Since the year 2000, Ethiopia has halved its maternal and child mortality rate. While this statistic seems impressive on the surface, the rate of maternal and child mortality in Ethiopia remains one of the highest in the world. The child mortality rate stands at 67 deaths per 1,000 children. The Ethiopian maternal mortality rate (MMR) per 100,000 live births is 412. This number is 25 times the United States MMR.
The Global Context of Maternal and Child Mortality
The rate of maternal and child mortality in Ethiopia is best understood by examining the larger global context of maternal and child mortality. Globally, neonatal mortality remains significantly high, with 7,000 newborn deaths a day. Neonatal mortality comprises 47% of the deaths of children under 5. This number is up 7% from 1990 when it stood at 40%. Furthermore, the greatest number of neonatal deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Globally, the MMR has dropped 38% from 2000 to 2017, which is the most recent WHO estimate, but it is important to note that even though the overall global MMR has reduced, some regions still disproportionately experience very high MMR rates. The greatest number of maternal deaths occur in Africa, just as with neonatal mortality. In fact, in 2017, 66% of all maternal deaths occurred in Africa.
A key cause of maternal and newborn mortality is malnutrition. Due to COVID-19, the World Food Programme predicted that the number of food-insecure people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) would double to 265 million by the close of 2020. Food insecurity often links to malnutrition or undernutrition. Therefore, this fact has the potential to increase maternal deaths due to a lack of iron and other essential nutrients. The WHO estimates that, as it stands globally, 40% of pregnant women are anemic. Anemia makes these women vulnerable to fatal bleeding and infections during childbirth. Furthermore, while high-income countries have very low anemia figures for pregnant women, in certain LMICs, up to 60% of pregnant women struggle with anemia.
Global Aid Organizations Leading the Battle
Fortunately, during and despite the COVID-19 pandemic, global aid organizations have been collaborating with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and other regional bureaus to continue to decrease the rate of maternal and child mortality in Ethiopia.
As a major player in combatting maternal and child mortality in Ethiopia, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) focuses on providing Ethiopian women, children and families, especially those in underserved communities, access to quality healthcare. USAID works with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and regional bureaus to institute better training so that healthcare workers can improve the care provided at various levels (facility, community and household). USAID ensures access to integrated services such as prenatal checkups, skilled care for labor and delivery, newborn care, preventative care for childhood illnesses and nutritional guidance.
Quality of Care Network
Ethiopia is a member of a 10-country Quality of Care Network created by the WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The Network launched in 2017 with the aim of halving maternal and child mortality by 2022 and improving patient care. In Ethiopia, this commitment involves clinical mentoring and coaching since learning is an essential aspect. Ethiopia chose 17 districts that represent “pastoralist, urban and rural populations” to operate as “learning districts.”
Maternal Mortality Reduction
These coordinated efforts seem to be making headway according to the 2020 Gates Foundation Goalkeepers Report, which tracks progress on SDG goals. In 2019, the Ethiopian MMR was down to 205 deaths per 100,000 live births which would meet the Quality of Care Network goal of halving maternal and child mortality by 2022.
Ethiopian child mortality was down from 66 deaths per 1,000 children under 5 in 2015 to 52 deaths in 2019, which represents more modest progress. However, the Goalkeepers Report warns that COVID-19 could reverse progress made on global goals and asserts that a global collaborative response is essential in all areas.
It is critical to maintain heightened vigilance in coordinating efforts to continue to improve maternal and child mortality rates in Ethiopia despite COVID-19 challenges, so that progress is not lost.
– Shelly Saltzman
Photo: Flickr
Aiding Over 2 Million Syrian Refugees
Syria has been at the center of an ongoing civil war since 2011. The civil war displaced over 6.1 million people and over 5.6 million became refugees. With over 13 million people requiring humanitarian aid, Syria is in dire need of assistance. The COVID-19 pandemic affected over 1.1 million refugees and magnified the levels of food insecurity, joblessness and poverty. Children make up half of those suffering from the effects of the civil war. Luckily, since the beginning of the humanitarian crisis, the Maram Foundation has been aiding over 2 million Syrian refugees access the necessities they require.
The Maram Foundation’s Background
The Maram Foundation is a nonprofit organization that focuses on development projects in Syria. The nonprofit started by helping to establish the Olive Tree Atmeh camp for internally displaced persons (IDP). The Atmeh camp was home to over 28,000 people in northern Syria. A child in the Atmeh camp influenced the naming of the Maram Foundation. They suffered from paralysis as a result of shrapnel damage. The nonprofit currently works in refugee camps across Syria and in parts of Turkey and Jordan. Through the use of a series of development programs, the Maram Foundation has aided over 2 million Syrian refugees.
Development Programs
With 80% of Syrian refugees living below the poverty line, the Maram Foundation is providing direct support to the people through camp management, development and livelihood programs. The Camp Coordination and Camp Management program works to promote human rights within the Syrian refugee camps. These camps are temporary solutions to the ongoing crisis. The programs plan to improve the refugee camps to promote the living standards, safety and comfort of refugees.
The Maram Foundation uses early recovery strategies to ensure refugee camps are able to use humanitarian aid. It will foster sustainable development rather than create dependency. The Maram Foundation also works to ensure the refugee camps are free of abuse, violence and fear through community empowerment of women and children. Additionally, education programs are also working to ensure that children in refugee camps are able to receive the education they need. This will help them grow and develop professional skills.
Benefits of the Maram Foundation
As more than 9 million Syrians suffer from food insecurity, the Maram Foundation is also working to strengthen refugee camps. This will result in providing shelter and non-food items such as clothing. It will improve food, water and hygiene systems in Syria. The Maram Foundation seeks to ensure Syrian refugees have these resources.
The Food Security and Livelihood program works to build the resilience of refugees by providing them with the ability to grow their own food and combat malnutrition. The program has built resilience towards food scarcity across the refugee camps in Syria. The nonprofit provides a water, sanitation and hygiene program called WASH. This program provides refugees with access to clean water and waste disposal. The program takes action against the spread of contamination and disease. This protects the health and living standards of the refugee communities.
Looking Forward
The Maram Foundation has been aiding over 2 million Syrian refugees since the start of the crisis in 2011. The Maram Foundation has partnered with non-governmental organizations to get the funding it requires to carry out its work. With the ongoing pandemic, the Maram Foundation has continued to work in Syrian refugee communities to build pandemic resilient housing. Millions of people are suffering from the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria. The Maram Foundation for Relief and Development is working to promote the safety and dignity of the Syrian people.
– Gerardo Valladares
Photo: Flickr
An Update on COVID-19 Research in South America
Innovations for Poverty Action is a nonprofit research and policy organization that is working to establish research projects that address inequalities and discover global poverty solutions across 22 countries. The nonprofit organization continues to work with 830 research projects in eight areas: education, financial inclusion, health, peace and recovery, social protection, agriculture, governance and other enterprises. Today, the IPA continues to perform important research projects to present high-quality evidence to policymakers by analyzing results from studies focusing on the impact of financial education in various countries. This extends to COVID-19 research in South America.
IPA Colombia
IPA Colombia has conducted research addressing topics ranging from early childhood development and education to financial inclusion and gender-based violence. From June to August 2020, four researchers partnered with the IPA, Fundación Capital and The Family Compensation Fund of Antioquia to measure the impact of a COVID-19 WhatsApp intervention program on financial health, women’s empowerment and intimate partner violence of low-income individuals in Antioquia. The program originated from a Fundación Capital, IPA and Colombian government partnership that implemented a LISTA financial education program and survey for cash transfer beneficiaries from 2015 to 2016. Following COVID-19, a WhatsApp intervention program emerged and the IPA evaluated 1,549 women and 784 men in a treatment or control study. The interactive WhatsApp treatment program provided communication services, psychosocial support and a financial education program for participants from June to July 2020.
IPA Colombia and Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) Partnerships
The IADB partnered with IPA Colombia to start a Special Permit of Permanence for the Administrative Registry of Venezuelan migrants (PEP-RAMV) research study in September 2020. The PEP-RAMV permit program became open to census registered Venezuelan migrants for two-year temporary work and residence permits starting in July 2018. Researchers compared 4,000 registered or undocumented migrant homes through research, telephone surveys and 42 interviews to help policymakers understand how the permit impacts migrant healthcare and employment as information to base new Colombia migration policies.
The IPA partnered with two IADB researchers in a COVID-19 mitigation strategy compliance evaluation with 1,300 university students in Bogota as a strategy to support Colombia. The researchers partnered with the IPA and Rosario University to inform students about the participant and public benefits of following COVID-19 mitigation policies or controlled classical music treatment. Moreover, the researchers requested to send a participant opinion survey on COVID-19 mitigation strategy compliance to help determine whether COVID-19 mitigation policies should reduce.
IPA Paraguay
For several years, the IPA has worked on research-based projects in Paraguay addressing education and pension programs. From May to July 2020, IPA researchers conducted telephone surveys with 2,035 women entrepreneurs in rural Paraguay to determine whether microfinance loans for the self-employed can help businesses and households build resilience to overcome the impact of COVID-19. The IPA telephone surveys asked the entrepreneurs interested in microloans about the impact of COVID-19 on their farms or businesses.
UCONN Agricultural and Resource Economics Professor and IPA Researcher, Nathan Fiala, has worked with a Paraguay microfinance organization since 2018. Fiala told The Borgen Project that a 2019 baseline survey addressed women “who have expressed interest in receiving a microloan” before they accessed loans from the Paraguay microfinance organization in 2019. According to Fiala, the IPA joined the project because the microfinance “research that exists out there is not of good quality and we’re trying to improve on the quality of that research” by 2022. Recently, Fiala found that the Paraguay microfinance organization is “expanding certain programming and doing more close work” with the women entrepreneurs based on participant needs.
IPA COVID-19 Response
In 2020, the IPA started the Research for Effective COVID-19 Responses (RECOVR) program with multiple partner agencies. The initial inter-agency funded RECOVR survey occurred between May and July 2020 in 10 countries while subsequent surveys were conducted between July and December 2020. The initial survey asked participants about the impact of COVID-19, while subsequent surveys focused on child welfare and domestic violence in August and November 2020 as a strategy to support Colombia.
A Look Ahead: COVID-19 Research in South America
The IPA partnered with the National Planning Department (DNP) of Colombia to observe the impact of the VAT Compensation in a telephone survey for 1,730 beneficiaries and 1,732 non-beneficiary households from June to November 2020. The DNP managed the 75,000 Colombian peso cash transfers before the Department of Social Prosperity took over management to reach 1 million social welfare beneficiary households every five to eight weeks starting on March 31, 2020. The survey found that VAT Compensation beneficiaries were more likely to support COVID-19 precautions than non-beneficiaries.
The IPA has developed 80 COVID-19 response evaluations and an International Growth Centre support partnership for COVID-19 Economic Impact surveys. The surveys helped increase COVID-19 research in South America and inform policymakers about how to regulate COVID-19 policies. Fiala continues to analyze the importance of microfinance loans in rural Paraguay. As the IPA continues to analyze results on the PEP-RAMV study, Colombia began to initiate a 10-year Temporary Statute of Protection for Venezuelan Migrants (TSPV) for approximately 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants in February 2021 as a strategy to support Colombia.
– Evan Winslow
Photo: Flickr
Refugee Sanitation Safety for Girls and Women
Life as a Girl in a Refugee Camp
The refugee crisis across the world has displaced more than 17 million girls. These girls have fled from their homes in an effort to escape violence, poverty, hunger and other oppressive forces. Human traffickers prey on girls and force them into child labor and sex trafficking. Families in poverty often have to prioritize short-term well-being over the long-term, meaning child marriage is an all too frequent occurrence. The well-being of women and girls is often underprioritized despite the fact that girls and women play a large role in global poverty reduction efforts and global development as a whole. For this reason, women need to be protected, especially women who are susceptible to increased vulnerabilities, such as girls and women in refugee camps.
Refugee women and girls who move around alone are separated from the protection of a larger group, leaving them even more vulnerable to attacks from men within the camps. Many camps have arisen quickly and without much regard for the safety of women because of the urgency of the situation of displaced people. Without measures protecting women and girls in camps, victims often find themselves alone and secluded as they make the trip to access food, water and sanitation. These areas are prime areas for attacks and need extra protection to ensure potential victims are safe.
The Bill’s History
Rep. Meng first introduced the Refugee Sanitation Facility Safety Act in 2019 in the 116th Congress. Even though the House of Representatives passed the bill, clearing it for introduction in the Senate, the bill did not make it further. The 117th Congress convened on January 3, 2021, and Rep. Meng reintroduced the bill on February 18, 2021. Assuming it passes both the House and the Senate, it will go on to President Biden who will choose whether or not to sign it into law.
Creating Change
The Refugee Sanitation Facility Safety Act ensures ensure women and girls in refugee camps are able to utilize bathrooms without fear of attack. A starting point for this would be gender-separate bathrooms and well-lit pathways and infrastructure within refugee camps. Devon Cone of Refugees International emphasizes that “Displaced women and girls often live in precarious circumstances and are frequently at risk of experiencing gender-based violence. Women and girls should be able to access sanitation facilities in a safe and dignified manner and this legislation is an important step forward.” With extra measures for safety around sanitation facilities, camps would be a safer place for women and girls.
– Holly Dorman
Photo: Flickr
The Nazarene Fund’s Rescue Stories
The Nazarene Fund is an organization that focuses on rescuing people in captivity. This includes victims of sex slavery, the labor trade, organ harvesting and trafficking. The Nazarene Fund trains operators to lead these missions. These operators travel to the Middle East, Africa, Haiti and other regions of the world to rescue people. Here are some of The Nazarene Fund’s rescue stories.
Sonia’s Story
ISIS captured Sonia and her entire family when she was only 4 years old. Her family lived in Wardya, a village in Sinjar. ISIS abducted them from their home in 2014. Sonia became separated from her siblings. Later, traffickers imprisoned her in Mosul. Additionally, a family bought Sonia in Mosul nine months later. This family treated her as a slave during the five years they held her captive. The family and Sonia disappeared after ISIS’s defeat in Mosul. Thus, the Nazarene Fund launched a search mission for Sonia. Eventually, the organization found her in an orphanage in Mosul and reunited her with her already rescued family.
Halima’s Story
The second of The Nazarene Fund’s rescue stories has to do with Halima, a 22-year-old Yazidi woman. Traffickers abducted Halima in Turkey. She spent six years in captivity until The Nazarene Fund rescued her in July 2020. ISIS fighters kidnapped Halima and 18 relatives from her village in northern Iraq. Halima was only 16 years old. She was then enslaved and suffered from violence, abuse and exploitation for five years. ISIS made its last territorial stand in Baghuz, Syria in 2019. Moreover, Halima resided there along with other Yazidi women and children. Later, traffickers planned to sell her as a slave or harvest her organs. Fortunately, The Nazarene Fund intervened and reunited her with her family.
Mayada’s Story
Mayada Abo Chehwan is a 50-year-old Syrian woman born in the District of Hama. Her husband is a pharmacist and she has two daughters. However, everything changed when ISIS attacked. Bombs destroyed Mayada’s home and her husband’s pharmacy. As a result, they fled their home and sold their belongings to survive. The family spent months in neighboring towns and in Lebanon. They eventually returned home. However, the shelling of the town forced the family to flee again. Thus, they sought refuge in Iraq.
One of her daughters was diagnosed with diabetes and the other with severe anxiety. Meanwhile, her husband became partially paralyzed from heart disease. The daughters experienced sexual harassment and threats that others would sell them sex slavery while they searched for jobs. Mayada was becoming desperate. Thankfully, The Nazarene Fund operatives successfully relocated the family to housing in a safe area and provided them with the care and assistance they needed. The Nazarene Fund operatives continue to support the family and are helping them immigrate to Australia.
These are just a few of The Nazarene Fund’s rescue stories. The organization strives to help people who are in desperate need of assistance. Its goal is to rescue people who cannot help themselves and assist them in maintaining a safe, healthy life.
– Marcella Teresi
Photo: Flickr
A Schoolteacher in India Wins Global Teacher Prize
Ranjitsinh Disale received the Global Teacher Prize in December 2020. Disale is a 32-year-old schoolteacher in Paritewadi, a village located in a rural area of Western India. The Varkey Foundation named Ranjitsinh Disale the most inspirational teacher of 2020 for various reasons. Additionally, he remodeled the area’s school system, optimized pupils’ learning process and empowered teenage girls.
Celebrating Teachers Around the World
The Varkey Foundation collaborates with UNESCO to award the Global Teacher Prize to educators around the world. This Foundation believes that education should be at the center of social and humanitarian issues. According to the Varkey Foundation, education “has the power to reduce poverty, prejudice and conflict.” The Global Teacher Prize is a $1 million grant that goes to one educator every year to celebrate their contributions to education and, by extension, world peace.
The Varkey Foundation underscores the impact of the Global Teacher Prize on local and international levels. As education shapes future generations, it is crucial to invest in teaching and improve educational systems on a global scale. Thus, the Global Teacher Prize has always received important media coverage. Moreover, the Global Teacher Prize inauguration obtained international support from Prince William, Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates in 2014. International media supports the foundation’s goals and is crucial for the Global Teacher Prize. It recognizes the essential nature of education-related professions. Overall, the Global Teacher Prize awarded more than 40 national rewards to teachers and educators all around the world. For instance, 17 countries and states created awards celebrating local teachers in 2017.
The 2020 World’s Most Inspirational Teacher
Ranjitsinh Disale greatly contributed to the educational and cultural structures he worked in. Shortly after arriving in the small village of Paritewadie, he learned the local language. He then translated the textbooks used in his classes to improve his students’ ability to study efficiently. The 2020 laureate showed dazzling commitment to his profession. For example, he used technology to transform the educational system. He made PowerPoint presentations to expose his students to the outside world. Furthermore, he showed YouTube videos, songs and movies to his students on his personal laptop. Others best knew Disale for embedding QR codes into the students’ books so they could use videos and poems while studying a specific lesson.
One of the main challenges Ranjitsinh Disale encountered as a teacher was the lack of access to education for teenage girls. The schoolteacher used interactive and digital versions of his own lessons to reach girls who were staying at home. In addition, he personally advocated against teenage marriages. According to the Varkey Foundation, the schoolteacher transformed the entire village’s system. The organization stated, “The impact of Ranjitsinh’s interventions has been extraordinary. There are now no teenage marriages in the village and 100 per cent attendance by girls at the school.”
Hope for the Future
Disale’s contributions to world peace do not stop here. The schoolteacher recently took part in the Let’s Cross the Borders and Live Together project. This international project aims to create a network between young people living in conflict zones to raise global awareness and build international solidarity.
Ranjitsinh Disale explains that collaboration is crucial in the fight against poverty. As a result, he decided to share his $1 million prize with the nine other Global Teacher Prize finalists. By supporting other inspirational educators, the schoolteacher hopes that they can all help improve education systems in developing countries. In an interview, the schoolteacher declared that his highest hope was to give every student from underdeveloped countries a chance to access quality education.
To make his dream come true, local solidary and international cooperation remain crucial to his vision of an educated future.
– Soizic Lecocq
Photo: Flickr
Addressing Statelessness in Thailand
Thailand has one of the world’s largest populations of stateless people with nearly 500,000 registered in 2020. NGOs and human rights activists believe the true number is much higher at up to 2 million. Statelessness refers to those lacking recognition of citizenship by any country. Without having a nationality, people lack access to basic necessities such as healthcare, education and social security. Here is some information about statelessness in Thailand.
Why Are People Stateless?
The cultural heterogeneity and rugged border regions of Thailand have long allowed indigenous cultures to live outside of the modern nation-state framework. Some stateless groups in Thailand’s border regions actively avoided becoming part of the Thai nation-state. They remained separate to maintain their own unique cultural customs. Discriminatory practices toward ethnic minorities by the ethnic Thais have also played a role in statelessness in Thailand.
Ethnic groups such as the Hmong, Akha, Karen and others are traditionally semi-nomadic and live throughout different Southeast Asian nations. They do not identify with one specific nation. In modern times, borders have become more solidified. The relative autonomy of indigenous cultures has largely existed within international borders. For indigenous children born within the Thai borders, their citizenship ties to their parents. These parents often lack documentation to prove that they were technically born in Thailand, which renders children stateless.
Refugees and Asylum Seekers
Other stateless people in Thailand are refugees from Burmese states just across the border. These refugees have endured decades of armed conflict against the central government. More than 100,000 Karen, Karenni, Shan and other groups arrived in the 1980s and 1990s to refugee camps along the Thai border. They have largely remained in these camps due to instability at home and the Thai government’s unwillingness to grant citizenship. These refugees also lack Burmese citizenship in many cases. With increased political and social instability following the recent 2021 military coup, this protracted refugee crisis will likely persist.
There are also stateless people that others know as the Moken or ‘Sea Gypsies’ in the south of Thailand, along with asylum seekers originating from dozens of countries in the Bangkok metropolitan area. Thai authorities struggle to formulate clear strategies on how to process citizenship requests for the many existing situations. Some can lay claim to ancestry within the modern Thai borders that stretch back hundreds of years. Others are more recent arrivals in need of human rights assistance.
Risk Factors of Statelessness in Thailand
There are innumerable challenges for stateless people in Thailand. Without having Thai citizenship, stateless people cannot travel freely across international borders. As a result, they fear detention and arrest while traveling within Thailand. There are also barriers to accessing legitimate jobs. This puts some at risk of becoming victims of human trafficking in trying to access decent livelihoods.
For young people, the lack of a decent education is a major concern. The Thai government has made an effort to educate all children within its borders, but stateless students are not able to access scholarships for higher education. Lack of access to decent health care and legal representation are other barriers facing stateless people.
Solutions
Since 2016, Thailand has joined one of the central goals of the UNHCR to end statelessness worldwide by 2024 in its #IBelong campaign. The country has taken great efforts to reconfigure citizenship laws to allow tens of thousands to access Thai citizenship in recent years. Leading up to joining the #IBelong campaign, Thailand had loosened citizenship restrictions in 2008 with its amendment of the Thai Nationality Law. Although implementation has been slow, the processing of citizenship claims have ramped up with the help of UNHCR.
There have been highly publicized events uncovering the plight of stateless people, which include the Thai Cave Rescue in 2018, in which several of the rescued soccer team members and their coach were stateless at the time. The Thai government streamlined its citizenship procedures shortly after the rescue operation. The players and their coach had previously not been able to travel freely to play in games outside of their local area.
Increased Awareness
While the sheer number of stateless people in Thailand may make the 2024 deadline to end statelessness difficult to reach, there is more general awareness of the issue. That offers some hope in granting citizenship to large numbers in this population. Much of the recent stateless population is due to conflict in Myanmar, and others should commend Thailand for allowing refugees to remain in relative safety within its borders.
– Matthew Brown
Photo: Flickr
The STRYDE Program: Rural Women Entrepreneurs
The Strengthening Rural Youth Development through Enterprise (STRYDE) program has been helping women in developing countries develop and learn entrepreneurial skills as well as partner them with mentors. A mere 28% of Africa’s labor force consists of stable-wage jobs. The other 72% consists of income mainly from farming. Many African youths choose to move to the city, seeking better work opportunities. However, according to TechnoServe, 70% of youth remain in rural areas. These areas have a large absence of training and job opportunities.
Ndinagwe Mboya, STRYDE and Training
In Mbeya, Tanzania, one woman has managed to reinvent how the world views women entrepreneurs, especially young women. Ndinagwe Mboya, a 22-year-old, managed to revive her father’s struggling egg incubation businesses. Through lessons available through the STRYDE program, Mboya decided to capitalize on her family’s farm. Through STRYDE’s business plan competition, she won $165. She then used that money to purchase more eggs and subsequently raise more chickens. In a period of 45 days, she was able to triple her original profits. From this increase, she spread to working with other animals by breeding pigs and rabbits. She now earns $210 a month.
TechnoServe states that Business Women Connect has worked to empower women with the ingenuity and experience necessary to make their businesses thrive. The goal is to increase connection to mobile savings technologies and to provide greater access to vital business skills. The STRYDE program began in 2011 when Technoserve and the Mastercard Foundation partnered to ease the adversity of rural youth in Africa through financial independence.
By November 2020, more than 68,000 rural youths gained technical and soft skills through training. The curriculum includes the development of personal effectiveness, future plans, communication and confidence. Across Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, 15,000 rural youths received sessions such as skills training, aftercare and mentoring. These sessions provided the knowledge necessary to expand their business opportunities.
STRYDE Program Models
The STRYDE program focuses on two main models.
Mboya has become a mentor for other women entrepreneurs, taking part in a three-week training program designed for business counselors. Mboya takes pride in her work, teaching other Tanzanian businesswomen how to succeed in entrepreneurship and grow their businesses through the STRYDE curriculum. According to Technoserve, the STRYDE program taught Mboye to believe in herself and her abilities as an entrepreneur.
Successes of the Project
The average participant of the program has seen an increase in income by 133% and more than 48,000 youths total having benefited from the training institutions. STRYDE participants in Tanzania totaled 15,773, 61% of those being women. In Tanzania alone, the TechnoServe partnership has established eight Vocational Training Centers and eight local NGOs and community-based organizations (CBO).
The STRYDE program allows entrepreneurial women, such as Mboya, to gain the confidence and skills needed to succeed in a mainly male-dominated field.
– Nina Eddinger
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Improving Maternal and Child Mortality in Ethiopia
The Global Context of Maternal and Child Mortality
The rate of maternal and child mortality in Ethiopia is best understood by examining the larger global context of maternal and child mortality. Globally, neonatal mortality remains significantly high, with 7,000 newborn deaths a day. Neonatal mortality comprises 47% of the deaths of children under 5. This number is up 7% from 1990 when it stood at 40%. Furthermore, the greatest number of neonatal deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa.
Globally, the MMR has dropped 38% from 2000 to 2017, which is the most recent WHO estimate, but it is important to note that even though the overall global MMR has reduced, some regions still disproportionately experience very high MMR rates. The greatest number of maternal deaths occur in Africa, just as with neonatal mortality. In fact, in 2017, 66% of all maternal deaths occurred in Africa.
A key cause of maternal and newborn mortality is malnutrition. Due to COVID-19, the World Food Programme predicted that the number of food-insecure people in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) would double to 265 million by the close of 2020. Food insecurity often links to malnutrition or undernutrition. Therefore, this fact has the potential to increase maternal deaths due to a lack of iron and other essential nutrients. The WHO estimates that, as it stands globally, 40% of pregnant women are anemic. Anemia makes these women vulnerable to fatal bleeding and infections during childbirth. Furthermore, while high-income countries have very low anemia figures for pregnant women, in certain LMICs, up to 60% of pregnant women struggle with anemia.
Global Aid Organizations Leading the Battle
Fortunately, during and despite the COVID-19 pandemic, global aid organizations have been collaborating with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and other regional bureaus to continue to decrease the rate of maternal and child mortality in Ethiopia.
As a major player in combatting maternal and child mortality in Ethiopia, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) focuses on providing Ethiopian women, children and families, especially those in underserved communities, access to quality healthcare. USAID works with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and regional bureaus to institute better training so that healthcare workers can improve the care provided at various levels (facility, community and household). USAID ensures access to integrated services such as prenatal checkups, skilled care for labor and delivery, newborn care, preventative care for childhood illnesses and nutritional guidance.
Quality of Care Network
Ethiopia is a member of a 10-country Quality of Care Network created by the WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The Network launched in 2017 with the aim of halving maternal and child mortality by 2022 and improving patient care. In Ethiopia, this commitment involves clinical mentoring and coaching since learning is an essential aspect. Ethiopia chose 17 districts that represent “pastoralist, urban and rural populations” to operate as “learning districts.”
Maternal Mortality Reduction
These coordinated efforts seem to be making headway according to the 2020 Gates Foundation Goalkeepers Report, which tracks progress on SDG goals. In 2019, the Ethiopian MMR was down to 205 deaths per 100,000 live births which would meet the Quality of Care Network goal of halving maternal and child mortality by 2022.
Ethiopian child mortality was down from 66 deaths per 1,000 children under 5 in 2015 to 52 deaths in 2019, which represents more modest progress. However, the Goalkeepers Report warns that COVID-19 could reverse progress made on global goals and asserts that a global collaborative response is essential in all areas.
It is critical to maintain heightened vigilance in coordinating efforts to continue to improve maternal and child mortality rates in Ethiopia despite COVID-19 challenges, so that progress is not lost.
– Shelly Saltzman
Photo: Flickr
Energy Vault is Working to Fight Energy Poverty
“Energy poverty” is a term that describes the lack of reliable, affordable sources of energy. More than one-seventh of the world’s population still lacks electricity, and in countries where it is available, it is often very expensive or unreliable. Access to energy is essential to people’s health and wellbeing, and it is instrumental in reducing poverty. Countries will not be able to engage in economic activities without modern, efficient energy. This in turn slows economic growth, which is a necessity for countries to pull themselves out of poverty. The poor will remain outcast and unprosperous, shut out from the high technology world if energy poverty persists. Here is some information about renewable energy and the Swiss startup Energy Vault that is providing low-cost energy to developing countries.
Renewable Energy
Renewable energy has the potential to help the developing countries that are struggling to provide power. It is sustainable and efficient, and the more efficient the energy technologies are, the more energy a country can save to use elsewhere. Renewable energy may seem like the perfect solution to energy poverty. In practice, however, the familiar forms of renewable energy like wind and hydropower pose various challenges.
Barriers to Renewable Energy Use
First, renewable energy has a high initial cost. In order to harness renewable energy, countries must build specific structures to capture it and convert it into electrical power. If using hydropower, a country must build a hydropower plant; in the case of wind energy, a country must build wind turbines. Furthermore, energy generation is dependent on the climate and geography of the area and it may be unstable. Wind does not blow incessantly, and the turbines will not generate any energy when there is no breeze.
In the example of hydropower, areas may not have water to spare to power hydroelectric plants. More than 40% of the world’s people still do not have access to clean water, and it would be unwise for countries to use the little they do have on hydropower when their own people are still struggling. While renewable energy seems like the best option for developing countries, it presents several challenges when implemented.
Energy Vault
In response to this issue, Energy Vault, a Swiss startup, developed a method to provide reliable energy by utilizing the force of gravity. It operates by lifting composite bricks, then lowering them back to the ground. The brick has kinetic energy as it goes down, which the structure converts into electricity. It uses similar principles to hydropower but replaces the water with a system of bricks. This makes the system more implementable than hydropower since it does not divert water away from the population, who need it for drinking. Any area can implement Energy Vault easily because it does not depend on geographical or climatic factors. Unlike hydropower, wind power or solar power, it can generate electricity under any conditions. Energy Vault is extremely low cost and affordable to developing countries that need it.
In addition to its reliability, Energy Vault is sustainable. It can last for more than 30 years, and its performance will not degrade at all throughout its life. Recycled waste and landfill materials make up the bricks that Energy Vault uses, and as such, they are readily available anywhere.
The affordability and sustainability of Energy Vault make it a good energy source for struggling countries. Though energy poverty is still a major issue in many areas of the world, startups like Energy Vault offer innovative solutions to combat it.
– Alison Ding
Photo: Flickr
Community-Based Safeguarding Toolkit for Aid Efforts
Dignity at the Center of Aid
Jonathan Glennie of Open Democracy presents the question, “What if dignity was placed at the heart of all development work, from planning, through implementation, to evaluation of its impact?” Glennie explains the importance of a dignity-centered approach when lifting individuals and communities out of poverty and how such an approach is a more effective way of alleviating poverty. Engaging in foreign aid with dignity for communities experiencing extreme poverty leads to the empowerment of these populations. According to Glennie, when communities are empowered they can reach their real goals, resulting in concrete benefits such as improved health and food security, quality education and higher incomes.
Safeguarding Toolkit
The concept of mutual respect and dignity is now generally accepted as a norm in the development world. However, communities are not always aware of their rights. Given this, Habitat for Humanity, Oxfam International and WaterAid collaborated to launch a “community-based safeguarding visual toolkit” in February 2021, with plans to review and update the toolkit in 2022, resources allowing. The toolkit was created to allow humanitarian and development organizations to give visual information regarding the Six Core Principles Relating to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse to the community members these organizations are working with.
NGOs are continuously evolving and many have recognized that safeguarding measures will be most effective with intentional and focused community engagement. This toolkit was designed to protect and embolden communities in which development is taking place to understand their rights, prevent exploitation and abuse and promote a speak-up culture in the world of development globally. The toolkit has been released in 24 languages so far and can be downloaded for free, making it widely and equitably accessible.
Encouraging Ethical Development
The toolkit contains 11 key messages with 29 corresponding visuals. Some examples of these messages are “aid workers are not allowed to ask for or accept bribes for aid” and “aid organizations encourage complaints — there are safe ways to complain.” Other visuals explicitly state community members’ rights against sexual abuse and/or exploitation by aid workers. These visuals are not intended to be a stand-alone effort in creating respectful and ethical development efforts but are to be utilized in conjunction with wider training and conversations.
Strategic and ethical aid promotes the economic prosperity of developing communities while creating self-reliance. It is important that such communities are aware of their rights and are engaged in the development process. This community-based safeguarding toolkit is working to ensure that efforts to lift people out of poverty respect the basic rights of the communities humanitarian organizations serve.
– Tatiana Nelson
Photo: Flickr