Education empowers women and girls, and investing in their education is one of the most effective ways to reduce global poverty. Still, females face many barriers to educational opportunities. According to the Global Partnership for Education, 63 million girls are not in school worldwide, and women represent almost two-thirds of the world’s illiterate.
A recent report by the World Bank found that girls who receive little to no amount of education are more likely to live in poverty, be married as children, suffer domestic abuse and lack control over their own health care decisions, which is detrimental to their families and communities.
Here are six of many ways education empowers women in poverty:
1. Education Helps Women Avoid Child Marriages
“Child marriage is an appalling violation of human rights and robs girls of their education, health and long-term prospects,” Babatunde Osotimehin, M.D., the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, said to UNICEF. “A girl who is married as a child is one whose potential will not be fulfilled.”
Providing girls with access to educational can be an effective way to reduce child marriage rates worldwide. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the rate of child marriage within sub-Sahara, South and West Africa would fall by 64 percent if every girl within the region received a secondary education level.
2. Education Empowers Women to Family Plan
The amount of education a woman receives influences a women’s choice and ability to plan family sizes. Family planning allows women to give birth to the number of children they desire and determine the spacing of their pregnancies.
In sub-Saharan Africa, women with no education have an average of 6.7 births on average, compared to 3.9 for women within the region who have obtained a secondary education level, as reported by UNESCO.
3. Education of Mothers Decreases Child Mortality
A woman’s education is integral to the health of her family. The more education a girl gains throughout her childhood, the better chance her future child has for survival.
According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the probability of infant mortality decreases by five percent to 10 percent for each extra year of education a mother has.
Around four million child deaths have been prevented over the last four decades due to an increase in female education, according to a study in The Lancet journal funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
4. Education Increases the Likelihood of Women Surviving Pregnancy and Birth Complications
Education isn’t just integral to the health of a woman’s child; it is also important for the mother. Pregnancy and birth pose extreme health risks for women in poverty stricken areas, and education plays a significant role in helping mothers survive them. Women with higher levels of education are more likely to adopt simple and low cost hygienic practices throughout pregnancy, and react to health issues.
According to UNESCO, maternal mortality would fall by 66 percent if all women had completed primary education.
5. Education Gives Women Higher Income Earning Power
Each extra year of schooling a girl receives is incredibly valuable, raising her ability to enter the labor force. Every year of secondary school education a girl receives is directly correlated with an 18 percent increase in her future earning, according to a World Bank study.
6. Education Empowers Women to Stand Up to Domestic Violence
Gender-based violence is a global phenomenon. One-third of women who have been in a relationship have experienced physical or sexual violence, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Low education levels are associated with an increased risk of experiencing domestic violence.
Through education, women have the opportunity to gain knowledge to stop this phenomenon. In Sierra Leonne after a large expansion of school opportunities, women’s tolerance of domestic violence dropped from 36 percent to 26 percent according to UNESCO.
“I firmly believe that when you invest in a girl’s education she will support herself and her children and contribute to her community and her nation, charting a path towards a better world in which human rights are respected and there is dignity for all,” Prime Minister of Norway and co-chair of the MDG Advocacy Group, Erna Solberg, said in an interview with Daily Development. “Education empowers women. It increases their economic contribution, strengthens their political voice and boosts their influence across the board. That is why delivering education to all girls is so vital.”
– Lauren Lewis
Sources: United Nations Development Program, UNESCO, White House, USAID, World Bank, The Lancet, Global Partnership for Education, UNICEF, World Health Organization, Daily Development
Photo: The Clinton Foundation
Using a Solidarity Levy to Fund Disaster Relief
The United Nations is urging countries to adopt a solidarity levy in order to help victims of war and natural disasters.
The recommendation comes with the news that $40 billion per year is now needed to help vulnerable populations. Climate change and prolonged regional armed conflicts have resulted in a $15 billion shortage in relief funding, the organization says.
“The stakes are sky high,” said U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon. “More than 125 million people need humanitarian assistance worldwide. The financial burden is five times greater than a decade ago. Humanitarian action is now the U.N.’s costliest activity.”
In response, a U.N. panel on humanitarian financing has released recommendations on solutions to tackle the widening funding gap. In its report “Too Important to Fail,” the panel highlights, among others, two strategies: adopting a solidarity levy to broaden the humanitarian resource base and reducing the need for humanitarian intervention altogether.
A “solidarity levy,” the panel suggests, is a promising solution to the revenue shortage because it corrects an over-reliance on humanitarian donations. The levy is a tax voluntarily adopted by countries and applied to airline tickets, sporting tickets and other transactions.
The idea has been successful in the past. One such levy on airline tickets raised over $1.7 billion for UNITAID’s fight against HIV and malaria between 2006 and 2011.
The panel wants more countries to adopt this model to generate more predictable and reliable streams of income for humanitarian work. “The simple act of catching a plane turns passengers into contributors to the cause of saving lives—it is responsible travel on an enormous scale,” the report said.
However, one of the most meaningful ways to reduce the cost of humanitarian aid is to build resilience to conflict and disaster, the panel noted. Over 93 percent of people who live in extreme poverty also live in fragile countries.
The U.N. panel recommends using scarce development dollars in the most vulnerable countries first in order to build adequate infrastructure and emergency services. It also supports the existing recommendation to allocate more funds to the U.N. Peacebuilding Fund, which is used to foster political dialogue and strengthen national institutions. Taking these steps, the U.N. suggests, will mitigate the costliest emergency interventions.
In the meantime, more funding is needed to address current issues. With the World Humanitarian Summit set to take place in Istanbul in May of this year, the panel is hopeful that its report will encourage conversations about adopting a solidarity levy and the future of humanitarian financing.
– Ron Minard
Sources: IB Times, UN 1, UN 2, World Humanitarian Summit
50 Partners Invest in Viber Chat App in Africa
The availability of the app will allow for easier interactions between organizations and individuals, facilitating local conversation via a global platform.
Facebook reports that 100 million Africans have accessed its website since 2014, with over 80 percent of users on the mobile version. Viber’s utilization of the mobile platform could help users in untapped parts of Africa, particularly in the southern areas of the continent, gain access.
According to news outlet IT News Africa, the beta version of the Viber app was released in November of 2014, allowing individual users to have real-time conversations within the application.
“The Middle East and Africa are important markets for Viber, and we are pleased to welcome local influencers and brands to our Public Chats platform. We are sure they will enjoy chatting, commenting and debating live on this active social channel whilst sharing tips, news, and local content to our constantly connected mobile audience across the region,” said Viber CMO, Mark Hardy.
Viber is similar to other social media platforms such as Twitter, where users can follow specific chats and publicly and privately share multimedia, including texts, photos, audio, video, web links and geolocation.
Much like Facebook, Viber users can invite friends to follow specific Public Chats and use the search option to find friends, with whom chats can be accessed via customized URLs.
The social research organization, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), has found that having a mixed friendship network can reduce a person’s poverty levels by a third when compared to those outside of mixed networks.
This finding supports the idea that social isolation is both a cause and consequence of living in poverty. Developing technologies like Viber that allow social interaction on a local level can directly improve the social health of a community.
JRF also reports that the likelihood of being poor can also be reduced by having friends who are employed and live outside of one’s neighborhood. By bringing Viber’s Public Chat to more regions of Africa, individuals might have more of an ability to build these kinds of relationships.
In addition to social health, Viber’s trending conversations can be used to address pressing issues such as AIDs awareness and local government.
“Through the use of Viber Public Chats, I hope to bring together a group of people who have experiences to share with a young audience and discuss HIV knowledge, stigma and prevention and ultimately call on people to get tested,” said Cindy Pivacic, HIV awareness creator and Viber investment partner.
Another partner, AllAfrica.com, hopes to facilitate African conversation about current affairs and national events throughout the region.
– Kelsey Lay
Sources: Facebook, IT News Africa, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Viber
Photo: ITECH News Online
A Different Kind of Aid for Syria
“Given the brutality that has come to characterize Syria’s four-year war, it is understandable that the discussion of the conflict has focused on violent deaths,” says an article in the newspaper, The Guardian.
According to news source IRIN, there is another scourge destroying lives in the country: “economic ruin and crippling poverty, what a U.N. backed report called an equally horrendous, but silent disaster.”
Traditional humanitarian aid is simply not enough. On the contrary, policy makers need to implement long-term, sustainable solutions that foster prosperity and social development in order to lift Syria out of crisis.
Even some Syrians have recognized that a new kind of approach regarding humanitarian aid is necessary to begin to progress. One aid worker based in northeast Syria told IRIN, “Syrians were requesting support with farming…something more productive than just being given food parcels.”
The northern part of the country used to be known as the breadbasket because agricultural development was popular in this area. Nonetheless, due to the social, economic and political conditions, this once productive territory is now almost dormant.
According to IRIN, displacement caused by shifting frontlines has resulted in missed harvest and planting seasons, and 6.6 million Syrians in total have been internally displaced by the violence inside their country.
“People who returned to areas vacated by the so-called Islamic State, for example, have come home to neglected soil and could not afford seeds,” says the IRIN article.
Moreover, the demand for agricultural products has diminished since humanitarian aid for Syria was introduced in the last year.
Government-issued agricultural subsidies have reduced and in some areas disappeared, according to the Guardian. “Prior to the conflict, the regime of President Bashar al Assad was the primary purchaser of wheat and maize; it still buys these products in some places, but on a far smaller scale,” the Guardian states.
A different kind of aid for Syria will promote sustainability, and social and economic development. Livelihood projects are essential for the population to progress.
Rim Turkami, a researcher from the London School of Economics, suggested that livelihood support is even essential to abate the war economy. Her investigation showed that individuals are joining the armed forces because it is the only opportunity to earn a salary.
As IRIN suggested, “Even in Syria, people are trying to cope.”
– Isabella Rölz
Sources: IRIN, TheGuardian
Photo: DCHRS
Technology Will Assist Visually Impaired Students in Kenya
The new technology comes from Computer Labs for the Blind, an initiative created by InAble, Access Kenya and the Rockefeller Foundation. The program works to train blind and visually impaired students and their teachers in basic computer skills, according to It News Africa. The skills taught include Internet access and online education content.
The initiative is targeting almost 1,700 students countrywide. So far four of 11 schools for blind and visually impaired students in Kenya have adopted the technology, according to Voice of America.
The technology costs around $1,000 dollars to install, but InAble is providing it to schools at no cost.
According to InAble, Access Kenya and the Rockefeller Foundation, students developing these skills will be more employable. The education of the blind and visually impaired has faced many challenges. For example, traditionally blind and visually impaired students in Kenya who make it to high school are excluded from sciences because the Kenyan educational system does not recognize them as a viable part of the curriculum.
Executive Director of InAble Kenya, Irene Mbari Kirika, said, “The scarcity of facilities and human capital for the blind and visually impaired have for a long time meant that they cannot compete equally with their sighted peers. They either find it difficult to start an education or complete the same under challenging conditions that make it impossible to build a foundation for self-reliance and contribution to the community, pushing them into begging and other forms of activities for their survival.”
This new assistive technology is a step towards helping overcome the previous obstacles blind and visually impaired students have faced in the past.
A visually impaired student named Luca Mwanzia, age 17, says the technology has opened up new frontiers.
Mwanzia says, “Braille books are quite expensive and you have to use quite a sum to purchase one. But now since we have computers we get the books at virtually no cost. So we download the various books to read and when we are done we just close the program.”
Access Kenya is investing six million Kenyan shillings towards InAble’s project, Assistive Technology Labs. This money will bring online technology to six public and primary schools that cater to the blind and the visually impaired, all within the next 12 months.
– Jordan Connell
Sources: It News Africa, Voice of America
Photo: IT News Africa
Five IGO Plans For Global Educational Improvement In 2016
1. UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning
This program is designed for communicating the importance of a quality primary and secondary education. The site includes education reports on several countries, suggestions for improving learning outcomes such as a “contextualized [education] to each regions specific realities,” and financial strategies for covering program costs.
The learning portal has been accessible since January 2016, from anywhere and at no cost to individuals.
2. The Joint Programme
This program,continuing enforcement in 2016, consists of educational focus in Mali, Nepal, Niger, Pakistan, Sudan and Tanzania. The program lists its four main components:
The program is unique in that it seeks to eliminate the social problems young girls deal with beginning in puberty. It seeks to educate girls about the risks of pregnancy, and their rights to refrain from young and enforced marriages.
3. UNESCO And Panasonic
UNESCO has entered a public-private relationship with Panasonic, launching the program Strengthening Schools for Education for Sustainable Development in Myanmar. The program seeks to teach young children to read while promoting sustainable and effective global citizen lifestyles.
It will also advocate the principles of protecting the environment, ethical and civil principles and sustainable development.
Additionally, Panasonic has donated 500 Eneloop Solar Storage Units to 40 schools for an effective learning environment. The Chief Representative of Panasonic expresses their hopes the donation will be useful to students studying late at night and during power outings.
4. USAID in Jordan
Through USAID, the U.S. Government plans to build 25 new schools in Jordan in collaboration with the Let Girls Learn Initiative. With overcrowded classrooms the norm in urban Jordan, the plan is to construct more schools. The initiative will be available to 25,000 children each year.
The funds will be directed towards 70 percent of girls’ schools, also available to the thousands of Syrian refugees finding safe haven in Jordanian schools. The initiative will be particularly advantageous for girls in Jordan who are known to have limited access to education.
5. USAID’s Enrichment Initiative To Increase Literacy At The Primary School Level
This initiative is planned to continue into March 2016 in Jamaica. The program has successfully shown improvements in literacy in 2015. This has been accomplished through integrating technology into lessons and advocating for parental and teacher participation. To date, the program has reached 43,000 students and hopes to reach thousands more in 2016.
UNESCO claims that worldwide 250,000 children are not learning the basic skills needed to successfully participate in society and receive a decent livelihood. Furthermore, the organization explains that it isn’t enough to increase student enrollment alone, but also the quality of the education they’re receiving.
– Mayra Vega
Sources: UNESCO 1, USAID 1, UNESCO 2, UNESCO 3
Photo: Google Images
Six Ways Education Empowers Women in Poverty
A recent report by the World Bank found that girls who receive little to no amount of education are more likely to live in poverty, be married as children, suffer domestic abuse and lack control over their own health care decisions, which is detrimental to their families and communities.
Here are six of many ways education empowers women in poverty:
1. Education Helps Women Avoid Child Marriages
“Child marriage is an appalling violation of human rights and robs girls of their education, health and long-term prospects,” Babatunde Osotimehin, M.D., the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund, said to UNICEF. “A girl who is married as a child is one whose potential will not be fulfilled.”
Providing girls with access to educational can be an effective way to reduce child marriage rates worldwide. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the rate of child marriage within sub-Sahara, South and West Africa would fall by 64 percent if every girl within the region received a secondary education level.
2. Education Empowers Women to Family Plan
The amount of education a woman receives influences a women’s choice and ability to plan family sizes. Family planning allows women to give birth to the number of children they desire and determine the spacing of their pregnancies.
In sub-Saharan Africa, women with no education have an average of 6.7 births on average, compared to 3.9 for women within the region who have obtained a secondary education level, as reported by UNESCO.
3. Education of Mothers Decreases Child Mortality
A woman’s education is integral to the health of her family. The more education a girl gains throughout her childhood, the better chance her future child has for survival.
According to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the probability of infant mortality decreases by five percent to 10 percent for each extra year of education a mother has.
Around four million child deaths have been prevented over the last four decades due to an increase in female education, according to a study in The Lancet journal funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
4. Education Increases the Likelihood of Women Surviving Pregnancy and Birth Complications
Education isn’t just integral to the health of a woman’s child; it is also important for the mother. Pregnancy and birth pose extreme health risks for women in poverty stricken areas, and education plays a significant role in helping mothers survive them. Women with higher levels of education are more likely to adopt simple and low cost hygienic practices throughout pregnancy, and react to health issues.
According to UNESCO, maternal mortality would fall by 66 percent if all women had completed primary education.
5. Education Gives Women Higher Income Earning Power
Each extra year of schooling a girl receives is incredibly valuable, raising her ability to enter the labor force. Every year of secondary school education a girl receives is directly correlated with an 18 percent increase in her future earning, according to a World Bank study.
6. Education Empowers Women to Stand Up to Domestic Violence
Gender-based violence is a global phenomenon. One-third of women who have been in a relationship have experienced physical or sexual violence, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Low education levels are associated with an increased risk of experiencing domestic violence.
Through education, women have the opportunity to gain knowledge to stop this phenomenon. In Sierra Leonne after a large expansion of school opportunities, women’s tolerance of domestic violence dropped from 36 percent to 26 percent according to UNESCO.
“I firmly believe that when you invest in a girl’s education she will support herself and her children and contribute to her community and her nation, charting a path towards a better world in which human rights are respected and there is dignity for all,” Prime Minister of Norway and co-chair of the MDG Advocacy Group, Erna Solberg, said in an interview with Daily Development. “Education empowers women. It increases their economic contribution, strengthens their political voice and boosts their influence across the board. That is why delivering education to all girls is so vital.”
– Lauren Lewis
Sources: United Nations Development Program, UNESCO, White House, USAID, World Bank, The Lancet, Global Partnership for Education, UNICEF, World Health Organization, Daily Development
Photo: The Clinton Foundation
Guyana Oil Discovery to Help Nation’s Poor
Exxon Mobile’s recent Guyana oil discovery has given the historically poor nation reason to cheer. With oil the most important commodity in the global market, the South American country expects to make a large profit from the discovery.
Exxon Mobil found the oil on their sprawling 6.6 million acre oilfield off the coast of Stabroek, Guyana.
In the Stabroek block, the company’s Liza-1 well was drilled to more than 17,000 feet. There, the company found more than 295 feet of high-quality oil-bearing sandstone reservoirs.
The oil company is encouraged by the discovery and plans to determine the potential of the other sites.
With Liza-1 being the company’s first site of many, there is a good chance of further discoveries. Also, the findings from the well will be sent for analysis to determine its full commercial potential.
Even if no further discoveries are made, Guyana’s former Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment believes any discovery of oil will greatly boost the nation’s economy.
With Guyana having the 157th largest economy in the world, the recent discovery of the highly valued commodity promises to have transformational effects on the nation. Large revenues and foreign investments will pour into the country from its oil sales.
To ensure that the money will be used wisely, the President of Guyana, David Granger, promises to create a sovereign wealth fund from the Guyana oil revenue.
A sovereign wealth fund (SWF) is a pool of a nation’s money that is set aside for investments that will benefit the country’s economy and citizens. In this case, the revenue from Guyana oil sales will be put into a fund that will be reinvested in the country.
To assist in the creation of the SWF, Guyana is turning to their neighbor to the north, Canada. Researchers at the University of Calgary are putting together plans for the creation of the SWF.
Speaking on this, Guyana’s Minister of Governance, Raphael Trotman, said, “So later in the month of November, a team is coming from the University of Calgary with the specific responsibility of putting together the mechanism for what we refer to as the Sovereign Wealth Fund.”
The minister went on to reveal that the SWF will be split into three separate sub-funds.
One will look to secure funds the nation’s wealth for the future generations. The second will be a rainy-day fund for the nation’s budget in fiscally lean years. The third will be for developmental projects or initiatives.
Trotman expanded on this, saying, “So there are three funds that comprise the Sovereign Wealth Fund, but each has a different rate at which it is supplied and different reasons or mechanisms from which it can draw down.”
The three sub-funds ensure that the Guyana oil wealth will be used to benefit the nation as a whole. It includes investments into development and plans to save for the future.
The SWF is such a popular idea among the people that during the previous election both the current President and the opposition party had plans to create one.
Upon inauguration, President Granger promised that any funds from natural resources would benefit the people through an SWF.
He believes an SWF will make sure that “children will not have to live in poverty; that no matter what happens to the resources of the country, there will always be wealth to look after their education.”
The large oil revenues pouring into the SWF ensures that Guyana will have a strong investment in the nation and its citizens.
– Andrew Wildes
Sources: Guyana Times 1, Guyana Times 2, Investopedia, Quandl
Photo: Guyanese Online
Ebola Virus Returns
According to NewsWeek, the World Health Organization (WHO) said last Thursday that “it was the first time all three West African countries had held the Ebola-free status simultaneously…effectively bringing to an end the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history that has claimed lives of some 11,300 people.”
The Ebola virus disease is a severe, often fatal illness in humans. It is transmitted to individuals from human to human transmission, or from wild animals. There are currently no licensed Ebola vaccines and the average EVD case fatality rate is around 50 percent, according to the WHO.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has been the largest and most complex outbreak since the deadly disease was first discovered in the late 70’s.
Said the WHO, “The most severely affected countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, have very weak health systems, lack human and infrastructural resources, and have only recently emerged from long periods of conflict and instability.”
A test center in Sierra Leone announced that the tests on the patient who died a few days ago confirmed that his death was due to the deadly virus. To reduce further threats, Sierra Leone officials are currently investigating how the individual became infected and who may have been in contact with him.
The World Health Organization also emphasized that future flare-ups of the deadly virus are probable.
Bruce Aylward, the Ebola correspondent in the organization said that the “risk of re-introduction of infection is diminishing as the virus gradually clears from the survivor population, but we still anticipate more flare-ups and must be prepared for them.”
According to NewsWeek, recent investigations have found that the virus can remain in the male survivor’s semen for up to nine months. Hence, the WHO suggests Ebola survivors and their sexual partners abstain from sex or practice extremely safe sex.
“There is as yet no proven treatment available for EVD. However, a range of potential treatments including blood products, immune therapies and drug therapies are currently being evaluated,” said the WHO. Additionally, two potential vaccines re undergoing human safety testing.
The World Health Organization suggests that in order to prevent and control this deadly threat, community engagement is the key to successfully control the outbreaks. “Raising awareness of risk factors for Ebola infection and protective measures that individuals can take is an effective way to reduce human transmission.”
– Isabella Rolz
Sources: NewsWeek, World Health Organization
Photo: Bloomberg Business
Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Coalition
At the climate event, known as COP-21, Gates announced his plan to help address climate change. It is a collection of some of the most influential entrepreneurs, and it is known as the Breakthrough Energy Coalition.
The group includes well-known business leaders such as Richard Branson, Jack Ma and Jeff Bezos.
The coalition, led by Gates, pledges to work in tandem with national governments to increase funding for clean energy research. They will also invest in risky clean energy projects that have a long return on investment but a high potential for success.
Many of the ideas coming from existing clean energy research and development are too insecure for traditional investors. They do not want to put money into an idea that might never make it to the market. This difficult journey from innovative idea to commercial product is known as the “valley of death,” and Gates’s coalition plans to bridge it.
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition will invest in those risky ideas and be patient with the returns. Gates cites flow batteries and solar paint as two such existing products that need private sector investment. If successful, solar paint could transform any surface into a solar panel.
A crucial component of this plan is national governments. The research and development for clean energy technology must start with the government because only they have the mandate and resources to do so. Business alone cannot lead the charge.
Furthermore, government-funded programs have successfully created whole new industries that from space, defense and medical research. Gates’s coalition believes governments are key to creating the clean energy industries of the future.
In association with Gates’ announcement, President Obama and leaders around the world pledged to increase public-sector spending for research and development in clean energy. This pledge, in combination with Gates’, will constitute the biggest investment in clean energy in history.
The public sector initiative is known as Mission Innovation, including 20 nations. Each participating country agrees to double its existing funding for clean energy technology within the next five years.
This pledge will increase the budget of the 20 nations to $20 billion for clean energy. These new funds will go to research and development, and the creation of new ideas and technologies.
Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Coalition will then use their business acumen to wisely invest in technology that has the greatest potential. With patient and consistent investment, the products will bypass the “valley of death.”
These historic investments from government and businesses reflect the urgency for action. Both realize the impact climate change can have on their respect areas. It can cause unrest and war for governments, and a loss of profits for businesses.
The developing world, though, has the most to lose. Man-made climate change is primarily caused by industrialization from the developed world, but affects the developed world in a greater magnitude. This harsh irony will be reduced with the teaming up of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition and Mission Innovations.
Clean energy will allow the developing world to grow and avoid the ravages of climate change. Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Coalition will not only address climate change, but also fight poverty.
– Andrew Wildes
Sources: Breakthrough Energy Coalition, Mashable, The Guardian
Photo: Here & Now
HomeBioGas: Convert Waste into Energy with Haste
HomeBioGas, an organic renewable energy system created by an Israeli startup, aims to reduce the death toll in rural areas while at the same time helping farmers and families reduce their carbon footprint.
The machine safely converts food waste and animal manure into cooking gas and liquid fertilizer. The machine serves as a sustainable tool for urban and rural families living off the grid.
According to the company’s website, the 88-pound machine starts by adding a bacteria to a combination of waste and water, which triggers a fermentation process. The reaction then produces a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide, which can be used as energy.
The system can break down up to six liters of food waste, including meat and dairy. It can also dissolve 15 liters of animal manure, yielding about three hours worth of cooking gas and about 10 liters of liquid fertilizer. Families then can use the resulting gas to cook around three meals a day.
One of the few problems with HomeBioGas, however, is its dependency on warm temperatures. Under 64°F (17°C), the system will decrease its productivity, and it will cease to function at 32°F (0°C).
After a year, though, users eliminate one ton of organic waste, as well as decreasing toxic emissions going into the atmosphere.
Oshik Efrati, CEO of HomeBioGas, told Reuters that the system “will be available to everyone [who] needs it in the developing world.”
The company has already dispensed systems to underserved locations in order to cut back reliance on other types of fuel.
In the summer of 2014, Israel’s Ministry of Environmental Protection bought and installed multiple units at Umm Batin, a Bedouin village without access to clean energy and garbage removal.
The Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Energy and Mining, aiming to reduce the impoverished population’s overdependence on wood, recently signed a contract with HomeBioGas to purchase 50 biodigesters.
The pilot program’s prior success in the two countries, led their governments have decided to purchase even more biodigesters to combat poverty in these locations.
– John Gilmore
Sources: Huffington Post, Israel 21c, IndieGoGo
Photo: EcoWatch