Archive for category: Developing Countries

Information and stories about developing countries.

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How Build Change is Building Life-Saving Houses

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In 2010, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck the country of Haiti, claiming tens of thousands of lives and costing $7.8 billion in damages. Build Change, a non-profit international organization, is fortifying impoverished nations to prevent another disaster of this scale.

Working in Haiti, China, and Indonesia, Build Change provides earthquake-resilient house designs to be implemented by local homeowners and carpenters. Instead of proposing revolutionary design choices, Build Change analyzes the architecture of affected areas and makes specific modifications to improve stability. This allows local workers to quickly learn the new designs and eventually become able to build safer housing without outside help.

After an impoverished country endures an earthquake, houses built as replacements can either be culturally inappropriate or suffer from the same instability that caused the original houses to collapse. By intervening after a time of disaster, Build Change enables home owners to be involved in the building of secure housing. This in turn sparks the creation of new jobs for local workers. In a country like Haiti, with 70% of the population either unemployed or underemployed, this is a huge boom for the economy.

With 18,701 houses built, success stories have been numerous. Haitian Mirlande Joseph recounts her experience working with Build Change after her house was leveled by the devastating earthquake. Although they could not offer her financial support, they were able to walk her through the process of building a new house by engineering the design and providing onsite training of the workers tasked with the physical labor. Although this required more monetary investment than Joseph anticipated, the experience was so positive that she considered taking up construction as a profession.

Build Change was founded in 2004 by Dr. Elizabeth Hausler, who started the organization in response to the tragic number of lives lost following earthquakes. Hausler realized the insurmountable amounts of damage could be avoided if those in poverty had access to better housing. Finding immediate solutions to this issue helps prevent millions of dollars in repairs that would be spent following a national disaster. To Hausler, it’s imperative to provide these designs to those in struggling countries, regardless of whether their respective economies have fully recovered or not.

This sentiment is encapsulated in the Build Change site’s timeline: “Earthquakes don’t kill people… poorly built buildings do.”

In 2011, Hausler received the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT reward for sustainability in recognition of the work model utilized by Build Change. By winning the award, Hausler hopes to inspire governments and building agencies to create affordable building codes that are sustainable and efficient. She hopes more young inventors will take time to work with the locals of struggling countries to conceive practical and economic solutions with their products and methods.

– Timothy Monbleau

Source: BBC News, Build Change, Economic Impact of Haiti Earthquake, MIT Press Release
Photo: Build Change Universal Giving

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Do Corporate Tax Breaks Cost Poor Nations?

Do Corporate Tax Breaks Cost Poor Nations
Developing countries are struggling to provide basic public services to their citizens. Citizens complain of crowded classrooms, shortages of nurses, crumbling roads, inadequate health care and governments point to their empty budgets. There is a solution to this shortage of money in poor nations. Poor nations must stop giving investors and corporations tax breaks. The money lost to corporation tax breaks could meet all the country’s health-needs, feed all the starving children, send every child to school and reach all the MDGs.

It is estimated that developing countries lose more than $138 billion a year to corporate tax breaks and tax exemptions alone.

“Big companies are doing deals to avoid paying tax on their massive profits. They’re playing developing countries off against each other to get good tax deals for them, but bad deals for the world’s poor,” ActionAid’s advocacy manager Soren Ambrose said.

Tax breaks are not even a large factor when corporations decide to invest in a country. According to an Investor Motivation Survey conducted by the World Bank, tax incentives ranked seventeenth, behind factors such as exchange rates, labor costs and transport infrastructure.

Corporations rely on public services such as infrastructure and raw material. They also rely on healthy and educated workers. It is only right that these corporations pay their contribution for the public services they rely on.

“Governments aren’t collecting the tax which is rightfully theirs. They’re openly letting big companies pay less tax. Some countries are even offering completely tax-free deals – a lose-lose for all involved, especially poor people in urgent need of services like schools and hospitals, “ said Ambrose. “In the long run, governments and companies are sabotaging the development of the skilled and healthy workforces that could lift their countries out of poverty.”

– Catherine Ulrich

Sources: Alertnet, ActionAid

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Where is the Worst Poverty in the World?

Worst Poverty in the World
It is difficult to rank poverty into objective levels of better and worse, as though human suffering can be quantified. Are the crowded slums of India, for example, worse than the isolated villages in rural Brazil? Answering the question of where the worst poverty in the world is depends on the factors one considers.

In statistical terms, the Democratic Republic of the Congo earns the dubious distinction of having repeatedly been labelled the world’s poorest country. With a GDP per capita of less than $400 and wracked by instability, the DRC has come to be an all around worst-case scenario. Traveller Giovanni Contadino described his trip to the Congo: “Everyone was very keen to tell me how hard life was, and how much better things must be where I am from… Whenever I pressed people as to why their situation was so difficult, it was always the fault of the fighting.” Contandino also described the lack of infrastructure and the rife corruption in the city, where bribes were an everyday occurrence and politicians expected to live well beyond their means, with no protest from the people.

Many have pointed out the psychological devastation of being among the poorest in the United States. Though it is the richest country in the world, the United States is also plagued by devastating poverty. Affected areas include urban communities like infamous Hunt’s Point in New York City or Detroit, which was labelled the most miserable city in the United States and has lower earnings than any other city and a high crime rate. It is a condition that must be made more intolerable by the knowledge of your countrymen’s affluence as well as living in a culture that thrives on materialism and consumption.

Syrian refugees are undergoing one of the world’s most horrendous crises at the moment, losing homes, belongings, livelihoods, subject to random violence and rampant sexual assaults, forced into underserved communities and robbed of any hope of future security while their country burns around them. The poverty to be found in a refugee camp breeds severe physical and psychological trauma. It would be difficult to look at a refugee and state that their suffering was less profound than that to be found in the Congo, simply because it began more recently.

All poverty is bad poverty. All poverty creates suffering and undermines dignity. To ask if one is worse than the other is an impossible and misguided question with little purpose; the most we should be asking is why there is poverty at all.

– Farahnaz Mohammed

Sources: Global Finance, Road Trip to the DRC, MSN
Photo: The Telegraph

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The Benefits of Volunteering Abroad

Volunteering Abroad
Volunteering abroad is a great way to make a difference while also exploring new places. The exposure to other cultures, languages, and ways of life creates mind-opening experiences. Waking up day-to-day in an area of need, one begins to appreciate the gifts of his/her own culture as well as appreciate the benefits of a new culture. The friendships made with other volunteers and community members are an added bonus. Here are just some benefits of volunteering abroad:

Utility Maximization and Altruism:

People, by nature, are utility maximizers who engage in certain behaviors in order to derive happiness and satisfaction. In this case, the certain behavior is volunteering. Volunteering instills a sense of “giving back,” or rather giving ones own resources (time, money, services, etc.) to help those less fortunate. Overseas volunteering is truly meaningful in this area. Leaving one’s comfort zone to venture to another country to help out makes this act of giving even more poignant. According to GoAbroad.com, anyone who decides to volunteer abroad must meet only one important qualification: the urge to make a positive change in the world.

Learn New Languages:

While volunteering abroad, every day is an opportunity to learn the native language. A stroll by a fruit stand is an opportunity to engage the attendant in conversation and learn new vocabulary, even if it is just learning the names of different fruits. Often times English speakers are asked to teach English as a second language which requires relearning grammar rules and usage. What could be so terrible about relearning subject-verb agreement? These better English skills can prove useful in the long run.

Eat Something Different for a Change:

Americans are accustomed to the usual selection of food that is inspected, regulated, processed and enhanced for flavor. Many foreign countries do not face these government expectations with their foods. Volunteers may try fruits, veggies, herbs and meats they never experienced before. Some meals are served fresher and are much cheaper than what most Americans are use to. Some foods are an unexpected treat, and others may be frightening—a fresh fruit with maggots, anyone? Nevertheless, a new menu can yield new favorites, new ways of cooking, and an appreciation for food in its simplest form.

The Cure and Better Manners:

Overseas volunteering is an excellent cure for the “ugly American” syndrome. Volunteers typically receive thorough education about gestures, body language, and conversation to avoid offensiveness. The lessons are a humbling experience and can make a volunteer think twice about how their behavior appears to others in their own culture.

– Scarlet Shelton

Sources: USA Today, GoAbroad.com

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Obama Pledges $6.5 Billion for Electricity in Africa

Obama Electrify Africa
According to the International Energy Agency, all developing nations lack adequate access to electricity. This amounts to 1.3 billion people living in the dark worldwide. According to the same source, an investment of $1 trillion USD would be needed to remedy this. Currently, poverty and hunger take center stage. Food is of more use to a starving child than is a night light, but Westerners often take for granted how valuable the power of light can be to a community in poverty.

Not only does electricity make lives easier on a personal level, it helps to mechanize farming operations, which can be a great boost to a company’s agricultural productivity. Natural disasters often become less deadly when people are warned about them ahead of time, which can be accomplished with electric monitoring systems. Socially, populations are less marginalized with improved means of communication and information.

President Barack Obama said during his recent trip to South Africa, “Access to electricity is fundamental to opportunity in this age. It’s the light that children study by, the energy that allows an idea to be transformed into a real business. It’s the lifeline for families to meet their most basic needs, and it’s the connection that’s needed to plug Africa into the grid of the global economy.” President Obama then pledged almost $7 billion USD to help provide electricity for Africa.

The White House stated that The Export-Import Bank will carry most of the financial weight of the program, donating $5 billion, and the U.S. Oversees Private Investment Corporation will provide another $1.5 billion.

The funds will go toward preventing the frequent blackouts that plague the Sub-Saharan part of the continent, as well as helping the 85% percent of people in the region without electricity gain access to it. Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Mozambique will be the first countries to benefit from the program as it is developed at preliminary stages.

The investment is a great step toward solving the problem, but in all, Africa alone will need $300 billion to achieve universal electricity by 2030. The Alliance for Rural Electrification, a non-government organization, is another ally in combating this issue. As champions of universal electrification, ARE focuses on renewable energy such as solar, which much of Africa is a strong candidate for. This is especially relevant for areas that are geographically isolated where extending the reach of an existing power grid is not feasible.

– Samantha Mauney

Source: ARE, Scientific American, CNN
Photo: Business Insider

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Zambia: Poverty and Promising Signs

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Known for its stunning natural beauty and variety of wildlife, the country of Zambia draws thousands of global travelers seeking adventure and awe-inspiring views in its world-renowned state parks, along the mighty Zambezi River, and at the famous Victoria Falls, a UNESCO world heritage site.  More than half of the country’s 752,000 square kilometers is arable land, and the country is rich in natural resources, especially copper, one of its major exports. Compared to many of its neighboring countries, Zambia has also been somewhat stable politically. Zambia made relatively peaceful transition from British colonial rule in 1964, and the country has been spared the kind of serious civil war that countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo have faced in recent years.

Zambia’s natural beauty and great agricultural capacity are a stark contrast to the economic problems facing the country today, however. According to World Bank figures, an estimated 60% of the country’s 13.8 million people live below the poverty line, with most of those in Zambia’s many rural areas. Life expectancy for the average Zambian is 49 years, in part because of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which has ravaged the population. Just over 12% of Zambians ages 15-49 are infected with the virus, and UN figures show that about 1 million people were living with the disease in 2011.  One-third of the population is without access to clean water, and more than 25% of the country’s schools do not have access to clean water and proper sanitation.  The country is reportedly on track to meet Millennium Development Goal #2, but enrollment in primary schools is just under 72%.

Efforts to combat widespread poverty and its attendant health and social effects in Zambia have been comprehensive, involving a coalition of private and public, national and international organizations. Through USAID, the United States recently launched two new health programs aimed at addressing poverty and HIV/AIDS by empowering small farmers with new tools to make their farms viable and profitable. The programs have drawn praise from the Zambian government. Zambia is also making progress toward its Millennium Development Goals, reducing child mortality from 191 per 1,000 births in 1992, to 119 per 1,000 in 2007.  Extreme poverty in the country declined from 58% to 51% over the same period, and in 2002 the country eliminated school fees for basic education, taking an important step toward universal primary education. These indicators are promising signs that progress is indeed being made toward relieving the misery of poverty and disease in Zambia. They also suggest, however, that there is much more work to be done. 

– Délice Williams

Source: Lonely Planet, UNAIDs, UNICEF, World Bank
Photo: Presentation Primary Terenure

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Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps
Mercy Corps works to save and improve lives in some of the most impoverished places on earth. Since it was founded in 1979, the NGO has worked in war-torn and poverty-ridden countries to turn crises into opportunities. 95% of their staff are local residents working in nations like Somalia, Afghanistan, the Congo and Iraq.

The countries in which Mercy Corps works have several things in common. Usually children’s lives are at risk, women’s education is ignored, and there is little chance for economic growth. The organization helps to provide and build food security and create educational and economic opportunities. Their method is to listen to the locals and prioritize urgent needs first. They look at long-term and innovative solutions that bring systemic change.  Through taking responsible risks and thinking big, the organization is able to help large numbers of individuals.

Mercy Corps believes communities work best when they work for their own growth and change. They believe local markets provide sustainable recovery and good governance is the foundation to success. They focus their work on places in transition either from conflict, natural disasters, or political upheaval. They start with emergency relief and move to long-term goals to create communities that can withstand future shocks.

To get involved with Mercy Corps, check out their website at www.mercycorps.org.  They have lots of opportunities from donating money to fundraising to attending events or visiting their office in Portland. They also have a list of open positions and offer internships for those interested in a longer or more permanent position.

It is evident that the organization is making a difference in some of the toughest places on earth. Lives are being saved and communities are being changed through the work Mercy Corps does.

– Amanda Kloeppel
Source: Mercy Corps

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Slavery Slowly Wanes in Timbuktu, Mali

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TIMBUKTU, Mali — Though slavery was formally abolished in the West African nation of Mali in 1960, roughly 200,000 people continue to live as modern-day slaves and hundreds more are only now experiencing freedom for the first time.

According to the advocacy group Anti-Slavery International, “descent-based slavery” has existed for generations in Mali but worsened in March 2012 when Islamist rebels gained control of northern Mali. The lighter-skinned Tuaregs and Arab Moors used the ethnic background they shared with jihadists to control darker-skinned ethnic groups.

Many Tuareg and Arab Moor families recaptured former slaves, and those enslaved reported that their treatment worsened during the Islamists’ ten-month reign, during which a highly conservative brand of Islamic sharia law was enforced. A French-led military intervention rid Mali’s northern towns of these Islamists in early 2013, and many Tuaregs and Arab Moors fled the region fearing reprisal for their actions have .

While many former slaveholders have fled the region, the impact of slavery has left a possibly irreparable gulf between Mali’s different ethnic groups. Tuaregs and Arab Moors formerly raided communities of darker-skinned populations in order to acquire slaves for a variety of unpaid roles, ranging from salt mining to sexual slavery. Darker-skinned ethnic groups also entered voluntarily into bondage systems to feed their families because, due to discrimination, they are unable to acquire a better source of income.

These groups have adopted the language and customs of the Tuaregs and Arab Moors, but they are still subjected to unfair treatment and poor working conditions. Those who have managed to escape slavery often come to Timbuktu in order to find employment, but they end up with jobs closely resembling their former experiences as slaves.

Though former slaves celebrate as their longtime captors leave Mali, a guerrilla war surges on. Many slaves have escaped from the families that held control over their bloodline for generations, but the impact of slavery is readily apparent. Today, Timbuktu is a wasteland offering virtually no economic opportunities, even though many of its citizens are finally free.

– Katie Bandera

Source: Antislavery, Washington Post
Photo: The Guardian

Vinegar Used in New Cervical Cancer Screening

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CHICAGO – Though most people would agree on vinegar’s extraordinary versatility in the kitchen, few would suspect that the liquid could have a powerful influence in the medical field through cervical cancer screening.

New research presented in an early June cancer conference in Chicago has revealed that testing for cancerous cells in the cervix with vinegar swabs could be the key to slashing cervical cancer-related deaths in under-developed countries.

The new screening method is called VIA (visual inspection with acetic acid) and uses sterilized vinegar made from combining acetic acid with water. Since its introduction in 2001, the low-tech visual exam has cut the cervical cancer rate in Indian women who were screened by 31 percent compared to women who did not undergo the cervical cancer screening.

Pap smears and tests that help to find and prevent HPV in women are only successful in reducing death rates in the countries that can afford them. In developing countries with little access to both preventative and treatment-related modern medical technology, a study has shown that these new low-tech cervix tests that use vinegar could save thousands of lives each year.

Whereas a Pap test would normally cost around $15 per test, the vinegar screening only costs $1. Specifically, the tests have proven beneficial in the slums of India, where cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death amongst women.

How does it work? Swabbing the cervix with vinegar causes abnormal cells in the cervix to temporarily change color while healthy tissues remains colorless, thus making cancer cells easily identifiable by medical analysts. Locals can perform the vinegar tests with merely two weeks of training and without expensive lab equipment.

Researchers have found that widespread implementation of the new vinegar screenings could prevent nearly 75,000 deaths in resource-deprived countries around the world. If the studies prove conclusive and the low-tech vinegar-based cancer screening tests become a worldwide phenomenon, vinegar may begin to replace diamonds as a girl’s best friend.

– Alexandra Bruschi

Source: The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Mail
Photo: Global Giving

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Japan’s Foreign Aid Efforts in Africa

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In the past, Japan has mostly focused its foreign aid budget on areas in East Asia and Southeast Asia. However, this trend is changing as the country has turned its attention to Africa. Japan altered its foreign assistance policies after creating the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in 1993 and slowly began to increase aid to the region.

Japan’s foreign assistance to Africa has now reached an annual contribution of $400 million in “technical cooperation” and $800 million in “concessionary loans,” an amount that accounts for 40% of Japan’s total aid budget.

The concessionary loans are given for African countries to improve their infrastructure by building new ports, railways and other power stations. Japan also emphasizes health and education. The recipient countries must build schools, vocational school and teacher training programs as well as new hospitals with the grant money.

These grants and loan vary between countries. Many South African countries are ineligible, but those that do meet Japan’s criteria are giving aid based on individual needs and circumstances. Some countries struggle more agriculturally, while others may need advanced assistance in infrastructure, health or education sectors.

The recipient African countries are given concessionary loans at interest rates as low as 0.1% and have a ten year grace period followed by a 40-year time frame to re-pay the loans. The concessionary loans are mainly offered for large, high budget projects while the grants are given for smaller development projects.

So far, Japan’s foreign aid money has trained 800,000 math and science teachers as well as 220,000 healthcare workers in Africa. Japanese companies located in Africa have created about 150,000 jobs for local people. These numbers will continue to increase as Japan sends more money to the region. Japan’s foreign aid budget for Africa has doubled in the past five years, reaching $1.8 billion annually. By focusing on “development, energy production, good governance and human security,” Japan hopes to turn Africa into a flourishing trade partner while improving the lives of thousands of people.

– Mary Penn

Source: Engineering News
Photo: Bloomberg