress. Rather than focusing on directly funding mental health institutions, the Ecuadorian government is beginning to direct attention to community-based solutions. Trained nurses diagnose mental illness and must make a referral to a primary source of care. Even so, a large portion of the mentally ill in Ecuador does not receive diagnosis or treatment. Groups like McLean Hospital are working to educate Ecuadorians at the university level, as well as at the community level. McLean Hospital believes that the most important step is to educate the public on the truth behind mental illness. Education can drive Ecuador’s perception of mental illness from one of stigma to acceptance and treatment.
Crime in Latin America is a dire issue that pushes millions out of their homes and their countries. By improving the mental health situation in Ecuador, there would likely be a large decrease in gang-related and drug activities. As a direct result, those who are mentally ill would receive adequate treatment and experience a much higher quality of life through the support from their community and health care.
5 Efforts to Improve Health Care In Sierra Leone
Access to quality health care in Sierra Leone has been an ongoing struggle for many people in the country due in part to a history of war and conflict. Poor living conditions also have an impact on the percentage of the population with access to essential, life-saving health care services. Of note, in Sierra Leone, 73 percent of rural citizens live in poverty. Fortunately, both local and international powers are making attempts to change the status quo in order to create a more promising future for Sierra Leoneans. Keep reading to learn more about efforts to improve.
5 Ways Health Care is Improving in Sierra Leone
In 2017, the International Organization for Migration began the Strengthening Sierra Leonean National Health Care Capacity through Diaspora Engagement project. This project connects health care professionals in Sierra Leone with residents in rural areas, providing them with free health care assistance. Over 1,000 people living in the Moyamba District benefited from it because it provided surgeries, dental care and examinations to those who needed them. Although the project lasted for only two years, ending in March 2019, a new Mobile Health Clinics campaign began shortly afterward in May 2019 in association with the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health calling to continue to serve those in need of health care in rural towns.
In March 2019, The United Nations Development Programme distributed 15 vehicles to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Because the country has many roads and other areas that are difficult to travel on foot, the vehicles allow people to deliver health care supplies to those in need more safely and quickly. The United Nations also trained Sierra Leoneanese, including 360 women, in the management of the Health and Sanitation facility. “Health-related issues shouldn’t be restricted to one agency,” said the UNDP’s Resident Coordinator, “there should concerted efforts from all stakeholders. Development starts with healthy people.”
According to the World Health Organization, hand hygiene has served as a major issue within the country. Many people in Sierra Leone do not have access to clean water to wash their hands, which aids in the spread of diseases. In response to this and to support World Hand Hygiene Day each May, Sierra Leone now has handwashing stations near hospitals. WHO has also held events educating locals about the importance of handwashing to keep both individuals and communities disease-free.
In September 2019, Sierra Leone’s government opened Rokupa Hospital in Western Urban District, Freetown, aiming to improve health care services for women and children. An estimated one in 17 women in the country dies due to complications from childbirth and the facility aims to provide women with access to better maternal health care. The hospital has added 4,000 new health care staff and increased the financial investment for health services by 2.1 percent. On top of the Sierra Leoneans government, the U.K. government and the United Nations Population Fund also funded the construction of the new facility.
Sierra Leone may have a long way to go to improve its health care, but its significant progress is impressive. With increased efforts, the country should be able to provide even better care in the future.
– A. O’Shea
Photo: Unspash
In CodersTrust We Trust: Providing an Education and Life for Those in Need
CodersTrust
CodersTrust was founded in 2014 in Denmark with the hope of providing access and marketable skills to children and young people around the world who are considered “underprivileged, disadvantaged and marginalized,” people who do not have access to education or opportunities to thrive in a professional setting. They welcome children and young people from all walks of life including women, those who are disabled or refugees, teaching them both digital skills and soft skills which give them the best chance at finding a job or internship opportunity; for one of the goals of the organization is to train as many people as well as possible. These are the people who have very few options in life, CodersTrust gives them an opportunity they might not have to get an education and be independent.
Mads Galsgaard, the current CEO of CodersTrust, spoke more candidly about the reason behind the formation of CodersTrust saying, “CodersTrust was founded on the vision to create affordable education and job access to people in developing countries. The founders deeply believe in outsourcing work to talented people abroad and through their past projects, they came across several talented people in Bangladesh, helping them with accounting, etc.”
As of now the organization itself is rather small but is looking to expand. According to Galsgaard, there are three people stationed in Denmark, three people in Kosovo and two people in Kenya. The largest headquarters in Bangladesh with over 50 staffers there. Regarding the future plans for the company, Galsgaard states, “We are scaling up the business and will onboard new staff members in the coming months, to ensure that our online and franchise partners are given the full human interaction that is key for a successful education and job creation.”
CodersTrust was founded with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in mind. The Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, were created in 2016 with the idea that they were created to ensure that all countries will fight to end poverty, fight inequality and address climate change, all while ensuring all people are apart of the conversation and that people globally will benefit from these goals. The SDGs are based on the success of the Millennium Development Goals and address all countries to do their part, not just the wealthier countries. The goals combine the importance of ending poverty and social justice while trying to protect the plant and stop the adverse effects of climate change. There were seventeen rules implemented when the UN created this plan. CodersTrust works to follow rules 1, 4, 5, 8 and 10. These rules are no poverty (1), quality education (4), gender equality (5), decent work and economic growth (8) and reduced inequalities (10). CodersTrust’s dedication to these rules is something Galsgaard is extremely proud of with the organization.
Opportunities for Women and Young Girls
Coderstrust has also done many projects to assist women and girls in obtaining an education and having a fair shot as well, for one of their main focus groups is women and young girls. They have partnered with other organizations, that too help with offering those in areas where education is not possible, an opportunity for education. When speaking of the impact CodersTrust has had on the battle for gender equity, Galsgaard says, “We have done several projects to focus on young women, in Kosovo with Women in Online Work (WoW) and recently in Bangladesh, where are training 1000 women to become digital freelancers.”
The interesting part of CodersTrust does that differs them from other organizations is that it works to combine education with job experience and job hunting, so people working with CodersTrust are doing both at the same time. They also encourage globalization through the internet by allowing their students and clients to branch out to businesses worldwide. The example they use on their website is “Companies in Bratislava can have their website built in Kenya and students in the Philippines can bid on managing the Social Media Portfolio for the Mountain Bike Shop in White Horse, Canada.” Since the foundation of CodersTrust, 11,525 people have received an education and graduated, 11 countries have been introduced to CodersTrust and 18 different courses have been offered to students. CodersTrust has mainly reached students in the Global South, as well as post-war zones, for education and job opportunities are the worst there.
With the development of this organization, their goal and plans for the future involve globalization for their education plans, and job searching in order to improve themselves and help more people. With this vision, students will be able to take everything they have learned from their time at this organization and apply it to the job market. When asked if CodersTrust intended on expanding outside of technology and freelancing, Galsgaard said, “Our primary focus is training people in digital skills, but our marketplace could over time also provide a job market for tradespeople, such as carpenters, plumbers, etc. We focus on providing a transparent platform where companies can easily find workers and have a secure payment flow, where both parties can review validated reviews, certificates and other elements to build trust and easy operation.”
Plans For The Future
With the success and the growth of CodersTrust in mind, Galsgaard talks about plans for the organization five years from now and ten years from now and what he would like the see the organization accomplish from there. Galsgaard says, “We wish to have 1 million users by the end of 2020 and 5 million by 2025. If our scale-up goes as we hope and expect, our touchpoints will be both online and offline, to ensure that people all over the world can access our offerings, as long as the student has a laptop/mobile device and a stable internet connection. We also wish to provide certain entry-level education programs for free, to ensure that we also attract people with no or little IT skills and lift them out of poverty.”
Regarding the expansion of the organization and CodersTrust’s vision for the future, Galsgaard states, “Our expansion strategy is based on providing a global footprint reaching even more people, whilst still maintaining the human interaction so each student has direct access to support anytime and anywhere.”
– Sydney Toy
Photo: Flickr
Reducing Ghana’s Poverty Rate: 3 Keys to Success
Ghana is a West African country that has made considerable progress in reducing poverty. Ghana’s poverty rate gradually lowered since the 1990’s. Poverty reduced from 52.6 percent in 1991 to 21.4 percent in 2011. Ghana slashed its poverty rate by more than half and became a middle-income country in 2011. The three reasons for this huge reduction are economic growth, diversification and education development.
Poverty Reduction in Ghana: 3 Keys to Success
Oil is also an important export but is relatively new. The oil sector is less than 10 years old, yet is growing at a rapid rate. In 2017, more than 500 million barrels were produced from the Sankofa fields. Ghana’s growth averaged about 4 to 5 percent in the 1990’s and has gradually increased over time. Thanks to steady growth, Ghana’s poverty rate was 21 percent in 2012, which is less than half the African average of 43 percent.
Agriculture still employs a little more than a quarter of the population, yet the service and manufacturing sectors have steadily grown since 1991. Developing economies are mainly agriculture-dependent economies. As a middle-income country, the amount of the population employed by Ghana’s manufacturing and service sector expresses transitioning into a developed and stable economy. In 2008, employment in agriculture was 52.5 percent and reduced to 33 percent in 2018. Service employment rose from 33 percent in 2008 to 47 percent in 2018. In only 10 years the service sector has grown 14 percent. The industry grew 4 percent during that same time period. Telecommunications and tourism are two services that helped grow the service sector.
Ghana’s poverty rate slashed in half thanks to education development, diversification and fast economic growth. The economy is still strong despite its 2015 recession. The economically diverse and natural resource-rich Ghana has made tremendous progress in poverty reduction and is projected to continue reducing its poverty rate in the future.
– Lucas Schmidt
Photo: Flickr
Bringing African Farmers into the Digital Revolution
What makes these business models unique to networking is that their products are simply information. Food, cars and people’s personal information, provided by the users themselves, is the secret. Networking companies need only to provide intuitive transfer of this information over the internet.
New companies across Africa are taking advantage of the networking business model. With increased digital inclusion for African farmers, there are new ways for transactions to be streamlined.
Hello Tractor!
The mechanization of agriculture is an important innovation to spread into developing countries. Unfortunately, many farmers in these countries cannot afford to outright buy a tractor and maintain it. Hello Tractor! creates a network between tractor dealers, contractors and farmers that makes mechanization a reliable and affordable investment for all.
Based in Nigeria, Hello Tractor! targets the 36 percent of the Nigerian population that is employed in agriculture. The physical product of Hello Tractor! is a device that attaches to tractors and monitors them, sending GPS and maintenance data to the Hello Tractor! software.
Farmers use the software by downloading a mobile application, to book the dates in which they need tractors. Once contractors send out their tractors, they can use the app to see if the tractors are being used properly. Tractor dealers also have access to the information so that they may perform maintenance when required.
John Deere supplied 10,000 tractors to Nigeria’s Ministry of Agriculture in 2018 and they are all managed by the Hello Tractor! systems. Ultimately, digital inclusion for African farmers can build trust between stakeholders.
Agri-wallet
Selling produce is a more arduous task than many may think. As the market expands, this risky and tedious process only puts more pressure on farmers. Digital inclusion for African farmers can settle this issue.
Between the farmer and the consumer, there exists a distributor. However, unlike how we think of big business deals in America, these distributors can not put down payments on produce. They must take weeks to sell the products to consumers and bring back the returns to the farmers after.
A solution to this problem is in high demand as 70 percent of workers in Kenya are employed in agriculture.
Agri-wallet fits nicely into a niche area between the Kenyan farmers and the market distributers. When farmers sell to their distributors, Agri-wallet pays up-front into the farmers’ banking app. Now, farmers can restock during this intermittent period of sales.
Convenient transactions and loans such as these would not be possible without the growing interconnectivity of mobile technology spreading into Africa.
Now, 4,000 farmers in Africa are benefitting from the services of Agri-wallet.
Farmer’s Pride
According to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, 3 quarters of Kenyan farmers have planted fake seeds at least once. Farmer’s Pride is a Kenyan company that will provide infrastructure and safe avenues for e-commerce among farmers and distributors.
A primary focus of Farmer’s Pride is “putting the area on the map” so that village-level farmers are more attached to society as a whole. Extra care for farmers, from digital access to insurance to local access to veterinary care for livestock, is what makes Farmer’s Pride such a promising franchise.
10,000 farmers have been connected through Farmer’s Pride, making an extra $2m income through their intervention.
These secure smartphone apps are promoting e-commerce, intelligent planning and proper resource management. When African farmers are given the opportunity to be included in the digital world, the entrepreneurial and economic prosperity we have enjoyed in America will become open to them.
– Nicholas Pihralla
Photo: Flickr
Poverty and Protests in Hong Kong
Why People in Hong Kong Are Protesting
The cause of the uproar lies in the inequality between freedoms and liberties for citizens of China versus citizens of Hong Kong. On a late Sunday in March, people in Hong Kong began protesting against changes to Hong Kong’s current extradition law. What began as peaceful protests about 11 weeks ago, turned violent after many protesters clashed with police during one of the largest protests ever held in Hong Kong.
Due to the authorities’ violent response to the protesters, including the use of beanbags, tear gas and rubber bullets, the protests slowly turned into a movement against Hong Kong’s government as a whole. The indefinite suspension of the bill that began the protest movement just sparked more controversy, given that many are speculating that the chief executive, Ms. Lam, does not have the authority to formally withdraw the bill. As many as 2 million people walked the streets to show their displeasure with the government’s response.
As of yet, the protesters have five demands. They want the resignation of current chief executive Carrie Lam and to keep mainland Chinese tourists out of Hong Kong. They also demand the removal of the word “riot” to describe the demonstrations, the release of those that have been arrested during the protests and an investigation into the police and its alleged excessive use of force.
Relation Between Protests and Poverty in Hong Kong
These protests are likely to have detrimental impacts on the poor population. Approximately one in five Hong Kong residents live below the official poverty line. Many receive a monthly income of less than $700. Additionally, monthly rent currently makes up 70 percent of the median household income for half the population in Hong Kong. This further contributes to people’s economic demise while also allowing avenues such as illegal housing markets to open up.
The minimum wage in Hong Kong has not increased in the past several years. To make matters worse, the government began outsourcing jobs in 2002 as a way to downsize and reduce spending. However, the plan led to the development of a poor working class, which now must rely on social programs like the Low-Income Working Family Allowance (LIFA) scheme and the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) scheme. These schemes help families who cannot support themselves solely with their monthly wages.
As the situation further deteriorates in Hong Kong, the government will continue reducing expenditures. This will be more costly for those living below the poverty line as social programs are the first to be cut. The economy will worsen as tourism declines and the effects of the trade war with China fully sink in. In turn, this will leave approximately 1.38 million people without any form of government assistance.
How to Help
For situations like this, it is important to have bills like the Global Fragility Act passed in Congress, since this bill would not only work towards preventing conflict from occurring but it would also address those regions that are more at risk of developing violent conflict.
Protests and poverty in Hong Kong are deeply intertwined. As the government cracks down, the poor will be the first to suffer. That is why it is important to urge Congress to take action and help those who need it the most. By contacting your representative in the Senate and encouraging them to pass the Global Fragility Act, also known as S.727, each person can be a part of the movement that is improving living conditions across the globe.
–Laura Rogers
Photo: Pixabay
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