Singapore is seldom thought of as a poor country since the nation ranks fourth in the richest countries in the world; however, the reality is that many Singaporeans live in poverty. For far too many people, poverty in Singapore is a fact of life.
The Top 10 Poverty in Singapore Facts:
1. Singaporeans have to live on $5 a day
Four-hundred thousand Singaporeans live on $5 a day. Singaporeans Against Poverty, the campaign whose concern is “for those in Singapore caught in the cycle of poverty despite our economic success,” began the $5 challenge, where people can pledge money and try to live on a $5 per day budget.
2. Some Singaporeans have no income
A survey from the Housing Development Board showed that one-third of Singaporeans living in one or two room flats have no source of income. Additionally, an Ipsos APAC and Toluna study found that 62 percent of Singaporeans state that their dissatisfaction is a result of their personal financial situation.
3. There is no official poverty line in Singapore
According to Worldbank, there are several reasons to measure poverty: “to keep the poor on the agenda; if poverty were not measured, it would be easy to forget the poor.” Additionally, poverty lines “target interventions that aim to reduce or alleviate poverty,” and finally, measurements help to evaluate projects, policies and institutions that aim to help the poor.
In a Straits Times article, it was stated that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong doesn’t believe establishing poverty lines will be helpful as there are great disparities between poor groups in Singapore; each group requires “different sort and scale of help… This cannot be accomplished by a rigid poverty line, he said, which might be polarising and leave some outside the definition of poor.”
4. Singapore’s wealth gap is one of the widest
As noted in the CIA World Factbook, Singapore was ranked 36th out of 150 countries for income inequality in 2016 based on the Gini coefficient, a ratio of highest to lowest incomes. This means that the high-income households are extremely wealthy, while the low-income households are extremely poor. In fact, a Credit Suisse report showed that more than a quarter of the country’s wealth is held by the top 1 percent of the population.
5. The Gini coefficient has begun to decrease
According to the Singapore Management University (SMU) handbook, the government has begun to acknowledge the wealth disparity. Although Singapore is still ranked high for income inequality, the Gini coefficient has decreased in the past two years.
6. Wages fall for low-income households
In the SMU handbook, it was stated that the bottom 20 percent of workers saw a decrease in wages between 1998 and 2010.
7. Singapore is the most expensive city to live in
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Singapore was the most expensive city to live in in 2017 for the 4th year running. This makes it increasingly difficult for the impoverished population to afford basic necessities.
8. Increase in cost of goods and services
Likewise, the past three years saw a 13.1 percent increase in goods and services, according to Singaporeans Against Poverty.
9. More Singaporeans are being covered under ComCare
ComCare was established by the Singaporean government in 2005 to provide assistance to needy families who are either unable to work or are currently searching for employment.
As reported in the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), the number of Singaporeans being covered under ComCare grew from 13,479 in 2012 to 18,996 in 2015, but the government claims this is not due to higher poverty levels; rather, it says it’s due to changes to the program.
The Ministry of Social and Family Development has extended coverage so that more families can apply for ComCare.
10. Singaporean government is taking steps towards alleviating poverty
As noted in The Observer, the government has put plans into place to fight poverty. Of these are plans are the goals to reduce the cost of education, to exempt lower-income families from paying taxes and to contribute cash payments to those in need.
These top 10 poverty in Singapore facts demonstrate the acute issues for low-income houses. However, the Singaporean government is making considerable strides to help its people, enough so that these top 10 poverty in Singapore facts may eventually become irrelevant.
– Olivia Booth
Photo: Flickr
Increasing Life Expectancy in Nigeria
Nigeria has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world; in 2017, the country ranked 214th out of 224 nations. The current life expectancy in Nigeria is 53.8 years, with women living slightly longer than men.
Though the life expectancy in Nigeria is one of the lowest in the world, it has increased notably in recent decades. In 2000, the life expectancy in Nigeria was only 46.26 years; more than seven years lower than the current life expectancy rate. This increase reflects the current global trend of life expectancy rates increasing.
Some developed countries are expected to have an average life expectancy of 90 years within the next decade. Though Nigeria still has a long way to go before its life expectancy rates are near these levels, the country has been making changes that have led to this growth in life expectancy, and will continue to increase this rate in the future.
One of the ways that Nigeria has increased its life expectancy rate is through the increased healthcare improvements for women and children in the country. In 2015, three Nigerian states, Adamawa, Nasarawa, and Ondo, made healthcare improvements that were possible due to funding primarily from the World Bank, as well as other partners. These healthcare improvements made it possible for more than nine million people to gain access to improved healthcare facilities.
More specifically, pregnant women in these regions now have access to healthcare facilities. This is significant because one of the leading causes of death in Nigeria is attributed to infant mortality. With pregnant women and mothers gaining better access to healthcare services, there is an increased chance that their children will be able to receive more advanced medical attention that could potentially save their lives.
An additional factor potentially leading to the recent increase in the life expectancy in Nigeria is improved sanitation policies and practices. In Nigeria, more than 124,000 children under the age of five die because of diarrhea, mainly due to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene. One advancement made recently to combat this is the eradication of guinea worm disease; in 2013, Nigeria was certified as being free of the disease.
In addition to the strides being made in water sanitation in Nigeria, there has also been an emphasis placed on ending open defecation. High volumes of open defecation lead to increased health risks, such as cholera. In 2016, Nigeria officially had over 16,000 open defecation-free communities. In 2008, only approximately 15 communities were considered to be open defecation free. This large reduction of open defecation has been achieved largely because of the development of a National Roadmap for the elimination of open defecation in Nigeria by 2025, which is supported by UNICEF.
Though the life expectancy in Nigeria is still one of the lowest in the world, it is increasing at a steady rate. With the future continuation of increased access to medical facilities, specifically for women and children, and continued sanitation efforts, there is hope that Nigeria as a nation will be able to make even larger strides in increasing the life expectancy rate for Nigerian citizens.
– Nicole Stout
Photo: Flickr
8 Current Dictators as of 2018
The definition of “dictator” can be subjective and interpreted differently in different contexts. Definitions can range from “a person with unlimited governmental power” to “a ruler who has complete power in a country obtained by force and uses it unfairly or cruelly.”
However, it is evident that dictator-led countries are generally associated with severe poverty, repression and human rights abuses among the general population. Countries suffering under the rule of a dictatorship often experience rising mental illness rates, decreased health and life expectancy, famine, poor education and other problems.
Although the number of dictatorships have been decreasing, there are several dictators still in power today. This list details eight of the world’s current dictators and the poverty rates associated with each country.
Current Dictators
Kim Jong-un is North Korea’s current dictator and the third generation Kim to rule the country, following the death of his father Kim Jong-il in 2011. As Supreme Leader (many dictators do not call themselves dictators), he follows the political regimen of the Workers’ Party of Korea and has heavily focused on the country’s nuclear weapons program over the wellbeing of North Korean citizens. Forty percent of the nation, which is about 24 million people, lives below the poverty line.
One of the most violent dictatorships has occurred in Burundi under the rule of Pierre Nkurunziza, a former rebel turned president. Nkurunziza, who has been in power since 2005 and was re-elected for a third term in 2015, has changed the country’s constitution to allow unlimited presidential terms. In May 2018, Burundi is headed for a constitutional referendum, which would extend Nkurunziza’s rule to 2034.Throughout Nkurunziza’s dictatorial regime, he has been known for purging ethnic Tutsi army officers, suppressing opposition and media and ordering murderous brutality committed against protesters of his extended rule. Additionally, Burundi has some of the highest rates of malnutrition among children under five anywhere in the world, seven million reported malaria cases in 2017 and a 64.6 percent poverty rate overall.
Following Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s death, socialist Nicolás Maduro came to power in 2013. Maduro has continued “chavismo,” the corrupt ideology of Chávez, which has destroyed the economy of Venezuela, causing drastic inflation, food and medicine shortages, high unemployment and economic reliance on oil. Venezuela’s poverty rate has spiked to 82 percent.
Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad, has been in power since his father, President Hafez Assad, died in 2000. The Syrian people were hopeful that he would bring about the economic and political reforms that Syrians had been calling for, but it never happened and Syrian’s economy has plummeted due to a civil war that broke out in 2011.Bashar al-Assad is responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths since the Arab Spring, and more than 82 percent of Syrians are living below the poverty line.
Idriss Déby came to power in a military coup and has been ruling Chad since 1990. Déby has accelerated a bloody proxy war between Chad and Sudan throughout the 2000s and has been known to suppress opposition and the press. Chad has a 46.7 percent poverty rate, despite a surplus of oil, uranium and gold.
Since coming to power as president of Rwanda in 2000, Kagame has actually reduced poverty. He has introduced free basic education, boosted trade and lowered maternal and child mortality by more than 50 percent.However, Kagame’s rule still comes with great restrictions on freedoms and widespread oppression, particularly regarding the government-appointed media and their efforts to shut down independent newspapers and radio stations. Rwanda’s poverty rate is currently at 39.1 percent.
Erdoğan was the prime minister of Turkey from 2003-2014 until he became president in 2014. Erdoğan has suppressed opposition by closing universities and firing civil servants, and has urged the citizens of Turkey to conceive more children, while child and adolescent malnutrition, extreme lack of healthcare and inflation due to monthly increases in food prices have been greater concerns. Turkey’s poverty rate is at 21.9 percent.
In Equatorial Guinea, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo has been ruling an authoritarian government since 1979. Freedom of association and assembly are harshly restricted under Mbasogo’s violent and oppressive rule, and essential healthcare and primary education improvements have been ignored. Mbasogo profits from billions of dollars of oil exports, but 76.8 percent of Equatorial Guinea’s population lives in poverty.
Although dictatorships are not as common now as they were in the past, the regimes of the world’s current dictators are still brutal, tyrannical, violent and repressive. The world’s most oppressed countries suffer under the autocratic rule of these current dictators, and there is still much progress to be made.
– Natalie Shaw
Photo: Flickr
RLabs Spurs Economic Opportunity in South Africa
The Cape peninsula boasts a breathtaking coastal landscape with verdant plains, awe-inspiring mountains and picturesque white-sand beaches, making Cape Town, South Africa one of the most globally celebrated tourist destinations. Though the city is conspicuously beautiful, there are visible vestiges of apartheid that mar its appeal.
Apartheid and Alternatives
During apartheid, South Africa’s colored (of mixed race) and black populations were socially dislocated to derelict townships. In these less than desirable living conditions, gang violence and drug activity took hold. Many area youth became involved in gang activity, and drug use spread throughout the community.
Youth unemployment increased overtime as drug addiction, violence and limited skill sets stifled economic opportunity in South Africa for people between the ages of 15-24.
In 2008, Roger Petersen, a Cape Town native and founder of Impact Direct Ministries, strove to find a fruitful alternative for the marginalized youth he saw in the streets. He implored his son-in-law Marlon Parker, who taught computer science at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, to apply his acumen in the community.
To that end, Parker gave free introductory computer literacy classes to a small group of recovering drug addicts in Cape Town’s Bridgetown neighborhood. What started off as a humble gathering of a few ex-gang members has grown into the internationally-acclaimed innovative force that’s creating economic opportunity in South Africa and around the globe.
Reconstructed Living Labs
Seeing the need for a platform that would empower the youth to create their own opportunities, Parker quit his job and launched Reconstructed Living Labs, or RLabs, that same year to provide free technology skills training and development to youth in the community.
The RLabs campus provides an inviting creative space with computers and programming readily available to help students develop and refine digital skills for application in the marketplace.
RLabs provides courses in basic computing, project management, leadership, entrepreneurship, social innovation and more. Students can apply the skills they’ve learned in the innovation lab, an incubation and support program that encourages students to develop ideas and convert them into income-generating information and communications technology products.
RLabs partners with reputable organizations like USAID and the Rockefeller Foundation among others to fund these developments and bring them to market.
Zltos
More than 50 startups have been incubated within RLabs, one of the earliest being Zltos (pronounced zl-a-tos), a social currency that students earn via community service. Students accumulate Zltos for good works and can redeem them for classes at RLabs, groceries at participating stores, food items at the campus cafe and even doctor visits.
Zltos has enabled more than 25,000 people to pursue valuable education and receive tangible benefits without money. Zltos is currently worth more than 9 million rand, which is about $760,000. The social currency is expected to hit the U.S. some time this year via RLabs’ branch in Austin, TX.
Economic Opportunity
Since its inception, RLabs has provided training and support to more than 100,000 community members and impacted the lives of more than nine million people around the world. RLabs has made more than 81,000 jobs accessible to participants, spurring economic opportunity in South Africa and beyond.
– Chantel Baul
Photo: Flickr
HydroIQ Intends to Solve Africa’s Water Problem
According to the U.N., two-thirds of the world’s population could be living in water-stressed conditions by 2025, and the majority of these people will be in sub-Saharan Africa. The African region already faces constant problems due to the scarcity of water that sometimes never reaches the consumers.
In Africa, as much as 50 percent of the water supplied by utilities is lost before actually reaching the consumer, all because of an inefficient and poorly managed distribution network. Additionally, the cost burden of water losses is borne by the consumers, making the whole experience expensive and troublesome.
To address Africa’s water problem, HydroIQ intends on making water more accessible to the people of Africa through technology. Powered by three major technologies, the Kenya-based water-monitoring startup relies on the internet of things, data analytics and payment automation.
Named the top African startup of 2018 by Startup.Info, HydroIQ is also the world’s first virtual water network operator. The company was founded by two entrepreneurs, Brian Bosire and Victor Shikoli, who are determined to revolutionize the access and distribution of water in Africa.
HydroIQ works by using a smart metering device that, when plugged into the existing water supply network, can turn the traditional water system into a smart water grid. It can be installed in households to track consumption in real-time. In this way, consumers only pay for what they use. The payment for the consumption is also digitized and made easy – its pay-as-you-go basis is powered using mobile money. Additional benefits allow consumers to receive notifications when the water is running low. The real-time leak detection also sends alerts for early detection and prompt action.
According to sources, as much as 45 percent of revenue is lost due to lack of infrastructure and poor bill payment systems. With HydroIQ, such barriers can be overcome and consumers can pay with the most preferred mode of payment, mobile money. The company has partnered with local water utilities to address the issue of water access across Africa.
Innovative tech startups can help Africa achieve sustainable development and efficient water management across cities. Globally, Africa is urbanizing at a very fast pace and fixing the water problem is becoming increasingly important. According to the World Health Organization, for every $1 invested in water and sanitation, there is an economic return between $3 and $34.
The startup intends on solving Africa’s water problem by making its business model sustainable, scalable and adaptable through the use of digital technologies. By focusing on providing African consumers the ease and convenience to pay for what they use, the digitized process will further reduce the upfront costs for the consumers, delivering a high standard value to its customers.
In 2018, HydroIQ will install meters in 1,500 households and intends on expanding and developing market insights to cater to the consumers’ needs. With a goal of reaching 34,000 homes by 2019, it aims to grow over 300,000 in the next five years.
As more and more tech startups step forward to address crucial issues like Africa’s water problem and the region’s credit access problems, it is not surprising that a combination of innovation and investment may soon bring a positive change to the daily lives of consumers.
– Deena Zaidi
Photo: Flickr
Varied Organizations Helping Orphans in Romania
How AFFEO Is Helping Orphans in Romania
In April 2016, the organization A Family for Every Orphan (AFFEO) started a project to help Romania’s orphans get adopted. One child they helped was a Romanian girl named Maria who suffered from a congenital skin disease. If Maria was not soon adopted, she would be sent to a special orphanage for handicapped children.
Through AFFEO’s help, Maria was soon adopted by a couple named Dan and Dana. The couple has three other children as well and will be able to provide for Maria’s needs through their promising careers. AFFEO presently takes donations for their project to help more Romanian orphans find new homes.
An Optometrist’s Free Services to Romania’s Orphans
Since 2004, Dr. Michael McQuillan (a Camarillo, California optometrist) has traveled nine times to Sibiu, Transylvania to help hundreds of Romania’s orphans. In February 2017, he planned to buy a new vision screener that would allow him to treat more children during his trips. A GoFundMe page was also created to help him raise money for buying the screener and additional equipment before his next visit to Romania.
After visiting the Romanian children, Dr. McQuillan notices the reactions of children who can see correctly for the first time in their lives. “There’s lots of big smiles and hugs,” says Dr. McQuillan. “They thank me, and then they ask why would I leave the comfort of home and see someone like them.” Dr. McQuillan’s answer to that question is that a book he read, The Purpose of Divine Life by Rick Warren, inspired him to provide free optometry services to Romania’s orphans.
Paws2Rescue Makes a Difference in Romanian Orphans’ Lives
Founded in 2013 by Alison Standbridge, the charity Paws2Rescue has continued to help Romania’s abused dogs and neglected orphans. In October 2017, Standbridge recalled how many of Romania’s children arrive at their orphanages behaving like the abused dogs in public shelters. “They’re scared, they shy away, they don’t know how to talk and they cannot be touched,” she said.
Paws2Rescue is helping orphans in Romania every Easter and Christmas. The charity is supported by TV personality Ricky Gervais, who raises awareness of Paws2Rescue through social media and donations. In October 2017, Paws2Rescue also held donations for Christmas gifts to be placed in shoeboxes. The charity planned to send them to Romania and give the gifts to orphaned children in the first week of December.
New and Safer Orphanages in Romania
Romania’s children were often neglected in the country’s socialist-era orphanages. In January 2018, the Robin Hood Centre (RHC) announced plans to build two family-style residences that would provide Romania’s orphans with care, education, emotional support and counseling. Romania also plans to close down its socialist-era orphanages for the sake of giving children safer living conditions.
The organization Hope and Homes for Children (HHC) is helping RHC in its initiative. When HHC began its work in Romania during the 1990s, there were 105,000 orphans confined into the country’s state orphanage system. “We have now brought that down to just over 7,000,” said HHC’s chief executive Mark Waddington in January 2018.
The age of Romania’s neglected orphans is steadily coming to an end through the continuing work of these organizations, charities and individuals. Helping orphans in Romania will be an ongoing effort that could inspire the aid of other entities as well. Work will continue being done to improve the lives of Romania’s orphaned children.
– Rhondjé Singh Tanwar
Photo: Flickr
The Hope and Dismay of Starving Syrians
The Syrian Civil War seems more and more hopeless as Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad and his regime gain more power over insurgents and civilians by intentionally starving them and using biological and chemical warfare. With Russian support, Assad has been able to avoid punishment for his war crimes and consequently gain more power.
The Syrian refugee crisis is probably the most notorious aspect of this ongoing war. As per UNHCR, there are 13.1 million people in need of humanitarian aid in Syria. More than five million Syrians have fled the country; however, there are still more than six million that have left their homes and are homeless within their country.
Further, the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) reports that there are 6.5 million starving Syrians.
Despite Syria’s seemingly grim future, non-governmental agencies like Mercy Corps have stepped up to help in addition to governmental programs. Mercy Corps helps feed hundreds of thousands of people each month by donating flour to local bakeries and ensuring that people in need are able to get bread from the bakeries.
Nonetheless, Mercy Corps has faced some setbacks, as the Assad regime does not want it to assist starving Syrians. Dr. Leah Carmichael stated that “one of the main roles of the government is to ensure a food supply”.
Dr. Carmichael is a respected professor at the University of Georgia and a food insecurity expert. She has been researching the puzzle of Assad’s starvation war tool to determine why governments starve their people to gain power and later want their people’s support. She is also interested in the role of Mercy Corps in replenishing food for the Syrian people. The Borgen Project had the privilege of interviewing her on March 2, 2018, to gain more insight into the current situation and Mercy Corps.
“Food is really one of those things where if you’re hungry and you weren’t before, it catalyzes that kind of protest [referencing the Arab Spring, the start of the Syrian Civil War],” Carmichael stated in the interview. “Understanding that food is a major provision of welfare for a government and then understanding that the tactic of taking food away and making people hungry is either unintentionally or intentionally a way which governments lose their authority to rule”.
As for Mercy Corps shaping the outcome of the Syrian civil war, Carmichael says it is unintentional yet powerful in helping starving Syrians because “as much as you are keeping civilians alive, you are shaping the future legacy of this war as not just being one where the international community turned a blind eye as mass genocide occurred…as in this case, Mercy Corps is shaping the human side of it.”
However, Carmichael mentioned that Mercy Corps’ role is still a “drop in the bucket” in comparison to what a government could do. She said that everyday people can help this situation by determining “what active role if any should the U.S. play abroad”.
She also mentioned that a growing norm is starting to emerge in the international community called the responsibility to protect, “the idea is that pure sovereignty matters for states, but in the cases where you see sovereignty being used to promote genocide, the international community has a responsibility to step in to protect those people against their government”.
Thus, public pressure to take action could lead the U.S. to possibly intervene. However, public support is withering in terms of U.S. global intervention. As Carmichael stated in a 2017 TEDx Talk, “the abject horror of war is our indifference to it”. Doing good and helping people in need is very much “something that we as Americans like on paper.”
Suzy Hansen from the Washington Post shares a similar view in that Americans under President Trump are beginning to dislike more intervention as an “America First” ideal grows. Further, Americans are learning more about the “darker” parts of American history that have resulted from U.S. intervention, such as U.S.-backed coups. This suggests that many Americans are re-thinking the global role of the U.S., as intervention has the potential to cause more harm than good and can negatively impact relations and foreign policy.
To help starving Syrians, it seems that the international system needs to intervene, as Russian-led peace talks may only prolong suffering. However, “what to do” will prove to be a difficult and methodological decision to make.
– Mary McCarthy
Photo: Flickr
Fighting Malaria Fights Poverty: Malaria Prevention in Ghana
Volunteer Adofo Antwi (right) explains to mother-of-four Ama Konadu in Apenimadi, Bonsaaso Millennium Village, how to hang a bednet. Trained by Millennium Village Project staff, volunteers across the cluster work with communities to hang bednets at all sleeping sites and educate local people about the dangers of malaria. Since 2006, over 30,000 long-lasting insecticide-treated bednets have been distributed, covering all households in the cluster.
Malaria prevention in Ghana is a focus of the nation’s Health Service efforts and is seen as the largest epidemic tormenting the Ghana people. Malaria is a potentially deadly disease caused by a one-celled parasite known as Plasmodium. This parasite is carried and transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito that feeds of humans.
People who become infected with malaria often show flu-like symptoms such as: fever, chills, aches and more. The devastation of this disease on not just the people, but the social and economic structure of Ghana, cannot be understated.
Who is Most Vulnerable to Malaria?
Over three million people contract malaria every year in Ghana which accounts for 44.5 percent of all outpatient attendances. Nearly half of all malaria cases in Ghana are children under the age of five and the disease is responsible for 12 percent of under-five deaths. Of those who die from malaria, 85 percent of them are children.
With such devastating numbers, especially for the nation’s children, it is no wonder malaria prevention in Ghana is the top priority of health officials. Not only are the children of Ghana at a greater risk of contracting malaria, but it also disproportionately affects pregnant women whose immune systems are lowered and more vulnerable during pregnancy.
Pregnant women who contract malaria can see severe adverse health effects such as maternal anemia which leads to: miscarriages, low birth weight, and even maternal mortality.
How does Malaria Affect Ghana?
Malaria prevention in Ghana doesn’t just save the lives of children and their mothers, but it also is necessary for the economic and technological growth of Ghana. Malaria has historically been the number one cause of illness and morbidity in Ghana, but malaria is also a major cause of poverty and poor productivity.
With nearly half of the three million malaria cases every year attributed to children, staying in school falls to the wayside as families focus on the recovery of their children. Being taken out of school, greatly affects one’s future earning capacity for themselves, their family, and their future children.
Obtaining an education is often the biggest tool to improving living conditions of not just the individual and their family, but the community as well.
Not only are children at a risk of death after contracting malaria, but children who survive and fight the disease carry long-term consequences into adulthood such as seizures and brain dysfunction. These conditions can make it difficult once the disease is gone to go back to school and receive an education.
Treating and fighting the malaria endemic costs Ghana a significant amount that causes economic growth to be slowed by 1.3 percent a year in Africa; the annual economic burden of malaria is estimated to be 1-2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in Ghana.
Roll Back Malaria Initiative: Goals and Successes
In 1999, Ghana signed onto the Roll Back Malaria initiative developing a strategic plan of action for implementation. The goal of malaria prevention in Ghana, as dictated by the initiative, is to reduce malaria specific morbidity and mortality by 50 percent by 2010 and 75 percent by 2015.
While Ghana did not meet those deadlines at the expected times, Ghana continues to strengthen health services to make malaria prevention techniques more available to the people of Ghana. Strategies for malaria prevention in Ghana as seen on Ghana’s Health Services page includes the:
The Roll Back Malaria Initiative in Ghana empowers the nation to pursue goals to better equip health facilities with malaria diagnostic tools (microscopes or RDTs) and effective antimalarial drugs. Furthermore, the implementation of indoor residual spraying and the spread of insecticide treated materials such as bug nets, have shown success.
The Need for Scale-Up
Nearly 750,000 lives have been saved across Africa due to the Roll Back Malaria Initiative, but the fight for malaria prevention in Ghana still has a long journey ahead. Ensuring children in rural areas have access to clinics and malaria treatment options can be tricky.
Ghana still calls for a scaling up of this community-based treatment in more secluded districts; in districts where treatment is available, the cost of treatment can be out of reach for many families. The inability to access such resources decreases community engagement in treatment, and demonstrates how great the need in Ghana is for affordable malaria prevention methods.
– Kelilani Johnson
Photo: Flickr
How the Media Misrepresents North Korea
The media misrepresents North Korea by portraying its citizens as unaware of the truth about the world. A 2017 article titled “A Journey into the Heart of North Korea” by Will Ripley and Marc Lourdes of CNN described North Koreans thusly: “The truth is, all these children know is government propaganda teaching fierce hatred of the U.S., and loyalty to the Kim family. Statues and photos of the Kims are everywhere. They’re under constant state media”.
While this statement is correct, the media often ignores the other side of the story. Illegal media is being smuggled into North Korea every day via the Chinese black market, and it is changing the thoughts, hearts and lives of North Koreans.
Kim Jong Un keeps a tight control on the truth, and North Koreans take dangerous steps to learn it every day. From illegal media to growing cell phone use, the North Korean people’s search for truth grows stronger every day, but so do the consequences. This is how the media misrepresents North Korea.
Smuggled Media
Contraband movies, TV shows and music are smuggled through the Chinese-North Korean border on USB drives every day. These forms of media give North Koreans second thoughts about the lies they were told in school. Because of this, many North Koreans know the truth about the outside world, and because of this information, some brave souls choose to defect.
“What North Korea really fears is their people becoming aware of their oppression,” said Kang Cho-hwan, founder of the North Korean Strategy Center.
The threat illegal media poses to the government is one of supreme danger: awareness. One North Korean defector, Yeon-mi Park, described her thoughts when watching American films for the first time, “I never heard my father tell my mother, ‘I love you’. But in the movies, a man tells a woman, ‘I love you’. And those things were never allowed to be expressed to each other, other than to the dear leader. So of course, this information helped me understand the outside world. I realized there was some humanity out there.”
Smuggled Cell Phones
Chinese cell phones being brought into North Korea are connecting families that have been separated for almost 70 years.
North Koreans are using smuggled cellphones to reach family members in South Korea for the first time in decades, even if they can only talk for ten minutes. The risk is extreme; cell phone connections can be traced by the North Korean government, but some North Koreans are willing to take the risk if it means minutes of connections with loved ones.
Ms. Ju, a North Korean citizen, describes calling her father in South Korea. “We barely spoke for ten minutes before the connection was suddenly lost. My father lost sleep that night, fearing that I might have been caught by North Korean soldiers.”
Smuggled Books
Banned books have been playing a role in enlightening the North Korean people. Along with USB drives filled with outside media, one can also find books that have been translated into Korean on the black market.
Je Son Lee, another North Korean defector, describes reading a black market book. “Back in North Korea, I once read a fantasy novel called ‘Lucy’s Closet’ and it was a story about a girl named Lucy entering a whole new different world through her closet. Before ‘Lucy’s Closet,’ I had never read anything about an imaginary world. Once I began reading it, I couldn’t stop reading until the very end of the story. I kept turning pages under a lit candle and I pulled an all-nighter just so I could finish reading Lucy’s Closet.”
Je Son Lee guessed that the book was actually “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis.
These black-market books, like the smuggled Hollywood movies, provide a different view of the outside world, contrary to what the North Korean government tells its citizens.
These cases are just a few examples of how the media misrepresents North Korea. With outside information continuing to pour into North Korea, one cannot help but think the future of the “hermit kingdom” might be bright. Perhaps instead of a war or nuclear disaster, North Korea will free itself with the truth.
– Tristan Gaebler
Photo: Flickr
What is the Current State of Poverty in Haiti?
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most poverty-stricken countries in the developing world. Despite this, the Trump Administration is abruptly ending the Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. The humanitarian program allowed about 59,000 Haitians to live and work in the U.S. since the 2010 earthquake which killed 150,000 people.
Haitians will be expected to leave the U.S. by July 2019 or face deportation. This is devastating news for Haitians who earn money in the U.S. to send to their families and for those receiving an education.
Poverty in Haiti
According to the World Bank, life expectancy for Haitians is only 57 years. Less than half of the population is literate and only about one child in five of secondary-school age actually attends secondary school.
Health conditions are poor and about one-fourth of the population has access to safe water. The population continues to grow at a high rate, estimated at almost 200,000 people per year, with the overwhelming majority living in extreme poverty.
Key factors of poverty in Haiti include political instability, inadequate growth in private investment, underinvestment in human capital, and poverty traps including environmental degradation, crime, systematic human rights violations, and outward migration.
Steps to be taken
There is clearly a lot of work to be done, but instead of abandoning Haitians when they need help the most, the U.S. needs to directly help with overturning their situation of dire poverty.
– Julia Lee
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The Top 10 Need-to-Know Poverty in Singapore Facts
Singapore is seldom thought of as a poor country since the nation ranks fourth in the richest countries in the world; however, the reality is that many Singaporeans live in poverty. For far too many people, poverty in Singapore is a fact of life.
The Top 10 Poverty in Singapore Facts:
1. Singaporeans have to live on $5 a day
Four-hundred thousand Singaporeans live on $5 a day. Singaporeans Against Poverty, the campaign whose concern is “for those in Singapore caught in the cycle of poverty despite our economic success,” began the $5 challenge, where people can pledge money and try to live on a $5 per day budget.
2. Some Singaporeans have no income
A survey from the Housing Development Board showed that one-third of Singaporeans living in one or two room flats have no source of income. Additionally, an Ipsos APAC and Toluna study found that 62 percent of Singaporeans state that their dissatisfaction is a result of their personal financial situation.
3. There is no official poverty line in Singapore
According to Worldbank, there are several reasons to measure poverty: “to keep the poor on the agenda; if poverty were not measured, it would be easy to forget the poor.” Additionally, poverty lines “target interventions that aim to reduce or alleviate poverty,” and finally, measurements help to evaluate projects, policies and institutions that aim to help the poor.
In a Straits Times article, it was stated that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong doesn’t believe establishing poverty lines will be helpful as there are great disparities between poor groups in Singapore; each group requires “different sort and scale of help… This cannot be accomplished by a rigid poverty line, he said, which might be polarising and leave some outside the definition of poor.”
4. Singapore’s wealth gap is one of the widest
As noted in the CIA World Factbook, Singapore was ranked 36th out of 150 countries for income inequality in 2016 based on the Gini coefficient, a ratio of highest to lowest incomes. This means that the high-income households are extremely wealthy, while the low-income households are extremely poor. In fact, a Credit Suisse report showed that more than a quarter of the country’s wealth is held by the top 1 percent of the population.
5. The Gini coefficient has begun to decrease
According to the Singapore Management University (SMU) handbook, the government has begun to acknowledge the wealth disparity. Although Singapore is still ranked high for income inequality, the Gini coefficient has decreased in the past two years.
6. Wages fall for low-income households
In the SMU handbook, it was stated that the bottom 20 percent of workers saw a decrease in wages between 1998 and 2010.
7. Singapore is the most expensive city to live in
According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Singapore was the most expensive city to live in in 2017 for the 4th year running. This makes it increasingly difficult for the impoverished population to afford basic necessities.
8. Increase in cost of goods and services
Likewise, the past three years saw a 13.1 percent increase in goods and services, according to Singaporeans Against Poverty.
9. More Singaporeans are being covered under ComCare
ComCare was established by the Singaporean government in 2005 to provide assistance to needy families who are either unable to work or are currently searching for employment.
As reported in the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF), the number of Singaporeans being covered under ComCare grew from 13,479 in 2012 to 18,996 in 2015, but the government claims this is not due to higher poverty levels; rather, it says it’s due to changes to the program.
The Ministry of Social and Family Development has extended coverage so that more families can apply for ComCare.
10. Singaporean government is taking steps towards alleviating poverty
As noted in The Observer, the government has put plans into place to fight poverty. Of these are plans are the goals to reduce the cost of education, to exempt lower-income families from paying taxes and to contribute cash payments to those in need.
These top 10 poverty in Singapore facts demonstrate the acute issues for low-income houses. However, the Singaporean government is making considerable strides to help its people, enough so that these top 10 poverty in Singapore facts may eventually become irrelevant.
– Olivia Booth
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