Food Insecurity in Colombia

Food Insecurity in Colombia
After a 50-year-long civil war, Colombia has entered a newly found period of peace. Decades of conflict and instability, however, severely impacted locals in many ways, one of them being food security. At this point, 43 percent of Colombians live with food insecurity and the majority of those affected reside in rural areas. Rural development is a priority in peacekeeping initiatives and will aid in reducing both poverty and food insecurity in Colombia.

Malnutrition in Colombia

An individual is considered food insecure when they experience hunger daily or are unable to afford consistent meals for themselves or their family. It can lead to a number of physical and mental health issues, with malnutrition as the main concern. In Colombia, more than 13 percent of children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition, which can inhibit proper development at a young age. Internally displaced persons or those from an ethnic minority are more likely to live with food insecurity and to be malnourished.

Government Initiatives

In November 2016, President Juan Manuel Santos signed the peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). With this promise of peace and security came a commitment to developing the agriculture sector and investing in programs aimed at poverty reduction in rural areas. In a comment, President Santos highlighted rural poverty as a result of the war and its impact on the farming industry stating that the country fields were also victims of the armed conflict that stripped the rural sector of its productivity, increased the social gap with the urban areas and deepened inequities in the country.

Of those living in rural regions, 40 percent are impoverished, and this geographic group also makes up the majority of individuals affected by food insecurity in Colombia. By encouraging the development of new farms, the government could reduce poverty, food insecurity and reliance on food imports, while benefiting the economy and employment rates.

Agriculture makes up 6.9 percent of Colombia’s GDP while offering employment to 15.8 percent of the population. Less than 30 percent of its arable land, however, is currently being used. Government initiatives to solve this issues include building road, irrigation systems, seed distribution networks for previously underutilized regions and implementing nutrition security programs and agricultural subsidies.

International Efforts

Groups such as the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), a specialized United Nations agency, are also working towards alleviating food insecurity in Colombia. IFAD supports small-scale agriculture and entrepreneurs in rural areas, with the goal of increasing efficiency and productivity. They work with the government to secure loans and implement public policy. Currently, IFAD has four projects in Colombia with the total funding of $163 million. These programs impact 94,400 families.

Action Against Hunger, a global nonprofit organization, has been active in Colombia since 1998 and continues to shape their efforts according to the political climate. Their services include emergency food distribution, nutritional support for children and training in vulnerable communities. Since the Peace Accords in 2016, they have incorporated peace-building work into their programs. In 2017 alone, their Nutrition and Health programs reached 2,878 people and their Food Security and Livelihood programs reached 10,462 people.

These are just two examples of international efforts to support the government’s goal of rural development and reducing food insecurity in Colombia.

As the country transitions away from conflict, continued work towards poverty reduction and advancement in the agricultural sector is necessary for security and economic growth.

– Georgia Orenstein

Photo: Flickr

Top 10 Facts about Girls’ Education in Gabon

Top 10 Facts about Girls' Education in Gabon
The top 10 facts about girls’ education in Gabon presented in the text below are interesting to consider because of the intersection they suggest between the country’s strengths and weaknesses. Women in Gabon suffer at the hands of domestic abuse and a deficiency of certain instrumental rights. At the same time, literacy rates in the country are relatively high compared to other countries in the region.

The 10 Facts about Girls’ Education in Gabon

  1. Compulsory education in Gabon lasts for 10 years. Students begin at age 6 and finish at age 15. This can be considered as a relatively short period, particularly when compared with a typical education in a country like the United States where students usually begin their education at age 6 and finish at age 18.
  2. In 2012, about 82 percent of people over age 15 in Gabon were considered literate. Out of this number, 85 percent were male and 80 percent were female. This is one indicator of gender inequity in education in Gabon.
  3. Compared to other countries in the region, Gabon has a relatively high overall education enrollment rate. In 2005, this rate was at the 92.4 percent. This may, in part, have to do with the fact that education is compulsory through certain ages.
  4. There is overcrowding in primary level schools and a high drop out rate in secondary schools. This suggests that when the compulsory years are finished, students neglect the idea of continuing their education.
  5. Gender equality in schools increases with age and education level. Still, only 54 percent of female students in Gabon continue into the latter parts of secondary education.
  6. UNICEF is making efforts to help keep girls in school. The Ministry of Family has set up in-school daycare to help ensure that young mothers are able to attend school. Many women in the country marry and start families young so solutions like these are essential to ensure woman’s continuing education.
  7. Poverty is most rampant in villages in Gabon. Because of this, villages also lack proper education systems. This often means that children have to attend schools far away from their homes. Families in rural areas often discourage their children from pursuing education, particularly females who are expected to help in the household.
  8. Education itself is free in Gabon but students are subject to fees that amount to about $50. Poor families cannot afford these fees and their children are, as a consequence, unable to receive an education. This education barrier affects both girls and boys in the country.
  9. In 2011, a study revealed that 77 percent of children in Gabon were victims of violence. Children are not likely to want to continue education past compulsory stages if it is associated with trauma and abuse.
  10. Constitution of Gabon affirms gender equality and the country has ratified documents affirming women’s rights but problems still persist. Women are frequently victims of domestic abuse and are often forced to marry at very young ages. These young marriages often prevent them from continuing to pursue their education.

These top 10 facts about girls’ education in Gabon indicate that though the system is providing decent literacy rates, education in Gabon is far from perfect. Women still face lower literacy rates than men and early marriages prevent them from having sufficient educational opportunities.

Efforts like those of UNICEF mentioned above will help to ameliorate such problems but the most promising prospects for the future will have to come from the country itself.

– Julia Bloechl
Photo: Flickr

The Causes of Radicalization in Russia

St. Petersburg
On April 3, 2017, 14 people died and 64 were injured when an explosive device detonated in the St. Petersburg metro. The perpetrator, Akbarzhon Dzhalilov, who also died in the explosion, came to St. Petersburg in 2011 from Osh, Kyrgyzstan to work as a car mechanic. Upon reviewing Dzhalilov’s online record and talking with witnesses, Russia’s Federal Security Services found links to Islamist websites on his social media, as well as evidence that he had become withdrawn and quiet two months before his suicide bombing.

The St. Petersburg attack brought Russia’s approach to counter-extremism to the spotlight. More than 2,000 Russians have gone off to fight for ISIS, making Russia the largest contributor of ISIS fighters. While some of these fighters harbor resentments dating back to ethnic wars in the 1990s, others saw ISIS as an opportunity to escape from poor economic opportunities and blatant discrimination at home.

History of Chaos

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Chechnya, a majority Muslim, southern region of Russia, descended into chaos. Boris Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, pushed for a decentralization of government but would not go as far as to legitimize Chechen separatists’ independence movement. Interethnic conflict engulfed the Caucasus region, with hundreds of thousands of Ingush people and Chechens fleeing from the destruction of their communities. This legacy of insurgency and violence is one of the main causes of radicalization in Russia, especially in the Northern Caucasus, which remains Russia’s most radicalized region even today.

Radical Islamists tend to be concentrated in cities with high concentrations of migrant workers, particularly in the oil-producing cities of Tyumen and Khanty-Mansiysk. In fact, close to 200,000 Chechens, Ingush and Dagestanis live in West Siberia.

Disenfranchisement

Labor migrants from Central Asia face xenophobia after arriving in Russia. In August 2016, one poll administered by the Levada Center found that 52 percent of Russians believe in a “Russia for ethnic Russians.” The same poll found that 39 percent of Russians feel that immigrants destroy Russian culture. Feeling out-of-place as a minority, these migrants seek community and protection in local mosques, breeding grounds for recruitment into radical Islamic groups. In fact, mosques are the main sites of recruitment, according to the Search for Common Good Organization.

Law enforcement and security agencies alienate Muslims by promulgating propaganda that belittles their beliefs. A Wilson Center report details how law enforcement officials in Russia plant drugs while searching the homes of Muslims, only to arrest and jail them later. Intimidated by state pressure, these Muslims seek recluse in the ranks of ISIS.

Social Media

In order to target and entice potential recruits, terrorist groups use social media and online forums. VKontakte, a popular Russian social media site, was the go-to for ISIS supporters and recruiters until the company began shutting down content that promoted the terrorist group in September 2014. To work around these restrictions, ISIS now uses its own Furat Media to disseminate propaganda.

Russia has implemented stringent counter-extremism laws, to the point that some critics worry about an invasion of piracy. A 2014 Extremism Law gave authorities the power to ban websites and social media accounts without a court order. In the span of 11 months, between February and December 2015, Russia banned 512 websites. Moreover, the 2016 Yarovaya Law forces digital providers to store clients’ data for a minimum of six months and make these records available to the Federal Security Services.

Financial Woes

Extremist groups recruit financially vulnerable migrants with promises of stable jobs and a network of support. More than 28 percent of interviewees in a survey by the Search for Common Ground organization said that the prospect of stable jobs and salaries attracted them to ISIS recruiters. This issue is compounded for undocumented migrants in Russia, who are much more vulnerable financially.

While the Russian government’s counter-extremism laws are harsh, its official rhetoric against its Muslim population, 11.7 percent according to the Pew Research Center, has the unintended consequence of promoting radicalization.

The time is now for Russia to consider more than just its censorship of extremist content. The country must, first and foremost, eradicate the root causes of radicalization, addressing state-sponsored discrimination, financial insecurity and minority rights.

– Mark Blekherman
Photo: Flickr

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The Role of the Private Sector in Poverty Reduction

Private Sector in Poverty Reduction
Poverty and world hunger stand on the docket of extinction, for the first time in human history. Even just one generation ago, this acknowledgment would seem absurd. The United Nations advocates that the world can meet the unimaginable goal of eradicating world hunger by 2030.

To achieve this goal, it would take between $170 and $190 billion a year from the U.S. to take everyone out of extreme poverty in the next two or three decades. Just to put that number in perspective, as the largest bilateral donor, the U.S. allocates roughly $49 billion to foreign funds every year to 96 percent of the globe. This article will look at the role of the private sector in poverty reduction.

Advantages of Private Sector in Poverty Reduction

Directing focus on the magnitude of the nation’s role in poverty reduction must be noted, considering only 1 percent of the federal budget goes to foreign aid, the question arises if there is a cheaper, quicker way to fast-track the eradication of extreme poverty. What about the private sector?

The role of the private sector in poverty reduction is that it naturally brings to the table what governments and nongovernmental organizations do not. Federal funds can only cover so much with a $49 billion a year budget. Some of the most transformative investments in poor regions around the globe come from private lenders.

Most U.S. money goes to direct assistance, like world health programs, providing aid packages and doing the heavy lifting for broad-based long-term economic development. The private sector can help stimulate poor economies. Private business contributes a different model to aid and public resources. They can provide jobs, goods and services sometimes more effectively than agencies can do alone.

Developing Countries Opportunities

Developing countries offer business opportunities unheard of in the developed world. The potential for market growth in underdeveloped regions is monumental. Social entrepreneurs likewise are more flexible in carrying out the demands of poverty because they can develop new cross-sector models out of competition, without being tied to the orthodoxies of foreign aid.

Take for example infrastructure in the developing world. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates that it will take $2 trillion a year to fix the world’s infrastructure needs, especially in the developing world where billions of people lack access to safe water, electricity, roads and other basic services.

While often the domain of governments, poor countries cannot support the immense costs of upgrading infrastructure. Infrastructure is essential to eradicating poverty. To escape low-income agricultural dependency, countries need infrastructure projects to communicate, process and transport quality goods. The private sector can work at a much larger scale enabling investments in energy and transportation infrastructure that administer long-term benefits to the economy for local entrepreneurs to take advantage of.

In theory, by solving insurmountable problems in developing countries economies, the role of the private sector in poverty reduction is improving value chains. The private sector and entrepreneurship play a fundamental role in innovation, improving business standards and job creation without development goals as their primary agenda.

Things to Consider when Investing

Private companies can provide lending to update infrastructure projects as Chinese companies have done in Africa. However, there are negative aspects of foreign funding as well. While the inflow of investments does help locals and spark economic growth, these are debts to be repaid to commercial outsiders. For example, several Chinese infrastructure investments have helped support corrupt and undemocratic regimes and only compounded local problems. Not to mention this activity supports an extractive business model.

Infrastructure and jobs help immensely, but the private sector needs to share its wealth capacity with the developing world. Since 2000, the poorest half of the world has received just 1 percent of the increase in total wealth, while the wealthiest 1 percent of the world received over 50 percent of the total wealth. Wealth tends to stay in the hands of the wealthy people. Businesses need to keep in mind that the most valuable asset for then is their labor force. Better paid skilled jobs are keys to growth anywhere.

Foreign direct investment grew from under $50 billion in 1990 to almost $500 billion in 2011. For the first time in 2013, foreign direct investment in developing countries exceeded investment in developed countries. At the same time, commercial lending and remittances have grown significantly.

GDP growth has been high for the last decade in developing countries. But the growth in jobs has not been enough to transition from an agricultural economy to a high productivity economy. Stimulating these economies to help in that transition is key to transitioning. The role of the private sector is that it must be relevant to the poor. Their intervention can be life-changing in guiding the poor to the path to prosperity, remembering that their labor force may be the main assets they possess.

– Joseph Ventura
Photo: Unsplash

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Fighting Food Waste in Denmark

Fighting Food Waste in Denmark
One out of every eight people worldwide doesn’t have adequate access to food. This sobering statistic is even more upsetting when contrasted with the amount of food wasted each year that amounts to 1.3 billion tons. That is almost one-third of all food produced for humans. This amount is well beyond what would be necessary to feed every hungry person alive today.

Facts like these are why the U.N. is committed to fighting food waste. The 12th U.N. Sustainable Development Goal includes the target of cutting international food waste in half by 2030.

Of course, this goal can only be met through international cooperation. Thankfully, many countries around the world are taking this issue seriously. In recent years, Denmark has risen to become one of the world’s leaders in fighting food waste.

Small Movements, Big Impacts

Despite being one of the smaller nations in Europe and having a population smaller than London, Denmark has more projects aimed at reducing food waste than any other European nation. The country has achieved this by using a highly cooperative approach between the government, businesses and nonprofit organizations.

Several food banks and other nonprofits in Denmark get their supplies through donations from local supermarkets or restaurants. One supermarket in Copenhagen, Wefood, only sells food that would have otherwise been wasted. Typically, this is food that has reached its sell-by date or has not been used up at the end of restaurant business hours. Sometimes, this food consists of perfectly healthy fruits and vegetables that simply appear too misshapen and unattractive to reach market shelves.

Denmark’s government works to support these projects with a combination of funding and official awareness campaigns.

Stop Wasting Food

One of the largest and most impactful waste-fighting organizations in Denmark is Stop Spild Af Mad, known in English as Stop Wasting Food. This nonprofit organization was founded in 2008 and has been working toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal number 12 ever since.

Stop Wasting Food has worked directly with the Danish government and has ongoing partnerships with both E.U. and U.N. organizations. It also harnesses nationwide media attention to raise public awareness of food waste and lobbies supermarkets to implement waste-reducing policies in their stores.

As young as Stop Wasting Food is, it has been instrumental in helping Denmark achieve impressive results. Between the efforts of the government, businesses and willing Danish citizens, Denmark has been able to cut its food waste by a quarter since 2010 alone.

Global Applications

Abovementioned one-quarter mark is significant. If the entire world could achieve the same reduction of food waste, we could feed nearly 95 percent of all food-deprived people in the world without needing to produce any additional food.

The importance of fighting food waste will only become more obvious as we approach the 2030 date set by the Sustainable Development Goals. By 2050, the global population could spike up to nine billion and require significant additional resources for our food production to keep up. While reducing waste may not completely negate this need, it could give us the means to sustainably keep hundreds of millions fed.

Whatever the case, Denmark is a shining example for the rest of the world, and particularly for developed countries, to look up to. Denmark’s policies have both provided cheap sources of food for its own poorer citizens and a roadmap for how government and private cooperation can achieve significant change in only a few years.

Joshua Henreckson

Photo: Flickr

Top 10 Facts about Girls’ Education in Iraq

Girls' Education
A history of conflict has negatively reflected on girls’ educational future in Iraq. Education levels have never returned to their pre-Gulf War levels. Furthermore, conflict with ISIS has erased much of the progress for girls’ education seen through higher enrollment rates in times of relative peace. Therefore, a rough chronology of conflicts is useful when reading the top 10 facts about girls’ education in Iraq, as these events drastically change the quality of education.

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Iraq

  1. Girls are under-represented in both primary and secondary schools and tend to drop out at a higher rate than boys. In the 2015/2016 school year, five million boys were enrolled in school compared to 4.2 million girls. In addition, at the lower secondary level, 4.7 percent of girls dropped out compared to 3.6 percent of boys.
  2. Rural girls are one of the groups with the lowest access to education in Iraq. For example, the lowest rate of primary school enrollment is among rural girls. The enrollment rate in 2009 was only 68 percent. Furthermore, this enrollment rate drops even further to 15 percent when analyzing the secondary school enrollment among rural girls. A contributing factor to this situation is the decline in the capabilities of teachers.
  3. The illiteracy rate among girls that are 12 and older is more than double the male rate. The illiteracy rate for girls is 28.2 percent, compared to the male rate of 13 percent. According to the U.N., traditional cultural and social factors remain main obstacles in improving the access to education for girls. The discrepancy between literacy rates illustrates how gender-based discrimination in the education system is both a cause and an effect of poverty.
  4. The rate of girls’ education and their access to adequate teaching was slightly better in Northern Iraq than the other regions in 2007. In the southern provinces, there was a decline in female attendance from two girls for every three boys to one girl for every four boys in this same time period.
  5. While this was true in 2007, a 2016 report by a UNICEF consultant found that in Kurdistan, the northern region of Iraq, education environments were a momentous challenge to girls’ education. Mistreatment, beatings and poor quality of teaching was reported, giving parents more reasons to remove their girls from school.
  6. While girls do suffer from underrepresentation in the school system, total girls’ enrollment in Iraq was 4.2 million in 2015-2016, up from 3.8 million in 2013-2014. Although this statistic is initially promising, two problems remain. First, girls still remain at a disadvantage in educational access. Contributing factors to the issue of educational access include a family’s wealth, the child’s age and the choice to work instead of attending school. Second, if the trend toward increased enrollment continues, a strain will be placed on existing educational resources and further funding for public education are needed.
  7. About 355,000 internally displaced children in Iraq don’t attend school, the majority of them being girls. The two main sources of internally displaced persons (IDP) originate from the upheaval caused by the Syrian civil war and the brutality of the Islamic State in neighboring countries. In IDP camps, the most common reason cited for children not attending school was a lack of interest in the classes. Other reasons included the cost of education and the time period for their arrival at the camp.
  8. Cities occupied by the Islamic State struggle to provide education to girls. In 2014, the Islamic State detained up to 7,000 Yazidi women and girls in Northern Iraq, removing them from access to education. Given the testimony of survivors who managed to escape, a report released by Human Rights Watch stated that the crimes against the Yazidis in Northern Iraq might amount to crimes against humanity.
  9. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) first access to an education project in Iraq is in collaboration with teachers from the Al-Rajaa school for girls in Ramadi. When the ICRC team first visited the school it there was danger and destruction around every corner, so the ICRC team began to rebuild it. This school is the only one in Ramadi to offer a science curriculum to girls’ and has been reopened in 2017 after conflict forced it to shut down. The school currently educates approximately 600 children.
  10. The issue of girls’ education in Iraq has received the attention of humanitarian celebrities like Malala Yousafazai who spent her 20th birthday in Iraq meeting with young women who were, and continue to be, victims of ISIS. The meeting was part of the Malala Fund’s Girl Power Trip, an initiative meant to tell the stories of the more than 130 million girls around the world who are out of school.

As it can be seen through these top 10 facts about girls’ education in Iraq, the education system continues to be plagued by conflicts in the country, and girls are disproportionately at higher risk of dropping out or repeating grades if remained in school.

While this is certainly a cause for concern, the risks for girls’ education in Iraq have not gone unnoticed and many strive to change this. The Iraqi education system was once hailed as the best in the Middle East and many nongovernmental organizations, domestic policymakers, politicians, celebrities, and the local populous desire to return it to this position of dominance.

Georgie Giannopoulos

Photo: Flickr

Five Major Changes Occurring in Ethiopia

Five Major Changes Occurring in Ethiopia
Ethiopia has the second largest population in Africa that currently serves as the seat for the African Union. It has a vast history that stretches back to over 2000 years in which kingdoms, monarchies, communism and capitalism have left their footprints.

In recent years the push toward building a strong democratic state with free and fair elections has been a critical question, causing a lot of friction between the ruling party, who has a strong grip on the social, political and economic authority for the past 27 years. This has tarnished the reputation that the government has been trying to create through one of the fastest growing economies in the world with several human rights violations including torture and extrajudicial killing of political dissidents.

The following five major changes occurring in Ethiopia this summer, however, show a different direction that the new leadership is taking with the support of the public through several major reforms.

Five Major Changes Occurring in Ethiopia

  1. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s rise to power and the overwhelming public support he received – When Abiy Ahmed took his position following the sudden resignation of the former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, he took on the responsibility of leading a nation with a double-digit economic growth that was also full of unrest due to protests from groups who felt marginalized by the ruling party. His background was a crucial part of his image among the public, including the fact that he is the country’s first Oromo leader, which is one of the major ethnic groups who has led antigovernment movements protesting the political, economic and cultural marginalization. He came to power through the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), one of the four ethnic parties that make up the ruling the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), but he has gained the support of other ethnic groups who felt marginalized through his unifying rhetoric, which has led to several mass rallies being held across the country to support Mr. Abiy’s reforms.
  2. A three months long state of emergency rule ended two months before it was due to expire – Following Abiy Ahmed’s inauguration, the Ethiopian parliament voted in June to lift the state of emergency that was put in place to curtail the antigovernment movements flaring up across the nation. The state of emergency was precipitated particularly by serious protests centered mainly in the Oromia and Amhara regions, which resulted in the arrest of several hundred.
  3. Political prisoners have been released by the thousands – By June, more than 300 more political prisoners were released on top of the several thousand who were pardoned the months before, which the government states is aimed at widening the political space. Most of the released prisoners, three of them being foreigners, were charged with acts of “terrorism” when the antigovernment movements reached its highest points, and some of them were awaiting death sentences.
  4. Ethiopia signed a peace deal that ended 21 years of serious conflict with Eritrea – One of the major steps Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took to increase stability in the region and deliver on his promise to bring about peace and unification was to end the long-standing conflict with Eritrea. In June, Prime Minister Abiy announced that the nation is going to honor a deal brokered by the U.N. in 2000 to end the border war that had lasted two years and resulted in the deaths of more than 70,000 people. This has led to one of the most unprecedented and inspiring peace deals signed by Abiy and the Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki and formally ended one of Africa’s longest and toughest conflicts.
  5. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took a historic trip to The U.S to have discussions about the countries new direction with the Ethiopian diaspora community – Given the history of the Ethiopian diaspora (meaning displaced from their homeland), who left their home country due to the dire political environment, it was a historical trip for the new Prime Minister and the community who had been marginalized in political discourse. The leader was welcomed with overwhelming support that reflected unity and hope for the fast-paced reforms he has brought about. When he arrived in D.C last month, cars that sported Ethiopian and Eritrean flags flooded the streets with people from the metropolitan area as well as the influx of people who traveled from all parts of the country to welcome the leader. This shift to hope in the community is significant in making economic, political and social leaps as one of the most untapped resources the nation has.

Following his rise to power, the government has ended the state of emergency, released numerous political prisoners, held public forums with its citizens nationally and reached the diaspora community in The United States. Furthermore, the state of proxy war and hostility the country faced on its borders by Eritrea has been resolved through a peace deal.

This summer has been a time of monumental political change in Ethiopia both nationally and abroad. The five major changes occurring in Ethiopia this summer were launched with the inauguration of the new prime minister Abiy Ahmed, who has gained more public support than arguably any other leader in the country’s long history. Despite the several security issues, the new leadership is facing and carrying out these changes. The public support remains intact, and the country is making efforts towards building a peaceful and prosperous future.

– Bilen Kassie
Photo: Flickr

Top 10 Facts About Living Conditions in Niger

Top 10 Facts About Living Conditions in Niger
Following its independence from France in 1960, Niger has faced violent political instability,  deadly droughts and difficult living conditions. The following are the top ten facts about living conditions in Niger.

Top Ten Facts About Living Conditions in Niger

  1. In 2016, Save the Children declared Niger the “worst country for girls” based on two key criteria: child marriage rates and adolescent fertility.

  2. A high rate of child marriage often holds girls back. Over three quarters of Nigerien girls marry before the age of 18. Early marriage only continues the cycle of poverty: girls who marry earlier are less likely to finish school than girls who marry later, which means that they earn less income on average.

  1. High adolescent fertility puts women in danger. In Niger, one in five teenage girls gives birth every year. Nigerien women have the highest birthrate in the world, at over seven births per woman. And childbirth is particularly dangerous for younger girls: WHO estimates that pregnancy complications are the second leading cause of death for adolescent girls worldwide.

  1. “Husband schools” help build stronger families. To ease the burden on Nigerien woman, men learn the importance of helping with what was traditionally considered “women’s work.” The nonprofit Mercy Corps invites men to “husband schools,” where they learn about family planning, cooking and sanitation. Mercy Corps runs 124 such schools in Niger.

  1. High illiteracy remains a stubborn challenge. Only one in five adults in Niger are literate, and as a former French colony, the official language of schooling in Niger is French. Most Nigeriens, though, speak local tribal languages instead, making French literacy a particularly difficult goal.

  1. Frequent droughts make food scarce. Since 2000, Niger has weathered four extreme climate-related food crises. In such seasons of poor rainfall, 30 percent of people cannot meet their food needs. In 2017, one and a half million Nigeriens were food insecure, and 42 percent of children under age 5 faced chronic malnutrition.

  1. The World Food Program protects Nigerien children. To tackle the effects of food insecurity, the World Food Program treated 650,000 acutely malnourished children and nearly half a million malnourished pregnant and lactating mothers in 2015 alone.

  2. Uranium mining depletes Nigerien resources. The French company Areva mines for uranium in the Nigerien town of Arlit. Areva uses millions of liters of water each day, while Arlit’s vegetation has entirely dried up. A 2010 Greenpeace study showed that over its decade of operation, Areva has used 270 billion liters of water, entirely depleting ancient aquifers.

  3. Mining contaminates Nigerien water. A 2009 study by Greenpeace showed that five out of six examined water wells in Arlit contained excess radioactivity. And a 2004 study by the French Commission for Independent Research and Information on Radiation showed that uranium levels found in Arlit’s drinking water were up to 100 times the WHO safety standard.

  4. Activists stand up against corporate exploitation. After her mother, father and husband died from cancer traced back to radon exposure from Areva’s uranium mines, Jacqueline Gaudet founded the organization Mounana. The organization works with Doctors of the World to collect testimonies from Areva’s former employees to build court cases.

Remedying Colonialism

These top ten facts about living conditions in Niger reflect the need for international assistance to help remedy the harmful effects of colonialism. While living conditions in Niger are difficult, dedicated activists and nonprofits are steadily changing the landscape.

– Ivana Bozic

Photo: Flickr

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Life Expectancy in the United States

Life Expectancy in the United States
The United States is most known for its freedom, economic predominance and technological advancement. However, compared to other developed countries in the world, the United States ranks at or near the bottom in terms of mortality and life expectancy while surpassing other countries in health spending.

Rank of US in OECD

Along with the United States, 35 other countries make up the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental economic organization that keeps track of developed countries’ economic and human development progress.

In comparison to other OECD countries, the United States ranks 29 for infant mortality and 26 for overall life expectancy. While the life expectancy in the United States has dropped for the second year in a row, this is not surprising as the life expectancy of the country has been dropping for decades.

In 1960, the United States had the highest life expectancy, 2.4 years higher than the average of OECD countries. However, in 1998, the United States dropped below the OECD average and plateaued since. The new average life expectancy in the United States is 78.7 years, which is 1.5 years less than the average life of all OECD countries of 80.3.

To get a better understanding of the life expectancy in the United States, similarities and differences between the United States and other developed countries, the factors that affect the life expectancy rate in the United States and the improvements that can be made to increase the life expectancy have to be taken into consideration.

Factors That Affect the Life Expectancy in the United States

The National Research Council and Institute of Medicine studied the reasons as to why the life expectancy in the United States continue to fall below the OECD average. The researchers found a plethora of problems including obesity, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and homicides.

However, they also found drugs to be one of the main contributing factors with a 137 percent increase in fatal drug overdoses between 2000 and 2014. To emphasize the significance of fatal drug overdoses in the United States- the average of 115 Americans dies every day from an opioid overdose.

On top of that, Fortune reports that six Americans die from alcohol abuse daily, the highest rate in 35 years.

Besides drugs and alcohol, the United States faces health obstacles as well. According to CNN, the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States are heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s disease, suicide and unintentional injuries. These causes account for 74.1 percent of all deaths in the United States.

However, the chances of having any of these problems can be reduced by taking care of oneself physically and mentally through exercise, eating right and in overall, living a positive and healthy lifestyle.

Despite the increase of the deaths in the United States, seven of the top 10 leading causes have decreased in recent years: heart disease, cancer, chronic lower respiratory disease, stroke, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia and kidney disease.

Organizations Improving the Situation

  • World Health Organization (WHO). This is one of the many organization dedicated to building a healthier future for people all over the world. WHO works with 194 member states, across six regions, from more than 150 offices, working to combat diseases such as influenza, HIV, cancer and heart disease. WHO’s mission is to provide leadership on matters pertaining to health, improve norms and standards to fit a healthier lifestyle and monitor health situations and trends. Its work in the U.S. is crucial for the country.
  • Save the Children. This organization works in the United States and in many other countries around the world with a goal to save as many children as possible from an unhealthy and dangerous lifestyle. Save the Children reported that in 2017 alone, it worked with more than 155 million children in 120 countries. Out of this number, 237,000 were children in the United States.

With the help of organizations such as the World Health Organization and Save the Children, the United States, along with other countries, can continue to make economic and human developmental progress. The question of improvement in the quality of life is one most important questions that the United States has to address in the upcoming years.

– Kristen Uedoi
Photo: Flickr

4 Organizations Working to Decrease Migration from The Gambia

Migration from The Gambia
Migration from The Gambia, a nation located in West Africa, has become extremely common due to widespread poverty and the belief that Europe offers more opportunities for success. Thousands of Gambians have begun the difficult journey across Africa to Libya, where they hope to cross the Mediterranean and enter Europe. Families sometimes believe so strongly that Europe is the solution for their children that they spend the last of their money to sponsor the trip.

Journey to Europe

Many migrants are not successful with this journey, however, and get stuck in Libyan prisons, where they often face gruelling conditions. Women are also particularly vulnerable, some of whom have been kidnapped and sold while attempting to reach Europe. Migrants who return to The Gambia because they are unable to get to Europe, perhaps due to detention in Libya, are often looked down upon by other Gambians, who believe that they simply did not try hard enough.

In response to the growing dangers associated with migration, several organizations are working to decrease migration from The Gambia and help Gambians who tried to migrate resettle in their country. In The Gambia, Youths Against Irregular Migration (YAIM) and Returnees From The Backway (RFTB) were formed, while international organizations including the European Union’s Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) developed programs for this cause.

Youths Against Irregular Migration (YAIM)

YAIM was created in 2017 by Gambian youths detained in a Libyan prison. One of the founders, Ndow, told IRIN News, “We were treated like slaves; we didn’t take a bath for months, so we tried to escape and they beat us seriously.” After this experience, Ndow, along with Sallah, Tunkara and Keita decided that once they got out of the prison they would share their stories and try to prevent other Gambians from attempting to migrate.

YAIM is also working to help Gambians find opportunities in The Gambia, rather than looking to Europe. They advocate for looking for local opportunities, although they recognize this persepcitve requires a significant change in the mindsets of many Gambians, as Europe has been idealized for so long.

YAIM spreads their message through social media, roadshows and airwaves. They finished their second “youth caravan” in the summer of 2018, both of which were sponsored by the German Embassy in Banjul. Thirty YAIM members traveled as a part of the caravan to two different regions in The Gambia, and spoke in public, high-traffic areas. YAIM recognizes the importance of its work and hopes that their efforts will make a difference in reducing migration from The Gambia.

Returnees From The Backway (RFTB)

Like YAIM, RFTB was founded in a Libyan detention center. This group focuses on helping migrants who have returned to The Gambia transition back into society by reducing the stigma associated with returning to the nation. RFTB spreads their message through tea ritual sessions, known as attaya, which are often attended by Gambian men.

Ultimately, RFTB wants to provide agricultural training to returnees and use the land given to them by the Kerewan local government to set up a farm run by returned migrants. If this project is successful, RFTB would like to expand and set up farms across the nation.

European Union’s Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF)

At an international level, the European Union established the Trust Fund for Africa in 2015 to help manage the flow of migrants from Africa into Europe. As a part of this Trust Fund, the Youth Empowerment Program (YEP) — which currently has 11 million Euros in funding — wants to help young people in Africa gain entrepreneurial skills to help create jobs and expand markets.

In The Gambia, YEP plans to help over 7,000 youths complete technical or vocational training, support the return of migrants from Europe, encourage the creation of modern manufacturing jobs and services, and raise awareness amongst young populations about the importance of skills training. Their goal is to decrease migration from The Gambia by invigorating the Gambian economy and showing youths that they do not need to leave.

International Organization for Migration (IOM)

IOM launched their Migrant Protection and Reintegration program in November of 2017. This program will offer reintegration packages to migrants that will help them rebuild their lives in The Gambia. Like the other three organizations, they are attempting to change the mindset of Gambians, encouraging them to view The Gambia as a place with opportunity and potential.

One of the specific projects the IOM is supporting is the founding of a large-scale chicken raising business in Parkour that will provide employment to returnees and help them regain their social standing and earn an income. Similar to the RFTB’s plan to create a migrant-run farm, this initiative will empower returnees and perhaps inspire others to consider returning if they know there are opportunities.

Advocacy and Prosperity

These local and international organizations are taking an important step by focusing on the improvement of The Gambia and discouraging people from embarking on a journey that is often unsafe and sometimes fatal.

Once more people understand the realities of migrating and develop more faith in their country, migration from The Gambia will hopefully begin to decline, increasing safety and prosperity.

– Sara Olk

Photo: Flickr