In just one month in 2012, Americans spent a combined 230,060 years on social media according to the annual Nielsen Report. That’s about 6.5 hours per person, if every American used social media, and a whopping 121 billion minutes total. That was two years ago, and social media platforms and usage continue to grow.
That we have managed to collectively squeeze thousands of years worth of time out of just one month is amazing, a true feat that proves the potential for impact when an entire society chooses to dedicate time to one purpose. That this feat was accomplished in the name of liking, posting, commenting and pinning is disheartening. We can do better.
Imagine the improvements to our world if every American spent even half that time, about three hours every month, addressing global poverty issues and working toward solutions. We can no longer claim we don’t have time to make the world a better place.
Here are five ways to put your time toward change:
1. Take a free class on global issues (1-5 hours per week)
Educate yourself on the problems and solutions of global poverty! There are many free courses offered online by prestigious universities that focus on issues like global health and development. Auditing or taking a class for credit is a great way to learn about the current landscape of global poverty issues, and what we can do about them.
Check out sites like coursera.com and openculture.com to access free classes from top universities around the world. Many universities now offer free classes through their websites as well.
Multiply your impact: Take it one step further and share what you’ve learned with your friends, family and community. Give a talk at a local school, write an op-ed for your newspaper or hold a fundraiser. Most importantly, spread the good news; although it sounds too big to conquer, we CAN (and have) reduced global poverty rates.
2. Send a care package (1-2 hours to a weekend project)
Basic supplies can make all the difference. Consider the fact that women and girls around the world miss days of school and work because they lack access to feminine hygiene products/menstrual pads. These collective days of missed income and education add up to real economic losses, keeping women in the cycle of poverty. Girls are forced to use whatever they can find — newspapers, leaves, rocks — as sanitary supplies, and are sometimes exploited in exchange for hygiene.
Days for Girls distributes sustainable feminine hygiene kits made by individuals and groups in the U.S. to women and girls around the world. The website includes patterns, instructions and videos so that you can get involved and sew reusable pads for the organization to send. There is also information about joining a kit-sewing chapter near you and tips for starting your own, as well as ways to help if you can’t sew.
Imagine trying to run a school without chalkboards, books or pencils. Check out organizations like Books for Africa, International Book Project and Kids to Kids International to learn more about how to send books and supplies to schools and kids around the world.
Multiply your impact: Enlist the help of your team, group or classroom to hold book and school supply drives, and make care packages together. Gather your crafty friends and have a hygiene kit sewing party.
3. Contact Congress to secure support for essential poverty-reducing legislation (30 seconds to 2 minutes)
Getting in touch with your congressional leaders is surprisingly easy and highly effective. Because congressional leaders want to track what issues are important to constituents, their staffers tally every issue and bill the office receives calls, letters and emails about. Every contact you make counts (literally) and even one email means your issue or bill is on the leader’s radar.
The Borgen Project’s Action Center page lists current bills relevant to global poverty and includes links to send a formal email to congressional leaders for each. Just fill out your contact info once, and then click to send emails urging support for crucial legislation. Use the link at the bottom of the page to read more about each bill.
Click here to search congressional phone numbers by your zip code, and here for tips on making the call. It’s as easy as saying, “I’m a constituent and a Borgen Project supporter, calling to ask (leader name) to support the (Water for the World Act).”
And if you have more than two minutes to spare, you can write your own letter or email to Congress. Click here for tips and samples to get started!
Multiply your impact: Call weekly, and enlist friends and family members to do the same. Forward a link to the Action Center to your address book. Host a letter and/or email-writing party on your campus, with your friends or in your community.
4. Volunteer your time and skills to the cause
There are plenty of ways to impact global poverty without leaving your city. A quick Google or GuideStar search will return many volunteer opportunities and ways to get involved with international aid organizations based in your area. These groups need volunteers for everything from packing boxes of supplies for relief efforts, to helping organize runs, fundraisers and other community events, to representing the organization by tabling events.
Hands-on volunteer projects abroad are also great — if you possess the skills necessary to be successful. Consider your skill sets when choosing a project, and avoid things like signing up to build a school if you know nothing about bricklaying. Taking part in projects in which you can’t actually be helpful can do more harm than good. Instead, focus on what skills you have to offer and choose volunteer opportunities accordingly.
Multiply your impact: Ask staff to stay in touch about upcoming activities, and volunteer regularly. Bring friends and family along. Use social media to advertise any organization events or upcoming volunteer opportunities.
5. Write a check (30 seconds!)
There are many deserving organizations working on a host of issues related to global poverty. GuideStar is a great place to search for nonprofits of interest to you, or start right here and give to The Borgen Project! Donating is a quick and easy way to make a difference.
Multiply your impact: Sign up to give monthly. Practice deferring — writing a small donation check instead of that cup of coffee, movie or dinner out you could do without. Ask the company you work for to consider donating to The Borgen Project and other global poverty organizations.
— Sarah Morrison
Sources: Nielsen, The Borgen Project, BooksForAfrica, CongressMerge
Photo: Wallpapers Craft
Physicians for Peace
Physicians for Peace is a NGO whose main objective is to teach basic medical skills and deliver necessary resources to underserved regions of the world. Their goal is to provide a better and sustainable healthcare model.
Having education and collaboration as two of their main values, Physicians for Peace attempts to put the power to heal in the hands of the people. While physicians scatter to various regions, they do not aim to remain pillars of support in the society. Rather, they seek to teach the locals how to care for themselves and help the locals learn to teach others.
Physicians for Peace projects extend across the globe, reaching regions in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and the Americas where they believe they will be able to have the highest impact. Their established programs have taught people how to help burn victims, how to conduct various types of surgeries, how to prep a room to conduct each surgery, how to prevent blindness and enhance vision, how to help amputees and other disabled individuals learn to walk and move around on their own, and how to provide adequate care to mothers and children in order to optimize maternal health and appropriate child maturation.
As of early June 2014, the Physicians for Peace have been awarded two grants by the Major League Baseball Players Trust. The grants will be put towards their work in the Philippines, where two disability clinics will be established, primarily to provide care for those with physical disabilities and to help with Typhoon Haiyan recovery. The grants will also be used in the Dominican Republic to train people how to treat burn victims. A two-week long training camp is scheduled to take place at the United Ninos Quemados burn unit in Santiago, and those who attend will bring their skills back to their own hometowns.
– Jordyn Horowitz
Sources: Players Trust, Physicians for Peace
Photo: Physicians for Peace
Chime for Change
Haute fashion house Gucci held a benefit on June 3 at its Manhattan location on 5th Avenue in honor of its charity program, Chime for Change. Many influential celebrities were in supportive attendance such as Beyonce and actress Blake Lively. The event celebrated the charity’s first anniversary, marking a year of explosive growth and international charitable influence.
Chime for Change is a charity and international women’s empowerment and awareness campaign sponsored by Gucci, cofounded by Salma Hayek Pinault, Beyonce Knowles-Carter and Frida Giannini, Gucci’s creative director. The campaign is partnered with charity powerhouses such as the Kering Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Facebook, Catapult, Twitter, Hearst Magazines and Kellogg’s.
Gucci pledged to donate $1 million in proceeds from its global perfume sales; Gucci fragrance customers can donate $5 from each purchase to various projects, charities and organizations supporting justice, health or education for women and young girls. It also set up an official Chime for Change website, through which direct donations to the latter programs can be collected online. The campaign is partnered with Catapult, which connects donors and volunteers directly to over 50 organizations throughout 38 countries worldwide.
These organizations are primarily focused upon the formerly mentioned goals of female education, justice and health; the program has thus far contributed significantly to these programs, and its progress is meticulously recorded online at Chimeforchange.org/impact-report. For example, the program provided enough funding for midwives in Cambodia to reduce the country’s high rate of maternal deaths during childbirth. It has also nearly completed gathering the funding necessary to both create homes for young girls in India and provide free, sanitary cesarean sections to impoverished women at the St. Damien Hospital in Haiti (a nation in which one in 10 mothers die during childbirth.)
Another page of the website tracks donation progress by percentage for various exigent causes, such as providing health services for 35 rescued victims of human trafficking at a time and funding peer education in Spain to prevent female genital mutilation, which affects over 100 million children globally.
Chime for Change makes it simple for customers around the world to easily contribute to many influential causes worldwide; it represents a meaningful and influential step towards alleviating world poverty.
– Arielle Swett
Sources: Chime for Change, Huffington Post, Catapult
Photo: Closet On The Go
A Call for Agriculture in Africa
No dollar does more for the people of the African continent than a dollar invested in agriculture. In fact, as a means of poverty alleviation, growth within agriculture in Africa is 11 times more effective than growth in any other industry.
Recognizing that agricultural investments are crucial to eliminating poverty in Africa, many African leaders promised in 2003 to allocate 10 percent of their national budgets specifically toward agriculture. Unfortunately, very few of those leaders were able to keep that promise – today, over 10 years later, African governments spend on average only 4 percent of their national budgets on agriculture.
Despite this, development experts are hopeful that more African leaders will commit to agricultural investment at the African Union Summit to be held in Equatorial Guinea at the end of this month.
Citizens from a plethora of African nations put pressure on their leaders to target poverty through funding agriculture at the African Union’s Conference of Ministers of Agriculture, Rural Development, Fisheries, and Aquaculture, held in Addis Ababa in May. At this conference, African leaders, farmers and agriculture advocates discussed topics including decreasing food insecurity, supporting female farmers and assisting small farms. Prominent advocates also presented a petition urging leaders to invest in agriculture in order to create jobs and feed families. At the time of the conference, over 600,000 African citizens had signed the petition.
Because governments across the continent have declared 2014 the “year of agriculture and food security,” politicians would be wise to listen to their constituents and make agriculture a priority.
Another result of May’s conference was a list of 10 policy recommendations attendees had for African leaders. Among their recommendations were to “work to eliminate the gender and youth gap in agriculture,” “foster access to markets for small-scale farmers” and “integrate sustainability and climate resilience into national agriculture plans.”
These recommendations are not only reasonable and sustainable, but address a number of flaws in the agriculture industry.
Clearly, the people of Africa are working to prioritize agriculture. International aid organizations should follow their lead – after all, it’s the most effective way of eliminating poverty in Africa.
—Elise L. Riley
Sources: African Union, ONE 1, ONE 2, ONE 3
Photo: African Organisation for Standardisation
10 Ways to Live on $1.25 a Day
The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on a budget of $1.25 a day. To promote awareness of this alarming statistic, many people participate in challenges to see if they can go a certain number of days “living below the line” of poverty. Celebrities like Ben Affleck and Sophia Bush, just to name a few, have participated in the challenge.
For anyone willing to try the challenge, here is a list of 10 possible food combinations, each totaling $1.25 or slightly less.
1. 2.5 oz of store brand lunchmeat + 4 oz of apple sauce = $1.24
2. 1.1 oz bag of corn chips + one banana + half of a 6 oz container of store brand flavored yogurt = $1.24
3. Protein bar = $1.25
Yes, some protein or granola bars can consume an entire day’s budget for the extreme poverty challenge, but only when they are not on sale.
4. Ice cream sundae cup + one banana = $1.25
5. One apple + 6 oz flavored yogurt = $1.09
6. One loaf of store brand white bread + one banana = $1.24
For challenge participants looking to extend the experiment more than a day, buying a loaf of bread for 99 cents is an economically intelligent decision.
7. 10 oz package of sliced American cheese + one chocolate chip cookie = $1.25
Much like the loaf of bread, a package of store brand sliced cheese, priced at $1, can last multiple days.
8. One candy bar + one quarter of a box of frozen spinach + half of a 6 oz container of plain yogurt = $1.24
9. One cereal cup + half of a cucumber = $1.23
10. Half of a can of chicken and rice soup + one bagel + half of an apple = $1.13
A common misinterpretation of the $1.25 statistic is that one American dollar will buy a lot more in an impoverished area than it would in the U.S. The conversion has already been taken into account, though, and tailored for the U.S. to understand better. So, for example, in Kenya, people living in extreme poverty are surviving on the food that approximately 56 cents worth of American currency would buy in their markets.
— Emily Walthouse
Sources: The World Bank, Peapod, Giving What We Can, Living on One, Home Shop
Photo: Flickr
Favelas and the World Cup
June 12, 2014 marks one of the most exhilarating international competitions that spreads to millions of homes across the world. This year, the FIFA World Cup is taking place in Brazil. As a country that lives and breathes soccer, it makes a fitting choice. However, as the tournament draws nearer, more pressure and focus is being put on Brazil’s ability to step up to expectations.
In the midst of excited anticipation, Brazil has been faced with many threatening obstacles including strikes by police as well as government workers, causing fear that Brazil may not be ready in time. On the other side of the glorious soccer stadiums that will be filled with thousands of international visitors, lies the sprawling hills of favelas outside of Rio de Janeiro.
A favela is the Portuguese term for slum, and just outside of the bustling city center lies miles of low socioeconomic life, a juxtaposed sight to the nearby city. The contrast of life is extreme. As charter jets fly in holding national teams from participating countries, drug gangs still rule the favelas, not far from where foreign tourists will be staying.
Brazil has been making efforts to keep the areas under a state of control, implementing pacification programs. This effort may come too little too late, with CNN acknowledging “Rio’s favelas were neglected by authorities, considered no-go zones even by police” for many years, so the actions that began in 2008 when Brazil was announced host for the World Cup and 2016 Summer Olympics were necessary long before action was taken.
Since the beginning of the pacification program, only 176 of about 600 favelas are monitored with any consistency, leaving much unknown to neighboring cities and tourists. While the program has helped decrease the number of violent crimes and murders in Brazil since 2008, 6,000 people are killed a year, turning Brazil into basically an active war zone.
The city of Rio lacks a sense of calm as the government scurries about trying to finish stadiums on time while maintaining a professional international appearance. As the World Cup begins, tourists swarm into the country and will send the government into high alert to maintain safety for such a high number of visitors who may be lacking understanding the severity of the situations in the favelas.
Due to the around the clock media focus on the World Cup, the reports are sure to fly in should anything go awry. The world is watching Brazil as it stands on unstable footing.
— Elena Lopez
Sources: Truth-Out, CNN, The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2, Real Truth
Photo: For the love of the beautiful game
5 Ways to Put Your Time Toward Change
In just one month in 2012, Americans spent a combined 230,060 years on social media according to the annual Nielsen Report. That’s about 6.5 hours per person, if every American used social media, and a whopping 121 billion minutes total. That was two years ago, and social media platforms and usage continue to grow.
That we have managed to collectively squeeze thousands of years worth of time out of just one month is amazing, a true feat that proves the potential for impact when an entire society chooses to dedicate time to one purpose. That this feat was accomplished in the name of liking, posting, commenting and pinning is disheartening. We can do better.
Imagine the improvements to our world if every American spent even half that time, about three hours every month, addressing global poverty issues and working toward solutions. We can no longer claim we don’t have time to make the world a better place.
Here are five ways to put your time toward change:
1. Take a free class on global issues (1-5 hours per week)
Educate yourself on the problems and solutions of global poverty! There are many free courses offered online by prestigious universities that focus on issues like global health and development. Auditing or taking a class for credit is a great way to learn about the current landscape of global poverty issues, and what we can do about them.
Check out sites like coursera.com and openculture.com to access free classes from top universities around the world. Many universities now offer free classes through their websites as well.
Multiply your impact: Take it one step further and share what you’ve learned with your friends, family and community. Give a talk at a local school, write an op-ed for your newspaper or hold a fundraiser. Most importantly, spread the good news; although it sounds too big to conquer, we CAN (and have) reduced global poverty rates.
2. Send a care package (1-2 hours to a weekend project)
Basic supplies can make all the difference. Consider the fact that women and girls around the world miss days of school and work because they lack access to feminine hygiene products/menstrual pads. These collective days of missed income and education add up to real economic losses, keeping women in the cycle of poverty. Girls are forced to use whatever they can find — newspapers, leaves, rocks — as sanitary supplies, and are sometimes exploited in exchange for hygiene.
Days for Girls distributes sustainable feminine hygiene kits made by individuals and groups in the U.S. to women and girls around the world. The website includes patterns, instructions and videos so that you can get involved and sew reusable pads for the organization to send. There is also information about joining a kit-sewing chapter near you and tips for starting your own, as well as ways to help if you can’t sew.
Imagine trying to run a school without chalkboards, books or pencils. Check out organizations like Books for Africa, International Book Project and Kids to Kids International to learn more about how to send books and supplies to schools and kids around the world.
Multiply your impact: Enlist the help of your team, group or classroom to hold book and school supply drives, and make care packages together. Gather your crafty friends and have a hygiene kit sewing party.
3. Contact Congress to secure support for essential poverty-reducing legislation (30 seconds to 2 minutes)
Getting in touch with your congressional leaders is surprisingly easy and highly effective. Because congressional leaders want to track what issues are important to constituents, their staffers tally every issue and bill the office receives calls, letters and emails about. Every contact you make counts (literally) and even one email means your issue or bill is on the leader’s radar.
The Borgen Project’s Action Center page lists current bills relevant to global poverty and includes links to send a formal email to congressional leaders for each. Just fill out your contact info once, and then click to send emails urging support for crucial legislation. Use the link at the bottom of the page to read more about each bill.
Click here to search congressional phone numbers by your zip code, and here for tips on making the call. It’s as easy as saying, “I’m a constituent and a Borgen Project supporter, calling to ask (leader name) to support the (Water for the World Act).”
And if you have more than two minutes to spare, you can write your own letter or email to Congress. Click here for tips and samples to get started!
Multiply your impact: Call weekly, and enlist friends and family members to do the same. Forward a link to the Action Center to your address book. Host a letter and/or email-writing party on your campus, with your friends or in your community.
4. Volunteer your time and skills to the cause
There are plenty of ways to impact global poverty without leaving your city. A quick Google or GuideStar search will return many volunteer opportunities and ways to get involved with international aid organizations based in your area. These groups need volunteers for everything from packing boxes of supplies for relief efforts, to helping organize runs, fundraisers and other community events, to representing the organization by tabling events.
Hands-on volunteer projects abroad are also great — if you possess the skills necessary to be successful. Consider your skill sets when choosing a project, and avoid things like signing up to build a school if you know nothing about bricklaying. Taking part in projects in which you can’t actually be helpful can do more harm than good. Instead, focus on what skills you have to offer and choose volunteer opportunities accordingly.
Multiply your impact: Ask staff to stay in touch about upcoming activities, and volunteer regularly. Bring friends and family along. Use social media to advertise any organization events or upcoming volunteer opportunities.
5. Write a check (30 seconds!)
There are many deserving organizations working on a host of issues related to global poverty. GuideStar is a great place to search for nonprofits of interest to you, or start right here and give to The Borgen Project! Donating is a quick and easy way to make a difference.
Multiply your impact: Sign up to give monthly. Practice deferring — writing a small donation check instead of that cup of coffee, movie or dinner out you could do without. Ask the company you work for to consider donating to The Borgen Project and other global poverty organizations.
— Sarah Morrison
Sources: Nielsen, The Borgen Project, BooksForAfrica, CongressMerge
Photo: Wallpapers Craft
The Jaden Tap Tap Initiative In Haiti
In the scorching city of Cité Soleil, Haiti, what was formerly a landfill in one of the most dangerous slums in the western hemisphere has grown into a beautiful community garden called Jaden Tap Tap that serves the people of the city.
Three men native to the city, Daniel Tillias, Herode Gary Laurent and Franz Francois, started the garden three years ago with the hope of providing a safe place for members of the community to come and take a break from their everyday lives.
“Making a garden is about more than cultivating plants, it’s about cultivating people,” Tillias said. “We want to give the people of Cité Soleil a model of success. Something to do. And something to eat too.”
The name of the garden, Jaden Tap Tap, is Haitian Creole for “garden taxi.” Tap tap is the name for the brightly colored taxis that circulate in the capital city of Port-au-Prince. The community has embraced the meaning of the name by planting various colored flowers and a tree nursery.
The main tree that grows in the garden is called moringa. This type of tree is very beneficial for the people of the community. Its leaves are rich in protein and vitamins and can be added to juice, soup, cornmeal and rice. There are also 20 different types of vegetables and herbs grown in the garden, including peppers, chard, radishes, basil and parsley.
The garden has fostered a sense of self-sufficiency for many of its gardeners. Many families get their food from this garden, or they use this garden as a starting place for creating their own gardens. This has allowed the community to become more sustainable and has given many people a sense of pride in their community and themselves.
The Jaden Tap Tap initiative has grown into the largest urban garden in Haiti, and it has inspired other community-developing activities in the country. Various other gardens have been created and organizations have been formed to empower youth and develop sustainable lifestyles for Haitians.
– Hannah Cleveland
Sources: The Guardian, Haiti Rewired
Photo: City Farmer News
Israeli Doctors Will Not Force-Feed Palestinian Prisoners
The hunger strike began in response to Israel’s policy of administrative detention, which permits Israel to hold any Palestinian indefinitely as a prisoner without charges or trial. The policy allows detainment from a period of one to six months, which can then be extended to 5 more years through Israeli military court. Israel currently imprisons 5,000 Palestinians of which 191 are imprisoned through the administrative detention policy.
A hundred Palestinian prisoners went on hunger strike in April 2014 and since then hundreds more have joined. Over the past two to three years, thousands of Palestinians have refused meals and there has not been one day without a prisoner on hunger strike since 2011.
Solidarity protests are occurring in support of the prisoners throughout several of Israeli occupied Palestinian territories including Gaza. Prisoner rights group, Addameer, calls the strike the longest in Palestinian history. Israel’s response is a bill that would allow the legal force-feeding of Palestinian prisoners, which gained initial approval this week.
This has resulted in the opposition of Israeli doctors and the medical community. This community includes Israel’s National Council of Bioethics, the World Medical Association and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel. Israeli doctors have equated force-feeding to torture. They note that they have no place in torture.
The opposing argument is centered on the concept of not letting people die. However, Mustafa Barghouthi, secretary-general of the Palestine National Initiative, notes that force-feeding may also lead to death. The process can commonly result in aspiration, lung infections, and other serious problems.
The other concern is that this legislation is being used as a tool to stop international attention caused by the hunger strikes. Instead of having to address policy issues this will enable Israel to end the hunger strike using force.
In 2012, Samer Issawi, along with 2,000 other prisoners on hunger strike, gained international attention after refusing food for eight months. It is suspected that he was fed intravenously during this time. This dangerous but effective form of protest resulted in his eventual release from prison. Had this force-feeding legislation been in place during this time it is likely Issawi would have never been released.
Many are used to speaking and thinking of poverty in terms of resources. However, poverty comes in many forms all of which are connected. This network of suffering is not solvable without addressing all its aspects. Human rights is one of these aspects.
Poverty is often a result of oppression and in many cases that oppression enables further poverty. Force-feeding, in this case, is an act of oppression. By enacting this legislation Israel can suppress these prisoners and ultimately halt their escape from what is their poverty.
– Christopher Kolezynski
Sources: Al Jazeera, Ma’an News Agency, Daily Sabah, Daily Sabah
Photo: Huffington Post
World Bank Approves Natural Resource Study In Philippines
The southeast Asian islands of the Philippines are rich in natural resources, but are often underdeveloped due to a combination unequal access, waves of natural disaster, growing population and high food prices. To promote sustainable development and economical use of resources, the World Bank has approved a grant of $700,615 for a natural resource study of the Philippines.
The project, called Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystems (Phil-WAVES), aims to promote the integration of sustainable development policies into Philippine domestic programs. Phil-WAVES will employ the System of Environmental and Economic Accounting (SEEA), an internationally agreed upon set of standards for evaluating the environment and its relationship with the economy, to analyze mineral and mangrove resources.
The data will be analyzed by the Philippines Statistics Authority (PSA) to develop macroeconomic indicators to assist in the valuation of important natural resources and the role they play in the country’s GDP.
The agriculture, forestry and fishery industries made up 11.2 percent of the Philippine’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013, and employed almost a third of the country’s population. However, poverty rates in these sectors are high. According to data from the PSA, 36.7 percent were living in poverty in 2009.
“Having sufficient data on natural resources and analyzing this properly is crucial to making decisions that will help the country reach the twin objectives of ending extreme poverty and increasing shared prosperity,” said Mr. Motoo Konishi, the World Bank Philippines Country Director. “We are optimistic that Phil-WAVES will help us better appreciate the interactions between the economy and the environment.”
Phil-WAVES aims to function in an inclusive, pro-poor manner, addressing the important natural resources of minerals and mangroves in particular due to their key role in the environment and economy. This will be supported by a second grant of $800,000 also supported by the World Bank, which will focus on implementing the data analysis into policy and indicators from the information gathered about mangroves and mining.
Mangroves, or various types of trees and shrubs that grow in salty, coastal regions in the tropics, are among the world’s most severely threatened and undervalued ecosystems. The tropical forests are integral in providing environmental stabilization, essential proteins and an important income source. Mangroves are also important in protecting coastal regions from intense storms, an aspect that was highlighted following the strike of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2009. To restore and preserve mangrove habitats, a national account and indicators will be developed.
The Philippine mining sector is also seeking reforms and sustainable development. Executive Order 79, a policy seeking to improve environmental mining standards and revenue sharing policies, will use the WAVE study as a tool for examining cost-benefit factors and resource analysis.
Ultimately, the Phil-WAVES project aims to implement systems of natural capital accounting as part of the WAVES global partnership. Natural capital accounting (NCA) is looking at underlying wealth factors and taking those aspects of a country’s economy into long term growth and development policies. The Philippines is one of the primary countries involved in the WAVES global partnership, which promotes the integration of NCA over the course of five years.
The Phil-WAVES grant comes at an important time for the Philippines government as it seeks to grow and develop transparently and sustainably.
“The Philippines faces the pressures of a growing population, rapid urbanization and competing land uses — all of which contribute to the deterioration of natural resources,” said Stefanie Sieber, project task leader and World Bank Environmental Economist for East Asia and the Pacific. “Amidst these pressures, Phil-WAVES will guide the Philippines in arriving at policies that will promote the sustainable management of its natural resources.”
– Julia Thomas
Sources: UN Statistics Division, Waves Partnership, The World Bank, Zoological society of London
Photo: The Paolo Valencia
The History of Advocacy
How long has advocacy been around, where did it start and where does the word advocate come from?
There isn’t a lot known about the history of advocacy programs or where advocacy began.
Advocacy has not always been considered “advocacy.”A long time ago, back when homo sapiens had barely begun to dominate planet earth, advocacy was considered common courtesy. People lived in large groups and helped each other out when they could.
However, as societies advanced and technology came into the picture, helping others seemed like it required a little too much effort. There is no set “first” advocacy program, but many advocacy programs claim to be the first of their kind.
However, perhaps one of the oldest advocacy programs still alive today is The Salvation Army. The Salvation Army began in 1852 just before The Red Cross, who is a close second and began its work in 1881.
Even before these two giant programs, there were orphanages and safe houses and programs to feed the hungry. Helping one another can be traced back to the very first animals.
Perhaps these earlier instances of advocacy are a little less “public support” and a little more “helping your fellow man,” but humans often learn from their surroundings.
According to the Oxford English dictionary the word advocate was first recorded in the English language in the 1300s as a noun. The word stemmed from the French word avocat and before that the Latin word advocatus.
Advocatus means to be called to or summoned, or more specifically to come to someone’s aid in the courtroom. This could mean the very first public advocacy program in the world involved the beginning of law and lawyers.
However, before lawyers there were churches that fed the hungry and protected the weak. There were armies who helped protect the city people from outside harm. There were people who gave the homeless shelter and the needy possessions and all of them called on others to do the same.
These actions were not considered advocacy the way we know it today. When they first started, these instances were just the act of standing up for someone who could not stand up for nor protect themselves. To speak for someone whose voice was being ignored or could not be heard.
In the beginning, advocacy was not something that had to be bought, bartered or begged for. It was something people did because it was what was right, not because they needed volunteer experience.
Over the years advocacy has morphed into something much different. Today, it is more organized to provide more aid to more people throughout the world that do not have anyone with enough power to provide and aid them nearby. Advocacy has become a global responsibility rather than a local one and needs more funding, more political support and more power to become something even greater.
Now, advocacy makes it everyone’s responsibility to rise to the needs of serious global issues and to help in any way they can.
– Cara Morgan
Sources: Grammaphobia, Oxford English Dictionary, The Free Dictionary, The Red Cross, The Salvation Army