The BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—account for a massive 30 percent of world’s GDP and a high proportion of international growth. These nations are key players on the world stage. The annual BRICS summit has helped galvanize a wide array of infrastructure projects, trade and poverty alleviation initiatives to ensure equitable and sustainable growth. BRICS is bolstering the capacities and capabilities of rising markets by tapping into their potentials.
The New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingent Reserve Arrangement is contributing much to improving social security nets, bettering infrastructure networks and regulating governance. Each country is dedicating a fixed proportion to the BRICS Development Bank. The NDB has allocated over $1.4 billion to support four projects each in China, Russia and India. Over the course of 2017, more than $30 billion will be channeled toward supporting projects in other key realms.
Similarly, the BRICS Business Council helps strengthen cooperation among BRICS countries in e-commerce, technical development and agenda-setting.
The BRICS bloc works to integrate a number of global, national and regional development projects and agendas together, like the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union 2063 Agenda.
BRICS countries are capitalizing on their positions to encourage trade liberalization within the bloc, especially in regards to increasing efficiency and overcoming red tape and bureaucratic weaknesses often associated with free trade.
The BRICS bloc strengthens positions of countries in Eurasia. In 2017 alone, it was reported that levels of trade between BRICS nations increased exponentially. Shipments to and from countries are reaching record heights. The growth of the manufacturing sector and e-commerce has increased exponentially.
The bloc is also working collaboratively towards safeguarding the future by securing employment in the manufacturing sector and cushioning technology.
The recent 2017 BRICS Summit held in Xiamen, China covered issues ranging from employment, commerce and finance, innovation and technology to reforms of the United Nations Security Council and improving counter-terrorism measures.
As the BRICS bloc often invites many non-BRICs members to observe annual proceedings, it could possibly lead to the inclusion of more developing countries in future. For the recent BRICS summit, China invited countries such Tajikistan, Mexico, Thailand, Kenya and Egypt. The bloc wants to expand its potential and scope in future.
However, even within BRICS nations, there are differences in aspects such as wealth distribution, growth rate and population control. China and India boast exponential growth rates, while countries such as Russia have been experiencing slower growth rates at present.
As a host to this year’s BRICS Summit, China pledged $76.4 million for a BRICS economic and technology cooperation agenda. President Xi Jinping also pledged $4 million to the NDB. China’s Belt and Road Initiative was an important part of the discourse, seeing as it has gained much traction globally since its inception.
South African President, Jacob Zuma, focused on the implementation of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals 2030 to eradicate poverty at the 2017 BRICS Summit.
Zuma spoke about the work of the African Union (AU) in this realm. The AU recently announced the opening of the African Regional Centre. Moreover, Zuma is also confident about the progress of the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention of Climate Change.
At the BRICS Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was particularly concerned with tackling poverty and corruption, bolstering clean energy sectors, and ensuring gender parity. India recently joined the Shanghai Cooperation to ensure more social stability and economic security.
Prime Minister Modi unveiled 10 “noble commitments” concerning key aspects like counter-terrorism, cybersecurity and disaster management. The BRICS commitment could also bring India closer toward normalizing relations with China, especially after the Doklam border conflict.
Russia and India agreed to collaboratively work toward easing the War in Afghanistan. The leaders also focused on fortifying energy efficiency, tourism and improving youth exchanges, bilateral trade, and boosting investment in an integrated manner.
Furthermore, Brazilian President Michel Termer aimed to secure more foreign investment during the course of the BRICS summit this year to possibly counter Brazil’s current period of languid growth. Termer expressed his wish to channel investment toward infrastructure projects and diversifying markets.
Overall, future BRICS Summits will pave the way for pioneering global development initiatives and will be an important framework for governance and policymaking in the future, as it is essential that developing superpowers be immune to economic headwinds. It will also be the foundation for future agendas in the evolving world dynamic.
– Shivani Ekkanath
Photo: Flickr
How to Help Impoverished People in South Korea
South Koreans’ life expectancies are among the highest in the world; they live 82.4 years on average, by The World Factbook’s 2016 estimate. But while people live nearly twice as long as they would have in the 1950s, the birth rate is four times lower. The elderly population in South Korea is projected to be 10.7 million by 2026 – about 20.5 percent of the population – and right now half of them are living in poverty.
OECD data estimates that South Korea’s working class population (ages 25 to 49) peaked in 2009, and just this year the Korean government made the decision to raise the retirement age from 55 to 60. The young are competing for jobs with the people their culture once expected them to care for and the already weak Confucian sentiment of past generations may entirely disappear as they do.
While family support for the elderly is not as it once was, a number of programs dedicate themselves to providing universal needs to South Korea’s poor. Habitat for Humanity builds residential complexes that emphasize communal cooperation, encouraging a culture of care while tackling the issue that Seoul is home to half of the population and has a cost of living comparable to that of Los Angeles.
Habitat for Humanity has helped more than 3,300 families and individuals in South Korea and are one of the few organizations that tailor their efforts particularly to the elderly. Once they are housed, the biggest obstacles remaining are healthcare and food.
Churches and other local groups frequently distribute food or money to the elderly and other impoverished people in South Korea. A group of nine entrepreneurs recently created the Korea Legacy Committee and have raised $20,000 for the Seoul Senior Welfare Center’s meal programs. These local, independent efforts often make a more direct impact than Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS), described by Bloomberg Business as “passive,” despite being the third largest in the world.
Legal conflicts have put the NPS’s economic and political ties under scrutiny recently. With its legitimacy in question, public trust that was already low is now almost entirely lost. The best hope is that local organizations’ aid and advocacy in the government will stop South Korea’s oldest generation from being lost as well.
– Brooke Clayton
Photo: Flickr
Overcoming Language Barriers for Education in Malaysia
Whether in textbooks or spoken in lectures, language is crucial in effective education. Without a common means of communication, many students will be left behind. While education in Malaysia has predominantly used Malay, the country’s official language, in its classrooms, some Malaysian schools also include more English, Chinese and Tamil cultures into their curricula.
In most instances, immense diversity is a privilege to instill greater global awareness, but, in the Malaysian education system, it has hindered progress, especially in keeping up with other countries’ educational opportunities. To keep up in an ever-changing economy and job market, education in Malaysia needs to establish a common language for all schools.
Despite its linguistic differences, Malaysian education is goal-driven and focused on improving itself. The government released an ambitious Malaysia Education Blueprint in 2013. The detailed plan hopes to achieve universal access and full enrollment of all children from preschool to upper secondary school, improved student test scores, and reduced urban-rural, socio-economic and gender achievement gaps, all by 2020.
To meet such high standards, however, promoting a mother tongue language for education in Malaysia is key. The benefits of doing so include higher enrollment and success rates, especially for girls and rural-based students, and greater parent-teacher communication. The students that tend to feel the most marginalized, those from poorer households, are more likely to attend school, retain information, and participate in their learning.
Other countries in the region with similar struggles serve as examples of how to overcome potential language barriers. Laos has dozens of diverse languages that are mainly spoken in rural, impoverished communities. However, with education requiring fluency in Lao, the official language, children from different ethnic backgrounds were left out. With UNICEF’s support, the government took a “Schools of Quality” approach that starts children in their native language and slowly transitions them into Lao. The change has been a successful way to boost student morale and attendance.
Such benefits of a mother-tongue-based education will propel Malaysia to become a world leader in a digital economy. Students who face language barriers in their education have limited opportunities to reach their full potential. If students fall behind in understanding their studies, they will also fall behind when facing an increasingly technical-based economy. Acquiring skills in technology and STEM-related fields requires a quality, forward-thinking education as a foundation. That education appropriately requires a cohesive language to teach and learn.
Education should be an accessible service to every person, regardless of their language, ethnicity or socioeconomic status. Education in Malaysia is on the right path to improving its system, but an important step forward will involve overcoming language barriers. Other countries in the region serve as testaments to the positive growth in preserving the mother tongue, and, with continued support, Malaysia too can experience this progress.
– Allie Knofczynski
Photo: Flickr
BRICS Summit 2017: Another Step to Poverty Alleviation
The BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—account for a massive 30 percent of world’s GDP and a high proportion of international growth. These nations are key players on the world stage. The annual BRICS summit has helped galvanize a wide array of infrastructure projects, trade and poverty alleviation initiatives to ensure equitable and sustainable growth. BRICS is bolstering the capacities and capabilities of rising markets by tapping into their potentials.
The New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingent Reserve Arrangement is contributing much to improving social security nets, bettering infrastructure networks and regulating governance. Each country is dedicating a fixed proportion to the BRICS Development Bank. The NDB has allocated over $1.4 billion to support four projects each in China, Russia and India. Over the course of 2017, more than $30 billion will be channeled toward supporting projects in other key realms.
Similarly, the BRICS Business Council helps strengthen cooperation among BRICS countries in e-commerce, technical development and agenda-setting.
The BRICS bloc works to integrate a number of global, national and regional development projects and agendas together, like the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union 2063 Agenda.
BRICS countries are capitalizing on their positions to encourage trade liberalization within the bloc, especially in regards to increasing efficiency and overcoming red tape and bureaucratic weaknesses often associated with free trade.
The BRICS bloc strengthens positions of countries in Eurasia. In 2017 alone, it was reported that levels of trade between BRICS nations increased exponentially. Shipments to and from countries are reaching record heights. The growth of the manufacturing sector and e-commerce has increased exponentially.
The bloc is also working collaboratively towards safeguarding the future by securing employment in the manufacturing sector and cushioning technology.
The recent 2017 BRICS Summit held in Xiamen, China covered issues ranging from employment, commerce and finance, innovation and technology to reforms of the United Nations Security Council and improving counter-terrorism measures.
As the BRICS bloc often invites many non-BRICs members to observe annual proceedings, it could possibly lead to the inclusion of more developing countries in future. For the recent BRICS summit, China invited countries such Tajikistan, Mexico, Thailand, Kenya and Egypt. The bloc wants to expand its potential and scope in future.
However, even within BRICS nations, there are differences in aspects such as wealth distribution, growth rate and population control. China and India boast exponential growth rates, while countries such as Russia have been experiencing slower growth rates at present.
As a host to this year’s BRICS Summit, China pledged $76.4 million for a BRICS economic and technology cooperation agenda. President Xi Jinping also pledged $4 million to the NDB. China’s Belt and Road Initiative was an important part of the discourse, seeing as it has gained much traction globally since its inception.
South African President, Jacob Zuma, focused on the implementation of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals 2030 to eradicate poverty at the 2017 BRICS Summit.
Zuma spoke about the work of the African Union (AU) in this realm. The AU recently announced the opening of the African Regional Centre. Moreover, Zuma is also confident about the progress of the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention of Climate Change.
At the BRICS Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was particularly concerned with tackling poverty and corruption, bolstering clean energy sectors, and ensuring gender parity. India recently joined the Shanghai Cooperation to ensure more social stability and economic security.
Prime Minister Modi unveiled 10 “noble commitments” concerning key aspects like counter-terrorism, cybersecurity and disaster management. The BRICS commitment could also bring India closer toward normalizing relations with China, especially after the Doklam border conflict.
Russia and India agreed to collaboratively work toward easing the War in Afghanistan. The leaders also focused on fortifying energy efficiency, tourism and improving youth exchanges, bilateral trade, and boosting investment in an integrated manner.
Furthermore, Brazilian President Michel Termer aimed to secure more foreign investment during the course of the BRICS summit this year to possibly counter Brazil’s current period of languid growth. Termer expressed his wish to channel investment toward infrastructure projects and diversifying markets.
Overall, future BRICS Summits will pave the way for pioneering global development initiatives and will be an important framework for governance and policymaking in the future, as it is essential that developing superpowers be immune to economic headwinds. It will also be the foundation for future agendas in the evolving world dynamic.
– Shivani Ekkanath
Photo: Flickr
Causes of Poverty in Panama
To understand poverty in Panama, the economic dichotomy between the country’s urban and rural regions must be brought to attention. Many residents of Panama’s larger cities currently experience the monetary benefits of one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. This is largely due to international trade being introduced through the newly expanded Panama Canal. However, many Panamanians living away from these cities experience a vastly different economic reality. Poor infrastructure and little opportunity for agricultural growth constitute the primary reasons for the causes of poverty in Panama.
The country’s poor infrastructure is one of its main causes of poverty. Per a New York University report, roads “remain poor in rural parts of the country.” The report goes on to state that, “in total, only about 34 percent of the roads are paved”.
Roads that are unpaved and dangerous to use make it difficult for rural farmers to transport their goods to market. In turn, this means that many of these families have a much more difficult time selling goods and services to a broader market than people who have access to proper infrastructure. This has led to a crisis in Panamanian agricultural output, which is now a little over two percent of the country’s GDP, a low number for a country that has heavily relied on this form of trade in the past. This is one of the causes of poverty in Panama and is found mainly in the country’s rural areas in which agriculture is the primary source of livelihood.
Drought is another one of the main causes of poverty in Panama. Much of the time, growing food in rural Panama is a matter of life or death and a necessity to feed one’s family. Rural Panamanians not only sell agricultural goods, they often sustain themselves from what they grow. This is a practice called subsistence farming — feeding oneself entirely from the food one produces personally. Unfortunately, much of Central America has been experiencing a drought since 2014, leading to a decrease in food production.
“The lack of rain since the middle of 2014 has resulted in the loss of staple grain crops and death of thousands of cattle in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and, to a lesser extent, in areas of Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama,” states a report by the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The World Bank has cited that a proper educational system installed in rural Panama could diminish much of its poverty. The World Bank report states that families led by a member who has received some level of education are less likely to be poor than families that are not. Educational systems brought to rural Panama have the potential to increase social mobility for the uneducated. Perhaps programs such as this could not only decrease the financial gap between urban and rural Panama but also reduce poverty in Panama in general.
– Michael Carmack
Human Rights in Vanuatu
One of the many struggles that women are currently facing in Vanuatu is an inability to even get their voices heard. The nation has a 52-member parliament but no female representation. Violence against women is a frequent occurrence in Vanuatu. The U.S. State Department 2015 Report on human rights in Vanuatu states that while reliable statistics on this topic are nowhere to be found, police have noticed a growing trend of violence against women. In order for this to change, parts of Vanuatu’s culture will likely need to change. Women in Vanuatu often do not report incidents of violence either due to a lack of knowledge regarding their own rights or fear of possible backlash for their actions.
Corruption is another problem in Vanuatu. Generally, corruption can be quelled by making and effectively implementing laws prohibiting it, but Vanuatu is currently unable to implement the law. As a result, those who are corrupt are seldom held accountable. Transparency International is an organization that, according to its website, works “closely with governments, businesses and citizens to stop the abuse of power, bribery and secret deals.” The organization believes that the Vanuatu government must start and finance a national anti-corruption agency to combat this practice.
The human rights of prisoners in Vanuatu are not being sufficiently protected either. Thankfully, foreign donor funding has allowed for prisoner and detention center conditions in the region to improve, but they still have not met international standards.
Vanuatu clearly has much work to do to improve the protection of its people’s human rights. A step in the right direction did occur in this past summer as Vanuatu participated in a Pacific Islands Forum review of the nation’s policies and programmes. A goal of this initiative is to create a toolkit or checklist that the government can use moving forward to help it improve its protection of its people’s human rights. This review is just now coming to an end, so its impact remains to be seen.
– Adam Braunstein
Photo: Google
Improving Access to Education in Africa
The Shule Foundation has two goals. The first of these goals is to expand access to education in Africa by building schools and not just classrooms. The second is to implement a unique self-sustaining model that will exceed the educational needs of all children. The Shule Foundation builds high-quality schools in rural villages across Africa, recycling surplus into scholarships for underserved students.
While many do have access to education in the world, there are still many problems which need to be addressed, especially in specific areas. Of the children that do get the opportunity to attend school, 250 million cannot read or write after four years. Fifty percent of the out-of-school children in the world live across Africa. The Shule Foundation was created to address the conditions of education across Africa including under-skilled teachers, limited resources, overcrowded classrooms, no electricity and a lack of nutrition.
The Shule Foundation believes education is a human right. The organization is dedicated to expanding access to quality education to children in Africa by providing various opportunities. Its goal is to improve the quality of education, increase family income, empower women and girls and produce a more financially stable population across Africa. The opportunities the campaign provides are funded through a few solutions.
The first solution is called the Kitalu Shule Project. The project aims to increase early childhood education and to build preschools that support early development. With this form of nourishment, better opportunities are created for children in the future.
The campaign’s plan is to build primary schools in Jeeja and Uganda and from there expand throughout Africa. The schools will provide the children with two meals a day, access to health care and better sanitary facilities.
The Miche (Seedling) Project is another favorable concept that the Shule Foundation has come up with. The organization planned a concept that starts with educating the community on farming, in turn yielding more crops that provide proceeds to build better schools. This is the Shule Foundation’s plan toward sustainability.
With this project, the Shule Foundation has turned 20 acres of land into efficient organic farms. Along with this successful step, the project will educate farmers on best crop practices, empower women and girls in the workforce, help raise funds for schools in different communities as well as provide food for the schools built.
The Shule Foundation does not just focus on increasing access to education in Africa; it also provides the concept and tools to work toward building schools and sustaining them. By introducing agricultural technologies, it will provide income to gain financial independence for not only the schools but also for families in communities across Africa.
– Brandi Gomez
Photo: Flickr
New Study: Zika Virus Kills Cancer Cells
To most, “Zika virus” is synonymous with “devastation.” Here is a quick summary of Zika’s recent global impact:
What positive news related to this devastating threat could possibly exist?
In a startling new study, the Washington University School of Medicine—in conjunction with the University of California San Diego School of Medicine—assert that Zika virus kills cancer cells in adult human brains. The Journal of Experimental Medicine published the results in a report in early September. It posits that injecting the Zika virus into the brain at the same time as surgery could potentially remove life-threatening tumors.
The Zika virus attacks malignant brain tumors called glioblastomas. Glioblastoma is one of the most challenging cancers to treat. The conventional treatment is brain surgery followed by radiation and rounds of chemotherapy within 2 to 4 weeks after surgery. Follow-up procedures must begin as soon after surgery as possible, as new glioblastomas can generate rapidly. Frequent patient observation with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scans is another vital element of ongoing medical care.
Still, most tumors reappear within six months. A small population of cells, called glioblastoma stem cells, often survives the treatments and continues to divide, producing new tumor cells to replace the ones killed by the cancer drugs. Glioblastoma stem cells are hard to kill because they can avoid the body’s immune system and are resistant to chemotherapy and radiation. However, researchers believe that the Zika virus kills cancer cells, preventing new tumors from recurring after surgically removing the original tumor.
Despite such aggressive treatment, glioblastoma cells remain deadly: most patients die within 15 months. According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, nearly 52 percent of all primary brain tumors are glioblastomas. Each year in the United States, this widespread form of brain cancer affects approximately 12,000 people. U.S. Sen. John McCain announced he is battling with glioblastoma in July 2017.
The Washington University – University of California San Diego School experiment revealed that the Zika virus favored destroying glioblastoma stem cells over normal brain cells in mice. Two weeks later, the mice with Zika virus injected into their cancerous tumors exhibited smaller tumors than those without the virus. Mice with Zika virus injected into their brain tumors seemed to survive longer than those without the injections.
Despite differences in the biological systems of mice and humans, the research team believes their proposal the Zika virus kills cancer cells merits pursuing. The joint research team hopes to begin human trials in the next 18 months.
According to Michael S. Diamond, MD, Ph.D., the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, “These cells are highly resistant to conventional therapies.” Diamond continued, “While the Zika virus does harm to the brains of developing fetuses, it may prove effectual in the treatment of glioblastoma in adult brains.”
– Heather Hopkins
Photo: Flickr
Human Rights in the Solomon Islands
The Solomon Islands is a beautiful group of islands in the South Pacific Ocean where some of World War II’s most intense warfare took place. The nation’s official tourism site says “Step back in time, the islands remain unspoiled.” The Solomon Islands gained independence in 1978, two years after it began governing itself. Today, more than 600,000 people live in this parliamentary democracy. When it comes to the protection of human rights in the Solomon Islands, the nation is fairly successful. However, important failures do occur, such as violence and discrimination against women and unreasonably long pretrial detentions.
Women in the Solomon Islands have struggled to gain a role in the nation’s political discourse. While there are no laws explicitly forbidding women or minorities engagement in the political process, antiquated cultural norms have made it challenging for women to get involved. The nation’s parliament consists of 50 members, yet only one woman. The government wants to fix this and has passed laws aimed to increase the number of women in politics, but so far nothing has been successful.
Violence against women in the Solomon Islands is also quite prevalent. According to a 2011 World Health Organization report, more than 50 percent of women in the Solomon Islands experienced sexual violence by a partner at some point in their life. Incidents like these are often underreported due to women having a number of concerns, such as fear of backlash and concern over breaking a cultural norm.
An inability to swiftly move detainees through the criminal justice system is another failure on the part of the government to protect human rights in the Solomon Islands. In fact, about half of the nation’s prisoner population is made up of pretrial detainees. The U.S. Department of State’s 2016 report on human rights in the Solomon Islands states that the average pretrial detention period lasts for about two years. The Solomon Islands needs to address this problem so that people are not effectively prisoners for an extended period of time before they have had a fair trial.
These are important failures, but it is also important to consider that the Solomon Islands has succeeded in many other ways. Prison and detention center conditions generally met international standards, free speech is well-protected and the most recent election was generally free and fair.
Recently, the Solomon Islands has even taken a step towards becoming a global leader in the fight against human rights violations. The nation did so by condemning West Papua human rights abuses at the U.N. Human Rights Council. Some of the human rights violations occurring in West Papua include arrest, torture and the killing of peaceful protestors. The impact of the Solomon Island‘s statement remains to be seen, but no matter the result, it was a powerful action taken by the nation.
– Adam Braunstein
Photo: Flickr
Addressing the Macedonia Poverty Rate
Just north of Greece in southeastern Europe lies the mountainous country of Macedonia, carved by rocky valleys and three large freshwater rivers. The country has a population of 2.1 million people, most of whom have been suffering a few notches below the poverty line. Looking at the Macedonia poverty rate will shed some light on what can be done to better people’s lives.
An estimated 21.5 percent of the Macedonian population lives below the poverty line, per the most recent data. In 2008, the rate was only 1.3 percent. A majority of impoverished people in Macedonia live on only $1.90 per day. Additionally, the country has a poor history of income distribution, as the poorest 20 percent of the population make only one quarter of the income of the richest sector of the population.
Rural poverty is the most rampant in Macedonia, where 40 percent of the population and two-thirds of the country’s poor lives. People in these areas either make their living off of small-scale farming and livestock production or they are among the rural unemployed. Farmers can usually provide only enough food for their families plus a small surplus for selling, while the unemployed have no accessible employment or resources in the rural community. Rural markets have always suffered and, in turn, so has the economic production of agriculture since the collapse of the country’s communist system and the Yugoslav republic divided. Financial resources to bring small farmers back to business then became almost nonexistent. The International Fund for Agricultural Development concludes that the major causes of poverty in the country are massive unemployment following the collapse of the command economy, lack of technical and financial resources for improving agriculture and lack of access to local and international markets for products.
Reports in the last several years note the deepening poverty crisis in Macedonia, which particularly affects young people and families with small children. The poverty rate in 2011 was 30.4 percent, or one in three Macedonians, with more than 40 percent of people under 39 years old being poor. There was also a spike in the percentage of poor married couples with children from 28.9 percent to 35.1 percent between 2010 and 2011. Almost half of all poor people in the country live in small households with five or more family members, creating a worrying trend of families with low incomes and many mouths to feed but not enough resources.
Because they live in low-income households, children and youth are the most adversely affected. A study by UNICEF in 2006 elects that child poverty leads to social exclusion, risky behaviors during adolescence and vulnerability to exploitation. Children are more susceptible to the results of being dependent on an impoverished family: lack of education and future employment, inaccessible resources and support, little food and clean water to nourish growing minds and bodies and declining emotional and physical development. However, UNICEF strongly urges that child poverty become a central point of national policy. Constraints on the country’s progress in alleviating poverty include poor financial management, little public expenditure on healthcare and education, lack of social protection and inadequate legislative and institutional framework which might bring balance back to at-risk families and children. This and other studies on the Macedonia poverty rate reveal the the impacts of poverty on families and individuals are largely irreversible.
By addressing the situation of poverty in Macedonia, the hope for change lies in reform, stronger protective legislation, broader income distribution and an eye-opening call to action benefiting the poor in this country.
– Olivia Cyr
Photo: Flickr
How to Help People in Bhutan
Bhutan is a tiny, isolated, primarily Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas that has only permitted television since 1998. In a country that measures development by Gross National Happiness in lieu in of Gross Domestic Product, does it make sense to ask how to help people in Bhutan? Given the often discriminatory treatment of journalists, non-Buddhists, the disabled, women and especially Nepali-speakers, the answer is yes—this question should still be asked.
Bhutan has had an extremely rapid transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy with the establishment of political parties in 2007 and held its first election in 2008. The Freedom House upgraded the country’s Freedom Status in 2009 from “not free” to “partly free,” citing the below reasons:
In the 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report, the State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons determined that the government of Bhutan did not fully meet minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government did demonstrate increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period. In an example of how to help people in Bhutan, the National Commission for Women and Children (NCWC) partnered with an international organization to conduct training on anti-trafficking toolkits and also to facilitate reports on Bhutan laws and policies on trafficking. Bhutan, over the last five years, has still remained a source and destination country for both forced labor and sex trafficking.
Bhutan has no formal relations with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and accepts financial assistance from primarily India, leaving Bhutan isolated from much of the world. It has recently shown a willingness to move toward democratic ideals and is also seeking to increase tourism after a long history of shunning foreigners. Learning how to help people in Bhutan means working to ensure adequate funding for the NGOs and other agencies dedicated to assisting the Bhutanese officials. One must work to stay vigilant and continue to support organizations dedicated to combating violations of human rights in Bhutan.
– Michael Carmack
Photo: Flickr