Promoting Equality and Increasing Employment for Zambia’s Youth

Zambia’s youth have continued to face not only high unemployment rates, but also poor quality education, teenage pregnancies and early marriages. Fackson Shamenda (Zambia’s labour and social security minister) says the country’s young people are critical for development objectives; however, work is being done to increase employment for Zambia’s youth.

Promoting Equality Among Zambia’s Employed Youth

Launched in 2013, Impact Enterprises was Zambia’s first digital outsourcing company with a mission to provide the country’s youth with digital jobs. The company soon found that in group settings, young Zambian women were afraid to share their opinions among male coworkers. In June 2015, Impact Enterprises launched Ladies of Victory and Encouragement (LOVE), a support group for its female employees.

By July 2015, LOVE helped the company’s female employees become more confident in participating amongst male workers. One of the employees, Debra, said that LOVE restored the energy she used to have in secondary school. In January 2016, Dimitri Zakharov (CEO of Impact Enterprises) said the LOVE support group significantly strengthened the company’s employees and services.

Zambia’s Action Plan For Unemployed Youth

In March 2016, Zambia’s government developed an action plan to increase employment for Zambia’s youth. These are some of the action plan’s objectives:

• Make youth employment a strategic target for developing Zambia’s economy.
• Rejuvenate the dynamism of the local labour markets by enhancing the quality of Zambia’s graduate programs and students’ skills.
• Ensure full participation of Zambia’s young men and women in the design and planning of youth-centred interventions.

Jerry Sakala (patron of Zambia’s U.N. Youth Association) said that for strides of addressing unemployed youth to be meaningful, strong and coordinated responses will be required from both Zambia’s stakeholders and its youth. “This multi-sectoral approach will ensure that programmes and activities to empower and create employment opportunities for the youth are mainstreamed across all sectors,” said Sakala.

A Young Zambian Entrepreneur Employs 50 People

For young Zambians who have achieved stable employment, they now work to give back to their fellow unemployed residents. In February 2017, Jessie Chipindo (a young entrepreneur and founder of Zambia’s Dulce & Banana restaurant) employed 50 specialized staff to work for her business. Zambia’s government was greatly pleased with Chipindo’s work. Chipindo thanked the government for creating an environment where the country’s young entrepreneurs could flourish.

Agriculture as a Profitable Investment For Zambia’s Youth

In January 2018, Dr. Kaunda (cofounder of Billionaire Farmer Agric Solutions) said that Zambia’s youth could generate great profit from agricultural work; however, the challenge lies in attracting the youth to this job in the first place.

“We need to change the outdated perception that agriculture is back-breaking, unprofitable work for an old, tired generation,” said Kaunda. Kaunda also says that while agricultural work yields financial benefits, it still requires a firm commitment to hard work.

Establishing a Positive Change

On March 26, 2018, the Innovative Zambian Youths Organization (IZYO) institution planned to an entrepreneurship summit for Zambia’s youth. Joseph Maimba (the institution’s CEO) said this is part of the Zambian government’s effort to close the unemployment gap among the country’s young people. The summit will be begin on April 5, 2018 and focus on helping Zambia’s young entrepreneurs develop new skills.

Zambia’s government sees the potential of its young people to develop the country’s economic standing, and many entities will continue to focus on creating employment for Zambia’s youth. 

– Rhondjé Singh Tanwar

Photo: Flickr

10 Solutions to Global Poverty That Can Be Implemented Today

Nearly half of the world’s population lives at or below the poverty line; out of the 2.2 billion children in the world, one billion of them live in poverty. Though this issue may not be as prevalent or visible in the U.S., it is an issue that affects everyone. Small steps can be taken to better this problem, leading to possible solutions to global poverty.

1. Properly Identifying Issues
   One of the largest issues involving poverty is the inability to properly identify contributing factors at the micro and macro level. Many organizations assume that local aid alone will better the problem, but it is only with the combined efforts of local, state and national governments that poverty will lessen.

2. Allocating Proper Time and Resources
   Preventable diseases such as pneumonia claim the lives of nearly two million children per year. Without proper planning, which includes allocating enough time, money and volunteer work, global poverty will continue to exist. Currently, the U.S. spends only about one percent of the federal budget on foreign aid. By creating detailed plans and projects aimed at helping other nations, global poverty will begin to lessen.

3. Creating organizations and communities to work locally
   Enacting policy is not the only solution to global poverty, as policy often does not affect those suffering directly. As previously stated, efforts must come from both local and federal domains. Essentially, while policy is created to change legislation, local organizations enact the changes, directly helping those in need. On top of that, working with entire communities instead of specific individuals has been proven to be more effective.

4. Creating Jobs
   Creating jobs in poverty-ridden communities allows individuals to pull themselves out of poverty. This solution to global poverty is arguably one of the most effective. Federal governments can achieve this by rebuilding their infrastructures, developing renewable energy sources, renovating abandoned housing and raising the minimum wage.
   By raising the minimum wage in existing jobs, companies would combat recent inflation in both developed and developing countries. This change in the states (in places such as Seattle and Washington) has been shown to reduce poverty.

6. Providing Access to Healthcare
   Unpaid medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy. Having access to free or affordable healthcare would allow families to allocate the money they would normally spend on healthcare elsewhere.

7. Empowering Women
   Female empowerment in developing countries often comes from organizations that work to reduce poverty by allowing them to take leadership positions and advance socially and economically.

8. Microfinancing
   Microfinancing provides improvements to socioeconomic status by providing access to more, larger loans, providing better repayment rates for women, as they are less likely to default on their loans than men and extending education programs for loan-payers’ children. It can also improve health and welfare by providing access to clean water and better sanitation, create new jobs and teach developing countries to be more sustainable.
   Microfinancing continues to prove that even the smallest amounts of credit can be one of the many solutions to global poverty.

9. Provide paid leave and paid sick days
   Paid maternal and paternal leave allows families to save money after childbirth, as having a child is a leading cause of economic hardship. Furthermore, giving workers paid sick days allows them to properly get over their illness without worrying about missing a paycheck or receiving a paycheck with fewer funds than normal.

10. Supporting equal pay for men and women
    Closing the wage gap between men and women would reduce 50 percent of poverty experienced by women and their families. This would also add money to the nation’s gross domestic product.

Global poverty has proven to be an unruly, frustrating cycle, but eradicating it is within our means. These solutions to global poverty can and should be implemented to begin the end of poverty.

– Chylene Babb

Photo: Flickr

The Behno Standard: Factory Workers Transform into Humans

Considering the work that millions of people do in factories around the world, progress is often valued not for the quality of the work but for how quickly the product can reach the market. If money is the primary objective, human beings can be endangered in the process. Without teamwork and employee wellbeing as priorities, products will not make it past production and the economic gains will not materialize. One solution to this culture is Shivam Punjya’s Behno Standard.

Punjya is a man who has sought to revolutionize the conditions in which factory workers operate, especially women. During a 2012 research trip on women’s health in India, he witnessed some extraordinary handmade textile work in rural villages. He was appalled to learn that 90 percent of these beautiful artworks were tailored by women who are paid less than $1 per day.

One year later, a tragedy would ultimately push him into advocacy. On April 13, 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,100 workers, the majority of whom were women. This incident brought intense awareness to factory conditions and the need to support workers.

Behno is a word used to describe love, harmony, and balance in its most beautiful connections with creative solutions. It is primarily an artistic expression used by communities full of like-minded individuals who strive for that harmony and balance with love. It is also the name used for the ethical fashion line that Punjya founded in New York.

Its central focus is on providing these factory workers with an environment to pursue their designs without their health being compromised. Through a partnership with a large nonprofit in rural Gujarat, India, called Muni Seva Ashram, Punjya began The Garment Worker Project. This was debuted in July 2016 as the first implementation of the Behno Standard through a collection of social programs.

The Behno Standard is broken into six categories: health, garment worker mobility, family planning, women’s rights, worker satisfaction and benefits and eco-consciousness. Its crucial emphasis is on offering a new meaning to the label ‘Made in India,’ often synonymous with unspeakable worker conditions. With the Behno Standard, Punjya strives to change that outlook and prove that a healthy working atmosphere leads to efficiency and high-quality products.

In Punjya’s own words, “Ethical fashion is such a collaborative space because the supply chain is massive and so convoluted. We encourage other brands to reach out to us, and we reach out all the time, to collaborate and utilize each others’ platforms.” Due to his inspiration for starting in the fashion business, he doesn’t want Behno to be a brand that tries to compete on the basis of profit. Instead, he wants his brand to be the unique type of team that collaborates with other companies.

Business doesn’t necessarily need to be a competition but can delve into a community goal. In that sense, the Behno Standard is transforming the connotations of factory work and joining together to revolutionize how the fashion business operates through human connections.

– Nicole Suárez

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Job Security in Oman

Oman is the oldest independent state in the Arab world, which has existed since the mid-17th century after the expulsion of the Portuguese. It is an absolute monarchy, ruled over by the Al Said dynasty for centuries. It is a nation that is rich in natural resources (especially oil) but, unfortunately, almost one-fourth of the people of Oman are unemployed.

Oman relies heavily on its oil production for economic growth and high oil prices until the recent past were what boosted its economy. However, the problem with an oil-based economy is that it is unsustainable because of the inevitable decline in oil production and fall in its prices. Oman, like other oil-rich countries in the Middle East and Africa, has been experiencing the negative effects of this decline in prices and oil production.

It is feared that due to “the global economic slowdown, the recession in Europe and the economic slowdown in China and elsewhere, oil prices are not going to increase.” Consequently, there has been an increase in job insecurities and frustration among the people of Oman. In 2012, the unemployment rate was 25 percent. It is expected to increase if the government does not create employment opportunities in the public and private sectors.

In 2011, the people of Oman, with changes underway in the region due to the Arab Spring, protested against the government, demanding economic and political reforms. The government responded with a police crackdown on protestors as well as taking measures to placate people by creating public sector jobs and raising wages.

Analysts believe that the result of raising wages in the public sector is not encouraging, for two reasons: One is that it has brought pressure on the budget, which is already strained by the decline in oil prices and production. The second is that the increase in wages in the public sector has also proved to be a hindrance to private sector growth. In order for economic diversification to take place, which the country needs, Oman needs to create more jobs in the private sector.

The positive news, according to the 2016 Word Bank Economic Outlook report on Oman, is that the country’s overall real GDP growth is expected to slightly recover “as a gradual recovery of oil prices improves confidence and encourages private sector investment.” Further, trade and investment opportunities with Iran are also expected to increase as sanctions are lifted. There is hope that these and other measures will bring help to the people of Oman in terms of job security.

– Aslam Kakar

Photo: Flickr

BRICS Summit 2017: Another Step to Poverty Alleviation

The BRICS nations—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—account for a massive 30 percent of world’s GDP and a high proportion of international growth. These nations are key players on the world stage. The annual BRICS summit has helped galvanize a wide array of infrastructure projects, trade and poverty alleviation initiatives to ensure equitable and sustainable growth. BRICS is bolstering the capacities and capabilities of rising markets by tapping into their potentials.

The New Development Bank (NDB) and Contingent Reserve Arrangement is contributing much to improving social security nets, bettering infrastructure networks and regulating governance. Each country is dedicating a fixed proportion to the BRICS Development Bank. The NDB has allocated over $1.4 billion to support four projects each in China, Russia and India. Over the course of 2017, more than $30 billion will be channeled toward supporting projects in other key realms.

Similarly, the BRICS Business Council helps strengthen cooperation among BRICS countries in e-commerce, technical development and agenda-setting.

The BRICS bloc works to integrate a number of global, national and regional development projects and agendas together, like the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union 2063 Agenda.

BRICS countries are capitalizing on their positions to encourage trade liberalization within the bloc, especially in regards to increasing efficiency and overcoming red tape and bureaucratic weaknesses often associated with free trade.

The BRICS bloc strengthens positions of countries in Eurasia. In 2017 alone, it was reported that levels of trade between BRICS nations increased exponentially. Shipments to and from countries are reaching record heights. The growth of the manufacturing sector and e-commerce has increased exponentially.

The bloc is also working collaboratively towards safeguarding the future by securing employment in the manufacturing sector and cushioning technology.

The recent 2017 BRICS Summit held in Xiamen, China covered issues ranging from employment, commerce and finance, innovation and technology to reforms of the United Nations Security Council and improving counter-terrorism measures.

As the BRICS bloc often invites many non-BRICs members to observe annual proceedings, it could possibly lead to the inclusion of more developing countries in future. For the recent BRICS summit, China invited countries such Tajikistan, Mexico, Thailand, Kenya and Egypt. The bloc wants to expand its potential and scope in future.

However, even within BRICS nations, there are differences in aspects such as wealth distribution, growth rate and population control. China and India boast exponential growth rates, while countries such as Russia have been experiencing slower growth rates at present.

As a host to this year’s BRICS Summit, China pledged $76.4 million for a BRICS economic and technology cooperation agenda. President Xi Jinping also pledged $4 million to the NDB. China’s Belt and Road Initiative was an important part of the discourse, seeing as it has gained much traction globally since its inception.

South African President, Jacob Zuma, focused on the implementation of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals 2030 to eradicate poverty at the 2017 BRICS Summit.

Zuma spoke about the work of the African Union (AU) in this realm. The AU recently announced the opening of the African Regional Centre. Moreover, Zuma is also confident about the progress of the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention of Climate Change.

At the BRICS Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was particularly concerned with tackling poverty and corruption, bolstering clean energy sectors, and ensuring gender parity. India recently joined the Shanghai Cooperation to ensure more social stability and economic security.

Prime Minister Modi unveiled 10 “noble commitments” concerning key aspects like counter-terrorism, cybersecurity and disaster management. The BRICS commitment could also bring India closer toward normalizing relations with China, especially after the Doklam border conflict.

Russia and India agreed to collaboratively work toward easing the War in Afghanistan. The leaders also focused on fortifying energy efficiency, tourism and improving youth exchanges, bilateral trade, and boosting investment in an integrated manner.

Furthermore, Brazilian President Michel Termer aimed to secure more foreign investment during the course of the BRICS summit this year to possibly counter Brazil’s current period of languid growth. Termer expressed his wish to channel investment toward infrastructure projects and diversifying markets.

Overall, future BRICS Summits will pave the way for pioneering global development initiatives and will be an important framework for governance and policymaking in the future, as it is essential that developing superpowers be immune to economic headwinds. It will also be the foundation for future agendas in the evolving world dynamic.

– Shivani Ekkanath

Photo: Flickr