The Myanmar government banned Doctors Without Borders (DWB) from operating in one of its most impoverished states, following rumors of ethnic tension.
Most of the disenfranchised Muslim minority reside in the Rakhine State. The government accused the DWB of favoring this minority over its rival group, the Rakhine Buddhists. This tension led to widespread violence, killing 100 people and displacing nearly 140,000 others. The government regards Muslims as “interlopers” from Bangladesh, as opposed to a legitimate minority. President Thein Sein granted DWB permission to resume its work in other regions, but continued its ban on operations in Rakhine.
Presidential spokesman Ye Htut accused DWB of “not following their core principle of neutrality and impartiality.”
Rakhine State government accused the NGO of intentionally fueling tension between the minorities, according to Htut. The perception of bias led to large-scale protests in the state capital against DWB.
The organization responded to these accusations in a statement, asserting “services are provided based on medical need only, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or any other factor.”
This January, DWB released a statement contradicting the government on an alleged massacre in Rakhine. This reportedly “triggered” the ban on its operations in the region. The United Nations report the death of more than 40 Rohingya Muslims, and DWB confirmed treating 22 victims. Wounds occurred at the hands of state security forces, yet the government denounced these claims, reporting the death of one police officer.
Following the ban, the Ministry of Health plans to provide health services for the “whole community.” Myanmar President Thein Sein also dispatched the emergency response workers and ambulances to the region, replacing the DWB clinics.
These services cannot match those provided by the NGO. The national health services rank “among the most rudimentary in Asia,” according to the New York Times. The government also confines Muslims to their villages, preventing the group from receiving medical care.
Banning DWB deprives nearly 750,000 people of proper healthcare.
The NGO acted as the largest provider in northern Rakhine, a region largely populated with Muslim Rohingya. It managed five permanent clinics as well as 30 mobile units. Within these clinics, workers operated an intensive feeding center for undernourished children. Medical professionals report diagnosing more than 20 percent with acute malnourishment.
The government ban forced these centers to close, following the removal of DWB.
The organization also served those living in displaced camps outside the state capital, Sittwe. Tuberculosis, a disease endemic to Muslim neighborhood Aung Mingla, threatens the health of displaced Muslims. HIV and malaria also threaten resident health. With limited medical attention, the supplies of medicine continue to dwindle.
The government prevents these patients from leaving the area, surrounding the camp with “barbed-wire security posts and police officers.”
As head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar, Mark Cutts expresses concern for the present healthcare shortage. Rather than antagonizing the government, though, the U.N. has chosen “quiet diplomacy.”
For the time, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other organizations can provide care. Myanmar deputy health director Dr. Soe Lwin Nyein plans to accept tuberculosis and HIV medication from DWB. These concessions help patients in the region receive more than the minimum government care, yet negotiations over the medicine distribution appear ongoing.
Cutts plans to coordinate with the government and reinstate DWB “as soon as possible,” protecting the minority from disease. As ethnic tension continues to incite violence, the government banned professionals in the best position to serve its people.
– Ellery Spahr
Sources: CNN, New York Times
Photo: Richard Roche
Three Years after Tsunami, Japanese Struggles
When you think about countries struggling with poverty issues, Japan may not come up at first. However, this country that has such standing in the global economic network is still saddled with the destruction that the devastating tsunami left. Attention from the global media may have shifted elsewhere, yet many in Japan have to deal with the aftereffects of the tsunami/nuclear disaster on a daily basis.
On March 11, 2011, the fifth-largest earthquake ever recorded in the world changed the lives of countless Japanese citizens. A result of the earthquake was the formation of a 130-foot tsunami that crashed the shores of Japan. The giant wave reached six miles inland, causing three nuclear meltdowns at the nation’s Fukushima nuclear power plant.
All these circumstances resulted in $300 billion of damage and the death of 19,000 Japanese people. By all accounts, the natural disaster ranked as one of the worst in world history and would be a challenge for even a country as developed as Japan. The immediate outpouring of relief efforts for Japan was substantial and certainly put the country on a path back to normalcy.
Japan still has a long way to go on that path, though. There are still 270,000 left homeless from the tsunami and Japan is still working to rebuild the million buildings destroyed from the disaster. The country is in the midst of a five-year, $250 billion rebuilding project that will hopefully solve many of the needs that the Japanese face after the tsunami, but there are still new challenges popping up in the aftermath of the nuclear meltdowns.
One of the main worries going forward in Japan is the affect of the tsunami disaster on the nation’s fishing industry. For the island nation, fishing has always been an important factor of the national diet and has been influential economically as well. Extensive testing has been done on fish caught in Japanese waters, and after three years, most of the fish in the area may be caught and sold. However, there are still low levels of radioactivity in some of the fish being caught, and bottom fish like flounder still may not be sold.
Japan may have an enormous trade presence in Asia and the West, that trade presence can not quite offset what ended up being the most costly natural disaster in the history of the world. Issues in the Middle East and in other parts of Asia may have superseded Japan’s tsunami in the eyes of the West, yet in Japan these issues are an everyday struggle. The ongoing rebuilding efforts there exemplify the importance of foreign aid, even where media coverage may not be prevalent.
– Eric Gustafsson
Sources: PBS, Japan Talk, The Star
Photo: BBC
Desertification Heightens Poverty in Mongolia
Up until about 1990, Mongolia never faced any fears of living in poverty. Rural land specifically, and the large volume of land has been Mongolia’s source of food security and livelihood for centuries.
Mongolia owns approximately 838,853.13 square miles of land in which much of it is desert, but the arable land is quickly becoming depleted, polluted, or turned to desert.
Currently, 33% of people in Mongolia are poor, and over half of the country’s population is living in rural areas. This quickly happened after Mongolia’s large farms became private and hundreds of herders became unemployed and without government benefits.
Most of the rural poor live nomadic lifestyles, moving from area to area with their families in order to feed cattle and find food. Some families live in soums, or villages consisting of multiple families, and some rural families, particularly the nomads, live in tents known as ger. The benefit of living in soums is the ability to obtain some form of education, health services, and essential necessities.
Those living in rural areas rely on their animals for food and making money.
With much of the fertile land being utilized for feeding cattle, there has been a severe increase in land degradation. Mongolia has yet to find strengthening mechanisms for sustainable land management or a method to control desertification. Without these forms of protection, Mongolia is at an increasing risk of losing what little remains of one of their most needed natural resources: fertile land.
Desertification brings with it many struggles; drought and causing land to become irreparable are among the worst-case scenarios. With more and more of the land being overgrazed, little land will be left for agriculture, herding, and living. Mongolia is already naturally a very dry climate with little rainfall and plant growth, which is only worsened by the constant migration, over-cultivated land, and now competition for natural resources.
– Rebecca Felcon
Sources: Rural Poverty Portal, Scoop World
Photo: Stephane L
Myanmar Government Bans Doctors Without Borders
The Myanmar government banned Doctors Without Borders (DWB) from operating in one of its most impoverished states, following rumors of ethnic tension.
Most of the disenfranchised Muslim minority reside in the Rakhine State. The government accused the DWB of favoring this minority over its rival group, the Rakhine Buddhists. This tension led to widespread violence, killing 100 people and displacing nearly 140,000 others. The government regards Muslims as “interlopers” from Bangladesh, as opposed to a legitimate minority. President Thein Sein granted DWB permission to resume its work in other regions, but continued its ban on operations in Rakhine.
Presidential spokesman Ye Htut accused DWB of “not following their core principle of neutrality and impartiality.”
Rakhine State government accused the NGO of intentionally fueling tension between the minorities, according to Htut. The perception of bias led to large-scale protests in the state capital against DWB.
The organization responded to these accusations in a statement, asserting “services are provided based on medical need only, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or any other factor.”
This January, DWB released a statement contradicting the government on an alleged massacre in Rakhine. This reportedly “triggered” the ban on its operations in the region. The United Nations report the death of more than 40 Rohingya Muslims, and DWB confirmed treating 22 victims. Wounds occurred at the hands of state security forces, yet the government denounced these claims, reporting the death of one police officer.
Following the ban, the Ministry of Health plans to provide health services for the “whole community.” Myanmar President Thein Sein also dispatched the emergency response workers and ambulances to the region, replacing the DWB clinics.
These services cannot match those provided by the NGO. The national health services rank “among the most rudimentary in Asia,” according to the New York Times. The government also confines Muslims to their villages, preventing the group from receiving medical care.
Banning DWB deprives nearly 750,000 people of proper healthcare.
The NGO acted as the largest provider in northern Rakhine, a region largely populated with Muslim Rohingya. It managed five permanent clinics as well as 30 mobile units. Within these clinics, workers operated an intensive feeding center for undernourished children. Medical professionals report diagnosing more than 20 percent with acute malnourishment.
The government ban forced these centers to close, following the removal of DWB.
The organization also served those living in displaced camps outside the state capital, Sittwe. Tuberculosis, a disease endemic to Muslim neighborhood Aung Mingla, threatens the health of displaced Muslims. HIV and malaria also threaten resident health. With limited medical attention, the supplies of medicine continue to dwindle.
The government prevents these patients from leaving the area, surrounding the camp with “barbed-wire security posts and police officers.”
As head of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Myanmar, Mark Cutts expresses concern for the present healthcare shortage. Rather than antagonizing the government, though, the U.N. has chosen “quiet diplomacy.”
For the time, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other organizations can provide care. Myanmar deputy health director Dr. Soe Lwin Nyein plans to accept tuberculosis and HIV medication from DWB. These concessions help patients in the region receive more than the minimum government care, yet negotiations over the medicine distribution appear ongoing.
Cutts plans to coordinate with the government and reinstate DWB “as soon as possible,” protecting the minority from disease. As ethnic tension continues to incite violence, the government banned professionals in the best position to serve its people.
– Ellery Spahr
Sources: CNN, New York Times
Photo: Richard Roche
HIV-Hunger Trap
Referred to as the “wasting disease,” HIV demands a far greater energy and nutrient intake to fight infection. The virus threatens the immune system, leaving its host emaciated.
With the double burden of malnutrition and HIV/AIDS, those in developing countries must decide between food or antiretroviral medications. According to the nutritionists at the World Food Programme (WFP,) many live in this “HIV-Hunger Trap.”
The WFP reports a prioritization of food over treatment.
Yet, those living with HIV/AIDS continue eat less than their healthy counterparts. Symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and sore mouth may affect appetite. The illness–as well as the medication for it–may “modify the taste of food and prevent the body from absorbing it.” The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations also cites exhaustion, depression and isolation symptoms.
These may limit energy to prepare and eat regular meals. And, in general, populations with high rates of HIV/AIDS lack sufficient access to food.
African nations affected the most depend on “labor-intensive farming systems.” Agriculture accounts for more than a third of these countries’ gross national product, reports the U.N. Yet from 1985 to 2011, AIDS led to death of seven million agricultural workers in 25 African countries. By 2020, the U.N. predicts HIV/AIDS could reduce the agricultural workforce by 25%.
This loss of the most productive age group (15 years old to 49 years old) results in greater food insecurity. Many households offer food and shelter to sick relatives or orphans, further limiting nutrient intake for each member.
HIV/AIDS also inhibits the ability to absorb food. Digestion breaks food into nutrients, and these nutrients subsequently provide energy and defense against infection. HIV and other infections, though, damage the gut wall. Consequently, food cannot pass through and be absorbed. Coupled with reduced food intake, this damage leads to severe weight loss and malnutrition.
The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) engineered a solution to the “HIV-Hunger Trap” in Lesotho. The country faces one of the highest prevalence rates, with 23.6% living with the virus. An estimated 28,000 children live with the dual threat of a weakened immune system and food insecurity.
The EGPAF aims to integrate nutrition education and support at local hospitals and health centers. At its “Nutrition Corners,” mothers and caregivers observe cooking demonstrations “using locally available fare such as sorghum porridge, beans, peas, vegetables and fruits.” This program also helps provide early treatment to HIV-positive children below the age of 2 years old.
Malnutrition serves as a gateway to infection for HIV-positive children.
At these hospitals and clinics, EGPAF monitors children to ensure proper weight for age and weight for height. If children fail to improve nutritionally for three visits, the foundation provides one-on-one counseling. Families who did improve participate in a group discussion. EGPAF also acts preemptively, providing caregivers and children of unknown status counseling. Testing services also offer an early diagnosis and access to treatment.
The HIV virus demands both medication and sufficient food intake. The World Health Organization recommends increasing energy intake by 50% to 100% for HIV-positive children experiencing weight loss. The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation understands how impoverished regions fall into the “HIV-Hunger Trap.”
AIDS claims the lives of agricultural workers and those living with the virus subsequently face growing food insecurity. To meet the demands of this virus, the public health and agricultural fields can converge to protect vulnerable populations.
– Ellery Spahr
Sources: Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, United Nations
Photo: Joe McKay
French Guiana: Liberté, Inegalité, Fraternité
Having become part of France in the 17th century and nowadays administered as part of France just like Aquitaine or Brittany, French Guiana has one of the highest living standards in South America. Interestingly, as a consequent, it is also part of the European Union despite being located in the Americas. In spite of this, the overseas department is one of France’s poorest regions and has long been suffering from youth unemployment.
In the 1990s, street violence with its origin in youth unemployment broke out on the streets. Even nowadays, unemployment in general remains above 20%, while in the rest of France, that figure is, even with the Eurozone Crisis and recent recession, 10.4%, half the regular unemployment rates in French Guiana. The Guianese population has 25 percent of its citizens living below the poverty line, the highest among France’s overseas departments.
The economic situation of France’s overseas departments in the Western Hemisphere, which, aside from French Guiana, also include the picturesque Caribbean islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, has been the cause of much discontent towards Paris. As living costs rise, the wages remain stagnant and the economies, relying heavily on La Métropole’s subsidization, the people of the overseas departments took to the streets to participate in that most French of activities: les grèves—strikes.
In France, this department also has the infamy of the AIDS epidemic. For every 100 pregnant women, one of them is HIV positive. The department also holds the record for the highest number of children per woman both in France and within the E.U.—four children per woman. Also, terrifyingly, the infant mortality rate of French Guiana is at 11.8 per 1,000 live births, whereas in the rest of France, the average is merely at three.
These are vexing numerical figures for what is supposed to be part of an industrialized and prosperous Western European country.
There is also quite a noticeable discrepancy between the department’s mines and natural wealth and its socio-economics. Despite being peppered with gold mines, rich with natural resources and also being home to the E.U.’s space agency, the aforementioned figures resemble those from certain corners of the underdeveloped world. Perhaps because of the central government’s long negligence due to the department’s distance and its tiny population of only a little bit less than 250,000 people—almost half of that of the much smaller island Guadeloupe—French Guiana has been allowed to languish in poverty and relative underdevelopment.
However, this state of poverty can also be attributed to the department’s own micro-economic character and the fact that its two main economies are the said space agency and gold mining. These two activities can hardly benefit the population at large. Lastly, being part of, though non-contiguous to, a very prosperous nation world-renown for its high quality of life, French Guiana’s abject poverty often gets looked over by the figurative radars of NGOs and aid organizations.
With the large gross domestic product per capita gap between French Guiana and Metropolitan France almost nearing $30,000 difference per annum, the issue of poverty in this overseas department, thus, should demand more attention in order find a solution.
– Peewara Sapsuwan
Sources: BBC, The Guardian, Minorites, Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques, McGill Research Group Investigating Canadian Mining in Latin America, Pan American Health Organization, CNN, World Bank
Photo: Top 10 List
Afghanistan: Past and Future
How Foreign Aid Saved the United States
A common refrain from critics of USAID is the lack of benefits they see would come back to the United States. It is hard to see the longterm benefits of these foreign aid programs, especially when things look so bad when they’re shown on the news. For many, it is easy to write off dire circumstances in distant nations as lost causes rather than potential areas of promise. Many fail to see how the United States was once such a seemingly hopeless region.
If the nations of Europe had the mentality that detractors of foreign aid have today, the United States wouldn’t have had a chance in its fight for independence from Great Britain. This decision took place during an era when it was much more difficult to give support to struggling groups from distant parts of the world.
France was one of the first countries to step up and provide foreign aid for the fledgling United States. While most of that foreign aid was military based, the loans they gave to the United States helped the nation function and get on its feet when it had few options. The loans that France made to the United States went beyond just military help. It also helped with needed supplies for the populace; supplies that kept the nation afloat.
Spain was another country that provided important foreign aid to a developing United States. Spain still had possessions in the Caribbean at the time of the Revolutionary War, making it easy for them to send over supplies to port cities that had been cut off by a British blockade. The goods that Spain was able to supply from such a close outpost helped offset the losses that many Americans were feeling in dealing with the might of the British Empire.
A number of other nations stepped in to help the United States in its struggle. The Netherlands gave some important trade support to help subvert the blockade, and even a number of Indian colonists helped the American cause. This foreign support was a key part to the war, and is arguably undervalued by people today.
While military support is most notable when looking back at this period of foreign involvement in the United States, the supplies and exports other countries provided kept the United States on its feet. It is this type of support for struggling economies that the United States as a superpower should be providing today. The U.S. is in the position to keep others from sinking from the status of a promising democracy into chaos, and organizations like The Borgen Project hope to encourage that type of foreign aid. It just repays the moral debts that the United States benefited from long ago.
– Eric Gustafsson
Sources: History, American Revolutionary War, America’s Library
Photo: Development Diaries
Women and Modern Day Slavery in Pakistan
According to The Nation, women in Pakistan are forced to make bricks in order to pay off the debt their families have incurred.
“Living without running water, and often trapped by their employers for the rest of their lives, these women are forced to work in brick kilns, agricultural fields and other hard labour industries to clear debts which overshadow their families’ lives,” said the Pakistani news agency.
There is no reliable statistic regarding the number of Pakistanis who are currently enslaved as bonded laborers. However, according to the National Coalition Against Bonded Labour, these individuals exist throughout the country not only in the brick industry, but also the agriculture and carpet industries.
Moreover, the Associated Press estimates that “tens of thousands” of poor Pakistanis work within these industries.
“Bonded labor is the most widely used method of enslaving people around the world,” The Nation said. “The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay, often for seven days a week.”
In many instances, the amount of work that debt slaves put throughout their lives far exceeds the amount of money they initially borrowed. But instead of quitting, the victims continue to work because they are constantly threatened with physical violence.
The Pakistani government, along with the world community, prohibits the practice of debt slavery. However, it is highly inefficient when it comes to enforcing the laws and punishing the people who profit from slavery.
Developed countries and humanitarian organizations are highly critical of modern day slavery. Human Rights Watch (HRW) argues that bonded labor is more common in the southern Punjab and Sindh regions of Pakistan.
“Bondage in agrarian regions involves the purchase and sale of peasants among landlords, the maintenance of private jails to discipline and punish peasants, the forcible transference of teachers who train peasants to maintain proper financial accounts and a patter of rape of peasant women by landlords and the police,” said the organization.
HRW also ties this issue into poverty by explaining that bonded laborers either work in the agricultural industry or the “informal economy.”
This is a vicious circle in which the landless poor “are denied access to institutional forms of credit and must therefore rely on landlords, moneylenders and employers.”
To end debt slavery in Pakistan, the government can work harder to enforce the laws already banning the practice. With debt slavery, individuals are fooled into working in horrible conditions for the rest of their lives.
– Juan Campos
Sources: AP, The Nation, Human Rights Watch
PEMEX Announces Record Investment Plan
Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX,) Mexico’s state-owned oil company, has announced a record $28 billion of investment for the 2014 fiscal year. It is expected that the vast majority of money invested (approximately 85%) will go towards production and exploration for new oil fields.
The $28 billion figure is 10% higher than last year’s level of investment, which amounted to $25.3 billion, of which $19.3 million went to production and exploration of crude oil and gas fields. Despite this increase over last year’s investment level, PEMEX CEO Emilio Lozoya Austin claimed that in order to develop the country’s resources to their maximum potential, a further $32 billion would need to be invested.
In late 2013, Mexico’s legislature passed a bill permitting foreign companies to invest in PEMEX, a groundbreaking move that was not previously allowed since the company’s nationalization in 1938. This permission comes amidst flagging levels of oil production and Mexico hopes the move will boost its productive capacity.
While levels of PEMEX investment have increased steadily from 2008 onward, levels of oil production fell from 2.79 barrels per day to 2.54 million barrels a day in 2012, and levels of gas production fell from 7,030 cubic feet per day to 6,900 cubic feet per day over the same time period.
In 2008, PEMEX reported a production of 43.5 billion barrels per year, while in 2013 it reported 44.4 billion barrels per year. This slight increase can be attributed to the discovery of six new oil fields that added about 180,000 barrels per day at the end of 2013.
PEMEX is responsible for funding approximately one-third of Mexico’s national budget, with much of the revenue going towards social programs that improve education and infrastructure throughout the country.
Additionally, PEMEX hopes to increase exploration of deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico and improve its technological innovation in shale extraction through its newly minted partnership with the Russian oil giant Lukoil earlier this year.
– Jeff Meyer
Photo: Huffington Post
Sources: International Business Times, El Economista, Oil Price
UNSC Propose Reforms, Russia Exploits Veto Power
Following landmark political shifts in Ukraine during 2014, the scope of international politics has heavily focused its lens upon tension between Ukraine and Russia, and more recently in the eastern Ukrainian region of Crimea.
Popular uprisings in Ukraine have divided the population between western supporters of the European Union and eastern supporters of Russia. Although the majority of Ukraine’s population wants to be in alignment with the European Union, the region of Crimea contains a significant amount of Ukraine’s Russian-supporting population.
Russia has recently received international attention by its military occupation in the region of Crimea. In addition, the parliament of Crimea has even voted to secede from Ukraine. Critics of Russia, such as President Barack Obama of the United States, argue that Russia’s actions are in violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and established international laws.
Deputy Secretary General of the UN, Jan Eliasson stressed that meaningful discourse and dialogue ought to be facilitated within the Security Council in order to reach a resolution to alleviate the problems in Ukraine.
The situation in Russia has consistently been a heavily debated topic in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC); however, extensive use of veto power by Russia has hindered the UN Security Council from reaching any substantial resolutions to alleviating the escalating tension between Ukraine and Russia.
The UNSC contains a body of five permanent member states including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, France and Russia. The ability for Russia to block actions that are clearly within the goals and intentions of the UN to “pursue diplomacy, and maintain international peace and security,” and “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,” provides significant concern for the institutional framework of the UNSC.
Although the United Nations Security Council accounts for the most powerful UN body, Russia’s ability to exploit its status as a permanent member have produced consequences with their violation of international law.
Moreover, while the UNSC remains in suspension of reaching a resolution, the situation in Ukraine is continuing to rapidly escalate. Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations pleaded to the UNSC in an emergency session to do everything that is possible to end the violation of national sovereignty and invasion of Crimea by Russian military forces.
Failure to make steps to remedy the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is exemplary of some of the weaknesses inherent to the UNSC. However, it has not been the only case of Russia’s exploitation of its permanent status and veto power in the UNSC. Critics have also argued that failure to resolve the conflict in Syria has also been the result of blocked motions by Russia.
Considering the level of power and influence the UNSC has, problems arise when just one nation has the means to restrict action in addressing pressing international problems. Russia has been quintessential in portraying how special interests can hinder the intentions of international law—which is at the root of why international law may need to be reformed in accommodating 21st century problems.
– Jugal Patel
Sources: Reuters, Al Jazeera, UN News Centre, ABC News
Photo: Rianovosti