Education in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of China, has been growing substantially over the past few decades. It offers compulsory education in both primary and secondary schools, and education for children ages three to six has been expanded in preschools in some districts. Students from Mongolian ethnic groups attend Mongolian-language elementary and high schools and are assigned jobs by the government upon graduation. They can also choose to pursue advanced education.
In Inner Mongolia, ethnic education displays typical features which also represent the foundation of harmonious coexistence for multiple ethnicities. For instance, in 2012, each Han Chinese child received a subsidy of ￥2,700 yuan for kindergarten education expenses, while each child from a Mongolian ethnic group received a subsidy of ￥3,900. A few more public kindergartens were built in the following years in addition to the existing 17 kindergartens in Ejin Horo Banner.
Take Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia, as another example. There are 10 ethnic middle schools, 19 primary schools and 11 kindergartens in Hohhot, with a total of 44,000 students, among which 15,000 (34 percent) are ethnic minorities. 5,031 students in seven schools (two middle schools, one primary school and four kindergartens) are taught in Mongolian.
Teaching Mongolian as a supplemental language is a distinguishing feature of Inner Mongolia. In this category, there are 24 schools with 8,820 students in Hohhot. There are seven schools for the Hui nationality and two for the Man nationality. In ethnic primary and secondary schools and kindergartens, there are 3,913 teachers, among which 1,473 (38 percent) are of a minority ethnicity. Among those teachers, 110 of 456 language teachers are teaching Mongolian in the schools.
While great achievements have been accomplished, there are some deficits of ethnic education in Inner Mongolia, mainly an imbalance of students in the different grades. Students are relatively crowded in some schools (especially senior high schools) in major cities such as Hohhot. This overcrowding may result in students skipping preschool education and going directly to primary school. Meanwhile, due to a lack of space in junior middle schools, current primary school graduates may lose out on the opportunity for further education. Senior high schools are at risk of a student shortage due to the smaller amount of junior school graduates.
Secondly, the existing classrooms, facilities and teachers are far behind the current requirements which are urgently needed in order to expand. While Mongolian kindergartens in some districts are likely to increase the number of students enrolled in Mongolian classes, problems such as insufficient facilities, a shortage of teachers and the inconvenience of transportation due to suburban locations call for immediate attention.
On June 17, 2009, at a symposium on the present status of ethnic education, 27 participants from 12 different institutes proposed an agreement to end the merging of fundamental ethnic schools and instead expand and enlarge the scale of Hohhot ethnic schools as quickly as possible. In the following years, the layout of schools among different urban regions has been adjusted to meet the needs of both local and migrant students.
To further improve the state of education in Inner Mongolia, local governments should strive for support from the central government and promote the development of ethnic education. The number of schools teaching Mongolian should be expanded. Active and strong measures must be adopted to strengthen trilingual teaching (Chinese, Mongolian and English). In addition, internal management of each school should be even stricter, for the purpose of expanding feature-based construction of schools and propagating multi-ethnic cultures.
The protection and development of culture and education for ethnic minorities are of paramount importance to build the foundations for sustainable, balanced and healthy development, not only for ethnic regions, but also the entire country.
– Xin Gao
Photo: Flickr
5 Coffee Industry Development Projects in Guatemala
Thus, in a country such as Guatemala, where coffee is the nation’s largest export, extreme poverty and malnutrition are pervasive for a significant portion of the population.
According to USAID reports, an estimated 56 percent of the Guatemalan population lives in poverty, and around 20 percent live in extreme poverty. High poverty rates render infants and children especially vulnerable: infant mortality is among the worst in the region (39 per 1,000 live births), and maternal mortality is extremely high (153 per 100,000 births). Although statistics vary, it has been reported that 85 percent of children under five are malnourished in Guatemala.
Although the Guatemalan government mandated a legal daily rural minimum wage of $2.488, a rapid decrease in the global price of coffee has depressed laborers’ already low wages. The average daily wage for laborers in the coffee industry has fallen from around $3 a day to the current average of just $2 a day.
Experts highlight two primary catalysts to the drop in global coffee prices over the past decade.
In the 1990s, large American corporations such as Nescafé and Maxwell House began to adopt neoliberal economic policies that favored the abandonment of previous agreements with coffee growers that provided for protections against price variation. These agreements, which had maintained coffee prices within predetermined margins regardless of variable harvest qualities, were seen as contradictory to the values of “free trade”.
Then, when Vietnam was introduced to the market as a new, rapidly producing coffee country after the World Bank made significant contributions to the industry through loans, the flood of additional coffee crops caused the bottom to drop out of the market. Per the dictates of the economic principles of supply and demand, the sudden and significant increase in coffee commodity supply once Vietnam entered the market caused prices to plummet.
In addition to market destabilization, discrimination against rural workers, many of whom are of Mayan ancestry and are non-Spanish speakers, as well as the lack of workers’ rights have been identified as causative factors in the economic hardship experienced by most coffee industry laborers in Guatemala.
Many plantation owners hire temporary workers as a means of keeping wages low, avoiding paying any types of benefits and preventing worker organization. Coffee industry laborers don’t complain as they may lose the opportunity for any work at all.
Numerous international organizations have recognized the need for change in the Guatemalan coffee industry. The following are five development projects in Guatemala that have been implemented with the intent to support and advocate for the rights and livelihoods of coffee industry laborers.
These development projects in Guatemala are each doing a small part to address the serious issues facing the coffee industry and ensure future prosperity for the nation and its producers.
– Savannah Bequeaith
Photo: Flickr
The Need for Women’s Empowerment in Cambodia
This gender gap is not only related to the unequal pay of women compared to men, but women in Cambodia often lack job opportunities and career versatility compared to their male counterparts. Women’s empowerment in Cambodia is paramount because it can have profound impacts on the number of individuals living in deep poverty.
Economic Inequality and Lack of Education
Women in Cambodia who fall under wage employment, make approximately 80.8 percent of men’s earnings. According to the World Bank, there is evidence that this wage gap is growing, from 20 percent in 2009 to 30 percent in 2011. Additionally, approximately 53 percent of women between the ages of 15 to 64, work in agriculture production. This is considered to be a vulnerable type of employment.
According to the International Labour Organization, vulnerable employment is the sum of own-account workers and unpaid contributing family workers. Vulnerable workers often have poor and inadequate working conditions and frequently live in deep poverty.
Women also often have less career versatility and opportunities compared to men due in part to a lack of education and low literacy rates. In 2012, the literacy rate among women in Cambodia was 73.2 percent, an increase of nearly 13 percent in 2004. However, the literacy rates for men remain much higher at about 87 percent. Girls often tend to drop out of school in greater numbers compared to boys, in turn limiting their job potential later in life.
What can be done?
There are a number of obstacles to women’s empowerment in Cambodia, all of which are primarily related to education. In 2013, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA) became more active in Cambodia, working to reduce poverty, improve health and raise educational levels for women. The goal of their work is to provide women with the necessary skills and resources and economically empower women in Cambodia.
The desperately needed economic women’s empowerment in Cambodia can be achieved through education. Once women are educated and empowered, more individuals and families can be lifted out of poverty and the livelihood of millions can improve.
– Sarah Jane Fraser
Photo: Flickr
Fighting for Women’s Empowerment in Mexico
Economic inequality is one of the biggest threats to women’s empowerment in Mexico. Women in Mexico produce 50 percent of the country’s food, but only 10 percent have control of property or land.
Mexico is known for its traditional, even patriarchal culture. Harassment of women and “machismo” are rife. More disconcerting is the violence women experience in Mexico. 63 percent of women in Mexico over age 15 have experienced some sort of violence. This violence can range from domestic abuse to street violence and abuse by criminal groups. 840 women were murdered between 2010 and 2013, and 1,258 women disappeared between 2011 and 2012 alone.
To make matters worse, Mexican law enforcement, be it federal, state or local, often does not follow through with investigating crimes, especially disappearances and murders. Many times, the authorities will not even take the most basic steps towards investigating incidents. It is not uncommon for people to be told by the police that they should investigate a crime. In fact, Mexican security forces often are the ones perpetrating the “enforced disappearances” and extrajudicial killings.
Despite the roadblocks to women’s empowerment in Mexico, change is on the horizon, especially on the legislative level. The National Development Plan and the National Gender Equality Policy are bringing gender equality into the government spotlight as well as setting aside funds and detailing specific goals to advance gender equality.
Activists have also stepped up to the plate to advance women’s empowerment in Mexico. One group, whose name translates to “May Our Daughters Return Home,” formed in response to the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, seeks to call out inaction on the part of Mexican society and government. More critically, groups like it are bringing the issue of violence against women to light and letting victims know they are not alone and have a voice.
Women’s empowerment in Mexico is still an uphill battle, but with more and more women making their voices heard, it is starting to look like a battle that will be won.
– Andrew Revord
Photo: Flickr
The Steady Growth of Infrastructure in South Africa
In 2012, to improve the infrastructure in South Africa, the National Infrastructure Plan was implemented. The South African government hopes to invest nearly R827 billion ($58.4 billion) to improve multiple industries, including electricity, transportation, the Internet and water.
Eskom, a public electric utility in South Africa, has used money from this initiative to improve its old plants as well as establish new ones. One of their new plants, Ingula, is set to be completed by the end of 2017. Ingula will be a hydro-powered plant consisting of four units that will generate 1,332 megawatts. In addition to this hydro-powered plant, they are also expanding into coal plants. These two new coal-fired plants, Medupi and Kusile, will generate a combined 9,500 megawatts for South Africa.
Along with fixing its electricity problems, South Africa also has plans to increase its communication capabilities by 2020. One aspect of this will be to increase digital access to television and to move all South Africans from analog television to digital broadcasting. Along with television, Internet access is going to be a greater struggle. The government wants to provide fiber connectivity on a local level, as well as to establish networks in rural areas. These improvements aim to increase people’s connection to the news and to help them stay more well informed. On top of this, the South African government is also going to focus on establishing fiber Internet in 125 Dinaledi, which are schools focused on math and science, and 1,525 district schools.
One of the most important new infrastructure projects in South Africa is the completion of three new bridges connected to the N1 freeway. President Jacob Zuma spoke on October 17 about the importance of these new bridges, and how “this project demonstrates the fact that the government responds to the needs expressed by communities and the priorities they identify.” One of these bridges is a vehicle bridge and the other two are pedestrian bridges. They were designed and built to help people cross the highway in these high-traffic areas to access shops in the village.
These direct responses to help its citizens and make their lives better is one of the reasons that South Africa is a growing, prospering nation.
– Scott Kesselring
Photo: Flickr
Five Development Projects in Egypt
Egypt’s Growing Rail Infrastructure
Egypt’s Minister of Transportation, Dr. Hesham Arafat, spoke in March 2017 about its growing investments in the rail industry. Egypt will invest $16.73 billion into new high-speed rail projects that will link Hurghada to Luxor, Luxor to Cairo and Cairo to Alexandria. The longest line, the one from Cairo to Luxor, will take five years to construct, while the one from Luxor to Hurghada will take four and the Alexandria to Cairo line taking three years.
Dr. Arafat stated that “These three lines are proposed for promoting tourist activity that is expected to reach more than 30 million tourists per year by 2025”. By providing quick and easy transportation, this will keep tourists off the roadways and allow tourists to more easily explore Egyptian culture.
Egypt Advances Its Solar Projects
With technology relating to solar energy becoming cheaper and more advanced, Egypt’s Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker hopes to fund solar development projects in Egypt. Their goal by 2022 is to have 20 percent of Egypt’s energy supply come from renewable energy sources, including solar. ACWA Power, a Saudi Arabian electricity company, is developing and building three solar plants with a 120MW capacity in northern Aswan. These three plants alone will provide power to 80,000 households and will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 156,000 tons per year.
New Jobs Through Manufacturing
Egypt has recently restructured its subsidies and liberalized the exchange rate, which has earned it attention from manufacturing companies, including General Electric. General Electric’s CEO in Egypt and North Africa, Ayman Khattab, announced that it will be providing 100 locomotives to the Egyptian Railway Authority.
The benefit to Egypt is not only the locomotives, but the fact with the help of the Arab Organization for Industrialization, 50 of these locomotives will be assembled in Egypt. This will provide Egyptians with jobs, and if things go well with this project, it opens the doors for Egypt to take on more manufacturing projects for other companies.
New Cairo Will House Five Million
By the year 2050, the United Nations predicts the nearly 6.5 billion people will be living in cities. To accommodate this change, Egypt is developing New Cairo Capital, a collection of 21 residential districts that can provide housing to five million people. Besides the housing, these districts will have 1,250 mosques and churches, 2,000 schools and colleges and 600 medical facilities. This project, costing $45 billion in total, will be completed by 2022.
Egypt Continues to Build Its New Roadway System
The last of the five development projects in Egypt is a new roadway system. Egyptian roads are crowded with those providing goods; providing alternate highways allows fast transportation for regular commuters. 1,154km of new roadways are in the process of design and construction, with 400km of this being dedicated to a link between Cairo and Assiut. A 37km link will be built alongside the Cairo-Suez highway to help take some of the traffic load off that highway. In total, this project is expected to cost $524.3 million.
– Scott Kesselring
Photo: Flickr
Quest for Women’s Empowerment in Sri Lanka Continues
The Global Gender Gap Report grades 144 countries on their progress toward attaining gender equality in four areas: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival and Political Empowerment. Sri Lanka has been declining from its position in the top 20 since 2010. The country slipped from closing 74.6 percent of the gender gap in 2010 to 66.9 percent this year.
The country’s gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity increased because it failed to improve conditions of wage inequality for similar work. Additionally, Sri Lanka now ranks 86th among 144 countries in the gender gap in Educational Attainment.
In Political Empowerment, Sri Lanka ranked 65th. The country compensated for low scores on the Women in Parliament and Women in Ministerial Positions indicators with high marks on the Years with a Female Head of State indicator. Sri Lanka has had a female head of state for 21 out of the last 50 years.
Despite these discouraging statistics, efforts to advance the state of women’s empowerment in Sri Lanka persist. Aitken Spence PLC, Jetwing Hotels Ltd., MAS Holdings (Pvt.) Ltd. and the Sri Lanka Institute of Nanotechnology (Pvt.) Ltd. have signed on as partners of Women’s Empowerment Principles.
Developed through a partnership between U.N. Women and the United Nations Global Compact, the two organizations designed the principles to help companies review existing policies and practices and establish new strategies to promote women’s empowerment.
The principles include:
Participating companies must measure and publicly report their progress toward achieving gender parity.
In addition to economic measures, non-government organizations are implementing social programs to enhance women’s empowerment in Sri Lanka. Emerge Centre for Reintegration is the newest program sponsored by the Emerge Lanka Foundation, which supports survivors of sexual abuse aged 10-18. For 12 years, the foundation has helped countless exploited young women by providing training in life, financial and professional skills. Now, through the Centre for Reintegration, it offers assistance to young women who are over 18 as they face the challenging transition stage from living in shelters to thriving on their own.
Enabling women to participate fully in communities builds stronger economies, helps attain internationally agreed-upon objectives for development and sustainability and improves the quality of life for women, men, families and communities. The work being done in Sri Lanka can help counter its decreasing rankings and ensure empowerment for all women.
– Heather Hopkins
Photo: Flickr
Government Protection Key to Water Quality in Barbados
Barbados has moved from an economy heavily dependent on agriculture to one focused on manufacturing and tourism. Although the economy has shifted, the sugar industry still plays an important role in the economy. Besides sugarcane, farmers also grow cotton, root crops and vegetables.
Water quality in Barbados can be compromised by pollution from agriculture, industry and urban development. The island nation is listed as a water-scarce country because of the depletion of the water reserves during the 20th century. To address this, strict standards were developed for the use of drinking water. Because of the high demand for water on the island coupled with an inadequate supply, the nation built a desalination plant in 2000. Despite this, the water quality in Barbados is still questioned.
The Daily Herald reported in 2016 that there were rumors circulating on social media suggesting that contaminated water was responsible for a string of deaths during the summer of 2016. According to the rumors, there was lead in the newly installed water meters.
The Barbados Water Authority responded with a statement saying that the meters contained no lead. They were made from plastic and brass and manufactured in Germany. The water meters were approved by the German Environmental Agency under the German Drinking Water Ordinance of 2013.
They also stated that the meters were being used in 22 other countries including France, Spain and Ireland. In addition, the water supply is tested twice a year for heavy metals and pesticides. Tests conducted in March 2016 showed that lead levels were under the limits and drinking water was within standards.
The government of Barbados created a policy that designated five Groundwater Protection Zones around the island. This helped protect public supply wells from contamination from bacteria, which is a significant step towards improving water quality in Barbados.
– Fernando Vasquez
Photo: Flickr
Government Committed to Women’s Empowerment in Bangladesh
The obstacles to women’s empowerment in Bangladesh include:
The biggest step taken by the government is in targeting education to achieve women’s empowerment in Bangladesh. The Education Trust Act has enabled stipend schemes for girls at the secondary level and the exemption of tuition fees for girls in rural areas. It has created gender parity in both primary and secondary education at the national level.
Bangladesh has also adopted the National Policy for Women’s Development and other programs. It has shown results by increasing the number of women elected to Parliament to 20 percent of the total seats.
In consultation with UNDP, provisions to promote women’s empowerment in Bangladesh were included in the National Social Protection Strategy that extends the social safety net and builds resilience for all vulnerable groups. The Village Court Act aims to increase the representation of women in village court panels and the Bangladesh Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda includes a dedicated goal of gender equality.
The Gender Inequality Index value has shown great improvement and was estimated at 0.520 in 2015, which places Bangladesh 119th out of 159 nations. 42 percent of women today have a secondary education and 43.1 percent are estimated to be participating in the labor market.
USAID programs have helped promote women’s empowerment in Bangladesh by training more than 500,000 women farmers in agricultural technology. It also worked with the Bangladesh government to implement the Domestic Violence Prevention and Protection Act of 2010 as well as training human rights defenders.
Many women migrate from rural to urban areas in search of job opportunities. The World Bank initiated the Northern Areas Reduction-of-Poverty Initiative to bring these women work in the thriving garment industry.
The Asia Foundation has implemented the South Asian Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium in partnership with the U.S. Department of State to expand economic opportunities. It has helped bring women together to conduct and promote their businesses in Bangladesh.
NGOs like the Friends in Village Development Bangladesh and Nari Uddog Kendra concentrate on variables like participatory decision-making, awareness building, capacity building and increasing economic solvency to contribute to women’s empowerment in Bangladesh.
Overall, the government is working relentlessly to encourage the development of women. In fact, Bangladesh ranks eighth in the global political empowerment of women. Bangladesh is also committed to implementing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and has achieved the Millennium Development Goal of securing gender parity in education. The contribution of women in every sphere of life has become significant, ranging from agriculture to politics. Bangladesh has identified the critical importance of addressing inequality and making women’s empowerment in Bangladesh a priority in its new post-2015 development agenda.
– Tripti Sinha
Photo: Flickr
Education in Inner Mongolia, China
Education in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of China, has been growing substantially over the past few decades. It offers compulsory education in both primary and secondary schools, and education for children ages three to six has been expanded in preschools in some districts. Students from Mongolian ethnic groups attend Mongolian-language elementary and high schools and are assigned jobs by the government upon graduation. They can also choose to pursue advanced education.
In Inner Mongolia, ethnic education displays typical features which also represent the foundation of harmonious coexistence for multiple ethnicities. For instance, in 2012, each Han Chinese child received a subsidy of ￥2,700 yuan for kindergarten education expenses, while each child from a Mongolian ethnic group received a subsidy of ￥3,900. A few more public kindergartens were built in the following years in addition to the existing 17 kindergartens in Ejin Horo Banner.
Take Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia, as another example. There are 10 ethnic middle schools, 19 primary schools and 11 kindergartens in Hohhot, with a total of 44,000 students, among which 15,000 (34 percent) are ethnic minorities. 5,031 students in seven schools (two middle schools, one primary school and four kindergartens) are taught in Mongolian.
Teaching Mongolian as a supplemental language is a distinguishing feature of Inner Mongolia. In this category, there are 24 schools with 8,820 students in Hohhot. There are seven schools for the Hui nationality and two for the Man nationality. In ethnic primary and secondary schools and kindergartens, there are 3,913 teachers, among which 1,473 (38 percent) are of a minority ethnicity. Among those teachers, 110 of 456 language teachers are teaching Mongolian in the schools.
While great achievements have been accomplished, there are some deficits of ethnic education in Inner Mongolia, mainly an imbalance of students in the different grades. Students are relatively crowded in some schools (especially senior high schools) in major cities such as Hohhot. This overcrowding may result in students skipping preschool education and going directly to primary school. Meanwhile, due to a lack of space in junior middle schools, current primary school graduates may lose out on the opportunity for further education. Senior high schools are at risk of a student shortage due to the smaller amount of junior school graduates.
Secondly, the existing classrooms, facilities and teachers are far behind the current requirements which are urgently needed in order to expand. While Mongolian kindergartens in some districts are likely to increase the number of students enrolled in Mongolian classes, problems such as insufficient facilities, a shortage of teachers and the inconvenience of transportation due to suburban locations call for immediate attention.
On June 17, 2009, at a symposium on the present status of ethnic education, 27 participants from 12 different institutes proposed an agreement to end the merging of fundamental ethnic schools and instead expand and enlarge the scale of Hohhot ethnic schools as quickly as possible. In the following years, the layout of schools among different urban regions has been adjusted to meet the needs of both local and migrant students.
To further improve the state of education in Inner Mongolia, local governments should strive for support from the central government and promote the development of ethnic education. The number of schools teaching Mongolian should be expanded. Active and strong measures must be adopted to strengthen trilingual teaching (Chinese, Mongolian and English). In addition, internal management of each school should be even stricter, for the purpose of expanding feature-based construction of schools and propagating multi-ethnic cultures.
The protection and development of culture and education for ethnic minorities are of paramount importance to build the foundations for sustainable, balanced and healthy development, not only for ethnic regions, but also the entire country.
– Xin Gao
Photo: Flickr
The Future of Infrastructure in Cuba
In 1810, Cuba’s capital, Havana, had the same number of residents as New York City and nearly three times the population of Boston. It is home to countless historical colonial buildings as well as Soviet-style architecture built after Fidel Castro took power. In general, many of the buildings, historic or contemporary, are not well-maintained.
One of the constant threats to infrastructure in Cuba is natural disasters, especially hurricanes. Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm, devastated Cuba in September. The damage caused by the storm was compounded by the structural unsoundness of many of the buildings in Cuba. Of the 10 fatalities from the storm, seven were in Havana and were caused by unsafe buildings collapsing. Some people have continued living in parts of these buildings even after the storm.
Irma left longer-lasting damage as well. Millions of people were left without power and thousands of hectares of sugarcane, a major Cuban crop, were destroyed.
Tourism has always been a huge part of the Cuban economy, but increased tourism has put a strain on infrastructure in Cuba. The Obama administration eased travel restrictions on U.S. citizens visiting Cuba so that one can now visit the country individually, as opposed to doing so with a tour group. However, both the United States and Cuban governments, as well as the tourism industry, have expressed concerns about the ability of the infrastructure in Cuba to accommodate a large influx of tourists.
There is no doubt that the infrastructure in Cuba needs a major overhaul, but there are some positive points. The easing of restrictions on Cuba during the previous administration indicates a future of increased foreign tourism and business, and the Cuban government has acknowledged this reality.
Ultimately, lifting the U.S. embargo on Cuba would be a positive step, as it prevents the country from joining the IMF and scares away major U.S. banks from doing business in Cuba. It will require major foreign investments for Cuba’s economy to right itself, which in turn will lead to better infrastructure.
The future of the country and infrastructure in Cuba are still in question, but there is no doubt that there is a desire for a bigger foreign presence in Cuba, and with it, major changes. Cuba, once a leader in infrastructure, has good reason to build itself up.
– Andrew Revord
Photo: Flickr