The Sophia Akash Foundation (SAF), in partnership with nonprofit organization PRADAN, is addressing the challenges faced by vulnerable women farmers in Bihar, India. Founded in 2010, SAF aims to combat poverty in underserved and rural communities through collaboration and social impact.
In March 2023, the foundation joined forces with PRADAN to empower women in Bihar with knowledge, tools and resources. The partnership focused on improving traditional farming methods through more sustainable, climate-resilient practices.
Agriculture in Bihar
Bihar, known for its fertile land and rich natural resources, relies heavily on agriculture, which employs about 76% of the state’s population. However, many farmers still rely on ineffective traditional farming practices that use harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides to sustain their livelihoods.
The growing impact of climate instability, including unpredictable rainfall, droughts and extreme temperatures, has made it even harder for farming communities to earn a stable income and support their families.
Why Women Farmers Matter
This joint initiative focuses on women in rural areas, who often lack access to the necessary tools, agricultural training, support and financial resources. According to SAF founder Shailendra Patel, initial research showed that empowering women empowers communities.
“If you enable the female members of these households, there is empirical evidence that because of maternal instincts, they are going to use that transfer of knowledge, tools and resources to improve the circumstances of their family and children,” Patel said. “They are likely to do that with greater consideration than the male household members.”
Training for Sustainable Farming
The initiative addresses ineffective farming practices in several ways. It trains women farmers in sustainable techniques such as climate-resilient greenhouses and drip irrigation. These methods protect crops during erratic weather conditions. They also increase both harvest size and crop quality.
The hands-on training covers land preparation, seed selection, bio-fertilizer preparation, water conservation, crop diversification and greenhouse management. These skills create a strong foundation for more resilient and productive farming methods.
“Through the transfer of knowledge and sharing of tools, means and resources with these communities will help them to progress on their journey out of poverty,” Patel said.
Success Story
This shift from traditional practices to sustainable farming in Bihar has already shown positive results, including healthier soils, improved harvest and reduced vulnerability to extreme weather conditions. Among the program’s early success stories is Sheetal, a local participant who began cultivating saplings through the Climate-Resilient Farming Program.
With training and support, she established a small nursery business that supplies saplings to other farmers in her village. This has diversified her income sources and positioned her as an entrepreneur, while uplifting her village community.
Along with empowering women in leadership roles in their villages, this program has contributed to greater food security, reduced input costs and more stable incomes through sustainable farming in Bihar.
“Empowering women benefits the families, communities and households,” Patel stated. “We need to find ways to lift the women to some form of equitable status in their families, give them agency in their families and knowledge with which they can make decisions.”
– Sahana Shastry
Sahana is based in Newtown Square, PA, USA and focuses on Good News for The Borgen Project.
Photo: Flickr
Sustainable Farming in Bihar: Bridging the Poverty Gap
In March 2023, the foundation joined forces with PRADAN to empower women in Bihar with knowledge, tools and resources. The partnership focused on improving traditional farming methods through more sustainable, climate-resilient practices.
Agriculture in Bihar
Bihar, known for its fertile land and rich natural resources, relies heavily on agriculture, which employs about 76% of the state’s population. However, many farmers still rely on ineffective traditional farming practices that use harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides to sustain their livelihoods.
The growing impact of climate instability, including unpredictable rainfall, droughts and extreme temperatures, has made it even harder for farming communities to earn a stable income and support their families.
Why Women Farmers Matter
This joint initiative focuses on women in rural areas, who often lack access to the necessary tools, agricultural training, support and financial resources. According to SAF founder Shailendra Patel, initial research showed that empowering women empowers communities.
“If you enable the female members of these households, there is empirical evidence that because of maternal instincts, they are going to use that transfer of knowledge, tools and resources to improve the circumstances of their family and children,” Patel said. “They are likely to do that with greater consideration than the male household members.”
Training for Sustainable Farming
The initiative addresses ineffective farming practices in several ways. It trains women farmers in sustainable techniques such as climate-resilient greenhouses and drip irrigation. These methods protect crops during erratic weather conditions. They also increase both harvest size and crop quality.
The hands-on training covers land preparation, seed selection, bio-fertilizer preparation, water conservation, crop diversification and greenhouse management. These skills create a strong foundation for more resilient and productive farming methods.
“Through the transfer of knowledge and sharing of tools, means and resources with these communities will help them to progress on their journey out of poverty,” Patel said.
Success Story
This shift from traditional practices to sustainable farming in Bihar has already shown positive results, including healthier soils, improved harvest and reduced vulnerability to extreme weather conditions. Among the program’s early success stories is Sheetal, a local participant who began cultivating saplings through the Climate-Resilient Farming Program.
With training and support, she established a small nursery business that supplies saplings to other farmers in her village. This has diversified her income sources and positioned her as an entrepreneur, while uplifting her village community.
Along with empowering women in leadership roles in their villages, this program has contributed to greater food security, reduced input costs and more stable incomes through sustainable farming in Bihar.
“Empowering women benefits the families, communities and households,” Patel stated. “We need to find ways to lift the women to some form of equitable status in their families, give them agency in their families and knowledge with which they can make decisions.”
– Sahana Shastry
Photo: Flickr
Mental Health in the Comoros
Lack of Mental Health Policy
The Comorian government has yet to adopt a mental health strategy, legislation or a specific budget for mental health care. This policy vacuum reflects decades of political instability and military coups since the country’s independence in 1975, compounded by pervasive poverty that besets the archipelago. Without a national plan, there is no framework to develop services, train providers or secure international funding for scalable solutions.
Poverty and Mental Health in the Comoros
Mental health care is too costly for most Comorian families. Without insurance systems or government-funded services, families often exhaust their savings on traditional healing or resort to physically restraining relatives with severe symptoms. The economic impact extends beyond individual families, as untreated mental illness reduces productivity, increases school dropout rates and reproduces poverty.
In 2018, the country’s Human Capital Index was only 0.40, suggesting that children born in 2018 will only achieve 40% of their productive potential, a figure partly influenced by preventable health issues, including mental disorders.
Cultural Beliefs and Stigma
Mental illness in Comoros is predominantly attributed to supernatural causes. As a result, many people first seek treatment from marabouts, who use Quranic verses, herbal remedies and amulets. These practices often delay medical treatment and can worsen psychiatric conditions. Women face particular obstacles, as cultural stigmatization often prevents them from seeking help or freely deciding about their treatment. Older people are also vulnerable, with no geriatric mental health support available.
However, organizations like Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) have supported mental health innovation in the Union of Comoros by training community health workers and facilitating psychiatric consultations via mobile phones. To reinforce monitoring and public awareness, the program also deploys tablets for weekly reporting and mobile apps to inform local communities about mental health issues.
Furthermore, youth-led initiatives like the Al Shara Youth Comoros “Moroni hub” based in Moroni, provide safe places for the youth to discuss mental health, challenge misconceptions and empower those affected by mental health issues.
Innoventive Mental Health Alternatives
Several other promising initiatives have emerged in recent years. In 2020, a telepsychiatry project was launched, with three key objectives. First, it helps raise awareness about mental health in Comoros, working to reduce misconceptions and stigma surrounding mental health disorders. Moreover, it also trains health care practitioners to manage conditions, such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Finally, the project facilitates tele-consultations through Skype/Teams, connecting people and health care providers in remote areas with the country’s only psychiatrist and consultants from Madagascar and France. These tele-consultations provide diagnostic guidance and treatment recommendations, helping to mitigate the scarcity of psychiatric specialists.
E-education platforms are also slowly expanding, providing ongoing psychiatric and psychological training for health care workers. Targeted economic investment, especially from the U.S., could help develop these pivotal initiatives and bring mental health care to thousands of Comorians who currently suffer in silence. Addressing mental health care in Comoros requires sustained efforts, cultural sensitivity and international support to build more resilient communities.
– Juliette Delbarre
Photo: Flickr
Major Facts About Poverty in Okinawa
Single-Parent Household Ratios Are High
Contributing to poverty in Okinawa are single-parent or single-mother households. According to Professor Yanfei Zhou of Japan Women’s University from the documentary “The Ones Left Behind: The Plight of Single Mothers in Japan,” despite single-parent households having a high employment percentage of 85%, 48.3% of the households are in poverty.
In Okinawa, single-mother households are the majority, resulting in a 30% child poverty rate that is almost double the national average. Many of these single-mother households have to work two jobs, with their second being a hostess at nightclubs.
US Military Facilities Dominate Okinawa
Many of Okinawa’s poverty-related issues stem from Japan’s relationship with the U.S. military. After World War II and the devastating 1945 Battle of Okinawa, Japan allowed the U.S. to establish military facilities on the island, bases that remain in place today.
Due to the 1945 battle devastating Okinawa’s existing infrastructure and major agricultural fields being demolished for military facilities, the prefecture experienced major economic infrastructure development delays.
About half of all U.S. forces in Japan remain in Okinawa today, an island that makes up less than 0.6% of the country’s territory. The weak infrastructure on the island continues to contribute to the low employment rates and poverty in Okinawa.
Unemployment Rates Are High
According to e-Stat, Okinawa’s unemployment rate was 8.1% in 2023, the highest percentage among Japan’s prefectures. Many factors contribute to this, including limited infrastructure due to the U.S. military presence, dependence on a tourism industry with low wages and unstable work and low university enrollment among young people. The island’s geographic isolation from mainland Japan also worsens unemployment and poverty in Okinawa.
Okinawa Lacks Support From the Japanese Government
Although the Japanese government provides Okinawa with more than $2 billion in annual financial support, the relationship between Okinawan residents and the state remains complicated. Many oppose current plans to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station from Futenma to the coast of Henoko, reflecting longstanding resentment over the U.S. military presence.
Japan’s colonization of the former Ryukyu Kingdom and deep cultural differences between Okinawa and the mainland have also fueled tension. As a result, Okinawa is often viewed as neglected compared to other Japanese prefectures.
Organizations Providing Aid
While poverty in Okinawa stems from many factors, nonprofit organizations and local leaders continue to fight for change. HelpOki, a volunteer-based nonprofit founded in 2011, works to combat poverty by providing vital resources and support to those in need. To address food insecurity, the group established Okinawa’s first food bank and continues to supply essentials to homeless shelters, foster homes and other community organizations.
Organizations outside Okinawa are also working to fight poverty in the prefecture. Second Harvest Japan, the country’s first incorporated food bank, aims to build a nationwide food safety net. In 2020, in collaboration with Barclays, it launched the Usagamisore Project. The initiative provided food to 30,000 households in Okinawa during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to serve the community while expanding its reach to the greater Tokyo area.
Local leaders have also made slow but steady plans to make Okinawa more self-reliant. They aim to reduce poverty and unemployment rates while still addressing residents’ concerns with U.S. forces and their presence in Okinawa.
– Skylar Paxton
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Improving Women’s Health Care in Africa
COWHA’s Mission in Africa
There are organizations globally committed to improving women’s health care. One of these is the Coalition for Women’s Health in Africa (COWHA). COWHA is invested in providing girls and women with equitable access to health care and increasing their well-being. This vision is driven by an approach rooted in knowledge, advocacy and action. This three-pronged approach thrives on a collaboration with organizations in the private sector and holding governance responsible for reimagining and supporting women’s health care.
In its 2025 Webinar Report, the Coalition for Women’s Health in Africa insists on the necessity of domestic investments, calling African governments to expand access to quality health services for girls and women, ensure financial risk protection and reduce out-of-pocket expenditures for patients and advance equity by making the health care of the most vulnerable and underserved populations a priority.
By adopting and funding these strategic priorities, COWHA can better maximize its impact in countries such as Ghana, Kenya and South Africa. In these regions, special attention goes to providing services and treatment for girls and women experiencing breast and cervical cancer, other noncommunicable diseases and needs related to sexual and reproductive health, as well as maternal and newborn care.
Statistics in Women’s Health Care
Coalition for Women’s Health in Africa reports the rates at which women and girls across the African continent experience health complications. Indeed, according to the report, around 66% of all global maternal deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, 26% of women in Sub-Saharan Africa experience unplanned pregnancies and 65% of all cancer cases in Africa occur in women.
However, the organization’s framework is actively improving women’s health care in Africa and reducing oppressive conditions. Investing in knowledge and research enables COWHA to disseminate integral data on women’s health across Africa. This identifies gaps in care as well as offering life-saving interventions to enhance health outcomes. COWHA engages in conversation with policymakers, amplifying the most pressing health challenges, barriers to access and ensuring that women’s health is a priority.
Looking Ahead
The Coalition for Women’s Health in Africa’s cross-sector collaboration with governments, health care institutions and NGOs enables the implementation of targeted interventions. As a result, COWHA champions improvements in women’s health care that can have long-lasting impacts on the social and living conditions of girls and women across Africa.
– McKenzie Rentie
Photo: Flickr
How Urban Farming in Lebanon is Combating Food Insecurity
Changing the System
Launched by U.N.-Habitat and funded by the Government of Japan, the Al-Marjeh project integrates food production, renewable energy and clean water access to strengthen community resilience and combat Lebanon’s food insecurity.
The program has trained 100 women and 50 youth in planting, harvesting, composting, packaging and marketing. Participants gain both technical knowledge and business skills, enabling them to produce and sell fresh produce locally.
To support this shift, the project has installed renewable energy systems and water filtration units in two public schools and a health dispensary, benefiting the residents. These improvements enhance hygiene facilities, reduce the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera and ensure sustainable access to clean water – an essential component of urban agriculture.
Reducing Poverty and Building Livelihoods
The Al-Marjeh project’s benefits extend beyond the harvest. Many graduates have received agricultural toolkits to continue production at home, reducing household food costs while generating income from surplus sales. Others have joined cash-for-work initiatives, expanding cultivation on larger plots and strengthening local food supply chains.
For residents, the training has been transformative. By learning to grow their own crops, citizens have reduced reliance on expensive imported vegetables and built more stable income streams. Examples like Omar, a young participant, who now applies his training to community gardens and helps neighbours adopt sustainable cultivation techniques, highlight the transformative impact.
This impact reflects a broader trend: urban farming fosters self-reliance, reduces dependency on volatile markets and creates spaces for community cooperation that works together to reverse Lebanon’s food insecurity. By linking food production directly to urban residents, the initiative could shorten supply chains, reduces transportation costs and improve access to fresh produce in neighbourhoods that have long relied on limited and costly imports.
Long-Term Development Impact
Urban farming in Lebanon is also a climate resilience strategy. With arable land scarce and extreme weather patterns intensifying environmental pressures, localized farming offers a way to meet food needs sustainably. The Al-Marjeh project promotes water-efficient irrigation and composting practices, reducing environmental strain while maintaining productivity.
U.N.-Habitat highlights that these projects strengthen social cohesion by involving diverse community members in collective goals. The combination of environmental sustainability, economic opportunity and improved nutrition provides a blueprint for scaling similar initiatives in other urban centres facing similar issues as Lebanon’s food insecurity.
Looking Ahead
As Lebanon continues to navigate overlapping economic and political crises, urban farming offers a practical and empowering response. By equipping residents with the skills, resources and infrastructure to produce their own food, projects like Al-Marjeh reduce vulnerability to external shocks and lay the foundation for inclusive, sustainable growth. In Tripoli’s Shalfeh neighbourhood, a simple idea—growing food locally—is helping build a more resilient future.
– Thomas Finighan
Photo: Flickr
Education Reform in India
Successful Implementations
As of 2025, the NEP has successfully implemented its 5+3+3+4 structure. Before the NEP, India’s education system followed a 10+2 system, in which students completed 10 years of schooling and then two years of higher secondary education.
The current format requires students to complete five years of foundational school, three years of preparatory school, three years of middle school and four years of secondary school. Not only does this system focus on Early Childhood Care and Education, officially including the teaching of 3-6 year olds in the system, but the shift also emphasizes core literacy and numerical skills (FLN). From the implementation of the new system in 2020 to 2023, the percentage of students with core FLN skills increased from 58% to 70%.
Drastic Improvements
The NEP has made drastic improvements to the topic of curriculum. Of India’s 28 states and eight territories, 23 have adopted the NEP’s framework for education, according to India times. Overall, the new curriculum eliminates separations between arts and sciences, curricular and extracurricular activities and others to eliminate the formation of hierarchies.
Additionally, the NEP curriculum emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach and true understanding rather than rote memorization to create unity and integrity of knowledge; on particularly notable addition to the multidisciplinary angle is the introduction of bilingual teaching, which allows students to enhance their understanding of concepts with increased exposure to languages like English or Hindi.
Further, the NEP promised an influx of high-quality resources to its Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) and has achieved its goal; as of 2024, the platform had more than 3.5 billion views, with more than 50 million users, according to India Times. Digital resources like DIKSHA equal the playing field for students in deprived urban areas in India.
Ongoing Reforms
Looking forward, the Indian government still has much progress to make on education reform in India. Though resources like DIKSHA can be a useful tool, the digital divide makes it difficult for them to create real impact. With irregular internet access and a lack of devices, the government must work to fill this gap. One way the Indian government has worked to lessen the divide is through BharatNet, a rural telecom project which provides access to connectivity to service providers and has made more than 74,000 Service Ready GPs for 36 of India’s states.
Additionally, the NEP’s new curriculum has required the adoption of new teaching methods. Because of inexperience and lack of resources, it is hard for educators to undergo the necessary training. As a result, the government and the Department of School Education and Literacy have launched the National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA).
This program is divided into three training programs specific to the elementary level, the secondary level and the National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding in Numeracy (a program created by the Ministry of Education in India). As a result of NISHTHA, many smaller states have achieved 100% of their training goals and/or trained more educators than expected.
Although the NEP has thus far made good, measurable progress, it has much room for improvements. With current education reforms in India, however, the country gets closer and closer to its education goals every day.
– Ariana Wang
Photo: Flickr
Private Foundations Expanding Global Aid Amid USAID Cuts
Concerns Over USAID Cuts
The administration’s budget proposal includes an $8.3 billion cut to foreign assistance, effectively dismantling large portions of USAID. These cuts have raised concerns among international development experts. Humanitarian organizations warn that the withdrawal of U.S. support could destabilize fragile economies and undo decades of progress in global health, education and poverty reduction. In the wake of these reductions, experts have noted that the following foundations are expanding global aid amid USAID cuts.
Private Foundations Expanding Global Aid
Looking Ahead
These foundations expanding global aid continue to play a crucial role in supporting foreign assistance, especially during periods of uncertainty in public funding. Indeed, their growing influence highlights the increasing role of private foundations in driving global aid efforts. As current funding evaluations wrap up, the trajectory of foreign assistance remains unclear. In the meantime, global development initiatives look set to increasingly rely on the strength and commitment of the philanthropic sector.
– Dylan Fly
Photo: Flickr
Disability and Poverty in Sierra Leone
Disability Rights and Poverty
People with disabilities are often more susceptible to poverty. In developing countries, which often do not have robust disability support programs, disabled people especially struggle. People in impoverished areas are also more likely to have disabilities thanks to poor quality of life and increased violence.
One of the biggest issues is employment discrimination, where employers are less likely to hire disabled people because they believe they would not be able to fulfill the job requirements. Employers are even more hesitant to hire those that may need additional help, considering the limited job availability in developing nations.
Another major issue is lack of accessibility infrastructure. Government resources are spread thin in developing nations, and investing in accessibility often takes a backseat to more baseline government functions. These conditions make it so that countries that have a higher likelihood for their citizens to incur disabilities are also the most ill equipped to help their disabled citizens.
The Situation in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, like many developing nations, has to deal with the issues of disability and poverty. As a country still recovering from the effects of a devastating civil war, it has a lot of experience with both of these issues. According to the Repository on Disability Rights in Africa in 2015, about 2.4% of Sierra Leone’s population has a disability. The aforementioned civil war is a contributor to the country’s disabled population, where many citizens are still dealing with debilitating war wounds. Lack of health care infrastructure also leads to disabilities caused by infectious diseases such as polio.
The connection between disability and poverty in Sierra Leone has led to a large disability rights movement within the country. However, a lack of central organization is a big issue facing this movement. An analysis by Amelie van den Brink, Willem Elbers and Aisha Fofana Ibrahim from 2019 describes the nature of the movement as “fragmented,” citing lack of resources and diverging interests based on different types of impairments. Despite having unity under the Sierra Leone Union on Disability Issues (SLUDI), many member organizations actively compete for financial resources and government attention.
Solutions
Despite their limited economic power, Sierra Leone has made commitments to improving the lives of their disabled population. In 2011, its federal government passed The Persons with Disabilities Act. This act created the National Commission for Persons with Disability, a government committee dedicated to protecting people with disabilities and providing services like preventing discrimination, maintaining a database of people with disabilities and spreading awareness of the issues that disabled people in Sierra Leone face. It also officially codified a list of rights that persons with disability were guaranteed, including issues of employment and medical care.
The United Nations has also taken action to help the government develop a strategy for improving the quality of life for the disabled. In 2011, the United Nations Integrated Peace Building Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) released a charter concerning the rights of disabled people, based on previous legislation passed by the Sierra Leone government. Other NGOs have contributed financially to Sierra Leone’s disability and poverty relief efforts. Having outside support for these disability rights efforts is essential to countries like Sierra Leone in order to ensure that their government is equipped to handle these newer initiatives.
As stated earlier, Sierra Leone also has a robust disability rights movement. Despite the issues with the movement as observed by van den Brink et al, it has been essential in pushing for legislation and providing non-governmental resources to those in need. The SLUDI was one of the biggest advocates for the Persons with Disabilities Act, and is a great example of the power of advocacy in legislative politics.
Looking Ahead
Disability and poverty in Sierra Leone remains a major issue as the country struggles to meet the needs of its disabled population. However, thanks to a combination of legislation and popular support, the country has the tools it needs to improve on this issue well into the future. Sierra Leone is growing in many respects, and many of the measures that the government took are essential to ensuring that the disabled are not left behind.
– Thaddeus Konieczny
Photo: Pexels
Timor Leste’s Community Infrastructure For Resilience Project
Since gaining independence, Timor Leste’s community infrastructure has been a central focus on the country’s development, this includes roads, ports, airports, water and sanitation systems and government facilities. By focusing on building up the country’s infrastructure, the number of Timorese living below the national poverty line has declined each year.
Building Community Resilience
In 2023, the UNDP became the implementing agency of the Community Infrastructure for Resilience Project (CIREP), which focuses on rural communities in Timor-Leste by strengthening their resilience by improving infrastructure and “access to basic services for health, education, markets, irrigation, water and sanitation.”
The project period is from 2023 to 2027 and commits itself to the construction and rehabilitation of 46 community infrastructures in the areas of Bobonaro, Ermera, Liquica, and the Special Administrative Region Oe-Cusse Ambeno (RAEOA). This is paralleled with the Cash-For-Work program operating at the project sites, engaging with 4,000 community members, particularly youth, women, people with disabilities and LGPTIQ+.
The Cash-For-Work program provides community members with work at the sites that are improving Timor Leste’s Community Infrastructure. They are taught skills and given experience that is able to help them gain further employment. The UNDP estimates that by the end of the project a total of 16,000 households and 75,000 individuals will benefit from the project, according to UNDP.
Sustainable Development Goals
The CIREP targets the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including gender equality, clean water and sanitation and decent work and economic growth. Within Timor-Leste, investing in human capital has been a priority for sustainable development and economic growth. By focusing on infrastructure-centred projects ,the UNDP can tackle multiple SDGs at once, together with its efforts to improve access to clean water and sanitation.
SDG 5: Gender Equality
Gender Equality is a big focus of Timor-Leste’s Community Infrastructure Project, with the assurance that the Cash-For-Work program participants are 50% women, according to UNDP. The program initiatives aim to empower women in these rural areas by teaching them skills that will help employ them in the long term as well as improving their socioeconomic status in the short term through the Cash-For-Work program.
SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
The second SDG that the CIREP focuses on is clean water and sanitation, which is a driver of malnutrition in Timor-Leste. By constructing and renovating water and sanitation sites in the country, it can drastically improve health and increase productivity, which in turn fuels other SDGs.
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
The third SDG that the project focuses on is decent work and economic growth, which is the backbone of Timor-Leste’s Community Infrastructure project. By working with the Cash-For-Work program, the UNDP has identified and registered 1,254 community members who will be provided on-the-job training at the different project sites, according to UNDP. By training and paying workers from Timor-Leste the UNDP and the Cash-For-Work program can give decent work to the citizens while simultaneously improving economic conditions.
Looking Forward
As the CIREP continues into March 2027, Timor-Leste’s community infrastructure continues to improve, strengthening the community’s resilience and furthering economic growth.
– Olivia Peters
Photo: Flickr
What a Netflix subscription could buy you around the world
To put this into perspective, the cost of a single month of Netflix surpasses what most people in many countries have to live on over three days. This is a stark reminder of the inequalities that still exist in the world today. What feels like a small subscription fee to many is three days of food, essential supplies and sanitation for others, meaning a large proportion of the world is priced out of access to what is increasingly treated as a basic part of modern digital life. To indicate this further, below is a list of what a Netflix subscription can buy around the world.
South Sudan
South Sudan is one of the poorest countries in Africa. More than 350,000 live below the global poverty line, according to the World Bank. Here, $8 is enough to feed a family of four for two or three days. With this amount of money, one could buy 1 kilogram of red beans, 1 kilogram of beef, tomatoes and onions, as well as 2 litres of diesel.
India
Over the past decade, poverty rates have fallen significantly in India. In 2011, 16.2% of the population was living in extreme poverty, but as of 2023, this figure had fallen to 2.3%. This is extraordinary; however, it still leaves around 30 million people surviving on less than $3 a day. For these people, and many others, a monthly Netflix subscription is unattainable as there is only enough money for necessities. $8 here could buy a week’s worth of groceries, 2 litres of milk, 2 kilograms of chicken, 1 kilogram of potatoes and rice and five bottles of water, a reminder that extra spending for many is never an option.
Madagascar
According to the World Bank, in 2023, Madagascar was one of the poorest countries in the world, with 75% of people living below the global poverty line. Here, $8 can buy you eight dozen eggs, six bottles of water and three beers. Almost the entire population have less money to spend every day than the cost of one monthly subscription.
Myanmar
Years of political instability and economic hardship have left much of Myanmar’s population living in poverty, with wages falling far below the global average. Here, $8 stretches far, equating to 30 hours of work, rather than just a single day in America. Individuals on minimum wage will have to work for three and a half days just to afford one month of Netflix.
Closing the gap
Price comparisons like these are not just meant to shock, but to highlight the severe global income and purchasing inequalities. $8 may mean little to many, but to some, it is a lifeline. While $8 a month may be manageable in wealthier countries, it can represent a significant portion of someone’s earnings in lower-income nations. In doing so, access to digital entertainment becomes yet another area where global inequality plays out, limiting participation based on geography and economic status.
However, as awareness of these disparities grows, a space opens for global companies to create pricing that reflects local realities. The value of technology and access must be understood to close this gap and lessen inequality.
– Niamh Trinder
Photo: Flickr