Archive for category: Developing Countries

Information and stories about developing countries.

,

$243M to Fight Poverty in Muslim Countries


The Lives and Livelihoods Fund board of the Islamic Development Bank has approved $242.6 million to finance several development projects. These projects were created to improve areas of health, agriculture and rural infrastructure in countries including Tajikistan, Sudan, Djibouti, Niger, Mauritania, Cameroon, Uganda and Guinea.

These projects strive to create healthier living standards for struggling communities, hoping to generate a lasting impact in the fight against disease and poverty in Muslim countries.

The Islamic Development Bank provides economic and social development to member countries through financial assistance and participating in equity capital and grant loans for development projects and enterprises.

Bandar Hajjar, president of the Islamic Development Bank, states that the fund’s goal is to assist in developing sustainable living conditions and more productive lives in the poorest communities throughout the Muslim world.

Over the next five years, the Lives and Livelihoods Fund will strive to help millions of people in 30 of the poorest Muslim countries lead healthy and productive lives. To do so, the Islamic Development Bank will provide $2.5 billion to develop several expansion projects. This fund is currently the largest multilateral development initiative in the Middle East and North Africa for poverty alleviation in the partnering nations of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Hassan Al-Damluji, head of Middle East Relations at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, states that out of the one billion people in the world that are facing extreme poverty, 400 million of them are living in the Islamic Development Bank’s member countries.

Although established in late 2016, the Lives and Livelihoods Fund has seen promising results, with $363 million already being allocated for the fund’s first operational year. In partnering with other donor organizations and regional governments, the fund strives to make a lasting impact and save millions of lives by addressing the issues of disease and poverty in Muslim countries.

– Brandon Johnson

Photo: Flickr

, ,

New Tech Improves Crop Yields for Farmers in Developing Countries


In the last century, worldwide water utilization, most of which is used in agriculture, has surpassed population growth, and many developing countries are facing severe water scarcity. While water usage goes up, climate change brings more droughts and extreme weather, reducing the water available for agriculture. That’s why the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has turned to water accounting, a process that measures the efficiency of water use in agriculture and helps farmers in developing countries improve their crop yields.

FAO recently launched WaPOR, which stands for Water Productivity Open-access portal. WaPOR, as its name suggests, is an open-access database that uses satellite data to track water usage. Part of a $10 million project funded by the government of the Netherlands, WaPOR will evaluate water usage in Africa and the Near East, focusing on countries facing water scarcity.

WaPOR measures evapotranspiration, a phase in the water cycle which consists partly of water that evaporates into the atmosphere via plants and foliage. Evapotranspiration provides a measure of the water that plants and crops consume during a growing season and helps farmers understand the efficiency of their water use based on their crop yields. In brief, WaPOR monitors how effective current irrigation schemes are and offers cost-effective solutions for farmers in developing countries.

The program uses satellite data show how many crops farmers produce per cubic meter of water used. Using WaPOR’s data, agricultural extension agents help farmers in developing countries create sustainable ways to grow more reliable crop yields. FAO updates WaPOR’s water maps every one to 10 days.

The International Water Management Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on sustainable uses of water in agriculture, and the IHE Deft Institute for water Education, the largest international school for water education in the world, will help developing countries use WaPOR by boosting capacity in those areas.

WaPOR allows smallholder farmers to have access to critical information that they didn’t have before. This new technology will help farmers improve water availability and protect them from climate change.

– Rachel Cooper

Photo: Flickr

, ,

The Impact of Weather Forecasting on Poverty


In developed countries, checking the weather forecast is important when planning a weekend trip, but to rural farmers in poor regions, it can make the difference between putting food on the table and going hungry. The impact of weather forecasting on poverty is notably strong, and new tech solutions are being implemented across the globe to ensure food security for farmers and communities.

Estimates indicate that a surprising 70 percent of the world’s food supply is created by small, independently owned farms less than two acres in size. Yet this backbone of agriculture can be easily devastated by droughts.

For example, the eastern region of Africa known as the Horn, which is home to Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, has experienced at least one drought per year for over a decade, causing more than 25 percent of the population to suffer from hunger. This weather has drastic economic consequences as well since the Horn is heavily dependent on its major exports of coffee and bananas.

In an effort to reverse this trend, Satellite Technologies for Improved Drought Risk Assessment (SATIDA) was created by a partnership between Vienna University of Technology and four other organizations, including Doctors without Borders and the Austrian Central Institution for Meteorology and Geodynamics.

SATIDA shows how positive the impact of weather forecasting on poverty can be with its multifaceted research approach. The four major components of the study are a complex drought indicator, regular forecasts, a mobile application and a database linking all other elements together.

“The goal is to know whether a drought is going on,” Markus Enenkel, lead researcher of the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University told CNN in February. “We can give a seasonal summary to help people prepare.”

SATIDA’s research team is actively working on two projects using satellite and smartphone technology. One marks official confirmation of droughts when they occur to enable insurance payments to farmers in the event that their crops fail. The second project enables farmers to prepare for droughts ahead of time by providing more precise forecasting with smaller intervals.

Though similar efforts have been made in the past, such as when the World Bank pledged $213 million for anti-poverty weather forecasting tech in Bangladesh in 2016, the distinction of SATIDA is its keen focus on community-based improvement.

Shailaja Fennell, Cambridge University’s coordinator of the Global Food Security Initiative, summarized the importance of the users and their families in the impact of weather forecasting on poverty:

“The world of IT is fantastic, but to truly deliver, the products must be owned and analyzed by the community.”

– Dan Krajewski

Photo: Flickr

,

Water Quality in North Korea

Water Quality in North Korea
Water quality in North Korea continues to deteriorate. The country’s water system and sanitation systems are both in a state of disrepair. Even though the country invested in an extensive piped water supply system in the early ’80s, due to natural disasters and low levels of investments the water system in compromised.

As a result of inadequate water quality, North Korea has had poor sanitation and unhygienic behavior from its citizens, resulting in an increased rate of under-five mortality.

Due to the condition of water quality in North Korea, UNICEF’s WASH program has focused on contributing to improved access and utilization of safe drinking water, sanitation services and good hygiene practices in communities and schools in the country.

In 2015, North Korea was impacted by a drought that lasted 18 months, resulting in the lack of drinking water and a further worsening of the country’s water supply system — resulting in an increase in the prevalence of water-borne diseases.

The water quality in North Korea is further threatened by limited sewerage networks and low water levels.

Access to potable water in the country is almost always inadequate and organizations like Concern Worldwide continue to work with local authorities and communities to provide alternative energy and pumping systems to provide North Koreans with water and also build latrines.

Water quality in North Korea continues to negatively impact the country’s food supply and without proper development will continue to result in malnutrition and disease.

While the country’s water issues seem grim, the country has developed a five-year economic plan which focuses primarily on the simultaneous development of nuclear weapons and the economy as a means to improve living conditions in the country.

Although water quality in North Korea continues to worsen, there remains a glimmer of hope in sight for the people of North Korea.

– Rochelle R. Dean

Photo: Flickr

, , ,

5 Ways Poverty Affects the Developing Brain

Poverty_ Brain
Living in poverty can coincide with numerous social problems — childhood neglect, violence and malnutrition, to name a few. However, there are studies being conducted that show how poverty may potentially affect the developing brain and the cognitive abilities of children. Here are five ways that research is currently showing how poverty affects the brain.

5 Ways Poverty Affects the Developing Brain

  1. Brain scans of children who grow up in poverty reveal that, overall, their brains develop less gray matter in the frontal and parietal lobe. Serving as the control center for the brain, the frontal lobe manages accessory cognitive functions like planning, focusing, problem-solving, organizing and controlling impulses. The parietal lobe is responsible for processing sensory information. The Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that less gray matter in these areas, as seen on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans, can impede children’s abilities to learn even before they enter kindergarten. The research demonstrated that throughout brain growth in the first three years of life, children in a lower socioeconomic status (SES) had significantly lower brain volumes than their higher SES counterparts.
  2. Brains influenced by poverty show a significant decline in cognitive abilities related to memory, reading and language. This is evident through children’s performances on neurocognitive tests as well as brain activity on electroencephalograms (EEG). Research performed by Natalie H. Brito, a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia University, combined this information along with studies of families to link cognitive abilities to circumstances like neglect, household stress and economic status.
  3. Similar studies conducted by Elizabeth Sowell from The Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles and Kimberly Noble from Columbia University demonstrate that brains of children in the lowest income brackets (families who make less than $25,000 annually) have six percent less surface area than children from higher income bracket families.
  4. Developing brains exposed to severe poverty also show smaller hippocampi (the portion of the brain that is central to stress response, memory and learning). Existing research supports the fact that parental caregiving is an important factor in the hippocampal development and childhood wellbeing. Combined with poverty, stressful life experiences result in a lower volume of hippocampi.
  5. A smaller amygdala is also characteristic of growing brains that have been exposed to poverty. Responsible for emotional processing and social information, a smaller amygdala can result in childhood depression and mood and behavioral problems.

The symptoms of poverty include many factors that can contribute to the modifications of a developing child’s DNA – malnutrition, exposure to violence, lack of cognitive stimulation or less time bonding with parents. Rather than present the solution as “eliminate all poverty,” remedies should focus on policies and programs that seek to mitigate the influence of poverty’s external factors. Research in this area is still developing, as scientists and doctors continue to monitor the neuroscience of poverty as children grow into adults.

Brito agrees when she says, “When I talk to a lot of our participants – always worrying about where their next paycheck comes from, always worrying about if they have enough resources – it takes away time and energy from having meaningful interaction with your child. So in developing countries, making sure that those policies are in place so that parents are available to just interact with their child, just play with their child without worry, really does make a big difference.”

– Tammy Hineline

Photo: Flickr

, ,

20 Facts about Hunger

20 facts about hunger
Hunger is an issue affecting all nations. Nearly 43 million Americans faced food insecurity in 2015, and feeding the American homeless, poverty-plagued families and undernourished children are matters the U.S. government takes seriously. The following 20 facts about hunger shine a specific light on the plight of the most malnourished nations. From these 20 facts about hunger, it is clear that people all over the world are afflicted by the issue of hunger.

20 Facts about Hunger

  1. Poverty is the principal cause of hunger. In 2012, the World Bank estimated that there were 896 million people in developing countries living at or below $1.90 a day.
  2. The world produces enough food to feed everyone. The world produced 2,790 kilocalories per person per day between 2006 and 2008.
  3. Malnutrition can lead to growth failure. Principal types of growth failure are ‘stunting’ and ‘wasting.’ Stunting is a slow process caused by a lack of nutrients and wasting is caused by insufficient protein.
  4. Around 794 million people were undernourished between 2014 and 2016 — 10.9 percent of the global population.
  5. In Angola, an African country with the highest under-five mortality rate in the world, more than 15 percent of the population is underweight and nearly 30 percent suffer from stunting.
  6. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that 161 million children worldwide are affected by stunting. Suffering from nutrient-poor diets or ongoing infections, stunted children may have normal body proportions but look younger than they actually are.
  7. Iodine deficiencies during pregnancy can lead to severe mental retardation or stillbirth. Though iodized salt is common in the developed world, more than 50 countries report a serious iodine deficiency problem.
  8. With more than 30 percent of people underweight, Pakistan ranked last on the 2012 Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index for its public spending on agriculture as a share of total public spending.
  9. More than 232 million people living in Africa were undernourished between 2014 and 2016 — 20 percent of the African population.
  10. In 2013, Myanmar ranked last on the Hunger and Nutrition Commitment Index for access to agricultural research and extension services.
  11. Undernourished children are more likely to underperform in school and on tests of intelligence and reading.
  12. Malnutrition during pregnancy increases the risk of mental illness. Studies investigating famines reported increases in the rate of schizophrenia during periods of prolonged prenatal exposure to hunger, or “nutritional inadequacy.”
  13. The World Food Programme calculated that it would cost $3.2 billion annually to feed the 66 million hungry school-age kids around the world.
  14. There are many scientific theories of why humans get hungry. Some of them are the stomach contraction theory, the glucose theory, the insulin theory, the fatty acid theory, and the heat-production theory.
  15. Almost 780 million people living in developing regions were undernourished between 2014 and 2016 –12.9 percent of the developing nations population.
  16. Over the course of two decades, the amount of undernourished Latin Americans has shrunk by more than 30 million.
  17. The availability of water is crucial to farming and food production. Climate change may affect crops and hundreds of millions of “water-stressed” people in the coming decade.
  18. The World Food Programme calculated that it costs $0.25 daily to give a child the vitamins and nutrients necessary for healthy growth.
  19. Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries defines hunger as “the state of not having enough food to eat, especially when this causes illness or death.”
  20. In 2011, undernutrition was estimated to be the cause of more than three million child deaths — 45 percent of all child deaths.

These 20 facts about hunger only highlight the issue on a universal level, but they can act as a guide unveiling the true lives of those who live in poverty stricken conditions on a daily basis. Knowledge can prevent many in the position to help alleviate the problem to act. With combined knowledge and aid, terminating world hunger remains hopeful.

– Shaun Savarese

Photo: Flickr

, ,

5 Books that Will Change Your Perspective on Poverty


For many, learning the truth about poverty can be hard. Unfortunately, for many, poverty is a sad reality. However, people should want to learn more about poverty so that it can be alleviated. The following is a list of books that will change your perspective on poverty.

5 Books that Will Change Your Perspective on Poverty

  1. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity: Katherine Boo, Pulitzer-winner, published this novel in 2012. This book is a narrative nonfiction that tells the story of a family working towards a better life in the city of Annawadi, where inequality is very high. Over the course of three years, Boo got to know the people who live in Annawadi. The book focuses on the daily stresses and problems of the inhabitants, who are suffering from poverty, hunger, diseases, violence and ethnic strife. Boo focuses on people such as a young orphan named Sunsil, a garbage picker, and Fatima, a young, emotionally troubled woman who only has one leg and dreams of a better life. The book focuses on many people who are suffering from poverty and wish to escape the situation. This heartbreaking and dramatic true story will change your perspective about poverty.
  2. How Change Happens: This novel, “seeks to understand how power and systems shape change, and how you can influence them.” How Change Happens was published in 2016 and is written by Duncan Green. This book is for those interested in activism, lobbying, or joining organizations that are dedicated to inspiring change. Green focuses on major themes that can help make change occur in the world.
  3. Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide: Written by Pulitzer-winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, this nonfiction story takes place in Asia and Africa. Here, Kristof and WuDunn meet extraordinary women who are struggling with inequality, sex slavery, violence and abuse. Kristof and WuDunn paint the world with many emotions; sadness, anger, clarity, and hope. “Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen,” reviewers commented. This book will definitely change your perspective about poverty.
  4. Development as Freedom: Development as Freedom was published in 1999 and written by economist Amartya Sen. The book argues that economic development entails a set of linked freedoms: the freedom of opportunity including access to credit, political freedoms and transparency in relations between people, and economic protection from abject poverty, including through income supplements and unemployment relief. The book states that real change will not happen simply by increasing basic income or rising average GDP per capita. Instead, a package of overlapping mechanisms that will enable the exercise of a growing range of freedoms is required. Sen’s views lie in free markets as an essential method of acquiring freedom.
  5. Little Bee: Chris Cleave’s fiction novel, Little Bee, follows the story of two women — one a recent widow from suburban London, and the other is an illegal Nigerian refugee. These women form a tenuous friendship, and as the story develops, Little Bee’s harsh life is recounted. The novel examines the treatment of refugees by the asylum system, as well as issues of British colonialism, globalization, political violence, and personal accountability.

These books will all change your perspective about poverty. They even offer ways in which people can help alleviate poverty, and suggestions for how people should treat each other in order to thrive in this world. Each book tells heartbreaking, but true stories that are many people’s reality, living in poverty and enduring harsh conditions. The books and their dynamic characters will surely affect your perspective on poverty.

– Solansh Moya

Photo: Flickr

, , ,

Compassion International: Educating Children on Global Poverty

Compassion International Aims to Educate Children on Global Poverty
In the U.S., a sheltered and privileged lifestyle can reduce potential opportunities for happiness and prosperity for those living in developing countries. But how? As time progresses, younger generations develop a lack of understanding in regards to the devastating living conditions in the developing world, inhibiting the potential for philanthropic efforts from youthful generations.

In aiming to educate children on global poverty, Compassion International has designed an interactive exhibit that gives children the opportunity to learn about the developing world. Compassion International is a child-advocacy ministry with the goal to free children in the developing world from various forms of poverty.

This exhibit strives to open a privileged child’s eyes to the barriers that prevent less privileged children from escaping the consequences of devastating inequality.

In working with churches throughout the U.S., the Compassion Experience aims to educate children on global poverty by pushing them to learn about the specific living conditions and daily lives of those who face poverty every day in developing countries.

The exhibit allows children to choose between different variations of a self-guided tour, represented by recreations of actual homes throughout struggling countries, like Ethiopia and the Dominican Republic.

These children will hear other less privileged children describe their own life and living conditions. At the end of the tour, the less privileged discuss how they overcame poverty through education and church sponsorships.

With three operable mobile units in the U.S., featuring five poor children’s stories, the exhibit draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. Compassion International aims to further expand its initiative with the development of more dialogues and tours across the U.S. With about a million and a half children sponsored through their program, Compassion International grossed an annual budget in the 2014 fiscal year of $710 million, continuing to show promising results and increases in their annual budget.

These exhibits aim to open the eyes of many children by demonstrating the difficulties of those growing up in extreme poverty. By showing younger generations these overwhelming differences, Compassion International hopes children will express more gratitude in their own lives and join the fight in alleviating global poverty.

– Brandon Johnson

Photo: Flickr

, ,

15 Facts about Global Poverty

Global Poverty
Most people are aware of global poverty, but oftentimes, the facts don’t sink in until people see the numbers. Here are 15 facts about global poverty.

1. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that from 2014 to 2016, one in nine people suffered from chronic undernourishment. Almost all of them live in developing nations.

2. Between the years 1992 and 2014, the number of undernourished people in developing nations was reduced to 43 percent. However, there is still a long way to go. The percentage of the world’s population that still suffers from hunger is 13.5 percent.

3. Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the least amount of progress made in reducing hunger, with one in four people deemed chronically undernourished.

4. Although many Asian nations have made improvements in their poverty levels, little progress to decrease the number of chronically undernourished people has been made.

5. Undernutrition during a child’s developing years causes problems such as stunted height. In 2012, Professor Daniel Schwekendiek from Sungkyunkwan University studied the heights of children in North and South Korea. He found that poor nutrition causes North Korean children to be one to three inches shorter than South Korean children.

6. Another side effect of malnutrition is iron deficiency. Half of all pregnant women in developing countries are estimated to be anemic. About 40 percent of preschool-age children are also estimated to have anemia, which causes problems such as weakness and insomnia.

7. In the United States, a case of upset stomach and diarrhea might cause a sick day. For developing countries, a diarrheal disease could be a death sentence for a child. In 2015, diarrhea accounted for nine percent of deaths among children age five and under. This made it the leading cause of death for children in that age group.

8. Between 2000 and 2015, the number of children under five dying from pneumonia decreased by 47 percent. However, the numbers are not decreasing fast enough. In 2015, the cause of one in six childhood deaths was pneumonia.

9. The Center for Disease Control and Management estimates that 780 million people have no access to clean drinking water. This is about the same number of people who suffer from hunger and malnutrition globally. People living in rural areas are more likely to not have access to an improved water source.

10. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that one in five primary schools girls do not have access to education. Experts say that one reason for this is because menstruating girls often do not have access to toilets in schools. Girls are also more likely to be in charge of fetching water for the family. This makes it difficult for them to stay in school.

11. Contaminated drinking water can also lead to diseases such as Guinea Worm Disease (GWD). This is a painful parasitic disease that causes worms to emerge from the body through blisters and sores.

12. Unclean water isn’t only unsafe to drink, it can also be unsafe to wash in. Contaminated water sources used in washing can lead to problems such as trachoma, the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. Nearly 41 million people suffer from this condition.

13. According to UNAIDS, there were approximately 37 million people living with HIV/AIDS in 2015. The number of children under the age of 15 living with the disease in 2015 was 1.8 million.

14. In 2015, 150,000 children became infected with HIV. The majority of them live in Sub-Saharan Africa and became infected by their mothers through pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding.

15. However, people are making progress in addressing the AIDS epidemic. In 2016, there were an estimated 18.2 million HIV-infected people on antiretroviral therapy. UNAIDS hopes to increase that number to 30 million by 2020.

Most people have some general knowledge of the effects of global poverty, but the numbers make the reality more palpable. These facts demonstrate the great amount of progress made and the work that still needs to be done. The Borgen Project is helping decrease global poverty number by educating, advocating and mobilizing people. However, until poverty is completely eliminated, there is still plenty of work to be done.

– Mary Grace Costa

Photo: Flickr

, ,

15 Poverty and Education Statistics


Accessing education is not easy in many poor areas of the world. Widening access to education is a key method in reducing global poverty. Here are 15 poverty and education statistics to better understand the relationship of how these two issues interplay.

  1. There are more than 124 million primary or secondary school-aged children who are not in school around the world.
  2. The reasons children do not attend school vary. Some children belong to families who cannot afford it, while others are too sick or too hungry to attend. All of these reasons trace back to poverty.
  3. The cost of providing 13 years of education for a child living in a developing country is around $1.18 a day.
  4. One of the first steps in overcoming poverty is receiving an education.
  5. With each year of schooling, an individual’s income potential increases by around 10 percent.
  6. With more education, one has more opportunities.
  7. Girls have a harder time accessing education than boys. Ten million boys and 15 million girls will never receive a primary education.
  8. Gender inequality in education is predominantly seen among the poor.
  9. If every girl had access to an education, the number of child marriages could decrease by 14 percent.
  10. If a mother has the ability to read, her children have a 50 percent greater chance of surviving past the age of five.
  11. Nearly 800 million people do not have the basic ability to read or write.
  12. Conflict, one of the many causes of poverty, is also a leading cause of disruption in education. About 35 percent of kids who are not in school are not receiving an education due to conflicts such as war.
  13. Poverty decreases as more people have access to education. Investing in education leads to further development.
  14. Rural areas yield more poverty and less access to education. A child from a rural area is twice as likely to not attend school as a child from an urban area.
  15. According to WE Charity, $26 billion more each year would give every person a basic education, which is “less than five percent of what the U.S. military spent in 2015.”

According to Children International, “education is one of the most powerful ways to reduce poverty and improve health, gender equality, peace and stability.” These 15 poverty and education statistics show that access to education is key to overcoming poverty.

– Shannon Elder

Photo: Flickr