Power Grids, Africa and Poverty

africa
Often the recipient of international aid, Africa and poverty go hand in hand—the continent is home to 19 of the 23 poorest countries on earth. International agencies and many countries assert that developing Africa will lift millions out of poverty by slowing population growth and bringing the continent up to par economically with the rest of the world.

What is often overlooked is the infrastructure needed to make international aid effective. The American economy is strong because there is a reliable source of power. Businesses can be open eight hours a day without hesitation. The dependability is almost second nature.

But for the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa, the power grid is undependable.

South Africa, which has the biggest power infrastructure in the region at 44 gigawatts, imposes blackouts, or “load shedding,” to cope with the power demand. The continent’s biggest economy, Nigeria, has only six gigawatts for 170 million people. In comparison, the United States has over 1,000 gigawatts for its 320 million citizens.

Most of the businesses only get power four hours a day from the national grid. Many run on private generators. In a recent interview with The New York Times, Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari lamented that the lack of energy security is “the biggest drag on the economy.”

Other areas of Sub-Saharan Africa are in worse shape. Encompassing 630 million people, 85 percent of Africa does not have access to any type of power infrastructure. The World Bank estimates the region loses 2.1 percent of annual GDP due to the unreliable power.

Yet there is opportunity here. As climate change becomes more evident, and carbon dependent infrastructures of the developed world give way to renewable ones, Africa can become a testing ground to prove that economies that run on renewables are not only sustainable but prosperous.

Since 2000, there have been efforts to bring reliable power to Africa. Two years ago, President Obama launched “Power Africa,” a $7 billion initiative aimed at bringing power infrastructure to the continent. China and some European countries, as well as private companies, have financed solar, wind and hydropower projects in numerous countries.

Kenya is in the process of building a massive wind farm. When completed in 2017, the Lake Turkana 310-megawatt project will supply 17 percent of Kenya’s power. The European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank financed the project. Kenya is already laying the groundwork for a 400-megawatt wind farm.

Last year, hip-hop artist Akon launched the Akon Lighting Africa initiative. The initiative focuses on bringing solar power to those who do not have it. But rather than simply installing solar technology, Akon implemented Solar Academy. The school teaches individuals how to install and maintain solar panels.

In an interview with Think Progress, Akon said this empowers people through education while building Africa into an economy that can compete on a global level. He would like the initiative to expand to all of Africa by 2020.

The International Energy Agency wants renewable energy to account for half of Sub-Saharan Africa’s power supply by 2040—an ambitious goal but achievable. With international investment, Africa can build a sustainable power grid while expanding economically, benefiting the millions still living in poverty today.

– Kevin Meyers

Sources: Business Insider, Clean Technica, New York Times, Think Progress
Photo: New York Times

5 Metal Rock Acts Working to Restore Proper Global Health

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Rock is a traditional musical genre that relays memories within a large following. Five rock-themed acts have touched the lives of millions with their charitable efforts to restore proper global health, gestures that have been just as effective as their own iconic music.

1. Linkin Park

An experimental-meets-metal band known for edge-cutting hits like “In the End,” Linkin Park has been steady in giving back to many over a number of years with their philanthropic routines.

In late December 2004, the platinum-selling group donated over $100,000 to the American Red Cross via the band’s established Music for Relief, giving back to Southeastern Asian natives traumatized by the tsunami that had struck. In addition, as part of Linkin Park’s Music for Relief, the band encourages fans to take part in charitable actions by “Download[ing] to Donate”; in return, generous donors receive musical prizes, typically containing previously unreleased digital goods.

The aforementioned strategy proved useful when the band implemented the tactics in fixing numerous aftereffects caused by global tragedies like Hurricane Katrina and the 2010 Haitian earthquake. Having raised over $5 million since its establishment, by 2014, Linkin Park’s initiative aided West African natives suffering from the treacherous Ebola virus through a separate fundraising activity, one in partnership with interactive charity broadcast Chideo.

2. Nirvana

Another humanitarian rock act is the legendary Nirvana. In 1993, the “Heart-Shaped Box” collective managed to make headlines throughout when the band held a fundraising concert in an effort to give back to Croatian women. As documented in an Entertainment Weekly article, in his early overseas travels Nirvana bassist Chris Novoselic was appalled to learn of the horrors Croatian women endure, not only from suffering rape at the hands of Serbian soldiers but also from the forced birthing of the soldiers’ children.

With this, Nirvana managed to rally enough attention to treat the cause; in the end, the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” group racked up an estimate of over $60,000 per combined 10,000 ticket sales. All proceeds went to Tresnjevka Women’s Group, as part of an effort to designate mobile units and medical centers to women.

3. Pearl Jam

Nirvana and Linkin Park were not the only musical acts to enrich suffering lives. Renowned alternative-rock group Pearl Jam followed suit with their charitable causes, which were geared towards international crises like climatic extremities and wars. In 1999, Pearl Jam prepared a benefit album that would give back to refugees in the Kosovo War, featuring the group’s biggest hit: the cover recording of “The Last Kiss.”

Proceeds collected from the J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers cover were donated to CARE, an organization benefiting Kosovo refugees. Aside from the moving gesture, Pearl Jam took on more accompanying humanitarian roles, such as fundraising for the betterment of the environment, alongside headlining charity concerts that combatted world hunger.

4. Evanescence

2000s metal-rock band Evanescence is far from inexperienced with taking on a number of advocate roles. Some of the “Bring Me to Life” unit’s most familiar causes include their donative proceeds collected per each 2006 “Open Door” outtake “Together Again.” The funds were used to help those affected by the 2010 Haitian earthquake.

As part of a partnership with the United Nations Foundation, funds generated from Evanescence’s single would immediately go towards distributing food, water, medicine and emergency relief to the earthquake victims.

5. Radiohead

The fifth and final musical group in “rocking out” for a difference is innovative Radiohead. The English-based game-changing unit has been involved in an assorted number of programs that both treat and expose overlooked issues in the developing world.

In 2008, the “There, There” band formed a side-charitable supergroup, Seven Worlds Collide, with fellow peers Wilco, The Smiths and Neil Finn to pool the funds collected per each group’s released material and direct it towards Oxfam, an international operative organization that works endlessly to seek solutions in alleviating poverty and injustice. Aside from musical collaborative work, Radiohead additionally designated sincere measures when the pact agreed on donating their visual “All I Need” as a promo for MTV, in an effort to raise awareness of the drastic human trafficking issue that occurs consistently in unimagined environments like third-world sweatshops.

With these five acts rocking out for a change, one can only hope that optimization will be instilled in progressing generations that may view the groups’ humanitarian milestones as setting the world at a more reasonable pace.

– Jeff Varner

Sources: Billboard, United Nations Foundation, AltWire, MTV, Paste, BBC News, United Nations Foundation, MTV, UpVenue, Entertainment Weekly
Photo: Captains Dead

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Mobile Schools in Kenya Help Girls Get an Education

Mobile_Schools
Although Kenya’s education system has improved over the past decade, many students are still left behind. One million Kenyan children are currently out of school, and while that number has steadily decreased in recent years, it still places Kenya at ninth in the world for out of school children. Even if a child does complete primary school, the quality of education is often insufficient for retaining necessary skills, a glaring flaw best illustrated with the statistics surrounding illiteracy in Kenya. Among men ages 15 to 29 who have completed six years of primary school, 6 percent are illiterate and another 26 percent are only semi-literate. For women of the same age group with the same level of education, the problem is even worse: 9 percent are illiterate, and 30 percent are semi-literate.

Marginalized children, particularly poor girls from rural areas, have still not benefited from improvements in Kenya’s school system. For example, almost all children from wealthy families in the capital, Nairobi, attend school, but in the North East region, only 55 percent of poor girls and 43 percent of poor boys attend school. This is partly due to the fact that the indirect cost of secondary education typically exceeds the monthly income of many families in rural areas.

Adeso, a Nairobi based development charity, is currently working to bring education to those who may have never had the chance to set foot in a classroom. The organization focuses on the idea that in order to improve the quality of life across Africa, development must come primarily from within Africa. Adeso works on development in four main areas. They aim to educate young people and equip them with necessary life skills, provide humanitarian aid where people lack food security, water, and sanitation, strengthen local economies, and influence local and international government policies.

Adeso runs a mobile school program in rural areas of Kenya that brings learning to nomadic students, usually girls, whose families have to relocate frequently in order to survive. They plan the school calendar around the weather patterns. Most formal learning is scheduled for rainy seasons when children do not have to balance labor demands and are more likely to stay in one place. The schools will travel with students as far as possible to allow them to continue their education.

The mobile school program was launched in February 2014, but funds are expected to run out by 2016. Adeso hopes to continue the program, but faces many obstacles, from political insecurity to poor infrastructure, to a pervasive belief in many areas that girls should not be educated. Adeso is still working towards securing more funding in order to extend the program. However, should the mobile schools close, the organization hopes that students have benefited from further education and can pass on what they have learned to their communities.

– Jane Harkness

Sources: Adeso 1, Adeso 2, Adeso 3, Huffington Post, UNESCO
Photo: Miss Tourism Kenya

One Direction Presents Action/1D

One-Direction
On July 8, the stars of One Direction launched the action/1D campaign to rally their expansive fan base to speak out regarding their views on extreme poverty, climate change and inequality.

In the fall and winter of this year, leaders from around the world will attend two conferences to talk about and make a change surrounding these issues and many more global problems. The popular boy band members, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Liam Payne, are urging their fans to take an active part in the discussion by participating in their movement, action/1D.

“So, now is the time for us all to have our say, to take action and to show that we care. We can be part of something that actually makes a difference to our future and helps people who need the support,” Tomlinson said.

Horan and Payne also said that they would like fans to help promote the cause by speaking out about goals that members of the cause may have to get the attention of world leaders.

“Become part of action/1D. Make your voice heard, and make 2015 the year we change our futures forever,” Horan said.

One Direction’s manifesto is associated with action/2015, which is an organization that combines a group of more than 1,600 organizations around the globe who share the goal of providing a better future for the world’s peoples.

The action/2015 website said that although there has been some success, the world is not moving in the right direction for confronting inequality, terminating poverty or dodging hazardous climate change.

“We’ve already made progress—we’ve halved extreme poverty rates, cut preventable child deaths by nearly 50 percent and made real progress in protecting the ozone layer. When we come together, we can make a difference. But we need to move faster—there’s still so much to do,” the website said.

According to action/2015, one of the conferences, which takes place in September, will address inequality and poverty and will focus on creating a permanent solution. The other summit, which will occur in December, will discuss climate change and will explore different methods to conduct research and inform the world about ways to help preserve the Earth.

One Direction encourages viewers to demonstrate their opinions through the use of creativity. The website hosts a webpage that allows fans to post upload media that relates to the featured causes.

“All you need to do is tell us what you want your world to look like in the future. You can make videos or send us pictures. It’s easy. Just complete one of the actions listed on our site,” Payne said.

Each week, new prompts are posted on the action/1D website that explain what action participants can perform. The posts contain a topic that deals with a worldwide issue and instructions for a picture or a video. The most recent post asked partakers to “film a close-up part of your face—your mouth speaking, your ear, maybe your eye blinking” to exhibit the theme “Speak, Listen, Watch” to stimulate conversation about the issues.

So far, there have been almost 43 thousand actions posted to the action/1D website.

To get involved, or to learn more about action/1D, visit their website.

– Fallon Lineberger

Sources: Action/1D 1, Action/1D 2, Action/2015 1, Action/2015 2
Photo: Digital Spy

China Launches $50 Million Trust Fund to End Poverty

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On July 16th, Chinese Finance Minister Lou Jiwei and World Bank Group President Jim Young Kim signed a groundbreaking agreement. The new deal between China and the World Bank establishes a $50 million trust fund to end poverty and promote development across the globe.

As the World Bank’s third-largest shareholder, this new agreement strengthens the growing partnership between China and the Bank. President Kim commented on the partnership, stating, “I look forward to a continued strong, cooperative, and productive relationship, which will benefit developing countries around the world.”

The trust fund is expected to start later this year. In addition to enhancing cooperation between China and the World Bank, the fund aims to leverage the resources that developing countries need to escape poverty. It will finance investment projects, operations, knowledge development and human-resource cooperation.

Finance Minister Lou commented on the new fund, stating, “The establishment of this trust fund signals that our partnership with existing multilateral development banks is growing, even as we support new ones.” Secretary General Jin echoed Lou’s enthusiasm, pledging his full confidence in the new fund, and in the existing partnership.

China has remained the largest contributor to world growth since the global financial crisis. In fact, over the last few years, approximately 30 percent of global growth has come from China alone. China is a global leader in development. Over the past 25 years, the country has lifted more than 600 million people out of poverty.

That number is greater than the number of people lifted out of poverty by the rest of the world combined over the same time period. There is no doubt that China is doing all that it can to lead the worldwide anti-poverty charge.

In fact, during Kim’s two-day visit to the county, he also met with Secretary General Jib Liqun of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Multilateral Interim Secretariat to discuss further cooperation between the two institutions. Both leaders agreed to expand their cooperation and invest in future development projects.

Last month, the prospective founding members of the AIIB signed the Articles of Agreement, making way for the bank to be operational by the end of 2015. By increasing funding for infrastructure, they are tackling the poverty problem at its deepest roots.

According to Secretary General Jin, with the emerging AIIB too, the World Bank “has been very generous in sharing its expertise, lessons of experience and global good practice knowledge with the Secretariat.” He went on to express full confidence in the powerful partnership’s ability to improve the lives of countless impoverished citizens.

Cooperative partnerships such as these represent the quickest, most efficient means of tackling poverty and promoting development worldwide. As one of the world’s strongest powers with the second largest economy, China is unquestionably the perfect contender to combat poverty.

America sits proudly beside China in a position of global power. As possessors of the power needed to put an end to poverty, we maintain a global responsibility to co-lead the anti-poverty fight. There is no better way to achieve this than to collaborate our resources through such cooperative partnerships.

– Sarah Bernard

Sources: The Financial, The World Bank, Sputnik News
Photo: Sputnik News

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The Role of Sharks in the Global Food Supply

Global_Food_SupplySharks are friends, not food, and these friends are helping to end global poverty.

In the ocean, sharks are at the top of the food chain. Although they are widely regarded as ruthless killers, they play a seriously important role under the sea. Sharks help to preserve marine biodiversity and keep several species of fish from overpopulating. Without sharks, the ecosystem would disintegrate.

Sharks contribute to a healthy underwater ecosystem by consuming slow, unhealthy fish, leaving more wholesome and healthy fish not only for other marine life, but also for people to catch and eat. Therefore, it is important that people are more concerned with the decline in shark populations than an unlikely and highly rare shark attack.

Increased shark populations reduce global poverty by providing a healthy and sufficient food supply to the world’s poor.

Unfortunately, shark populations are primarily at risk due to overfishing. Many developing countries rely on fishing as a source of food and income. Because their techniques are outdated, belief-based and usually harmless, developing countries do not put marine biodiversity at risk.

Moderately developed countries, however, show the greatest parallel between the devastation of shark populations and poverty. Countries and economies transitioning from low to moderate development use semi-modern fishing techniques that are inefficient and harmful to the ocean’s ecosystem. Sharks are killed, and thus so are their contributions to human food supply.

Furthermore, these countries usually have unstable governments that have not instated proper regulations and cannot efficiently control fishing practices.

Fortunately, there is a clear solution: conserve the fisheries and save the sharks. Eliminate devastating fishing techniques by making it a focus of government regulation. Educate communities on the importance of sharks in the preservation of a healthy marine ecosystem and the global food supply.

A 40-year-old iconic American film, Jaws, instilled in viewers a great fear of sharks and the complete devastation they can cause. The likelihood of being attacked by a shark, however, is 1 in 3 million. Fear of sharks must be left in the past because now, sharks are swimming in the right direction, and it is towards the end of global poverty.

– Sarah Sheppard

Sources: Global Citizen, The Conversation
Photo: Flickr

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President’s Malaria Initiative: Progress and Future

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In 2005, George Bush launched the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) to work towards eradicating malaria across 15 high-risk African countries.

By acting quickly and efficiently, PMI has helped to reduce malaria mortality by 50 percent since 2005. Over 6 million people are alive today – without the influence of PMI, they would have died from malaria.

Since its creation, PMI has expanded and has helped hundreds of millions of people by core preventative strategies: providing people in high-risk zones with durable and insecticide-treated mosquito nets, antimalarial treatment options, fast-acting diagnostics, indoor anti-mosquito spray and prevention options for pregnant women.

Malaria is a disease carried by mosquitoes, which bite and infect people, leaving them ill with fevers, chills and symptoms associated with the flu. If the disease is not treated, people are at risk of death. In 2013, 198 million cases of malaria were reported, and of those, half a million people died. Many of these deaths were children under the age of 5.

The World Health Organization estimates that 106 countries and 3.4 billion people are at risk of malaria infection.

Mali is an example of where PMI has contributed to improving the quality of life of citizens through malaria treatment. The entire population of Mali is at risk of contracting malaria with 90 percent of citizens living in the central and southern regions where the disease is endemic.

People in transit, perhaps fleeing their homes due to displacement, are even more at risk because of their weaker immune systems. Malaria is the primary cause of death in Mali, especially for children under the age of five.

Despite malaria’s omnipresence in Mali, the devastation caused by malaria has diminished since PMI’s inception in 2005. The mortality rate of children under the age of 5 has decreased by 50 percent in 2013.

PMI’s success is not limited to Mali – the Initiative has made incredible progress across Africa. It has distributed over 31 million mosquito nets, sprayed over 5 million households with insecticides (impacting 18 million people), given over 13 million antimalarial medications for pregnant women and trained over 27,000 health workers.

According to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on their website, Impatient Optimists, “Malaria is clever, resilient and capable of evading our most dependable interventions. If we aim for a malaria-free world, the global response must constantly evolve and adapt to challenges that don’t even exist yet.” The strategies that have worked in the past may not work in the future. Eradicating malaria fully will be a constantly transforming process.

In partnership with the President’s Malaria Initiative and other organizations, the Gates Foundation is committed to eradicating malaria in the future. On Impatient Optimists, the Foundation highlighted its goals broadly: “We need to expand access to prevention, diagnosis and treatment, which PMI has proven capable of doing on a massive scale. We also need to build stronger health systems and introduce new tools and strategies, an increasingly important part of PMI’s work in recent years.”

The reduction of malaria in the world so far illustrates the potential for completely eradicating malaria in the future — a goal that will save millions of lives.

– Aaron Andree

Sources: CDC, Impatient Optimists, PMI
Photo: Impatient Optimists

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Gaming For Good: Changing Lives Through Gaming

The video game industry is a $10.5 billion per year industry. With the level of financial power held by this form of entertainment, there is a great opportunity for gaming to become a major force for good. Gaming For Good is an organization that seeks to fulfill this opportunity. The organization encourages players to purchase “points” through donations made to charitable efforts by Save the Children International. These points can then be spent on games such as Psychonauts, Splice and Worms Revolution.

Gaming for Good was founded by Bachir Boumaaza, better known by his online nickname “Athene.” Athene has been described within gaming media as “the best gamer in the world,” and holds records ranging from the first to reach level 60 in Diablo III to the most hands of online poker played in one month. This organization is a way for the online celebrity to take what is clearly more than a hobby for him and use it to make a difference.

This method is working incredibly well. Along with partnering with major gaming media such as Twitch TV, the site won a Webby Award in 2013. More importantly, the charity has been an absolute powerhouse in terms of fundraising. In 2013, the organization reached $10 million in donations. The organization’s recent support of charity efforts in Nepal came with a request of $200,000. It raised over $805,000 for relief in Nepal thus far.

Everybody has a hobby. For some it is collecting, for others painting and, for many, that hobby is gaming. With gaming being such a successful industry, this organization does something amazing by mobilizing that success to promote change in the developing world.

Gaming for Good can be visited here.

– Andrew Michaels

Sources: Polygon, Kotaku 1, Kotaku, Save the Children , Webby Awards, Save the Children
Photo: Dual Shockers

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Can Aid Abroad Aid Detroit?

Detroit
In 2013, Detroit filed for bankruptcy. The city is full of empty factories and dirty streets. Two years ago, when crossing the border from Canada back into Detroit, my family and I commented on the dramatic change in scenery that occurs when crossing this small border. On one side of the border, the streets are immaculate and bright with blues and greens, there are ongoing construction projects, and polite signs telling drivers to, “pull over and take a nap.” On the other side in Detroit, it seemed to me that almost everything was grey and brown. Many of the people crossing the street appeared to be living in poverty.

An article by economyincrisis.org comments that the city looks, “war-torn,” partially thanks to the fact that, “American automakers shipped their jobs to Canada and Mexico.” While Detroit could use economic assistance in its transportation, educational and architectural sectors, what the city really needs is jobs. Perhaps one place that these jobs could come from could be foreign aid.

USAID has lost funding since 2009. While a loss in funding is always an issue, USAID was already understaffed in 2009.

Foreign aid is shown to boost the United States’ economy and create jobs, so why is the countries aid organization losing funding?

USAID is one source of potential in the U.S. job market. If USAID were better funded, it would have the ability to create more jobs and expand in order to have locations to manage and contain those jobs. One city that could perhaps become a place of USAID expansion could be Detroit. In addition, USAID works with many partner organizations in order to help people abroad. If USAID had the economic ability to utilize these partners more often, then the partner organizations would expand as well. This leaves yet another avenue open for expansion into Detroit, or at the very least providing some of the unemployed people there with jobs.

Detroit had an unemployment rate of 24.8 percent in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

While USAID expansion could in itself be at least a partial solution to the Detroit job crisis, sending more aid abroad will also be a great solution. AIPAC.org says that “by law, nearly all of U.S. assistance must be spent on American-produced items.” If the U.S. sends more aid, then it will have to open up factories in order to create projects to keep up with the increase in aid. As the aid brings greater numbers of people out of poverty, these aid products will become purchased products.

If more people abroad can afford these products from the United States, then more people will buy them. While these factories may begin as “aid” factories, they will in the end boost the American economy. The United States was once an industrial giant and Detroit was in some ways at the center of the industry.

Perhaps the solution is to return Detroit back to its roots and get the empty “war-torn” factories running again.

– Clare Holtzman

Sources: AIPA, Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Detroit News 1, The Detroit News 2, Economy In Crisis, Foreign Policy, Jalopnik
Photo: Urban Ghosts

UN Conference on Financing Development

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This past week, global leaders met at a four-day international conference on Financing Development in Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa. True to name, the top priority on the summit’s agenda was the creation of a comprehensive financing framework for sustainable development.

This conference was the first of three summits scheduled for 2015, all of which aim to reestablish the world’s vision of sustainable prosperity and revamp the collaborative effort toward achieving this goal. Collectively, these summits will set transnational aspirations and set the global standard for sustainable development.

Conference attendees included high-level political representatives, Ministers of Finance, Foreign Affairs, and Development Cooperation, non-governmental organizations and business sector entities. The final outcome of the prolonged discussion was a document known as the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.

The Action Agenda will support the implementation of the post-2015 worldwide development agenda. Most notably, it will provide some backbone for the upcoming Sustainable Development Goals, scheduled to replace the current Millennium Development goals this September.

After intense discussion and deliberation, the 193 UN Member States were able to agree on a series of groundbreaking measures. These measures strategically aim to refurbish global finance practices and generate investments that will help tackle economic, social and environmental challenges.

Technically, the finalized agreement represents months rather than days of hard work and prolonged negotiations between countries. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is proud of this highly anticipated outcome.

He said, “The results here in Addis Ababa give us the foundation of a revitalized global partnership for sustainable development that will leave no one behind.” Indeed, the Action Agenda will help transform the upcoming SDGs from a dream into a reality, as strategized financing is key to the Goals’ success.

The agenda contains more than 100 concrete measures, addressing all sources of finance, and covering cooperation in terms of technology, science, innovation, trade and capacity building.

Specifically, the representatives agreed to establish a Technology Facilitation Mechanism at the SDG Summit in September. This will help to enhance collaboration among all relevant actors supporting the Sustainable Development Goals’ long-term implementation.

Infrastructure was another key point of focus, leading to an agreement to establish a Global Infrastructure Forum. This forum will help to identify infrastructural areas that need improvement. Additionally, it will help leaders pinpoint opportunities for investment and promote cooperation on international infrastructure projects.

In order to protect the poorest and most vulnerable global citizens, the countries adopted a new social compact that will work to establish social protection systems. To address health issues, the countries agreed to consider taxing harmful substances.

Representatives pledged their commitment to promote affordable access to credit for smaller business enterprises. They vowed to develop a global strategy for youth employment and promised to implement the International Labor Organization Global Jobs Pact within the next five years.

Leaders restated their commitment to achieve the original Millennium Development Goal target of allocating .7 percent of their countries’ gross national incomes for development assistance, and .15 percent to .2 percent for the world’s least developed countries.

In addition, the Action Agenda stresses the importance of inclusive cooperation among national tax authorities and the dangers of climate change. It calls on developed countries to achieve the goal of mobilizing $100 billion annually by 2020 to address developing countries’ most pressing needs.

By breaking down the complex financing needed to fight global poverty and promote sustainable development, the Action Agenda symbolizes a monumental step in the right direction. This pioneering financial framework will make the Sustainable Development Goals all the more achievable.

– Sarah Bernard

Sources: United Nations 1, United Nations 2, NPR, The Guardian
Photo: NPR