For those who live in extreme poverty, clothing is a means of protection. For fashion designers, clothing is identity. Fashion is a way to show the world personality, demeanor, and creativity. Not only do these fashion designers help clothe those who cannot afford their products, but they also help save the lives of those in poverty.
These are five fashion designers who help fight poverty.
1. Michael Kors
In his signature all-black attire donning shades from his own brand, Michael Kors sits next to actress Kate Hudson, both flashing their stylish and opulent wristwatches. This advertisement was made to promote Kors’ charity and raise awareness for the charity’s cause.
Watch Hunger Stop is more than a play on words, it is a charity created by the famous fashion designer that has provided 10 million nutritious meals to children in need. Kors’ campaign features a lookbook of his notorious “Kors style” watches, with a big watch face and thick metal band. With the purchase of any of the watches, one hundred meals are donated to hungry children.
Because of his impact, Kors was recently named a U.N. World Food Programme Ambassador for those who do not have the voice to take action against poverty.
His unique and masterful watch design features a map of the world he is helping to save on the watches’ faces. To learn more about Watch Hunger Stop, visit this link.
2. Gucci
This high fashion brand is another designer that uses its products to promote change.
With its eloquently crafted and luxurious jewelry, Gucci extends to all forms of fashion, unique and classic. To raise awareness and support for earthquake relief efforts in Japan, Gucci created a piece of jewelry that crosses boundaries greater than fashion.
This limited edition silver chain bracelet can help save the lives of those suffering from displacement and disaster-related health problems. All of the proceeds from the sales of this bracelet benefit the Japanese Red Cross Society to support the victims of the Higashi Nihon Dai-Shinsai earthquake and tsunami.
When one wears the bracelet, he or she emits sympathy for Japan because of the hint of red and white that recalls the colors of the Japanese flag. Simultaneously, the wearer is showing that he or she cares because of the medal the bracelet carries which says “Gucci loves you.”
The fashion brand has also created a handbag that benefits UNICEF in support of the Schools for Africa and Schools for Asia initiatives.
3. Versace
One of the most famous fashion designers of all time, Donatella Versace, also feels for people affected by natural disasters.
Her Versace One Foundation supports those affected by the Sichuan province earthquakes in China. The brand provides art supplies to encourage creativity and teamwork for children living near the disaster area.
Versace created colorful handbags that incorporate child-like drawings on the fabric, seemingly hinting at the reason for the creation of the bags. Fifty percent of the proceeds of these couple-hundred dollar bags go to this foundation.
4. Kate Spade New York
This fashion designer chose clothing instead of jewelry to show her humanitarian side. Kate Spade’s Spring 2014 collection helped create jobs for a community of 20,000 people.
The name of the collection, “On Purpose,” serves a powerful purpose for women in Rwanda. The brand teamed up with the locals to help educate artisans in the community about marketing for the betterment of their businesses.
“On Purpose” targeted a collection of mostly female workers, forging equality and creating a different work dynamic for the people in Rwanda.
5. Kenneth Cole
Moved by the AIDS outbreak in the 1980s, fashion designer Kenneth Cole joined the amfAR board. He was later elected as chairman of the executive committee.
His classic and simple fashion brand helps to provide most of the creative advertising for the HIV/AIDS research and awareness that amfAR uses. According to amfAR, Cole has “initiated public awareness efforts annually since 1985.”
With his famous “We All Have AIDS” campaign, Cole employed key entertainment, political, social and scientific leaders to help change the social stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS victims.
Cole’s help has moved amfAR to a different stage, carrying the hope of finding cures for life-threatening diseases.
There are many more fashion designers like these who use their celebrity power to enhance the lives of those in poverty. Henceforth, it can be said that fashion, like the clothing mentioned earlier, can be a means for protection from hunger, disaster, inequality and disease.
– Fallon Lineberger
Sources: amfAR, Destination Kors 1, Destination Kors 2, Gucci, In Style, More.com
Photo: EMC Blue
UNAIDS Wants Trade Agreements to Uphold Commitments
At the 2011 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS, governments reconfirmed their commitment to the use of existing flexibilities under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). Specifically, governments reiterated their commitment to promoting access and trade of medicines and to ensure that intellectual property rights provisions in trade agreements do not undermine existing flexibilities.
TRIPS had to be reestablished with governments because as explained by UNAIDS Executive Director, Michel Sidibé, “We are entering a crucial phase of the AIDS response which will decide whether we end the epidemic as a public health threat by 2030. Anything that undermines that response must be avoided.”
Trade negotiators from 12 countries are working to conclude the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). Under this text, there are reportedly provisions that go beyond what is required under the TRIPS Agreement.
With these “TRIPS-plus” provisions, generic competition could become more difficult. This would lead to higher drug prices. “Generic competition in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as the use of intellectual property flexibilities, have helped make prices for life-saving drugs much more affordable and enabled the unprecedented scale up of HIV treatment programmes.”
To achieve the elimination of AIDS by 2030, treatment drugs should not become more expensive. Instead, testing and medications should become more abundant and affordable to individuals.
The Fast Track Initiative not only wants to treat individuals who are infected with the virus but prevent the further spread of infection. With the combination of treatment and spreading awareness, this is how AIDS will be eliminated.
With this initiative, 28 million HIV infections will be avoided between 2015 and 2030. Twenty-one million AIDS-related deaths with be avoided during that same time period. A main point in this initiative is that the billions of dollars spent on HIV treatment will be made available to be spent on other areas of health care.
Early testing and treatment of HIV will save a generation that may not even be aware that they are infected. With many African countries being plagued by the spread of HIV, informing people about treatment and options is one of the best ways to end AIDS.
If the global Aids response is to attain the 90-90-90 treatment target by 2020 — 90 percent of people living with HIV knowing their status, 90 percent of people who know their status on treatment, and 90 percent attaining viral suppression — HIV treatment must be accessible and scale up must be financially sustainable.
– Kerri Szulak
Sources: UNAIDS 1, UNAIDS 2
Photo: Flickr
New Orleans: 10 Years After Hurricane Katrina
Before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, concentrated poverty was mostly overlooked with 40 percent of individuals residing in New Orleans living at or below the poverty line.
Out of the people who evacuated in the wake of the category 5 hurricane, a majority of the poor without means of transportation were left to wait out the storm as 80 percent of the city was submerged.
As of 2013, the poverty rate in the city of New Orleans has decreased to 27 percent, but with a drop in the city’s overall population since before Katrina, this number remains unchanged.
Fortunately, data shows that the number of the city’s poor residents has dropped from 39 percent in 2000 to 30 percent between 2009-2013.
Since Katrina, $71 billion in federal funds has improved both levees and created an improved disaster management plan to help improve the city and learn from the mistakes for future natural disasters.
Now, the city’s focus is to continue improving and finding different solutions to make the city great once again. This starts with educating the children.
Before Katrina hit, New Orleans had one of the worst school systems in the country.
Due to a majority of public schools being converted into charter schools after Katrina, New Orleans outperforms the rest of the state in terms of high school graduation rate, rising from 54 percent in 2004 to 73 percent in 2014.
With students having a greater chance of graduating from high school, future students will have a greater chance of attending college and preventing their families from becoming impoverished.
In the words of Allison Plyer, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center, “Greater New Orleans is in some ways rebuilding better than before.”
– Alexandra Korman
Sources: Brookings, Forbes, The Washington Post, USA Today
Photo: Unsplash
Senate Pushes Through Green Climate Fund
The fund, headquartered in South Korea, is essentially a financial intermediary between developed and developing nations. Developing nations — many of which stand to face harsher climate-related incidents — are not keen on signing a climate deal to cut emissions.
Their rationale is that economic development, which is badly needed, is difficult in the absence of hydrocarbons and abundant, cheap energy. A global deal on cutting emissions would hurt the poor countries more, which are the same countries that have historically contributed substantially less greenhouse gas emissions than the developed nations.
Instead, they are demanding reparations and assistance from developed countries in exchange for signing onto any binding climate deal. The money will go toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions in developing countries and helping them to build resilience to future climate shocks.
Some developed countries including the United States have, until recently, been balking at the idea of giving developing countries money for climate-related disasters and paying for them to reduce emissions. This stance has thwarted previous climate talks and threatens the COP21 negotiations.
However, the Senate Committee on State and Foreign Operations has pushed through action on funding for the Green Climate Fund. Although the legalese wording in the subcommittee document effectively blocked funding by requiring that a subsequent act of Congress was needed to approve funding, the wording was removed during the Full Committee Markup.
The bill includes an unidentified amount of “limited funding” for the Green Climate Fund. The president’s $500 million request represents one-hundredth of 1 percent of the federal budget. The United States is now one of more than 30 countries that have dedicated money to the Green Climate Fund.
– John Wachter
Sources: Green Climate Fund, The Hill 1, The Hill 2, RFI, Sierra Club, United States Senate 1, United States Senate 2, United States Senate 3
Photo: Flickr
Arsenal Football Club Supports Save The Children Challenge
In a video sanctioned by action/2015, another organization dedicated to these goals, two players, one coach and one mascot participated in the challenge. The athletes can be seen putting their hand on a soccer ball and running around it in a circle—similar to the dizzy bat game. Once each player completed several circles, they were to take a shot at a goal.
Each of the soccer players fell in the grass on the soccer field, making the video and challenge comical and fun-filled. Joining soccer and charity together, Save the Children and Arsenal have worked together since 2011, raising more than one million euros for the charity’s important goals.
The #DizzyGoals Challenge was created to promote awareness for the action/2015 goals and campaign, Global Goals. All organizations ask that participants share their dizzy goal in a video on social networking sites.
The power of social networks is a large part of the Global Goals campaign. Several organizations, including Save the Children and action/2015, have joined together to help end extreme and unsafe circumstances around the world. Global Goals is one campaign that asks followers to upload videos and pictures to their social media profiles.
The objective of these organizations is to raise as much awareness as possible so that these goals can be met this year. The Global Goals website said that these goals will only be accomplished if all people are clued in.
“If the goals are going to work, everyone needs to know about them. You can’t convince world leaders to do what needs to be done if you don’t know what you’re convincing them to do. If the goals are famous, they won’t be forgotten,” the website said.
Global Goals also gave motivating advice to readers and philanthropists about change and humanitarian aspirations.
“We can be the first generation to end extreme poverty, the most determined generation in history to end injustice and inequality and the last generation to be threatened by climate change,” Global Goals said.
In accordance with this notion, other athletes have stepped up to promote this cause. Gareth Bale, a professional soccer player, posted his #DizzyGoals video on Twitter. The athlete shared this tweet with his followers: “Quality time with my mates filming my #DizzyGoals for @TheGlobalGoals.”
Usain St. Leo Bolt, a famous Olympian, also shared a video of him doing the challenge on Twitter. The runner can be seen laughing in the video, promoting the challenges ultimate goal—to make people smile.
Many more athletes in all levels of play have participated in this challenge, showing that sports is one way to bring people together and to promote change.
Global Goals said that this month, Sept. 25, 193 world leaders will meet to commit to change the world by 2030. They want to end extreme poverty, tackle climate change and fix inequality and injustice to make the world a better place.
To learn more about this important cause, visit globalgoals.org. To view #DizzyGoals challenges, search the hashtag.
– Fallon Lineberger
Sources: Global Goals, Look to the Stars, Twitter 1, Twitter 2
Photo: Pixabay
Social Entrepreneurs Fostering Feasible, Sustainable Change
The projects will offer market-based solutions to provide resources for those in need, expand job opportunities and improve the well-being of local people and their communities.
The partnership, called Priming the Pump, is a global development network supported by General Atlantic, Newman’s Own Foundation, the Pershing Square Foundation, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and Echoing Green.
With more than $4 million in funding, the partnership seeks out and invests in early development innovators for social change who pose solutions to issues present in developing countries.
Fellows receive $90,000 over two years to help advance their initiatives and participate in mentoring from international development professionals and global networking programs. So far, Priming the Pump has empowered 29 Fellows from 20 organizations in developing nations.
This year, USAID’s funding will help 15 entrepreneurs jump-start their visions.
One project, developed by Jehiel Oliver in Nigeria and nicknamed the “Uber for Tractors,” allows farmers to order tractors through SMS texts. This allows farmers with limited access to labor to plow their fields quickly and more cheaply. It gives financial gain to small farmers as well as tractor drivers who are contracted to do such work.
Another project receiving funding is the Tujenge Africa Foundation created by Etienne Mashuli and Wendell Adjetety. Both survivors of the Rwandan civil war and genocide, Etienne and Wendell are living examples of how quality education can help people escape poverty and violence.
Through education, leadership programming and peacemaking, their organization helps post-conflict African youth excel and define their own futures.
There are many other groups receiving funding for change such as Love Grain, which builds farming co-ops and supports supply chains to connect teff farmers in Ethiopia with international markets.
Suyo is another initiative that helps low-income families in Latin America secure rights over their property and transforms economic security; while The Open Medicine Project uses mobile technologies to pair healthcare workers in South Africa, India and Pakistan with informational resources and support tools to help them improve their work and save lives.
Funding from organizations such as Echoing Green and USAID will provide developers and their projects with the resources to expand their technology and access to help create real change in their communities and nations.
– Jenny Wheeler
Sources: Echo in Green 1, Echo in Green 2
Sources: Flickr
Malthusianism: Theories on Poverty and Aid
Thomas Malthus was a clergyman and philosopher of the late 18th century. His ideas on the causes of poverty and the means by which it could be eliminated were controversial for his time and would probably have been unspeakable in ours. However, his work shaped England’s “Poor Laws,” influenced scientists and philosophers such as Charles Darwin, and remains pertinent today.
Malthus believed that the population would always increase more rapidly than food supply, which meant that large numbers of people would always suffer from starvation and poverty. His calculations demonstrated that while food supply grew at a linear rate, populations tended to grow at an exponential one.
The inspiration behind his ideas came from his work as a parish priest, where he noticed that the numbers of poor people he was baptizing far outstripped the number of deaths he was recording. As a member of a wealthy family himself, he was also struck by the abject poverty and miserable conditions the poor were living in. At the time, almost a seventh of England was on some sort of welfare, but its population was booming.
Carrying out more studies on England’s poor gave Malthus a clearer picture of the problem. Poor families showed a tendency to have more children when their economic situation improved, even slightly, as it had after the industrial revolution. This had the effect of again lowering the average living standard of the entire family.
In this sort of poverty trap, the poor would remain unable to escape their condition. A poor family was also generally more likely to have a greater number of children because some were always expected to die in their infancy. The solution, Malthus stated, was to encourage the poor to marry later and have fewer children, if any at all. By having children, they would be sentencing more people to live in poverty and starvation.
The way to encourage the poor to adopt this solution would be to eliminate all types of aid. While this would initially be very hard and even cruel, it would eliminate poverty and dismantle the poverty trap in the long run.
What welfare did, Malthus believed, was encourage the poor to marry earlier even when they could not support a family and have children they could not afford. The effect of this was that families continued to be poor and live on the very barest of necessities. England’s Poor Laws, which propped up people who suffered from bad harvests, was creating the very poverty it hoped to eliminate.
Once these practices were taken up, food supply could finally keep up with the lowered population growth. If food supply could not keep up, Malthus believed that three necessary and inevitable things would take place: plague, famine and war. These would once again balance out the population but at a much greater cost.
Critics have generally attacked Malthusianism from two different angles. One side believes that a small population is not good for a country. The Mercantilists argue that high population growth, even if it results in poverty, is good for the country. It would provide it with people to fight in the army, work in factories and provide cheap services.
Mercantilists did not want the population to earn very high wages or live far above the poverty line—this would stagnate economic growth and weaken the nation. Modern anti-Malthusians also believe that low birth rates are bad for the economy because the workforce would not be able to support its older population.
Other critics of Malthusianism believe that his proposed solutions are not the best way to tackle poverty. They are needlessly inhumane. Human ingenuity can come with solutions to expand food supply to meet population needs. Norman Borlaug, the mind behind the Green Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, is cited as an example. He created strains of corn and wheat that had much higher yields than before, saving millions from starvation.
Neo-Malthusians, as modern proponents of Malthus are called, say the current statistics speak for themselves. Populations in almost every developing country are growing rapidly as they become wealthier and advancements in medicine keep more children and older people alive. In the last 110 years, the world’s population has grown from 1.6 billion to 7.2 billion.
But 805 million worldwide go to bed hungry, and most are from developing countries. A fourth of people in Sub-Saharan Africa are chronically malnourished. More than 750 million lack access to clean water, which leads to 850,000 deaths per year. In major cities, such as Mumbai, half the population are living in wretched and slum-like conditions. In Sub-Saharan Africa, this number reached 61 percent. Most poor people continue to have more children than they can afford to take care of.
While the poor continue to have high fertility rates, they will continue to be poor. Neo-Malthusians advocate for better family planning, a change in societal expectations and norms, greater access to contraceptives and more education about conception to reduce the poor’s fertility rates.
– Radhika Singh
Sources: Orion Magazine, Population Connection, Economist, BBC
Photo: Flickr
Public-Private Partnerships in Africa
While over the last few decades the economies of Africa have, as a whole, grown quite substantially, the economic problems Africa faces are still monumental in scope. On a continent that supports around a billion people, nearly 600 million lack access to electricity and almost 300 million have no access to safe water.
A promising solution to help combat these vast problems concerning infrastructure and service delivery is Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). Although there are many distinct models for PPPs, in essence, they are contracts between the public sector and a private party in which both entities share their skills and assets in delivering a service or facility for the use of the general public.
Each party shares in the risks and rewards of the venture. PPPs have taken place mainly in economic infrastructures such as power, transportation, telecommunications and water and sanitation.
Unsurprisingly, the most developed country in Africa, South Africa, has had the most experience with PPPs. Fifty PPPs have occurred on the national or provincial level and 300 at the municipal level between 1994 and 2005.
Furthermore, between 1992 and 2012, there were a total of 51 PPPs in the water and sewage sector in Africa, with a total investment during this period totaling a little more than $3 billion. This limited number of PPPs in these sectors are due to certain constraints that hinder the further success and development of PPPs in Africa.
These constraints include: inadequate legal and regulatory frameworks for PPPs, lack of technical skills to manage PPP programs and projects, unfavorable investor perception of country risk, Africa’s limited role in global trade and investment, small market size, limited infrastructure, and limited financial markets.
More simply, many companies believe the potential reward of a PPP venture into Africa is outweighed by the potential risk. Yet encouragingly, the belief that Africa is an attractive investment destination is much more likely held by a company, if it has already ventured in Africa.
According to data gathered from the Ernest Young 2014 Africa attractiveness survey, while only 39 percent of respondents without businesses in Africa thought that Africa’s attractiveness has improved over the past year, 73 percent of those with businesses in Africa thought the continent’s attractiveness improved over the past year.
It seems that the perception of Africa that many businesses hold does not match what is actually happening in the continent.
The likelihood that those numbers are primarily fueled by a mismatch of perception and reality rather than positive bias by companies willing to venture into Africa in the first place, greatly improves in light of another encouraging finding.
According to the same EY 2014 survey, Africa was the second most attractive region in the world to invest in. In 2010 it was the eighth most attractive region out of the world’s 10 regions and in 2012, the fifth.
While comprehensive, holistic data on PPPs in Africa is scarce, it is fair to think that their potential is vast on the continent. A World Bank report on PPPs found in Uganda’s 10-year experience in small town water PPPs, water connections have almost tripled since PPPs introduction in 2002. More than 1.5 million people are now served through PPPs in small Ugandan towns.
The report aptly concluded, “Involving the private sector has proven worthwhile even if the private party isn’t bringing much money in. Small-scale PPPs have a significant role in reaching the poor.”
Public, Private Partnerships are a valuable tool in solving Africa’s vast infrastructure deficits. Mitigating the impediments for these contracts would be an important step in providing basic services to hundreds of millions of Africans. But maybe more importantly, companies should dip their toes in the water holes of Africa, as they may be surprised with what they find.
– Connor Bohannan
Sources: African Development Bank, Earnest Young, National Treasury of South Africa, OECD, Venture Africa, The World Bank
Photo: Flickr
5 Fashion Designers Who Help Fight Poverty
For those who live in extreme poverty, clothing is a means of protection. For fashion designers, clothing is identity. Fashion is a way to show the world personality, demeanor, and creativity. Not only do these fashion designers help clothe those who cannot afford their products, but they also help save the lives of those in poverty.
These are five fashion designers who help fight poverty.
1. Michael Kors
In his signature all-black attire donning shades from his own brand, Michael Kors sits next to actress Kate Hudson, both flashing their stylish and opulent wristwatches. This advertisement was made to promote Kors’ charity and raise awareness for the charity’s cause.
Watch Hunger Stop is more than a play on words, it is a charity created by the famous fashion designer that has provided 10 million nutritious meals to children in need. Kors’ campaign features a lookbook of his notorious “Kors style” watches, with a big watch face and thick metal band. With the purchase of any of the watches, one hundred meals are donated to hungry children.
Because of his impact, Kors was recently named a U.N. World Food Programme Ambassador for those who do not have the voice to take action against poverty.
His unique and masterful watch design features a map of the world he is helping to save on the watches’ faces. To learn more about Watch Hunger Stop, visit this link.
2. Gucci
This high fashion brand is another designer that uses its products to promote change.
With its eloquently crafted and luxurious jewelry, Gucci extends to all forms of fashion, unique and classic. To raise awareness and support for earthquake relief efforts in Japan, Gucci created a piece of jewelry that crosses boundaries greater than fashion.
This limited edition silver chain bracelet can help save the lives of those suffering from displacement and disaster-related health problems. All of the proceeds from the sales of this bracelet benefit the Japanese Red Cross Society to support the victims of the Higashi Nihon Dai-Shinsai earthquake and tsunami.
When one wears the bracelet, he or she emits sympathy for Japan because of the hint of red and white that recalls the colors of the Japanese flag. Simultaneously, the wearer is showing that he or she cares because of the medal the bracelet carries which says “Gucci loves you.”
The fashion brand has also created a handbag that benefits UNICEF in support of the Schools for Africa and Schools for Asia initiatives.
3. Versace
One of the most famous fashion designers of all time, Donatella Versace, also feels for people affected by natural disasters.
Her Versace One Foundation supports those affected by the Sichuan province earthquakes in China. The brand provides art supplies to encourage creativity and teamwork for children living near the disaster area.
Versace created colorful handbags that incorporate child-like drawings on the fabric, seemingly hinting at the reason for the creation of the bags. Fifty percent of the proceeds of these couple-hundred dollar bags go to this foundation.
4. Kate Spade New York
This fashion designer chose clothing instead of jewelry to show her humanitarian side. Kate Spade’s Spring 2014 collection helped create jobs for a community of 20,000 people.
The name of the collection, “On Purpose,” serves a powerful purpose for women in Rwanda. The brand teamed up with the locals to help educate artisans in the community about marketing for the betterment of their businesses.
“On Purpose” targeted a collection of mostly female workers, forging equality and creating a different work dynamic for the people in Rwanda.
5. Kenneth Cole
Moved by the AIDS outbreak in the 1980s, fashion designer Kenneth Cole joined the amfAR board. He was later elected as chairman of the executive committee.
His classic and simple fashion brand helps to provide most of the creative advertising for the HIV/AIDS research and awareness that amfAR uses. According to amfAR, Cole has “initiated public awareness efforts annually since 1985.”
With his famous “We All Have AIDS” campaign, Cole employed key entertainment, political, social and scientific leaders to help change the social stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS victims.
Cole’s help has moved amfAR to a different stage, carrying the hope of finding cures for life-threatening diseases.
There are many more fashion designers like these who use their celebrity power to enhance the lives of those in poverty. Henceforth, it can be said that fashion, like the clothing mentioned earlier, can be a means for protection from hunger, disaster, inequality and disease.
– Fallon Lineberger
Sources: amfAR, Destination Kors 1, Destination Kors 2, Gucci, In Style, More.com
Photo: EMC Blue
UN 15-Year Executive Summary on AIDS: Hopes and Lessons
Over the past 15 years, many lessons have been learned, and much hope has been gained toward the future of eradicating HIV. The U.N. Executive Summary on Aids, published this last month, highlights many hopes and lessons learned over that time period.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon writes in the introduction, “The AIDS response has been like no other. From the start it has put the focus on people and put their needs first. It has been a turning point for the recognition of health as a human right.”
The HIV response has been one of the greatest unifying factors in the modern world. Hundreds of countries have put aside their differences, be it social, political or economic, to combat the spread of AIDS. In 2001, $4.9 billion was invested in combattng HIV, today that number is over $32 billion.
With experience comes the opportunity to learn and share. Here are a few of lessons from the past 15 years:
Global access to antiretroviral treatment is key
As more and more people have received access to HIV testing, those who are infected are more likely to receive the proper treatment—helping them live better lives and preventing the virus from spreading to others. In 2001, one million people worldwide were on HIV antiretroviral therapy.
In 2014, that number had grown to over 15 million. The goal is to give medical access to all infected individuals by 2030.
The impact generated by people receiving treatment is the bar by which success is measured. This is because of the direct correlation between HIV treatment and death from AIDS. The summary states, “Treatment access has resulted in AIDS-related deaths declining by more than 42% between 2004 and 2014.
An estimated 1.2 million [1.0 million–1.5 million] people died of AIDS-related causes globally in 2014, but in the absence of antiretroviral therapy, AIDS-related deaths would have risen to 2.0 million by 2014.”
Transmission prevention among children
Infants born with HIV has been a focus strategy in AIDS globally. Millions of children were becoming orphans due to infected parents dying from AIDS. In 2009 14.4 million children were orphaned due to AIDS, over the last 6 years that number dropped to 13.3 million.
Another major concern was the transfer of HIV from pregnant mothers to children. In 2001, 580,000 children were infected with HIV. Today that number has been reduced by a little over 50 percent. The strategy educates and recognizes that childbirth is not the only means of infection, but even breastfeeding can lead to HIV infection.
The prevention strategy aggressively targets pregnant women who are infected with HIV. By providing testing, education and treatment, the transmission has been successfully halted and is now being reversed. The goal is to reduce the number to less than 50,000 HIV infections among children by 2030.
Safe Sex and HIV awareness
The youth are the leaders of tomorrow. Educating and preparing them to lead the world tomorrow is one of the keys in fighting HIV and AIDS. When HIV first became widely known in the 1980’s and 1990’s, many misunderstandings prevailed. The disease was thought to be only spread by homosexuals and many did not understand how it was contracted.
As time has gone by, campaigns to spread HIV awareness have led to young people understanding the two best methods of preventing HIV transmission—reducing the number of sexual partners and using condoms.
In 2001, awareness among youth worldwide about HIV was at 25 percent, with most being in developed nations. Today, that number is close to 35 percent. The goal is to raise awareness over 90 percent by the year 2030. The goal of reducing multiple sexual partners has been modest at the most, but still progressive.
Globally, condom use has increased, but levels are still too infrequent among youth in Central and Western Africa (large HIV-populated regions). Sub-Saharan Africa is a huge target population and conservative efforts have been made to allow access to contraceptives such as condoms.
Financing and Aid will allow us to reach the U.N. goals
Over the past 15 years, the fight has moved from millions of dollars to billions being spent annually. This has allowed the resources needed to be allocated appropriately.
The world has learned from HIV that political commitment for public health investments can continuously be created and when adequate levels of spending on health is allowed, it leads to unprecedented levels of success.
At this point in time, the United States cannot waiver in its support of programs funding HIV and AIDS prevention. Hard lessons learned have helped us unite and combat one of the deadliest outbreaks in world history. The road ahead is still going to be hard, but it is not out of reach.
– Adnan Khalid
Sources: UNAIDS, World Bank
Photo: UN AIDS
The Basic Education Coalition: Education for All
Education plays a vital role in transforming a developing country into a fully developed nation. By educating the youth, countries are able to ensure a stronger future and promote innovation in their own communities, thus making them more globally competitive and increasing the overall quality of life.
The Basic Education Coalition is “an independent, non-profit organization working to ensure children around the world have access to quality basic education.” Working together with 17 other organizations, the Basic Education Coalition will be a key player in the development of the developing world and the bettering of children’s lives throughout the world.
In 2000, several global leaders founded the Basic Education Coalition with the established goal of Education for All (EFA), with the goal that “all children receive an education that enriches their lives, expands their opportunities, and empowers them to participate in society.” In order to set more distinct goals for themselves, the EFA developed six goals which were then endorsed by several member countries and their leaders.
One EFA goal is to expand and improve the comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for disadvantaged children. The key aspect in this is the provision of both care and education. Often, children in extreme poverty are made to worry about where their next meal will come from, if their parents will come home and if they will be able to survive.
By providing care to these children, these troubles somewhat disappear and they are able to focus on their education, and on being children. Childhood is where a lot of a people’s personality is formed and if the global community raises kind and education-loving children, we are only creating a stronger future for ourselves.
Another key goal of EFA is “eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender parity in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality.”
In many developing countries with relatively accessible education platforms, there is a huge gender disparity with boys being much more educated than girls. In the future, this will only lead to increases in population growth, domestic violence and lower self-esteem and self-respect for many women in the developing world.
When young girls are provided with a strong education they are able to gain the confidence to run their own businesses, innovate, support their families and make decisions that benefit their futures.
This has become an increasing focus in the global community and many NGOs have been created solely to help women and girls in developing countries to gain the confidence and education to support themselves.
Some of the other EFA goals include a 50 percent improvement in levels of adult literacy levels by 2015, compulsory education for children, especially girls, and ensuring equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programs.
By teaming up with global leaders and several different countries throughout the world, the Basic Education Coalition has created a buddy system in which every nation must make sure that their counterparts are doing well. By working together, the youth of the world will be able to grow up in a totally different, and much better, world than our own.
– Sumita Tellakat
Sources: Basic Ed, Interaction
Photo: Huffington Post