10 Important Facts About Girls’ Education in Uganda

Facts About Girls' Education in Uganda

Girls’ education in Uganda varies from region to region. The gender gap has become smaller; however, there are serious issues holding back the progress of the development of girls’ education. Below are 10 facts about girls’ education in Uganda that highlight the obstacles as well as the benefits proven to be derived from the continuation of a girls’ education.

10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Uganda

  1. The United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) reported that more than 700,000 girls in Uganda between the ages of six to 12 have never attended school. In fact, around half of girls between the ages of 15 to 24 are illiterate and four in five girls do not attend high school.
  2. A large contributor to low female literacy rates and school attendance rates is that up to 40 percent of girls in Uganda are married before the age of 18. Around 10 percent of these girls are married before the age of 15. Around 35 percent of girls drop out due to marriage and 23 percent drop out due to pregnancy. In contrast, allowing girls to continue through secondary education significantly reduces the chances of early marriage and childbearing.
  3. In Uganda, teenage pregnancy rates are some of the highest in the world. The national average is 24 percent; however, statistics change from region to region. The poorest regions have the highest percentage of teenage pregnancy.
  4. Poverty is the largest contributor to low standards in girls’ education in Uganda. Though education is free, school supplies and uniforms are not. Because of this, when faced with either sending a son or a daughter to school, a son’s education will usually be prioritized.
  5. Because of the high poverty rates, girls are usually expected to work as a way to increase the family’s income. The Global Partnership for Education reported that especially in rural areas, local traditions dictate that girls can be married in exchange for a dowry, a sum of money given to the daughter’s family as payment.
  6. Uneducated girls are highly susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases as well as other health complications. Health issues put girls at a risk of not continuing their education. In 2015, around 567 young people between the ages of 15 to 24 contracted HIV/AIDS on a weekly basis. A staggering 363 of these young adults were female.
  7. Girls are less likely to attend school during their menstrual cycle which creates gaps in a girl’s education. This is caused by inadequate infrastructure and resources for good hygiene in schools, especially for girls. Furthermore, girls often feel ashamed and embarrassed about their cycle because women’s health education is not a priority.
  8. Statistics show that educated mothers are more than twice as likely to ensure the education of their children. They are also more likely to earn higher wages than an uneducated person. A World Bank report shows that there would be a 14 percent rise in a girl’s wage if she would continue her education rather than get married.
  9. Educating girls would see a reduction in child marriage and births. This is closely linked to lower mortality rates as well. It would also greatly improve the standard of living across Uganda and reduce poverty rates.
  10. Educated women are more likely to invest back into their families. Roughly 90 percent of an income will usually go back to the family.

While the Ugandan education system has progressed and policies have been adopted, the lack of enforcement is the real issue. There must be further investment in the future of girls and their education; as these facts about girls’ education in Uganda illustrate, investing in girls would benefit the country in immeasurable ways.

– Trelawny Robinson
Photo: Flickr

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Child Soldiers in Uganda: History and Facts

7 Facts About Ugandan Child Soldiers
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) began in 1987 in Uganda to rebel against President Yoweri Museveni. Children constitute most of the army. The LRA forces child soldiers in Uganda to commit acts of violence on other minors within the LRA ranks as well as brutalities on their own siblings.

LRA and Child Soldiers in Uganda

Between 1988 and 2004, the LRA abducted 30,000 Ugandan children.

Joseph Kony heads the LRA. He grew up in the northern Ugandan village, Odek. His relative, Alice Auma Lakwena, began a rebel group called The Holy Spirit Movement in 1986 when Museveni seized power. In 1987, Kony declared himself a prophet, changed the name of the group to the LRA and began proclaiming rule based on the Ten Commandments.

In October 2005, the International Criminal Court (ICC) began attempting to arrest Kony. A peace agreement was finalized in April 2008, but the child soldiers in Uganda and neighboring countries remained an issue.

Since 2008, Kony and his forces have been shifting their presence to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic. The LRA Crisis Tracker, a website that reports LRA attacks and notifies email subscribers, lists 27 verified child abductions in these countries in 2018 alone.

Issues with the LRA

The LRA has displaced more than two million people since 1986 thereby increasing poverty in Uganda, especially in the north. However, the relation between the LRA and poverty is not mutually exclusive. The LRA and its brutal use of child soldiers in Uganda is a result of the harsh poverty that Kony and many others in the LRA ranks have experienced. Note the following:

  1. A huge income inequality, rooted in colonialism, exists between northern and southern Uganda’s north and south.
  2. British colonists created a militant north.
  3. The Acholi people have been systematically oppressed.

When the British colonized Uganda in 1860, a centralized government did not exist. They created agricultural and commercial centers in southern Uganda.

This left the north to provide labor. The British found higher success rates in northern Uganda for army recruitment because it provided northerners an opportunity to improve their livelihoods. These divisions continued after Uganda gained independence in 1962.

Acholi

Kony came from the impoverished north and is Acholi, an ethnolinguistic group. Idi Amin Dada, Former Ugandan President from 1971 to 1979, persecuted and executed the Acholi due to their military ties and alignment with Apollo Milton Obote, who was in office as the Prime Minister from 1962 to 1966 and as the President from 1966 to 1971 and then again from 1980 to 1985.

The British created a system where many Acholi people turned to the army to escape extreme poverty and then they were persecuted for it. Poverty and persecution influenced Kony’s disillusionment with the government and his desire to rebel and create child soldiers in Uganda.

However, the LRA’s actions have not combated the root issues of poverty and oppression. The cycle of poverty in Uganda propagates because of Kony and the LRA’s use of Ugandan child soldiers in the following ways:

  1. One of the biggest populations of displaced people now exists in northern and eastern Uganda. Most LRA raids take place at night, so when Kony’s presence was focused in Uganda, mothers and children trying to avoid becoming Ugandan soldiers fled their villages to bigger towns and secure government camps. More than 80 percent of the Acholi people were displaced.
  2. Malnutrition exists within the LRA ranks as well and many Ugandans focused on fleeing for their lives over planting food. This created severe food shortages, particularly in 2004.
  3. A lack of health workers exists because so many of them had to escape the LRA.
  4. Kony and other men in the LRA took many female captives as “wives” and forced them to have more children in order to provide more resources.

Moving Forward in Uganda

Now that most of LRA’s presence is focused elsewhere, Uganda is working to solve its problems. In 2006, 31.1 percent of Ugandans were under the national poverty line, according to The World Bank’s 2016 Uganda Poverty Assessment. In 2013, it went down to 19.7 percent. Northern and eastern Uganda still suffer devastating consequences from Kony’s reign of terror, and the same study reveals that poverty has increased in those regions from 68 percent to 84 percent in those seven years.

In June 2009, the LRA had abducted 491 civilians and caused 484 civilian fatalities in Uganda. While peace is coming to Uganda and its children, the LRA still violently demonstrates its power in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where it abducted 124 civilians in 2018.

In June 2018, there have been no reported fatalities or abductions, meaning there are no new child soldiers in Uganda this year. The growing peace in Uganda provides hope that the country’s poverty rate might reduce and that the LRA would not reign indefinitely.

– Charlotte Preston
Photo: Flickr

Accessible Healthcare in China

accessible healthcare in ChinaIn 2016, China’s population amounted to nearly 1.4 billion. Among this population, the World Bank reported that the life expectancy at birth was an estimated 76.3 years, significantly higher than that of 1976—about 64.6 years. With such a large population and a GDP of $12.2 trillion, attaining equitable and accessible healthcare in China has been an ongoing concern.

In 2009, China’s government set five major goals. According to China Business Review, the primary healthcare reform goals include extensive plans to broaden basic healthcare coverage, establish a national essential drug system, expand infrastructure for grassroots medical networks, provide equal access to basic public healthcare services and implement pilot reform of public hospitals. These goals will also include addressing the gap in healthcare accessibility between urban and rural regions. Below is a breakdown, highlighting how each objective has been approached within the last decade.

Medical Insurance

According to the book China’s Healthcare System and Reform edited by Lawton Robert Burns and Gordon G. Liu, there are three main public medical insurance programs that reach about 95 percent of China’s population: Urban Employee Basic Medical Insurance (UEBMI), Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI) and the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS). Moreover, there is a National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) put out by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, which sets the agenda as to which specific drugs are reimbursed by insurance and to what amount.

In public health insurance, the government aims to increase coverage to 100 percent by 2020 as well as reduce out-of-pocket spending costs to lower than 30 percent. So, far several provinces have already reduced co-pays.

The government also supports a more active role for private health insurance in its goal of attaining full coverage of its nearly 1.4 billion populace. This remains a developing program and faces challenges such as a lack of standardized treatment practices in China’s public hospitals.

National Drug System

To increase accessible healthcare in China, the government also reformed its drug supply policy. China’s Essential Drugs List (EDL) was established in 2004 to set the criteria for the “minimum number of molecules needed to cure the broadest spectrum of diseases at the lowest possible cost.” An updated EDL was announced in May 2013, covering 520 molecules, up from 307 in 2009.  Drugs were also extended to include diseases such as cancer, blood disease and psychiatric disorders.

Healthcare Services

As noted by the China Business Review, China designated three billion U.S. dollars toward the improvement of grassroots medical networks in 2009. In that same year, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) reported its support of 34,000 hospital constructions in towns and townships.

Incentives are being used to encourage medical students to seek work in rural areas by offering subsidies of 6000 RMB, roughly $900. Additional public hospital reforms are in place that center reform on system administration, management and upgrades to the quality of medical services provided. For example, in 2009, the Ministry of Health (MOH) issued a list of required and essential medical equipment to be held by community centers and rural clinics.

Public Health Service

As a result of government investment in 2012, clinical training programs were established in rural regions in order to train 4.95 million physicians and other health practitioners, enabling accessible healthcare in China. By 2013, the percentage of physicians holding undergraduate degrees had increased from 30.8 to 35.3 percent.

Changes in Public Hospitals

China aims to make public hospitals cost-effective and sustainable in four ways. First, China will adjust its funding source to government subsidies and medical services. Reforms in cost control will limit cost on copays and set caps on deductibles, and management transformation will set clear key performance indicators for increased quality and efficiency. Lastly, China will implement a redistribution of resources that will ensure that important resources will be shared by hospitals in the cities with hospitals in rural areas.

Health policy reforms are now more promising in attaining accessible healthcare in China. Making effective healthcare available in all regions, urban and rural, is crucial to reducing poverty and improving the standards of living.

– Christine Leung
Photo: Flickr

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The Importance of Treating Obstetric Fistula in Developing Countries

treating obstetric fistula
Obstetric fistula is a condition in which there is an abnormal opening in a woman’s birth canal due to prolonged, obstructed labor. When left untreated, obstetric fistula leads to skin infections, kidney disorders, incontinence and death of the child, and is responsible for around 6 percent of all maternal deaths.

This ailment is highly preventable and treatable, yet there are an estimated two million women living with it untreated in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. An additional 50,000 to 100,000 women are diagnosed each year. These women are predominately underprivileged, poor and young.

Operation Fistula Raises Awareness of the Necessity of Treating Obstetric Fistula

Operation Fistula is one of the few organizations that has collected data on the condition. It has measured the burden on life that not treating obstetric fistula has had and compared that weight to that of other debilitating diseases. The organization found that living with obstetric fistula is ranked just below terminal cancer.

In developed countries, obstetric fistula is practically non-existent because women have access to the education and medical services that assure a healthy pregnancy. Unfortunately, these care services are not readily available to women in poverty-stricken areas.

Even with the establishment of care centers in the most prominently affected areas, the lack of attention that obstetric fistula receives is incredible. Because the condition is nearly unheard of in Europe and the U.S., there is limited global awareness and therefore very little capitalization. In fact, treating obstetric fistula receives less than1 percent of annual global health funding even though it is relatively inexpensive to care for.

Global Efforts Bring Treatments to Women in Need

To counter the mass neglect, Operation Fistula works to provide women with timely and high-quality treatment. It also plans to eliminate fistula altogether by 2045. The organization’s approach is data-centric and focuses on performance-based funding to surgeons who have successfully treated patients. This simple solution yielded four times the target amount of patient treatments between 2012 and 2014.

In addition, USAID’s Health Service Delivery project is working to make the proper medical services available by establishing treatment centers at multiple hospitals in Guinea, where obstetric fistula is extremely prevalent. The treatment centers allow women to undergo the reconstructive surgeries necessary for recovery.

Operation Fistula’s most recent effort in continuing its 2045 eradication plan is working with the government of Madagascar and the United Nations Population Fund to wipe out fistula in every region of the country.

Operation Fistula concentrates on the patient first and foremost. With its performance-based funding, Operation Fistula makes sure that each patient gets the best possible treatment rather than focusing solely on the number of patients treated. Through their endeavors, every woman that Operation Fistula has treated so far has gained back, on average, almost 11 years of healthy life.

While advancements in the global treatment of women with obstetric fistula have been made, there is still a need for prevention. Health professionals in affected areas are being trained continuously and efficiently in order to prevent and manage obstetric fistula, but the most basic method of prevention is through awareness.

– Samantha Harward
Photo: Flickr

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10 Facts About Poverty in Italy That Everyone Should Know

Facts About Poverty in Italy

In 2017 the number of individuals in Italy living in “absolute poverty” rose to 5.1 million people, or 8.4 percent of Italy’s population. That number is up from the 7.9 percent reported back in 2016. Absolute poverty refers to a condition where a person does not have the minimum amount of income needed to meet the minimum requirements for one or more basic living needs over an extended period of time. With such a great amount of people unable to support themselves on a day to day basis and the overall region experiencing a rise in poverty levels each year, it is time to take another look at the facts about poverty in Italy.

10 Facts About Poverty in Italy

  1. Poverty is a threat in southern Italy. Southern Italy’s economy has grown slowly compared to northern Italy and its economy contracted by 13 percent from 2008 to 2013, almost twice as fast as the North’s at seven percent. Between 2007 and 2014, 70 percent of people in Italy who were in poverty were from southern Italy. The threat of poverty has caused some individuals to join the mafia in order to escaped the harshness of absolute poverty. Today, 47 percent of people still live at risk of poverty in southern Italy.
  2. The average household income in Italy rose in 2015, around €2,500 per month, but this was heavily concentrated in the richest fifth of Italy’s population. Think tank Censis reported that more than 87 percent of working-class Italians say it is difficult to climb the social scale, along with 83 percent of the middle class and 71 percent of the affluent.
  3. Italy’s debt is one of the worst in the E.U., with a national debt of $2.6 trillion, roughly 120 percent of its GDP. The debt was not as bad in the 1990s due to smart budgeting tactics, but after the global recession hit, the debt crisis began. Italy may not be able to sell its new debt to cover its old debt, indicating why these facts about poverty in Italy are so important to understand.
  4. Corruption within Italy has halted economic growth. More than 15 percent of Italy’s economy occurs on the black market and other underground avenues. With a past filled with tax evasion charges among others, Italy has seen its good government standing decrease over the years. Bad government leads to bad decision making which ultimately leads to the downfall of a good economic plan.
  5. Minors also face the brunt of poverty. In 2017, 1.208 million minors were living in absolute poverty. Children growing up in poverty leads to many problems down the road. Many may drop out of school to support their families or find other methods to garner a decent living. Italy’s poverty problem is so deep that not even children can escape it.
  6. With the establishment of new leadership in government, Italy is looking at a hopeful start to fixing its economy. Italy’s GDP rose 1.5 percent last year, the highest since 2010. While growth has been slow, the government is now actively trying to combat poverty.
  7. Recently the Italian government passed a bill that allocates €1.6 billion to help families in need as well as minors in need. The bill focuses on tackling poverty through welfare packages and anything else that can help people get by.
  8. The proposed bill gives families in need up to €400 each month. The estimate is that around 400,000 families will benefit from this new bill. The country’s Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti stated that the bill “fills a long-standing gap in the Italian system of protecting individuals on a low income, and is the sign of a new approach to social policy.”
  9. The grand plan to end poverty in Italy centers around the idea of social development, or establishing the means in which the foundation of Italy is secure and no one is at risk of being in poverty. Social development has been what the U.N. has cited as the most efficient way of reducing poverty.
  10. Italy looks to improve its economy each year at around one percent and continues to be optimistic about its chances of reducing poverty. Job growth is the priority of the current government and many steps are being made to accomplish that goal.

While Italy has one of the worst economies in the E.U., the nation is working to improve its conditions. These 10 facts about poverty in Italy demonstrate both the breadth and depth of the problem as well as the steps the country is taking to resolve its issues.

– Michael Huang
Photo: Flickr

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10 Little-Known Facts About Poverty in Sierra Leone

Facts About Poverty in Sierra Leone

The nation of Sierra Leone is located on the western coast of Africa with a population of approximately 7,076,641. Since gaining independence from the British Empire on April 27, 1961, Sierra Leone has faced serious challenges in the social, economic and political spheres. Stemming from these challenges, the following are 10 facts about poverty in Sierra Leone.

10 Facts About Poverty in Sierra Leone

  1. In Sierra Leone, the life expectancy is 39 years for men and 42 for women. These premature deaths are due to limited access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and hygiene and food insecurity. Malnutrition also remains an important contributor to infant morbidity and mortality with 34.1 percent of children under the age of five stunted and 18.7 percent underweight due to food insecurity.
  2. Sierra Leone has a Gender Inequality Index value of 0.662, ranking it 137 out of 146 countries in 2011. Significant gender-based inequality exists in all aspects of life including reproductive health, emotional empowerment, economic activity and governmental representation. Only 9.5 percent of adult women reach secondary or higher level education compared to 20 percent of their male counterparts.

    In 2007, the government introduced three gender laws aimed at reducing gender inequality. These acts show progress but enacting and implementing practices of gender equality remain minimal. The president has also given his support to the national campaign for a minimum quota of 30 percent of women in political decision making positions, but the number remains low at only 13.2 percent.
  3. Around 70 percent of youth are unemployed or underemployed. The youth population, aged 15 to 35, makes up one-third of the population of Sierra Leone. This challenge was a major root cause of the outbreak of civil conflict within Sierra Leone. One of the leading reasons for these high rates of unemployment is the persistence of illiteracy and the lack of formal education to provide skills to compete for the limited jobs available.
  4. Approximately 60 percent of Sierra Leoneans live below the national poverty line. Remaining among the world’s poorest nations, ranking 180 out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index, more than 60 percent of Sierra Leoneans live on less than $1.25 a day.
  5. Sierra Leone has one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates, at an estimated 1,165 deaths per 100,000. According to a report released by the country’s Ministry of Health and Sanitation with support from partners, the main causes of maternal deaths were largely bleeding, pregnancy-induced hypertension, infection and unsafe abortions. Almost 20 percent of maternal deaths were among teenagers 15 to 19 years of age.
  6. Sierra Leone holds only a 41 percent adult literacy rate. Many of the schools in Sierra Leone were built shortly after gaining independence and have had little expansion since, leading to inadequate facilities. Government funding for education is extremely limited, making improvements difficult. A lack of education not only diminishes the availability of contemporarily trained skilled laborers and professionals but also negatively affects the agriculture industry where poor farming practices compound with climate change in a cycle of degradation.
  7. Sierra Leone was ravaged from 1991 to 2002 by civil war. Civil war erupted in 1991 after a rebel group called the Revolutionary United Front attempted to overthrow the country’s Joseph Momoh Government. The war lasted until 2002, by which time over 50,000 people had died and over two million had been displaced.But, even in the face of these 10 facts about poverty in Sierra Leone, peace has been fostered within the nation. Since the enactment of a U.N. Peacekeeping intervention on January 18, 2002, Sierra Leone remains firmly on the path toward further consolidation of peace, democracy and long-term sustainable development.
  8. Sierra Leone remains heavily dependent on foreign aid. Although positive economic growth has steadily occurred over the past decade since the end of the civil war, Sierra Leone continues to rely on foreign aid. About 50 percent of public investment programs are financed by external resources.
  9. Recovery and development are being threatened by climate change. Employment in agriculture remains the backbone for citizens’ income in Sierra Leone. Climate change leads to low yields of critical crops and a potential annual loss of between $600 million and $1.1 billion in crop revenues by the end of the century. Resources such as water, soil and forests are being threatened by the ever-growing population, increasing energy consumption, mining activities, the pollution of rivers and massive deforestation related to agricultural practices.
  10. A largely unchanged economic structure with low levels of productivity and major reliance on agriculture hold back further economic recovery. Agriculture provides employment for about 75 percent of the rapidly growing population, but its continuation is threatened by unproductive farming techniques and climate degradation. The country’s infrastructure remains poorly maintained and because of business climate shortcomings stemming from economic instability, there is only a small private sector to spur further economic growth.

These 10 facts about poverty in Sierra Leone are far from the whole story. The country has made tremendous strides since the cessation of conflict to establish stable governance and to facilitate peace and security. Sierra Leone should be cited as a success story in peacebuilding.

– Carolina Sherwood Bigelow
Photo: Flickr

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10 Shocking Facts About Child Poverty in Thailand

child poverty in ThailandOver the last several years, Thailand has made impressive progress in reducing poverty. It has gone down from 67 percent in 1986 to only 7.2 percent in 2015. While there has been considerable progress made, poverty is still a major problem in Thailand, especially among children. The following are 10 important facts about child poverty in Thailand.

10 Facts About Child Poverty in Thailand

  1. It is estimated that about one million children in Thailand are living in vulnerable conditions. Child poverty in Thailand is a serious issue. These vulnerable individuals include children that live in poverty, have lost their parents, have a disability or have been forced to live on the streets.
  2. Child labor has long been a problem. It is estimated that more than eight percent of children between ages five and 14 are involved in the workforce. Impoverished children have no option but to enter into factory work, fishery work, construction or agriculture. Young children are also often forced into the commercial sex industry. Riley Winter, a student who recently traveled to Thailand, told The Borgen Project she witnessed children were giving tourists foot massages for just a small amount of money.
  3. Around 380,000 children have been left as orphans by the AIDS epidemic. This greatly affects child poverty in Thailand; many of these children are forced to live on the streets or enter the workforce because they have no one to care for them. It is also estimated that 200 to 300 children will be born HIV-positive each year.
  4. Poor children in Thailand do not have full access to medical care. Out of the 20,000 children are affected by HIV/AIDS, only 1,000 of them have access to medical care.
  5. Children are being exploited. Thailand has become wealthier and, consequently, trafficking networks have been expanding to poorer and isolated children in the country. Child poverty in Thailand has led these children to enter commercial sexual exploitation.
  6. Child poverty in Thailand makes it difficult for poorer children to remain in school. They do not have access to the necessary tools to succeed and remain in school so they are often forced to drop out. The wealthiest group has 81.6 percent of children of primary school age enter grade one while only 65.3 percent of the poorest group enter grade one.
  7. Arranged marriages are very prevalent in Thailand today. A man from a wealthy family is often chosen because the dowry system is still utilized in Thailand. The wealthy man will give the bride’s parents money in exchange for her hand in marriage. This happens in poor communities in Thailand very often, taking away the possibility for the impoverished girl to receive future education, among other things.
  8. Children are being forced to live on the streets due to things like violence, abuse and poverty. These children often beg or sell small goods for just a bit of money each day. They are at risk of poor health and lack of nutrition.
  9. Children are being left in rural communities. Thailand’s economy has been moving away from the agricultural sector and more money can be made in urban areas. Parents are forced to go to work in bigger cities like Bangkok, and children are often left in the care of someone else in rural villages.Parents send money back to their family but children often only get to see their parents one to two times a year. Although the parents are making more money, leaving their children comes with a risk. Children left in these rural communities are at risk of malnutrition and developmental and behavioral issues.
  10. Since the 1990s, child poverty in Thailand has been rapidly improving. The number of child deaths has decreased, literacy rates have dramatically increased, fewer children are malnourished and there are more children in school and less in the workforce.

There have been countless efforts made in Thailand to address child poverty but there is still a lot of work to be done. The nation has set long-term economic goals to be reached by 2036. These goals address economic stability, human capital and equal economic opportunities. These goals will be crucial going forward to help fight child poverty in Thailand.

– Ronni Winter
Photo: Flickr

Working to Solve the Housing Crisis in Egypt

Housing Crisis in Egypt
Poverty takes on many forms, but in Egypt, housing is the epitome of substandard living conditions. Dismal mud brick squatter houses with no windows, no doors, no proper roofing and no protection from the environment’s weather and creatures, are the homes to more than 20 million Egyptians.

Although a vital aspect of wellbeing, housing is one the most neglected segments of Egyptian society and, being present for over 7 decades now, the housing crisis in Egypt is one of the leading issues in its country today.

The Root of Informal Housing

Needless to say, no one would live in this setting by choice. However, many Egyptians are under the crippling circumstances of housing production shortcomings accompanied by falling income and rising costs for adequate housing.

In other words, with less housing for a growing low-income population, poor families have nowhere else to turn; instead, they build their own squatter homes absent of essential qualities of safety and sanitation.

The Necessary Action

According to the Egyptian housing ministry, 2.5 million homes need to be built within a 5-year timeline to catch up with its population growth, make up for its backlog of 3 million homes and ultimately, combat the housing crisis in Egypt. Moreover, international investors are concerned with Egypt’s lack of long-term clarity.

Egypt’s government intervenes in housing projects and subjects development plans to their unforeseen policy swings. Therefore, stability both in the market and political atmosphere of Egypt are prerequisites to attracting much needed foreign investments.

The Arabtec Attempt

From 2014 to mid-2015, the Egyptian government and Arabtec, a construction services provider from the United Arab Emirates, underwent a $40 billion deal to produce a million low-cost homes, ideally relieving the housing crisis in Egypt.

The deal fell through after the Egyptian government went against previous land price agreements by demanding more from Arabtec than it could match. Arabtec could not accept this higher price, especially for the building of low-cost homes rather than the more profitable courses of middle to high-income residential projects.

Potential Solutions

Egypt can implement the public-private partnership practice in which the government and a private sector entity reach an agreement to co-develop housing projects with incentives attracting both parties. Land prices can also be deflated to combat current inflated prices and consequently, prevent gridlock or fallouts in large-scale housing developments with foreign investors.

Finally, once development ventures are undergone, other infrastructural facets must be included — such as roads, utilities and transportation — to avoid more disconnected squatter communities from forming and expanding.

The Future

Although Egypt is in the midst of a housing crisis that has fueled the fire of poverty and substandard living conditions, all efforts are focused on extinguishing such strife-ridden issues. In fact, the government formally stated that its central aim is to tackle the prevailing housing issue after the Egypt Economic Development Conference.

Beginning in 2018, it has been reported that 150,000 low-income homes have been built and 260,000 are currently being constructed. Other housing projects are also in execution, and roads have been installed in desolate areas to promote further development.

Egypt, with the rest of the world, awaits the day that it finally climbs out of its poverty-stricken state. In the meantime, all hands are on deck to resolve the housing crisis in Egypt and provide a more prosperous future.

– Roberto Carlos Ventura
Photo: Flickr

International Book Donation Programs Everyone Should Know

International Book Donation Programs
A new book can mean everything. It can transport you to a new world, untouched by your reality; it can comfort you; it can teach you. From novels to textbooks, international book donation programs help to shape our world and educate those who its words touch.

International Book Donation Programs

International book donation programs are a beautiful thing. They are run by some of the most powerful organizations in the world, for example the World Bank, or by grassroots movements. According to the World Bank, the world literacy rate is at 86 percent, the highest it has ever been. This means it is the best time to donate books and that every book donated can make a significant impact.

Over 30 years ago, the World Bank started the International Book Bank (IBB). Its slogan, “Books save lives,” was once one of the world’s largest international book donation programs and supported smaller international book donation programs. Since its inception in 1987, the IBB has shipped over 30 million new books around the world.

Many of these books were donated by the publishers themselves and sent on to individual schools and charities to be utilized by local institutions. However, in 2016 the IBB had to change with the world. According to their website, the spread of terrorism in many of their areas of operation, coupled with rising shipping cost and publishers moving to electronic texts, meant a strategy restructure.

International Book Bank and The International Book Project

Instead of en-mass shipping, the IBB shifted its focus to smaller and more precise projects, such as Liberia 20/20. Liberia 20/20 was started in mid-2016 and is intended to strengthen the Liberian education and library system through modern times. The IBB helps to develop electronic indigenous material for children and young adults and encourage indigenous authors to share their work by teaching them about property rights and translation. 

In Kentucky, there exists a grassroots, NGO international book donation program called The International Book Project (IBP). The IBP was founded in 1966 by Harriet Van Meter and since its inception, the IBP has sent over 6 million books worldwide. By sending books around the world, the IBP sees its efforts as a way to teach Americans about their world neighbors.

With a valid mailing address, a single person or organization can have anywhere from a 100 books in separate boxes or an entire shipping container with 10,000 to 40,000 books. The IBP provides books from all different genres and types, and works closely with Habitat for Humanity and Kentucky Refugee Ministries. The Kentucky Refugee Ministries is an organization which provides assistance to refugees resettling in the United States.

Books for Africa and E-Readers

One of the largest international book donation programs in the world, and the largest one dedicated to the African continent, is Books For Africa. Over 41 million books have been shipped by Books for Africa. According to their website, they have donated three million books and 93 computers and e-readers in the last year.

Utilizing computers for reading is a practice quickly growing and vastly important. Not only are publishers focusing more and more on electronic text, but computer programs and games are also being used to learn to read. Although the feeling of a book in your hand cannot be replicated, research becomes much easier when one deals with large texts on a computer rather than in sixteen pounds of books. This reality is why many of these computers and e-readers came with books already installed.

A Book or Two

The World Bank completed many studies since the mid-1980s in African countries, and findings showed that each time students received donated books, they had a higher chance to retain what they learn and retain fluency in the language. The good news is that these are not the only programs donating and shipping books.

It is easy to donate a book or two yourself to one of these charities. The University of Buffalo has an easily navigable list of international book donation programs for you to choose from. So as you read this and think about all those extra books stuffed in your basement, remember they have the potential to do better elsewhere.

– Nick DeMarco
Photo: Flickr

10 Poorest Countries in the World By GDP Per Capita

Poorest Countries in the World
The poorest countries in the world are places where the GDP per capita (meaning GDP divided by the number of people in a country) is the lowest. GDP per capita is a better measure than GDP, because GDP does not account for each individual in a country; rather, GDP accounts for a country as a whole. GDP per capita creates a better image of what each individual in a given country is worth.

There are three reputable institutions that measure GDP per capita: The International Monetary Fund, The Central Intelligence Agency and The World Bank. The conclusions these organizations find are similar. A deviation that exists is which one takes Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) into account, as this is a measure of GDP per capita that takes costs of living and inflation rates into consideration.

The CIA list is going to be the most accurate, as it includes the highest number of known countries out of the three, whilst taking into consideration GDP per capita influenced by PPP. All of the estimates of GDP per capita influenced by PPP are as of 2017.

10: South Sudan (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1500)

Since the creation of South Sudan, a Central-Eastern landlocked country,  in 2011, its GDP per capita has been on a non-linear decline. What largely accounts for this trend is an ongoing civil war which started in 2013.

As a result of this civil war, millions have been declared displaced and as refugees, and famine has ravished several parts of the country. Also, on top of this, both sides of the civil war have both committed a wide range of human rights violations on the citizens of South Sudan.

The conditions of civil war set the stage for poverty. Eighty percent of people living in Sudan are defined as “income poor” and live on less than $1 a day. Eighty-five percent of the population is engaged in non-wage work and one third of the population does not have access to a secure amount of food.

9: Eritrea (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1400)

Eritrea is a very small country in Africa. Despite being the 9th poorest country in the world, the nation has made vast improvements. GDP per capita in 1992 was under $800, and is now $1400. This is still a staggeringly low GDP per capita for a country that has a population of a little over 5 million people.

The cause of such severe poverty is multifaceted. Environmentally, Eritrea has always faced droughts, and with 80 percent of the population engaged in subsistence agriculture, this makes for very low productivity of food for 80 percent of the people living in Eritrea. There is also a general lack of financial resources in Eritrea, thus leading to a lack of large private enterprises and a very low industrial production growth rate of 5.4 percent.

The government of Eritrea is very unhelpful here, too, as they have been preoccupied with military spending and attempting to figure out how to obtain a coherent policy of a national hard currency.  

8: Mozambique (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1,250)

The South-Eastern African Country Mozambique has always had a low GDP per capita. Even when it gained independence in 1975, the nation was considered one of the world’s poorest countries. Since its independence, socialist policies and general economic mismanagement have further impoverished the country. Nearly 50 percent of Mozambique’s population lives in poverty.

This has been exacerbated by lack of effort and results in poverty reduction, and slow economic growth of which does not benefit all Mozambique citizens equally, keeping the poor, poor. Potential for improvement in Mozambique is in agriculture, as most of Mozambique’s population works in this field. Also, innovations in tech and other lacking inputs would greatly benefit these workers.

7: Niger (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1,200)

Forty percent of what constitutes Niger’s GDP is agriculture. Agriculture also provides 80 percent of Niger’s population livelihood. Like all of the countries on this list, Niger’s poverty is accounted for by various factors: increase in population, lack of food security and low levels of educational quality.

Another large sector of Niger’s economy is uranium. This sector has been interrupted in recent years by terrorist activity that has also increased Niger’s government expenditure on security. These issues increased Niger’s reliance on foreign aid as a result.

It is also the case that families in Niger are large (6 per household on average), so what constitutes 80 percent of the livelihood of Niger across generations must be distributed between more and more people. The GDP per capita in Niger is on the rise, but ongoing conflict and rapid population growth makes the economic situation in Niger a difficult hurdle to overcome.

6: Malawi (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1,168)

Malawi is a landlocked African country that depends heavily on external donors for subpar economic stability. In fact, GDP per capita growth has decreased in Malawi since 1961. Given that Malawi’s domestic economy is dependent upon primarily rain-requiring agricultural, and the geography of Malawi is prone to droughts this makes sense.

Climate change and growing population rates threaten to exacerbate this problem which has caused an increase in food shortages in recent years. However, government corruption is incredibly common in Malawi, which has very frequently led donors to withdraw funds. Amidst the turmoil, child and maternal health have made large strides in improvement. This is due to increases in prenatal care, vaccinations and skilled birth assistance.

5: Somalia (GDP Per Capita + PPP = Unknown)

Somalia is in the middle of this list because the data on their economy is very vague. The GDP per capita is $500 without PPP according to the World Bank. What is known about Somalia is that there is a perverse lack of educational opportunities (less than half of Somali children are in school) and job opportunities (paired with strict-conservative religious influence in Somali culture inclines younger people to turn to extremist groups).

With a rapidly growing population, improvements in recent years are mainly in infrastructure — something which Somalia lacked prior to the 1991 collapse of central authority. Such improvements are peculiar to Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, an indication that rural areas are still in need of improvement.

4: Liberia (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $900)

A large role in how Liberia became such a poor country has been civil war and economic mismanagement by the Liberian government. Post-civil war Liberia (2010-13) seemed to be making an economic comeback, until the 2014 Ebola outbreak which put Liberia back several years. Export prices have yet to return to pre-ebola levels.

Liberia suffers from one of the world’s worst maternal mortality rates (7th in the world) and female death rates are amongst the highest in the world due to a high frequency of female genital mutilation (this effects two-thirds of Liberian women/girls.) According to CIA data, “Significant progress has been made in preventing child deaths, despite a lack of health care workers and infrastructure. Infant and child mortality have dropped nearly 70 percent since 1990; the annual reduction rate of about 5.4 percent is the highest in Africa.”  

3: Democratic Republic of The Congo (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $800)

The Congo’s ongoing conflict makes ongoing economic instability inevitable. Such conflict has decreased output, increased conflict expenditure, increased external debt and has left the inhabitants of the Congo in very poor conditions. Such conditions include chronic food/resource mismanagement, chronic malnourishment, low rates of vaccinations, low availability of adequate drinking water, and very low quality public services (education, police etc.).

It is difficult to measure how improvements are occuring due to obscure data which is accounted for the majority of the DPC’s economy occurring outside of formal/traditional economic sectors (black markets).

2: Burundi (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $770)

In the past 27 years, the GDP per capita in Burundi has changed very little. Burundi, a landlocked African nation, has very little in terms of quality natural resources and manufacturing. Ninety percent of its population is in agriculture, which makes up 40 percent of its GDP.  

Almost half of Burundi’s income is derived from foreign aid and the majority of the rest is dependent upon coffee and tea exports. Production of these goods relies on weather and global coffee and tea prices, which are not constant variables.

Burundi suffers from massive food shortages and lack of clean water, which has resulted in a 60 percent child malnutrition rate. The government has established Vision 2025 in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme and the African Future Institute as it seeks to reduce poverty to 33 percent by 2025.

1: Central African Republic (GDP Per Capita + PPP =$700)

Conflict has caused international donors to withdraw financial support of the Central African Republic (CAR). Ongoing humanitarian crises have created “CAR’s high mortality rate and low life expectancy, elevated rates of preventable and treatable diseases (including malaria and malnutrition), an inadequate health care system, precarious food security, and armed conflict.”

Schools are closed. There is also an ongoing refugee crisis inside and out (mostly to Chad) due to the ongoing conflict which started in the 2012 coup. CAR has one of the most unequal wealth distributions in the world on top of a lacking economy. This is due to various geographical and agricultural reasons, poor economic management, an unskilled workforc  and a poor transportation system that hinders trade.

Aid For The Poorest Countries in the World

Some of the conflict is also over “blood” diamonds. Efforts are being made to make said diamonds no longer of value, by lifting bans on their exports, as a means to reduce conflict and ultimately reduce poverty, by increasing government revenue.

It is clear that all of the poorest countries in the world list are in dire need of help, especially from the international community. Budget cuts threaten current national levels of foreign aid, and this is why supporting efforts like The Borgen Project is important. This organization amongst others actively opposes such budget cuts by calling, emailing and lobbying congress to oppose them. With support like this, powerful change can happen in the ten poorest countries in the world.

– Daniel Lehewych
Photo: Flickr