For years South Africa had the reputation as a country of disparity. During most of the 20th century it remained divided along racial lines, until its 1994 election and the abolition of apartheid. With noticeable growth in its Black African middle class, the country has undoubtedly made progress in reducing its previous inequalities.
However, disparity still defines much of South African life. It has a highly disproportionate number of people living with HIV/AIDS. While South Africa contains only 0.7 percent of the global population, it is responsible for 17 percent of the world’s infections. In fact, it bears the highest HIV/AIDS rate of any country in the world, with close to 20 percent of its population infected.
Disparity also marks healthcare in South Africa, in which there is a massive gulf between private and public care. This stratified imbalance often reflects racial divisions and hinders an effective response to the national AIDS epidemic. For most South Africans, the quality of healthcare is woefully inadequate.
The data tells it all. Though 84 percent of South Africans, or 50 million people, rely on public healthcare, only 30 percent of the nation’s doctors work at public hospitals. By contrast, private coverage applies to only 8 million South Africans, yet this small minority receives 70 percent of the physicians. A majority of those reliant on public healthcare are black, while whites comprise most of those on private plans.
Per capita, expenditures on healthcare reveal the extent of this inequality. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, “Annual per capita expenditure on health ranges from $1,400 in the private sector to approximately $140 in the public sector, and disparities in the provision of health care continue to widen.”
The lack of funding has left public hospitals in decay all across the country. What funds these hospitals do receive are often mismanaged and squandered due to corruption and incompetency. It is not uncommon for these public facilities to endure medicine shortages, broken equipment and deteriorating buildings.
The inadequacy of public healthcare became widely apparent during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, when the government systematically denied the threat of AIDS. Over 330,000 people died needlessly after the government failed to initiate an antiretroviral treatment program.
However, if one were to visit one of South Africa’s 200 private hospitals, conditions would appear satisfactory or even superior. The private health sector spends 13 times as much as the public sector on medicine and features the country’s best doctors.
It is this elite standard of care that is actually suffocating the countries healthcare system, as private spending on state of the art medicine increases drug manufacturers and hospitals are only raising prices. Some estimate the annual medical inflation rate is at 25 percent.
Yet even the top notch private sector cannot hold onto its best doctors; reports have estimated that 30 percent of South African doctors have left to countries like Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. What’s more, another 58 percent admitted that they would consider immigrating to Western countries for work.
This trajectory is common amongst doctors from sub-Saharan countries. In total, their exits represent 2 billion in lost investments. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, “South Africa incurs the highest costs for medical education and the greatest lost returns on investment for all doctors currently working in such destination countries.”
To remedy its national health crisis, South Africa has proposed a National Health Insurance program. It aims first and foremost to provide universal coverage and level healthcare disparity. It would also attempt to contain prices by negotiating with medicine and healthcare providers.
However, due to the overwhelming demand for healthcare as a result of the AIDS epidemic, a universal health care plan would be burdensome on the nation’s budget. Some have estimated that the cost for such a program would essentially equal the amount of money collected from personal income tax nationwide.
In the meantime, South Africa can aim on producing more physicians to deal with the AIDS crisis. The current demand for AIDS treatment exceeds the county’s entire healthcare workforce by three times. To better train this workforce, South Africa needs to invest more in its teaching facilities so that doctors can learn to treat patients more effectively.
As one of the world’s up and coming economies, South Africa should seek to fix its healthcare crisis. It is hard to have gravitas on the international stage when extensive issues in equity and quality of care get piled on top of an already staggering AIDS epidemic.
– Andrew Logan
Sources: Al Jazeera, New England Journal of Medicine, The Telegraph, The World Health Organization
Photo: Flickr
Nigeria Oil and Gas Trade and Investment Forum Speakers
It’s no secret that two major resources that the world depends heavily upon are oil and gas, but in limited supply, they must be managed as work is put in to find more eco-friendly solutions. In the two-day conference, the Nigeria Oil and Gas Trade and Investment Forum organized by the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade, and Investment will welcome thousands of representatives from different energy corporations to network and do business as well as listen to top-tier speakers from different firms based in Nigeria.
This forum will offer its delegates the opportunity to study new products and solutions that will further their companies, speak with global executives, hear from Nigerian dignitaries, and discuss the relevance of the Free Trade Zone to investment possibilities.
Here is this year’s speaker lineup:
Thomas Sule
Chief information officer and chief corporate services officer of Oando PLC. Prior to this position, Sule was the chief operating officer of the Helios Tower in Nigeria. His background on Bloomburg Business indicates that “Mr. Sule was focusing on strengthening HTN’s position as a leader in the industry and providing direction and leadership toward the achievement of the organizations, mission, strategy, and its annual goals and objectives.” Sule also has backgrounds in re-engineering initiatives as well as business processes and practice.
Adeolu Olufemi Adeyemi
As representative of GM Capital Projects and Shell Petroleum Development Company, Adeyemi’s main focus is on how technology can be used differently to improve efficiency. With the rise in mobile connectivity throughout the world, many successful companies are developing and using technology to raise their bottom-line profits.
Augustine Igwegbe
As CEO and MD for Ingwetin Glo Ltd and Former Regional IT Business, Igwegbe joined Shell Upstream International in 1988. “As the Shell regional Technology Manager for EP Africa, Mr. Igwegbe led IT department that managed one of the biggest private communication networks in Africa.” With his 28 years of experience and a B.Sc in Computer Science along with a background in banking, manufacturing and consulting, he hopes to introduce new business requirements regarding the delivery of IT services.
Ademola Agboola
Agboola is head of IT at one of Nigeria’s leading exploration and product companies, Pan Ocean Oil Corporation. Established in 1973, this is a joint venture with the Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC). “Pan Ocean is a trailblazer in the bid to achieve the gas flare out objective of the Federal Government. Since 1984, Pan Ocean went ahead with its initiative on gas utilization despite the challenges of an under developed Nigeria Gas Market.” The core values of Pan Ocean are Integrity, Resilience, Safety and Security, Fairness, Excellence, Team Spirit, and Appreciation.
Rufus Ehikioya
Ehikioya is applications Analyst from Chevron Nigeria. Chevron is an established corporation worldwide that’s working toward sustainable economic progress and worldwide human development. “In the months that followed the creation of ChevronTexaco, the new company found itself looking for resources in ever-more-difficult environments.” Chevron is currently working with several different academic institutions in pursuit of renewable energy technology which is becoming increasingly accepted in the developing world.
Adepeju Adekunle
Adekunle is head of IT Projects at limited liability company Nigeria NLG Limited, producers and exporters of Liquefied Natural Gas. One of the current objectives of Nigeria NLG as of late has been to eliminate gas flaring, and thus far has brought down the amount of flares from over 65 percent to less than 25 percent. This company is owned by Shell, the NNPC representing the Federal Government of Nigeria, total NLG and Eni.
Adesina Odukoya
Odukoya is the director of IT Operations for sub-Saharan Africa GE Oil and Gas. GE Oil and Gas has approximately 45,000 employees worldwide and seven global research centers. “Total global natural gas demand may have risen by approximately 2.7 percent since the year 2000 but global LNG demand has grown by 7.6 percent per year over the same period, indicating an almost threefold increase in demand for LNG.” And since around 85 percent of offshore rigs use GE’s drilling system, the rise in demand works for the benefit of bases around the globe. With so many employees dependent on this kind of demand, GE Oil and Gas seeks to continue to expand, and will even be providing new technologies for a Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project in the near future.
– Anna Brailow
Sources: Bloomberg, Chevron, GE Oil and Gas, IT News Africa, Nigeria Oil and Gas Invest, Nigeria LNG Limited, Enterprise Mobility, Panocean Oil Nigeria, SMI
Photo: Global Village Extra
Divided Healthcare in South Africa
For years South Africa had the reputation as a country of disparity. During most of the 20th century it remained divided along racial lines, until its 1994 election and the abolition of apartheid. With noticeable growth in its Black African middle class, the country has undoubtedly made progress in reducing its previous inequalities.
However, disparity still defines much of South African life. It has a highly disproportionate number of people living with HIV/AIDS. While South Africa contains only 0.7 percent of the global population, it is responsible for 17 percent of the world’s infections. In fact, it bears the highest HIV/AIDS rate of any country in the world, with close to 20 percent of its population infected.
Disparity also marks healthcare in South Africa, in which there is a massive gulf between private and public care. This stratified imbalance often reflects racial divisions and hinders an effective response to the national AIDS epidemic. For most South Africans, the quality of healthcare is woefully inadequate.
The data tells it all. Though 84 percent of South Africans, or 50 million people, rely on public healthcare, only 30 percent of the nation’s doctors work at public hospitals. By contrast, private coverage applies to only 8 million South Africans, yet this small minority receives 70 percent of the physicians. A majority of those reliant on public healthcare are black, while whites comprise most of those on private plans.
Per capita, expenditures on healthcare reveal the extent of this inequality. According to The New England Journal of Medicine, “Annual per capita expenditure on health ranges from $1,400 in the private sector to approximately $140 in the public sector, and disparities in the provision of health care continue to widen.”
The lack of funding has left public hospitals in decay all across the country. What funds these hospitals do receive are often mismanaged and squandered due to corruption and incompetency. It is not uncommon for these public facilities to endure medicine shortages, broken equipment and deteriorating buildings.
The inadequacy of public healthcare became widely apparent during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki, when the government systematically denied the threat of AIDS. Over 330,000 people died needlessly after the government failed to initiate an antiretroviral treatment program.
However, if one were to visit one of South Africa’s 200 private hospitals, conditions would appear satisfactory or even superior. The private health sector spends 13 times as much as the public sector on medicine and features the country’s best doctors.
It is this elite standard of care that is actually suffocating the countries healthcare system, as private spending on state of the art medicine increases drug manufacturers and hospitals are only raising prices. Some estimate the annual medical inflation rate is at 25 percent.
Yet even the top notch private sector cannot hold onto its best doctors; reports have estimated that 30 percent of South African doctors have left to countries like Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. What’s more, another 58 percent admitted that they would consider immigrating to Western countries for work.
This trajectory is common amongst doctors from sub-Saharan countries. In total, their exits represent 2 billion in lost investments. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, “South Africa incurs the highest costs for medical education and the greatest lost returns on investment for all doctors currently working in such destination countries.”
To remedy its national health crisis, South Africa has proposed a National Health Insurance program. It aims first and foremost to provide universal coverage and level healthcare disparity. It would also attempt to contain prices by negotiating with medicine and healthcare providers.
However, due to the overwhelming demand for healthcare as a result of the AIDS epidemic, a universal health care plan would be burdensome on the nation’s budget. Some have estimated that the cost for such a program would essentially equal the amount of money collected from personal income tax nationwide.
In the meantime, South Africa can aim on producing more physicians to deal with the AIDS crisis. The current demand for AIDS treatment exceeds the county’s entire healthcare workforce by three times. To better train this workforce, South Africa needs to invest more in its teaching facilities so that doctors can learn to treat patients more effectively.
As one of the world’s up and coming economies, South Africa should seek to fix its healthcare crisis. It is hard to have gravitas on the international stage when extensive issues in equity and quality of care get piled on top of an already staggering AIDS epidemic.
– Andrew Logan
Sources: Al Jazeera, New England Journal of Medicine, The Telegraph, The World Health Organization
Photo: Flickr
The Power of a Smile: Hope in the Midst of Poverty
When children are photographed, smiles come beaming through; this is generally true regardless of a person’s wealth or lack thereof. Smiles are indicators of happiness and hope that people in poverty can exhibit. While it is very true that many in poverty do not smile as their hope and joy are syphoned away by the cares of harsh everyday living, smiling is still exhibited by many throughout the globe.
Ron Gutman spoke at a TedTalk conference about the power of a smile. He cited studies done by UC Berkeley and Wayne State University who measured the width of alumni yearbook pictures and pre-1950 MLB player baseball cards respectively. They found that the wider the measure of a person’s smile, the longer that person lived and had a more fulfilling life.
This is not just a Western phenomenon. A separate study done by Paul Ekman in Papua New Guinea found that the aboriginal people perceived another person’s smile in the same way the rest of the world does, “to express joy and satisfaction.”
Smiling can be used as an emotional superpower. Gutman says that on average a person will smile around 20 times per day, yet “those with the most amazing superpowers are actually children, who smile as much as 400 times per day.”
Recently, a German study took fMRI images of people smiling and found “that facial feedback modifies the neural processing of emotional content in the brain, in a way that helps us feel better when we smile.”
This research is evidenced, in part, by photographs of people who live in poverty. When photo journalists are on assignment in areas of extreme poverty—in conditions that would strip most people of hope—smiles are spread across the faces of children.
Sebastian Cuvelier witnessed this when he traveled to the slums of Manila for a two month stay. He took pictures of children playing in the filthy streets, children taking baths in a blow-up swimming pool due to the lack of a proper bathroom, a mother smiling as she watched her children play and people living in make-shift houses.
The people of Manila are living in conditions that are heart breaking, but their smile is infectious, lights up their eyes, and draws the viewer in. Their hope shines through, a life that is grounded in family and not letting poverty steal their joy even when they have every reason to lose faith.
Part of the Manila street children’s hope, and the smiles, is through a Nongovernmental Organization (NGO) called The Virlanie Foundation. Their goal says that they are “giving back the smile to street children.” The organization was founded in 1992 and they work to help and protect the street children who are most vulnerable, such as the abused, neglected and orphaned, in order for those children to grow into productive, responsible adults.
Work by organizations like the Virlanie Foundation is important because while a smile is an indicator of hope, poverty tries to steal a person’s smile away. There are just as many pictures of smiling children in slums as there are children who have no smile because they have no future in their current condition. Giving a child hope through practical life-changing resources restores the smile and gives that child a chance to see their hope turn into something tangible. Then that child can use their smile to spread hope to others who need their own superpower smiles restored.
– Megan Ivy
Sources: Daily Mail, TedTalk, Virlanie Foundation
Photo: Flickr
Kenya Reaps the Benefits of Agri-Tech
Farmers across the globe have begun to use new agri-tech to aid them in relaying agricultural information, and with climate change becoming an ever-increasing issue, smallholder farms can use all the advice and support they can get.
This is why GSMA’s m’Agri program is currently funding a program called Airtel Kilimo or Airtel Agriculture. The purpose of this project is to improve smallholder farms’ productivity and income. It makes use of mobile technologies to pass along relevant and timely information that is so relied upon.
“A farmer helpline provides high quality and supporting information to farmers, enabling them to make more informed decisions when preparing the ground, planting, pest management, harvesting, post-harvest and marketing of the produce.”
This practice has taken hold in Kenya and is often referred to as ‘telephone farming’. Other projects that follow the same initiatives such as IBM’s EZ-farm project have gone so far as to produce sensors to be placed around farms that monitor water levels. Also, agri-tech can measure rates of photosynthesis, which determine whether crops have too much or not enough water, and send the data through a cloud to any smartphone.
BBC’s Tom Jackson reports “More than 80% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population is engaged in farming, but there are just 70 agricultural researchers for every million people, according to the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa.” With all of these technological advances, those statistics can change dramatically. More people could be inspired to become agricultural researchers, which could result in more advanced agri-tech and improved data readings.
According to Stephen Kigaru, a Kenyan farmer, this project definitely has a lot of untapped potential. Soon, agri-tech will be advanced enough that a mobile phone won’t be necessary. Most importantly, these technologies will be more accessible to those in need of them.
– Anna Brailow
Sources: BBC, CABI
Photo: BBC
Bright to Provide Solar Energy in the Developing World
The cost of energy is on the rise, especially in the hot summer weather. Solar panels are the equipment of the future for providing energy. Bright, a solar panel installation and distribution startup, has raised $4 million to provide free installation for solar energy in the developing world.
Last year, Bright began installing solar panels in Mexico. Specifically in Mexico, energy is expensive and involves a complicated process. According to the Mexican Federal Electric Commission, energy can cost upwards of $4,000 MXD ($240 USD) in the hot summer months.
This is a cost that most individuals cannot afford. There is a program in Mexico that subsidizes the energy costs for the poorest citizens, but it does not cover everyone.
This is where Jonah Greenberger, former Chevron executive and founder of Bright, saw the potential for solar panels.
Greenberger explains: “Solar is the path forward. Specifically, it’s a solution that doesn’t need to be centrally controlled and distributed (i.e. it can sit on roofs instead of in one large location in the desert), which means we can be independent from a totally government controlled situation.”
Bright will install solar panels for free and then provide a subscription service, a system which is similar to cable television in the United States.
Bright is able to have private investors cover the initial cost, and, over time, the private investors are paid back by the individuals paying for the subscription. The funding comes from a number of firms and investors including First Round Capital, Felicis Ventures, Max Levchin, Patrick Collison and several YC partners.
With the funding, Greenberger plans to hire and grow the team “so that we can tackle one of the largest and most significant challenges of out lifetime–delivering clean energy to a planet of over 7 billion people.”
To avoid higher costs, Bright does not build its own solar panels. Instead, Bright hires Mexican contractors to install ready made solar panels. This tactic decreases the cost to private investors, which eventually decreases the cost to individuals in the program. It also creates jobs to local contractors.
Although Bright is only active in Mexico now, they hope to take the same model to other countries where is believes it can do better than the government energy programs.
Bright is also working on improving their financial and solar software that would allow startup partners to sell, approve, install and verify installations. This would make Bright solar equipment available to more parts of the world.
Bright is paving the way for a more affordable and cleaner way to provide energy to the world. With this program, not only will people have access to affordable energy, but pollution will also decrease in the developing world.
– Kerri Szulak
Sources: Founder World, TechCrunch
Photo: TechCrunch
Keeping Africa Polio Free: Looking Toward the Future
Polio can have devastating effects on victims. Usually with little or no symptoms, the disease cripples and eventually paralyzes its victims. In a 2013-14 Polio outbreak in the Horn of Africa, 223 children were paralyzed due to Polio.
The disease is transmitted through human feces, which often gets mixed with drinking sources. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 2.4 billion people worldwide do not have access to improved sanitation facilities.
Due to this, polio has been one of the most persistent diseases to plague the developing world. Vaccines have existed for some time now and have become more and more accessible to developing nations due to aggressive world health initiatives. Since there is no cure, strategies to immunize children have been utilized to eradicate the disease.
There is hope now that complete elimination is right around the corner. On August 11, 2015, the continent of Africa celebrated being polio free for one year, with the last reported case in Somalia last year on August 11. Polio virus surveillance has improved significantly over the years and Nigeria, a hotspot for the virus, reported its last case of polio over a year ago in July of 2014.
With Africa becoming polio free for the last year, the last two remaining nations to report infections are now Afghanistan and Pakistan. With more resources now able to target those nations, protocols in Africa must continue to be implemented on a consistent basis to prevent a relapse.
For that to happen, four tasks must be implemented.
First, surveillance methods must continue to be built upon and improved. Dr Hamid Jafari, Director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative at WHO, warns that there is no guarantee that zero reported infections means the fight is won. He is quoted saying, “in the past we have had year-long periods when we thought the polio virus had gone from the Horn of Africa and central Africa, only to find out that we were simply missing transmission because our surveillance systems were not strong enough to spot cases.”
The second task requires creating programs to reach missing children. There are still pockets of children not vaccinated in rural areas in Africa. Security issues have kept health officials from reaching them. Any child without the vaccine is vulnerable to the virus. Increasing vaccination must remain a top priority.
Thirdly, routine immunization efforts must continue to ensure no relapse. It is not enough to just immunize the current generation. Children of the future must be continuously immunized to prevent the virus from reemerging.
According to WHO this can be done “in Africa: Angola, Chad, DRC, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Somalia and South Sudan, by partnering notably with such organizations as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Strengthening routine immunization in these countries will help to reach the significant numbers of children who remain unvaccinated there, giving the poliovirus less opportunity than ever to circulate.”
Lastly, strong leadership is needed to ensure that initiatives stay in place and countries stay steadfast to the cause. Key contributors such as the UK, Saudi Arabia and the United States must continue to provide aid and support local efforts in Africa. Much is still needed to completely eradicate polio in Africa, but the night is always darkest before the dawn.
– Adnan Khalid
Sources: Business Day Live, Global Polio Eradication Initiative, World Health Organization
Photo: Seattle Times
Liberian Schools Closed Again
On July 31, Liberian schools were closed again after having been reopened for only five months. Students, parents and teachers were alarmed, since they had expected school to continue through the summer to make up for time lost to Ebola. An announcement regarding closing was made in June.
Schools had reopened in March after having been closed for six months due to Ebola. Now, they are closed in order to prepare for the next school year, according to Education Minister George Werner.
Werner further explained that in March schools reopened without having been completely ready. Textbooks and other learning materials had not been delivered. Teachers hadn’t had enough training to complete a whole school year. The government now believes it would be better to close and become more prepared for a full school year. Students, parents and teachers are concerned about finances.
A grade 11 student in Monrovia, Conference Harmon, told IRIN that it’s a nightmare.
“How can the government do this?” she said. “Just imagine, I have paid my entire school fee [for the year] and now the government says schools should close. I am not happy about this.”
A mother, Martha Ernest, agrees: “Where does the government expect us to look for more money to pay school fees again?” she asked IRIN. “Why do they want us to suffer? I just cannot get over this. Money business is hard in this country. This is bad.”
A primary school teacher, James Tamba, was also concerned about money. He told IRIN, “We are worried that we will run out of money while we are on break because schools will not pay us for the rest of the months that we will be sitting at home. How do they expect us to feed our families? This decision is too harsh.”
A developing country, Liberia depends immensely on foreign aid. Eighty-four percent of the population live in extreme poverty. The country has been recovering from devastating civil wars for the last 14 yearss. Its education system is still being rebuilt; civil unrest obliterated most of the trained workforce. Among the many challenges to the education system is preparing teachers. About a third of primary school teachers in 2014 were not qualified. Forty-three percent of the population age 15 and older are illiterate.
When schools closed last year, parents were already voicing concerns about having the money to pay for fees once school started, yet most acknowledged the importance of education. Teachers were able to continue lessons at home for their children, and older children were able to help siblings, but most parents were uneducated and could not teach their children at home. Lessons on the radio were introduced in October 2014 for those students who were able to access them.
For the start of the coming school year, the government will allow eligible students to be promoted to the next grade. This concession is in addition to the 9th- through 12th-grade students who must take placement exams anyway. This announcement, however, has caused another kind of concern: the method for grade promotion has not been made known. Many wonder how a mix of students who have completed a half year and students who have been advanced will be accommodated, especially in crowded classrooms.
Still others are worried about the corruption already present in the school system. They fear that this will only cause even more bribery by parents who seek to promote their students. Werner acknowledged the poor state of the education system: “It is no exaggeration to say that education in our country is a mess.”
However, Werner reiterated that “in some places, the education system has collapsed.”
“I am not willing to put off the hard decisions, to just sit at my desk and watch the problems become ever more entrenched,” he said.
A parent, James Peewu, told IRIN that he agrees with Werner: “I think we need to go back to the normal school year. Sometime[s] we just have to make the sacrifice … I know it won’t be easy, but we have to sacrifice.”
Whether schools should have stayed opened or shut down to better prepare for the coming school year is a topic of debate in Liberia. Most agree, however, that missing school has a negative long-term effect that must be avoided.
– Janet Quinn
Sources: IRIN, IndexMundi, USAID, Liberian Observer, Human Development Reports
Photo: IRIN
Specialized Healthcare for Transgender Troops
A new study published earlier this month in the New England Journal of Medicine should dispel financial worries about allowing transgenders in military troops.
As the Pentagon moves to allow transgender people to serve in the U.S. military, debate has risen concerning the potential specialized healthcare they might require. This new study shows that the total cost of providing transition-related healthcare to transgender troops would be $5.6 million per year.
While that’s a high number, taken in the context of the entire U.S. military budget, it’s almost microscopic. The Defense Department’s annual healthcare budget currently sits at around $48 billion. When placed against this number, the potential $5.6 million required for transgender troops amounts to less than one-hundredth of a percent.
“Under any plausible estimation method, the costs are minimal,” Aaron Belkin, the study’s author, said in a statement. “Having analyzed the cost that the military will incur by providing transition-related care, I am convinced that it is too low to warrant consideration in the current policy debate.”
One of the criticisms being leveraged against this move is that the military will become a “magnet employer” for those seeking free health care. Belkin, however, denies this as a possibility, noting that the military has grown smaller over the years and that the Australian military has seen no negative impact from implementing the same reform.
According to the study, over roughly the past four years, 13 out of 58,000 total Australian troops underwent gender transition surgery. This averages out to around 1 soldier per 11,154 a year. In the United States, that ratio would be around 192 soldiers undergoing gender transition surgery annually out of a total 2,136,779 troops.
“What the research shows is that if you’re going to lift the ban, it doesn’t make sense to do so unless you also provide medically-necessary care,” Belkin said.
– Alexander Jones
Sources: Nejm, USA Today, Wall Street Journal
Photo: Russia Insider
7 Resources Focus on Good News Stories
Sometimes, when one is trying to make a difference in the world, it is all too easy to get caught up in how grim things can seem. We are constantly being bombarded with evidence that the world is in a desolate decline, and it is hard to even know where to start.
When these sort of feelings start to catch up with you, here are several resources to turn to that focus on good news stories and how, in many ways, the world is improving.
1. Don’t Panic
This Hans Rosling documentary challenges some of the biggest misconceptions people have about the direction the world is going in. For example, birthrates are declining as access to family planning increases and people become more educated. This engaging video features specific case studies, polls of a live audience and the continual presentation of surprising data.
2. TED.com
Well-known, this website has several uplifting playlists that exemplify how the world is getting better. For example, the “Freedom Rising” playlists are made up of talks about groups who have overcome oppressive governments. “Social Good, Inc.” is a set of talks about companies that are making progress towards a greater social good. “The Road to Peace” includes 10 talks that talk about the ways in which peace has prevailed in the past and can in the future.
3. 26 “Charts and Maps That Show the World is Getting Much, Much Better”
This article on Vox.com, with a self explanatory title, shows a variety of items, like economic prosperity, rising life expectancy and homicide rates in the U.S. and Europe.
4. “The world looks like it’s getting worse. Here’s why it’s not.”
This article by John Stackhouse includes this calming line: “If the world seems more volatile, it is. If it seems more dangerous, not so much. Welcome to the war of perceptions, in which an ever-improving planet seems ever more at risk largely because of the noise.” It includes information on topics like human rights, poverty and American hegemony.
5. Positive News
A U.K. website, it reports on some of the good that is occurring in the world. On the official “about” page of the website, it says, “we take a solution-focused perspective on the challenges facing society.” This is not a place of wallowing in pity and sorrow, but in seizing opportunities for change.
6. The Good News Network
Attempting to counterbalance the barrage of bad news reported in the mainstream media, this website contributes positive stories that are occurring and aims to help create a balanced, realistic worldview for consumers. It features this reflective quote from editor Norman Cousins: “If news is not really news unless it’s bad news, it may be difficult to claim we are an informed nation.”
7. Flickr
This might seem like a general resource and saying “photography” makes it even more vague, but, as the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Sometimes all it takes to feel inspired or be reminded of all of the beauty in the world is to see a moment of it frozen in time.
Flickr comes up just because it tends to be a more trusted resource for high-quality photos, but even something like Google Images would work. Type in the name of a place you hear about in the news. One ravaged by poverty, war or oppression.
What you see are images of the place at its most beautiful. Its unique landscapes, its strong people, its magnificent architecture. From Africa to Syria to Mexico, there is beauty in the uniqueness of each place, even the ones wracked by turmoil. Rarely is there a news story covering the sheer beauty of a Middle Eastern desert, or a tree silhouetted against the sky in the Congo or the beaming face of a child in Mali.
With the mainstream media so hyper-focused on all that is wrong with the world, it is easy to forget about all that is right. But the wonderful thing is that taking the time to seek out goodness usually leads to finding it, especially in today’s world, where the Internet makes so much available right at our fingertips. These resources should act as a reminder that the world is filled with beautiful people and places and stories, and that we should continually strive to make it a better and better place because such efforts have been proven to pay off.
– Emily Dieckman
Sources: Reuters, Gapminder, Good News Network, Positive News, TED, VOX, Flickr
Photo: Flickr
Refrigeration Technology: Saving Food in Africa
Without refrigeration technology, food is at constant risk of spoiling. Globally, tons upon tons of food is lost each year, and a lack of refrigeration plays a part in this. Some sources state that one-third of food produced today will end up being lost for one reason or another. Others say that around 40 percent of food is lost before it reaches markets. Either way, the number stands around 1.3 billion tons a year.
Putting these statistics into monetary form might give even more perspective and clarity. Around $1 trillion worth of food is lost each year around the world. In India alone, $6.8 billion worth of fruits and vegetables are lost a year.
Before continuing, it is important to recognize the distinction between food waste and food loss: “Food loss refers to the decrease in edible food mass at the production, post-harvest and processing stages of the food chain, mostly in developing countries. Food waste refers to the discard of edible foods at the retail and consumer levels, mostly in developed countries.” Food loss is a problem common to the developing world.
A lack of any way to keep fruits and produce cool is usually the reason for their loss, although it should be acknowledged that simply throwing extra food out is also a problem, albeit in more developed countries. A deficit in access to cold chain technology – refrigeration for goods en route to their final destinations – has a major role in food loss. The food that does not spoil on its way to its destination faces the challenge of finding refrigeration once it is delivered as well.
A new piece of refrigeration technology hopes to solve these food loss problems. Called Evaptainers, they are the solution to the fact that 45 percent of the produce grown in Africa is lost before it reaches consumers. The idea began in a class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where students were challenged to come up with something that would change lives. The Evaptainer was the result.
The Evaptainer is a low-cost, mobile, electricity-free cooling unit that can be used to either improve the cold chain or refrigerate fruits, vegetables or meat in one place. Evaptainers use evaporative cooling instead of vapor-compression, which is more energy-intensive, to keep the cost and energy use low.
How does the Evaptainer work? Everyone has experienced evaporative cooling at some point: the sensation of a breeze cooling skin after swimming is essentially what it is in action. The device itself has two parts: an inner area where goods are kept, and a layer of sand in between the produce and the outer wall of the container. When water that has been added to the sand evaporates, it lowers the temperature of the food chamber by up to 20 degrees centigrade.
Refrigeration has always been a struggle in the developing world. Often, there is a lack of electricity to power cooling units, and so food ends up being lost. Once Evaptainers go into production for commercial use, it will be interesting to see the impact they make in the developing world. Keep an eye out for this one in the future.
– Gregory Baker
Sources: FAO, UN Non-Governmental Liaison Services , Evaptainers, The Guardian
Photo: The Daily Banter