Sectarianism reared its ugly head again in Pakistan last month, as a Shia procession on one of the faith’s holiest days devolved into bloody street clashes that left at least 11 people dead and underscored the violent nature of sectarian fissures in Pakistan, where more than 300 members of the country’s long-disenfranchised Shia minority were killed during the first half of 2013 alone.
Last month’s clashes between Sunnis and Shias in the garrison city of Rawalpindi were a mere appetizer from a much larger menu of religiously-tinged violent incidents that have rocked Pakistan since 2011. Unfortunately for the country’s Shia community, members of this minority faith have borne the brunt of this sectarian violence, as militant Sunni outfits such as Sipah-e-Sahaba target followers of an Islamic sect for which they hold not just contempt, but venal hatred.
Sectarian violence aimed at Pakistan’s religious minorities is not a new phenomenon to this predominately Sunni country, but its escalation since 2011 has been palpable. That year, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, was one in which, “Religious minorities faced unprecedented insecurity and persecution.” Extremist attacks took the lives of scores of people across the country, including two prominent government officials, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and Federal Minorities’ Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, both of whom were murdered by religious fanatics for publicly supporting a revision of Pakistan’s hard-line blasphemy laws.
The carnage continued unabated in 2012, as Sunni militants from such extremist groups as Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (L-e-T), both of which adhere to the austere Deobandi school of Islam, unleashed a bloody wave of violence that included a September massacre in which gunman stopped a bus in Baluchistan Province, and after checking identity cards, removed the Shia passengers from the bus and then gunned them down, killing 26 Shia pilgrims.
Altogether, nearly 400- mostly Shia- Pakistani’s were killed in sectarian violence in 2012, according to the Center for Research and Policy Studies. This year is on pace to be just as deadly, with more than 300 Shias killed in four large-scale attacks in the first half of 2013, including twin blasts that took the lives of at least 93 people in the city of Quetta on a particularly bloody day in January.
Many of the plethora of sectarian attacks that have torn Pakistan’s delicately knitted social fabric in the past few years also have an ethnic dimension to them. Most of the Shias killed in these attacks are also Hazara’s, a Persian-speaking ethnic group whose Mongolian features easily distinguish them from Pakistan’s ethnic Punjabi’s, Pashtun’s, Baluchi’s, Sindhi’s and Mujahir’s.
The plight of the Hazaras, more than a thousand of whom have died in targeted killings in the past decade, is compounded by the fact that most members of this minority ethnic group are Shia. Their distinct facial characteristics make Hazaras, who are found in greater numbers in Afghanistan and Iran, an inviting target for Sunni extremists seeking to kill members of an Islamic sect they derisively denounce as heretics.
While most governments would take swift action to shut down militant groups seeking to sow sectarian discord among their country’s citizens, successive Pakistani governments have been cowed and intimidated by extremists, doing next to nothing to corral the groups that publicly assert responsibility for attacks targeting Shias or Ahmedis, another sect of Islam despised by the myriad hard-line Sunni Islamist groups that openly operate in Pakistan.
In its report on the state of affairs inside Pakistan in 2011, Human Rights Watch notes the Pakistani governments laissez-faire attitude towards dealing with extremists, asserting that, “Sunni militant groups, such as the supposedly banned Lashkar-e Jhangvi, operated with impunity even in areas where state authority is well established, such as the Punjab province and Karachi.”
The propensity of Pakistani politicians to placate sectarian extremist groups was on full display this past March, when the provincial government of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, released some 150 militants it had rounded up following an especially vicious sectarian attack in Quetta the previous month that killed at least 79 people in a market packed with Shia Hazaras.
The political party that ruled Punjab- the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz–at the time of the militants release–now heads the federal government, an ominous portent for Pakistan’s Shia community, who must be left wondering if Pakistan’s leaders possess the political will to give reconstructive surgery to the county’s ugly sectarian face.
– Eric Erdahl
Sources: Christian Science Monitor, BBC, BBC, Dawn, Human Rights Watch
Photo: Opinion Maker
Shanghai’s Smog Creating Health Concerns
Officials in Shanghai are holding their order that children and elderly persons remain inside their homes, since the outdoor smog levels reached dangerously high levels on Friday December 6.
The Chinese government ordered a stop to construction and for factories to cut production following the warning. Flights were delayed and cars were ordered off the roads due the thick haze reducing visibility to 150 feet in certain areas. The city’s Air Quality Index rose above 500, “beyond index” for the first time in history.
The Air Quality Index is a scale from 0-500; a warning for people to stay indoors is typically given when the index surpasses 200. Two days after the government issued warning, the air was still considered “heavily polluted” by a local monitoring center, with an index rating of 238.
Smog is formed when mono-nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds react in the presence of sunlight. The main smog-causing sources are stationary industrial emissions and automobile exhaust. China’s rapidly increasing factory production, coal-burning plants and high use of automobiles are exceeding the few government regulations that are attempting to reduce air pollutants, creating a serious health issue for Shanghai’s citizens.
Shanghai’s dangerous particulate matter (PM) was 14 times higher than the World Health Organization’s recommended daily exposure. In circumstances such as these, health is the main concern. According to an article from National Public Radio, a local resident reported having a headache, coughing, and difficulty breathing while on her way to work.
PM is a complex combination of solid and liquid particles of organic and inorganic substances suspended in the air, affecting more people than any other pollutant according to the WHO. When inhaled, PM may interfere with gas exchange inside the lungs, causing cardiovascular and respiratory diseases after chronic exposure. Outdoor air pollution contributes to an estimated 1.3 million deaths per year, with those in middle-income countries disproportionately suffering.
– Maris Brummel
Sources: Bloomberg, NPR, WHO
Sources: The Atlantic City
5 Graduate Programs for Global Development
For those of us just finishing a college degree, the choice to join the workforce or to pursue advanced study is a tough one. If you happen to be interested in a career in global development and wish to fight on the front lines for U.S. global policy, having a professional degree is invaluable.
Most positions that organizations such as the Department of State, for example, require advanced degrees. Even when no advanced degree is required, having a Master’s can give you a leg up on applications. But a few more years of school is much more than cramming for finals (although, sorry, that’s part of it). It can provide hands-on experience and opportunities to engage with global development on the ground both here and abroad. If you are ready to take the plunge into graduate school, here are the top five graduate programs in International Affairs:
1. Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs – Princeton University
The premiere program for graduate study in global affairs. WWS boasts multiple Secretaries of State, Congressional leaders, and corporate leaders as alumni. One of the biggest draws is the Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship. Princeton administers the fellowship, but it is funded by the Department of State.
2. School of Foreign Service – Georgetown University
What better way to begin your career in foreign service than by studying in the nation’s capital? Georgetown uses its prime location in D.C. to frequently attract visiting professors such as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former USAID director Andrew Natsios.
3. School of Advanced International Study – Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins’s M.A. program boasts that half of their students spend a year abroad during their course of study. Students may also pick their region of interest, ranging from African Studies, to Southeast Asia studies, to International Economics.
4. John F. Kennedy School of Government – Harvard University
Besides the amazing resources the Kennedy School offers as part of Harvard, the School recently introduced a two-year Master in Public Administration in International Development program.
5. The Fletcher School – Tufts University
For those interested in international business development or environmental studies, the Fletcher School is an ideal choice. Of the school’s many centers, the Center for Emerging Market Enterprises and the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy are world-renowned.
– Taylor Diamond
Sources: Princeton, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Tufts
Photo: Brown University
Poverty and the Coffee Industry
Coffee is the second most valuable export, bringing in $55 billion per year. The coffee industry is dominated by a few key players—Nestle, Kraft, Proctor & Gamble, and Sara Lee. Farms tied to these companies often cannot recoup production costs. There is no shortage of coffee beans, so plantations compete to offer lower and lower prices to the big companies. In recent years, the supply of coffee has grown even more due to improved coffee cultivation methods in South Asia.
To stay competitive, coffee plantations are notorious for paying subsistence wages and exposing workers to unsafe conditions. Coffee beans are produced for $2 per kilo, and then sold to middlemen for about 14 cents. Large companies then buy the beans at this low price, roast them, package them and mark up the price to around $8 per pound. This “Coffee Paradox” essentially means that big companies win and local plantations lose.
Most coffee farmers struggle to support their families, and cannot afford healthcare or education. This not only worsens the cycle of poverty, but also shows that coffee farmers have no control over the practices of industries which create these conditions. In countries like Brazil, where coffee production has long been a cash crop, plantations are forced to grow lower-quality beans like Robusta that sell for cheap, instead of the high-quality Arabica beans the area is known for.
In the long run, coffee plantations around the world need to unionize and demand a fair price for their product. As consumers, buying fair trade ensures our coffee comes from plantations that treat their workers with respect and do not use child labor. Some of the proceeds from fair trade products even go back into the plantation community. Buying higher-quality Arabica beans supports long-standing industries that are struggling to compete with the cheaper alternatives.
– Stephanie Lamm
Sources: Seattle PI
Photo: Media Tree Hugger
5 Richest Countries vs. 5 Poorest Countries
With the holidays quickly approaching, everyone is sharing what they are grateful for. Family, friends and jobs top the lists of many individuals. And the holiday spirit has many people anxious to give to the less fortunate. In the global arena, many developed nations possess greater resources than their less fortunate neighbors. Here’s a list of the five richest countries and their five poorest neighbors:
Richest Countries
1. Qatar
The Arab state is the largest exporter of oil and natural gas with a GDP per capita (PPP) of $105,091. It only has 2 million residents.
2. Luxembourg
Despite its small size, Luxembourg is the second richest country in the world with a GDP (PPP) of $79,593.
3. Singapore
Located in southern Asia, the country has a GDP (PPP) of $61,567 and a population of 5 million residents.
4. Norway
The country has a GDP (PPP) of $56,663, earning the majority of its wealth from petroleum, natural gas and fresh water reserves. It is also the least dense European country.
5. Brunei
The country boasts a GDP (PPP) of $55,111 with most of its revenue derived from its reserves of crude oil and natural gas.
Poorest Countries
1. Eritrea
Located near the Horn of Africa, the country has a GDP (PPP) of $792.13. It has a fast growing economy compared to its neighbors.
2. Liberia
The West African country’s instability due to past civil wars has caused the GDP (PPP) to stagnate at $716.04.
3. Burundi
Violence in the region plays a dramatic role in the country’s economy which has a GDP of $648.58. Inhabitants of the region often face corruption, poor education and AIDS.
4. Zimbabwe
Like many African countries, Zimbabwe’s economy has taken continual hits. The country currently has a GDP (PPP) of $589.46 and attracted attention in the past due to human rights issues in the past.
5. Democratic Republic of Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo currently has the lowest GDP with $394.25 per capita. The second largest country in Africa has potential to greatly benefit from its mineral reserves and land for agriculture but its economy continues to be effected by violence in the region.
– Jasmine D. Smith
Sources: Top 10 Always, The Richest
Photo: Trulia
One Direction’s Busy November
As it happens, One Direction is not just another single-minded boy band dolling out love songs and capturing the hearts of teenage girls around the world. In fact, unlike most boy bands one may think of, One Direction is putting their worldwide status to good use by regularly participating in fundraising for a slew of causes. Indeed, their multiple efforts just last month is a cause for praise.
In early November, Liam Payne and Harry Styles joined the Y Combinator startup company, Prizeo, in a fundraising campaign that raised $784,345 to benefit cancer research. Prizeo “relies on a raffle model where contributors get a single entry for every dollar donated, the grand prize being an in-person experience with the sponsoring celebrity.” The One Direction grand prize was an evening out in London with Payne and Styles, while smaller perks included custom t-shirts, social media profile pictures, bracelets, photos and a One Direction sweatshirt signed by the group members.
The band also joined a Celebrity Telethon in support of Typhoon Haiyan survivors, where they officially launched the telethon via their Twitter account. The event took place in London at the iconic BT Tower, where callers were able to talk to a famous voice and have their donations taken by one of numerous celebrity participants. One Direction’s Liam Payne expressed his sympathy for the survivors, stating, “The pictures I have seen of little children in-between the ruins made my heart break. All of us in the band are shocked by how many people need help, so we’re asking the public to continue to be as generous as they possibly can.” The UK Disasters Emergency Committee raised £90,000 directly from the telethon, which helped raise their total Philippines Typhoon Appeal donations to over £44 million.
One Direction further hosted a portion of the BBC’s Children in Need charity event, where they performed their hit song “Best Song Ever” and also designed and personalized a special Pudsey Bear, which was auctioned off to raise money for the charity. This year’s event raised over £31,124,896.
Just last week, group member Harry Styles garnered support for UNICEF by auctioning his unwashed shirt on the designer discount website hardlyeverwornit.com. A Texas businessman made the highest bid, offering £3,002 for the shirt.
– Rifk Ebeid
Sources: Mirror, Forbes, Look to the Stars, Disasters Emergency Committee: Celebrity Telethon, Press Party, Disasters Emergency Committee: Stars Join Telethon, Twitter
Village Health Works Rebuilds a Burundian Village
Burundi, a tiny east African nation and one of the world’s five poorest countries, is a landlocked state of 10 million and has witnessed a 12-year civil war that has left more than 300,000 casualties. For any global health organization, the country is an intimidating assignment. However, Seattle physicians Sachita Shah, Kris Sherwood, Joseph Alsberge and Harvard’s Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health, donate their time and medical expertise to Burundians through the nonprofit organization, Village Health Works.
More than 20 years ago, Village Health Works’ founder Deogratias Niyizonkia, fled from a gruesome massacre in a rural hospital in northern Burundi where he was a third-year medical student. Following his escape in 1994, Niyizonkiza fled to New York City, graduated from Columbia University and attended the Harvard School of Public Health. It was there that he met Dr. Farmer, and began working at the PIH in Burundi’s neighbor country, Rwanda. Shortly after, Niyizonkiza returned to Burundi and realized his dream of establishing a rural clinic in his native village of Kigutu in 2007.
The plundered nation of Burundi currently has fewer than 300 physicians and to combat that, shocking health statistics. Wasterborne diseases and lack of sanitation account for one in five deaths and more than 54 percent of children under five suffer from extreme malnutrition. The country also has one of the highest rates of child mortality in the world – nearly 180 out of every 1,000 do not make it to five years old – and the average life expectancy is 50 years old. Most of those deaths are due to infection including diarrheal disease, pneumonia and malaria.
However, Niyizonkiza, Farmer and their team are a blessing amongst all the hunger and disease. “Village Health Works was an idea in my mind for a long time,” said Niyizonkiza. “When I came to the United States, I left Burundi, but it never left my mind. One of those memories was mothers dying in childbirth.” Since its opening in 2007, Village Health Works has treated more than 70,000 patients. In 2012 alone, the clinic saw promising steps forward. It treated more than 22% more patients than the years before, saw a 221% rise in prenatal consultations and a 228% increase in voluntary HIV testing.
The mission that Village Health Works has set out on shows that even a small group can make a large impact. The clinic itself has drawn mass attention and for many outsiders, has put the country of Burundi on the map. The lives that have been saved and the health battles that have been fought are no small victory.
– Sonia Aviv
Sources: Cross Cut, Village Health Works, Wheelock College
7 Organizations To Donate to This Christmas
The holiday season is underway and many of us are starting to focus on buying gifts and organizing family reunions. As Christmas Day approaches, thoughts become more and more occupied with getting that last important gift or buying that last ingredient for a favorite holiday dessert. According to a recent Gallup Poll, the American citizen expects to spend an average of $786 this Christmas, up slightly from last year’s estimates. In addition, 30% of respondents said they plan to spend $1,000 or more this year.
But aside from their importance to retailers, these predictions also show how important Christmas is in American culture. But what could this caliber of spending do for world issues? It has been estimated that all it would take to eradicate world hunger completely is $30 billion every year, a figure that could easily be reached every Christmas season if a percentage of holiday spending were diverted to the cause.
1. UNICEF United States Fund Donations to this branch of the UN would make an impact for poor and malnourished children around the world. You can choose to make regularized monthly gifts or a one-time gift. Money goes toward vaccines, emergency relief, and new opportunities for education.
2. Books For Africa Perhaps consider giving a Christmas gift to African children. Giving just 50 cents provides a child there with a new book. According to its website, this organization sent 2.2 million books to Africa in 2012, and you can donate to help them send more.
3. Against Malaria Foundation This foundation fights malaria worldwide. Donations go toward the purchase of nets that protect against infectious mosquito bites. Nets cost $3 each, and to date it has raised $21 million and bought over 6 million nets.
4. Give Directly This organization was founded by students at Harvard and MIT. It allows people to donate on the web, and then the organization finds a needy family in Kenya and sends the donation to the family’s cell phone. According to their website, many families there own cell phones, and for those that don’t they provide solutions. Over 92% of funds donated go directly to Kenyan families.
5. Oxfam America This organization is part of the larger Oxfam International, which works in many ways to end wrongs and problems worldwide. The entire organization works in over 90 countries and has 17 branches. It is involved in a variety of areas, including disaster relief, microfinance and aid efforts in Sudan and Syria.
6. Proven Impact Fund This fund is part of Innovations for Poverty Action, an organization founded by scholars who conduct research on the best methods of helping the poor. Money donated to the fund goes to programs that the IPA has found to be reliable and successful based on its research. According to its website, all of your donation goes to these programs. Funds are also given based on what needs are most pressing around the world at a given time.
7. The Hunger Project This program seeks to end hunger in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. It focuses on building self-reliance in the poor and also on helping women. It works in microfinance, safety and nutrition for mothers and children and HIV/AIDS, among other areas.
– Sarah Wieberdink
Sources: Gallup, FAO, The Life You Can Save, Charity Navigator
Photo: Commons
OECD’s Health at a Glance Reports
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has reported slow health-spending as economies continue to struggle. Further, Reuters reported that total health spending fell in one in three OECD countries between 2009 and 2011 with the poor from these countries being the ones hardest hit.
Those living in poverty within those hard-hit countries are at a larger risk of longer-term problems and have lessened access to regular medicines and checkups, the OECD explained on Nov. 14.
This drop in health spending is a “sharp reversal” compared to the years prior to the financial crisis. The OECD said this makes it “all the more important that governments work to make healthcare systems more productive, efficient and affordable.”
The OECD further stated that longer-term impacts on health and health spending are important to focus on in contrast to short-term benefits to budgets.
Reuters then explained that personal spending per capita “fell in 11 of the 33 OECD countries between 2009 and 2011, according to the 2013 Health at a Glance report.”
As it stands, Japan and Israel are the only countries that saw their health spending rise since 2009, when compared to the previous decade. On the other hand, growth in the U.S. fell 1.3% and 0.8% in Canada.
In fact, a third of what the OECD claims to be “rich countries” cut their health spending between 2009 and 2011. The report states that budget cuts in “austerity hit countries for the drop in healthcare spending.”
The OECD said that “Governments have worked to lower spending through cutting prices of medical goods, especially pharmaceuticals, and by budget restrictions and wage cuts in hospitals.”
Some of the other findings in the Health at a Glance 2013 report are:
1. “Chronic diseases such as diabetes and dementia are increasingly prevalent. In 2011, close to 7% of 20-79 year-olds in OECD countries, or over 85 million people, had diabetes. This number is likely to increase in the years ahead, given the high and often growing rates of obesity across the developed world.”
2. “The market share of generic drugs has increased significantly over the past decade in many countries. However, generics still represent less than 25% of the market in Luxembourg, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland, Japan and France, compared with about 75% in Germany and the United Kingdom.”
3. “The burden of out-of-pocket spending creates barriers to health care access in some countries. On average in the OECD, 20% of health spending is paid directly by patients; this ranges from less than 10% in the Netherlands and France to over 35% in Chile, Korea and Mexico.”
3. “Across OECD countries, more than 15% of people aged 50 and older provide care for a dependent relative or friend, and most informal carers are women.”
– Alycia Rock
Sources: OECD, Huffington Post, Reuters
The Ugly Face of Sectarianism in Pakistan
Sectarianism reared its ugly head again in Pakistan last month, as a Shia procession on one of the faith’s holiest days devolved into bloody street clashes that left at least 11 people dead and underscored the violent nature of sectarian fissures in Pakistan, where more than 300 members of the country’s long-disenfranchised Shia minority were killed during the first half of 2013 alone.
Last month’s clashes between Sunnis and Shias in the garrison city of Rawalpindi were a mere appetizer from a much larger menu of religiously-tinged violent incidents that have rocked Pakistan since 2011. Unfortunately for the country’s Shia community, members of this minority faith have borne the brunt of this sectarian violence, as militant Sunni outfits such as Sipah-e-Sahaba target followers of an Islamic sect for which they hold not just contempt, but venal hatred.
Sectarian violence aimed at Pakistan’s religious minorities is not a new phenomenon to this predominately Sunni country, but its escalation since 2011 has been palpable. That year, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, was one in which, “Religious minorities faced unprecedented insecurity and persecution.” Extremist attacks took the lives of scores of people across the country, including two prominent government officials, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer and Federal Minorities’ Minister Shahbaz Bhatti, both of whom were murdered by religious fanatics for publicly supporting a revision of Pakistan’s hard-line blasphemy laws.
The carnage continued unabated in 2012, as Sunni militants from such extremist groups as Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (L-e-T), both of which adhere to the austere Deobandi school of Islam, unleashed a bloody wave of violence that included a September massacre in which gunman stopped a bus in Baluchistan Province, and after checking identity cards, removed the Shia passengers from the bus and then gunned them down, killing 26 Shia pilgrims.
Altogether, nearly 400- mostly Shia- Pakistani’s were killed in sectarian violence in 2012, according to the Center for Research and Policy Studies. This year is on pace to be just as deadly, with more than 300 Shias killed in four large-scale attacks in the first half of 2013, including twin blasts that took the lives of at least 93 people in the city of Quetta on a particularly bloody day in January.
Many of the plethora of sectarian attacks that have torn Pakistan’s delicately knitted social fabric in the past few years also have an ethnic dimension to them. Most of the Shias killed in these attacks are also Hazara’s, a Persian-speaking ethnic group whose Mongolian features easily distinguish them from Pakistan’s ethnic Punjabi’s, Pashtun’s, Baluchi’s, Sindhi’s and Mujahir’s.
The plight of the Hazaras, more than a thousand of whom have died in targeted killings in the past decade, is compounded by the fact that most members of this minority ethnic group are Shia. Their distinct facial characteristics make Hazaras, who are found in greater numbers in Afghanistan and Iran, an inviting target for Sunni extremists seeking to kill members of an Islamic sect they derisively denounce as heretics.
While most governments would take swift action to shut down militant groups seeking to sow sectarian discord among their country’s citizens, successive Pakistani governments have been cowed and intimidated by extremists, doing next to nothing to corral the groups that publicly assert responsibility for attacks targeting Shias or Ahmedis, another sect of Islam despised by the myriad hard-line Sunni Islamist groups that openly operate in Pakistan.
In its report on the state of affairs inside Pakistan in 2011, Human Rights Watch notes the Pakistani governments laissez-faire attitude towards dealing with extremists, asserting that, “Sunni militant groups, such as the supposedly banned Lashkar-e Jhangvi, operated with impunity even in areas where state authority is well established, such as the Punjab province and Karachi.”
The propensity of Pakistani politicians to placate sectarian extremist groups was on full display this past March, when the provincial government of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, released some 150 militants it had rounded up following an especially vicious sectarian attack in Quetta the previous month that killed at least 79 people in a market packed with Shia Hazaras.
The political party that ruled Punjab- the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz–at the time of the militants release–now heads the federal government, an ominous portent for Pakistan’s Shia community, who must be left wondering if Pakistan’s leaders possess the political will to give reconstructive surgery to the county’s ugly sectarian face.
– Eric Erdahl
Sources: Christian Science Monitor, BBC, BBC, Dawn, Human Rights Watch
Photo: Opinion Maker
Poverty in Nepal
Poverty in Nepal? Sadly, yes. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world. The UN estimates that 40% of Nepalis live in poverty. Food insecurity, poor housing, low soil quality, low literacy, natural disasters, and ethnic discrimination plague the Nepalese people. Though subsistence farming is the main way of life in Nepal, most of the population lives in the rural, mountainous region where the rocky terrain and arid soil make agriculture difficult.
Ownership of the fertile land is based on the feudal system. Most families have land holdings of less than 1 hectare, too small to meet their family’s needs. Most villages are made up of large families, and migrants come from the mountains to the lowlands. Refugees from Bhutan fled to Nepal during the violence in the 1990s. The growing population is putting pressure on the little cultivable land.
As a country straddling two tectonic plates, earthquakes, floods, landslides, and glacial melting inhibit economic growth. Socially, Nepal unofficially recognizes the caste system, especially in rural areas. This means poverty of lower castes is justified and expected. Women also face discrimination in terms of healthcare, nutrition, education, and the domestic realm. Women are unable to make major decisions or take responsibility for their own economic advancement. Many women go hungry, and female babies are sometimes victims of infanticide.
The Maoists that rose up against the monarchs of Nepal from 1990s to the early 2000s dominate the government. There is a president and a prime minister; however, there has not been a parliament since May 2012 after they failed to draft a new constitution. Political instability is a major obstacle to socioeconomic reform and international cooperation.
Tourism, especially for climbing, is a key industry for the rural regions with urban areas surviving off of trade with India. Major exports include carpet, clothing, leather goods, and grain. Nepal is highly dependent on foreign aid and assistance from NGOs. Ongoing NGO projects include energy access, skills development, environmental protection, infrastructure, clean water, and education.
– Stephanie Lamm
Sources: ADB, Rural Poverty Portal, BBC
Photo: Wikipedia