With women projected to comprise a majority of the world’s urban dwellers and head increasing numbers of households, gender equality in employment, housing, health and education is vital to ensure the prosperity of the cities of the future, according to a new United Nations study. Female and women empowerment is more crucial than ever.
Economic Impacts of Women Empowerment
“Women are key drivers of economic growth and that wealth in the hands of women leads to much more equitable outcomes in terms of the quality of life of families and communities,” the study, entitled State of Women in Cities Report 2012/13, said. “Addressing the barriers to women’s participation in cities creates a situation where women’s potential is more fully realized and households, communities and governments also reap rewards.
“It is imperative that women and men should enjoy equal rights and opportunities in cities on moral/ethical, economic, and political grounds. This will not only engender women’s well-being but it will increase their individual and collective prosperity as well as the prosperity of the cities in which they reside.”
Produced by the Nairobi-based UN Human Settlements Programme, known as UN-HABITAT, which is mandated to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all, the report also stressed the need to address unemployment and other disadvantages that hobble urban youth.
The report called for policies to enhance gender equality, equity and prosperity of women in cities, noting that cities of the future will comprise a majority female component, especially among people older than 60 and even more so among those older than 80 years.
While underscoring the unpaid caring and social activities that women undertake, such as childcare, caring for the sick, disabled and elderly, washing, cleaning and other community services that allow the urban economy to function and prosper, even if this labour is seldom recognised or valued, the report stressed the “crucially important” economic contributions they make through their paid work
“The ‘feminization’ of the global labour force tends to be associated with urbanisation, with the related concentration of women in export-manufacturing, the service sector and Information, Communication and Technology (ICT),” it said, adding that women, especially the urban poor, are disadvantaged in terms of equal access to employment, housing, health and education, asset ownership, experiences of urban violence, and ability to exercise their rights.
UN-HABITAT’s State of Urban Youth Report 2012/2013 stressed that while the young are “society’s most important and dynamic human resource” – with 1.3 billion between ages 12 and 24, most of them living in urban areas – nearly 45 per cent of them, some 515 million, live on less than $2 a day.
It called for better aligning educational and training systems with the current and future needs of young people, so that they cannot only discern developmental issues but may even be capable of suggesting innovative solutions to deep problems of development and growth.
“Of paramount importance is access to education and opportunities for acquiring skills,” the study added, stressing that youth inequality in urban life is closely related to unequal opportunities in later life and calling for policies that include investment in economic infrastructure, tax incentives, vocational training schemes, and regulations that aim at a more equitable labor market for urban youth.
– Essee Oruma
Source: UN News Centre
Photo: Edumenical Women at the UN
Cooperation Ituze Increases Food Security in Rwanda
In 1980, the U.S. Congress established the U.S. African Development Foundation or UADF to provide grants to support solutions to economic problems in Sub-Saharan Africa. The solutions are made and led by Africans. Till date, UADF has provided $3.5 million in grants to Rwanda that have provided increased economic independence and increased food security for more than 200 cassava farmers in southern Rwanda by giving them better access to markets and higher incomes.
A crop purchase fund was set up under Cooperation Ituze so that it can grow and buy more cassava (or manioc) to process into high-quality flour in its milling factory. Cooperation Ituze has become self-sufficient and profitable by purchasing disease-resistant plants, expanding its drying facilities, and setting up rainwater harvesting systems. The rainwater harvesting systems establish a reliable water supply which enables Ituze to process cassavas year round. The Rwandan government constructed additional drying facilities because of Ituze’s success. Additional progress was made with agricultural training in cassava multiplication, modern agronomic practices, and soil maintenance.
Ituze’s sales revenues increased from $8,300 to 2012’s total of $115,000 in less than three years. This is an increase of 2,700% since its inception in 2010. Land cultivation has doubled to 175 hectares which allows farmers to grow cassavas for both their families’ consumption and processing into flour. The flour is packaged in Kigali, the nation’s capital, and sold in local supermarkets.
This breakthrough with Cooperation Ituze has far-reaching effects: more people are able to afford a nutritious meal and more children are free to go to school.
Source: IIP Digital
Women and Youth Empowerment Matter
With women projected to comprise a majority of the world’s urban dwellers and head increasing numbers of households, gender equality in employment, housing, health and education is vital to ensure the prosperity of the cities of the future, according to a new United Nations study. Female and women empowerment is more crucial than ever.
Economic Impacts of Women Empowerment
“Women are key drivers of economic growth and that wealth in the hands of women leads to much more equitable outcomes in terms of the quality of life of families and communities,” the study, entitled State of Women in Cities Report 2012/13, said. “Addressing the barriers to women’s participation in cities creates a situation where women’s potential is more fully realized and households, communities and governments also reap rewards.
“It is imperative that women and men should enjoy equal rights and opportunities in cities on moral/ethical, economic, and political grounds. This will not only engender women’s well-being but it will increase their individual and collective prosperity as well as the prosperity of the cities in which they reside.”
Produced by the Nairobi-based UN Human Settlements Programme, known as UN-HABITAT, which is mandated to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all, the report also stressed the need to address unemployment and other disadvantages that hobble urban youth.
The report called for policies to enhance gender equality, equity and prosperity of women in cities, noting that cities of the future will comprise a majority female component, especially among people older than 60 and even more so among those older than 80 years.
While underscoring the unpaid caring and social activities that women undertake, such as childcare, caring for the sick, disabled and elderly, washing, cleaning and other community services that allow the urban economy to function and prosper, even if this labour is seldom recognised or valued, the report stressed the “crucially important” economic contributions they make through their paid work
“The ‘feminization’ of the global labour force tends to be associated with urbanisation, with the related concentration of women in export-manufacturing, the service sector and Information, Communication and Technology (ICT),” it said, adding that women, especially the urban poor, are disadvantaged in terms of equal access to employment, housing, health and education, asset ownership, experiences of urban violence, and ability to exercise their rights.
UN-HABITAT’s State of Urban Youth Report 2012/2013 stressed that while the young are “society’s most important and dynamic human resource” – with 1.3 billion between ages 12 and 24, most of them living in urban areas – nearly 45 per cent of them, some 515 million, live on less than $2 a day.
It called for better aligning educational and training systems with the current and future needs of young people, so that they cannot only discern developmental issues but may even be capable of suggesting innovative solutions to deep problems of development and growth.
“Of paramount importance is access to education and opportunities for acquiring skills,” the study added, stressing that youth inequality in urban life is closely related to unequal opportunities in later life and calling for policies that include investment in economic infrastructure, tax incentives, vocational training schemes, and regulations that aim at a more equitable labor market for urban youth.
– Essee Oruma
Source: UN News Centre
Photo: Edumenical Women at the UN
Development in Africa According to the UN
A new report from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the African Union says the key to long-term development in Africa is commodity-based industrialization. The study collected data mostly from nine African countries and the continent’s five sub-regions. Those countries are Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia.
The report urges African nations to take advantage of their abundance of natural resources by using a commodity-based industrialization strategy. Each nation should frame its own specific policy for commodity-based industrialization so that it can direct its own development. This is necessary to address poverty and gender disparities, youth unemployment, and other challenges African nations faces. The report states that “massive industrialization based on commodities in Africa is imperative, possible, and beneficial.”
Instead of African nations shipping raw materials to foreign nations to make commodities which are of higher value, the report recommends adding value to raw materials locally. Not only does this increase the profit to African nations but also fosters diversification of technological capabilities, an expansion of an advantageous skills base, and deepened industrial infrastructures in individual countries.
Case studies were prepared for Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia.
– Essee Oruma
Source: UN News Centre
Cell Phones Save Lives In Nairobi, Kenya
The use of mobile telephone in Africa has spread so rapidly that in 2001 mobile phones first outnumbered fixed lines, and by the end of 2012, 70% of Africa’s population was expected to have a cell phone. Communication has never been so easy and it has opened up new opportunities across the globe.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), in collaboration with technical partners, developed a low cost, user-friendly survey methodology that allows data to be collected using inexpensive and widely available cell phones.
The new system is called Rapid Mobile Phone-based survey (RAMP), which is sufficiently flexible to be used for a range of tasks in many fields. “We are now producing preliminary results within 24 hours and a full draft report of a survey within three days,” says Mac Otten, RAMP developer for IFRC. “This allows us to analyze the data quicker with the end result being that we can adapt interventions quicker to the needs of the most vulnerable.”
Recent results from a RAMP survey in the Kenya project are impressive: 90% of households own at least one net and net use is at 80% for the total population. Net distribution, combined with a community approach to malaria treatment called the Home Management of Malaria project, demonstrates that empowering communities to respond comprehensively to malaria is part of the winning formula to beat the disease.
But malaria is not the only problem.
In Kenya, where 35% of children under five are stunted, 16% are underweight and, one Kenyan woman in 35 faces risk of maternal death, having the right information at the right time is vital to save the lives of both mothers and their children.
“There hasn’t been a nutrition survey in our project area for a long time,” says Mwanaisha Marusa Hamisi, Assistant Secretary General for Coast Province, Kenya Red Cross Society. “Although we knew nutrition was an issue, the information collected through RAMP will allow us to better target volunteer actions. We need to tackle specific attitudes and behaviours to achieve results.”
The project in Kenya is now moving towards comprehensive maternal and child health actions at the community level to provide broader health services closer to the people who need them most.
– Essee Oruma
Source: allAfrica
Chairman Royce on Human Trafficking
“Trafficking in persons is a grievous offense against human dignity that impacts every country on earth, and disproportionately victimizes girls and children.” – Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA)
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed Royce opened a hearing on human trafficking on May 7th, 2013. The hearing will discuss local and private sector initiatives to combat human trafficking. Modern-day slavery, human trafficking is a growing global crime.
One of the things society must wrestle with is how the vulnerable are treated and protected as well as what their responsibility is in coming to the aid of the exploited. Human trafficking exists in every nation worldwide and targets women and children in disproportionate amounts. Numbers indicate over 20 million victims of forced labor and forced sex work worldwide. However, bigger than the numbers are the faces and stories of the victims, largely children, who have been stripped of their hope, innocence, and youth.
Chairman Royce’s Chief of Staff, Amy Porter, spent time in India and Cambodia serving victims of human trafficking. She recounts girls as young as 3 years old in awful, disgusting situations. Closer to home, it is estimated that 100,000 children in the US are victims of human trafficking. The Foreign Affairs Committee has worked tirelessly to get human trafficking on the minds of Congress and will continue to work hard to make the issue an urgent and pressing one in the coming weeks and years.
The hearing will look at some of the promising private sector and community partnerships going on worldwide and the implications of those innovative partnerships in eradicating human trafficking. The tools that are being developed and the relationships established on the local, community level may just be the answer to fighting human trafficking worldwide.
Videos of the Question and Answer session as well as the opening statement can be found here.
– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: House Foreign Affairs Committee
Photo: Jewish Journal
DRC Ranks Last in Maternal Health
Happy Mother’s Day? Well, maybe not in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which was recently named the worst place to be a mom according to a report done by Save the Children. The DRC took the unwanted ranking from Niger and for the first time in the 14 years since the report has been published, sub-Saharan Africa took up the bottom ten places.
The London-based charity’s “State of the World’s Mothers” report compared 176 countries in terms of maternal health, child mortality, education and levels of women’s income and political status. The results were staggering and showed massive gaps in maternal health. A woman or girl in the DRC has a 1 in 3o chance of dying from maternal causes, including childbirth, whereas a women in Finland faces a 1 in 12,200 risk. The report cited the poor health of mothers as well as low access to health care as possible causes for the high rates of infant mortality in sub-Saharan Africa.
Save the Children is calling for an investment to close the gap. They cite the need for nations to invest in mothers and children and to provide better and more accessible maternal care. Women must have access to education and political standing as well as high quality health and child care.
Much progress is being made in developing countries and sub-Saharan Africa; the study pointed to four life-saving products that could drastically change the current state of affairs. Those four products are:
1. Corticosteroid injections to women in preterm labor.
2. Resuscitation devices to save babies who do not breathe at birth.
3. Chlorhexidine cord cleansing to prevent umbilical cord infections.
4. Injectable antibiotics to treat newborn sepsis and pneumonia.
Simple devices and measures like these have the potential to give mothers and infants in countries like the DRC a better chance at a full, healthy life. It is time to continue the progress being made and even the odds for mothers in the DRC and all across sub-Saharan Africa.
– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: Global Post
BRICS Plans For Development Bank
Leaders of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) announced at the end of their summit in March in Durban their intention to start a new Development Bank. This Development Bank will be used to mobilize resources within developing countries to build infrastructure and promote sustainable development projects.
Over the last four decades, the nations of BRICS have seen enormous success in economic development and are coming together to see that their futures are bright and full of opportunities. As developed nations struggle through their own economic difficulties, the Development Bank will serve to bridge a gap in funding. Infrastructure requirements in emerging-market economies point to the need for the availability of credit and sources of financing. With 1.4 billion people lacking reliable electricity, 900 million lacking access to clean water, and 2.6 billion without adequate sanitation, the Development Bank will be a key player in addressing the long-term sustainable solutions to those problems. In addition, the forecasted large migration to cities calls for policymakers to fund environmentally sustainable investments.
Predictions for infrastructure spending within the developing world top $2 trillion annually in the coming decades. This spending will allow nations to achieve long-term poverty reduction and economic growth. The private market will still be relied upon, but their dollars can only go so far. The Development Bank will fill the gap and become a catalyst for change in developing countries.
As the world economy is changing, the Development Bank provides BRICS a chance to reflect on those changes within an institution that utilizes modern financial instruments, strong governance, and broad-based mandates. The bank can capitalize on new development partnerships and collective action as well as innovative and cost-effective approaches. While developed countries still have a strong role to play in global development, the shortfall in assistance and need for quick decisions make the Development Bank a welcome institution in the marketplace of emerging countries.
– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: The Korea Herald
Photo: BRICS
Polio Immunization Still Matters
The widespread strategic implementation of polio immunization has reduced the number of reported cases by 99% since 1988. However, as long as there are countries where polio immunization is not widespread, there is a significant risk of this highly contagious virus exploding. The World Health Organization reports, “[failure] to eradicate polio from these last remaining strongholds could result in as many as 200 000 new cases every year, within 10 years, all over the world.” The strongholds referred to are some of the poorest and most dangerous countries in the world: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Polio is a viral infection that attacks the nervous system of non-immunized children. Children under 5 have the highest risk of contracting the virus. Polio sometimes results in partial or full paralysis, but there is no indication of who or why paralysis occurs. Paralysis can occur within a few hours of contracting the virus. Between 5 to 10% of the paralysis cases result in lung muscle paralysis and death.
Anyone can be a symptomless carrier. The infection can be spread without notice through person-to-person contact to thousands before the first case of polio paralysis emerges. The disease enters through the mouth and multiplies in the intestines. The virus is then excreted into the environment and spread through contaminated food and water. Flies are also suspected to transmit the virus.
A global action plan to eradicate polio calls on donors to make a down payment of 5.5 billion dollars which would take us to the 2018 end game. Another 1.1 billion dollars will keep the world polio-free for the foreseeable future. Compared to the 527.5 billion dollar US Department of Defense budget for 2013, this is a drop in the bucket that quantifiably improves human security. Defend our children from polio. Make total polio immunization a reality.
– Katherine Zobre
Sources: WHO, Polio Global Eradication Initiative
Emerging Markets Invest in Africa
The growth story in Africa is remarkable and continuing to catch the attention of the global economy. Emerging markets are investing in Africa at rates that are quickly outpacing developed markets. A sign that business prospects are good and the emerging markets that were just recently at the beginning of growth are making big enough strides to begin investing in other markets. Africa is working hard to reduce poverty and a growing middle class is catching the attention of markets and companies ready to expand their potential for growth.
Despite a drop in the number of new foreign direct investment projects globally, Africa was able to see growth to 5.6 percent in 2012 in their share of direct investment. Ernst and Young’s 2013 Africa Attractiveness survey notes an increase in investments from China and the United Arab Emirates. The UAE has also recently announced key partnerships with governments on the continent to continue the relationship between African development and UAE investment. While the United States, Britain, and France have typically been the biggest investors in Africa, only the UK showed increased project numbers in 2012. Investment projects from China grew 28 percent over the same time period.
From 2007 to 2012, investment from emerging markets into Africa grew at a rate of over 20.7 percent while investment from developed markets grew at only 8.4 percent. The numbers tell the story of a shift in investment and interest in the continent of Africa. The story of African growth and development is real and backed by Ernst and Young’s Managing Partner for Africa. The potential for growth in the next 10 to 20 years is bigger and what was once considered a desolate, poverty-stricken continent is fast emerging as a story of hope, poverty reduction, and growth in purchasing power.
There is still much work to be done in Africa and those concerned with development must still keep an eye on those living on less than $2 a day. But in terms of initial success, Africa is one continent to cheer for.
– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: The Economic Times
Ethical Fashion
“The fashion industry in the past several years has redefined how to market, how to brand, how to raise awareness, and how to inspire others,” said Ray Chambers, with United Nations special envoy for malaria. “I think the fashion industry will lead the emergence of so many of the developing economies.”
There are consistently more and more global campaigns supporting social and economic growth, assisting in development and lifting people out of poverty through ethical fashion. Even the United Nations has two initiatives specifically focused on employment through apparel production and trade. One is Fashion 4 Development (F4D), supported by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), providing economic opportunities for women and men around the world to help lift them out of poverty.
F4D partners with organizations such as Advanced Development of Africa, Fashion Designers Without Borders, Womensphere, and with first ladies around the world to raise awareness and money to build more sustainable futures—the core principles of F4D. First founded in 1996, and then later re-launched in 2011 by former supermodel Bibi Russell, who works “to preserve the heritage of my country, foster creativity, provide employment, empower women, and contribute towards the eradication of poverty.” F4D has helped more than 100,000 people in Russell’s home country of Bangladesh through a local textile business, and has ongoing initiatives in Ghana, Nigeria and Botswana with a specific focus on promoting African designers and producers in the global market.
Another UN project, jointly run with the World Trade Organization (WTO) through the International Trade Center (ITC), is the Ethical Fashion Initiative. First conceived of by an Italian shoemaker, Simone Cipriani, who saw no reason why Italy’s model of fashion production could not be recreated in Kenya.
Mr Cipriani sought out unemployed and underemployed women with experience in basic beadwork and tailoring, and with training he has turned his small idea into a profitable company. Ethical Fashion had sales of $900,000 in 2012, and employs 1,200 women full time. Their wages have gone from about $2 a day to nearly $8 and this income then circulates back into the community and further expands economic growth. Many other fashion houses have since started projects with the Ethical Fashion Initiative as well.
Regionally, many designers have started programs in the same vain. Tete (Maria Teresa) Leal, an Ashoka Fellow, started her mission in the ’80s to help women use high fashion to tackle poverty in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her cooperative, COOPA-ROCA, was started in Rio’s most populated slum, first training women in manufacturing and business skills. She then started receiving high-quality fabric donations and was then able to create a full collection, eventually selling it all over the world. In America designer Tory Burch, the second youngest self-made, female billionaire, has started a program with Accion providing microloans to small, fashion business hopefuls. She provides capital as well as mentoring and training. “It’s about investing in people who might otherwise not have the chance to pursue their goals. It’s also incredibly important to the economic recovery of our country,” Burch said. To date, the program has distributed almost 100 loans, each worth an average of $7,000.
– Mary Purcell
Source: Forbes, The Economist
Video: You Tube