It has been repeated often: journalists will have to fight for Millennium Development Goal (MDG) coverage. Despite poverty’s richness as a news topic, the degree of coverage is not yet adequate to keep governments and NGOs on track in their undertaking to reduce poverty.
Part of the problem also lies in how journalists are covering MDG issues, which include a wide range of topics—from education to corruption. To be sure, though, many journalists are doing great work, and in a 2013 report released by the International Press Institute, some of these journalists offered their advice for poverty journalism.
Here are three macro-level questions culled from that report that journalists can ask themselves as they write about poverty, regardless of the specific MDG issue being covered.
Are the Poor Being Heard?
Journalists are messengers. The poor everywhere have messages that they cannot bring to the world’s attention. They are like people stranded on an island, drawing futile S.O.S. appeals in the sand. Journalists can use their resources to serve as a link between the impoverished and those who can best assist them.
That isn’t to say that every poor individual has a distress signal to communicate. Success stories make great news and development groups will sometimes be able to put journalists in touch with people who can attest from personal experience to the benefit of a solution.
In particular, journalists should more often listen to and report the words of children, according to Jean Claude Louis, the former Haiti country director for Panos Caribbean. What a child might lack in context they can often make up for in their openness and their freedom from bias. Of course, an adult’s perspective can also be invaluable and journalists have no reason to favor one age group’s testimony over another’s.
It’s a truism of journalism: a human voice improves any story and a voice that is rarely heard can draw interest. In today’s media, the poor have voices that are rarely heard.
How Can an Issue Be Related to “Home”?
Journalists sometimes assume that a story covering, for example, an MDG related to HIV/AIDS in a foreign country will not appeal to their local readership.
However, local readerships are more globally representative than ever. Recognizing this fact, the Toronto Star began publishing a lengthy world news supplement every week, which provides ethnic populations in the community the news from home they crave.
If journalists use their dialogue with the impoverished to develop real-life stories, their local readerships will pay more attention than if they relied on statistics alone. People want to be able to contrast their experiences with the experiences of others abroad. For this reason, a story on gender inequality in Bangladesh could engage an audience in a developed country.
“Immediate contrast has impact,” said Mary Vallis, an editor at the Star.
Others, like business and technology writer Iain Marlow, point out that all audiences are global audiences in today’s world. One cannot understand domestic events without understanding the foreign impact on those events.
Will This Story Help Hold Organizations Accountable?
The 2012 MDG Progress Report affirmed that the first MDG target has been met: extreme poverty fell from 47 to 24 percent. All the same, significant progress is still needed in areas such as sustainability, sanitation and malnourishment. People need to be reminded that governments have pledged to remedy these ills in order to oblige them to do so.
As a result, reporters need to situate stories on development themes in the larger MDG picture.
For example, journalism in Latin America and the Caribbean has increasingly covered topics such as gender inequality and environmental sustainability, focusing on local impacts. This sort of coverage has highlighted the relevance of such issues to local populations, but it has not captured their scope.
A broader knowledge of the larger forces driving inequalities and disparities best directs one’s efforts to reduce those problems. However, it can also overwhelm an audience, making problems seem too massive to change.
The solution to this conundrum is to periodically relate the issues to the MDG commitments. Governments can solve massive problems and people can hold their governments accountable.
Unfortunately, it seems that not every MDG will be met by 2015, but governments are already collaborating and developing a new set of post-2015 goals. Journalists will continue to play an integral role in helping the world achieve the new goals, but they need to fight for the type of coverage that will inform global audiences and help to keep governments and NGOs on track.
– Ryan Yanke
Sources: United Nations 1, United Nations 2, Global Investigative Journalism Network, International Press Institute
Photo: Hongkiat
How Gandhi Utilized Advocacy
Martin Luther King Jr. once referred to Gandhi’s philosophy as “the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.” Mahatma, or “Great Soul,” Gandhi was an advocate for human rights and is largely known for initiating the idea of nonviolent resistance.
Gandhi’s journey as an advocate began in South Africa. As a young legal adviser, he saw firsthand the damage caused by race-oriented laws and class-based oppression.
This is when Gandhi began to teach his philosophy of passive resistance. Gandhi’s organization of the Indian community in South Africa began widespread social change.
When Gandhi returned to India in 1915, he began working as an advocate for various local struggles concerning working conditions. Four years after his arrival home, British authorities passed the Rowlatt Acts, which allowed imprisonment without trial of any Indian accused of sedition.
Gandhi advocated through a national day of fasting and a refusal to work. He termed this as an act of Satyagraha, or love-force.
Gandhi eventually transformed the Indian National Congress into a large movement committed to nonviolent resistance in support of India’s independence, otherwise known as the non-cooperation movement.
As a consequence of his activism, he was arrested in March of 1922 and served two years for sedition.
Eight years later, in 1930, Gandhi organized 80 volunteers for a 200-mile march to the sea where the volunteers made salt out of seawater in protest of British Salt Laws. The movement eventually grew to 60,000 Indians who were all arrested and imprisoned for their defiance until Gandhi negotiated a truce with representative Lord Irwin.
After Irwin left office and his successor continued the oppressive measures taken against Indians, Gandhi began his movement once again and was immediately imprisoned. In prison, Gandhi began fasting in protest of a new Indian constitution, which was to include different representatives for the “untouchables” or members of India’s lowest level on the caste system.
His fasting gained international attention and was the precursor to the 1947 resolution, which made the discriminatory practice illegal. Britain left India that same year. Gandhi had won his country’s independence back, without the use of violence.
Gandhi’s approach to advocacy inspired many leaders, from Nelson Mandela to Martin Luther King Jr. The Dalai Lama, a follower of Gandhi, expressed, “As Mahatma Gandhi showed by his own example, nonviolence can be implemented not only in politics but also in day-to-day life. That was his great achievement. He showed that nonviolence should be active in helping others.”
– Christopher Kolezynski
Sources: Stanford University, New York Times, MSN News, The Borgen Project
Photo: Wikiphotos
Poverty Journalism: Questions for Journalists
It has been repeated often: journalists will have to fight for Millennium Development Goal (MDG) coverage. Despite poverty’s richness as a news topic, the degree of coverage is not yet adequate to keep governments and NGOs on track in their undertaking to reduce poverty.
Part of the problem also lies in how journalists are covering MDG issues, which include a wide range of topics—from education to corruption. To be sure, though, many journalists are doing great work, and in a 2013 report released by the International Press Institute, some of these journalists offered their advice for poverty journalism.
Here are three macro-level questions culled from that report that journalists can ask themselves as they write about poverty, regardless of the specific MDG issue being covered.
Are the Poor Being Heard?
Journalists are messengers. The poor everywhere have messages that they cannot bring to the world’s attention. They are like people stranded on an island, drawing futile S.O.S. appeals in the sand. Journalists can use their resources to serve as a link between the impoverished and those who can best assist them.
That isn’t to say that every poor individual has a distress signal to communicate. Success stories make great news and development groups will sometimes be able to put journalists in touch with people who can attest from personal experience to the benefit of a solution.
In particular, journalists should more often listen to and report the words of children, according to Jean Claude Louis, the former Haiti country director for Panos Caribbean. What a child might lack in context they can often make up for in their openness and their freedom from bias. Of course, an adult’s perspective can also be invaluable and journalists have no reason to favor one age group’s testimony over another’s.
It’s a truism of journalism: a human voice improves any story and a voice that is rarely heard can draw interest. In today’s media, the poor have voices that are rarely heard.
How Can an Issue Be Related to “Home”?
Journalists sometimes assume that a story covering, for example, an MDG related to HIV/AIDS in a foreign country will not appeal to their local readership.
However, local readerships are more globally representative than ever. Recognizing this fact, the Toronto Star began publishing a lengthy world news supplement every week, which provides ethnic populations in the community the news from home they crave.
If journalists use their dialogue with the impoverished to develop real-life stories, their local readerships will pay more attention than if they relied on statistics alone. People want to be able to contrast their experiences with the experiences of others abroad. For this reason, a story on gender inequality in Bangladesh could engage an audience in a developed country.
“Immediate contrast has impact,” said Mary Vallis, an editor at the Star.
Others, like business and technology writer Iain Marlow, point out that all audiences are global audiences in today’s world. One cannot understand domestic events without understanding the foreign impact on those events.
Will This Story Help Hold Organizations Accountable?
The 2012 MDG Progress Report affirmed that the first MDG target has been met: extreme poverty fell from 47 to 24 percent. All the same, significant progress is still needed in areas such as sustainability, sanitation and malnourishment. People need to be reminded that governments have pledged to remedy these ills in order to oblige them to do so.
As a result, reporters need to situate stories on development themes in the larger MDG picture.
For example, journalism in Latin America and the Caribbean has increasingly covered topics such as gender inequality and environmental sustainability, focusing on local impacts. This sort of coverage has highlighted the relevance of such issues to local populations, but it has not captured their scope.
A broader knowledge of the larger forces driving inequalities and disparities best directs one’s efforts to reduce those problems. However, it can also overwhelm an audience, making problems seem too massive to change.
The solution to this conundrum is to periodically relate the issues to the MDG commitments. Governments can solve massive problems and people can hold their governments accountable.
Unfortunately, it seems that not every MDG will be met by 2015, but governments are already collaborating and developing a new set of post-2015 goals. Journalists will continue to play an integral role in helping the world achieve the new goals, but they need to fight for the type of coverage that will inform global audiences and help to keep governments and NGOs on track.
– Ryan Yanke
Sources: United Nations 1, United Nations 2, Global Investigative Journalism Network, International Press Institute
Photo: Hongkiat
Uganda Criminalizes HIV Transmission
This August, Uganda passed a landmark HIV bill which criminalizes HIV transmission. Experts say that with this law, the dreams of an “AIDS-free generation” have evaporated. With threats of fines and jail times, many HIV positive people will be dissuaded from taking proactive measures for their health.
According to the new bill, HIV sufferers cannot be legally charged with a crime if they didn’t knowingly infect someone with HIV. Thus, many people are now refusing to get tested as a loophole around the law.
Despite the United States, a large funder of HIV programs in Uganda, publicly denouncing the bill since its conception, the Ugandan president has still signed it into law. Even with these multinational efforts from the U.S. and elsewhere, the HIV infection rate has been steadily increasing in the past several years. The overall HIV positive rate is approximately 6.5 percent of the population, but higher among certain at-risk groups.
Among those specifically targeted by the bill are sexual assault survivors and pregnant women who are required to undergo routine blood testing for HIV. Pregnant women with HIV have been the victims of forced sterilization in the past, and the lack of privacy concerns are causing fears that these cases will increase.
While there are measures directly targeting women in this bill, the effects on both men and women are troublesome. Experts warn of the slippery slope of discrimination that this bill will cause. HIV/AIDS is already highly stigmatized in Uganda and this bill is thought likely to worsen the stigmas, shame and misconceptions surrounding the disease.
Many global health advocates view this bill as a setback for the HIV awareness community in Uganda. With a steady increase in the past few years of HIV positive rates, this law is projected to exacerbate the problem.
– Kristin Ronzi
Sources: Africa Science News, Human Rights Watch
Photo: Devex
UNHCR Aids Western Libya
Over the past few weeks, what started as a confrontation between militias in Libya, has slowly escalated to a point that concerns various countries: that Libya will deteriorate and become a full-fledged failed state. As a result, for the first time, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has sent aid to those in Western Libya.
The UNHCR has estimated that their supplies will reach around 12,000 people who have been internally displaced since the conflict reignited a few weeks ago. Members of the UNHCR aid Western Libya with vital supplies like blankets, sleeping bags and various medical equipment. The majority of the aid has been dropped off at Zawiya, which is offering shelter to the refugees and is located about 45 kilometers to the east of Tripoli.
Saado Quol, the acting chief of mission in Libya for the UNHCR, said that “This weekend’s operation is crucial and, we hope, paves the way for other humanitarian aid to reach affected populations who are stranded and in dire need of assistance.”
The current conflict was recently reignited about a month ago, starting with small-scale fighting and combat between a couple militias over control of the Tripoli airport. Since then, fighting has increased exponentially to the surrounding areas, causing an international response and certain nations pulling their diplomats from the country. It has also caused disruption in the supplies of food, water and food to civilians. The Red Cross and Red Crescent have estimated that at least two million people are at risk of food shortages.
The flight of diplomats and foreign assistance has only worsened the situation. This recent batch of aid is a step in the right direction of helping, but other nations need to increase, not decrease, their presence if they desire a safe and lasting conclusion to the instability in the country.
– Andre Gobbo
Sources: UNHCR, The Borgen Project, Foreign Policy, NY Times
Photo: UNHCR
The Much Needed Release of Child Soldiers
Since 2013, various countries have taken steps to end child soldiering in order to meet international human rights standards.
In accordance with these standards, the Tatmadaw, the Myanmar Armed Forces, has released 176 child soldiers since signing a joint action plan to end the recruiting of children for military service.
Earlier this year, Yemen signed an action plan with the United Nations to end recruitment of child soldiers and by doing so, “formalized its commitment to protect its future generations,” says Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.
Similarly, UNICEF and partners arranged for the release of over 1,000 children from military service in the Central African Republic after the country made headlines earlier this year for having over 6,000 children involved in armed conflict.
It is estimated that there are 300,000 child soldiers in the world today, and 40 percent of armed forces around the world use children to fight in their battles. Although the thought of a child soldier is foreign to Americans and citizens of developed countries, it is all too familiar to those of undeveloped nations. Child Soldiers International has reported that since January 2011, the use of child soldiers has been found in 19 different countries.
Children are taken by militias to fight because children are far more malleable than adults. They are also less costly due to the fact that they are given fewer resources and smaller weapons – although they are more likely to be seen on the front lines. Because of this, children are more likely to die in battle than adult soldiers.
Children who survive have lasting psychological effects, which include PTSD and stunted mental development. When there is failure to integrate back into society, there’s a likely chance these once child soldiers will return to battle because it’s all they’ve known.
If the children are released from duty with the help of UNICEF, like in the Central African Republic, they meet with social workers, are taken to a transition center where they can receive an education or learn a vocational skill and are given help in locating their families.
Upon the release of the child soldiers, UNICEF Representative in the Central African Republic Souleymane Diabaté said, “Every single child we spoke to said they wanted to leave the armed group and return to school. We cannot fail them.”
– Kori Withers
Sources: Child Soldiers International, Child Soldiers International: FAQ, Forbes, United States Institute of Peace, UN News Centre, UNICEF Press Centre 1, UNICEF Press Centre 2, UNICEF Connect
Photo: UN
History of Advocacy 101
John Wilkes, a man from England born in the 18th century, is credited as the forefather of modern advocacy. Wilkes was critical of the Treaty of Paris that ended the Seven Years War and was imprisoned for libel shortly thereafter, although he was later acquitted. After Wilkes’ act of defiance, a pro-abolition movement arose in England, effectively ending slavery in England.
The beginning of the 19th century was relatively quiet, but in the middle of the century, a philosopher coined the term social movement. The term was only used to describe relatively smaller events at the time.
Around the turn of the century, advocacy began to make progress. The socialist movement and the labor movement were the most popular, and were soon to be the model of contemporary advocacy. Out of these movements, the communist and democratic parties were born.
Following World War I, there was a renewed push for activism. This period led to a new classification of groups—the new social movements. The post-industrial economy gave way to a large number of groups, including women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights, the peace movement and the environmentalist movement. These movements stayed fairly static in terms of organization. More groups, such as the anti-nuclear movement, joined toward the middle of the century.
With the advent of the television, advocacy began to see incredible progression, which only foreshadowed the contemporary movement. The 1960s, in particular, were heavily influential, as civil rights took center stage.
The next step occurred around the 1990s. This period marked the era of global social activism, spurred on by the rise of the Internet. E-mail replaced postal mail and e-bulletin boards replaced traditional ones. The transition from analog to digital communication proved to be more effective in gathering support and more effective in increasing awareness. Groups that once couldn’t afford traditional publishing began to use the web as a platform for their activism.
Beyond Internet activism is the rise of social media and the role it plays in the history of advocacy. Popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter have begun to be utilized as platforms for advocacy. Sites like these allow people to connect and interact in ways that were previously impossible.
– Andrew Rywak
Sources: University of Michigan, Mashable, Academia.edu, The Borgen Project
Photo: GuardianLV
Protesters in Yemen Call for New Government
Thousands of protesters flooded the streets of Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen, on August 18. The protesters in Yemen were marching in support of the Houthi movement, which is the largest opposition group in the country. The Houthis are a religious group and social movement, but also they also have an armed wing.
The leader of the group, Abdulmalek al-Houthi, initially called for the protesters to occupy various public areas in Sanaa and elsewhere across the country. The protests are largely considered to be an attempt to rekindle some of the energy that was sparked in 2011 during the Arab Spring Revolutions.
The protesters cited a variety of reasons for their most recent march. They demanded that fuel subsidies be reinstated, which were significantly cut earlier this July. The subsidies led to an increase in fuel price, which spiked at a 90 percent increase from prior rates. The new fuel prices drastically increased the cost of living for its population, which is the poorest in the Arab world. The protesters also demanded the current government to disband in favor of a more representative cabinet.
According to organizers between 10,000 and 100,000 people joined in the demonstrations, which included demonstrators that were bused in from other provinces of Yemen.
Many are concerned that the protests will spark conflicts between the Houthis, who are Shia, and the Islah party, which currently controls the government and is Shiite. One government official speaking on the condition of anonymity said “They [Houthis] build a presence, provoke violence and react with violence.” A spokesman for the Houthi movement responded by saying the protest was “aimed at meeting our goals, which are the goals of everyone in Yemen” and that the protests will be peaceful.
The protest has also attracted some people who are not members of the Houthi party but who wish to voice their general discontent with the current government. However, no other major political party in Yemen has backed the protests as of this writing. The effects of the protest remain to be seen, but many are watching the protests closely to see how (or if) they will cause a change in government or society.
– Andre Gobbo
Sources: Al Jazeera 1, Al Jazeera 2, Middle East Eye
Photo: NYTimes
Children of Brazil Swamped in Garbage
Brazil’s metropolis, Recife, is often associated with mystical bridges, vibrant entertainment and picturesque beaches. The splendor of this tourist hub, however, has recently been blighted, when in November the Jornal do Commercio released a photo of a nine-year-old boy swimming in a garbage-filled canal beneath one of the most famous bridges. What’s more, he was picking cans out of the contaminated water so that he could sell them.
Although Brazil has the ninth largest economy in the world, it is fraught with extreme economic disparity. Half of the country’s income is enjoyed by a meager 10 percent of the population, while the poorest 10 percent receive less than one percent.
Half of the country’s 60 million children live in poverty.
The photo of nine-year-old Paulo Henrique exposes this grim reality. According to government accounts, in Recife alone nearly 65,000 children live in the slums in the Arruda and Campina Barreto neighborhoods on the city’s north side. And a good majority of them are making their fortunes by wading through waste.
In reaction to the photo, the Brazilian government promised to provide welfare for Paulo, his mother and his five siblings. As a more all-encompassing response to the issue of poverty, the country created the first global center for poverty reduction in March. Mundo Sem Pobreze (World Without Poverty), will become a market of ideas and experiences in applying programs to benefit the most disadvantaged citizens.
The inspiration behind Mundo Sem Pobreze came from Bolsa Familia, the most successful Brazilian program in history. In just one decade since its advent, the program has managed to reduce poverty by half in Brazil, 50 million people of which were low-income Brazilians.
Though the photo of Paulo is saddening and morose, it has opened up a national conversation in efforts to address the issue of poverty. Photos can often have a profound impact on society; historically, they have served as galvanizers of radical change. During the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, the iconic photo of a young African American man being attacked by a police dog in Birmingham, Alabama pushed the U.S Government to finally intervene after decades of discrimination and violence.
Photos have the capacity to reach an entire nation, even an entire world. The photo of Brazil swamped in garbage has created a dialogue that will hopefully set the pace for a united national movement to eradicate extreme poverty.
– Samantha Scheetz
Sources: Save The Children, Vice, World Bank
Photo: VICE
ActionAid USA: Aiding Over 25 Million People
ActionAid USA is working to end global poverty and further enhance human rights. Operating in over 40 countries around the world, through their work the organization has been able to reach and impact the lives of approximately 25 million people.
ActionAid addresses a variety of issues that affect the daily lives of people in an assortment of countries. The organization works to change policies surrounding biofuels (in the hopes of stabilizing food prices) and to help countries in poverty adjust to the shifting changes in climate.
It also focuses its attention on aiding countries that are hit by natural disasters and do not have the resources to help themselves. In providing relief, they have been able to respond to 87 of these occurrences and help about 7 million people.
Additionally, the organization has been looking for new ways to empower women, engage the youth and improve the overall quality of life for people across the globe.
One of ActionAid’s most recent projects has been advocating for President Obama to approve the Assessing Progress in Haiti Act, which he signed on August 8, 2014.
In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, although billions of dollars were donated to Haiti, the money was not always spent in the most efficient way. The new act requires that the U.S. government submit an extremely detailed report stating exactly how the money donated to provide relief for the Haitian people is being spent.
The organization, however, is not so supportive of President Obama’s backing of the “New Alliance” plan regarding agriculture in Africa. It claims putting agriculture into the hands of big businesses will hurt smaller farming communities and increase poverty levels. Buba Khan, the ActionAid International Advocacy Officer, stated that, “Companies should be part of Africa’s cultural future, but profit should not be prioritized over people’s rights.”
As part of their efforts to effectively combat global hunger and poverty, ActionAid works to make sure that their opinions on what the U.S. government is doing right and what the U.S. government is doing wrong are clearly expressed.
– Jordyn Horowitz
Sources: Lee House
Photo: ActionAid USA
What Chinese Food Safety Means for Rural Poor
Perhaps the issue of food safety is among the most misunderstood aspects of global poverty. Not only does a lack of food safety cause health risks and life-threatening conditions, but it also disproportionately affects the poor. In the past several years, Chinese food safety, particularly in rural areas has been among the topics of discussion for food safety.
Some Chinese-made food products have been revealed to make people ill and even result in deaths. In 2008, tainted infant formula caused the deaths of six infants and kidney damage to hundreds more.
Exports with misleading labels and too many hormones and antibiotics have caused problems with American companies like Walmart and KFC.
With those who have the opportunities, many Chinese are opting to purchasing substitute products from outside of the country. However, the possibilities are predominantly limited to the wealthy class in China. Many of the poorer people are unable to afford the alternatives so they have to resort to buying the substandard Chinese products.
The food safety problems have had ripple effects on the Chinese economy. With consumer doubt on the rise, the contracts and workers are being threatened by the dissatisfaction.
In a New York Times article, Don Schaffner, a microbiology professor at Rutgers University, compared China’s food safety industry with the United States’s food industry pre-Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle.” Much like the United States’ reform during the Progressive Era, China is expected to take similar steps to reform.
One of the solutions that China is actively working on is revising the health care standards and trying to reinforce them. Meeting the quality standards of many of the trade partners will help solidify the food economy in China.
The consistency of the quality of food is expected to affect the economy and the people alike. More faith in Chinese food and guaranteed health safety is set to increase the domestic economy and strengthen the credence in the Chinese food industry.
– Kristin Ronzi
Sources: NY Times, Zacks
Photo: NY Times