May 28 marked the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). With its independence in 1918, the country was poised for great progress, which included female suffrage and its democratic government.
The ADR was short-lived, however. In 1920 Azerbaijan became part of the Soviet Union and would not regain independence until the Soviet Union’s fall. Since its independence, Azerbaijan has faced an often difficult history, struggling with human rights and war with neighboring Armenia.
Human Rights
While Azerbaijan may not frequently be the focus of attention in the media, often the media misrepresents Azerbaijan by strictly focusing on its human rights record. In addition to discrimination of the Talysh and Armenian ethnic minorities, Azerbaijan has been known for suppressing the media and persecuting journalists and bloggers.
Yet, this depiction of Azerbaijan as a country with a poor track record for allowing free speech and media access is not unwarranted. With news outlets, including The Guardian as well as human rights advocacy groups, are barred from entering the country, the current Azerbaijani regime is made ripe for international criticism. The groups and people targeted—namely journalists and human rights activists—are the very people who report the country’s reputation.
Thus, beneath the excitement of the 100th anniversary, people, including Rep. Chris Smith, have been keen to remind the world of Azerbaijan’s tricky situation. In an article for The Hill, Smith called the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, a “dictator” and argues that its citizens are not members of a free society. Smith specifically points to Aliyev’s lengthy tenure as president, from 2003 to 2025, and cited concerns with the lack of power in Azerbaijan’s other governmental institutions.
Poverty in a Wealthy Nation
Serving to reinforce the already abundant human rights issues and an overly powerful president, the country, while wealthy from its oil reserves, is mired by issues with corruption and poverty. Thus, Azerbaijan occupies the public’s consciousness in almost contradictory extremes – it’s a country of wealth, yet one with the majority of its population living in poverty.
The depiction of Azerbaijan as a hub of human rights violations, and as a place oscillating between extreme poverty and excess, does, perhaps, ignore the movement to the future. This is how the media misrepresents Azerbaijan—it focuses on Azerbaijan’s economic and political issues, without addressing the hope and shifting dynamics within the country.
The Future
The rhetoric of Azerbaijan surrounding the 100th anniversary is decidedly not pessimistic. Looking backward one century provides the chance to look forward as well as to move in the direction of that early progress that defined the country in 1918. A statement from the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses an intent and desire to bring “into the reality the aspirations and ideals” of the ADR.
With trade between Azerbaijan and other European markets increasing over the last few years, the progressive aims expressed on the 100th anniversary may soon be on the horizon and may, one day, be a reality. And, with the European Union and the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) continued support of education, through the EU’s “Modernising Vocational Education and Training (VET) Centres in Azerbaijan” plan, an emphasis is placed on transitioning Azerbaijan into a knowledge-based economy, thus pushing the country further into the future.
Of course one must not forget—surrounding the 100th anniversary of the ADR—writers, like the aforementioned Rep. Smith, have noted that expressing the optimism and excitement surrounding the country is, itself, how the media misrepresents Azerbaijan. A full view of the country, therefore, takes into account both the hope for the future as well as the current skepticism.
It might be the case that Azerbaijan actually isn’t misrepresented in the media, at least not now. The country does have human rights violations, its citizens do suffer from poverty and questions surrounding the efficacy of the government should be raised. Yet, with the shifting conditions in the country, this representation may be how the media misrepresents Azerbaijan in the future.
-William Wilcox
Photo: Flickr
Fish and Freedom: Saving Coral Reefs to Reduce Poverty
Coral reefs cover only 0.1 percent of Earth’s surface but sustain around 1 billion people worldwide and 25 percent of all marine life. This impact alone is a major factor as to why saving coral reefs is an imperative mission, according to the United Nations Environment Program. Coral reefs protect coastlines from the damaging effects of wave action and tropical storms particularly in the Philippines, the Caribbean and Australia.
In addition, coral reefs also provide habitats for marine organisms, help with nutrient recycling and create a healthier environment to breathe in and do agriculture. They also provide environmentally-friendly fishing for human consumption while increasing marine job opportunities and tourism. For example, Fiji relies on the Great Sea Reef, the third largest in the world, for all of its food security and income for a population with over 250,000 people living on the poverty line.
Yet, the United Nations has reported that 70 percent of Earth’s coral reefs are threatened — 20 percent are already destroyed, 24 percent are at high risk of collapse and an additional 26 percent are at risk due to long-term threats. Acts such as coral bleaching, sale of live coral, plastic and chemical pollution and unregulated water activities and fishing contribute to dramatic reef loss. Coral reefs are vital for the environment, food and income globally.
NGO and Government Initiatives
Greater levels of protection are implemented by governments and NGOs. The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has created a future protection plan that involves the need to reduce marine pollution, regulate the harvesting of fish and end overfishing, unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices to restore fish stocks. Proper fishing can even provide secure food aid based on fish and shellfish to hundreds of thousands of people living in poverty.
The International Coral Reef Initiative (ICRI) in conjunction with the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 created a document titled, “The Future We Want.” This proposal emphasizes the importance of economic relief for the poor living coastal to reefs. The document outlines economic means to build “green-economic” societies that do not harshly deteriorate coral reefs and educate the poor. The ICRI also places importance on aid and public-private business partnerships as essential to saving coral reefs and reducing poverty.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that widespread coral bleaching has reduced dramatically as of 2018. The non-profit, Coral Reef Alliance (CRI), has also provided reef community infrastructure projects and scholarships for reef education to students in Fiji since 2005.
CRI encouraged the Honduras government to declare two areas as Sites of Wildlife Importance: Cordelia Banks in Roatán and Tela Bay. This denotation offers a greater level of protection and regulation, reduces fishing pressure and enables coral reefs to thrive. In collaboration with the Puakō community and universities in Hawai’i, CRI conducted dye tracer studies to track the movement of wastewater to oceans in an effort for saving coral reefs.
How To Protect Coral Reefs
Coral reefs do not just rely on government and NGO projects for aid. The ICRI has declared 2018 the International Year of the Reef and has partnered with Green Fins and the Reef-World Foundation to make sustainable diving practices the norm. The following list denotes five ways to protect coral reefs.
Saving coral reefs prevents poverty traps from occurring. A poverty trap is a situation where poor communities are forced to degrade resources of coral reefs in order to make ends meet. In Madagascar and Papua New Guinea, the populations living in poverty rely on government protection of coral reefs for food to prevent a poverty trap. With the right environmental, economic and social initiatives, reefs can be sustained to save marine life and the world’s poor.
– Areina Ismail
Photo: Flickr
Addressing Food and Water Shortages in the Dominican Republic
Natural Disasters Bring Food and Water Shortages
Between 1980 and 2008, 40 natural disasters have affected 2.65 million people in the Dominican Republic, according to the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery.
Hurricane season for the Caribbean Islands lasts from June to November, according to the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. Hurricanes bring heavy rains and high winds that can cause damage to infrastructure and crops. Flash floods and landslides are common aftereffects of these destructive storms.
Because agricultural jobs employ more than a fifth of the citizens in the Dominican Republic, the devastation of crops due to natural disasters not only destroys food for people to eat but also causes a loss of jobs. One of their most valuable crops, sugarcane, is the most affected by natural disasters, according to The World Bank.
Hurricanes and other tropical storms can also destroy pipes and sewage systems, leaving behind water polluted by fecal matter, which is where cholera thrives. The CDC defines cholera as an infectious bacterial disease that is contracted from drinking contaminated water. Side effects of this disease are vomiting, diarrhea and possible death. As of June 18, there have already been 56 confirmed deaths from cholera in the Dominican Republic this year.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, prolonged droughts are also frequent hazards that can cause food and water shortages in the Dominican Republic. UNICEF warns that droughts make finding clean water difficult and could potentially lead to malnutrition.
What is SERV International doing to help?
SERV International is a Christian-based organization that sends missionaries to deliver food and clean water to underdeveloped countries all over the world.
Katie Kasha, who is the daughter of the founder and CEO of SERV, talked to The Borgen Project about her experiences in the Dominican Republic in 2014 and 2015 after Hurricane Sandy had hit the previous year. “It all starts with food,” Kasha said. “As a result of going into communities and giving food, we have been able to build relationships and invest into those communities by planting wells and churches.”
Kasha and the rest of the SERV team have brought food to a small village called San Jose as well as a few other small sugarcane villages. Kasha described the food as a dehydrated blend of lentils, soy protein, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables.
Rachel Chapman, a sophomore at Brenau University, accompanied Kasha and the other missionaries on both trips in order to address the food and water shortages in the Dominican Republic. “When we got to the village the thing that was very interesting to me was that the people there were afraid of the rain and rainwater because of the storms they had experienced,” Chapman said. “I found it really ironic that water…the one thing needed to survive was the thing they were most scared of.”
“The villagers drank from a stone trough about 8 foot long and 4 foot deep,” according to Chapman. “There was a nasty lime green film covering the water and when you looked into the trough you could see the growth in the walls.” SERV brought water filters in hopes of providing the villagers with clean water. Chapman added that one water filter will last a family in the Dominican Republic for five years.
Kasha and Chapman will both return to the Dominican Republic in the future to continue giving out food to families and treating filthy water for those that have been affected by destructive natural disasters.
– McKenzie Hamby
Photo: Flickr
How the Media Misrepresents Azerbaijan
May 28 marked the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). With its independence in 1918, the country was poised for great progress, which included female suffrage and its democratic government.
The ADR was short-lived, however. In 1920 Azerbaijan became part of the Soviet Union and would not regain independence until the Soviet Union’s fall. Since its independence, Azerbaijan has faced an often difficult history, struggling with human rights and war with neighboring Armenia.
Human Rights
While Azerbaijan may not frequently be the focus of attention in the media, often the media misrepresents Azerbaijan by strictly focusing on its human rights record. In addition to discrimination of the Talysh and Armenian ethnic minorities, Azerbaijan has been known for suppressing the media and persecuting journalists and bloggers.
Yet, this depiction of Azerbaijan as a country with a poor track record for allowing free speech and media access is not unwarranted. With news outlets, including The Guardian as well as human rights advocacy groups, are barred from entering the country, the current Azerbaijani regime is made ripe for international criticism. The groups and people targeted—namely journalists and human rights activists—are the very people who report the country’s reputation.
Thus, beneath the excitement of the 100th anniversary, people, including Rep. Chris Smith, have been keen to remind the world of Azerbaijan’s tricky situation. In an article for The Hill, Smith called the Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, a “dictator” and argues that its citizens are not members of a free society. Smith specifically points to Aliyev’s lengthy tenure as president, from 2003 to 2025, and cited concerns with the lack of power in Azerbaijan’s other governmental institutions.
Poverty in a Wealthy Nation
Serving to reinforce the already abundant human rights issues and an overly powerful president, the country, while wealthy from its oil reserves, is mired by issues with corruption and poverty. Thus, Azerbaijan occupies the public’s consciousness in almost contradictory extremes – it’s a country of wealth, yet one with the majority of its population living in poverty.
The depiction of Azerbaijan as a hub of human rights violations, and as a place oscillating between extreme poverty and excess, does, perhaps, ignore the movement to the future. This is how the media misrepresents Azerbaijan—it focuses on Azerbaijan’s economic and political issues, without addressing the hope and shifting dynamics within the country.
The Future
The rhetoric of Azerbaijan surrounding the 100th anniversary is decidedly not pessimistic. Looking backward one century provides the chance to look forward as well as to move in the direction of that early progress that defined the country in 1918. A statement from the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses an intent and desire to bring “into the reality the aspirations and ideals” of the ADR.
With trade between Azerbaijan and other European markets increasing over the last few years, the progressive aims expressed on the 100th anniversary may soon be on the horizon and may, one day, be a reality. And, with the European Union and the UN Development Programme’s (UNDP’s) continued support of education, through the EU’s “Modernising Vocational Education and Training (VET) Centres in Azerbaijan” plan, an emphasis is placed on transitioning Azerbaijan into a knowledge-based economy, thus pushing the country further into the future.
Of course one must not forget—surrounding the 100th anniversary of the ADR—writers, like the aforementioned Rep. Smith, have noted that expressing the optimism and excitement surrounding the country is, itself, how the media misrepresents Azerbaijan. A full view of the country, therefore, takes into account both the hope for the future as well as the current skepticism.
It might be the case that Azerbaijan actually isn’t misrepresented in the media, at least not now. The country does have human rights violations, its citizens do suffer from poverty and questions surrounding the efficacy of the government should be raised. Yet, with the shifting conditions in the country, this representation may be how the media misrepresents Azerbaijan in the future.
-William Wilcox
Photo: Flickr
Menstrual Hygiene for Girls in Africa
Menstrual Hygiene Day
Menstrual Hygiene Day was founded by a German nonprofit called WASH United. The movement promotes advocacy for women’s reproductive health and urges political leaders to make it a priority. Advocacy efforts have ranged from individual voices to nonprofit organizations to government agencies. Participation has increased with every year. In 2016, 34 countries held 180 events, growing to 54 countries and 350 events in 2017. This year, 475 events were hosted in 70 countries.
U-Report Global, created by UNICEF, is a mobile platform that encourages youth to use social media to discuss issues relevant to their communities. The goal is to give kids the power to create social change and promote democracy among political leaders. Some countries have already seen the impact of U-Report’s polling system. In Liberia, 86 percent of U-Reporters said that “sex for grades” is a prevalent issue in their schools. Because of this, UNICEF staff met with the Minister of Education about how to address the problem.
Giving African Women a Voice
In alliance with U-Report’s mission, WAGGGS has used polls to give young women in Africa a voice. The results show that 59 percent of female respondents reported receiving an adequate amount menstrual education, 31 percent reported not having enough education, and 11 percent said they had received none. One in five girls had said the taboo subject of menstrual hygiene prevented them from seeking proper sanitary products. The polls also reported one in three respondents believing that menstruating women get unfair treatment. These results were used to encourage decision makers to offer more support to menstruating girls and encourage their school attendance.
Other groups like Speak Up Africa have contributed to the empowerment of young girls by providing menstrual education. They set up classes at the National Girls’ Camp in Sierra Leone, which dedicates itself to promoting a positive self-image and making smart decisions about reproductive health. First Lady H.E. Sia Nyama Koroma oversees this camp and other programs to benefit girls.
Respondents in Africa have told U-Report that girls should not feel ashamed of something that is normal. Many believe in the power of education to not only teach girls about menstrual health but let everyone know that it’s not dirty. Testimonies on WAGGGS show that the health of menstruating girls involves more than just teaching them how to use a pad; it’s about addressing gender inequality too.
– Sabrina Dubbert
Photo: Flickr
The Posner Center: Mobilizing Domestically
What is the Posner Center?
The Borgen Project conducted an interview with program director, Meg Sagaria-Barritt, about The Posner Center. When asked to give an overview of the organization, she informed that there are three main points of focus: “Convene, Connect, and Catalyze.” She then broke this down. “Convene means that we are Colorado’s home for international development. We have the membership of over 150 organizations that work in 100 different countries… 64 of these organizations are on-site tenants in our building.” She quickly interjected, “But we are much more than a building.” She then described what is meant by Connect, “We bring these organizations together to share their ideas. Their top executives get together to swap ideas and to improve their own organizations.” More than a building indeed, The Posner Center is an incubator for international development and collaboration. Lastly, Sagaria-Barritt explains what is meant by Catalyze, “This is the most important aspect of The Posner Center. Through Convening and Connecting, we create real change that is catalyzed right here at The Posner Center.” By mobilizing domestically, The Posner Center is bringing about change all over the world. For every staff member representing an organization in Denver, there are 37 more working internationally, 93 percent of these being native to the country in which they work.
Members Within The Posner Center
iDE is one of the organizations that holds a membership with The Posner Center. They operate on a broad spectrum, helping people from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and many more. Their main focus is on finding innovative technology that will improve the lives of the poor and destitute and then helping companies to market that technology. For instance, their WASH initiative has helped bring sanitation to thousands of homes around the world. But, the sanitation products are distributed at low cost without bankrupting the companies who produce them. The companies actually see profit from the endeavor, creating an ultimate win/win. This was one of the brilliant ideas catalyzed at The Posner Center.
On the opposite end of The Posner Center members is Starfish. Unlike iDE, they do not cover as broad a spectrum. There focus is solely in Guatemala where they invest in the lives of young girls who cannot afford education and training for employment advancement (if they are employed at all). They provide several kinds of educational programs from mentoring to university scholarships.
The Posner Center itself provides one more key function in the form of their International Collaboration Fund (ICF). The ICF offers grants to initiatives across the globe such as The Well-Siting Meter, to which they have allocated $10,000 for clean water in Cameroon and The United States. This is just one of many grants they have made, the rest of which you can find on their website where they have a transparent list of exactly where their funds are being allocated.
How To Get Involved?
Wondering how to get involved? First, The Posner Center is always taking on new tenants. Any organization that would like to take up residence and begin collaborating is welcome to apply. Secondly, The Posner Center has a newsletter, links for subscriptions can be found on the footer of their website. And lastly, visit their website and learn more about what they do. There are always ways to help out just by volunteering time.
The Posner Center is bringing people and development-oriented businesses together in Denver in order to bring about real-world change by mobilizing domestically. Its goal, according to The Nonprofit Centers Network, is to “spur innovation by enabling groups to cross-pollinate through the exchange of ideas, the overlap of programming, and the generation of more comprehensive and lasting solutions to global poverty.’”
– Zach Farrin
Photo: Flickr
Girls’ Education in Honduras
How Poverty Affects Girls’ Education in Honduras
These circumstances make it difficult for children, especially girls, to prioritize school. When families are struggling, it is hard for the child to choose to attend school rather than stay home and help. Girls are often expected to choose family life over schooling and stay home to run the house.
After children reach the sixth grade, most of them cannot afford to continue their education. For girls’ education in Honduras, the situation is even worse. One of their only options, after finishing sixth grade, is often marriage at the young age of twelve or thirteen. In Honduras, 34% of girls get married before the age of eighteen.
CARE Education
Thankfully, there are organizations like CARE Education that focus primarily on empowering young girls to pursue their education with rigor. Central to their initiative, CARE has established, along with several partnering organizations, The Power to Lead Alliance (PTLA), which provides girls with secure environments in which to learn and grow in. They also work to teach girls to cultivate leadership and assertiveness in the classroom in order to develop their confidence.
Girls’ education in Honduras has benefitted from this program where CARE has listed outreach to almost 2,400 girls. These leadership initiatives have contributed to a lower rate of dropouts among girls after primary school in Honduras.
The Benefits of Girls’ Education
There are countless benefits to educating girls not only in Honduras but in impoverished countries across the world. However, the gender gap that is prevalent in many third-world countries today is all the more reason for a focus on girls’ education in Honduras. A more educated girl grows up to be a more educated woman, which ultimately leads to a better informed and healthier community.
Girls are often not provided the same opportunity and encouragement throughout their lives that young boys are. A girl’s income throughout her life can be up to 20 percent higher as a result of having a primary education. This is a bigger increase than that of boys with the same level of education. The difference schooling can make in a young girl’s life is enormous because they are not allowed much freedom outside of education in impoverished countries.
Access to education does not only improve the individual girl’s life, it has the power to alleviate poverty and stimulate the economy in countries like Honduras. Education alone has been shown to lower fertility rates leading to less unwanted pregnancies and decreasing the rates of HIV/AIDS.
Girls’ education in Honduras has a long way to come, but the benefits of investing in a young girl’s future are far too important to overlook.
– Amelia Merchant
Photo: Flickr
Top 10 Facts About Poverty in Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso is a small sub-Saharan African country with a population of 18 million. Often described as one of the world’s poorest countries, the most recent reports estimate that roughly 40 percent of Burkinabè live below the poverty line. While this statistic can be staggering, it is important to take a closer look at the context in which this statistic is produced. In order to achieve this, The Borgen Project offers a list of the top 10 facts about poverty in Burkina Faso.
Top 10 Facts About Poverty in Burkina Faso
These top 10 facts about poverty in Burkina Faso reveal the progress being made to combat the country’s unacceptably high poverty rates as well as some important areas where the country must focus more on improvement. In order to accelerate the progress, those in a position to do so must deepen their investment in the poor. This investment would include education, access to basic utilities, improved agricultural technology and expansion in employment opportunities. Through a reinvigorated commitment, the staggering poverty rates in Burkina Faso could be minimized.
– Joanna Dooley
Photo: Flickr
10 Promising and Important Facts About Girls’ Education in China
10 Facts About Girls’ Education in China
As these facts about girls’ education in China demonstrate, it is a complex topic, but overall there have been massive improvements made in the system. This has led to a more prosperous female population in China and a more equal society for all.
– Amelia Merchant
Photo: Flickr
How Cuddle+Kind Feeds Children in Need & Empowers Women
A Global Need for Food
One in seven people worldwide are hungry, and one in nine do not have enough food to lead a healthy, active lifestyle. A reduced diet causes 45 percent of deaths in children under five, which adds up to 3.1 million children every year.
Cuddle+Kind, founded by Derek and Jennifer Woodgate, was created with the aim of reducing these numbers and feeding hungry children around the world. The couple was inspired by their three young children and how heartbroken they would be if they could not feed and provide for them. The Woodgates have a background in health, so they understood the important role that nutrition plays in a child’s life.
The couple spent a year establishing partnerships with artisans in Peru and designing the dolls. Dolls in all different types of animals are available, including dogs, foxes, cats and bunnies. Each comes with a unique name and personality. Cuddle+Kind officially launched in September 2015 on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo.com. In just seven weeks, the company sold enough dolls to donate 163,543 meals.
How Cuddle+Kind Feeds Children
Since its beginning, Cuddle+Kind has moved to its own website but maintains the same mission of providing ten meals for every doll sold. The company aims to provide one million meals to children in need every year. The meals are provided through several partnerships with nonprofits, including the World Food Program, the Children’s Hunger Fund, the Breakfast Club of Canada and several orphanages in Haiti. Through these organizations, Cuddle+Kind feeds children around the world and has donated more than 4,452,292 meals since 2015.
Proper nutrition leads to an increase in school attendance and improved educational performance. Girls have higher school attendance when food is not an issue. Additionally, a child’s psychosocial and emotional development has been linked to proper diet and eating habits. Children who are not fed regularly do not develop the same bonds with a caregiver that is typically established. When a family or community shares a meal there is a social component that a child is exposed to and learns from. As Cuddle+Kind feeds children, it provides them the ability to reach higher academically and grow to be stronger, more capable people.
Empowering Women in Peru
In addition to improving the lives of children, Cuddle+Kind empowers women in Peru by providing them sustainable, fair-trade income for creating the dolls they sell. The business has created over 500 jobs for Peruvian artisans, which is needed in a country where only 39.6 percent of women work in wage or salaried positions as compared to 50.1 percent of men.
Being a socially-minded organization, Cuddle+Kind feeds children with the motive of continually improving the world. As a business that works for the good of children in need and emboldens creative women, Cuddle+Kind is blazing a path of kindness and generosity that will have unending benefits for those they reach.
– Sarah Dean
Photo: Flickr
The State of International Food Insecurity
World hunger and food insecurity are on the rise. Food insecurity is defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) as “a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life” — the number of malnourished people grew from 777 million people to 815 million in 2016.
State of International Food Insecurity
The world population is projected to rise to around 10 billion people by 2050, and according to the U.N.’s “Sustainable Development Goal 2,” food production needs to grow by 50 percent for everyone to have enough food to survive on a day-to-day basis. It was estimated that global food insecurity had declined over the last decade — so why is it slowly growing now?
While food insecurity is a difficult and complex situation to solve, there are several factors that created the current state of hunger and malnutrition of society.
Why Has Global Food Insecurity Increased?
In 2017, there were a number of famine incidents that struck parts of South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen. Al Jazeera, a global news network that covers news in the Middle East, reported that nearly two million Nigerians have been displaced, and “Northeast Nigeria now faces one of the world’s worst food security crises, with around 3.8 million people who will face critical food insecurity and around 7.7 million in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance this year” due to Boko Haram attacks in the region. Violent conflicts around the world have also created a shortage in food production and availability for those hit hardest by food security issues.
The state of international food insecurity is not an optimistic one, but it does require action. Groups such as the United Nations World Food Programme and the Zero Hunger initiative fight to provide much-needed assistance to those living in the hardest-hit areas. Much of their work to help worldwide food security consists of coordinating efforts between governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), corporations and individuals.
Aid Organizations and Opportunities
On-the-ground groups such as the Lutheran World Relief focus on bringing water to communities while building cheap irrigation systems that provide water for crops and livestock. Another organization, the World Hunger Relief, Inc., focuses on teaching communities sustainable farming techniques and bringing vegetables to communities in food deserts. There is also work done out-of-country to help fight global hunger.
The Borgen Project works to influence policy in the U.S. so that aid can be given to those in need at a lower cost and quicker rate. The combination of overseas organizations and on-the-ground efforts has proved to be important in fighting hunger worldwide. But even if one doesn’t have time to join an organization to fight world hunger, there are many things every individual can do to help.
Some ways include: volunteering at food drives that aim to send food abroad or to communities in-need, donating to a local food bank, signing up to help sort food within food banks or food drives or writing to, emailing or calling elected officials to support food aid reform.
The Importance of Everyday Effort
The Borgen Project uses the latter strategy to facilitate policy changes over the years that make aid to foreign countries an easier task for the U.S. Even taking a few minutes out of a day to write an article or two about world hunger can raise awareness and help stop the tide of food insecurity.
All in all, today’s world has a growing population still facing the problem of global food insecurity. With the state of international food insecurity at risk, it is up to us as a society to step up and help others have a secure food source.
– Michael Huang
Photo: Flickr