Distributing aid within areas of conflict, especially those ruled by unstable authoritarian governments, has proven to be a struggle for organizations like the United Nations. These efforts are often plagued by a myriad of issues, such as the distribution of funds to individuals by relief agencies. The Ethereum blockchain in Jordan is shifting the paradigm.
Blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies and digital banking, however, have the potential to alleviate many of these complications. On May 31, 2017, the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) completed the first successful large-scale trial of the Ethereum blockchain in Jordan to distribute humanitarian aid to Syria.
In order to fully understand the tangible effects that blockchain technology has on the lives of these individuals, it is first necessary to establish a basic background of what exactly this new platform is and what it can do.
Ethereum essentially lends itself to decentralized data recording, meaning that no single person or entity owns the final ledger. Instead, everyone who participates in the network becomes part of the record keeping process.
Blockchain, the technology behind the infamous cryptocurrency Bitcoin as well as Ethereum, has many other applications past transferring money between parties. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum acts as a distributed public blockchain network. However, while Bitcoin’s main application involves peer-to-peer exchange of payments, Ethereum blockchain focuses on both cryptocurrency, called Ether, as well as deploying decentralized applications. These applications generally contain smart contracts: computer codes that facilitate the exchange of money, content, property or anything else of value.
Ethereum offers an unprecedented capacity to carry out nonspecific applications, meaning that instead of just offering peer-to-peer transfer of digital currencies, Ethereum enables the development of potentially thousands of different applications on a single platform. Additionally, hacking and fraudulent activities are virtually impossible on a decentralized network like Ethereum.
Ethereum has many widespread applications, one of which includes legal identification. With current estimates suggesting that there are 1.1 billion people around the world with no official documentation, many of whom are refugees, aid organizations struggle to provide health, financial and educational services without proper identification.
While smartphones or Internet-capable devices are an obvious access point for the identification platform, the project implemented by the WFP was built under the assumption that its beneficiaries might not have access to such luxuries. Instead, the WFP made it possible for thousands of Syrian refugees to pay with a scan of their eyes using the Ethereum blockchain in Jordan.
In this month-long trial, instead of administering funds directly to the recipients, the WFP issued unspecified amounts of cryptocurrency-based vouchers to thousands of Syrian refugees. The U.N. allocated money to the merchants of participating stores where the coupons could be redeemed, effectively cutting out the banking middlemen in the aid distribution processes. Iris recognition devices verified the identities of the refugees at the supermarket in the Azraq camp in Jordan and deducted what they spent from the total sum the WFP provided.
By the end of May 2017, the Ethereum blockchain in Jordan was successfully used to record and authenticate transfers to about 10,000 individuals. WFP consultant Alexandra Alden helped oversee the implementation of this project and stated, “All funds received by the refugees from WFP were specifically used to purchase food items such as olive oil, pasta, and lentils.”
The Future of Ethereum Blockchain in Jordan and Beyond
In terms of future expansion, the WFP intends to include upwards of 100,000 individuals in Jordan in the program as early as August 2017, with hopes of serving the entire Jordanian refugee population by the end of 2018. If this expansion proves successful, the agency will look to expand beyond Jordan to other countries in need of aid.
Additionally, companies including Accenture and Microsoft have been working to design a more comprehensive digital ID network for the U.N. using blockchain technology.
Instead of just receiving food from local merchants, this identification network will provide undocumented refugees with unique identifiers called “stamps” that authenticate services received at camps or through other agencies, such as vaccinations. This system of record keeping will be tested in the near future.
While blockchain technology has the potential to serve the rest of society in various capacities, Ethereum offers those individuals who have been forced to renounce their identities over and over again the possibility of retaining important parts of who they are.
– Richa Bijlani
Photo: Flickr
Resilience Found in the Rebuilding of the Mosul University Library
A library in Iraq is receiving the proper attention it deserves after the devastation of an occupation by the Islamic State since 2014. The rebuilding of the Mosul University library has been brought about by volunteers who have attempted to restore what is left of the library’s collection, after hundred of thousands of ancient documents were destroyed.
The Mosul University library and its contents were destroyed during two years of the Islamic State’s occupation of Mosul, in northern Iraq. Iraqi newspapers, maps, books and ancient collects were lost in the burning of the library. During the occupation, 900,000 residents were displaced and thousands of civilians killed amid the fighting.
The independent blogger Mosul Eye has since led a movement to restore what is left of the library’s collection. This has resulted in the movement to recover and donate books to the library. Many were doubtful that the library’s collection had survived, but the discovery of some 86,000 books proved otherwise. Since the discovery of the books, many have been moved to a safer location. According to Irina Bokova, the head of the United Nation’s Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the destruction of the library “adds to the systematic destruction of heritage and the persecution of minorities that seeks to wipe out the cultural diversity that is the soul of the Iraqi people.”
The efforts of Mosul Eye and volunteers alike culminated in a reading festival that celebrated books, reading, music and poetry. For many, the festival symbolized the resilience of the Iraqi people and their culture against the threat of terrorism. The war on culture that has been posed by Islamic State has led not only to the burning of books, but shrines, statues and other culturally significant sites. However, just as the rebuilding of the Mosul University library serves as a testament, the Iraqi people have proven their resilience in the face of terror.
– Jennifer Faulkner
Photo: Flickr
Women’s Collectives in India Offer Solutions and Empowerment
Many people living in India’s slums do not have a toilet in their own home. Their only option for using a toilet is walking 15 minutes to a run-down community toilet and waiting in an often chaotic line.
For men, relieving themselves in the open is an option, albeit one with negative effects on public health. Women who do this are targets for harassment, so they drink very little water and wait for the protection of nightfall to perform this necessary human function. 15 years ago, the miserable conditions in the slums of Ahmedabad prompted the Gujarat Mahila Housing SEWA Trust to use community-based women’s organizations to improve sanitary conditions.
The SEWA Trust identified local women leaders who recruited other women to join community-based organizations. These women were trained in sanitation system planning and how to demand funding from certain government programs. The women’s collectives in India monitored and maintained the sanitation systems they installed. Communities paid for one-third of the costs and the government covered the rest.
The program ultimately established 46 community-based organizations in 895 slums, trained more than 13,000 women and installed toilets in nearly 90,000 households. Many women opened bank accounts during the course of the program, strengthening their financial power.
Women used the skills gained from sanitation planning to tackle other issues in their communities. One woman used her skills to convince a power company to supply electricity to her slum. That company adopted a modified payment plan and eventually supplied electricity to nearly 1 million people in India. Many of the original community-based organizations have expanded to become citywide federations and make their voices heard in city planning.
CARE is an organization that is dedicated to ending world poverty, and one of the methods they use is establishing women’s collectives in India and around the world. On average, women joining CARE collectives see their yearly income increase twice as quickly as women in similar communities without CARE collectives.
According to women surveyed by CARE, the five main barriers to their economic empowerment are lack of time, limited access to resources, violence, low incomes and the productivity gap between men and women. Women who join CARE collectives fare better in all five categories compared to those who do not.
The number of women who believe that it is acceptable for their husband to beat them dropped from 50 percent in the control group to 12 percent in CARE collectives. The percent of women who feel that they have control over their income is 37 percent higher for women in collectives.
Typically, women produce 80 percent of what men produce while working twice as many hours. Women in collectives receive two additional hours of labor support from their families and produce 90 percent of what men do.
Women usually have access to 50 percent of the resources that men do, but for women in collectives that number jumps to 90 percent. Women’s collectives are not only effective in solving menacing community issues, but a tool for empowering women in all aspects of society.
– Kristen Nixon
Photo: Flickr
Thailand’s New Strategy to Eliminate AIDS
Thailand has recently launched a new national strategy, with the goal of eliminating AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. The plan, devised by the Ministry of Public Health, aims to use rigorous strategy of detecting, treating and suppressing the AIDS virus within the infected population.
The first step of the plan aims to meet the global 90-90-90 goal by 2020, where the first 90 percent of people who have AIDS are informed of their infection. This 90 percent of infected people should then have access to, and begin, treatment. Then, 90 percent of people who have received treatment are fully virally suppressed. This breakdown provides realistic goals for the plan’s execution.
This plan is targeted to the key demographics among which the HIV rate is the highest. Thailand’s government is committing full efforts to providing the citizens with prevention and outreach programs in highly infectious areas to help inform and protect the uninfected populations.
One of the further goals of this plan is to eventually include hepatitis C, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases as serious public health issues to be resolved within Thailand. The U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) firmly believes in Thailand’s plan, as its pilot tests have resulted in an excellent effective rate. Because of this, UNAIDS would like to implement the plan in more nations dealing with similar situations.
The initial segment of the plan – encompassing 2015 to 2019 – is dedicated to the testing of new measures as well as setting up new two-way coordination frameworks for the execution of the rest of the plan. This segment includes a majority of pilot testing, where the results of the data collected would help to produce the next plan segment.
While Thailand is pioneering new widespread measures to eliminate AIDS, their groundbreaking work will be a stepping stone to the elimination of AIDS in the nation. With massive organizations, such as UNAIDS, working alongside them to study and develop solutions, there is a lot of promise in the eventual elimination of the global AIDS issue.
– Rebekah
Photo: Flickr
Tech Solutions That Improve Humanitarian Service Delivery
With natural disasters like the recent earthquakes in Mexico and Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria wreaking untold havoc, the question of how to improve humanitarian service delivery is all the more pertinent. Technology is quickly changing the way we respond to crises and will continue to transform our responses in the future.
According to the GSM Association, increased mobile connectivity is a lifeline that has made service delivery more efficient. Network operators can get in touch with anyone connected to a mobile device to warn them of incoming disasters and provide them with strategies to prepare for the worst. The rise of social media has given political leaders and news organizations similar powers to connect with their citizens and audiences.
In addition, mobile devices make humanitarian cash transfers easier—it is far more convenient and quicker to send digital money than cash—and improve access to energy. Especially in the developing world, many people live off the traditional “grid” but are covered by pay-as-you-go energy providers, who partner with mobile services, to ensure easy and orderly digital payments.
According to the World Economic Forum, robots are making a difference in how humanitarian aid is deployed, and they will likely do so to an even greater extent in the future. Certain areas become too dangerous during disasters for human responders to be able to assess needs or deliver aid, and robots (including drones) have the potential to mitigate that. Indeed, drones are currently being used, albeit in a limited manner.
With the number of people affected by humanitarian crises nearly doubling over the course of the past decade, technological solutions like these will be vital to minimizing the effects of the growing displacement crisis and the security risks and poverty it causes.
Gisli Rafn Olafsson believes one of the most important effects of technology on humanitarian service delivery is its potential to encourage a “bottom-up” approach that will soon replace the current, unwieldy “top-down” paradigm. With technology, the beneficiaries of humanitarian response can organize their own responses to wars and natural disasters rather than wait for help to arrive. A grassroots network is invariably the strongest tool and the best solution to improve humanitarian service delivery.
– Chuck Hasenauer
Photo: Flickr
Global Women’s Rights Organizations Working to Improve Conditions
So while organizations that directly target ending global poverty are important, it is equally as important to recognize global women’s rights organizations for the world-altering work that they do. Here are five organizations that are taking part in the fight for global women’s rights and in turn helping to reduce global poverty.
Global Fund for Women
The Global Fund for Women is an organization founded in 1987 by Anne Firth Murray, Frances Kissling, Laura Lederer and Nita Barrow. They believed that women’s rights are the key to social, economic and political change. The Global Fund for Women finds and gives funding to women who are building social movements and challenging societal norms.
MADRE
MADRE is an organization that is “demanding rights, resources and results for women worldwide.” They partner with community-based women’s groups that are facing disaster and advocate for human rights. Some of their missions include ending violence against women, ending rape as a weapon of war, economic justice, women’s health and emergency relief.
Campaign for Female Education (Camfed)
Camfed is a non-profit that supports and empowers young girls in rural areas to go to school and even become leaders. Their efforts specifically focus on sub-Saharan Africa, and since 1993 the organization has helped 1,876,214 students to go to school.
The Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID)
AWID is a global feminist organization. The objective of AWID is to strengthen the collective voice of women to create global change. Their priority areas are women’s rights, challenging religious fundamentalists, promoting young feminist activism and economic justice.
International Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC)
The IWHC views women’s rights as a key component of social, environmental and economic reform. Their goal is to ensure that all women have equal access to resources to protect their health, make informed family planning decisions, and participate in society through leadership roles.
All of these organizations are doing important work to address specific goals on the path to global women’s rights. By improving the lives of women all over the world, they also play a major role in alleviating poverty as a whole.
– Téa Franco
Photo: Flickr
Ethereum Blockchain in Jordan Is Changing Aid
Distributing aid within areas of conflict, especially those ruled by unstable authoritarian governments, has proven to be a struggle for organizations like the United Nations. These efforts are often plagued by a myriad of issues, such as the distribution of funds to individuals by relief agencies. The Ethereum blockchain in Jordan is shifting the paradigm.
Blockchain technologies, cryptocurrencies and digital banking, however, have the potential to alleviate many of these complications. On May 31, 2017, the United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) completed the first successful large-scale trial of the Ethereum blockchain in Jordan to distribute humanitarian aid to Syria.
In order to fully understand the tangible effects that blockchain technology has on the lives of these individuals, it is first necessary to establish a basic background of what exactly this new platform is and what it can do.
Ethereum essentially lends itself to decentralized data recording, meaning that no single person or entity owns the final ledger. Instead, everyone who participates in the network becomes part of the record keeping process.
Blockchain, the technology behind the infamous cryptocurrency Bitcoin as well as Ethereum, has many other applications past transferring money between parties. Like Bitcoin, Ethereum acts as a distributed public blockchain network. However, while Bitcoin’s main application involves peer-to-peer exchange of payments, Ethereum blockchain focuses on both cryptocurrency, called Ether, as well as deploying decentralized applications. These applications generally contain smart contracts: computer codes that facilitate the exchange of money, content, property or anything else of value.
Ethereum offers an unprecedented capacity to carry out nonspecific applications, meaning that instead of just offering peer-to-peer transfer of digital currencies, Ethereum enables the development of potentially thousands of different applications on a single platform. Additionally, hacking and fraudulent activities are virtually impossible on a decentralized network like Ethereum.
Ethereum has many widespread applications, one of which includes legal identification. With current estimates suggesting that there are 1.1 billion people around the world with no official documentation, many of whom are refugees, aid organizations struggle to provide health, financial and educational services without proper identification.
While smartphones or Internet-capable devices are an obvious access point for the identification platform, the project implemented by the WFP was built under the assumption that its beneficiaries might not have access to such luxuries. Instead, the WFP made it possible for thousands of Syrian refugees to pay with a scan of their eyes using the Ethereum blockchain in Jordan.
In this month-long trial, instead of administering funds directly to the recipients, the WFP issued unspecified amounts of cryptocurrency-based vouchers to thousands of Syrian refugees. The U.N. allocated money to the merchants of participating stores where the coupons could be redeemed, effectively cutting out the banking middlemen in the aid distribution processes. Iris recognition devices verified the identities of the refugees at the supermarket in the Azraq camp in Jordan and deducted what they spent from the total sum the WFP provided.
By the end of May 2017, the Ethereum blockchain in Jordan was successfully used to record and authenticate transfers to about 10,000 individuals. WFP consultant Alexandra Alden helped oversee the implementation of this project and stated, “All funds received by the refugees from WFP were specifically used to purchase food items such as olive oil, pasta, and lentils.”
The Future of Ethereum Blockchain in Jordan and Beyond
In terms of future expansion, the WFP intends to include upwards of 100,000 individuals in Jordan in the program as early as August 2017, with hopes of serving the entire Jordanian refugee population by the end of 2018. If this expansion proves successful, the agency will look to expand beyond Jordan to other countries in need of aid.
Additionally, companies including Accenture and Microsoft have been working to design a more comprehensive digital ID network for the U.N. using blockchain technology.
Instead of just receiving food from local merchants, this identification network will provide undocumented refugees with unique identifiers called “stamps” that authenticate services received at camps or through other agencies, such as vaccinations. This system of record keeping will be tested in the near future.
While blockchain technology has the potential to serve the rest of society in various capacities, Ethereum offers those individuals who have been forced to renounce their identities over and over again the possibility of retaining important parts of who they are.
– Richa Bijlani
Photo: Flickr
Varying Degrees of Poverty in Former USSR States
The countries that once made up the USSR are complex and differ in nearly every way. During the most of the 20th century, however, they were ruled over by one central government. Since the peaceful fall of the regime, the Soviet Union has splintered into the different countries we know today, connected via the Commonwealth of Independent States. Although poverty in former USSR states has generally decreased when comparing the rates of today to the past, this does not mean that the road to alleviating poverty in former USSR states was easy.
For many of the former “-stan” countries, for example, the fall had a rather negative effect on those economies. Turkmenistan became a dictatorship whose elections were not deemed fair and democratic. As a result, the country became very corrupt. Uzbekistan was not ruled by a dictatorship, but corruption inside the country is very high, making foreign aid difficult to administer. Furthermore, due to a highly controversial massacre of protesters in the country in 2005, it is the only country to have cut ties with the Western world. Tajikistan suffered a civil war right after the collapse. Kazakhstan, on the other hand, is different. The country has grown its economy since its independence due to its robust energy industry. Except for Turkmenistan (no data) and Kazakhstan (2.7 percent), every single one of the countries has a poverty rate of about 20 percent or higher.
For the countries located between the Black and the Caspian Seas, the state of poverty does not look much better. Armenia has a poverty rate of over 30 percent due to political instability, while Georgia experienced a civil war that created a few frozen conflict zones (South Ossetia and Abkhasia). Azerbaijan was spared any wars and has plentiful oil fields from which to grow its economy. Alas, corruption is very high in this country as well.
The countries in Europe, however, have done relatively well. Estonia is rated as the least poor of the countries (despite a 20 percent poverty rate) due to embracing the free market system and capitalizing on electronics. Latvia has also grown its GDP. Although it is poor, it proved itself immensely resistant to the 2009 recession and recovered very quickly while putting itself onto a path to join the EU. Moldova, however, has been suffering for two decades because of political instability, leading to the self-proclaimed state of Transnistria forming within the country. Now though, it is on its way towards EU membership, with a poverty rate of about 10 percent.
Ukraine has actually had a fairly peaceful transition into post-Soviet politics, making the 2000s a prosperous period for Ukraine. Although recent events in the country make it sound like a dangerous place, the poverty rate is in fact at only 6.4 percent. Finally, Belarus, arguably the worst country to live in after the collapse of the USSR. The country has been led by a dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, since its independence. The country has been graded as having the worst human rights of all the countries summarized in this article, making foreign aid questionable. Still, the poverty rate is supposedly at only 5.1 percent.
Overall, such a quick summary of each country cannot completely summarize the state of poverty in former USSR states. Every country is independent, making their political outcomes as varied as any group of countries in the world. What we can learn from this information is that whatever past a country might have had does not predict how it will perform in the future in regards to poverty. Those states that have succeeded in transitioning and becoming more wealthy have set a good example. Now it is up to the oppressive and poor countries to learn from this and grow.
– Michal Burgunder
Photo: Flickr
Job Security in Oman
Oman relies heavily on its oil production for economic growth and high oil prices until the recent past were what boosted its economy. However, the problem with an oil-based economy is that it is unsustainable because of the inevitable decline in oil production and fall in its prices. Oman, like other oil-rich countries in the Middle East and Africa, has been experiencing the negative effects of this decline in prices and oil production.
It is feared that due to “the global economic slowdown, the recession in Europe and the economic slowdown in China and elsewhere, oil prices are not going to increase.” Consequently, there has been an increase in job insecurities and frustration among the people of Oman. In 2012, the unemployment rate was 25 percent. It is expected to increase if the government does not create employment opportunities in the public and private sectors.
In 2011, the people of Oman, with changes underway in the region due to the Arab Spring, protested against the government, demanding economic and political reforms. The government responded with a police crackdown on protestors as well as taking measures to placate people by creating public sector jobs and raising wages.
Analysts believe that the result of raising wages in the public sector is not encouraging, for two reasons: One is that it has brought pressure on the budget, which is already strained by the decline in oil prices and production. The second is that the increase in wages in the public sector has also proved to be a hindrance to private sector growth. In order for economic diversification to take place, which the country needs, Oman needs to create more jobs in the private sector.
The positive news, according to the 2016 Word Bank Economic Outlook report on Oman, is that the country’s overall real GDP growth is expected to slightly recover “as a gradual recovery of oil prices improves confidence and encourages private sector investment.” Further, trade and investment opportunities with Iran are also expected to increase as sanctions are lifted. There is hope that these and other measures will bring help to the people of Oman in terms of job security.
– Aslam Kakar
Photo: Flickr
How to Help People in Mozambique
The country faces several ongoing developmental challenges. There is unequal distribution of wealth and inequality is prevalent. Common health issues include malnutrition and as a result, stunting. It is also struggling with malaria, which is the most common cause of death among children and the general population. Mozambique also has one of the poorest water and sanitation rankings in the world; the water consumption is among the lowest in the world, even with multiple water sources.
The World Bank Group has been helping Mozambique from “economic stabilization in the 1980s, to postwar reconstruction in the early 1990s, to a comprehensive support strategy in the late 1990s.” The World Bank Group plans to help in areas of agriculture, education, environment, natural resources, health and nutrition. In addition to that, they have projects in the works to contribute an additional $1 billion worth of aid.
While these projects are still in the planning phases, Mozambique still requires immediate help. One of the ways to help people in Mozambique is by donating to organizations.
At Stop for the One, there are several ways to implement your funds, whether to help the crisis relief, drill a well, support young adults, or sponsor a child.
Another way to help people in Mozambique is at Concern Worldwide. The organization works to address food and nutrition, specifically in impoverished and isolated farming communities, as well as to women and children. As much as 90 percent is used for relief and development.
Whichever organization you choose, the donations will contribute to help people in Mozambique.
– Chavez Spicer
Photo: Flickr
Taiwan’s Sustainable Development Shows Progress
The government of Taiwan has been actively establishing partnerships in agriculture, public health, education, environmentalism and information and communications technology. These partnerships have allowed Taiwan to advance its development in the areas of poverty, education, hunger, health and gender equality.
Additionally, Taiwan has an active recycling system, which has been introduced in Romania, where it is also being implemented. This system allows for the recycling of polyethylene terephthalate water bottles, benefitting the environment and communities of Taiwan.
Taiwan’s sustainable development efforts have also been working toward eliminating other harmful toxins found in items such as cosmetics. Beginning in January 2018, the nation will be prohibiting the production of cosmetics that contain small plastic particles, and fewer stores will be allowed to offer free plastic bags to customers.
The nation has already been seeing the positive effects of its environmentalist efforts. According to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act, Taiwan’s carbon dioxide emissions are expected to reduce by half of the 2005 volume by 2050. The efforts being made by the Taiwanese government are benefiting the nation’s most vulnerable. By tackling climate change and other environmental issues, Taiwan is protecting its citizens who live off the land.
Additionally, Taiwan is seeking improvements in its healthcare, universal education and women’s political participation, which will provide more resources for the nation’s poor and historically subjugated groups. Working alongside a number of other countries, Taiwan has been successfully fighting diseases including Zika, Ebola and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.
If Taiwan’s sustainable development continues to improve, the nation will see an increase in health, educational and employment opportunities and a decrease in poverty and the gender gap, which will put Taiwan on par with major developed countries.
– Kassidy Tarala
Photo: Flickr