Education is one of the proven pathways out of poverty, however, education in Nigeria faces several barriers. To improve education in Nigeria, companies are testing virtual reality in classrooms and this is showing promising results. Using virtual reality in education in Nigeria may address several inadequacies in the education system.
The Current Situation
Education in Nigeria suffers from multiple problems. The Nigerian Government allocated 7.2% of its national 2022 budget to education, according to UNICEF. While this marks an improvement from 5.7% in 2021, it still falls short of the recommended 15-20% for education expenditure from national budgets.
The curriculums of Nigerian schools are outdated, Global Citizen highlights, as it is based on the 1981 Universal Basic Education program. “… Imagine teaching kids about floppy disks and 90s programming languages, but in 2020,” a Nigerian university lecturer tells Global Citizen.
According to the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), less than half of primary and high school teachers have teaching qualifications. “Nationally-recognized teacher hiring guidelines” do not exist and teaching in private schools is not well-regulated. Fortunately, around 90% of university lecturers in Nigeria have doctoral degrees as of 2021.
Corruption is rampant in the education sector. Global Citizen says that “paid-for certificates… sexual harassment, extortion and leaked questions” are common at all levels of education. In addition, schools allow abuses like flogging.
Violence threatens the attainment of education in certain parts of the country. More than 11,000 schools in Northern Nigeria have closed since December 2020 due to abductions and security issues related to the Boko Haram insurgency. This leaves approximately 1.3 million students without proper access to education.
On top of all that, gender and cultural issues affect children’s education in Nigeria. Girls have lower school attendance rates because of issues like forced marriages and cultural biases related to gender. In the northeastern and northwestern states of Nigeria, “29[%] and 35[%]of Muslim children, respectively, receive Qur’anic education, which does not include basic skills such as literacy and numeracy,” UNICEF reported. All of these issues have contributed to 20.2 million out-of-school children in Nigeria as of 2022.
A Virtual Solution
In December 2018, the UNICEF Innovation Fund invested in 13 startup companies that aim to use technological solutions to improve educational opportunities for children. Nigerian-born Judith Okonkwo founded one of these companies, Imisi 3D. Imisi 3D aims to “provide quality education tools through Virtual Reality (VR).”
Okonkwo believes that virtual reality will offer a more affordable and immersive experience for children. If schools are unable to afford real labs or field trips, students can just put on their headsets and dissect animals or explore the landmarks of specific countries. She also believes VR can help close the education quality gap between public and private schools.
Testing and Results
By March 2020, Imisi 3D had created “three educational VR models” and tested them on students and teachers from a public junior secondary school in the city of Lagos. While some issues came up, like students struggling to locate objects in the VR reality and students struggling to communicate what they saw in the virtual world, both students and teachers enjoyed using virtual reality in education.
In June 2021, the Journal of Education and Practice published an article about a study in Abuja, Nigeria, that tested virtual reality educational programs on 56 students across five junior high schools. The students’ ages ranged from 11 to 16 and girls accounted for 45% of the participants while boys accounted for 55%. The students enjoyed the VR programs and many said that the virtual world felt realistic and gave them a sense of ambiance.
Between the three types of programs the project exposed students to (video games, videos and images), students found the videos most intriguing and effective for learning. When asked which subjects virtual reality proved most helpful for, students cited the top three as geography and environmental studies, history and biology. Most students agreed that virtual reality made learning more fun and effective.
Virtual Reality Learning in Physics
Another study used 61 male students and 43 female students from two secondary schools in the Dutsin-Ma Educational Zone in Katsina State, Nigeria. This study compared students learning physics through conventional teacher-centered methods to those learning through virtual reality.
Just like in Abuja, students preferred virtual reality and had a much better understanding of physics when learning using virtual reality. Importantly, the study showed that female students had as good an understanding of physics as male students. This fact can encourage and instill confidence in females to participate more in education, especially in the underrepresented fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Barriers to Upscaling Virtual Reality in Education
While virtual reality is a successful teaching tool, there are issues the country needs to overcome to implement it on a mass scale. Schools need to have access to the proper hardware and software and establish quality internet connections. Both students and teachers need to have some basic understanding of how the technology works. There are also issues like financial and organizational challenges on the administrative level as well as the ability to create quality VR educational content for students. Despite this, virtual reality is paving an excellent path for the future of education.
Although there are several issues affecting education in Nigeria, the implementation of virtual reality could hold the potential to address some of these issues and set an example for the rest of the world.
– James Harrington
Photo: Flickr
How the Maasai Community is Tackling Poverty
As the Indigenous Maasai community faces adverse losses of their homes, primarily due to the loss of Indigenous land rights, they face impoverished conditions that affect their survivability. However, community efforts to reclaim their land, ensure their rights and engage in profitable capitalistic ventures are how the Maasai community is tackling poverty.
The Indigenous Maasai Community
Native to the Indigenous Maasai community in Kenya is the Maasai Mara, an open savanna that has provided food, water and land for the pastoralist community for generations. However, a decline in access to and freedom in the Maasai Mara has expressed detrimental outcomes, as poverty rates increase amongst the Maasai community. Chief among the challenges is the increasing loss of Indigenous land rights, with the Maasai community having to leave their lands into unaccustomed livelihoods as tourism takes center stage.
Biodiversity Loss and Poverty
The Indigenous knowledge of the Maasai community on biodiversity conservation is relevant and imperative in contemporary conversations about sustainability. However, with strategies to undermine the full realization of Indigenous land rights, the Maasai community faces a stark reality of poverty. According to Nelson Ole Reiyia, a co-founder of the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy, “we saw a bleak future, threatened by land selling, land grabs for commodification, by tourist preserves, by the collapse of our rivers and grasslands, and by unsustainable fragmentation as electric fences carved up and closed off the wildlife migratory corridors.” In actuality, biodiversity loss driven by the commodification of indigenous ecosystems leads to high poverty rates in the affected indigenous communities.
Therefore, as biodiversity loss strains the ecosystem, further affecting tourism and other economic activities, the marginalization of the Maasai community poses substantial risks to their well-being. Narok County, home to the Maasai Mara National Park, reported an absolute poverty rate of 33.7%, with 12% of the population suffering from food poverty. Additionally, the loss of Indigenous land rights has led to long-term food insecurity, as the members lack the resources to live their pastoralist lifestyle. Arguably, the failure of the government to support their livelihoods and incorporate their indigenous knowledge in biodiversity conservation has worsened their financial conditions, forcing many into poverty.
Indigenous Maasai Community Efforts to Eradicate Poverty
How the Maasai community is tackling poverty is a matter of local, national, and global efforts to realize their indigenous land rights and engage them in commercial activities within the contemporary world. As biodiversity conservation accelerates the recognition of the challenges of the Maasai community, its members are increasingly proactive in promoting biodiversity conservation as they articulate ways to eradicate poverty. The Nashulai Maasai Conservancy is one such drive that has facilitated a river restoration program to provide clean water, an organic village-kitchen garden and fundraising drives to mitigate food insecurity.
Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Eradication
Biodiversity conservation idealizes innovative, nature-based solutions as necessary to mitigating poverty, especially since they incorporate multiple perspectives, including the local. The Maasai community has showcased resilience in guarding existing ecosystems, with their indigenous lifestyles at the root of their knowledge. Through community leadership, the Maasai community in Nashulai Maasai Conservancy has established a management plan based on rotation grazing to capture the advantages of the migratory patterns witnessed in the Maasai Mara. This development plays into the Maasai community’s indigenous knowledge through their age-old customs and traditions. Ultimately, an infusion of current knowledge on agriculture captures the best of both worlds.
Realizing Indigenous Land Rights
Establishing social, political and economic frameworks around indigenous land rights is how the Maasai community is tackling poverty. The Maasai community in Tanzania has encouraged political and legal recognition of Indigenous land rights as they fight against government efforts to evict them from the land. In Kenya, efforts by the Maasai community to establish capitalistic and poverty eradication schemes have been critical in advancing their economic capabilities to retain their land rights. Moreover, funding of conservancies has taken point in driving recognition of the indigenous Maasai community.
With biodiversity loss causing notable challenges in accessing resources, the World Wild Life (WWL) has lauded achieving indigenous land rights as a necessary step in combating climate change and ensuring a financially sustainable future. Notably, collaborations with national and global organizations such as the Nawiri Group to create sustainable practices are how the Maasai community is tackling poverty.
As the Maasai community sustains the indigenous lifestyle, biodiversity conservation through community efforts and the realization of land rights is tackling poverty. However, the onus is on the Kenyan government to accelerate its efforts through policies and laws that preserve their culture and traditions.
– Hanying Wang
Photo: Flickr
The African Green Revolution Forum Addresses African Food Systems
The African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) meeting commenced on September 5, 2022, with nearly 6,500 policymakers, activists, researchers, business leaders and agriculture experts from all over the world in attendance, both in-person and virtual. The forum theme was Grow, Nourish and Reward – Bold Actions for Resilient Food Systems, reflecting a dedication to addressing Africa’s growing food insecurity and a need for food system improvements.
Africa’s Fragile Food System
Due to the economic impact of the coronavirus, 147 million African people are experiencing severe food insecurity, a jump of 20 million from the previously recorded statistics at the start of 2022. In addition, food prices have also increased by 40% due to the coronavirus, making it increasingly difficult for those living in poverty to maintain healthy diets.
According to leaders at the AGRF summit, African food systems are highly susceptible to global changes, such as the war in Ukraine and climate-related environmental changes, as they heavily rely on imported goods to sustain their people. For that reason, the AGRF focused on ways to improve existing agricultural systems and determined what actions to take to help African agriculture evolve and resist the effects of the changes.
AGRF Leaders Define the Issue
Deputy Secretary-General Amna J. Mohammed shared at the AGRF that “Ending hunger requires us to consider food as a system and recognize the range of intersecting challenges that are undermining progress across the spectrum of the Sustainable Development Goals.”
Within the summit declaration, leaders at the AGRF determined a list of essential topics to confront. The topics include aiding food systems led by countries, solidifying food system visions, pushing for healthier diets and sharing working models and any new information learned with the public.
There was some discourse during the meeting when determining the best solution. Some leaders wanted to take an investment route, while others preferred to take on the issue starting from the bottom of the chain with small farmers. Overall, the AGRF decided to mobilize to collect $200 billion in investments to improve African food systems.
Making the Switch From External Imports to Internal Production
Experts at the AGRF declared that decreasing reliance on imported goods is vital if Africa wants to create a sustainable and independent food system. The experts determined that implementing the African Continental Free Trade Area may aid in breaking barriers that prevent the trade of food from areas with surplus to those with shortages and establish profitable markets for farmers.
AGRF leaders agreed to invest in internal food transportation and retention as a means to decrease import reliance. Ministers pledges to coordinate improvements in the current tariff systems.
Taking Action
Increasing the number of locally produced, nutritious foods cultivated by local farmers is a priority in Africa. Rwanda’s Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) has worked to enhance African food systems and combat malnutrition.
According to PABRA, beans contribute 32% of daily calories and 65% of protein intake in Rwandan homes. The country’s government has prioritized these nutrient-rich bean crops through the Government Crop Intensification Programme. Beans are high in iron and zinc while also being inexpensive, which makes them a cost-effective crop to incorporate into the African food system.
Another organization, the Zimbabwe Pfumvudza Programme, aims to achieve food security by providing local farmers with maize, sunflower, small grain and soya bean seeds with basal and top fertilizer. Following the Conservation Agriculture Principles, local farmers receive training on adequately caring for the crops and government monitoring.
This program is in the early stages of production as they are working on financing and training staff on new agricultural technologies. However, the expected outcome is 75KG of produce per household, adding up to 1 million MT total.
Some criticism of this kind of intervention has been reported by activists at the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa, arguing that providing resources to farmers will create a dependency. Activists also say that having farmers plant monocultures will take away a farmer’s crop variety, impacting already present food deficits.
Looking Ahead
To stay on track to end chronic hunger in Africa by 2030 and meet the Zero Hunger target in 2015, African Green Revolution Forum attendees acknowledged a need to reshape African food systems and agriculture into a more substantial business model to support malnourished households and small farmers.
With the number of households facing poverty, income inequality and rising food costs, nutrient-rich diets and a steady food supply are unattainable for many African people. Leaders at the AGRF shared that Rwanda’s efforts as a host country and an example of potential improvements that have the potential to benefit food systems in other countries inspired the movement.
– Mikada Green
Photo: Flickr
The Potential of Using Virtual Reality in Education in Nigeria
Education is one of the proven pathways out of poverty, however, education in Nigeria faces several barriers. To improve education in Nigeria, companies are testing virtual reality in classrooms and this is showing promising results. Using virtual reality in education in Nigeria may address several inadequacies in the education system.
The Current Situation
Education in Nigeria suffers from multiple problems. The Nigerian Government allocated 7.2% of its national 2022 budget to education, according to UNICEF. While this marks an improvement from 5.7% in 2021, it still falls short of the recommended 15-20% for education expenditure from national budgets.
The curriculums of Nigerian schools are outdated, Global Citizen highlights, as it is based on the 1981 Universal Basic Education program. “… Imagine teaching kids about floppy disks and 90s programming languages, but in 2020,” a Nigerian university lecturer tells Global Citizen.
According to the Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), less than half of primary and high school teachers have teaching qualifications. “Nationally-recognized teacher hiring guidelines” do not exist and teaching in private schools is not well-regulated. Fortunately, around 90% of university lecturers in Nigeria have doctoral degrees as of 2021.
Corruption is rampant in the education sector. Global Citizen says that “paid-for certificates… sexual harassment, extortion and leaked questions” are common at all levels of education. In addition, schools allow abuses like flogging.
Violence threatens the attainment of education in certain parts of the country. More than 11,000 schools in Northern Nigeria have closed since December 2020 due to abductions and security issues related to the Boko Haram insurgency. This leaves approximately 1.3 million students without proper access to education.
On top of all that, gender and cultural issues affect children’s education in Nigeria. Girls have lower school attendance rates because of issues like forced marriages and cultural biases related to gender. In the northeastern and northwestern states of Nigeria, “29[%] and 35[%]of Muslim children, respectively, receive Qur’anic education, which does not include basic skills such as literacy and numeracy,” UNICEF reported. All of these issues have contributed to 20.2 million out-of-school children in Nigeria as of 2022.
A Virtual Solution
In December 2018, the UNICEF Innovation Fund invested in 13 startup companies that aim to use technological solutions to improve educational opportunities for children. Nigerian-born Judith Okonkwo founded one of these companies, Imisi 3D. Imisi 3D aims to “provide quality education tools through Virtual Reality (VR).”
Okonkwo believes that virtual reality will offer a more affordable and immersive experience for children. If schools are unable to afford real labs or field trips, students can just put on their headsets and dissect animals or explore the landmarks of specific countries. She also believes VR can help close the education quality gap between public and private schools.
Testing and Results
By March 2020, Imisi 3D had created “three educational VR models” and tested them on students and teachers from a public junior secondary school in the city of Lagos. While some issues came up, like students struggling to locate objects in the VR reality and students struggling to communicate what they saw in the virtual world, both students and teachers enjoyed using virtual reality in education.
In June 2021, the Journal of Education and Practice published an article about a study in Abuja, Nigeria, that tested virtual reality educational programs on 56 students across five junior high schools. The students’ ages ranged from 11 to 16 and girls accounted for 45% of the participants while boys accounted for 55%. The students enjoyed the VR programs and many said that the virtual world felt realistic and gave them a sense of ambiance.
Between the three types of programs the project exposed students to (video games, videos and images), students found the videos most intriguing and effective for learning. When asked which subjects virtual reality proved most helpful for, students cited the top three as geography and environmental studies, history and biology. Most students agreed that virtual reality made learning more fun and effective.
Virtual Reality Learning in Physics
Another study used 61 male students and 43 female students from two secondary schools in the Dutsin-Ma Educational Zone in Katsina State, Nigeria. This study compared students learning physics through conventional teacher-centered methods to those learning through virtual reality.
Just like in Abuja, students preferred virtual reality and had a much better understanding of physics when learning using virtual reality. Importantly, the study showed that female students had as good an understanding of physics as male students. This fact can encourage and instill confidence in females to participate more in education, especially in the underrepresented fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
Barriers to Upscaling Virtual Reality in Education
While virtual reality is a successful teaching tool, there are issues the country needs to overcome to implement it on a mass scale. Schools need to have access to the proper hardware and software and establish quality internet connections. Both students and teachers need to have some basic understanding of how the technology works. There are also issues like financial and organizational challenges on the administrative level as well as the ability to create quality VR educational content for students. Despite this, virtual reality is paving an excellent path for the future of education.
Although there are several issues affecting education in Nigeria, the implementation of virtual reality could hold the potential to address some of these issues and set an example for the rest of the world.
– James Harrington
Photo: Flickr
Miracle Gel Could Save Millions Of Lives In Nepal
Since 2022, USAID and partners have been working to prevent infant mortality in developing countries. Chlorhexidine, a chemical element that comes in gel and liquid form, could be a potential solution to infant mortality. Typically used to disinfect human skin and sterilize surgical instruments in hospitals, the substance can also help protect the umbilical stumps of newborns to prevent deadly infections. USAID’s Chlorhexidine “Navi” Care Program applies this technique in rural Nepal. Furthermore, the miracle gel has decreased newborn deaths by 24% and newborn infections by 68% in Nepal.
Susceptibility to Infant Mortality in Nepal
Rural and low-income communities in Nepal are susceptible to high rates of infant mortality and infections that arise from traditional home birthing practices. Mothers sometimes cut umbilical cords with unsanitized house tools and treat the stump with turmeric as an antiseptic. However, these methods can be harmful as evidenced by a neonatal mortality rate of 23 per 1,000 live births in 2020. Furthermore, about 70% of infant mortality cases in Nepal tend to occur within the first year of the infant’s life.
USAID’s “Navi” Care Program
The Navi Care Program began in October 2011. With a budget of $3.9 million, the program was able to expand from 49 operating districts to cover all 75 districts in Nepal by 2014, according to USAID. The Navi Care Program helps in training nurses and healthcare practitioners to use chlorhexidine gel. The program also works to spread awareness about the miracle gel and supports the Ministry of Health and Population in Nepal to integrate it into the newborn and maternal healthcare systems.
Raising Awareness Through SBCC
As remarkable as the miracle gel is in terms of reducing infant mortality, not enough people in Nepal know about the solution and how they can access it. A social behavior change campaign (SBCC) started in 2015 works to ensure that locals learn about chlorhexidine. The campaign spreads information about the usefulness and affordability of the miracle gel through local and national radio and broadcast television.
Monitoring and Evaluating
In 2017, the Navi Care Program prevented nearly 9,600 newborn deaths in Nepal. With the help of the JSI Research & Training Institute, the USAID Navi Care Program has set up mechanisms to document and monitor the impact of the program. Chlorhexidine reports have been integrated into the pre-existing government health management information system (HMIS) and logistics management information system (LMIS). In addition, JSI wanted to monitor the process of program implementation. It uses a comprehensive mechanical system to gather external research and surveys from local women. JSI conducted telephone calls and in-person visits to meet healthcare professionals, pregnant women in their last leg of pregnancy and women with infants under the age of six months. Through this, they have been able to gather feedback and identify gaps in the implementation of the Navi Care Program in Nepal.
The Navi Care Program and miracle gel have become increasingly successful in Nepal and can save millions of lives in other countries too. The discovery and implementation of medical solutions can have a revolutionary impact on all communities, especially those that are susceptible to illnesses and infant mortality.
– Samyudha Rajesh
Photo: Flickr
Addressing Social Exclusion: Reducing Poverty in Nepal
Despite the overwhelming loss due to earthquakes in 2015 and a near total economic seizure due to the halt in its cross-border trade with India in January 2016, Nepal reported one of the fastest poverty decline rates in the world particularly between 2003-2004 and 2010-2011. Between 1995–1996 and 2010–11, there was a 2.2 percentage point average yearly drop in the absolute poverty rate, bringing it to its present level of 25.2%. The significant increase in remittances sent by hundreds of thousands of Nepalis who have been working abroad since the late 1990s is the primary cause of the improvements in living conditions and the elimination of poverty and social exclusion. Both the quantity and the number of households in Nepal that receive remittances increased concurrently. From 1.3% of GDP in 1995 to 23% in 2010, remittances have grown in magnitude, and as of now, they account for 29% of GDP. The typical household income is now 16% remitted, up from 6% in 1995–1996.
The Complex Relationship Between Social Exclusion and Poverty
However, as evidenced by the low level of human development indices, inequality due to social exclusion demonstrates that poverty in Nepal also has inextricable links to a lack of access to the very resources required for overcoming it. A Hindu-dominated society, it has excluded four groups of people — Dalits, Madheshi or Terai people, ethnic/indigenous people and women —- from the contemporary development process be it political, economic or socio-cultural exclusion. Here are four ways that social exclusion and poverty interconnect in Nepal.
4 Facts About How Social Exclusion and Poverty Interconnect in Nepal
Disparities in the prevalence of poverty in Nepal and measures of human development are one way that caste-based social exclusion takes shape. The highest caste group, the Brahmins, has a significantly lower poverty rate than the lower caste groups, who lack opportunities in all spheres of life (cultural, social, political and economic). For instance, the literacy rate for the lowest caste is barely half of that for the upper caste groups with the life expectancy of the latter being six years more than the lowest caste at 51 years. Consequently, the rate of absolute poverty is 15 times higher in the lowest-caste groups than the national average.
The most glaring example of social exclusion based on ethnicity is poverty, which affects ethnic minorities like the Limbus, Tamangs, Magars, Tharus, Musahars and indigenous groups much like Chepangs and Raute more frequently than the general population as a whole. However, the Newars, who mainly inhabit the Kathmandu valley and other urban areas, have the lowest rate of poverty.
The Madhesi people have continuously experienced marginalization and exclusion from political, administrative, governance, policy development and decision-making processes. This has resulted in continual issues with citizenship, identity, language and their own home territory. The Madhesi people experience extreme discrimination and have almost forgotten what it is to “belong to this nation.” Paradoxically, though, the Madhesi and Terai (referred to as the main economic hub of Nepal by Gaige (1976) community’s exile from the national mainstream has been detrimental to the nation’s steady economic growth.
The situation is even more alarming for women from the lowest castes, where the literacy rate is only 7% and other social indices also show low scores. Due to their low position within their own group, Dalit women are even more disadvantaged. For instance, estimates have indicated that almost all Dalit women are living below the official poverty threshold. Discrimination, indifference and violence have links to exclusion.
Actions to Promote Social Inclusion
The Muluki Ain Civil Code of 1854 made the extremely rigid and hierarchical caste structure legal and gave the Adivasi Janajatis (non-Hindu indigenous ethnicities) a middle-rank position within the system. In 1963, Nepal legally outlawed caste-based discrimination. The government has taken action to increase Dalit involvement in local and national governance mechanisms through legislation and initiatives. Additionally, following the political shift in 2007, the inclusion of women continued to rise.
Even though the Panchayat rule put little effort into the integration of women, women’s representation in politics increased significantly. With the rise of modern under-grounded parties, the sixth amendment to the law code in 2033 B.S. granted some rights to women. By prohibiting child marriage and polygamy, Nepal made changes to the law governing women’s property, Anshabanda (the division of property among/among those legally entitled to it), women’s trafficking, prostitution and rape, among other things. A provision of 5% women candidates for parliamentary and 20% women representatives from each ward level became obligatory alongside the provision of at least 33% of women participation in legislative parliament.
The Constitution attempted to end all forms of discrimination based on national origin, race, caste, tribe, sex, economic circumstance, language, religion, ideology or any other basis, and it guaranteed equality before the law to all Nepalese citizens. Discrimination is illegal, and those who are the victims of it may seek restitution. By gathering better-disaggregated statistics and information on the effects of various forms of discrimination on the rights of different groups, Nepal devoted itself to combating inequality and discrimination. As a result, it developed suitable laws, policies and programs.
Conclusion
With regard to the domestication of the Convention and its successful application, Nepal had made a number of remarkable advancements, most notably through the adoption of a federal, democratic and republican Constitution in September 2015 and the establishment of local governments. Indicators of poverty and human development have been improving nationally, although there are still some disparities based on caste, ethnicity, location and gender. Although the government is succeeding in its mission to end poverty by addressing and reversing social exclusion, more is necessary to remove prejudice towards these communities on a societal level.
– Karisma Maran
Photo: Flickr
5 Organizations Fighting for Global Land Rights
Land rights present a global issue for numerous people across the world. Land rights protection allows peace promotion, poverty reduction and food security, and it allows local businesses to boost the economy. When poor people have property rights, they can start businesses, become integral parts of their communities, improve their food security and ultimately break the cycle of generational poverty.
Global Land Rights
The World Bank emphasizes that these rights are also extremely important for marginalized groups because they are more vulnerable to poverty. In 2016, only 30% of land in developing countries was unregistered, leaving many individuals prone to displacement along with heightened risks of “poverty, hunger, conflict, violence, poor governance, and lack of economic opportunity,” according to USAID. The good news is that help is available for those with difficulty securing land ownership. Numerous organizations are fighting for global land rights. Below are just a few of them:
5 Organizations Fighting for Global Land Rights
Looking Ahead
Land rights are important for poverty reduction, equal rights, food security and world peace. When nonprofits like these work to improve land rights, they also work towards a better future.
– Ava Ronning
Photo: Flickr
New Malaria Vaccine Could Be The Solution to Africa’s Malaria Crisis
As the summer draws to a close, so does the peak season for malaria infections in the West African nation of Burkina Faso. The Malaria Consortium estimates that up to 60% of malaria cases in the country occur during the period between July and November. The World Health Organization (WHO) 2021 malaria report notes that around 3% of global malaria deaths in 2020 took place in Burkina Faso alone. A new malaria vaccine could be the first step in tackling a disease that has plagued the African continent for decades.
The burden of malaria weighs heavily on the country’s population, especially in the Nanoro area, where researchers chose to trial a new vaccine in 2020. The results proved promising, and now, two years on, outcomes are still promising. A 2022 Lancet Infectious Diseases article suggests that, in combination with a booster dose administered one year after the original three doses, the vaccine remained highly effective in fighting malaria in children.
Malaria in Africa
Burkina Faso is not the only African nation tormented by this disease. In fact, the WHO’s 2021 malaria report stated that 95% of malaria cases in 2020 occurred in Africa, with Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda facing the worst impacts. This is primarily because the parasite that causes the most life-threatening form of malaria, plasmodium falciparum, is native to many African countries.
The effects of endemic malaria on a country can be both far-reaching and devastating. An Against Malaria Foundation report states that not only is malaria one of the leading causes of death among children due to their fragile immune systems but it also causes long-term health issues because the severity of the illness prevents children from participating in social and educational activities that promote healthy development. The report also highlights the strain placed on African health care infrastructure while trying to treat malaria, which accounts for between 20% and 50% of hospital admissions on the continent.
Health-related issues aside, the malaria crisis has contributed significantly to stagnating and even setting back economic development in Africa for years. The WHO estimates that the growth in GDP per year of countries with high numbers of malaria cases stood at only around 0.4% over the period between 1965 and 1990 — 1.9% lower than other countries where malaria is not such a concern.
The New Vaccine
Scientists have been working on a vaccine to combat malaria for years, but to say this endeavor is an uphill battle is an understatement. The parasite exists in three stages once it is inside the human body, making it difficult to target; a vaccine may work against the parasite at one stage but not the next. The best candidate up until recently was RTS,S, but the efficacy of this vaccine wanes significantly after the first year.
While it is an acceptable candidate, for now, research into other options is necessary and ongoing. The R21 vaccine produced by the University of Oxford is the most promising yet. The WHO has set a target of 75% efficacy for a prospective malaria vaccine — initial results, published in the Lancet in 2021, found that the R21 vaccine’s efficacy was between 74% and 77% after six months, meeting the WHO goal.
Coupled with the three initial doses, a booster after one year proved to restore the efficacy of the vaccine to its original levels. On September 7, 2022, a follow-up article revealed that the R21 vaccine remained safe and effective one year after the booster dose, making this the most effective malaria vaccine yet.
Not only is R21 highly effective but it also appears to cause no side effects more serious than a fever. It is also set to be cheaper than its predecessor, RTS,S — Oxford vaccine expert Adrian Hill, speaking to Chemical Engineering News, suggested that R21 may be sold for less than $5 per dose.
Looking Ahead
The R21 vaccine could have a bright future, but it requires further testing, and that can only happen with funding. The WHO has not yet approved it for wider use, but researchers are hopeful that with further larger-scale trials, the vaccine could receive approval as early as next year.
Malaria drains government resources, strains health care infrastructure and lowers labor productivity, according to the Giving What We Can Project. It also kills hundreds of thousands of people every year. Investing in solutions, especially in terms of research into potential vaccines, could be the remedy to the ongoing malaria crisis that has plagued Africa for decades.
– Abbi Powell
Photo: Flickr
USAID and UNICEF’s $40 Million Partnership To Support Education in Afghanistan
On August 12, 2022, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced its $40 million partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to support education for children in Afghanistan, particularly Afghan girls.
The Issue
The Taliban regained control in Afghanistan in August 2021. Since then, it has placed a ban on girls’ education in Afghanistan, restricting school access for millions of Afghan girls. Tens of thousands of teenage girls cannot access public secondary school (high school), even after the Taliban promised to reopen their schools. Meanwhile, the Taliban has authorized all primary school-aged children to go back to class, including girls, but schooling remains segregated by gender. The Taliban has allowed women to continue their degrees at universities under the condition of “a strictly gender-segregated system that will dramatically lower the range and quality of women’s options.”
Past Achievements in Afghan Girls’ Education
Previous to the Taliban takeover, support for children’s education in Afghanistan was increasing. Before the ban, 1.1 million girls attended secondary schools. From 2003 to 2017, secondary school attendance for teenage girls increased by 32%, and by 2018 there were 3.8 million female students in the country. This number increased dramatically from the 5,000 girls enrolled in schools in 2001. This increase was also accompanied by a rising number of women in higher education, decreasing the gender disparity in university enrollment.
The Taliban Takeover in August 2021
Following the Taliban takeover in August 2021, “access to safe, quality, and relevant education is no longer a reality for many Afghans.” In Afghanistan, the Taliban has scaled back women’s rights. Countless women are losing their jobs or ability to enter the workforce, and tens of thousands of girls losing their right to an education. “Women are being deprived of their dignity… status at home and in society.” While the Taliban has allowed the reopening of primary schools for both boys and girls, they are to attend gender-segregated classes. In September 2021, the Taliban reopened public secondary schools only to boys, claiming that girls could only return to class under “a safe learning environment.” While some private secondary schools reopened in 10 out of 34 provinces, allowing a limited number of girls to re-enroll, the majority of teenage girls have lost their rights to education in Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s Block on Girls’ Education
“In October 2021, Afghan officials announced that girls would be able to resume attendance in government secondary schools but only after the development of a new educational framework.” In January 2022, the Taliban announced plans to reopen schools for girls aged 13 and up in late March. Yet, when the deadline to reopen came earlier this year, the blockage of girls’ education in Afghanistan Only continued. “On March 23, the first day of the school year in Afghanistan, eager female students arriving for class found closed gates and armed Taliban guards who told them to go home.”
The Good News: Afghan Girls’ Dedicated Pursuit for Education
Despite this ban, many Afghans still have the determination to receive an education. An estimated few hundred young female students have decided to continue their educational lessons in secret, whether that be through online resources or in hidden makeshift classrooms. Code to Inspire (CTI) is Afghanistan’s first all-girls coding academy, and the CEO/founder Fereshteh Forough announced the academy’s creation of encrypted virtual classrooms. Through CTI, Forough has helped Afghan girls pursue their right to an education by uploading online courses and providing “laptops and internet packages to about 100 of her students.”
The Aim of the Agreement
The $40 million agreement between USAID and UNICEF will “provide hundreds of thousands” of Afghans with “cash assistance to keep their children in school.” USAID will fund the project while UNICEF will supply the resources needed to assist students during Afghanistan’s “ongoing humanitarian, economic, and political crises.” More specific information about the agreement and the resources it intends to supply is to come. This agreement to support children’s education is especially significant for Afghan girls and women amidst the Taliban’s blockage of schools. USAID did announce that the project intends to support the learning of “foundational skills, such as reading, writing, and math.” In the same press release, USAID emphasized the importance of girls’ education in Afghanistan. When girls in Afghanistan have access to education, they gain access to “resources and tools [that will] support their safety, social, and economic well-being.”
– Ashley Kim
Photo: Flickr
What to Know about HIV/AIDs in Bulgaria
Demographics
The prevalence of HIV/AIDs in Bulgaria is higher among men than women and new cases are most common in people 30 to 40 years old. By far the most common mode of infection for men and women is sexual contact, representing 89% of all new cases, while the remainder is mostly drug use by a needle. The rate of new cases is also drastically more likely in urban areas, 40% of all new cases being from the capital city Sofia alone. Al Although 17.7% of Bulgaria’s population resides in Sofia, this is still a much higher per capita rate than elsewhere in the country.
History
In 2004, The Global Fund, an international organization sponsored by many private and governmental agencies, provided Bulgaria with significant financial support to expand its fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. With this money, the Bulgarian Government expanded HIV/AIDs resources through its Health Ministry as well as sponsored many NGOs dedicated to implementing wide-reaching services for HIV/AIDs treatment and diagnosis.
While the steady increase in documented AIDs cases since the Global Fund’s intervention might make it seem as if the problem is actually getting worse, this apparent setback is just a result of more widely available testing and is not necessarily indicative of an increase in HIV/AIDs cases. In fact, these measures were largely effective and continue to contribute to the relatively low rate of HIV/AIDs in Bulgaria.
However, due to the country’s success, in 2014 the Global Fund determined Bulgaria was no longer eligible for aid and by 2017 the government spent the remaining Global Fund money. Due to these changes, many NGOs dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDs have either dissolved or shrunk, Politico reported. While the government is doing well in maintaining treatment and diagnoses for its citizens, NGOs were primarily responsible for reaching marginalized and impoverished communities with on-the-ground testing and prevention efforts and the extent of inclusion of these is difficult to determine.
On the Bright Side
The fight against HIV/AIDs in Bulgaria is largely successful even in the absence of Global Fund support. The rate of diagnoses is only 3.7 per 100,000 people as opposed to the EU average of 5.4 per 100,000 people, making it a success story among eastern European countries. Treatment of HIV/AIDs in Bulgaria is also a success with 98% of its infected population receiving antiretroviral therapy, a marked difference from the 68% world average, Radio Bulgaria reported.
Additionally, according to WHO, due to stigma as well as limited access to resources and transportation, many people simply will not or cannot access the treatment or testing they need. By using private, at-home tests, the experimenters sought to circumvent these factors and it showed many people who otherwise would not have had access utilized the at-home option. Projects like this foreground a bright future in the fight against HIV/AIDs in Bulgaria.
Lastly, after observing several similar instances of countries struggling to transition to the absence of support from the Global Fund, the organization revised its policy to account for an adjustment period. These revisions include “investing in the development of robust National Health Strategies, Disease Specific Strategic Plans… and requirements to ensure that Global Fund financed programs can be implemented through country systems.” With these changes, countries dealing with the same process in the future could be better able to maintain their fight against HIV/AIDs.
– Xander Heiple
Photo: Unsplash
Hurricane Ian: Black Out in Cuba as 11 Million Lose Power
In the midst of the most powerful hurricane in nearly a century, Cuba’s Antonio Guiteras thermo-electric power plant lost power leaving 11 million without electricity. By Monday, October 3, 2022, reports stated that some of the island had regained power, yet large numbers of Cubans were still in the dark. Much of the island has experienced a subsequent water crisis as the plant is responsible for pumping fresh water across the island. Hurricane Ian produced winds upwards of 150 mph, leaving two dead and 20 unaccounted for. As authorities scramble to recoup in the wake of hurricane Ian, many have been wondering what is next, and when the state-run power grid will be up and running for all.
Dismay in the Eye of the Storm
On Tuesday, September 27, 2022, Hurricane Ian hit Cuba as a Category 3. It impacted the city of Pinar del Rio the hardest. Winds of up to 125 mph battered the western part of the island, damaging some of the most important tobacco farms in La Robaina. Agriculture is the main industry in the island nation and damage to this farm could result in further deprivation, as the circulation of goods is already slow. Cuba’s power outages have grown more frequent in the previous months, with a dated electrical power system, and blockage of income from tourism, the country’s stability is teetering.
The country depends on its export of medicine, and medical practitioners, as well as tourism and remittances, to remain somewhat secure. The COVID-19 pandemic left the country in a desperate economic state, with the closure of tourism, and President Trump’s new restrictions on Western Union transfers introduced in November 2020. Now Russia’s war in Ukraine has blocked tourists from dispersing their usual flow of hard currency in the country. Russians made up 40% of the tourists visiting Cuba in 2021, but the war halted flights back to Russia overnight, and along with air travel, a flow of touristic income has ceased to exist.
Upside and Solutions
Luckily, the Cuban model of disaster relief is much more advanced than the U.S. The U.N. has called the Cuban system “A Model in Hurricane Risk Management.” However, the factor that makes this model so advanced is education. Cubans learn how to prepare for a storm from a young age and receive warnings well in advance when a hurricane is approaching. This leads to fewer deaths overall as people flee the area of impact well before the storm arrives. Moreover, people are knowledgeable about how to prepare for hurricanes, and they take absolutely nothing for granted.
The U.N. reported that “All institutions are mobilized 48 hours before the hurricane hits the island, to implement the emergency plan, and measures such as massive evacuation are taken.” Unfortunately, much of this initiative has occurred out of necessity. Due to the authoritarian government, Cuba’s actual poverty data is hard to come by, but in 2020, the population was indirectly estimated to be at a poverty level of 41-50%. With the country in a dire state due to the pandemic, increased sanctions, and now trade issues with its global partner, individuals have often been on their own.
Global Solutions
Cuba is set to receive 1 million Euros in Aid from the EU. The storm damaged an estimated 100,000 homes, leaving many in need of housing. This act of solidarity by the EU will help the island nation recoup in the wake of the disaster. While government sanctions have still been largely hindering the country from receiving donations, Catholic Relief Sevices, in partnership with Caritas Cuba, has found a way around the blockade to get vital, non-perishable goods, water and supplies to people who need them.
– Shane Chase
Photo: Pixnio