The U.N. Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal education has played a vital role in advancing education for boys and girls in African countries, however, obstacles still remain.
In addition to increasing access to education, the U.N. Millennium Development Goals also included overcoming extreme poverty, promoting gender equality and women’s rights, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, combating HIV and malaria, creating a sustainable environment and advocating for global partnership. These goals are not isolated in nature, but rather each builds upon the next.
“Children who don’t have access to clean water and who aren’t taught proper hygiene practices like hand-washing with soap are more likely to be ill and absent from school,” according to Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC). “Combined with lack of proper nutrition – and often, the schools are the one place they have a guaranteed daily meal – children’s susceptibility to preventable, waterborne disease increases dramatically. Disease also spreads much more rapidly in schools without proper hygiene and sanitation.”
Canadian Feed the Children is a registered Canadian charity that works with local partners to establish food security and education in developing countries. The organization believes that “education is the best investment in prosperous, healthy and equitable societies.”
With more children having access to an education, more resources are needed; such as books, maps, research and reference materials, blackboards and writing materials. Infrastructure becomes a challenge when the number of students outgrows the number of available classrooms.
Additionally, kitchens and latrines are essential components for health and hygiene and each must be outfitted with their own supplies and equipment. A productive learning environment requires the availability of meals and safe, clean facilities.
When schools are overpopulated, understaffed and lacking necessary supplies, it is difficult to recruit teachers. Many times underqualified and unpaid volunteers step in to teach in impoverished communities, which can do more harm than good.
Crop failure, parents’ illness and rising prices are some of the barriers families living below the poverty line are facing when they sacrifice the education for one or more of their children in order to feed the family. Most often, it is the girls who are chosen to miss out.
Schools lacking a latrine present another obstacle for girls, for whom modesty and safety are important.
“For many girls, the need to leave the classroom several times a day makes going to school anxious and unpleasant. For older girls, menstruation in an environment where there is no toilet and no water causes embarrassment and further complicates matters. And where toilet facilities are not available or located far away, there is a much higher risk of violence for girls. The risks and hassle just aren’t worth it – and they drop out. There are so many barriers to girls’ education, toilets shouldn’t be one of them,” said Amboka Wameyo, CFTC’s Regional Program Manager – Africa.
Girls in African countries like Ghana, Ethiopia and Uganda endure early or forced marriage, the burden of chores, pressure to care for siblings and long-distance walks to school leaving them vulnerable to rape or violence. The dropout rate for girls around age 12 increases dramatically, sometimes reaching 100 percent.
According to Canadian Feed the Children, every year a girl attends school translates into a 15 percent increase in their income as they become less vulnerable to the threat of domestic violence and poverty.
Girls in African countries must be given the opportunity to improve their lives and subsequently contribute to the alleviation of the poverty cycle in their communities.
– Emily Ednoff
Photo: Flickr
Preventing Child Marriage Requires Addressing Poverty
Young girls are most vulnerable and susceptible to child marriage after a natural disaster or political crisis strikes. Aid agencies are often quick to respond with essential resources such as shelter, food and water. However, improvements have yet to be made regarding the provision of services for preventing child marriage.
According to UNICEF, 14.2 million girls are forced to wed before they turn 18. Between 2011 and 2020, more than 140 million girls will become child brides, stated a report by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
“Child marriage is an appalling violation of human rights and robs girls of their education, health and long-term prospects,” said Babatunde Osotimehin, M.D, Executive Director of UNFPA. “A girl who is married as a child is one whose potential will not be fulfilled. Since many parents and communities also want the very best for their daughters, we must work together and end child marriage.”
Families that struggle with the challenges left behind by natural disasters are more likely to allow their children to be married off in the wake of a crisis. In some cases, parents agree to child marriage because they want to spare their daughters from a life of poverty, according to a report by the Women’s Refugee Commission.
The 10 countries with the highest rates of child marriage are: Niger (75 percent); Chad and Central African Republic (68 percent); Bangladesh (66 Percent); Guinea (63 percent); Mozambique (56 percent); Mali (55 percent); Burkina Faso and South Sudan (52 percent) and Malawi (50 percent).
In 2011, the Women’s Refugee Commission began to evaluate the lives of displaced girls from Uganda, the Congo, Syria and Somalia. The resulting report found that poverty, especially when exacerbated by natural disasters, continues to be one of the main drivers of early marriage, as “parents hope to secure a daughter’s future or to meet basic needs”.
The report identified six solutions for preventing child marriage.
According to their website, the Every Woman Every Child initiative is a movement that mobilizes and intensifies international and national action by governments, multilaterals, the private sector and civil society to address the major health challenges facing women, children and adolescents around the world.
“I urge governments, community and religious leaders, civil society, the private sector and families – especially men and boys – to do their part to let girls be girls, not brides,” said Ban Ki-moon, U.N. Secretary-General, who launched the initiative.
– Michelle Simon
UN Secretary-General Hopefuls on Ending Global Poverty
The race for the position of “top diplomat” is on. The role of the United Nations Secretary-General involves spearheading initiatives toward ending global poverty, presiding over thousands of staffers and agencies and establishing world peace.
For the first time ever, the candidates presented their vision of the U.N. to the General Assembly in New York. They took questions from the public, governments and journalists in a townhall format, breaking free from tradition.
A common theme at the General Assembly among candidates was finding political solutions to conflict and ending global poverty. Irina Bokova, head of UNESCO, said enhancing the prevention of conflict and violence through political solutions and diplomacy should be the core task of the U.N.
Vensa Pusic, former Foreign Minister of Croatia, also mentioned the inequality over scarce resources as drivers of conflict. “For all the progress that has been made, too many people have been left behind,” Pusic said, according to IRIN News. “This is morally wrong, but it is also a threat to peace and security.”
The candidates also discussed taking a U.N. approach that recognizes the links between sustainable development, peace and security, human rights and humanitarian relief.
Former Moldovan Foreign Minister Natalia Gherman said that there needs to be enhanced coordination between humanitarian and development communities. Similarly, former U.N. Refugees Leader Antonio Guterres noted that the U.N. needs to “strengthen the nexus between peace and security, sustainable development and human rights policies,” IRIN news reports.
The impact of climate change was another theme among candidates. Macedonian economist Srgjan Kerim said the U.N. should be the driving force in addressing global warming. He also said developing countries are the most exposed to climate change impacts and that their special needs must be high on the Secretary-General’s agenda.
In addition, the question of funding setbacks for humanitarian assistance was addressed. Vuk Jeremic, former President of the U.N. General Assembly offered a solution. He called for a special envoy to mobilize resources to address shortfalls, with emphasis on Middle Eastern and African refugee crisis and disaster relief. Jeremic noted that this would improve coordination of humanitarian relief, support and assistance to refugees.
The U.N. Security Council will make a recommendation for the top position in the U.N. and commence informal straw polls in closed meetings. The winner will be selected in September, declared in October and begin their term January 1, 2017.
– Kerri Whelan
Photo: Flickr
Refugee Volunteers: Assistance Amid Crisis
Crossing by sea and land, over 1 million refugees sought asylum in Europe in 2015, according to the BBC. The source says that numbers continue to increase, reaching 135,711 refugees between January and early March of this year.
Those fleeing conflict in Syria, in addition to Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, Albania, Pakistan and other high-risk countries, are often left stranded and unable to return to their home country. Unfortunately, refugees typically have a difficult time assimilating into society when they are accepting into host countries.
In Across Borders, a month-long online conversation hosted by Devex and other partners, Richard Dictus, the executive coordinator of United Nations Volunteers (UNV), writes about the conditions of displaced individuals and asylum seekers.
In addition to the problem of refugee assistance, he notes that human migration brings to light issues surrounding discrimination as well as sexual and gender-based violence within these groups.
Larger international organizations such as the UNHCR Volunteers, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Exodus Refugee have been active members in assisting refugees during this crisis.
According to Amnesty International, 104,410 resettlement places have been offered globally since the start of the Syrian crisis. Close to half of these asylum applications were submitted to Germany and Sweden.
In addition to European intervention, United Nations Volunteers (UNVs) working on endeavors in Lebanon, Jordon Turkey, Iraq and Egypt—where more than 4 million refugees from Syria are located—have made a significant impact.
Of note, a collaborative project between the U.N. Relief and Works Agency and the European Union, where national UNV teachers are deployed to schools for Palestinian refugees located throughout Lebanon, promotes the integrity of refugees within the humanitarian crisis with refugee-to-refugee assistance.
The program mobilizes former Palestinian refugees, who have become integrated into Lebanon culture, as administrators to the new wave of refugees. The communication with these refugee volunteers can go along way in providing advice and guidance, since they share similar experiences.
Partnerships both in and outside of the European continue to make headway in terms of providing refugee volunteers and much-needd assistance. Refugee-to-refugee volunteerism serves as yet another way in which human integrity is upheld within a time of great need.
— Nora Harless
Photo: Flickr
Universal Basic Income: GiveDirectly’s Experiment
The nonprofit GiveDirectly has initiated a new cash transfer experiment that will provide at least 6,000 Kenyans with a test of universal basic income for 10 to 15 years.
According to the founders of this initiative, “…experimental tests show that the poor don’t stop trying when they are given money.” Instead, cash-based development initiatives result in people feeding their families, sending their children to school and investing in businesses.
Research also reveals that people prefer cash transfers over social programs because it provides them with more flexibility, freedom and dignity. In a study conducted in Bihar, India, 80 percent of the poor were willing to sell food vouchers for cash, with many offering discounts of up to 75 percent.
Considering this evidence, according to a Slate article, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has argued that “cashed-based programming should be the preferred and default method of support.”
According to Vox, basic income or universal basic income is defined as a regular payment to a group of people just for being alive. This cash transfer experiment by GiveDirectly is perhaps the first truly universal basic income program recorded in history, because unlike previous policies, it provides payment for whole villages over long periods of time.
For this project, GiveDirectly will randomly select dozens of villages in Kenya and provide every resident with a payment of between $0.70 and $1.10 for least 10 years. While $240 and $400 per year is extremely low by U.S. standards, it is equivalent or more than what the recipients ordinarily make.
World-leading academic researchers, including Abhijit Banerjee of MIT, will rigorously test this new system. The experiment will cost around $30 million, of which 90 percent will go directly to extremely poor households and the rest going towards having the money delivered.
The idea of universal basic income is currently being debated around the globe, with support from across the political landscape and pilot programs being considered by Finland and Canada.
To get the experiment started, GiveDirectly’s co-founders Michael Faye and Paul Niehaus are using $10 million of their own funds to match the first $10 million donated by others.
“At worst that money will shift the life trajectories of thousands of low-income households,” writes Faye and Niehaus in a Slate article. “At best, it will change how the world thinks about ending poverty.”
– Kerri Whelan
The Use of Bamboo for Sustainable Development
Bamboo — a highly versatile giant green grass that grows chiefly in the tropics — has recently become known as the ‘wonder plant’ by agronomists and architects. According to INBAR, “Bamboo and rattan can help millions of poor rural and urban producers lift themselves out of poverty and thrive.”
The Association of International Research reports that the international trade of bamboo and rattan products amounted to $2.5 billion in 2013 and is predicted to continue rising. Bamboo provides low-cost green housing and infrastructure, as well as a wide range of biofuels.
Aside from the low cost and maintenance of bamboo, environmentalists have linked the plant to climate change mitigation, which would earn companies increased income through carbon credits, says journalist Zipporah Musau.
This highly productive plant is extremely effective in sequestering carbon, taking in twice as much carbon dioxide as trees and meeting all the necessary criteria for countries’ sustainable development goals.
The bio-energy provided by bamboo opens the gateway for sub-Saharan African homes to use the green grass instead of firewood or charcoal, which promotes the discontinuation of deforestation, land degradation and indoor pollution.
As the population in Africa continues to grow, the massive harvesting of firewood and charcoal will be unable to sustain the continent, thus opening the gateway for bamboo.
INBAR’s general director asserts that “bamboo will be a strong pillar of Africa’s future green economy. It will help reduce poverty and protect the environment, and provide a practical and rapid solution for some of the natural resource and poverty challenges facing many African countries today.”
The wonder plant grows incredibly fast, which makes it easy for farmers to harvest and market the plant. Bamboo can be sold commercially to construct furniture, roofing, fencing, floor tiles, walls, ceiling and many other building materials.
Other uses of bamboo for sustainable development can be found in the paper and pulp industry. Bamboo can be converted into newsprint, toilet paper and cardboard, saving Africa’s forests in the process.
Domestically, bamboo can be used to make baskets, canoes, fishing kits, bicycles, fences, toothpicks, school desks, pencils and rulers, etc.
Bamboo farming has the potential to create thousands of jobs due to intensive labor. Zipporah Musau notes that Bamboo plants are typically planted, maintained and harvested by hand, taking up to eight years to mature. In Ghana, about 1,500 people were employed when a commercial project recently began.
INBAR notes that the challenge that accompanies the expansion of the bamboo market is the lack of finances and the absence of a national policy and strategy program to develop and use bamboo resources. However, as awareness of the “miracle plant” grows, so too does the potential of bamboo for sustainable development in emerging markets.
– Megan Hadley
Photo: Flickr
Greater Access to Education for Girls in African Countries
The U.N. Millennium Development Goal of achieving universal education has played a vital role in advancing education for boys and girls in African countries, however, obstacles still remain.
In addition to increasing access to education, the U.N. Millennium Development Goals also included overcoming extreme poverty, promoting gender equality and women’s rights, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, combating HIV and malaria, creating a sustainable environment and advocating for global partnership. These goals are not isolated in nature, but rather each builds upon the next.
“Children who don’t have access to clean water and who aren’t taught proper hygiene practices like hand-washing with soap are more likely to be ill and absent from school,” according to Canadian Feed the Children (CFTC). “Combined with lack of proper nutrition – and often, the schools are the one place they have a guaranteed daily meal – children’s susceptibility to preventable, waterborne disease increases dramatically. Disease also spreads much more rapidly in schools without proper hygiene and sanitation.”
Canadian Feed the Children is a registered Canadian charity that works with local partners to establish food security and education in developing countries. The organization believes that “education is the best investment in prosperous, healthy and equitable societies.”
With more children having access to an education, more resources are needed; such as books, maps, research and reference materials, blackboards and writing materials. Infrastructure becomes a challenge when the number of students outgrows the number of available classrooms.
Additionally, kitchens and latrines are essential components for health and hygiene and each must be outfitted with their own supplies and equipment. A productive learning environment requires the availability of meals and safe, clean facilities.
When schools are overpopulated, understaffed and lacking necessary supplies, it is difficult to recruit teachers. Many times underqualified and unpaid volunteers step in to teach in impoverished communities, which can do more harm than good.
Crop failure, parents’ illness and rising prices are some of the barriers families living below the poverty line are facing when they sacrifice the education for one or more of their children in order to feed the family. Most often, it is the girls who are chosen to miss out.
Schools lacking a latrine present another obstacle for girls, for whom modesty and safety are important.
“For many girls, the need to leave the classroom several times a day makes going to school anxious and unpleasant. For older girls, menstruation in an environment where there is no toilet and no water causes embarrassment and further complicates matters. And where toilet facilities are not available or located far away, there is a much higher risk of violence for girls. The risks and hassle just aren’t worth it – and they drop out. There are so many barriers to girls’ education, toilets shouldn’t be one of them,” said Amboka Wameyo, CFTC’s Regional Program Manager – Africa.
Girls in African countries like Ghana, Ethiopia and Uganda endure early or forced marriage, the burden of chores, pressure to care for siblings and long-distance walks to school leaving them vulnerable to rape or violence. The dropout rate for girls around age 12 increases dramatically, sometimes reaching 100 percent.
According to Canadian Feed the Children, every year a girl attends school translates into a 15 percent increase in their income as they become less vulnerable to the threat of domestic violence and poverty.
Girls in African countries must be given the opportunity to improve their lives and subsequently contribute to the alleviation of the poverty cycle in their communities.
– Emily Ednoff
Photo: Flickr
Empowering Women in Poverty: The BOMA Project
According to the U.N., the majority of people living in extreme poverty are women. This unfortunate reality is commonly referred to as the “Feminization of Poverty.” Lack of resources, education and income for women are among the various reasons this phenomenon exists. However, organizations like The BOMA Project are fighting to end this gender disparity among the world’s poor by empowering women in poverty.
The BOMA Project is a U.S. non-profit organization as well as a Kenyan NGO. The organization was recently chosen to receive a prestigious grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Notably, the organization seeks to help impoverished women in drought-prone areas. The BOMA Project is currently operating in two Kenyan counties: Marsabit and Samburu. Both of these areas suffer from arid climates that make it difficult for their residents to thrive.
The BOMA Project’s two-year program is known as the Rural Entrepreneur Access Project (REAP). This program empowers and educates women to sustain small businesses.
The organization states that REAP, “replaces aid with sustainable income and helps women ‘graduate’ from extreme poverty by giving them the tools they need to start small businesses in their communities.”
REAP is accomplished through five major phases:
The BOMA Project also teaches women how to keep track of daily budgets, be secure during unexpected shocks and save for future purchases. This all-encompassing system has been the foundation of the organization’s success since its beginnings in 2009.
Since then, 9,432 women have enrolled in the program. Of the women who have already completed their two-year training, 93 percent are no longer living in extreme poverty (according to the organization’s criteria) and 98 percent now have savings.
While these numbers are promising, The BOMA Project is aiming to expand its reach, helping 100,000 women and children by 2018 and 1 million by 2021.
– Saroja Koneru
Photo: Flickr
Top 10 Reasons Why Female Education is Important
From Cairo to Beijing, offering quality and universal education to young girls promotes progress for society as a whole. Carla Koppell of the United States Agency for International Development, better known as USAID, even called female education a “silver bullet” for empowerment and progress. To better understand the far-reaching effects of a few books and a classroom, here are the top 10 reasons why female education is important.
The Unmatched Importance of Female Education
The sustainability and progress of all regions depend on the success of women across the globe. As President Obama said while addressing the United Nations General Assembly in 2012, “The future must not belong to those who bully women. It must be shaped by girls who go to school and those who stand for a world where our daughters can live their dreams just like our sons.”
– Lauren Stepp
Sources: PRB, U.N. Women, CFR, World Bank
Photo: Flickr
UN Special Session Focuses on Alternative Development
In their final roundtable of the session, members discussed the potential of human-centered alternative development as an effective strategy to address the drug problem.
According to the Transnational Institute (TNI), alternative development programs encourage farmers, “to switch from growing illicit drugs-related crops”.
Because cultivating illicit crops yield lucrative incomes for farmers, alternative development programs must offer sustainable solutions in order to be effective.
According to the U.N. Guiding Principles of Alternative Development, this approach takes into account the unique cultural, economic, political, educational and environmental aspects of each country.
However, TNI argues that this method provides mixed results when combined with traditional repressive policies to combat drug use. The institute advocates for “delinking alternative development from the threat of forced eradication and law enforcement and guaranteeing peasants the support required for a sustainable alternative future.”
Factors driving farmers to grow illicit crops include poverty, marginalization (social, cultural and geographic) and a lack of sustainable livelihoods. In 2015, Tom Kramer, a local project consultant from TNI working in Myanmar, noted, “For many communities in Myanmar who grow opium, for them opium is not the problem, it is the solution to their problems.”
Many farmers use their illegally earned income to buy food, pay their debts and take care of household property expenses, according to research done by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
To create a sustainable alternative to illicit crops, the U.N. General Assembly Special Session highlighted the need for new or strengthened farmer-led organizations. This ensures that the farmers’ needs are put first and that alternative development is successful.
Such programs may also lead to the natural benefits of a long-term organization — access to credit and links to both the local and international markets.
However, as many speakers pointed out at the Special Session’s final roundtable, a more comprehensive approach is required. Illicit crops are a symptom of a greater problem.
According to the U.N., additional reasons for the cultivation of illicit crops include a lack of development facilities, political security and governance.
These inadequacies reach down to even the most isolated of farmers and addressing this issue is also a necessary part of increasing political accountability as outlined in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Speakers at the roundtable expressed a desire to see increased political funding for programs like alternative development that would aid vulnerable farming communities sustainably.
– Anastazia Vanisko
Photo: Flickr
Education: A Key Combatant of Poverty in Cameroon
A recent trend in propositions to combat poverty in Cameroon has been to create more technical schools and training programs that will tailor education to more specific job fields. By so doing, recent graduates may find work as soon as they finish their education.
Like many African nations, Cameroon has a considerable number of natural resources and an untapped population of over 23 million people. The stagnation of economic potential has contributed heavily to increasing levels of national poverty in Cameroon.
Cameroon’s youth demographic consists of half of the population, thus representing a growing labor force that is a potential asset to the global market. However, the nation’s tertiary education system continues to emphasize traditional academic disciplines, leaving students unprepared to respond to economic change.
About 43 percent of Cameroon’s population has an incomplete or no formal education, and 67 percent of the working-age population has received no additional training at all. Unemployment is vastly higher among youth as compared to older demographics across all levels and types of education.
According to Cameroon’s Growth and Employment Strategic Paper, the government has proposed an investment program that essentially states the government will work closely with private industries that have the potential for significant growth and job creation. Such areas include tourism, communication technologies and infrastructure. Investments like these will hopefully boost the impact of human resources on the development of these industries’ productivity.
However, only so much can be done with the current number of schools in Cameroon. There are only two engineering and technology universities and two agriculture universities located in Buea (South West Cameroon) and Dschang (Western Cameroon).
This lack of availability of educational facilities not only hurts the economy, it is also detrimental to the nation’s healthcare system. The disease is a high contributor to death and poverty in Cameroon. In 2013, more than 10,000 people were diagnosed with malaria in the town of Maroua alone. Local newspapers estimated that about 1,000 people died as a result of the disease.
Furthermore, it is estimated there are two doctors for every 10,000 people in Cameroon. Many medical cases are handled by individuals who have inadequate medical training. With such a shortage of medical professionals, the accessibility of a medical education is prudent to maintaining and increasing economic development, which will help alleviate poverty in Cameroon.
Adequate funding is lacking to improve the healthcare situation, wherein 2014 there were an estimated 657,000 people with HIV/AIDS.
Cameroon has great potential; however, poverty still affects 40 percent of the population. Cameroon is looking to improve the status quo by creating more engineering, technology and medical schools to help future generations escape the cycle of poverty.
– Veronica Ung-Kono
Photo: Flickr