PLANWEL is an NGO in Pakistan that is short for Planning Professionals for Social Welfare Works. It was founded in 1990 by a group of local technology and business experts for the purpose of promoting basic computer literacy, information sharing, health care, e-government, e-commerce, and e-learning through telecentres, or what they call community access points. Telecentres are public places that provide access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) which help promote development for populations who otherwise would not have such access.
In the past 20 years or so, PlanWel has collaborated with several foreign entities such as Utah State University, Kansas State University, American Distance Learning Consortium, International Telecommunication Union, USAID, and World View Foundation – Malaysia. To date, PlanWel has contributed to the formation of over 400 telecentres all over Pakistan. PlanWel’s mission statement is, “Bringing Technology to the People, Building Technology Based Communities, and Technology for the People and Run by the People”. PlanWel is one of the many examples of telecentre programs that are working to improve lives by providing access to ICTs.
Generally, telecentres are located in rural areas of the developing world. According to the Telecentre.org Foundation, there are over 87,513 telecentres in over 53 countries. In this interview, the PlanWel CEO, Shahab Afroz Khan, talks about how to build a telecentre.
What do the telecentres look like?
“In fact, they are not at all fancy. In a rural setting, it would be a one-room to two-room building with some space for housing 5-10 PCs’s at the maximum, one Printer, Scanner, Fax Machine. Internet connectivity through Fiber lines – DSL (In Pakistan we have a very well connected Fiber Optic network). For power, if it’s not on the National Grid, we have it by solar energy. One teacher would teach the students – Typically he is the Owner/ Manager, who would earn his living through this.
The only missing element – AND most important is content in the local language – which we are still looking for and working on.”
What advice would you give on how to build a telecentre community?
“First of all, motivate the community and tell them what they are missing: Information about business, citizen’s information, money transactions, sharing of information, and computer literacy. Once they are convinced that there is a need to open up a telecentre, they need to try and get some type of support from important local people, such as a landlord, local government representative, and the like. This is important because, in many countries like in Pakistan, you must have local support.
It is also absolutely necessary to have your own building – one room of 14ft X 10ft would be sufficient. You cannot run a telecentre on rented space. Next, locate some donors to give you the hardware – this is the easiest part as the donor would like his name to be advertised – which you can do with some caution.”
– Maria Caluag
Source: PLANWEL, Telecentre.org
Photo: LawaOnline
History of the Peace Corps
Before Kennedy was even President, he had a vision for a stronger America through understanding the struggle of developing nations and peace building around the world. His speech at the University of Michigan formed the origin of the Peace Corps. From the first deployment of 51 volunteers to Accra, Ghana, in 1961, Americans have engaged in critical projects of building wells, schools, and clinics. They distribute information about AIDS/HIV prevention and environmental preservation. They strengthen capacity and resilience of crop and livestock by working with locals and their intimate knowledge of their needs and resources.
Over 52 years, the Peace Corps has engaged over 210,000 American volunteers in 139 countries and thousands of projects. Volunteers are asked to serve “under conditions of hardship” to help accomplish the mutual goal of improved livelihoods and welfare.
From the start, the Peace Corps was hugely popular with American citizens and partner countries. In the first few years of the Peace Corps, the number of volunteers expanded exponentially. Starting out with only 51 volunteers in March of 1961, by December the organization had more than 500 volunteers serving and 200 more training in the US. By 1962 there were 28 countries participating and nearly 3,000 volunteers. By 1966 the number of volunteers jumped to 15,000 volunteers and trainees. Former president Jimmy Carter’s mother volunteered in 1966 as a public health worker in India. By the early 1970s, Peace Corps volunteers were being elected to the House of Representatives in the US Congress and the first female and first African American was appointed to Peace Corps Director. 9,000 serving volunteers in 1970 is the record for most serving volunteers.
In 1981 the Peace Corps, which had been a congressional mandate, became an independent federal agency. In 1985 the Peace Corps was the subject of the John Candy, Tom Hanks, and Rita Wilson movie “Volunteers.” This was not the Peace Corps’ debut in pop-culture. References to the Peace Corps have also been made in “the ‘Pink Panther’ (1963), ‘Animal House’ (1978), ‘Airplane!’ (1980), ‘Dirty Dancing (1987), ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ (2005), ‘The Simpsons’, and ‘Family Guy.’” The number of women serving as Peace Corps volunteers jumped past the number of men serving in 1985.
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, for the first time volunteers were sent to eastern and central Europe starting in 1990. 1993 saw the first volunteers go to China as English teachers. 1993 also marked a divergence of Peace Corps Directors as appointed from outside the organization. Since Carol Bellamy, director from 1993-1995, and a returned volunteer, all the directors have been former volunteers. Started in 1995, the Peace Corps now also sends volunteers on short-term missions to respond to humanitarian crises caused by natural disasters; this included responses to Katrina in New Orleans. When the apartheid ended in South Africa, the Peace Corps sent the first group of 33 volunteers in 1997. The 2003 ad campaign was aimed at refreshing the image of the Peace Corps in the American mind. The new slogan read: “Life is calling. How far will you go?”
The next year the Peace Corps received the largest appropriation from Congress in the history of the Peace Corps: $400 million. The budget expansion coincided with a “40-year high in numbers of volunteers”—8,655 volunteers in 77 countries.
Who are volunteers? They are mothers, children, fathers, astronauts, scientists, members of Congress, and ambassadors. They are descedants of an organization born in the campaign of President Kennedy and shaped by the demanding needs of people suffering the indignity of poverty and underdevelopment and hard work of thousands of American citizens.
“The Peace Corps represents some, if not all, of the best virtues in this society. It stands for everything that America has ever stood for. It stands for everything we believe in and hope to achieve in the world”- Sargent Shriver.
– Katherine Zobre
Source:
Photo:
Gender Inequality Runs Rampant in India
In New Delhi, there are 13 times more toilets for men than there are for women. Specifically, there are 3,712 male public toilets, and a mere 269 female toilets. Women sometimes must resort to defecating in the open, which besides the obvious privacy violation, poses a significant risk of rape and violence.
Public Toilets in New Delhi are just one example of discrimination against women in India; it starts before women are even born, and continues throughout their entire life. Girls can be perceived as a financial burden in parts of India, as a result of their limited income opportunities and costly dowries; 500,000 Indian girls have died as a result of pre-natal sex selection and infanticide over the last 20 years.
If a bride can’t fulfill her dowry, she faces the risk of torture and death at the hands of her in-laws. In 2005, nearly 7,000 Indian women were killed for being unable to meet the financial requirements of their dowries, some of them as young as 15 years old.
Indian women are humiliated, abused, and killed every day. Before they are even born, their opportunities and experiences are decided for them. They will face violence and inequality at almost every turn; and even something as simple as access to public restrooms is not guaranteed for them.
There are ways to encourage gender equality in India, though they may be easier said than done. Laws that discriminate against women need to be amended; girls need to be educated to level the intellectual playing field, and India’s practice of perceiving men above women, needs to be addressed for change to last.
– Dana Johnson
Sources: Trust, Advocates for Youth, Brookings
Photo: Asia News
Early Warning Systems are Not Just for Earthquakes
When political crises happen or human rights are being destroyed, the use of smart phones and other technology to spread the word is critical. What about when natural disasters strike? When a family has minutes to evacuate before a tsunami wipes out their village, do they take a picture or tweet about it? No. But the World Health Organization, in cooperation with national and local governments, and by demand of citizens in crisis and an outcry for better preventative measures, is working on building better early warning systems for post-disaster epidemics. The technology? A boat, a bike, your boots. Also needed: a pencil, paper, and your determination.
Recently in the Solomon Islands the immense destructive forces of the 6 February 2013 8.0 magnitude earthquake and pursuant 3m tsunami left thousands of people without homes and brought down the health care system.
The Solomon Islands consist of 1,000 islands off the South Pacific and are home to 550,000 people. The destructive power of the February earthquake left thousands vulnerable to diseases due to the broken health care system. 5500 residents required temporary living shelters. These shelters are often plagued by poor sanitation due to lack of resources and cramped living quarters. Poor sanitation leads to a plethora of preventable diseases—most of which associated with diarrhea.
Taking a queue from the early warning systems set up to warn of impending natural disaster, the World Health Organization worked with the Ministry of Health of the Solomon Islands to set up an early warning system to identify outbreaks, unusual outbreak patterns, and the number of people affected. This is a critical step towards disaster recovery and decreasing the vulnerability of those affected.
Developing the surveillance system presented logistical challenges of connecting vulnerable people to health clinics. Five clinics were set up around Santa Cruz, the main island that was affected. The head nurses, “doubled as boat captains,” connected patients to clinics. Traveling from surveillance sites to the clinics is risky. Poor weather, no lights on the boats, dangerous landing sites and navigational skill are all impediments to the surveillance system. For Solomon Islanders, these risks are necessarily overcome because full coverage is absolutely necessary for the system to work.
The WHO works with the clinics to make sure all the information necessary to identifying and preventing large-scale outbreaks is included in an accessible way. The successful system, now fully functional, has collected data, identified risky areas, and has quickly responded to problems.
The WHO initiative in the Solomon Islands is not unique and neither is their geography. There are 52 developing island nations in the world. These nations carry a disproportionate risk imposed by earthquakes and tsunamis and break down of health systems. Early warning health systems are a part of a larger global strategy to minimize post-natural disaster vulnerability. The WHO works with governments to create a Global Risk and Response system. The main activities include working with governments to set up early warning systems and develop laboratory capacities to handle large amounts of biological material—all of which requires bio-security to keep potential diseases from escaping. Training for and building response strategy plans is also a main function of the WHO’s Global Alert and Response (GAR) system. Seasonally, the GAR supports governments in climate related disease preparedness and creates standardized approaches to climate related diseases such as influenza and malaria.
– Katherine Zobre
Sources: Wikipedia, WHO , WHO
UTSA Partners with Small Business in Tunisia
The International Trade Center housed within the UTSA (University of Texas at San Antonio) institute of Economic Development is partnering with USAID to train small businesses in Tunisia. UTSA will take their Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Counselor and Director Certificate Training program to Tunisia. The goal of the training is to help Tunisia establish SBDCs to train and support small business owners and entrepreneurs. Many of these are women and young adults with little hope of a sustainable future.
UTSA’s training program is just one component of a larger initiative focused on strengthening Tunisia’s economic development. The initiative is funded and led by USAID. UTSA and USAID will provide the SBDC training in Tunisia, as well as stay involved with providing technical support to owners and employees of small and medium-sized enterprises. The program will work to provide a competitive advantage to these small business owners and work to improve their lifestyles.
North Africa’s smallest country, Tunisia, is working to rebuild its democracy after the 2011 revolution. It is bordered by Algeria, Libya, and the Mediterranean Sea. Tunisia is ready to promote economic growth and trade opportunities with a special focus on small and medium businesses.
The International Trade Center at UTSA has grown to be one of the largest trade assistance organizations in Texas. They have been working with countries in Central and South America. The trade center helps companies increase their global competiveness through technical trade consulting, market research, and innovative training. Follow them on Twitter (@TexasTrade) or find them on Facebook (facebook.com/texastrade).
– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: UTSA
India: Unseized Opportunity
So what then is going wrong with China’s neighbor across the Himalayas? India today has nearly the same number of impoverished citizens as it did thirty years ago, 400 million. And while that may be a drop in percentage, as India’s population has boomed, it doesn’t exactly represent a giant leap forward.
China and India have paralleled each other for some time with regards to population, but that reflection is at an end, with China’s population now trending downwards, while India’s continues to rise. So is India poised to become the next China and take over manufacturing duties for the world? It is true that there’s a shift occurring in China. The labor force is shrinking while wages increase, and as the country continues to increase its global economic presence many manufacturing jobs in China will soon be moving elsewhere. Cumbersome bureaucracy, however, and a lack of suitable firms and factories, may prevent India from competing for these 85 million manufacturing jobs. Other Southeast Asian countries already have the infrastructure in place and are absorbing some of the demand for cheap manufactured goods as China’s economy shifts. India is in danger of missing out or being bypassed as this opportunity presents itself.
The size of India’s workforce is poised to surpass that of China within the next few years. The question that lingers though is whether these millions will have somewhere to turn. India could well experience the next boom and emulate the growth of China, but the necessary reforms have been slow in coming.
The opportunity is there, but it’s anyone’s guess whether ‘Made in China’ will become ‘Made in India’ anytime soon.
– David Wilson
Sources: The Economist
Photo: IBT
British Panel Plans to End Global Poverty by 2030
Last Wednesday, British prime minister David Cameron announced a few recommendations for ending global poverty by 2030. Improving life for the more than one billion people that live on less than $1.25 a day would include provision of drinking water, electricity, health care, and schools.
Cameron reported that ending global poverty “can and should be one of the great achievements of our time. It is doable”. As a co-chair of the high-level panel that will recommend the best ways to combat global poverty, the British prime minister hopes to improve the U. N. Millennium Development Goals that expire in 2015. These goals included ensuring accessibility to elementary school education, stopping HIV/AIDS, increasing access to clean water and sanitation, as well as reduction of maternal and child mortality through healthcare.
These goals, however, Cameron says, didn’t place enough emphasis on the effects of conflict and violence. Building strong institutions and enforcing the law were overlooked in the Millennium Development Goals, and the panel hopes to remedy this by promoting “good governance and private enterprise, investment, and entrepreneurship.” The main focus of ending global poverty is economic growth in the private sector.
Cameron also highlights corruption and how tackling it as well as holding governments accountable is “the golden thread of development.” These reforms in conjunction with those such as food and water provisions, healthcare, and education accessibility could allow a swift eradication of global poverty by the year 2030.
– Sarah Rybak
Photo: Guardian
Following Seattle’s Lead in International Development
The city of Seattle has teamed up with the Seattle International Foundation (SIF) to launch the Seattle Ambassador program, a campaign intended to educate residents about how their community is making some pretty amazing strides in the global fight against poverty, and inspire even more locals to pitch in.
Seattle is a leader in international development efforts; over 300 local organizations are working in 144 developing countries. The Borgen Project has been headquartered in Seattle since 2003, and we are honored to be part of a community that cares so much about the rest of the world.
We have more than a few neighbors who are doing incredible things; Literacy Bridge develops and distributes Talking Books so that illiteracy doesn’t prevent education. Ayni Education International began building schools for girls in rural Afghanistan after 9/11, in an effort to counteract growing prejudice on both sides. One By One fights to end Fistula, which is directly related to maternal mortality during childbirth.
Residents who sign up for the Seattle Ambassador program will receive updates on the efforts of these organizations and others, and also learn ways that they can help. As a bonus, registering for the program automatically enters you for a chance to win an all-expense-paid trip to Africa, Asia, or Latin America, too see up close how your home is improving the world.
The first winner will be announced in June, so visit Seattle Ambassador or text SEATTLE to 80088 to register. If you don’t live in Seattle, contact your government representatives about following Seattle’s lead. Just imagine what ten, twenty, fifty cities like Seattle could accomplish.
– Dana Johnson
Sources: Seattle Ambassador, Seattle Globalist
Photo: Global Journal
How to Build a Telecentre
In the past 20 years or so, PlanWel has collaborated with several foreign entities such as Utah State University, Kansas State University, American Distance Learning Consortium, International Telecommunication Union, USAID, and World View Foundation – Malaysia. To date, PlanWel has contributed to the formation of over 400 telecentres all over Pakistan. PlanWel’s mission statement is, “Bringing Technology to the People, Building Technology Based Communities, and Technology for the People and Run by the People”. PlanWel is one of the many examples of telecentre programs that are working to improve lives by providing access to ICTs.
Generally, telecentres are located in rural areas of the developing world. According to the Telecentre.org Foundation, there are over 87,513 telecentres in over 53 countries. In this interview, the PlanWel CEO, Shahab Afroz Khan, talks about how to build a telecentre.
What do the telecentres look like?
“In fact, they are not at all fancy. In a rural setting, it would be a one-room to two-room building with some space for housing 5-10 PCs’s at the maximum, one Printer, Scanner, Fax Machine. Internet connectivity through Fiber lines – DSL (In Pakistan we have a very well connected Fiber Optic network). For power, if it’s not on the National Grid, we have it by solar energy. One teacher would teach the students – Typically he is the Owner/ Manager, who would earn his living through this.
The only missing element – AND most important is content in the local language – which we are still looking for and working on.”
What advice would you give on how to build a telecentre community?
“First of all, motivate the community and tell them what they are missing: Information about business, citizen’s information, money transactions, sharing of information, and computer literacy. Once they are convinced that there is a need to open up a telecentre, they need to try and get some type of support from important local people, such as a landlord, local government representative, and the like. This is important because, in many countries like in Pakistan, you must have local support.
It is also absolutely necessary to have your own building – one room of 14ft X 10ft would be sufficient. You cannot run a telecentre on rented space. Next, locate some donors to give you the hardware – this is the easiest part as the donor would like his name to be advertised – which you can do with some caution.”
– Maria Caluag
Source: PLANWEL, Telecentre.org
Photo: LawaOnline
World’s Top 5 Largest Refugee Populations
An estimated 15.2 million people in the world are refugees, people forced to leave their home countries because of persecution, war, or other kinds of violence. That’s the equivalent of the populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco combined.
Who are these people? Where do they come from? And where do they currently reside? Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees give us the following snapshot of these populations: of the 15.2 million refugees, 46% are under 18, and 48% are female. Most of these people have been forced to move to developing nations, which host an estimated 80% of the world’s refugee population.
The country with the largest refugee population in the world is Pakistan, which hosts an estimated 1.7 million refugees. Many of these refugees are from neighboring Afghanistan, the country that produces the greatest number of refugees, an estimated 2.7 million people. To place these numbers in a global context, below is a list of the world’s top 5 largest refugee populations by the nation of origin.
Largest Refugee Populations
1. Afghanistan – 2.7 million refugees worldwide
2. Iraq – 1.7 million
3. Somalia – 770,000
4. Democratic Republic of Congo – 477,000
5. Myanmar – 415,000
Refugees from these and other countries are forced to move across the globe, many of them ending up in Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Germany, and Jordan, the top 5 on the list of host countries. Jordan, Syria, Congo, Chad, and Montenegro are the countries with the highest proportion of refugees per 1,000 people. The United States currently hosts an estimated 265,000 refugees.
Although numbers like these are sometimes hard to grasp, compiling this kind of data is vital for refugee aid organizations like UNHCR, which rely on data to plan ways to help the people and countries involved. UNHCR publishes an annual Global Trends Report on refugee populations. The next such report is due in June 2013.
– Délice Williams
Sources: UNHCR, The Guardian, MSN Causes
Photo: Guardian
Effects of Food Aid Reform
Since the proposed changes to the US system of food aid, many have voiced concerns about the shift away from domestic agriculture and towards local food supplies in developing countries. But how will food aid reform affect US shipping and agriculture?
Devex journalist, John Alliage Morales, reports after the US Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah testified before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations held May 7, 2013. Shah defended President Obama’s proposal to reform the $1.5 million US Food Aid Program: it would only affect about 300 employees in the shipping industry and 0.2 percent of American agricultural exports.
The six-decade old food aid program was designed primarily to help American farmers by purchasing their surplus, and American shipping companies by requiring at least 75 percent of the goods to be transported to countries in need on U.S.-flagged vessels.
Under Obama’s proposal for fiscal year 2014, the government would still buy food from farmers, but only up to 55 percent of the total, allowing the USAID to source the remaining 45 percent from local or regional markets closer to the crisis areas. USAID estimates that the $1.8-billion new program could reach an additional four million people simply by freeing up money spent on shipping and other costs.
Responding to queries from senators on the reform’s impact to local agriculture, Shah said: “We think the net change would be close to 0.2 percent of total value of U.S. agriculture export.”
“There are other sources of market demand,” added the USAID chief, who stressed that it is “inaccurate” to say that no one will buy the agricultural produce that would no longer be purchased by the government.
Ten years ago, USAID bought and shipped 5.5 million metric tons of food, but today this figure is down to 1.8 million metric tons. In addition, shipping costs have tripled over the same period of time, eating away about 25 percent of the budget, which could have been used to buy more food.
Shah noted that if the reform is approved by Congress, only about eight to ten ships or about 300 employees of the shipping industry will no longer benefit from the food aid program. That accounts for 0.2 percent of the total 15,000 workers in the American maritime shipping sector, he added.
“Of course, we expect that those ships will have other business activities, some of which will come from Department of Defense, some of which will come from elsewhere that they can pursue,” the official said.
– Maria Caluag
Source: Devex
Photo: US News