“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
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
The Future of Toilets in Poor Countries
What does the future of toilets in poor countries look like? The Gates Foundation hosted a competition to reinvent the toilet to process human waste without utilizing piped water, sewer or electrical connections and to transform waste into useful resources like water and energy.
The grand prize design was a solar-powered toilet that creates hydrogen and electricity. The second place prize was taken by a toilet that creates biological charcoal, minerals and clean water. A toilet that sanitizes feces and urine and recovers resources and creates clean water won third place.
Why all the excitement about toilets? In a nutshell, return on investments in sanitation is huge. For every dollar spent on sanitation, 5.5 dollars are returned. At a national level, lack of access to proper sanitation costs countries up to 7 percent of their GDP. In addition to being a smart investment, investing in sanitation is also a moral imperative. Diarrhea is the cause of an estimated 5000 child deaths every day. In areas where people defecate in the open or share large community bathrooms, women and girls are more frequently victimized.
Despite these striking numbers, improved sanitation is neglected at every political level. Without a drastic shift in strategies and the courage to undertake this stigmatized issue, the Millennium Development target of cutting the proportion of the population without access to clean water and basic sanitation by a half will be missed by a long shot.
In addition to the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge, the government of India is running multiple campaigns to improve sanitation such as the “No toilet, no bride” campaign and an information and shaming campaign aimed at changing the culture of open-space defecation.
The World Bank also recently wrapped up a sanitation hackathon where mobile phone application developers were challenged to create apps to improve sanitation. Many involved mapping public toilets and reporting malfunctioning toilets. Several were designed as games to teach children good sanitation.
– Katherine Zobre
Sources: Gates Foundation , Global Poverty Project
Photo: The Guardian
Countries Starting to Reach Development Goals
Data from the World Bank released last week reports twenty fragile countries who are starting to reach development goals. As the Millennium Development Goals near the end, news of progress is exciting and hopeful. Progress in fragile countries ranges from efforts in reducing poverty, improving the education of girls, and cutting down on deaths during child birth.
The Millennium Development Goals are set to expire in 2015 and these 20 countries were not on track just a few years ago. The progress that has been made since 2010 is remarkable. In addition, six more fragile countries are on target to hit the goals by 2015. Countries like Afghanistan, Nepal, and Timor-Leste have seen a 50% reduction in people in extreme poverty and increased the number of girls in school. These are strong accomplishments for any nation, but for these nations who are coming out of war and devastation, the results are even more extraordinary.
The data serves as a call for the global community to not strike countries off as hopeless or lost causes, but to seek the development of all nations. While these twenty have seen remarkable progress, many war-torn nations are still lagging far behind the benchmarks set up by the Millennium Development Goals. These nations are also very prone to relapse as is the case of Yemen who was on target to meet the goal of reducing death during childbirth until the violence during the Arab Spring in 2011.
World Bank leaders are calling for a bridge between long-term development and humanitarian assistance to help countries in the middle of crisis. When the international spotlight leaves a country in distress, often so does the humanitarian aid, leaving the country devastated and struggling to rebuild itself. To rebuild requires support that focuses on clear actions, steps, and transparent and accountable goals. As nations tighten their spending in the midst of the economic downturn, effective aid is even more important. The World Bank is committed to working more closely with the United Nations to see that long-term development happens in fragile countries.
Community involvement is also key in addressing and meeting needs and designing appropriate projects. As aid organizations work together with communities, they can address the causes of conflict and also create programs and plans that emerge as long-term solutions. In the final push to accomplish the Millennium Development goals, this type of aid is going to be increasingly important.
– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: Reuters
Photo: World Hunger
Progress Is Being Made Towards MDGs
Twenty nations have made huge strides in just a few years towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Millennium Development Goals are a series of international development goals set by the United Nations in 2000 that aim to eradicate poverty, hunger, and disease and improve the quality of life for the world’s poorest by the year 2015. Nations, that were described as troubled and conflict-hit, had not met any of the MDGs in 2010 have now at least met one. The World Bank cites better data collection and monitoring that have made progress more discernible.
The World Bank noted that countries Afghanistan, Nepal and Timor-Leste have decreased the number of people in extreme poverty by fifty percent or increased the number of girls enrolled in schools.
The World Bank aims to find ways to help countries that have relapsed such as Yemen which until the Arab Spring in 2011 was on course to reduce maternal mortality. It also aims to help conflict-hit countries transition from receiving humanitarian aid that ends once the cameras leave to building foundations for long-term development. To do so, the World Bank is working with the UN which has historically assisted with peace-keeping and humanitarian assistance.
World Bank President, Jim Yong Kim, called the results a wake-up call to “the global community [to] not dismiss these countries as lost causes. Development can and is being achieved, even amid fragility and violence.”
The World Bank plans to focus on aid effectiveness by studying how aid money is used and if it actually impacts the poor, particularly with the reduction of aid from the U.S. and Europe.
– Essee Oruma
Source: Reuters
Photo: A Celebration of Women
5 African Nations Poised For Economic Growth
Africa promises a bright new future. Population projections show that in the next 25 years Africa will more than recover its population losses from the ’80s and ’90s. At the same time, investment companies see Africa as having some of the world’s most promising opportunities for sharp economic growth.
1. South Africa is the leading economy in the continent. South Africa plays the role of the continent’s economic powerhouse, by providing the continent’s other countries with goods and services, as well as investments. South Africa has a stake in seeing the standard of living rise in its potential trading partners and that this will continue to stimulate economic growth in the continent.
2. Nigeria has a large population base and a thriving petroleum export business. Nigeria is consolidating political reform, as exemplified by two peaceful transfers of power within the past decade. Nigeria also has demonstrated its prowess in mobile telecommunications technology.
3. Angola is growing rapidly due to oil exports. Angola’s economy is vulnerable because it lacks diversity but for the time being it is rapidly expanding its infrastructure as part of a controversial “infrastructure for oil” trade agreement with China, which critics believe benefits the Chinese more than the Angolans.
4. Ghana is “one of the fastest growing economies in the world.” Ghana’s economic growth is based primarily on its oil production, but political and economic reforms that were in place nearly two decades before oil was discovered in 2007, play a major role in the country’s long-term economic prospects and sustainability, even though Ghana’s rate of growth will not remain at its current astronomical levels.
5. Ethiopia represents a huge market that can drive economic growth and integration in the Horn of Africa region. Ethiopia’s economic growth has been fueled by hydroelectric power, which enables it to export electricity to neighboring countries. Ethiopia has also benefited from large-scale government investment in agriculture, industrialization, and infrastructure.
-Essee Oruma
Source: Christian Science Monitor
3 Ways That GMOs Encourage Global Food Security
Despite the obvious concerns that genetically modified crops (GMOs) generate in regards to water usage and biodiversity, GMOs are – at present – the only viable option for feeding a worldwide population of 9 billion people by 2050. Why embark upon a policy of greater investment in GMOs as opposed to organic farming? Considering both the land and climate constraints of many developing nations, the strengths of GMOs lie primarily in their ability to adapt to challenges that would otherwise be prohibitive to organically grown crops. The following are 3 ways that GMOs encourage global food security.
1. GMO’s production yields are higher – As the global population increases, greater pressure will be placed on the agricultural industry to produce yields large enough to meet both local and international demands. GMOs encourage global food security by maximizing the potential of long established independent farmers and agribusinesses, a tool considered invaluable for maintaining adequate food supplies in developing countries still lacking the requisite knowledge and infrastructure for conventional farming.
2. GMOs use less land – As land starved countries of the global south continue to experience the high birth rates and greater population density of economic development, the low land usage of GMOs encourage global food security by increasing the productivity of their farmers without stifling growth. GMOs offer emerging economies the distinct advantage of developing previously underutilized areas without the accompanying sacrifices of farmland.
3. GMOs are more affordable – The inevitable cost increases that occur when demand outpaces supply will be an significant issue as the worldwide population increases; however, GMOs encourage global food security by keeping the price of food low enough to feed those with even the most meager of financial resources. GMOs are able to better withstand the climatic, pest, and blight challenges that would otherwise devastate organically grown crops, leading to the supply shortfalls and price increases that cripple poverty stricken communities.
– Brian Turner
Source Science Daily
Photo Chuck Haney Photography
Why We Should Fight Harder To End Global Poverty
Can we really end global poverty? Earlier this year, World Bank announced that we can virtually end extreme global poverty by 2030, meaning that the number of people in the world living on $1.25 per day or less would be reduced to 3%.
But while that would be a huge victory for the world, we should set our standards higher. Right now, extreme poverty is defined as living on $1.25 per day, and poverty is $2 per day. But even many of those with $2 to live each day don’t have access to other essentials such as drinking water and electricity. In rural areas of the poorest countries, 1 in 10 children die before their first birthday from easily preventable diseases, and $2 per day cannot afford these children the medication or vaccines they need.
Furthermore, the people who make more than $2 in poor countries (i.e. those not living in poverty) still have five times higher infant mortality rates than the poorest and most deprived areas of rich countries, which shows the gap between poverty in rich and poor nations.
Some economists suggest that the “global middle class” earns approximately $10 per day. But if we were to change the definition of “poverty” to living on less than $10, rather than $1.25 or $2 per day, we would find that 98% of people in sub-Saharan Africa would be living in poverty.
But is it really feasible to get everyone in the world living on more than $10 per day?
Economists crunched the numbers and say yes. By 2050, the population will be around 9 billion and global GDP will quadruple. They predict that the GDP related to getting everyone to the $10 per day mark would take less than 1/5 of the $300+ trillion output. In other words, it’s entirely possible if we raise our goals and fight harder to end global poverty. $1.25 will get most people the bare necessities they need to survive, but $10 will give them a much better standard of living.
– Katie Brockman
Source Businessweek