After a recent series of verbal threats and missile tests from Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, President Donald Trump put North Korea back on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation it shares with only three other countries.
Normally, it is in the U.S.’s interest to see credit access increase responsibly around the world because more credit access generally means more investment, growth and opportunities for trade. However, when it comes to countries from the state-sponsored terrorism list, increased growth can give a boost to dangerous regimes—and their (nuclear) weapons programs.
So, while U.S. and global support for improved credit access in North Korea may be complicated, it is still worth looking closer at how credit access is improving the lives of ordinary North Koreans.
North Korea’s Banking System
According to The Wall Street Journal, there are no commercial banks in North Korea. All banking institutions are either state- or party-run, or state- or party-associated, which leaves North Korea with a highly centralized, unwieldy system.
That system is the legacy of a communist system, set up in the 1950s, that provided financial security for North Koreans. But, a major famine in the 1990s led to an economic collapse that crippled that system—and the North Korean government has done little to change it since.
Credit Access in North Korea: Unauthorized and Unregulated
As The Wall Street Journal notes, a semi-market economy emerged in the wake of that economic collapse that helps provide a living for up to three-fourths of the nation and is largely supported by unauthorized private commerce.
As a result, an unregulated system of lending and currency exchange has risen, making it possible to get loans and financing. North Korean defectors have described a system in which private savings are being channeled into lending to make a profit.
Scams were common at first, due to the lack of legal infrastructure and investment guarantees, but over time, it seems that trust and credit have grown. Lenders are investing in everything from crop seeds and fertilizer to merchants who import foreign goods, like smartphones.
Investment Opportunities in North Korea
Reuters reports that, in theory, plenty of investment opportunities exist in North Korea along China’s border. Most of these are related to tourism or manufacturing and had funding from China and other international investors.
However, U.N. sanctions against North Korea have led the Chinese government to ban new or expanded Chinese investment in North Korea and transactions with North Korean banks.
Ultimately, the growth of North Korean credit access and investment depends on the Kim administration dramatically altering course. It would need to show a willingness to cooperate internationally and develop a legitimate market-based economy. Neither seems likely to happen anytime soon.
– Chuck Hasenauer
Photo: Flickr
Learn about poverty in North Korea
Good News About Quality Education in Kenya
Over the years, more and more students have had increased access to education in Kenya. As a result, the adult literacy rate is almost 80 percent whereas the regional average is 61 percent. There are still some hurdles to cross, however, as many students who attend school do not have basic reading skills upon completion. A large amount of data indicates that teacher quality contributes significantly to the learning of students, according to a report by the World Bank. It is for this reason that having trained teachers is just as important as access to education.
Around 30 percent of teachers in Kenya are untrained. The number continues to rise as the number of students attending schools increases. Fortunately, efforts are being made to ensure that teachers are well-qualified to suit the needs of their students. USAID has partnered with Kenya’s Ministry of Education (MOE) to improve education in the country. USAID and MOE are working to enhance the capabilities of the teachers and improve the reading skills of the students.
GPE and the World Bank are allocating funds to Kenya so that they are better able to train teachers and provide students with school supplies. The two organizations are granting roughly $85.5 million for the training of 90,000 teachers and $9.7 million of the grant is to be used for the distribution of math books to students. The distribution of math books helps to make school more engaging for the students. The books are colorful and attractive in nature, making them appealing to young students.
Anne Irungu, a teacher in Kenya, marvels at how much just having a textbook has changed her classroom, “…sometimes one book was shared between two or more pupils. Since they could not all move at the same pace, you would find them fighting over the book, and the books would get worn out,” she said. “Now that each pupil has his or her own book, they sit comfortably, they work comfortably, and there is no conflict.”
Having well-trained teachers is beneficial to everyone. Teachers would have access to more earnings because of their training and children would receive a quality education which would, in turn, increase their own earnings later in life and reduce economic inequality.
These factors have the potential to reduce poverty in Kenya. With grants and training, the necessary improvements for education in Kenya can be made which may potentially lead to long-lasting changes for the future.
– Dezanii Lewis
Photo: Flickr
Women’s Empowerment in Ecuador Following Disaster
According to Becker, equality wasn’t a reality for these women since a patriarchal society still governed them. In addition, Spanish colonization during the 16th century had brought with it Catholic faith and spread the concept of marianismo, pure and virginal women. According to Evelyn Stevens and Tracy Ehlers, women were expected to accept the fate that was handed to them, that of being solely mothers and wives. This mentality still prevails today and entails the sacrifice of the women’s wants, desires and dreams for those of their family, predominately the men’s.
On April 16, 2016, a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit Ecuador, affecting 720,000 people. The earthquake left the country in ruins but that wasn’t all it did: it created a call for action, especially for women. Many Ecuadorean women felt that it was their duty to assist in rebuilding after the earthquake. A 35-year old woman named Veronica Lucas Melo stepped up, accompanied by three other women in her community. These women were determined to show their families and the community itself that women are capable of reconstructing their country.
She recalls the reaction her family had: “They said that I was going to do nothing useful there, just bother everyone. They asked me, ‘what are you supposed to do in a place that’s for men?’” As a mother of three children and a housewife who had never worked outside of her home, her main motivation was to set an example for her children. Another predominant purpose was the fact that the earthquake had damaged the farming ground on which her family relied so heavily. By going out to aid in the reconstruction of her country, she was advocating and bringing much-needed awareness to women’s empowerment in Ecuador.
A joint U.N. program called “Cash for Work” was seeking to reactivate the local economy, and had already trained and certified 48 people from earthquake-affected communities by that time. When the program was completed, participants were registered in an employment database of local people available for rebuilding. Melo heard about this opportunity and felt that it was exactly what she needed to learn new life skills and generate income to provide for her children.
Training in stone and construction work was conducted in Las Giles and Manta with support from the Ecuadorian Ministry of Justice. One the first day Melo showed the women involved in this program that women’s empowerment in Ecuador doesn’t have to be scary. She did this by picking up her tool to strike down a broken wall and the other women cheered her on and joined in. The actions that Melo took were huge and it became a movement for the mutual collaboration between men and women to rebuild Ecuador. “Men began to take us seriously. They didn’t see us as weak anymore and worked with us as a team,” she said.
According to U.N. Women Ecuador representative Moni Pizani, the post-earthquake recovery time presented “a unique opportunity to lay the foundations” for autonomy and women’s empowerment in Ecuador. “It’s a chance to dismantle gender stereotypes and build more equal societies,” she said.
In May 2016, U.N. Women in Ecuador organized a training workshop called, “Tools For My Personal and Business Development,” in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice. It provided entrepreneurship skills to 80 women from the nearby Calceta and Rocafuerte communities.
In these training sessions, the women were taught a range of topics for setting up and operating their own businesses. According to the Huffington Post, after three days of training, many women “already had a vision of the businesses they would establish.” U.N. Women has also come out in support of women’s participation in shelters, police and security training as a way to prevent and address gender-based violence. Women’s empowerment in Ecuador can prevent violence and ensure a better future for the country as a whole.
– Nicole Suárez
Photo: Flickr
Credit Access in North Korea Remains Unregulated
After a recent series of verbal threats and missile tests from Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, President Donald Trump put North Korea back on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation it shares with only three other countries.
Normally, it is in the U.S.’s interest to see credit access increase responsibly around the world because more credit access generally means more investment, growth and opportunities for trade. However, when it comes to countries from the state-sponsored terrorism list, increased growth can give a boost to dangerous regimes—and their (nuclear) weapons programs.
So, while U.S. and global support for improved credit access in North Korea may be complicated, it is still worth looking closer at how credit access is improving the lives of ordinary North Koreans.
North Korea’s Banking System
According to The Wall Street Journal, there are no commercial banks in North Korea. All banking institutions are either state- or party-run, or state- or party-associated, which leaves North Korea with a highly centralized, unwieldy system.
That system is the legacy of a communist system, set up in the 1950s, that provided financial security for North Koreans. But, a major famine in the 1990s led to an economic collapse that crippled that system—and the North Korean government has done little to change it since.
Credit Access in North Korea: Unauthorized and Unregulated
As The Wall Street Journal notes, a semi-market economy emerged in the wake of that economic collapse that helps provide a living for up to three-fourths of the nation and is largely supported by unauthorized private commerce.
As a result, an unregulated system of lending and currency exchange has risen, making it possible to get loans and financing. North Korean defectors have described a system in which private savings are being channeled into lending to make a profit.
Scams were common at first, due to the lack of legal infrastructure and investment guarantees, but over time, it seems that trust and credit have grown. Lenders are investing in everything from crop seeds and fertilizer to merchants who import foreign goods, like smartphones.
Investment Opportunities in North Korea
Reuters reports that, in theory, plenty of investment opportunities exist in North Korea along China’s border. Most of these are related to tourism or manufacturing and had funding from China and other international investors.
However, U.N. sanctions against North Korea have led the Chinese government to ban new or expanded Chinese investment in North Korea and transactions with North Korean banks.
Ultimately, the growth of North Korean credit access and investment depends on the Kim administration dramatically altering course. It would need to show a willingness to cooperate internationally and develop a legitimate market-based economy. Neither seems likely to happen anytime soon.
– Chuck Hasenauer
Photo: Flickr
Rebuilding Infrastructure in Zimbabwe
Concerning the infrastructure of Zimbabwe, there are corroded pipes, water leaks, sewage bursts and water shortages taking place in the capital, Harare. In reference to the mobile phone network, there is instability, with the government taking over Telecel, one of the three phone companies in Zimbabwe. To add, the socio-political infrastructure is unstable, as citizen engagement with the government is at its lowest level in over a decade.
Zimbabwe has tried to change things for the better but the country is still in a crisis. The economy is struggling and the politics pertaining to the future of the country are uncertain.
The infrastructure in the Harare showcases the instability in the infrastructure of Zimbabwe. The main issue is problems with the country’s water. The lack of maintenance of the water and sewage infrastructure is a major challenge the country is facing. As of 2010, only 50 percent of the people in Harare had water service all day, every day, while 55 percent of the residents had water that was poor quality. Zimbabwe made plans to redo water piping and began the process in 2009; by 2013, only 150 kilometers of the 6,000 had been replaced. By March 2016, only 40 percent of the work had been completed.
Even though infrastructure in Zimbabwe is struggling and facing issues, there is a plan to improve it. The main goals of the country are to rehabilitate and upgrade the bulk of the basic infrastructure assets and reinforce the existing integration of Zimbabwe’s network with other countries in the southern region of Africa.
The plan is to rehabilitate the national power grid, rehabilitate the national road network, the railway network, upgrade the status of air traffic communications, invest in storage to transport water resources, rehabilitate the existing water supply, develop national communications on a fiber-optic network and bring in a program of institutional reform and strengthening that measures to streamline the regulation of basic infrastructure services.
The process of rehabilitating and rebuilding the infrastructure of Zimbabwe will not be an easy feat nor will it be a cheap venture. Zimbabwe has had issues for many years, but with a plan developed and the desire to improve the country, infrastructure in Zimbabwe has the potential to be much better.
– Chavez Spicer
Photo: Flickr
Exploring Women’s Empowerment in Mauritania
However, in the northern city of Nouadhibou, women face a lack of access to capital and land, thus being driven to work in the fishing industry out of economic necessity. Despite their contributions to the economy, women in Mauritania work in poor conditions. They often have no choice other than to sell their goods outside of the fisheries market, isolated from the saturated Nouadhibou market. As a result of selling their products in smaller markets, women are forced to sell their products at lower prices and will attract only a few buyers.
To avoid a drop in women working in the fishing industry, the Nouadhibou Eco-Seafood Cluster Project was created in March 2016 by the World Bank and the CIIP. The project will strengthen Nouadhibou’s port infrastructure while expanding its onshore fish processing activities, in order to develop a seafood cluster within the region. Targeted training will also be part of the project, reinforcing women’s skills in fishing and helping them grow their businesses and to generate value.
The innovative Personal Initiative (PI) Training is one such project, with the goal of building entrepreneurial success within the community by introducing women entrepreneurs to new products and services.
All these initiatives offer hope for women’s empowerment in Mauritania as they help women develop the entrepreneurship skills they need to become financially and economically stable. In addition to supporting women’s empowerment in Mauritania, these projects have also significantly addressed two urgent development challenges, poverty and unemployment.
– Sarah Soutoul
Photo: Flickr
Providing Foreign Aid in 2018
In September 2017, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved $51 billion for foreign aid, the State Department and other related programs for 2018. This bill will also provide more than $6 billion for humanitarian assistance.
The issue of providing foreign aid has received bipartisan support in Congress, with both Democrats and Republicans going against President Trump’s proposed cuts to foreign assistance programs. The $6 billion approval for humanitarian assistance is approximately $1 billion more than the president requested.
The U.S. Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is one of President Trump’s main voices of support. Tillerson believes that the budget is “historically high” and that it has grown to provide foreign aid and respond to conflicts abroad.
President Trump’s proposed 30 percent budget cut to USAID, the State Department, U.N. contributions and programs like Power Africa and the Peace Corps has also received criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina voiced his support of providing aid by saying, “Now is the time to double down on diplomacy and development.”
Furthermore, the bill proposed by the Senate Appropriations Committee will resume its $10 million funding for the U.N. Environment Programme, counteracting President Trump’s proposal to end it.
“Frankly, I consider the President’s budget request to be dead on its arrival here in the U.S. Senate,” said Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware. “The aid we provide to countries around the world directly advances U.S. national interests by fostering a safer and more stable world, opening markets to U.S. businesses and promoting American values.”
In addition to being a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Coons serves as a co-chair of the Congressional Caucus of Effective Foreign Assistance alongside Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Representative Adam Smith (D-WA) and Representative Ted Yoho (R-FL).
Zimbabwe is one of many countries that relies on the United States providing foreign aid. The $150 million in aid provided by the U.S. yearly is used to help with hunger and climate change programs. With a population of 2.1 million people, the foreign aid provided to Zimbabwe has resulted in the creation of the ENSURE program. ENSURE has helped six districts dealing with famine and has provided proper irrigation systems for over 220 hectares serving 4,200 farmers.
With bipartisan support, the United States plans to continue providing foreign aid into 2018. Members of Congress agree that providing foreign aid is vital to both the United States and the world.
– Blake Chambers
Photo: Flickr
The Continued Success of Humanitarian Aid to Guatemala
Guatemala, the Central American home to 16 million citizens, has a rich history and culture; but it is also no stranger to hunger, poverty and violence. Considered amongst the lowest of American countries in term of human development, Guatemala’s Mayan history, the abundance of coffee beans and lush landscape is diminished by decades of dictatorial rule, civil war and lack of development.
The need to expound upon humanitarian aid to Guatemala is paramount to ensure the country continues to see development improvements. Here are a few aid efforts that are seeing success in Guatemala:
Contraception
Contraception in Guatemala is expensive and often carries severe side effects. As a result, many Guatemalans have little to no access to any form of birth control. The World Health Organization has no applicable data concerning contraception prevalence, which makes it difficult to gauge the efforts to distribute modes of birth control. However, this is not stopping organizations from providing that necessity.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s goal to provide contraception has found its place in Guatemala. Working with organizations such as the Pan-American Social Marketing Organization, the Gates Foundation is educating women about their options regarding birth control and investing funds to ensure high-quality and affordable contraception is available.
Indigenous Population
Due to decades of violence, Guatemala’s indigenous Mayan population has been forced to live in rural areas of their country. In these locations, living conditions are harsh and poor; in fact, over 90 percent of indigenous Guatemalans live in extreme poverty.
To combat this, CHOICE Humanitarian is providing aid to Guatemala’s indigenous population through a number of programs. Due to the lack of infrastructure in these areas, CHOICE is creating programs to provide access to basic needs, including fresh water, healthcare and education.
Amongst the CHOICE initiatives to provide humanitarian aid to Guatemala are major projects such as the construction of schools and a hospital. Over 100,000 indigenous people have been positively impacted as a direct result of CHOICE Humanitarian’s work to serve rural areas.
Education
Guatemala’s educational system is rife with inequality. While nearly every child begins primary school, middle school enrollment rates often fall in most areas to just 40 percent. For those that remain, less than half meet national standards for math and reading; and for the Guatemalan children that don’t continue their education, they rarely have the technical and vocational skills to find a job.
This alarming window into Guatemala’s educational system is challenged by organizations such as USAID. Primarily by supporting Guatemala’s Ministry of Education, national standards are stronger than ever and new training programs are resulting in the hire of better teachers. To bridge the language barrier between Spanish and the many Mayan dialects, USAID and the Ministry of Education have expanded bilingual programs and hired more diverse educators. To combat the 30 percent of sixth graders that achieve national reading standards, it expanded its National Reading Program to reach two million more children.
Humanitarian aid to Guatemala has definitely produced success stories such as access to contraception, quality education and outreach programs to Guatemala’s much-neglected Mayan population to name just a few; however, there is still much more to be done. The country is currently in the middle of a healthcare crisis that is claiming countless lives.
Poverty and hunger are rampant in this nation, and the globe must lead the way to ensuring that Guatemala’s development endeavors remain on track.
– Eric Paulsen
Photo: Flickr
Education in Hong Kong: Problems and Solutions
Similar to the British system, education in Hong Kong consists of a 9-year compulsory education for students aged six to 15. Before enrolling in university, most students complete 12 years of study at public or government-aided schools, which are generally free to attend. However, there also exists a private international school system that is in high demand in Hong Kong: the schools are highly competitive to enroll in and boast very high tuition and schooling fees.
The education system in Hong Kong ranks high, though there are a few evident problems. Experts claim that quite a few schools overly stress “reciting” material, which requires students to memorize information verbatim. Further, the “spoon-fed” teaching style does not allow for lively student debates or the promotion of critical thinking. There is a worry that the mechanical reciting and negative acceptance of learning materials will restrain potential creativity and imagination among students. Other major problems of the current education system include low enrolment rates in local universities as well as social and psychological problems among students due to high stress.
There are advantages of getting an education in Hong Kong: one is that the use of English is more popularized in Hong Kong, as compared to mainland China. However, with respect to the education itself, there is no major difference between schools in Hong Kong and mainland China.
The system of education in Hong Kong makes it quite difficult for local students in Hong Kong to connect with Chinese culture and mainland China. In addition, many teachers in Hong Kong are greatly influenced by Western education; thus, they are more likely to recognize the issues of freedom, democracy and human rights as opposed to strengthening their identities with the mainland region. At the moment, both primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong are encouraged by the central government of China to set up curriculums that include Chinese teaching and bilingual learning.
There have been 3,714 cultural exchange programs with nearly 60,000 participants from mainland China to Hong Kong and Macao from 2006 to 2010. Both the scale and quality of cultural exchange has grown in the past decade. The exchange programs that have been included in the education in Hong Kong encourage closing the culture gap between students of these regions.
As mentioned earlier, pressures of higher education in Hong Kong have led to increased stress among students. This is fuelled by a prevailing ideology among the Hong Kong society that nothing is achieved without attending university. More than 80,000 high school graduates compete for one of the 15,000 government-subsidized first-year university spots each year.
Greater efforts must be made to address the stress faced by students within the system of education in Hong Kong. At the moment, the Hong Kong Children and Youth Services helps those who have a tendency of violence. Its staff provides services in addition to speaking gently, listening to the youth and helping them process their thoughts with patience and empathy. The Hong Kong Youth and Children Education Center opened in 2013, offering self-sponsored services and free testing for kids of families in need. It facilitates would be capable of helping them recollect self-esteem, increase resilience and coping skills.
Education in Hong Kong is moving towards an advanced global education system while also placing efforts on fusing the cultures between mainland China and itself. Reasonable solutions and measures depend not only on efforts by the government, schools and society, but also relies on the interactions between teachers, students and their families.
– Xin Gao
Photo: Flickr
Women’s Empowerment in Guinea
The first category, productive resources, includes anything which deals with the economy and job market. In 2015, only 66 percent of women participated in the labor force, which is low compared to the 78 percent of men who participated. A study by the FGE found that one of the main reasons that women did not work was because they were already dedicating 82 hours a week to housework, childcare and fetching wood and water.
As a response, the FGE developed a training program to teach 300 women from Guinea’s Tristão Islands how to plant, grow, harvest and sell goods made from the moringa plant using solar polytunnel dryers. The moringa is a nutrient-rich tree that can grow in tropical climates and can easily be made into a powder, tea, paste or a sauce. Between 2013 and 2016, 25,000 moringa trees were planted and greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by 40 tonnes through the use of new solar technology to dry them.
Institutional relations and interpersonal relations are closely related when it comes to FGE’s solution to help women’s empowerment in Guinea. These relations deal with the government, representation and identification in the local community. It is reported that only 48 percent of women in Guinea feel satisfied with their representation in the community. One of the reasons for this low number is that only 32 percent of women possess proper identification, which means that the majority of women cannot vote or take part in mainland institutions.
The FGE worked with Partenariat-Recherches-Environnement-Médias (PREM), a grantee organization in Guinea to establish cooperatives, which are small communities of 10-40 women and/or men. These optional groups help to organize economic efforts and help members learn from each other and save money as a collective.
As a member of a cooperative, you are also granted proper identification from PREM so you are able to participate in voting and other institutions. This means that women and men are helping to better women’s representation, but also granting them communities so that they have people in similar situations to lean on for support.
The FGE also maintains efforts to provide more personal resources to the women of Guinea. While many of the women of Guinea are beginning to enter the market of selling products, they are aware that there is more knowledge to be attained in order to be successful. Ninety-five percent of women have expressed a wish to have more knowledge when it comes to reading and writing; this knowledge is necessary to properly market and distribute their new moringa products.
Similar programs include the Business Coalition for Women, which is a group of businesses that work to improve gender equality and fight violence against women, as well as USAID’s Implementation Plan that invests in gender equality initiatives. These programs, along with the United Nations, are working hard to establish a system that increases women’s empowerment in Guinea, and these efforts continue to provide positive results.
– Scott Kesselring
Photo: Flickr
10 Important and Little-Known Facts About the Greek Genocide
Less than 100 years ago, millions of innocent Greeks were killed or deported in what is known as the Greek Genocide. In the Asia Minor region of Turkey, the Ottoman Empire felt it was being threatened by the indigenous Greek people. As a result, the Empire enacted a systematic genocide to rid the nation-state of the Greek contaminants. During the nine-year genocidal period, the Turks and the Ottoman government set out to exterminate the Christian Greek population that resided in the Ottoman Empire. These are ten facts about the Greek Genocide that set the pace for the future of the Ottoman Empire.
Nine long years and 3.5 million lost souls later, the Ottoman Empire had officially ended its bloody crusade. Though its efforts to continue the massacres were passed on to the next leadership, the Empire was unable to strongly execute its plans. Many poor decisions led to the collapse of the five-century Ottoman rule, and while the Empire will not be remembered fondly, the lives of those lost in the Greek Genocide will be.
– Brianna Summ
Photo: Flickr