Looking to gain some good karma? A Millennium development goal can address many issues ranging from health to HIV/AIDS. This list recommends one great way to support each of the latter four Millennium Development Goals. All charities listed have a score of 96 or higher on Charity Navigator. To see part one of this article, please click here.
Millennium Development Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Where to donate: Direct Relief
Women in low-income countries are at a startling disadvantage when it comes to maternal health. Worldwide, a woman dies from complications during pregnancy or childbirth every two minutes. Even more shocking is the fact that 90 percent of these women die from preventable conditions.
One of Direct Relief’s chief programs works to improve the health of mothers in impoverished countries. The organization’s health services train and equip midwives, provide emergency obstetric care and treat birth-related injuries.
Charity Navigator recently ranked Direct Relief at the top of its “10 of the Best Charities Everyone’s Heard Of” list. When donating to Direct Relief, you can choose to either direct your gift specifically to their Maternal and Child Health programs or let the organization use the money where it is most needed.
Millennium Development Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
Where to donate: United Nations Foundation Nothing But Nets
Malaria, a disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes, kills over 600,000 people every year. In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria is the leading killer of children; one child dies from the disease every 60 seconds.
In 2006, Rick Reilly published an article in Sports Illustrated challenging his readers to donate to the fight against malaria. His column inspired the creation of Nothing But Nets, which in the past nine years has worked with hundreds of thousands of individuals to distribute bed nets throughout Africa. The organization has also partnered with some big names, including the World Health Organization, the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The idea behind Nothing But Nets is simple: when bed nets keep out mosquitoes, fewer people are infected with malaria. The insecticide-treated nets also kill mosquitoes, which helps slow the spread of the disease. This life-saving strategy is also relatively cheap; it costs only $10 to send a net to a family in sub-Saharan Africa.
Millennium Development Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Where to donate: Global Greengrants Fund
Want an organization that works to promote sustainability and social justice? Since 1993, Global Greengrants has provided worthy communities with grants to help them face environmental and social challenges. According to the organization’s website, “Global Greengrants believes local people know best how to address the environmental issues impacting their own lives.”
The Global Greengrants Fund supports over 5,300 projects in 163 countries. Before giving a grant, the organization’s team of Grant Advisors carefully reviews which projects will receive funding. Once chosen, grant recipients use the money to combat issues such as fresh water shortages, biodiversity loss and land rights violations. Women in Ghana, for example, used a Greengrant to prevent a mining company from destroying their freshwater spring. Community members in Indonesia used their Greengrant to keep palm-oil companies from illegally clear-cutting local rainforests.
Millennium Development Goal 8: Global Partnership for Development
What to donate: Your time!
Millennium Development Goal 8 is especially complex. It calls for fairer trade practices, better debt relief services, affordable access to pharmaceutical drugs and new technologies and increased aid for the world’s poorest countries. While all these targets may seem overwhelming, you can advocate to make your support for them heard.
Time can be just as valuable a donation as money. Call or email your Congressional representatives and ask them to support bills such as the Food for Peace Reform Act of 2015. The act would allow U.S. global food aid to reach over eight million more people while saving an estimated $440 million.
Another important bill to support is the Electrify Africa Act, which addresses the target of MDG 8 that calls for increased availability of technology in developing regions. The bill was passed by the House in 2014 but never made it through the Senate. Show your Congressional leaders that the Millenium Development Goal like this matter to you by making a 30-second phone call.
– Caitlin Harrison
To see part one of this article, please click here.
Sources: Direct Relief, Nothing But Nets, Global Greengrants Fund, The Borgen Project
Photo: Flickr
The Blockchain and Poverty
Satoshi Nakamoto was the pseudonym under which a person or persons released the invention of the Bitcoin, and more importantly, the Blockchain. Bitcoin has proved to be influential and has a fervent user-base that believes it holds the keys to upending the banking and finance world through decentralized cryptocurrency. The power behind Bitcoin, however, lies with the Blockchain. And the power of the Blockchain has the potential to spawn new technologies and help the poor.
The Blockchain technology developed by “Satoshi Nakamoto” has been hailed as a practical solution to the “Byzantine General’s Problem.” It does not completely solve the Byzantine General’s Problem, but it does enough to bypass the issue to the extent that it should pose no issue in reality. The Byzantine General’s Problem proposes the flaw of sharing information between, say, two Generals. If one wants to tell the other to “attack point A,” he or she may send a message, but then he will never be sure if the other General got the message. The Blockchain is important because it solves the problem of “double spending” by providing a practical solution to the Byzantine General’s Problem. This means that there is no risk of a Bitcoin being spent twice, which would be similar to counterfeiting money. The Blockchain does this by creating a public ledger that records every transaction that ever took place with Bitcoin. Essentially, the Blockchain enables trust without the need for identity.
Blockchain technology could be used in wide-ranging applications. For example, NASDAQ recently announced that it will be testing Blockchain technology to record transactions of share trades for privately-held companies. Brian Singer explained in an interview with Forbes that he believes that Bitcoin and the Blockchain can substantially reduce poverty around the globe. Singer argues that the ability to have undeniable, transparent ownership of something that everyone can trust is imperative. Ownership of, say, a Bitcoin is ownership overvalue. This undeniable ownership of value that is recognized in a system no matter what anyone says is what causes Singer to believe that the Blockchain technology behind Bitcoin can have a profound impact on the poor. Bitcoin has already caused disruption in the remittance business; immigrants have been using Bitcoin to send money back home. Bitcoin does not demand costly extra fees like Western Union.
The Blockchain also removes the need for a third party, such as a computer server. One purpose of a bank is to store value safely and efficiently and also manage exchanges of value at high rates using credit card and debit card systems, which are centralized. The Blockchain can safely and effectively protect your value from “double spending” and digital theft – only by mistake of the user can it be stolen – and at the same time avoid the pesky fees and rules that banks impose.
Because of the Blockchain’s ability to essentially create trust without identity in a system, it lends itself to secondary innovations such as being used for other distributed systems that are without a central point, such as one server that contains all necessary information. Although distributed systems are not new, the Blockchain could help facilitate the creation of even more. These systems are in many ways more powerful than a centralized system. They rely on much less digital and physical infrastructure, such as a server run by a third party. These systems can run independently of authority. Distributed systems of all sorts have many advantages that lend themselves to the poor. By curtailing the need for a trusted authority or more infrastructures, it makes it easier for the poor to use and access these technologies from their respective countries and makes them more reliable.
It is possible that new innovations will emerge that are of particular use to the poor, as seen when people use the Blockchain and Bitcoin to bypass traditional remittance markets. The possibilities are endless; new companies are popping up and attempting to leverage this new technology. Like the Internet or other technologies, it can be difficult at first to see where the end of the tunnel leads, and the Blockchain may be no different. With smartphones becoming more and more common even amongst the poor, innovations on the Blockchain may hold hidden solutions.
– Martin Yim
Sources: Brookings, Marketplace, Forbes, The Guardian
Photo: The Cointelegraph
Children on the Streets of Bangkok
There are more than 20,000 street children in Thailand’s major urban areas. In a single day, a child can earn 300 baht ($10) to 1,000 baht ($30) – much more than the amount a Cambodian or Burmese living in poverty makes back home. In Phnom Penh, for instance, scavenging rubbish all day will only earn a child 16 baht ($0.50).
Cambodians make up around 80 percent of Thailand’s child beggars. Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world and half of its population is children.
Beggars who are from Thailand usually hail from the northeast Isan region, where 40 percent of the country’s poor comes from. Their parents come to Bangkok to find work, usually as motorcycle taxi drivers or construction workers. When they have children, they realize they cannot afford to take care of them. Distrustful of the government-run orphanages, many simply abandon their children in the hands of babysitters, hoping they will find a home there. However, these children are often made to work on the streets to earn some money for their upkeep, according to chairwoman Darat Pitaksit of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Bangkok, an organization that works with underprivileged children.
Because going to school is mandatory until the sixth grade, most Thai children manage to attend at least primary school. Secondary school attendance in Bangkok, however, drops by 20 percent. Despite it being the richest area of Thailand, rates of attendance are lower in Bangkok than anywhere else in the country because of the presence of migrant workers’ children and the lifestyles they are made to lead.
Contrary to common perception, street children, both from Thailand and neighboring countries, do not fall into crime, drugs, or other illicit activity. “Thai children are raised to respect their elders,” Pitaksit says. “In addition, the belief in karma helps them to be more accepting of their hardships in life.” Similarly, Cambodian children would often rather beg on the streets than go to school, says Chantana Sueprom, a staff member of the UNICEF supported NGO Friends International. They feel it is their duty to help their parents earn money.
– Radhika Singh
Sources: Reuters, UNICEF, Asian Development Bank
Photo: Jimmy Lam Photography
Leprosy Is Almost Eliminated
According to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) reports, Leprosy still infects almost 200,000 people globally. The disease not only infects a person but also creates an environment where a person is shunned and forced to live away from his or her family. Even though the disease is highly treatable and not very common, it still creates an immediate social stigma whenever it is mentioned. Thankfully, the disease is on its way to being eliminated completely around the globe.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, affects a person’s nerves, skin and mucous membranes (CDC). Lesions appear on a person’s skin and loss of feeling can occur since the nerves are damaged. Because a person loses sensation in the affected areas, burns or other injuries can go unnoticed and lead to further health issues.
The disease spreads through human contact. It is not highly contagious but can be spread through coming into contact with fluid droplets from an infected person.
The United States and other developed countries rarely ever see cases of leprosy, but several developing countries still experience the disease. According to WHO, “the leprosy burden is now concentrated in the five most endemic countries (Brazil, India, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Nepal), which account for 83% of prevalence and 88% of detection worldwide.” Usually, it is the poorest of the poor who contract the disease because they are the farthest from medical care.
WHO supplies a multi-drug therapy (MDT) free of charge to those with the disease. If the patient takes the prescribed medicine as directed, the disease is curable in as quickly as six months, but it could take up to two years.
Eliminating the disease is of huge importance to global health, but it is also vital to a family unit that has a member suffering. People with the disease are often shunned and pushed out of their social circle. An infected person is made to live with other people who have leprosy regardless of whether the person is a child or an adult. This can cause further strain on a family’s psyche, financial situation and emotional well-being.
Leprosy is well on its way to being eliminated completely from the globe. In 2000, leprosy was considered eliminated because there was less than 1 case per 10,000 people globally. But that number has the potential to be reduced even further. WHO states the following to describe the effectiveness and potential of leprosy elimination:
– There is only one source of infection: untreated, infected human beings.
– Practical and simple diagnostic tools are available: leprosy can be diagnosed on
clinical signs alone.
– Under natural conditions, “incident’ cases” (new cases in which the disease has
recently developed) make up only a small fraction of the prevalence pool. Below a
certain level of prevalence, any resurgence of the disease is very unlikely.
WHO is calling for a “Final Push” to remove leprosy as a health issue around the globe. The biggest factor is the ability to bring the MDTs to every person who has leprosy. This requires the patient’s help in seeking out medical care, despite the stigma that is associated with the disease, as well as integrating leprosy detection into routine medical care in countries where cases are still seen. While this may be easily achievable in more urban areas, the rural areas still need to see higher availability of medical care.
Seeing the end of leprosy for good is an achievable goal. Already the case numbers are dwindling as people are being treated and healed until they are no longer able to pass the disease along. As the “Final Push” is implemented more often, the good news about eliminating leprosy should be heard.
– Megan Ivy
Sources: CDC, NLT, WHO 1, WHO 2, WHO 3
Photo: Asian Correspondent
Improving Women’s Health Leads to Sustainable Development
The Commission aimed to make policy recommendations in terms of economic, social and cultural factors that would make governments accountable for recognizing the need for improving women’s health and the welfare of them and their communities. Published at a critical point in which Millennium Development Goals are ending and the world is beginning to adopt new Sustainable Development Goals, the Commission aims to heighten women’s roles in national and international leadership and set developments in their health and social status as a measured requisite for completing each Development Goal.
The Commission’s work was primarily concerned with developing ideas about women’s health from a productive standpoint – how they contribute to societies economically, culturally and environmentally – rather than reproductive standpoint. Viewing women’s health solely in terms of reproduction allows gender inequity to prosper because it defines women solely based on their ability to have children. The report demonstrates that improvements in women’s healthcare from a comprehensive standpoint will expand their contributions in education, the economy and the environment.
Globalization, the Commission reports, has contributed to the improvement of women’s status globally but has worsened it in individual countries, threatening social stability. Thus, though globalization has led to more widespread recognition of gender inequality, it has not done anything to change it. The increasingly rapid transmission of communicable diseases, another outcome of globalization, has increased the importance of women in caring for family members and preserving the welfare of their communities.
As humanitarian crises and ecological degradation continue to grow and conditions for populations around the world worsen, the protection of women’s health and social status are increasingly vital to the well-being of societies. Thus, it is essential that nations adopt plans to improve women’s healthcare and equality.
According to the Commission, financing healthcare should take into account persistent health challenges that affect women, such as communicable diseases and violence against women and girls. They should also take on measures to promote women’s rights and recognize their invaluable roles in society. Doing so will improve not only gender equality and societal harmony but also economic stability, healthcare, education and environmental quality. Thus, in investing in the needs and welfare of women, policymakers will help achieve sustainable growth and development for their nations.
– Jenna Wheeler
Sources: The Lancet, Impatient Optimists, The Lancet
Sources: Flickr
School Lunch Program Improves Lives of Children in CAR
The World Food Program began a massive school lunch program this past May across the Central African Republic. This week, they began a campaign that aims to battle common intestinal worm infections in children in cooperation with the school lunch program.
Many children in the Central African Republic suffer from intestinal worm infections that affect their health, ability to intake nutrition, mental development and the ability to study in school. The program that collaborates with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education aims to improve the health of 250,000 children across the Republic.
One deworming pill is effective for six months. When children are healthy and worm-free, they can both focus in school and study at home more effectively.
The school lunch program that began in early May of 2015 has been very effective so far. Over 155,000 metric tons of food have been distributed. Ninety schools, over 70,000 primary school children and 4,300 elementary school children across the capital of the Central African Republic are currently receiving school lunches.
The meal includes rice, beans, oil and salt. In many cases, this school lunch is the only food children will consume in a day. The food encourages families to value attendance and enrollment in school. It also improves the efficacy of the children’s schooling experience, enabling concentration and enthusiasm.
The school lunch and deworming campaign in the Central African Republic follow political violence, armed conflict and chaos that began in December of 2014. Thousands of people have been killed and almost 1 million have left their homes due to political violence.
The instability and violence caused the majority of schools in the Central African Republic to close, leaving children without access to education. The few schools that remained open were too unsafe for children to attend. According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, about 45 percent of schools are currently still closed in the Central African Republic and 35 percent of the population is food insecure.
According to the U.N., 3,500 to 6,000 children have been recruited as child soldiers in armed groups in the Central African Republic. Parents and many organizations like World Vision are encouraging school attendance in an effort to diminish children’s vulnerability to recruitment.
According to World Vision, Claudia Geraldine, a teacher from Bangui that educates boys and girls from age 5 to age 14 said, “I’m encouraging parents to send children to school now because it is safe.”
The school lunch and deworming programs have so far been successful due to the tenacious, determined, collaborative efforts of local community members along with large organizations. “Everybody plays a part in the process. The head of the school organizes the logistics and mobilizes parents to help. Local women volunteer to prepare the food, and the children fetch water. This is making a real difference in the lives of children in Bangui,” said Fikru Gebeyehu, a World Vision food assistance expert.
– Aaron Andree
Sources: World Food Programme, World Vision USAID
Photo: World Food Programme,
Charity for Every Millennium Development Goal
Looking to gain some good karma? A Millennium development goal can address many issues ranging from health to HIV/AIDS. This list recommends one great way to support each of the latter four Millennium Development Goals. All charities listed have a score of 96 or higher on Charity Navigator. To see part one of this article, please click here.
Millennium Development Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Where to donate: Direct Relief
Women in low-income countries are at a startling disadvantage when it comes to maternal health. Worldwide, a woman dies from complications during pregnancy or childbirth every two minutes. Even more shocking is the fact that 90 percent of these women die from preventable conditions.
One of Direct Relief’s chief programs works to improve the health of mothers in impoverished countries. The organization’s health services train and equip midwives, provide emergency obstetric care and treat birth-related injuries.
Charity Navigator recently ranked Direct Relief at the top of its “10 of the Best Charities Everyone’s Heard Of” list. When donating to Direct Relief, you can choose to either direct your gift specifically to their Maternal and Child Health programs or let the organization use the money where it is most needed.
Millennium Development Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
Where to donate: United Nations Foundation Nothing But Nets
Malaria, a disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes, kills over 600,000 people every year. In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria is the leading killer of children; one child dies from the disease every 60 seconds.
In 2006, Rick Reilly published an article in Sports Illustrated challenging his readers to donate to the fight against malaria. His column inspired the creation of Nothing But Nets, which in the past nine years has worked with hundreds of thousands of individuals to distribute bed nets throughout Africa. The organization has also partnered with some big names, including the World Health Organization, the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The idea behind Nothing But Nets is simple: when bed nets keep out mosquitoes, fewer people are infected with malaria. The insecticide-treated nets also kill mosquitoes, which helps slow the spread of the disease. This life-saving strategy is also relatively cheap; it costs only $10 to send a net to a family in sub-Saharan Africa.
Millennium Development Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Where to donate: Global Greengrants Fund
Want an organization that works to promote sustainability and social justice? Since 1993, Global Greengrants has provided worthy communities with grants to help them face environmental and social challenges. According to the organization’s website, “Global Greengrants believes local people know best how to address the environmental issues impacting their own lives.”
The Global Greengrants Fund supports over 5,300 projects in 163 countries. Before giving a grant, the organization’s team of Grant Advisors carefully reviews which projects will receive funding. Once chosen, grant recipients use the money to combat issues such as fresh water shortages, biodiversity loss and land rights violations. Women in Ghana, for example, used a Greengrant to prevent a mining company from destroying their freshwater spring. Community members in Indonesia used their Greengrant to keep palm-oil companies from illegally clear-cutting local rainforests.
Millennium Development Goal 8: Global Partnership for Development
What to donate: Your time!
Millennium Development Goal 8 is especially complex. It calls for fairer trade practices, better debt relief services, affordable access to pharmaceutical drugs and new technologies and increased aid for the world’s poorest countries. While all these targets may seem overwhelming, you can advocate to make your support for them heard.
Time can be just as valuable a donation as money. Call or email your Congressional representatives and ask them to support bills such as the Food for Peace Reform Act of 2015. The act would allow U.S. global food aid to reach over eight million more people while saving an estimated $440 million.
Another important bill to support is the Electrify Africa Act, which addresses the target of MDG 8 that calls for increased availability of technology in developing regions. The bill was passed by the House in 2014 but never made it through the Senate. Show your Congressional leaders that the Millenium Development Goal like this matter to you by making a 30-second phone call.
– Caitlin Harrison
To see part one of this article, please click here.
Sources: Direct Relief, Nothing But Nets, Global Greengrants Fund, The Borgen Project
Photo: Flickr
New Support for a Price on Carbon
Over the past few years, the debate around climate change has shifted dramatically. The global community has accepted that not only is global warming happening, but that human beings are the ones causing it. This realization has led to a surge in advocacy for pollution-reduction programs, perhaps the most striking of which is the growing push for an international cap-and-trade program on carbon dioxide. Among these new advocates for climate responsibility are historically recalcitrant countries like South Africa and China. In total, 73 countries and 11 states and provinces – a list responsible for 54 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions – have shown support for an international price on carbon.
The general effects of global warming are, at this point, well known. Over the next decades, the world will experience a higher average temperature, melting polar ice, rising sea levels and more extreme cycles of droughts and floods. Every country in the world will be affected, and the countries around the equator are likely to be hardest-hit economically as well as environmentally. The countries surrounding the equator are, for the most part, economically fragile and rely more on agriculture than on industry. Drastic changes in local climates could decimate the crops these countries rely on and thus destroy their economies.
Most predictions by climate scientists posit that if the current levels of greenhouse gas emissions hold steady, these predicted changes will happen quickly and irreversibly. Most experts now agree that the only way to avert total environmental disaster is to dramatically curb the pollutants being emitted and to do it fast.
The most promising method of curbing emissions is called cap-and-trade. Under a cap-and-trade system, a limit is set on the pollutant in question by a governing body. This cap can be gradually tightened over time, giving emitters a predictable time frame in which to reduce their emissions. The limit-setter, whether it be a state government, a country’s congress or the U.N. itself, then issues a finite number of permits to the companies who emit the pollutants. The companies can bid on the permits, trading for them in an open market.
Under a cap-and-trade system, a limited number of permits will enforce the determined optimal level of emissions. Companies participating in the permit market have a chance of making some extra money by selling permits they do not need.
The countries in favor of the system say they are looking for a predictable and enforceable emission reduction policy. They hope to capture the success of the emissions markets already active in places like the European Union and California. The permit auctions for pollutants like Sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide have proven especially lucrative for the California state government, which hopes to use its windfall for other environmentally-friendly initiatives like subsidized bus fare or to clean up urban rivers.
Hopefully, this new global concern for the environment is more than a passing fad. As many environmental economists have been saying for years, a well-designed cap-and-trade program could be the key to environmental protection without economic sacrifice.
– Marina Middleton
Sources: World Bank, EDF, Biz Journals, Sac Bee, Center for Global Development, IETA, Union of Concerned Scientists
Photo: Globe-Net
Photonic Fence Zapping Malaria, One Mosquito at a Time
A laser defense system from the scientists at Intellectual Ventures may prove to be an effective weapon against malaria-spreading mosquitoes.
The device is known as a “photonic fence” and works by monitoring a virtual field for disturbances caused by insects. Once an intruder is properly identified as a mosquito, it is targeted with a deadly laser. Within a fraction of a second, the device shears off the bug’s wing, leaving it dead or incapacitated.
Bees, butterflies and humans need not worry, however; the software powering the photonic fence is precise. It can determine not only the type of insect but also its gender and species. This accuracy is needed because only mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles carry malaria and only females bite people. The software analyzes insect size, wing movement pattern, airspeed and other characteristics to discern friend from foe.
Naturally, the idea is not without its skeptics. One concern is that rural areas often have unreliable power grids. The scientists at Intellectual Ventures hope to solve this problem with the use of solar cells. The laser itself doesn’t require much energy, as it targets the wings of a mosquito rather than its tough exoskeleton.
Intellectual Ventures sees the device as supplementing, rather than replacing current measures of control. These include habitat destruction, nets for homes and beds, as well as pesticides. Nonlethal uses of the photonic fence are also possible, such as monitoring mosquitoes or agricultural pests so that they can be treated with more traditional methods.
The company is currently field testing the device in a partnership with Lighting Science Group. Models are not yet for sale and the so-called mosquito laser will need to be produced cheaply in order to be effective.
The device couldn’t come at a better time. Over three billion people—more than half the world’s population—are at risk of malaria worldwide. An estimated 584,000 people died of malaria in 2013, out of 198 million cases. Although the disease is present in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, most deaths due to malaria occur in Sub-Saharan Africa. Young children are particularly vulnerable to the disease; it is estimated a child dies of malaria every minute.
Its widespread economic effects worsen malaria’s human devastation. Several studies have demonstrated a relationship between malaria and poverty, and many of the world’s poorest countries have high rates of the disease. Refugees and transient people are at heightened risk of malarial infection, as they may not have developed any immunity.
– Kevin Mclaughlin
Sources: Intellectual Ventures, NCBI, WHO
Photo: Intellectual Ventures Lab
This Generation’s Billionaires Start as Technopreneurs
Bill Gates has an annual income higher than that of many countries. If he were a country, he would be the sixty-fifth richest in the world. He has an estimated net worth of $77.8 billion and is widely considered to be the wealthiest individual in the world. All that from selling computers and software.
In 2011, President Barack Obama called for an “all hands on deck” approach to innovation, encouraging government officials, academics and philanthropists to “spark … creativity and imagination.”
This is an important priority of America’s domestically and abroad. Partnership for Growth, a bilateral effort to promote inclusive economic growth, has enabled USAID to place a new emphasis on innovation and education, most notably in the Philippines, which recently played host to the Global Entrepreneurship Symposium and Workshop, a summit designed to help young Filipino inventors hone their ideas, connect with possible investors and launch their businesses.
Aid professionals are hopeful that an emphasis on launching small tech startups will drive long-lasting growth in countries like the Philippines, which have an undersized middle class.
“Entrepreneurship is the fastest way to move wealth in society. Education gives people the tools to innovate and build businesses,” says Dado Banatao, a Filipino-American engineer and entrepreneur who now runs the Philippine Development Foundation and works with young inventors. “Entrepreneurship leads to the creation of jobs and redistribution of wealth, and puts the Philippines on the global economic map.”
In the United States, two-thirds of jobs are generated by small and medium-scale businesses. These small businesses are at the heart of a middle class, the sweet spot between struggling to survive and living to excess. Most developing countries lack a robust middle class. Instead of small and medium-scale businesses, developing countries like the Philippines have offices for mega-corporations like McDonalds, and nameless micro-enterprises like street food vendors or family-run convenience shops.
Even if a technopreneur does not strike it rich, she or he could still run her or his venture like a small or medium business. More businesses mean more jobs, which is an improvement for everyone. With this growing push for innovation and empowerment, it would not be a stretch to predict that the next generation of billionaires will be making their first millions as the founders of tech companies in developing countries.
– Marina Middleton
Sources: USAID, Brookings Institution, Universiti Kuala Lumpur
Photo: Flickr
Organizations Helping Refugees
It seems like every time I watch the news, there is a new group of refugees fleeing their native country in search of asylum from unimaginable violence. In recent months, Syrian and Sudanese refugees have been under the microscope, but there are large masses of refugees all over the world, an estimated 16.7 million according to USA for UNHCR.
A refugee is categorized as someone who “has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Most likely, they cannot return home or are afraid to do so. War and ethnic, tribal and religious violence are leading causes of refugees fleeing their countries.”
Refugees are forced to leave their families and homes just to survive. Many, if they survive the journey, end up in countries where they have no contacts, legal or financial aid, or shelter.
Countless international refugee aid organizations and non-profits have been established since the early 20th century.
The United Nations General Assembly established a division entirely devoted to assisting refugees, the UNHCR, on Dec. 14, 1950, in the wake of the detrimental effects of World War II. The department was actually intended to be temporary. Its creators established a three-year mandate and then intended to dissolve the department. Then, in 1956, the UNHCR experienced its first national refugee emergency after Soviet forces crushed the Hungarian Revolution. From that point on, it was clear that the UNHCR was essential, with cases popping up in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere.
Today, the UNHCR is still active in refugee crises, but there are many more charities and organizations helping refugees who have been displaced by violence and fear. Refugee Action, established in 1981, is one of such charities. Volunteers organize fundraisers, petitions, and other platforms to provide refugees with legal advice and shelter in the UK.
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants is another player working “to protect the rights and address the needs of persons in forced or voluntary migration worldwide by advancing fair and humane public policy, facilitating and providing direct professional services, and promoting the full participation of migrants in community life.”
Celebrities and other well-connected figureheads have taken advantage of their ample resources to contribute to refugee assistance organizations as well. Angelina Jolie, for example, one of Hollywood’s most well-known actresses and directors, was promoted to Special Envoy of UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres in April 2012.
UNHCR describes Jolie’s work for the organization as highly influential, stating, “Jolie previously represented UNHCR as a Goodwill Ambassador, and in this role she conducted more than 40 field visits around the world, becoming well-versed in the phenomenon of forced displacement and a tireless advocate on their behalf.”
Despite the quantity of refugees around the world, there are clearly many individuals, businesses and organizations helping refugees and working to assist those in need.
– Hanna Darroll
Sources: The UN Refugee Agency, The UN Refugee Agency, The UN Refugee Agency, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Refugee Action
Photo: UN News Centre