Archive for category: Development

Information and stories on development news.

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Top 5 Anti-Poverty Tech Solutions


The latest technological innovations have the ability to make a powerful impact on reducing poverty across the globe. However, finding a way to support and develop the most promising ideas remains a challenge. To that end, The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California holds an annual awards program to spread the word about the best ideas in anti-poverty tech solutions. Here are five of last year’s Tech Awards Laureates:

Top 5 Anti-Poverty Tech Solutions

    1.  Equal Access International: This organization founded and run by CEO Ronni Goldfarb uses the power of the media to tell human stories about those in poverty, raising awareness and shining a light on those who would otherwise be ignored. Last year, this organization partnered with Nepal’s United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to produce the radio show “Chatting with My Best Friend.” This show combines entertainment with education, teaching young people how to prevent becoming infected with HIV/AIDS. “Our programs help people believe in themselves and gain the confidence and skills they need to improve their lives no matter what their circumstances,” Goldfarb said.
    2.  International Development Enterprises-India (IDEI): IDEI designed a brilliant solution to tackle India’s lack of access to underground water. By creating an easy-to-use and cheap man-powered water pump resembling a tiered treadmill, farmers in India are able to extend their annual growing season with their own two feet. “We take what we call the logjam approach,” Shveta Bakshki, IDEI Vice President stated. “We identify that one, critical obstruction to remove so that good things start happening.”
    3.  Design Revolution (D-Rev): Krista Donaldson’s organization is saving the lives of infants using the power of light. Her groundbreaking blueprint for an enduring yet inexpensive lamp, called Brilliance, cures jaundice in babies by bathing them in a strong blue light. One of the most accomplished anti-poverty tech solutions to date, D-Rev’s phototherapy breakthrough has saved more than 175,000 infant lives across 41 countries. “We believe that regardless of your income, you deserve access to high-quality medical devices,” Donaldson stated.
    4.  Souktel: Hundreds of smartphone apps have been designed to serve smartphone users, but Souktel found a way to make older flip phones just as smart. Jacob Korenblum’s startup uses basic text messaging to link employers with candidates in regions where traditional communication is difficult, leading to job growth and greater economic gains. Derived from the Arabic words for market and telephone, Souktel turns text messages into miniature online job boards. “People might be from different backgrounds, but they are united in a common purpose for things like creating better healthcare and education,” Korenblum said.
    5.  Angaza: Lesley Marincola’s idea to bring solar energy to those who cannot afford electricity was revolutionary for its outside-the-box thinking. Instead of forcing people to pay up front for solar lamps, Angaza accepts micro-payments over time for energy while offering immediate access, similar to purchasing minutes on a cell phone. Once the purchase price of the device is reached, the lamp becomes the property of the user. Angaza’s tech not only improves individual lives, it bolsters the local economy as well. As Marincola told The Tech Awards, “It gets super exciting when you think about putting all of these low-income consumers on the map. We have big plans.”

    As Tech Awards Laureates, each of the above designers of anti-poverty tech solutions has been awarded $50,000 from PATH, a nonprofit for global health, to further develop their life-changing innovative ideas.

    – Dan Krajewski

    Photo: Flickr

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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

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Top 10 Hunger Stats


Recent growth and investment in agriculture in Eastern Asia and Latin America have put the regions on the path toward eliminating hunger. On the other hand, climate change, conflict and poverty have prevented more than 50 countries from reaching international food availability goals. This list of the top 10 hunger stats references in-depth studies and highlights global trends. Additionally, the list offers perspective into the effects of hunger on impoverished communities. Ahead are the top 10 hunger stats.

10 Hunger Statistics

  1. Between 2014 and 2016, 794.6 million people faced undernourishment around the globe. This is equivalent to 10.9 percent of the global population.
  2. Of those undernourished between 2014 and 2016, 779.9 million lived in developing regions. This number is equivalent to 12.9 percent of the population of developing areas.
  3. In Africa alone, 232.5 million people were undernourished between 2014 and 2016. This represents 20 percent of the African population.
  4. Undernourishment in Eastern Asia has fallen by nearly 50 percent in the last two decades, from 295 million undernourished between 1990-1992 to 145 million undernourished between 2014-16.
  5. In 2011, undernutrition was estimated to be the cause of 3.1 million child deaths — 45 percent of all child deaths.
  6. In 2013, 51 million children under the age of five suffered from wasting, or a decrease in fat and muscle tissue, with 17 million of those affected severely. Two-thirds of those children lived in Asia and almost one-third lived in Africa.
  7. In developing countries, close to 40 percent of preschool children are estimated to be anemic, or iron-deficient.
  8. An estimated 250 million preschool children across the globe do not have adequate levels of Vitamin A. Of those 250 million children, between 250,000 and 500,000 go blind each year. Additionally, half of that number die within 12 months of onset.
  9. Conflict increases hunger. In 2012, the estimated number of conflict-affected residents represented 21 percent of the estimated 805 million undernourished people in that year.
  10. In 2013, there were a dozen countries with a rate of under-five mortality at 10 percent or higher. They are all on the continent of Africa. The country of Angola is the only country in the world with an under-five mortality rate greater than 15 percent.

Hunger begets hunger. Many times malnutrition and undernourishment leads to low weight and poor human growth and development. These symptoms cause future health and financial problems. These top 10 hunger stats represent that, while the numbers of hunger are improving, past deficiencies have stunted growth for many nations.

– Shaun Savarese

Photo: Flickr

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How Big Thinkers Use Technology to Fight Poverty


Technology has long been considered one of the most useful tools in combating global poverty. New developments continue to show even more promise in this regard. Two prominent thinkers have made recent strides toward finding dramatic new breakthroughs in using technology to fight poverty.

Rob Nail is the CEO and co-founder of Singularity University, a global community created to take on the greatest challenges facing the world today with the use of exponential technologies. Having already worked directly with the government of Uruguay to provide 100 percent of young students with interconnected laptops and tablets, Nail is now looking to the future of education by applying those technologies.

“Imagine five and six-year-old kids learning coding and robotics. What will Uruguay look like 15 years from now?” Nail told Forbes in a January interview. “That can translate into us creating a world of abundance, as we like to call it.” Nail has also worked with existing industrial giants such as Lowe’s and GE in creating technological programs to fight poverty.

Nail is not alone in his quest for using technology to fight poverty. In December, Stanford University launched a dedicated Poverty and Technology Lab. The lab seeks innovative technological solutions to the problem of ongoing global inequality.

The Poverty and Technology lab was announced during December’s Summit on Poverty and Opportunity, a two-day event held on Stanford University’s campus. Attendees included tech juggernauts, such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

The lab’s founding director Elisabeth Mason told Buzzfeed news that the lab will develop an entirely new field of academic study “that applies the premises and tools of technology to the policies and processes of fighting poverty.” Mason holds extensive experience in fighting poverty as the Senior Advisor at the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality. She was awarded the New Yorker of the Year honor by NY1 in 2015.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, more commonly referred to online as 4IR, is the name for the radical globalization of cyber networks poised to revolutionize the way businesses operate today. It is comprised of three main components: the Industrial Internet of Things, which are machines that collect and act on information, Big Data, which is the mass capturing of data itself, and Digital Infrastructure, which securely connects all the devices.

With their passion for social justice and vision of a future where poverty is nothing more than a historical memory, both Nail and Mason are primed to be major figures in 4IR by using technology to fight poverty.

– Dan Krajewski

Photo: Flickr

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What One Woman Is Doing to Bring Change to Poverty

Sarah Emerson is the Director of Women Empowered Initiative at PCI Global and is the driving force behind the idea that women’s participation in the global economy can allow them to live up to their full economic and social potential while reducing global poverty.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), more than 27 percent of the gross domestic product in developing countries is lost each year due to women being denied entry into the global economy.

Women like Emerson are driving change while empowering other women to do the same. These women are lifting their families out of poverty and transforming businesses and economies around the world.

Reducing Poverty Worldwide

The initiative has been a mechanism for empowering over 400,000 women around the world to pool their resources and become active participants in their communities while addressing food insecurity and reducing the impact of poverty. It is funded in part by USAID and focuses on self-sustaining women’s savings groups by building self-worth and not just capital. The initiative also builds leadership skills like goal setting, action planning and decision making about investments. These skills allow women to take the lead in the most important areas of their lives.

PCI Global believes that women are the solution to poverty and have the ability to bring about economic and social change to transform the lives of those living in extreme poverty.

Emerson continues to bring change to poverty, while addressing many other economic issues, through her campaigns and future development programs launched all over the world, including San Diego. San Diego is the home for many former refugees, resettled by the U.S. State Department, who need further aid to lift them out of poverty.

PCI Global focuses on women located on the Pacific coast of California who struggle with meeting the basic needs for survival. It also provides empowerment opportunities to low-income ethnic groups who require food, housing and access to medical care to create better standards of living.

PCI Global believes that the initiative has the trajectory to bring change to poverty, one woman and one community at a time.

– Rochelle R. Dean

Photo: Flickr

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Seven Facts About Improved Education in the Maldives


In 2004, a devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean hit the coasts of several countries in South and Southeast Asia, resulting in massive damage and more than 100 reported casualties in the Maldives. With unwavering aid and support from internal communities and UNICEF, the island country has experienced significant achievements in its health, poverty and economic status, but particularly in the field of education.

The Maldives is the first country in South Asia labeled as an ‘MDG Plus’ country by achieving five of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals before 2015.

Because early childhood education is obligatory and free of charge, the country’s net enrollment increased from 51.2 percent in 2001 to 99.6 percent in 2016.

Higher secondary enrollment increased dramatically from 2013 to 2016 due to the successful implementation of the No Child Left Behind policy.

Student passing percentage in GCE O’Level 5-subjects rose significantly from 27 percent in 2009 to 56 percent in 2015. Goals have been set for education in the Maldives to achieve the national target of 60 percent in 2017.

As a direct response to the tsunami disaster, UNICEF brought resources to ‘hard-to-reach’ children through Teacher Resource Centers (TRCs), as a part of its Tsunami Recovery Programme. TRCs allow students to access a global e-network of teacher training and educational resources.

UNICEF ensures that education in the Maldives reaches all children with special needs. In addition, Life-Skills Based Education (LSBE) targets secondary school children and includes lessons on HIV/AIDs, civic education and vocational training to prepare Maldivian youth for adulthood.

Since the Maldives unified its education system in 1978, the literacy rate has risen from 70 percent to 98 percent.

The work of teachers and caregivers in the Maldives continues to put improved learning standards in place. Just as the nation’s overall conditions of life have reached a high since the struggles brought on by natural disaster, education in the Maldives will hopefully only advance in the future.

– Mikaela Frigillana

Photo: Flickr

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Reforming Education in Tonga


Education in Tonga is free and compulsory between ages six and 14, and the literacy rate is approximately 99 percent. Roughly 80 percent of all primary schools and 90 percent of secondary schools are run by religious organizations.

Although there are some post-secondary agricultural, medical, nursing and teaching education programs, most young Tongan people pursue their studies overseas. As a result, many young Tongans live in New Zealand and Australia, while 22.5 percent of their peers residing in Tonga live below the poverty line.

Over the last decade Tonga’s Ministry of Education, Women Affairs and Culture has sought educational reform through the Tonga Education Support Program (TESP), which has been segmented into two phases. TESP I addresses three particular areas of improvement identified by the 2003 Tonga Education Sector Study:

  • Improvement of equitable access universal primary education in the first six years of schooling and quality of universal basic education for all children in Tonga.
  • Improvements to the access to and the quality of “post-basic” education and vocational training in hopes of increasing Tonga’s role in the global economy.
  • Improvements to the administration of education and training to facilitate the prior two goals. In particular, this goal calls for cooperation between both government-funded and nongovernment-funded education programs to serve the national interest of education development.

The Ministry also developed TESP II, an adapted form of the Tonga Education Lakalaka 1 Policy Framework, to improve student, teacher and institutional performance rates across all schools.
Australia has contributed AUD $6.5 million to this project, while New Zealand has cosponsored NZD $8.2 million.

Lack of comprehensive reporting has made it difficult to assess whether or not these education development programs have successfully achieved their goals, but from what has been reported, these programs show promise in improving education in Tonga. The Ministry also expects to achieve at least 99 percent access to and participation in formal education programs and 99 percent retention and completion in the coming years.

– Casie Wilson

Photo: Flickr

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Social Policy Tackles Poverty in Uruguay

Uruguay

Poverty in Uruguay was at borderline catastrophic levels less than 15 years ago. Uruguay has made strides over the past decade to dig itself out of a massive hole and has brought its poverty levels from nearly 50% to below 10%. Its success is due in large part to government action — via a safety net to lift those at the bottom to a more manageable level with the help of leaders who lead by example.

In 2002, Uruguay fell into one of the worst financial crises in its history, which was heavily influenced by the Argentine depression and the Brazilian Financial Crisis. That year, unemployment shot from 10% to 18%, GDP fell by 11%, and poverty in Uruguay doubled. By the time 2004 came, the poverty rate in Uruguay had reached a peak of 39.9%, of which children made up almost 60%.

Thanks to the implementation of new governmental policies targeted at improving the quality of life of its citizens, poverty in Uruguay fell to 9.7% in 2015, and its GDP grew to $56 billion. One of the reasons for this turnaround was taking care of Uruguay’s weakest and most vulnerable first, via the Emergency Social Program. Enacted in 2005 by then-president Tabare Vasquez, it provides the safety net necessary to slowly lift the citizens of Uruguay back to their feet. An allowance program was also created during this time, providing families in poverty a means to live — 700 pesos a month (on average), or about $31.

After Vasquez, poverty in Uruguay continued to fall during the term of Jose Mujica — “The World’s Poorest President.” Mujica was the president of Uruguay from 2010-2015 and did not live in the presidential palace, but instead on a modest farm outside the capital city. He donated 90% of his earnings (about $12,000 per month) to charity and the people he represented and is quoted as saying, “I’m not the poorest president. The poorest is the one who needs a lot to live.”

Uruguay has experienced a drastic turnaround since its economic crisis due to economic growth, introducing social safety nets and strong leadership from the presidents who governed during this time. It still utilizes high levels of social spending and agricultural exports, and current projections are that Uruguay’s growth will continue to climb in the coming years, leaving the high rates of poverty in Uruguay a thing of the past.

– Dustin Jayroe

Photo: Flickr

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VGEL Builds Vocational Education in Rajasthan

Education in Rajasthan
The Rajasthan government and the Rajasthan Skill and Livelihood Development Corporation (RSLDC) have agreed to partner with Virtual Global Education Ltd. (VGEL) in aiding unemployed youth by providing vocational education in Rajasthan, specifically in the cities of Gudha, Toonga, Reengus, Pipar City, Palsana, Kotputli, Bhopalgarh and Jodhpur.

The initial stages of the program are set to reach out to at least 6,000 unemployed youth in the first phase, but it is hoped to reach more than 25,000 by the end of this financial year. This first phase will offer training opportunities in business process outsourcing, nursing, telecommunications, accounting, renewable energy branches, business and finance.

RSLDC has partnered with career development programs similar to VGEL in the past. These programs include the Employment Linked Skill Training Program (ELSTP). The program provides students between the ages of 18 and 35 with a number of job training courses in the fashion, hospitality and marketing industries.

For years, school enrollment and child labor restrictions have been a contentious issue in India’s rural northwestern states, including Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. These states are the country’s largest producers of cotton and rank among the highest for the proportional share of children aged five to 14 engaged in child labor in India.

According to the most recent region-specific data collected in 2011, roughly 66% of Rajasthan citizens are literate. Of the population, 79% of men and 52% of women are able to read and write. While these rates show improvement from the 60% recorded in 2001, they are still short of India’s national literacy rate of 69%.

In response to the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act passed in 2009, education in Rajasthan has undergone rigorous reform. Among initiatives to improve learning conditions for rural public schools, education officials have called for the implementation of vocational programs in order to increase students’ chances of finding employment in a variety of industries.

– Casie Wilson

Photo: Flickr