A former Soviet Union territory, Uzbekistan has a population of 30 million. In recent years, there have been governmental and societal changes along with a new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Women, who play a pivotal role in the Uzbek family structure, face different issues relating to their rights in the country. There are several key facts to know about women’s rights in Uzbekistan.
Societal Views Oppress Women
Women faced new setbacks after Uzbekistan obtained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviets, after colonizing the region in the latter half of the 19th century, promised to emancipate women from the patriarchal customs of society, viewing these customs as oppressive to women. This movement encouraged female education, and in the 1980s, women formed an estimated 41% of university students.
However, after the independence of Uzbekistan in 1991, in a push to reestablish the Uzbek tradition, the progress of women’s rights in Uzbekistan took a hit when the nation reintroduced conservative social customs. Only six years later, in 1997, the number of women in higher education institutions dropped to 37% and estimates indicate that this percentage has fallen even more drastically in recent years.
The Prevalence of Child Marriage
Child marriage is still prevalent in Uzbekistan. Most Uzbek families believe that the role of a woman is to marry and run the household. This social concept encourages child marriage throughout the country, particularly in rural regions. With girls marrying at younger ages than boys, child marriage directly impacts female education as women are generally confined to the home after marriage.
Furthermore, Uzbek society expects women to give birth within their first year of marriage despite a lack of education about reproduction and childbearing. With young brides, female bodies are often not prepared or mature enough to give birth healthily. This has led to health complications such as infertility and chronic conditions. Child marriage hinders women’s rights in Uzbekistan as it limits female educational opportunities and leaves women with little chance to escape a life of housework and childrearing.
Domestic Violence is Not a Crime
In Uzbekistan, domestic violence is deemed a family issue and not an actual crime. Since independence from the Soviet Union, the push to reaffirm traditional values has meant that women have a subservient role within the household, and to a further extent, within society.
Outside of their homes, women face restrictions on how to live their lives, with limits on educational and work opportunities in favor of marriages and children. With women in rural areas at particular risk for domestic violence, Uzbekistan has largely ignored women’s rights within the home. Violence against women has reportedly increased in recent years.
Women’s Rights Reform at Governmental Level
President Mirziyoyev has taken promising action to address the lack of women’s rights in Uzbekistan. Elected in 2016, Mirziyoyev spoke about the importance of women within Uzbek society, noting their problem-solving skills and administrative capabilities. He urged for their involvement in government and industrial factions and even appointed Uzbekistan’s first female Head of Senate, Tanyila Narbaeva. With men dominating government positions for years, a female in an authoritative government position stands as a progressive shift and a promising sign of political changes.
Legislation to Protect Women
The fight for women’s rights in Uzbekistan is becoming more of a priority. In 2019, the nation introduced two new laws to protect women’s rights. The first is to ensure equal opportunities and freedoms for men and women and the second is to safeguard women from domestic violence and assault. Also, the nation has set up almost 200 shelters across the country to provide for women escaping violence. Unfortunately, there is very little funding for the subsistence of these shelters. While this undoubtedly stands as progress from the country’s more traditional views on the role of women in society, more significant action is necessary to defend these newfound rights and sustain protective services.
The Future of Women’s Rights in Uzbekistan
The push for women’s rights in Uzbekistan is made more difficult by the country’s history as a Soviet Union colony and the subsequent counterreaction to reestablish traditional cultural values. In recent years, societal pressures have pushed women to marry young and spend their lives taking care of the household. With limited opportunity to decide their own futures, women in Uzbekistan have not truly attained their human rights. Fortunately, however, President Mirziyoyev has expressed his desire to transform women’s rights in Uzbekistan. Hopefully, with a new female government official and progressive laws, women’s rights in Uzbekistan will continue to improve.
– Eliza Cochran
Photo: Flickr
The DRC and the Dangers of Non-Vaccination
Polio survivor, Richard Elaka, age 60, has made it his mission for the last 20 years to educate his community in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on the benefits of vaccinating. At 7 years old, Elaka suddenly lost the use of his legs. His family initially believed this was the result of a curse that his uncle put on him. It was not until later that Elaka understood that the poliomyelitis virus had infected him, a case that could have been prevented if he had received the polio vaccine. Unable to walk without the use of crutches from the age of 7, Elaka does not take his survival for granted. He spends his free time engaging in community outreach, roaming the streets in an attempt to teach his neighbors about the dangers of non-vaccination.
The Under-Vaccination Problem in the DRC
Only 35% of children in the DRC between the ages of 12-23 months have complete vaccination records by the time they turn 1 year old. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbates this issue; the DRC has steadily watched vaccination numbers decline since the start of the pandemic. The primary reasons for the declining numbers are:
Number three on this list is one of the biggest barriers the DRC faces.
The Plan
The DRC’s government is working to remedy the issue of under-vaccination. The dangers of non-vaccination, particularly within the population of a developing country like the DRC, can have lifelong consequences. In June 2020, the DRC doubled the immunization funding budget it had in 2019. In fact, about $16.4 million went toward the purchase of vaccines.
Along with the financing from UNICEF, the money that the DRC government provided has made it possible for the Emergency Plan for Revitalization of Routine Immunizations’ work in the DRC to continue. Some formally know the Emergency Plan for Revitalization of Routine Immunizations as the Mashako Plan, named after the late DRC Minister of Health Professor Leonard Mashako Mamba. Its creation in 2018 was a direct response to the issue of incomplete immunizations. Initiated with the hope of targeting several under-vaccinated areas of the DRC, the Mashako Plan established five key components in creating a sustainable immunization practice:
The Good News
From its inception to 2019, the Mashako Plan has contributed to a 50% increase in completed vaccination sessions. The impacts of COVID-19 on the DRC’s mission to vaccinate is challenging. In 2020, the DRC contended not only with COVID-19 but also with Ebola and measles outbreaks as well. Despite these arduous circumstances, volunteer vaccinators, DRC public health officials and community members, like Richard Elaka, remain undeterred in the commitment to protecting the citizens of the DRC from the dangers of non-vaccination.
– Rachel Proctor
Photo: Flickr
Tackling Human Trafficking In Egypt
Targets
Human trafficking in Egypt has involved traffickers targeting domestic and international victims in recent years. About 32.5% of people in Egypt are living below the poverty line due to limited education and economic opportunity. This, in turn, is leading parents to sell their children, particularly girls. Child sex tourism is mainly taking place in Cairo, Alexandria and Luxor. People from the Arabian Gulf like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia purchase Egyptian women to use them as sex slaves.
In prostitution and forced begging, approximately 200,000 to 1 million street children in Egypt, both boys and girls, experience abuse and local gangs sometimes exploit these children. Egyptian children frequently end up working in intensive agricultural work, experiencing circumstances that suggest forced servitude, such as mobility limits, non-payment and sexual and physical abuse.
International Victims In Egypt
Government Control
Egypt has regulations in place to prevent trafficking that prohibit foreigners from marrying an Egyptian woman if there is a gap in age of more than 10 years. However, marriage dealers have managed to find a way around this by altering birth certificates to ensure the girls look older and the men younger.
In 2010, the Egyptian government established a law to criminalize sex and labor traffickers and instituted punishments ranging from three to 15 years imprisonment and fines that were reasonably severe and justifiable. The punishment was for serious offenses such as rape with regard to sex trafficking.
In February 2020, 154 investigations into labor trafficking and alleged sex crimes occurred along with 22 sex trafficking cases. Among those 154 investigations that the media reported, the authorities arrested and detained four members of the crime organization that illegally sold Egyptian girls into marriages with wealthy Arab men. In the investigation of three other suspected cases of trafficking, the government also demanded judicial assistance from foreign countries, but it did not report any further information.
Child Labor in Egypt
Agricultural cooperatives in Egypt employ over 1 million children between the ages of 7 and 12 to manage cotton pests. Working for the Agriculture Ministry in Egypt, most are far below the minimum age of 12-years-old for agricultural work. They serve 11 hours a day with only a one to two-hour rest. About 1.15 million children work in rural areas, mainly in farming. However, they also work in local jobs or at industrial factories and frequently under hazardous conditions.
Children have also worked in the lighting industry and aluminum factories, as well as in building sites and for car repair service providers. The number of street children in Cairo has continued to increase in the presence of declining economic conditions according to government and media reports.
The Association of Egyptian Female Lawyers in Egypt
With a 130,864 EUR budget, The Association of Egyptian Female lawyers in Egypt has been trying to decrease the trafficking of women and children. It also focuses on providing women and children with support along with an escape to current and future victims in affected districts. It has built a network of trained attorneys, social workers and counselors to partner with NGOs and provide victims with recovery assistance and protection. The organization holds seminars to educate the public about the danger of human trafficking and how traffickers frequently target victims. It aims to provide abused women with legal support, grant them political and legal rights and combat all unjust laws and laws against women. The project receives funding from the Development Fund for African Women.
The Association of Egyptian Female lawyers in Egypt also significantly supports and empowers Egyptian women to participate in everyday civil life. In carrying out this project, the Association aims to carry out activities calling for fair gender opportunities. It also intends to eliminate the barriers that women face in achieving their social, political and economic rights.
Overall, human trafficking in Egypt requires attention in order to reduce it. If more organizations like The Association of Egyptian Female Lawyers in Egypt provide aid, they could save many lives and raise awareness.
Photo: Flickr
Women in Conflict Resolution in MENA
Conflict in MENA
In addition to the United States’ recent departure under the Trump administration, the MENA has been riddled with conflict. There are longstanding ideological tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Furthermore, one should note the bloody civil war in Yemen and the Assad-Putin takeover of Syria. Libya is becoming a failing state and more terrorist organizations are rising to power.
This is an integral time for women’s inclusion in conflict resolution as longstanding conflicts will require new models of engagement and unique perspectives. If women are to achieve an equal socioeconomic standing to men in the MENA, now is the time for action.
Overview of Progress
Since the early 2000s, women have been playing an active role in conflict resolution. A prominent example is the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace Movement. In both the first and second Liberian Civil Wars, the movement’s women hosted communal activities, such as prayer gatherings, to unite the warring Christian and Muslim populations. Eventually, the group gained so much momentum that members advanced the organization to more direct advocacy and activism. This was during a time of rampant sexual violence and the murders of child soldiers. In 2005, the women helped ensure one of the nation’s first free and fair elections, which resulted in the first female African president.
Another way in which women fight for change in the MENA is through women-led nonprofits. Take, for instance, the Center for Egyptian Women’s Legal Assitance (CEWLA). Under the strict rule of current leader Abdel Al-Sissi, Egypt has faced a series of religious violence, economic corruption and denial of fundamental human rights. Nevertheless, since 2013, CEWLA has worked with local grassroots organizations in Egypt to promote female rights. It has fought several legal battles to improve ongoing “legal, social, economic and cultural rights.”
In addition to inter-regional violence, mass immigration and displacement in MENA have resulted in severe economic losses. In response to such conflict, female entrepreneurs in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine banded together to form Ruwwad. Ruwwad is a community engagement organization that focuses on providing women with education, income generation methods and social justice.
Nonetheless, even when it comes to complex matters such as intra-state conflict, women have shown up to unite deeply divided communities often struggling with severe poverty. The Wajir Association for Women’s Peace embodies the said fight for justice. The Association is a group of local women in Wajir, Kenya. The women lead conflict resolution initiatives between the clans’ elders and the at-risk youth. The power stemming from Wajir’s women has even reached the desks of local parliamentary offices. Nationwide reforms have begun to take aim at resolving much of the turmoil occurring in this region as a result of these efforts.
A Plan for the Future
While women’s leadership in the MENA is far from perfect, the region notes massive improvements over the years. This provides ample opportunity to transform the region further. Analysts find that women need political and economic backing from international organizations in order to help promote their localized mediation initiatives and garner stronger support for future peacebuilding. Bills such as the Girls Lead Act, currently in negotiation in Congress, is a step in the right direction and will help develop future female leaders in at-risk developing countries. The MENA region has seen conflict and ethnic violence for decades, but when the world empowers women, the world encourages change.
– Juliette Reyes
Photo: Flickr
Creating Female Entrepreneurs in Afghanistan
Women’s Empowerment Projects of the World Bank
International aid to Afghanistan is essential for empowering Afghan women and bringing communities out of poverty. The World Bank has a variety of programs dedicated to poverty eradication. It implemented the Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Project to support Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA). VLSAs operate as a community bank that gives out micro-loans to women to create employment opportunities to sustain economic growth. Examples of businesses started by women are hair salons, tailor shops and bakeries.
While the Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Program came to a close in 2018, WEERDP replaced it and continues to receive backing from the World Bank and the International Development Association (IDA) to ensure steady funding.
VSLAs receive funding from the World Bank and the IDA to ensure sustainable financial institutions are available in Afghanistan, with the hope that the VSLAs will partner with larger commercial banks in the future.
Benefits of Female Entrepreneurs in Afghanistan
There are roughly 275,684 Afghan women beneficiaries of the WEERDP. Many of them have had access to financial services for the first time with the program. Many others are taking loans, learning how to repay these loans and beginning to save for the future. These are valuable life skills for women who could not enter the workforce or gain an education in the past.
With the increase of women-run businesses in Afghanistan’s rural communities, VSLAs can begin to partner with larger banks to begin serving bigger loans to women after seeing the success of the businesses that began with micro-loans. The support of financial institutions is important to give women the confidence to become entrepreneurs, especially in a country where the percentage of women in the workforce is statistically low. Skills like leadership, management and problem-solving are derived from starting a business and female entrepreneurs can spread these skills throughout communities to strengthen the role of women in the economy.
These women can even pass down the skills through generations. Building a structure with programs like the WEERDP is vital for long-term economic growth and success because it can open doors for creativity and innovation for an economy that would benefit.
The Future of Female Entrepreneurs in Afghanistan
Increasing the number of women entrepreneurs with savvy financial skills can benefit the communities of Afghanistan in many ways. Successful women can begin to venture out into local politics and health care fields to build on their skills while sharing their talents with the community. Women have important input on what types of businesses their communities need and can reduce poverty in specialized ways.
Afghan women make up roughly half of the nation’s population, so their representation is necessary to drive economic and societal progress. The visibility of women in the business sector can allow for gender equality to improve in Afghanistan over time, improving the development of the nation as a whole.
– Julia Ditmar
Photo: Flickr
5 NGOs Fighting Poverty in Wales
5 NGOs Fighting Poverty in Wales
The Future of Wales
Wales, facing increasing poverty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, finds its poverty worsening among children in the country more so than among adults. Amid this poverty, organizations are working to address the situation in different ways. With the help of more NGOs, poverty in Wales can reduce as the nation works to address the very core and cycle of it.
– Dylan James
Photo: Flickr
3 Ways the UN is Helping Zimbabwe Provide Better Health Care For All
The COVID-19 relief and prevention efforts are representative of a small part of Zimbabwe’s ongoing effort to better its health care. The rural-urban divide marked by the rich-poor split has grown largely along the lines of access to health care and proper medical needs. As such, Zimbabwe and humanitarian organizations, such as the United Nations, are working on ways to better health care for all citizens in Zimbabwe.
3 Ways the UN Helps to Achieve Better Health Care for All
Looking Ahead
With new government intervention to increase aid for public health and the tireless work of the United Nations, Zimbabwe’s health care system is slowly improving. The COVID-19 pandemic has only strengthened the resolve of the country to better health care for all. By fighting misinformation, elevating role models and spreading unity through love and music, Zimbabwe shows how simple initiatives can lead to better living standards and improved national health.
– Mihir Gokhale
Photo: Flickr
The Truth about Women’s Rights in Uzbekistan
Societal Views Oppress Women
Women faced new setbacks after Uzbekistan obtained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The Soviets, after colonizing the region in the latter half of the 19th century, promised to emancipate women from the patriarchal customs of society, viewing these customs as oppressive to women. This movement encouraged female education, and in the 1980s, women formed an estimated 41% of university students.
However, after the independence of Uzbekistan in 1991, in a push to reestablish the Uzbek tradition, the progress of women’s rights in Uzbekistan took a hit when the nation reintroduced conservative social customs. Only six years later, in 1997, the number of women in higher education institutions dropped to 37% and estimates indicate that this percentage has fallen even more drastically in recent years.
The Prevalence of Child Marriage
Child marriage is still prevalent in Uzbekistan. Most Uzbek families believe that the role of a woman is to marry and run the household. This social concept encourages child marriage throughout the country, particularly in rural regions. With girls marrying at younger ages than boys, child marriage directly impacts female education as women are generally confined to the home after marriage.
Furthermore, Uzbek society expects women to give birth within their first year of marriage despite a lack of education about reproduction and childbearing. With young brides, female bodies are often not prepared or mature enough to give birth healthily. This has led to health complications such as infertility and chronic conditions. Child marriage hinders women’s rights in Uzbekistan as it limits female educational opportunities and leaves women with little chance to escape a life of housework and childrearing.
Domestic Violence is Not a Crime
In Uzbekistan, domestic violence is deemed a family issue and not an actual crime. Since independence from the Soviet Union, the push to reaffirm traditional values has meant that women have a subservient role within the household, and to a further extent, within society.
Outside of their homes, women face restrictions on how to live their lives, with limits on educational and work opportunities in favor of marriages and children. With women in rural areas at particular risk for domestic violence, Uzbekistan has largely ignored women’s rights within the home. Violence against women has reportedly increased in recent years.
Women’s Rights Reform at Governmental Level
President Mirziyoyev has taken promising action to address the lack of women’s rights in Uzbekistan. Elected in 2016, Mirziyoyev spoke about the importance of women within Uzbek society, noting their problem-solving skills and administrative capabilities. He urged for their involvement in government and industrial factions and even appointed Uzbekistan’s first female Head of Senate, Tanyila Narbaeva. With men dominating government positions for years, a female in an authoritative government position stands as a progressive shift and a promising sign of political changes.
Legislation to Protect Women
The fight for women’s rights in Uzbekistan is becoming more of a priority. In 2019, the nation introduced two new laws to protect women’s rights. The first is to ensure equal opportunities and freedoms for men and women and the second is to safeguard women from domestic violence and assault. Also, the nation has set up almost 200 shelters across the country to provide for women escaping violence. Unfortunately, there is very little funding for the subsistence of these shelters. While this undoubtedly stands as progress from the country’s more traditional views on the role of women in society, more significant action is necessary to defend these newfound rights and sustain protective services.
The Future of Women’s Rights in Uzbekistan
The push for women’s rights in Uzbekistan is made more difficult by the country’s history as a Soviet Union colony and the subsequent counterreaction to reestablish traditional cultural values. In recent years, societal pressures have pushed women to marry young and spend their lives taking care of the household. With limited opportunity to decide their own futures, women in Uzbekistan have not truly attained their human rights. Fortunately, however, President Mirziyoyev has expressed his desire to transform women’s rights in Uzbekistan. Hopefully, with a new female government official and progressive laws, women’s rights in Uzbekistan will continue to improve.
– Eliza Cochran
Photo: Flickr
Promoting Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution
Though vaccine development and vaccine distribution have made incredible strides in the past few decades, developing countries are still consistently behind as wealthier countries monopolize available vaccine resources. The most recent example of this monopolization is the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009 that killed hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. This problematic new strain emerged in April 2020, and the U.S. began distributing vaccines in October of that same year. Vaccines did not become available to countries in Africa until later that year, which is significant due to the fact that this influenza virus already hit peak infectivity before vaccines became available to developing nations. It is essential to consider how to ensure equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution.
Analyzing the H1N1 pandemic provides scientists and citizens alike valuable insight into possible future complications that may arise with vaccine distribution in response to the far more deadly COVID-19 virus. The solution to providing more equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution for developing countries may lie in the innovative COVAX Pillar of the World Health Organization’s Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator.
What is COVAX?
The principal focus of COVAX is vaccine development and distribution, with the other two pillars focused more on the organization between governments, health organizations, vaccine manufacturers and other industries related to COVID-19 research. COVAX allows for countries to support and negotiate with vaccine developers, which provides necessary vaccines should these developers produce successful vaccines. The support of COVAX provides both wealthy and poor nations reassurance that as new vaccines become available, they will go to participating nations. As more vaccines develop and successfully pass through clinical trials, countries that participate in the COVAX alliance receive first priority to these vaccines. Wealthy nations that contribute money obtain more doses to reach a majority of their populations, whereas developing countries that do not directly fund this program receive vaccines for the most at-risk groups.
Wealthier countries have the ability to decide how much they would like to contribute towards developing countries. Providing funding for developing nations is an investment that will decrease global COVID-19 prevalence and therefore increase safety for each respective nation. Vaccines for developing countries also receive partial funding from the Gavi COVAX AMC, which has already raised over $2 billion, reaching the goal for the end of 2020. Even more promising is that in December 2020, the U.S. allocated $4 billion for this program in its COVID-19 relief package, bringing the total already much closer to the necessary $5 billion by the end of 2021.
As with the two current vaccines available in the United States, the first priority group for distribution in the COVAX program is frontline healthcare workers. This program plans to vaccinate at least 3% of each participating nation’s population. As availability continues to grow and new vaccines become available, distribution will increase to 20% of each population.
Reasons for Optimism
To ensure equitable distribution of vaccines when they do become available, the World Health Organization (WHO), GAVI and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations are developing an Independent Allocation of Vaccines Group (IAVG) comprised of experts to make these crucial decisions. These experts have the task of deciding the volume of vaccines that will go to each participating nation to provide valuable insight and decision-making without any conflict of interest. This cooperative effort is vital to the concept of equitable COVID-19 vaccine distribution and will allow for the meeting of distribution goals.
In the latest news briefing on January 22, 2021, the COVAX alliance announced an agreement for the distribution of 40 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use. This 40 million adds to the 150 million of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccines that will undergo utilization upon completion of clinical trials. With the impressive goal to distribute two billion total vaccines by the end of 2021, this collaborative effort continues to promise 1.3 billion of those doses to the 92 lower-income economies participating in the alliance.
In summary, the COVAX pillar through the Gavi Alliance benefits both wealthy countries and developing countries. Wealthy countries obtain access to developing vaccines to provide a sense of security for their populations as these vaccines become available. In the case of developing countries, they save money on funding these vaccine developments and receive a guarantee they will obtain enough vaccines for the most at-risk groups at no charge or minimal charge. An alliance of this magnitude provides enough structure and funding to successfully promote equitable distribution that benefits all participating nations.
– Jackson Thennis
Photo: Flickr
Lack of Skilled Workers in Vietnam
In Vietnam, skilled laborers are a commodity. Only 12% of Vietnam’s 57 million workers are highly skilled. The Vietnamese Government decided to enter into a socialist market economy in the late 1980s. It aimed to mitigate the sluggish economy’s failure to meet goals. Still, there is a lack of skilled workers in Vietnam specializing in IT and other high-tech sectors to allow the economy to flourish. However, the World Bank drafted a new higher education plan in April 2020. The Higher Education Reform Agenda (HERA) sought to stimulate development in areas that Vietnam’s former education plan missed.
Lack of Skilled Workers in Developing Countries
The lack of skilled workers in Vietnam is not a new problem. One-third of the working-aged population in low- and middle-income countries are not skilled enough for a higher paying job. The lack of skilled workers keeps these countries stuck in poverty with people earning less income and enduring poorer living conditions. Vietnam was once one of the poorest countries in the world after recovering from 30 years of war. It is now a lower-middle-income country despite having a higher education enrollment rate lower than most other ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries.
Vietnam’s Growing Economy
Vietnam’s GDP has been growing steadily, increasing by 7% in 2019. Furthermore, Vietnam is soon to be one of the fastest-growing economies alongside India and Bangladesh. In Vietnam’s race for growth between 2002 and 2018, the country’s GDP per capita increased by 2.7 times, surpassing $2,700 in 2019 and 45 million people left poverty. Vietnam has been encountering major successes that promise better living conditions in the future. Still, the country has work to do. The lack of skilled workers in Vietnam remains dire. With the proper education and training, people can benefit from more employment opportunities, higher incomes and improved standards of living.
HERA Takes a Step Toward Improvements
Acknowledging Vietnam’s need for an economic boost, the Vietnamese Government drafted the Higher Education Reform Agenda (HERA) in 2005. According to the HERA, the country would improve higher education between the years 2006 and 2020. The HERA projected goals that included hitting 45% higher education enrollments by 2020, employing 35% of academic staff with a doctorate degree in comparison to 15% and providing funding for university research.
Though experts in education and economics deemed the HERA overly ambitious and without structure, it had some success. The World Bank observed mostly substantial improvement in higher education by 2015. For example, in 2005, HERA sought to hire 60% of tertiary education teachers holding a master’s degree and 35% of teachers with a doctorate. Although the number of teachers with a doctorate had barely increased from 23%, 59% of tertiary teachers had a master’s degree by 2016.
Strategy to Improve Higher Education
In April 2020, the World Bank created a report outlining specific goals to increase Vietnam’s universities’ production of human capital. The report, entitled “Improving the Performance of Higher Education in Vietnam,” drew up specific goals for Vietnam’s universities to reach by 2030 using success stories like the state of California, the U.K. and South Korea. With implementation, the report will create a universal focus across bank and government entities to improve funding, enrollment and equity.
The plans involve increasing the number of applicants, improving the curriculum, creating structured application processes to accept more talented students, funding research more and being more inclusive towards ethnic minorities and lower-income Vietnamese students. The report addresses establishing links with industries and the private sector earlier on in students’ higher education. This would occur by providing internships and partnerships between students and companies to ensure relevant, proficient skilled work results.
The government still has a lot of work to do regarding the lack of skilled workers in Vietnam. Fortunately, plans are underway to invest in greater human capital. With better coordination between its market, government and educational forces, Vietnam will soon effectively produce workers qualified enough to boost the economy.
– Alyssa Ranola
Flickr
Make Equality Reality Gala 2020 Goes Virtual
Make Equality Reality Gala 2020
The star-studded gala included special appearances from Jane Fonda, Meryl Streep, Jameela Jamil, Karamo Brown, Margaret Atwood, Aubrey Plaza, AnnaSophia Robb, Rob Reiner and many more. Gloria Steinem also wrote a tribute to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away in September 2020.
The Make Equality Reality Gala opened with a few words from the actor, author and producer Sheetal Sheth as well as actor, writer and producer Aasif Mandvi. They informed their audience of the mission of Equality Now and reiterated that the best way to support the organization is to donate to the cause. The video then cuts to snippets of interviews with the Equality Now staff explaining their activities throughout the year and how they made the best of quarantine. Some of their responses were light-hearted, like learning how to knit and bake. Other responses took on a more serious note, like working with other human rights organizations.
Jameela Jamil marks the first-star appearance to tell viewers that the future lies in the hands of young girls. However, she also notes that the future is at risk. Jamil tells audiences that one in 10 girls faces sexual violence in her lifetime. In addition, she says that 3 million young girls are victims of female genital mutilation in 92 countries, including the United States, and that girls make up the vast majority of victims of sex trafficking all around the world.
Organization Achievements
The gala included a presentation outlining the work of Equality Now since its founding, including helping young girls win rape cases in court or assisting girls in winning back their freedom after being married off as children. This organization has also helped women in Kuwait secure the right to vote. The organization works with governments in 193 countries around the world to create and change laws so that women and young girls are free to reach their full potential.
A Call to Action and Awareness
Over the course of the rest of the Make Equality Reality Gala, the lineup entailed performances from the cast of Netflix’s “Grand Army,” English singer/songwriter Jess Glynne and numerous speeches and calls to action from the biggest names in entertainment. There was also a performance of Two Girls, a play written by Katie Cappiello to raise awareness of the exploitation and abuse of women that occurs on the internet. Meryl Streep also delivered a tribute to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Glynne closed out the gala with a performance of her song “I’ll Be There” and a montage of photos and videos of frontline healthcare workers, women at protests and women in positions of power.
Gucci and Chime for Change presented the Changemaker Award to Nadeen Ashraf. Ashraf is a 22-year-old filmmaker from Cairo, Egypt, best known for her work as the founder of Assault Police, an Instagram account Ashraf uses to highlight the gendered injustices happening in Egypt. She began to gain notoriety through the Instagram account and played an instrumental role in the passing of an Egyptian law to protect the identity of sexual violence victims.
Ways to Show Support
The Make Equality Reality Gala raised more than $380,000 in 2020 to continue to support the efforts of the lawyers and other staff around the world who work tirelessly to promote equal rights for women. Even an ordinary individual can make a difference by donating or fundraising to support the work that Equality Now does to empower girls and women across the globe.
– Jessica Lyn
Photo: Flickr