Archive for category: Developing Countries

Information and stories about developing countries.

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Improving Global Surgery Addresses Development Needs


According to the World Health Organization, 5.8 million people die each year as a result of injuries. This is 32 percent more than the number of fatalities that result from malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDs combined.

The most common life-threatening issues include road traffic, homicide and suicide. The World Health Organization also states that “injuries are a leading killer of youth.” Unfortunately, less attention has been directed toward surgical services in the developing world. A study in the Lancet Global Health Journal analyzed the factors that have contributed to this unmet need.

Key factors include:

  • Lack of leadership in the global surgery community
  • Disagreement on how to address the problem
  • Lack of effective efforts to take advantage of political actions
  • Minimal data on effects of surgical diseases

Despite these difficulties, there are networks committed to advancing the priority of global surgery. One promising solution is to link these efforts with other global health goals.

Basic surgical care could avert 1.5 million deaths per year. A few surgical diseases include blindness, fractures and appendicitis. While we may place less of an emphasis on these health issues, in comparison to HIV/AIDS for example, they still place significant burdens on the quality and productivity of life in developing communities.

It is important for the above factors to be addressed with existing organizations that have the structure and ability to bring attention to this goal. With adequate healthcare, communities in developing countries are more likely to develop in a sustainable and equitable manner.

– Iliana Lang

Sources: World Health Organization, The Lancet
Photo: Unsplash

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Developing Countries Need to Raise Enrollment of Disabled Children

disabled
A new report released last week by Human Rights Watch (HRW) has detailed how an estimated 500,000 children with physical and mental disabilities are not enrolled within South Africa’s primary education system.

The monitoring group underscores within their report the growing trend worldwide of children with disabilities failing to become enrolled in primary education programs, specifically in developing countries and regions grappling with conflict.

The report was compiled based on individual interviews with 70 parents across South Africa; researchers traveled throughout KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, Gauteng and the Northern and Western Capes in late 2014.

In reference to South Africa, the report asserts, “Although the government claims it has achieved the MDG of enrolling all children in primary schools by 2015, HRW found that in reality, across South Africa many children with disabilities are not in school.”

The report also details the failure of many primary schools to accommodate disabled students and provide adequate educational services, as well as inherent discrimination against certain students through the application of additional fees.

Hannah Kuper, the co-director of the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, argued in a recent interview, “Many, if not most, of disabled children are not enrolled in schools in developing countries. We need to raise awareness that disabled children have the right to attend school, and that including them often involves only small changes in the school or teaching methods, or even just in attitudes.”

She offered potential solutions for this problem in detail — “The first thing that we need is more data in order to know how to enroll children with disabilities in school. We need to know which children are most excluded and why, in order to see how to overcome these barriers. And we need to know what works best to address the needs of disabled children when they are in school, so that they can have the best education possible.”

The Malawian Ministry of Education announced that they had successfully mainstreamed over 90,000 disabled children into their primary school systems as part of their Inclusive Education Program. The program has also offered funding for structural modifications to schools, including the installation of ramps and handicap restrooms compatible with disabled students.

The author of the HRW report, Elin Martínez, questioned the complacency of the South African government in discriminating against education opportunities for disabled children. “The South African government needs to admit that it is not providing quality education to all of its children – in fact, no schooling at all to many who have disabilities.”

Qinisela, a South African mother of an eight-year-old with Down’s Syndrome, told HRW researchers, “We tried to put him in a [mainstream] school but they said they couldn’t put him in that school because he has disabilities […] because of Down’s Syndrome he isn’t like other children so they [said they] can’t teach him. At the therapy, they promised to phone if there’s a space in a special school. I’ve been waiting since last year.”

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were designed by the United Nations to replace the near completed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), will be put into place next year and include several regulations intended to improve the lives of disabled children, specifically within primary education and employment.

South Africa has attempted to remain active in the push disability advocacy, as they adopted policies to prohibit the exclusion of disabled children from primary education in 2001 and were one of the first countries to ratify the United Nations Disability Rights Convention in 2007. Despite these significant policy advancements, many officials have expressed concerns about disabled children’s access to primary education not just in South Africa, but across the developing world.

Jo Bourne, the Chief of Education for UNICEF, warned in a press statement, “Despite recent progress, there are still some 59 million primary-age children and 65 million adolescents out of school—often children living in poverty, girls, children with disabilities, children from ethnic minorities, children living in conflict or those engaged in child labour. These children and young people are among the most disadvantaged citizens from across the developing world and are not only excluded from the opportunity of education and learning for their own individual development, they are missing out on the opportunity to contribute to their communities and economies when they reach adulthood.”

– James Thornton

Sources: Malawi Nyasa Times, The Guardian
Photo: The Guardian

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Innovative Policies that Spur Growth and Reduce Poverty

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A handful of standard policies have been used throughout the world over many decades to attempt to decrease poverty. However, poverty is still a massive problem worldwide. It is also known that healthy economic growth is vital to reducing poverty. What are some new, innovative policies that can be used more widely in conjunction with existing policies to maximize poverty reduction and spur economic growth?

One of the most well-known innovative systems of reducing poverty has been the microcredit or microfinance system that has been perpetuated throughout areas with high densities of impoverished people. Bill Gates has said that he believes that providing more access to mobile banking (an extension of the ideas behind microfinance), will have huge impacts on the way the poor deal with money and will help reduce poverty.

Many innovative new policies are aimed at specific demographics in order to fully leverage the investment in a way that affects the poor best. For example, many of the poor live in rural areas and are involved in agriculture.

Due to the large role of agriculture in many impoverished people’s lives, one organization named Katalyst gives out small packets of high-quality seeds to farmers in Bangladesh. The result? Incomes for these farmers increased on the whole by over 300 million dollars.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has begun to fund proven methods of development. Two programs, one from Colombia and one from Haiti are being funded by the UNDP. Both programs focused on job training and development for people in vulnerable areas of the respective countries.

A third program was aimed at helping the government of Laos address the infrastructure concerns and problems in local areas, which eventually helped over 300,000 people to get better goods and services as well as local infrastructure.

Another idea which is incredibly simple is now being more widely accepted as a method that would prove valuable. Give poor people money. Giving unrestricted cash transfers to the poor has not been a popular policy in the past because many fear that the money would be wasted on nonessential goods or illegal activities.

However, a study based on a model like this was done in Uganda and resulted in a 38 percent increase in wages by the end of the study in the group that was given the unrestricted cash transfers. In addition, hours worked and business assets both increased significantly. The myth that the money would simply be wasted via this simplistic approach seems to be being dispelled.

Most of these ideas are not based on some new understanding of poverty. The existing rationale behind each one is held in commonly held knowledge about the different attributes of poverty and those in poverty.

The innovations are creative ways of tackling the most basic traits of the impoverished, unemployment (specific job training centers), lack of money (unrestricted cash transfers), and giving high quality seed packets (agriculture as a means of income).

By addressing these known factors in new ways, these policies have proven to be of use in the instances they were used, and should be more widely spread across the globe to help increase the rate of poverty reduction.

– Martin Yim

Sources: OCED Insights, United Nations, Social Science Research Network
Photo: CNN

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Students Work on Prosthetics to Help World’s Poor


Providing prosthetics in developing countries can be challenging because of the lack of technology and support. Two students at Texas A&M University may have the potential to make prosthetics quicker, cheaper and more accessible.

On campus, Brandon Sweeney and Blake Teipel have discovered how to make prosthetic body parts using a 3D printer.

“With a typical 3D printed part, it’ll just peel apart between the layer, so it’s a pretty fragile piece, but for this technology, with the coating, as you print the layers you heat up the whole part and cause fusing to happen all across the entire component,” says Teipel.

Their new invention is increasing in demand. Teipel says, “Globally, every 30 seconds, there is a new amputee.” Most prosthetic options, however, are extremely expensive, sometimes $50,000 or more.

With their new discovery, they believe prosthetics should not be this expensive. “At the very basic level, the materials cost and the time it would take to make it? $20,” says Sweeney.

As products become more affordable, it is that much more possible to make them accessible for those in developing countries.

“Next generation materials are making it possible for us to address problems that have so far been too expensive to technologically advanced, especially for the world’s poor,” says Teipel.

Several large companies are interested in their technology and the pair hopes to team up with one who is socially conscious and believes in doing good.

– Kelsey Parrotte

Sources: KBTX, TSRHC, JMU
Photo: Flickr

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Tax Inspectors Without Borders

financing-for-developmentTax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB), convened at the Third International Conference On Financing For Development back in July, is a joint operation between the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations Development Programme.

TIWB will play a vital role in unlocking billions of dollars over the 15-year course of the Sustainable Development Goals.

TIWB’s strategy has evolved out of the revelation that every year, roughly $3 trillion in government revenue goes uncollected due to tax avoidance.

IMF researchers estimate that developing nations lose $213 billion each year for those reasons. Finding a way to get their hands on that money could help those governments invest more in education, health, energy, infrastructure and the like.

Tax law can be dense, confusing and hard to follow, especially when multinationals make it that way on purpose. For this reason, TIWB will send in highly trained tax accountants and audit specialists that will work with national tax agencies. They will strengthen tax audit capabilities and help design smarter tax policies.

The details are less exciting than the results.

Pilot projects are underway in Europe, Latin America and Africa, all of which are helping national governments increase revenue stream that will be vital for financing the Sustainable Development Goals. The numbers speak for themselves. From 2011 to 2014, tax revenue in Colombia increased from $3.3 million to $33.2 million.

TIWB is extending the hard work of previous initiatives including the Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation and the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

They all arose in an environment where multinationals are gaining in power and influence and governments around the world are strapped for cash. In trying to rebalance the scales, they are looking for everyone to pay their fair share.

The money that will come from more effective regulation will be crucial for funding the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, the expertise and training that the TIWB will provide to developing country governments around the world is an extension of the philosophy embodied in the SDGs themselves.

This form of technical training and capacity building will lead to more professionals in developing countries and their skills will become necessary to help their countries develop.

– John Wachter

Sources: The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2, OECD 1, OECD 2, UNDP
Photo: TaxLinked

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Engage Emerging Nations, Improve Education Spending

Engage Emerging Nations, Improve Education Spending
Global Education is a hot topic. It has been a part of the Millennium Development Goals and the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. There was a recent Education Summit in Olso, Norway, in July. Education was also part of the discussions at the International Conference on Financing for Development.

Education leaders believed that there was a downturn in funding and supporting quality education for boys and girls around the world. However, after this year’s attention to education, this trend may be behind us. Mobilizing donors has had positive results. The financing committees work to enable traditional donors, private philanthropy and emerging nations.

One of the biggest game-changers is the Emerging Nations. They have a lot of potential to improve education standards and bring education to more people. The Global Partnership for Education brings together its developing nations partners and constituents before board meetings. The countries come together and exchange ideas and practices that work or didn’t work for them, allowing knowledge to spread more easily. It also gives the board an idea of how to tackle problems and how to approach education in these areas.

The meetings show that emerging nations are engaging in educational discussions and want to invest in the improvement. That is why it is important to mobilize these nations to spend on education. Show them where and how their money will be most effective.

Developing Nations are said to be growing economically more than developed nations. They will account for 65 percent of global growth up until 2020. It is important to reach out to them on such an important topic such as education. These countries have the resources to better education not just for their citizens, but for all global citizens by donating to global education. They can be the ones to close the $39 billion deficit in global education financing. The emerging nations are the ones that will benefit the most from education spending.

– Katherine Hewitt

Sources: Devex, Global Partnership, ICEF
Photo: Higher Education Development

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Silicon Valley and Global Energy Poverty

Silicon Valley & Global Energy Poverty
Over one billion people around the world do not have reliable access to electricity. Furthermore, 2.6 billion people are reliant upon biomass to cook, which causes harmful indoor pollution. The World Health Organization estimates that approximately four million people die each year due to habitual inhalation from these toxins.

The Silicon Valley is at the apex of technological achievement and is inhabited by some of the brightest and most creative minds on the planet. There has been a mounting international appeal to Silicon Valley to use their intellectual tech brilliance for philanthropic efforts.

There has been criticism for focusing on solutions to micro problems that intend to only service the individual, as opposed to global humanitarian issues. Responsibility, however, cannot rest solely with the entrepreneurs themselves. Widespread global issues do not always necessarily lend themselves to the venture capitalist system.

Tech entrepreneur Vivek Wadhwa notes this struggle: “Investors believe that the quickest hits come from building apps or games that go viral, or from creating websites that automate business processes. This was surely the case in the social-media era, when even children who had not completed their college education could write apps. But we’ve built enough messaging and photo-sharing apps, and have bigger opportunities now. It is possible for the young and the old to solve real problems, to great effect.”

Continents like Africa, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, have limited access to electricity and are being viewed as a possible new frontier for tech consumption. In some parts of the continent, Africans walk miles to the nearest power grid just for a cell phone charger. Even then, because of the demand, it can take hours and it is expensive. For this reason, solar energy has recently seen a boom in usage particularly by telecom companies being funded by tech investors. The rationale is that broadening electrical access across the continent will hopefully cause a surge in mobile phone usage.

Tesla has created a Powerwall home storage 10kwh battery that is capable of powering 1,000 watts of current for 10 hours. In comparison, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the average American household uses 1,200 watts, 24 hours per day. The battery is capable of recharging via solar or wind energy. The only downside is that the battery unit costs $4,000, which does not include installation. The average per capita income in Sub-Saharan Africa is well below $3,000, making the unit well out of most price ranges.

Nonetheless, the Powerwall home storage stands as a promising, albeit a rudimentary example of Silicon Valley creativity and ingenuity being applied for a global purpose.

– The Borgen Project

Sources: National Geographic, Huffington Post, Wadhwa, Forbes
Photo: Silicon Beat

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Projects to Send Soap to Developing Countries

Projects to Send Soap to Developing Countries
In the U.S., over two million bars of hotel soap are thrown away every year. It is not universally known that hygiene products that are so often found in landfills can be repurposed.

The Clean the World nonprofit association partnered with the Global Soap Project (GSP) has since delivered more than 25 million bars of soap to developing countries. “We don’t just drop off soap and leave,” according to the partnership. “We’re creating a positive health impact that is sustained long-term by making hand-washing and local soap purchases a lifelong habit.”

The popular phrase “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime” plays into this project. There’s more to it than simply giving people soap. The two organizations are advocating for global hygiene education because good hygiene education (and, by extension, good hygiene) creates healthier communities.

Hotels can register at https://www.globalsoap.org and are given instructions on how to send in their donations. The soap is grouped up and treated in a laboratory. Subsequently, bars are cut and sent to countries in need. Afterward, NGO partners send back results to GSP on distribution and hygiene education.

“To date, we’ve worked with partners in 32 countries to distribute lifesaving soap and hygiene education to vulnerable populations, including disaster victims, refugees, the homeless and mothers and children living in extreme poverty,” says GSP on its website. After these populations receive it, GSP and Clean the World makes sure that they have access to it for the rest of their lives. This creates an immediate health impact that not only supports local economies but also fosters independence on nonprofits and self-sustainability.

– Anna Brailow

Sources: Clean the World, Global Soap 1, Global Soap 2, Global Soap 3, Global Soap 4
Photo: CNN

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No Over-the-Counter Aspirin in Delhi Spotlights Government Action

No Over the Counter Aspirin in Delhi Spotlights Government Action

The Delhi government has banned the sale of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) without a prescription. The restriction is set to last from August 15 until November 30, which is peak dengue fever season. For patients with dengue fever, NSAIDs can increase the risk of hemorrhage or death. Other precautions taken include increasing the number of beds available and keeping extra NS1 Antigen detection kits, blood and supplies in hospitals.

Additionally, all government buildings, including hospitals, have been asked to procure the National Center for Disease designed mosquito-proof air coolers (MPCs). Mosquito nets will also be provided to sentinel surveillance hospitals. The government has also made moves to reward or penalize those areas where breeding is or is not found, respectively. New warnings are expected to be drafted featuring more correct and simplified information so that the public can be better informed of the change and why it is being implemented.

Because dengue fever plagues nearly the entire developing world, it can be considered a developing country disease. The people that are most affected rely on correct information and government action to protect themselves. The cooperation of the Delhi government in response to an impending potential for a health crisis showcases how both health officials and government officials can work together to bring about a more efficient action. The ban will likely be successful in decreasing dengue-related deaths and could perhaps serve as a model for other places where dengue fever claims the lives of many. The emphasis on encouraging correct public knowledge of risks and preventing the spread of misinformation is a huge step towards public transparency and again can serve as a model.

The cross-sectional cooperation and move to enact such a ban before peak dengue season is also noteworthy, as the government was able to act quickly enough that they should see drastic results with the ban in regards to dengue-related deaths. Cooperation and a prevention-based movement are both good indicators of the success of a public health initiative. Results pending, the Delhi restriction can serve as a model prevention program for not only other countries plagued with dengue fever but for other illnesses with known risky associations.

– Emma Dowd

Sources: Financial Express, India Times, Merinews
Photo: One Healthcare Worldwide

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Massive Open Online Courses Take the World by Storm

Massive open online Courses
The New York Times declared 2012 the year of the MOOC – Massive Open Online Courses. They have made a huge splash since then. Organizations like EdX and Coursera have spread knowledge online to millions across the world. Where are these online courses most common? The developing world.

Both Coursera and EdX are based in the United States but are more popular in places like China, Rwanda and Brazil. A lot of the popularity in the idea of MOOCs is their ability to reach everyone, especially those that might not have access to the knowledge and content divulged by the online courses.

Interestingly, MOOCs have only recently jumped on the radar of policymakers in governments of low-income countries. Electrical engineering professor in El Salvador, Carlos Martinez, took an electrical circuits class on EdX and thought it was so good that he began an adventure around El Salvador advocating for MOOCs.

Why did he have to advocate? Because his own university did not support his ideas about the online courses. After his journey, he enrolled 50 of his electrical engineering students and ran the class ad hoc, without grades or official assignments, with an experiment in a hallway every week instead of a proper lab.

There have even been reports of the developing world being “MOOCed out,” that they were not effective and that very few individuals who began a course online actually completed it. However, if utilized correctly, MOOCs can be a powerful tool for education in the developing world.

Martinez explained the best benefits of MOOCs —“I want to let the new ideas in, raise the bar and change the curriculum.”

This is exactly what MOOCs can be used for. While online courses are valuable opportunities for individual learners, they are even more useful when utilized in small groups of informal learners to supplement already existing education, according to Martinez. More and more, users of MOOCs in other countries are creating a new education model by “combining screen time with face time.” By mixing the two, small groups of informal learners foster a learning environment through sharing ideas with peers and mentors. It gives learners a taste of education from the first world.

A perfect example of the power of MOOCs used in a group is Kepler University to supplement formal university education in a group setting in Rwanda. They hope that their blend of MOOCs and lecture-style courses can make an impact on the education of potential undiscovered talents.

One of the huge advantages of MOOCs is that they level the playing field. They bring elite education to anyone with Internet access. With the growing spread of the Internet, more and more will have access to the great wealth of online courses.

— Greg Baker

Sources: Slate, New York Times, World Bank, Technology Review, Al Jazeera, The Verge