Working to Solve the Housing Crisis in Egypt

Poverty takes on many forms, but in Egypt, housing is the epitome of substandard living conditions. Dismal mud brick squatter houses with no windows, no doors, no proper roofing and no protection from the environment’s weather and creatures, are the homes to more than 20 million Egyptians.

Although a vital aspect of wellbeing, housing is one the most neglected segments of Egyptian society and, being present for over 7 decades now, the housing crisis in Egypt is one of the leading issues in its country today.

The Root of Informal Housing

Needless to say, no one would live in this setting by choice. However, many Egyptians are under the crippling circumstances of housing production shortcomings accompanied by falling income and rising costs for adequate housing.

In other words, with less housing for a growing low-income population, poor families have nowhere else to turn; instead, they build their own squatter homes absent of essential qualities of safety and sanitation.

The Necessary Action

According to the Egyptian housing ministry, 2.5 million homes need to be built within a 5-year timeline to catch up with its population growth, make up for its backlog of 3 million homes and ultimately, combat the housing crisis in Egypt. Moreover, international investors are concerned with Egypt’s lack of long-term clarity.

Egypt’s government intervenes in housing projects and subjects development plans to their unforeseen policy swings. Therefore, stability both in the market and political atmosphere of Egypt are prerequisites to attracting much needed foreign investments.

The Arabtec Attempt

From 2014 to mid-2015, the Egyptian government and Arabtec, a construction services provider from the United Arab Emirates, underwent a $40 billion deal to produce a million low-cost homes, ideally relieving the housing crisis in Egypt.

The deal fell through after the Egyptian government went against previous land price agreements by demanding more from Arabtec than it could match. Arabtec could not accept this higher price, especially for the building of low-cost homes rather than the more profitable courses of middle to high-income residential projects.

Potential Solutions

Egypt can implement the public-private partnership practice in which the government and a private sector entity reach an agreement to co-develop housing projects with incentives attracting both parties. Land prices can also be deflated to combat current inflated prices and consequently, prevent gridlock or fallouts in large-scale housing developments with foreign investors.

Finally, once development ventures are undergone, other infrastructural facets must be included — such as roads, utilities and transportation — to avoid more disconnected squatter communities from forming and expanding.

The Future

Although Egypt is in the midst of a housing crisis that has fueled the fire of poverty and substandard living conditions, all efforts are focused on extinguishing such strife-ridden issues. In fact, the government formally stated that its central aim is to tackle the prevailing housing issue after the Egypt Economic Development Conference.

Beginning in 2018, it has been reported that 150,000 low-income homes have been built and 260,000 are currently being constructed. Other housing projects are also in execution, and roads have been installed in desolate areas to promote further development.

Egypt, with the rest of the world, awaits the day that it finally climbs out of its poverty-stricken state. In the meantime, all hands are on deck to resolve the housing crisis in Egypt and provide a more prosperous future.

– Roberto Carlos Ventura
Photo: Flickr

10 Poorest Countries in the World By GDP Per Capita

The poorest countries in the world are places where the GDP per capita (meaning GDP divided by the number of people in a country) is the lowest. GDP per capita is a better measure than GDP, because GDP does not account for each individual in a country; rather, GDP accounts for a country as a whole. GDP per capita creates a better image of what each individual in a given country is worth.

There are three reputable institutions that measure GDP per capita: The International Monetary Fund, The Central Intelligence Agency and The World Bank. The conclusions these organizations find are similar. A deviation that exists is which one takes Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) into account, as this is a measure of GDP per capita that takes costs of living and inflation rates into consideration.

The CIA list is going to be the most accurate, as it includes the highest number of known countries out of the three, whilst taking into consideration GDP per capita influenced by PPP. All of the estimates of GDP per capita influenced by PPP are as of 2017.

10: South Sudan (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1500)

Since the creation of South Sudan, a Central-Eastern landlocked country,  in 2011, its GDP per capita has been on a non-linear decline. What largely accounts for this trend is an ongoing civil war which started in 2013.

As a result of this civil war, millions have been declared displaced and as refugees, and famine has ravished several parts of the country. Also, on top of this, both sides of the civil war have both committed a wide range of human rights violations on the citizens of South Sudan.

The conditions of civil war set the stage for poverty. Eighty percent of people living in Sudan are defined as “income poor” and live on less than $1 a day. Eighty-five percent of the population is engaged in non-wage work and one third of the population does not have access to a secure amount of food.

9: Eritrea (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1400)

Eritrea is a very small country in Africa. Despite being the 9th poorest country in the world, the nation has made vast improvements. GDP per capita in 1992 was under $800, and is now $1400. This is still a staggeringly low GDP per capita for a country that has a population of a little over 5 million people.

The cause of such severe poverty is multifaceted. Environmentally, Eritrea has always faced droughts, and with 80 percent of the population engaged in subsistence agriculture, this makes for very low productivity of food for 80 percent of the people living in Eritrea. There is also a general lack of financial resources in Eritrea, thus leading to a lack of large private enterprises and a very low industrial production growth rate of 5.4 percent.

The government of Eritrea is very unhelpful here, too, as they have been preoccupied with military spending and attempting to figure out how to obtain a coherent policy of a national hard currency.  

8: Mozambique (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1,250)

The South-Eastern African Country Mozambique has always had a low GDP per capita. Even when it gained independence in 1975, the nation was considered one of the world’s poorest countries. Since its independence, socialist policies and general economic mismanagement have further impoverished the country. Nearly 50 percent of Mozambique’s population lives in poverty.

This has been exacerbated by lack of effort and results in poverty reduction, and slow economic growth of which does not benefit all Mozambique citizens equally, keeping the poor, poor. Potential for improvement in Mozambique is in agriculture, as most of Mozambique’s population works in this field. Also, innovations in tech and other lacking inputs would greatly benefit these workers.

7: Niger (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1,200)

Forty percent of what constitutes Niger’s GDP is agriculture. Agriculture also provides 80 percent of Niger’s population livelihood. Like all of the countries on this list, Niger’s poverty is accounted for by various factors: increase in population, lack of food security and low levels of educational quality.

Another large sector of Niger’s economy is uranium. This sector has been interrupted in recent years by terrorist activity that has also increased Niger’s government expenditure on security. These issues increased Niger’s reliance on foreign aid as a result.

It is also the case that families in Niger are large (6 per household on average), so what constitutes 80 percent of the livelihood of Niger across generations must be distributed between more and more people. The GDP per capita in Niger is on the rise, but ongoing conflict and rapid population growth makes the economic situation in Niger a difficult hurdle to overcome.

6: Malawi (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $1,168)

Malawi is a landlocked African country that depends heavily on external donors for subpar economic stability. In fact, GDP per capita growth has decreased in Malawi since 1961. Given that Malawi’s domestic economy is dependent upon primarily rain-requiring agricultural, and the geography of Malawi is prone to droughts this makes sense.

Climate change and growing population rates threaten to exacerbate this problem which has caused an increase in food shortages in recent years. However, government corruption is incredibly common in Malawi, which has very frequently led donors to withdraw funds. Amidst the turmoil, child and maternal health have made large strides in improvement. This is due to increases in prenatal care, vaccinations and skilled birth assistance.

5: Somalia (GDP Per Capita + PPP = Unknown)

Somalia is in the middle of this list because the data on their economy is very vague. The GDP per capita is $500 without PPP according to the World Bank. What is known about Somalia is that there is a perverse lack of educational opportunities (less than half of Somali children are in school) and job opportunities (paired with strict-conservative religious influence in Somali culture inclines younger people to turn to extremist groups).

With a rapidly growing population, improvements in recent years are mainly in infrastructure — something which Somalia lacked prior to the 1991 collapse of central authority. Such improvements are peculiar to Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, an indication that rural areas are still in need of improvement.

4: Liberia (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $900)

A large role in how Liberia became such a poor country has been civil war and economic mismanagement by the Liberian government. Post-civil war Liberia (2010-13) seemed to be making an economic comeback, until the 2014 Ebola outbreak which put Liberia back several years. Export prices have yet to return to pre-ebola levels.

Liberia suffers from one of the world’s worst maternal mortality rates (7th in the world) and female death rates are amongst the highest in the world due to a high frequency of female genital mutilation (this effects two-thirds of Liberian women/girls.) According to CIA data, “Significant progress has been made in preventing child deaths, despite a lack of health care workers and infrastructure. Infant and child mortality have dropped nearly 70 percent since 1990; the annual reduction rate of about 5.4 percent is the highest in Africa.”  

3: Democratic Republic of The Congo (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $800)

The Congo’s ongoing conflict makes ongoing economic instability inevitable. Such conflict has decreased output, increased conflict expenditure, increased external debt and has left the inhabitants of the Congo in very poor conditions. Such conditions include chronic food/resource mismanagement, chronic malnourishment, low rates of vaccinations, low availability of adequate drinking water, and very low quality public services (education, police etc.).

It is difficult to measure how improvements are occuring due to obscure data which is accounted for the majority of the DPC’s economy occurring outside of formal/traditional economic sectors (black markets).

2: Burundi (GDP Per Capita + PPP = $770)

In the past 27 years, the GDP per capita in Burundi has changed very little. Burundi, a landlocked African nation, has very little in terms of quality natural resources and manufacturing. Ninety percent of its population is in agriculture, which makes up 40 percent of its GDP.  

Almost half of Burundi’s income is derived from foreign aid and the majority of the rest is dependent upon coffee and tea exports. Production of these goods relies on weather and global coffee and tea prices, which are not constant variables.

Burundi suffers from massive food shortages and lack of clean water, which has resulted in a 60 percent child malnutrition rate. The government has established Vision 2025 in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme and the African Future Institute as it seeks to reduce poverty to 33 percent by 2025.

1: Central African Republic (GDP Per Capita + PPP =$700)

Conflict has caused international donors to withdraw financial support of the Central African Republic (CAR). Ongoing humanitarian crises have created “CAR’s high mortality rate and low life expectancy, elevated rates of preventable and treatable diseases (including malaria and malnutrition), an inadequate health care system, precarious food security, and armed conflict.”

Schools are closed. There is also an ongoing refugee crisis inside and out (mostly to Chad) due to the ongoing conflict which started in the 2012 coup. CAR has one of the most unequal wealth distributions in the world on top of a lacking economy. This is due to various geographical and agricultural reasons, poor economic management, an unskilled workforc  and a poor transportation system that hinders trade.

Aid For The Poorest Countries in the World

Some of the conflict is also over “blood” diamonds. Efforts are being made to make said diamonds no longer of value, by lifting bans on their exports, as a means to reduce conflict and ultimately reduce poverty, by increasing government revenue.

It is clear that all of the poorest countries in the world list are in dire need of help, especially from the international community. Budget cuts threaten current national levels of foreign aid, and this is why supporting efforts like The Borgen Project is important. This organization amongst others actively opposes such budget cuts by calling, emailing and lobbying congress to oppose them. With support like this, powerful change can happen in the ten poorest countries in the world.

– Daniel Lehewych
Photo: Flickr

MenCare’s Efforts at Breaking Down Barriers

A recent Rutgers-sponsored initiative in Rwanda encourages men to become more involved in domestic duties and in the prenatal health of their wives. MenCare’s efforts at breaking down barriers are ending some of the long-standing patriarchy in many parts of the developing world.

MenCare

According to its mission statement, MenCare wants to engage men “in improving sexual and reproductive health and rights and in preventing gender-based violence in conflict affected areas.”

MenCare seeks to engage males at every stage of life, not just expecting fathers and husbands. Because according to MenCare, women’s quality of life cannot be improved if men and boys are not on board as they are some of the most influential of allies. Overall, MenCare encourages and enlists men and boys to help improve the working and living conditions of their mothers, daughters, sisters and wives, all in an effort to increase gender equality in some of the poorest places on the planet.

Currently, MenCare has programs in Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa and Rwanda. While these countries have areas of extreme poverty, these nations also have a strong sense of patriarchy; that patriarchy, though, may limit a woman’s right to education, health and freedom within her home. MenCare’s efforts at breaking down these barriers are manifold — MenCare teaches men to value their wives’ opinions, to respect their opinions as well as their bodies and to help with chores and duties that may be considered ‘unmanly.’

Female Empowerment and Male Success

MenCare’s attempts have been successful. According to data collected after the initiation of their Rwanda program, MenCare reported: “Men are nearly half as likely to use violence against their female partners and spend almost one hour more per day doing household chores.” For another perspective on the MenCare program, wives of husbands in the program stated the following:

• Nineteen percent of married women report an unmet need for family planning
• Only 23 percent of Rwandan women are able to make decisions about their own health
• More than 20 percent of married women report having experienced physical and/or sexual violence from their husband in the past year.

In MenCare couples, husbands were reported to have spent 2 hours and 15 minutes on household chores per day  — significantly more than non-MenCare male spouses — and wives were more likely to use contraceptives and have more say in financial decisions.

MenCare’s efforts at breaking down barriers are encouraging. MenCare encourages men and boys to respect and value women’s opinions and bodies, while simultaneously instilling a sense of gender equality. These developments could only help developing nations, where women are often overlooked, mistreated, neglected or abused.

More programs like MenCare should be funded, as their potential for ending poverty — and creating a more gender-equal world — are limitless.

– Raymond Terry
Photo: Flickr

Malnutrition: The Consequences of Micronutrient Deficiencies

According to the Food Aid Foundation, 1/9 people on earth do not have access to enough food to ensure proper nourishment. Malnutrition is defined by the Oxford Living Dictionary as the “lack of proper nutrition, caused by not having enough to eat, not eating enough of the right things, or being unable to use the food that one does eat.”

Defining Malnutrition

This definition, although correct, hardly captures the severity of its meaning. A clear scientific explanation of malnutrition better illuminates the severity of the pervasive issue that exists primarily amongst those who live in poverty. Micronutrients — which are vitamins and minerals — are non-energy yielding compounds which the body requires to run efficiently. For example, the water-soluble vitamins (all of the B vitamins) are coenzymes which facilitate all of the bodies’ metabolic functions.

In light of their vitality to physiological homeostasis, a deficiency in any one of the micronutrients causes a wide variety of negative side effects. Iodine deficiencies cause goiters, iron deficiency causes anemia and vitamin B12 deficiencies can cause a wide variety of neurological defects, including symptoms of psychological disorders (depression, memory loss, sense perception loss etc.). It is clear that the consequences of micronutrient deficiencies are quite dire.

Consequences of Micronutrient Deficiencies

Given the importance of consuming the adequate amount of micronutrients — and the results of not doing so with even one of them — imagine having a lack of most micronutrients. Most people living in developed countries have adequate food intake, yet they are still deficient in a variety of micronutrients due to poor dietary choices. The consequences of micronutrient deficiencies are much more severe in the case of developing countries, where rates of starvation are higher than those of developed countries.

Considering how easy it is to be deficient in certain micronutrients due to simple nutritional ignorance, the level of micronutrient deficiencies –which in turn cause very negative health consequences — in developing countries where poverty is high and nutritional adequacy is low is much higher than in western countries where the contrary is the case. At the very least, 795 million people in the world experience severe negative symptoms due to lack of food.

For example, 84 percent of children in Kenya and 64 percent in India have a Vitamin A deficiency, whereas in a western country like Poland deficiencies in children are at less than 10 percent. These figures illustrate how countries that have a lower GDP per capita — and thus higher rates of poverty — often experience a higher rate/severity of cases of micronutrient deficiencies.

To cover all the micronutrients would be tedious; however, reviewing the statistics regarding the consequences of being deficient — specifically due to lack of food — proves extremely beneficial. The problem is extremely pervasive as one fourth of children’s growth is stunted globally due to malnutrition, poor nutrition causes 45 percent of child deaths ages 5 & below and malnutrition causes the death of 2.6 million children annually.

The above information may be unsettling, but understanding such disturbing information is the first step to changing such occurrences for the better. With concerted effort, the consequences of micronutrient deficiencies need not be as severe as they currently are.

Current and Future Progress

Progress on micronutrient deficiencies has certainly been made — prevalence and number of children suffering from stunted growth due to malnutrition has been on a slow but steady decline. There are specific examples of this, such as in Uganda, where the rate of stunting due to malnutrition has decreased from 33 percent in 2011 to 29 percent in 2016. In fact, the government of Uganda and its allies (the U.N.) have a  goal to totally eradicate malnutrition by 2030.

U.N. efforts in scaling up nutrition interventions has been very effective in reducing the rate of malnutrition. However, according to the World Bank, efforts to reach the 2030 goal would need an additional $70 billion of funding by 2025. Funding itself is the evident driver of progress. For example, investing in Peru’s malnutrition problem reduced stunting rates by 20 percent over a 20 year period.  

Ways to Help Combat Malnutrition

Many may ask, what can be done to help prevent this crisis from getting more out of hand? First and foremost, more people from all walks of life need to invest in nutrition. It is calculated that each dollar spent on nutrition delivers between $8 and $138 of benefits, according to the Copenhagen Consensus Center.

For more broad ways to help fight against world hunger and its negative consequences, donating to charitable foundations such as the World Food Programme, UNICEF, Feeding America, Feed the Hunger Foundation and others is something anyone can do to support the cause. Something “small” can make a huge difference, so it’s up to every willing individual to help solve this crisis.   

– Daniel Lehewych
Photo: Flickr

Prison Reform Reduces Poverty in Central America

Prison reform is a global imperative. According to the World Prison Brief, 26,734 people are incarcerated in the Dominican Republic as of 2018, and 30 percent of the Dominican Republic’s population of 10.6 million are below the poverty line. The Centre of Excellence on Prison Reform and Drug Demand Reduction in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic was created by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to strengthen criminal justice in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Prison Reform in Central America

This prison reformation focuses on training programs for previously incarcerated people and promotes effective policies regarding healthcare and prison conditions. Many incarcerated people suffer from poverty, which leads to homelessness, crime, drugs and violence.

Prison reform by the Centre includes social reintegration programs post-release, and job and educational resources as well. The Centre will also place more focus on women, juveniles, youth with incarcerated mothers, drug-dependent prisoners and mental health. Since many prisoners cannot afford the Centre’s reformation, the UNODC aims to make these resources within the current prison system affordable. In the Najayo prison, classrooms are built to reach goals of zero percent illiteracy and the provision of college-level courses. Prisoners here are treated more humanely with a bed, desk in classroom and medical attention.

The prison system had to be reformed in the Dominican Republic due to how: previous imprisonment disrupted families, overcrowding promoted the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and prison time encouraged poverty rather than reduced it. The Centre has been so successful in prison reform in the Dominican Republic that inmates’ rate of returning has reduced from 50 percent prior to the Centre to less than 5 percent where facilities have adopted reformation programs.

UNODC’s Global Efforts

The UNODC has also reformed the prison system in Panama by focusing on the health and safety of prisoners in order to properly reintegrate inmates back into society. Panama has a high rate of incarceration, with 400 per 100,000 people as prisoners and a remand rate of 70 percent. Prison reform in Panama looks like IntegrArte, which is a fashion program that rehabilitates female prisoners in Panama by turning their crafts (hand-sewn bags, clothing, etc) into sellable profit.

Participants in the program are very appreciative of such efforts, and say that sewing and IntegreArte as a reformation program in prison helps greatly with the transition back into society. These programs open up micro-financing and housing opportunities and help people escape the confines of poverty.

Costa Rica also undergoes prison reform with WOLA, Advocacy for Human Rights in the Americas. In 2013, Costa Rica had the third highest percentage of prisoners in Central American, and now the nation’s prison reform focuses on education, drug decriminalization and rehabilitation.

In 2016, the Ministry of Justice and Peace reduced prison terms for women who smuggled drugs into prisons to a minimum of three to eight years, if they met certain conditions. The result? One hundred and twenty female prisoners were released immediately in Costa Rica, and have since sought health services.

In fact, Costa Rica just passed a law in 2017 for eliminating criminal records for released people who have served sentences under certain conditions. It is still early to conduct studies of the results of this law, but one can assume that this action can reduce poverty of former inmates by providing jobs.

Mexico, El Salvador and Efforts at Rehabilitation

Mexico and El Salvador are also trying to adopt drug decriminalization and reduce gang crime and violence of poverty-ridden areas by using education and business development to build and strengthen communities. Prison reformation programs by the government  — such as drug rehabilitation and mandatory work trainings — have reduced the number of El Salvador’s homicides from 6,071 to 4,881 between 2015 and 2016.

In addition, rehabilitation and work trainings have reduced Mexico’s incarceration rate dramatically, with 37 percent fewer inmates in 2016 than 2015. A report by WOLF concluded that strict drug legislation and its aggressive implementation are key factors in rising incarceration rates and extreme prison overcrowding.

Prison reform is essential to reduce crime, violence, inhumane prison living conditions and poverty. UNODC prison reform programs such as the Centre are very important in Central America as it helps combat crime, drug trade and poverty for high-crime, low-income neighborhoods.

– Areina Ismail
Photo: Flickr