Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

10 Facts About Life Expectancy in South Korea

10 Facts About Life Expectancy in South Korea
South Korea is home to beautiful great plains, cherry blossom trees and charming architecture of centuries worth of history and many other awe-inspiring attractions.

Along with its rich cultural heritage, the average life expectancy in South Korea is rising rapidly due to advanced medical and technological innovation.

This list of 10 facts about life expectancy in South Korea articulates the importance of the nation’s universal health care system and how it contributes to the rising impoverished elderly population and the rapidly increasing average life expectancy.

10 Facts About Life Expectancy in South Korea

  1. The National Institute of Biomedical Information conducted a study that researched the cause of life expectancy in South Korea increasing over the past few decades. The study compared life table data and mortality statistics to observe the age and cause-specific contributions to life expectancy. It concluded that the rapid increase of life expectancy in South Korea can be attributed to the reductions in infant mortality rate, cardiovascular diseases (especially stroke and hypertension diseases), stomach cancer, liver cancer and tuberculosis through the advancement of medicine and technology.
  2. With life expectancy increasing at a rapid rate, the quality of life also contributes to its growth. South Korea achieved a universal health care plan called the National Health Insurance Program that allows medical aid to anyone who needs it without worrying about cost. In 2010, all private insurance companies were integrated into the National Health Insurance Program.
  3. Funding for the National Health Insurance Program comes from contributions, government subsidies and tobacco surcharges. Employee insured individuals are required to contribute 5 percent of their salary. Self-employed individuals’ contributions are based on their level of income. The contributions calculations take into account gender, age, motor vehicle and private property of an individual. Those living on islands or remote areas have reduced contribution percentages.
  4. The Medical Aid Program covers about 3.7 percent of the South Korean population. It was established in 1979 for low-income households and provides paid expenses for those who could not afford high medical costs. After 2004, the program expanded to cover rare and chronic disease and those under the age of 18. It is jointly funded by the local and federal government, with the local government choosing beneficiaries based on a set of criteria set forth by the South Korean Ministry.
  5. Nongovernment organizations such as the Federation of Evicted People of Seoul (FEPS), the Federation of National Street Vendors (FNSV), the Korean Coalition for Housing Rights (KCHR), the Korea Centre for City and Environment Research (KOCER) and the Korea National Association of the Urban Poor focus attention on low-income areas and housing difficulties. They aim to secure housing of tenants and demand that the government stops evicting residents from their homes without offering proper compensation. These organizations also take action in the form of public demonstrations in front of government buildings, lectures with different approaches to solving housing crises and host anti-eviction movements.
  6. An international team of scientists in the summer of 2017 predicted that by 2030, the life expectancy of women and men in South Korea on average would rise up to 90 and 83, respectively. However, according to the OECD, older adults over the age of 65 still live in poverty. A survey concluded that 48.6 percent of the elderly were in poverty, the highest level of the 36 OECD countries.
  7. Elders who live in poverty are not in absolute poverty, but relative poverty. They live below 50 percent of the South Korea median income. With access to universal health care and free treatment, they are able to live longer due to easily accessible medical intervention.
  8. With the ideals of Confucianism fading away, the traditions of filial piety disappear along with it. Many elders refuse financial support from their children because they do not want to burden them. Those over 65 with social security often live on most of their meager monthly pension.
  9. Almost a quarter of the impoverished elderly live in isolation and many commit suicide in fear of being a burden to their family. This results in high levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. South Korea has the 10th highest rate of suicide in the world and elderly suicide has risen from 34 per 100,000 people in 2000 to 72 per 100,000 people in 2010.
  10. Facilities such as the Buddhist temple that offers free lunches in Tapgol Park in Seoul serve about 140 people a day. The economy and market strain possibility of elders finding work, resulting in them begging for food or waiting in long lines in facilities such as the one in Tagpol Park. Some elders will work past the retirement age in order to live with basic necessities such as food and water because monthly pension plans are not sustainable enough.

These 10 facts about life expectancy in South Korea show that the majority of the impoverished people in the country are from the elderly community.

Despite the fact that the elderly live on low pension wages in poor living conditions, they also receive universal health care that covers medical expenses.

The list above highlights how the universal health care system in South Korea affects growing impoverished, elderly population and how does it increase the life expectancy and improves living conditions in the country.

– Aria Ma
Photo: Flickr

Drones in South Africa’s mining industry

Drones improving South Africas mines
Toward the end of the 19th century, explorers found diamonds near South Africa’s Orange River.

This marked the beginning of the chain of events that helped turn South Africa into a mining juggernaut.

Despite the danger associated with the work in this industry, it remains crucial to the nation in terms of employment and gross domestic product.

Today, advanced technology, especially drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), have the potential to transform South Africa’s mining economy.

The nation has high unemployment and poverty rate and it remains to be seen if drones in South Africa have the power to help or hurt poverty in the nation.

Mining and South Africa’s Economy

Mining industry accounts for the biggest industry in South Africa and mined goods are the country’s biggest exports.

This industry is a large part of South Africa’s economy as the country is rich in coal, diamonds, gold and platinum.

In regards to this, South Africa has attracted large foreign direct investments in the local mining industry.

Nearly 500,000 South Africans worked in the sector and this contributed to around $22 billion in country’s GDP in 2017.

Drones in South Africa’s Mining Industry

Commercial drone use is gaining popularity in South Africa so much that Engineering News has declared 2018 as the year of the drone.

The South African Civil Aviation Authority has regulated drone use since 2015 and currently allows 24 companies to incorporate UAVs in business operations.

There are somewhere from 30,000 to 50,000 drones in the country, but more the potential for the increase is present.

Almost 340 applicants are waiting for approval of drone-use. For one of the nation’s largest iron ore producers, Kumba Iron Ore, drones are a large part of the business and drilling is high-tech.

The company uses drones and machines to drill holes and drop explosives for excavation.

In previous times, miners would spend long days sitting on construction machines for the excavation process, but drones have sped up and simplified it.

Kumba also uses autonomous drills and is one of only two companies to adopt this technology worldwide.

Drones are also being used to monitor drilling sites, keeping humans away from dangerous working conditions.

The drones outfitted with cameras and scanners can provide data on operations and current conditions in the mine.

Another company that is using for drones in mining is Exxaro Resources Group in partnership with Rocketmine.

Rocketmine uses UAVs for terrain surveying, stockpile inspection, blast monitoring and mapping services and contracts out drones throughout Africa.

Exxaro’s Grootegeluk coal mine is taking advantage of drones for surveying and mapping in order to increase production through better efficiency.

Effects on Human Jobs

PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that the market value of drone-powered solutions is over $127 billion.

Drones are revolutionizing mining and keeping more people away from dangerous working conditions.

Unfortunately, men and women in this sector are this could potentially be even worse in the future.

“The sad reality is,” writes Robert J. Traydon for news24 “there will be fewer and fewer jobs available in large mining operations as robots continue to take over.”

That sentiment is hardly universal. The drone industry has the potential to create thousands of jobs for qualified drone pilots.

More specifically, this sector could create more than 30,000 jobs yearly. A rather large caveat is that workers will need to be experienced or high-potential drone pilots. Unskilled laborers may receive no benefit from drone mining.

Mining Drones in South Africa and Poverty in the Country

Poverty is a huge issue for the people of South Africa as the nation faces both unemployment and persistent poverty levels.

Over 25 percent of the workforce is unemployed and almost half of South Africa’s people are chronically poor.

South African men and women need real solutions. Mining is a huge part of the economy and any changes in this industry will have dramatic effects on the South African workers.

If mining drones in South Africa can provide more jobs this could be a good thing for the nation.

Unfortunately, the drones could take human jobs and negatively impact poverty and unemployment. It is still unclear how changes in the mining sector will play out overall for South Africa’s economy and people in general.

There is no doubt that drones in South Africa can make working conditions safer and more efficient for miners in the country.

The only question is the real effect drones will have on South African unemployment and poverty.

Drones take away manpower at dangerous mining sites, but also create jobs for drone pilots and others through the supply chain.

It remains to be seen how this resource-rich nation fully incorporates drones and whether these tools ultimately increase or decrease poverty in the country.

Just like the case in many other sectors, the effect of mining drones in South Africa is neither black nor white when it comes to alleviating poverty.

– Sarah Stanley

Photo: Flickr

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Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Ethiopia

The Top 10 Facts about Girls’ Education in Ethiopia
Gender disparity in education and lack of opportunity for girls worldwide create an inequality tide difficult to turn in different direction.

Ethiopia is among the 10 lowest-literacy countries in the world, and the literacy rate for girls is much lower than for boys.

However, the top 10 facts about girls’ education in Ethiopia reveal the efforts of many international and internal projects developing female literacy and expanding the networks connecting education sites.

Research shows that as more gender-sensitive education advances, higher education of women becomes possible, supporting social change, decreasing the gender gap, fostering more female teachers and building self-reliance and self-esteem.

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Ethiopia

  1. According to UNESCO, one out of three children in sub-Saharan Africa is out of school, and girls are more likely to miss education than boys. Ethiopia follows this grim description, with only 31 percent of the total adolescent population enrolled in secondary education in 2015. Only 47 percent of females aged 15-24 years old are literate, compared to 63 percent of males the same age.
  2. In 2014, completion of the last grade of primary education was slim, with boys completing at 37 percent and girls finishing at 39 percent. These numbers show that girls are more likely to complete primary school once enrolled.
  3. The nation has one of the highest primary school enrollment rates in Africa. Percentage of girls enrollment in primary schools was around 60 percent in 2015, a huge increase from 19 percent of girls who enrolled in the same education level in 1990.
  4. Total government expenditure on education in 2015 was 4.7 percent of GDP and has fallen by more than 1 percent since 2012. The World Bank’s data shows the government is still developing ways to support sustainable education as Ethiopia depends more on its infrastructure.
  5. Socio-cultural factors include poverty and displacement. Often times, the students’ families cannot afford school supplies or afford to live far away from any educational facilities. Refugee families often must prioritize food and shelter above school fees. The organization Girl Up partners with the U.N. to bring solar lamps, supplies and scholarships to Somali refugee girls, also providing safe bathroom facilities for local schools.
  6. The lack of female educators can affect girls’ esteem since there are more men than women teachers in the country. Only 5.2 percent of women continue to tertiary school enrollment, as opposed to almost 11 percent of men. This means fewer women will go on to become professional teachers. In 2012, only 36.7 percent of primary school teachers were female. One-third of female teachers work in grades 1-4 in urban areas, only 11 percent of female teachers for grades 5-8 work in rural areas. Less female teachers exist in areas where girls need them the most.
  7. Global Partnership for Girls’ and Women’s Education, an act initiated by UNESCO, aims to promote equality in education by working to inspire gender-sensitive teachers and encourage girls to complete higher education. As of 2014, girls’ rates of academic performance increases in entrepreneurship, ITC skills, life skills and comprehensive sex education.
  8. The education gender gap in the Benishangul-Gumuz regional state measures higher than the national average. A project titled Crowdsourcing Girls’ Education cosponsored by the government and the Packard Foundation addresses this specific region. This project aims to empower 1,000 adolescent girls through educational programs. UNESCO also partners with country-wide organizations like the African Union – International Centre for the Education of Girls and Women in Africa (AU/CIEFFA), completing workshops with girls in vulnerable areas. The projects work to prevent gender-related violence at school, teach self-reliance and problem-solving and create safe environments.
  9. The rates of early marriage and pregnancy are higher in rural areas of Ethiopia. Unable to continue school, pregnant girls in rural areas deal with poverty, inequality or discrimination, lack of education and facilities. As of 2013, 57.7 percent of girls were marrying before the legal age of 18. In a survey taken in 2015, 3.7 percent of girls aged 15-19 in rural areas were pregnant, compared to 0.6 percent of girls in urban areas.
  10. In 2011, UNESCO launched the Better Life, Better Future Partnership, pursuing equality through programs including the gender-responsive education projects through a partnership with the HNA group and Hainan Chiang Foundation in China. These projects prioritize education accessible to all and purposefully work against school violence to create safe environments for girls. Spread throughout seven different sub-Saharan countries, the project in Ethiopia works to rebuild three higher learning institutions and 12 upper and secondary schools.

These top 10 facts about girls’ education in Ethiopia illustrate the rates of female illiteracy and school dropout in schools and universities. The discrepancy between opportunities for boys and girls shows the amount of work still needed to close the gender gap.

However, more understanding of the issue leads to the government working with education programs and involving the community. Other beneficial steps include literacy programs and specialized schooling to build esteem for young women. The challenge lies in accessibility, policy and encouraging certain rural communities to embrace girls’ education as essential.

– Hannah Peterson
Photo: Flickr

The Road to Better Credit Access in Lesotho

Credit Access in Lesotho
Lesotho is a small landlocked country with a population of over 2 million surrounded by its much larger neighbor, South Africa. The rural population accounts for 75 percent of the total population with about 40 percent of the Basothos living there involved in the agricultural sector. This sector, despite experiencing declines in production in recent years remains a central part of the nation’s economy.

Lesotho has a GDP of $1,141 per capita which categorizes it as lower to middle-income country with a 3 percent economic growth rate in the past three years. This progress can be attributed to the performance of textile manufacturing and as well as the agricultural sector after it recovered from the 2015 and 2016 droughts. However, this progress was thwarted by the rand/dollar depreciation. Unemployment, high level of inequality and poverty remain an issue for Lesotho reflected by 2017 estimates that indicate 51.8 percent of the population still lives below the poverty line.

Long-Term Strategies to Improve Credit Access in Lesotho

The government of Lesotho has been creating strategies to meet the goal of improving access to financial services for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises in order to alleviate the aforementioned challenges including extreme poverty. One of the main strategies outlined by the central bank of Lesotho is attaining higher savings and investment ratios. The report shows that achieving this goal has results of economic growth and an increase in employment as well as food security.

However, given that more than 50 percent small and medium-sized enterprises lack access to credit in particular, it would be essential to work on widening that resource further to augment the overall economic growth in Lesotho. One of the main interventions used to achieve this improvement is called a public credit guarantee scheme (CGS).

This strategy involves resolving the lack of financial history records which poses a risk, through third-party credit risk mitigation to lenders. This is because the scheme allows for a part of the losses to be absorbed by the loans given to small and medium enterprises, in exchange for a fee. Moreover, this solution is particularly viable in developing nations such as Lesotho as it is growing to cover more than half of the developing world already.

This is increasingly relevant in agriculture, one of the biggest economic sectors, which has not yielded as much contribution to the economy due to the fact that most of the people involved still practice subsistence farming. The government attributes this lag in diversifying and increasing agricultural productivity to credit market failure, lack of access to information and technical support, restricted market integration and climate change.

Furthermore, the sector is marked as high risk and low return by the financial sector, a label that can potentially be reversed with the development of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises through improved access to financial services including credit access in Lesotho.

Importance of Credit Access in Lesotho

Given its potential to accelerate economic growth, improving access to credit access in Lesotho has the ability to significantly augment big sectors such as agriculture. Creating a strong financial sector that increases credit access in Lesotho can have the effect of strengthening the 40 percent of the population involved in agriculture in its transition from subsistence farming to advanced agriculture by allowing the ability acquire the technology as well as the technical support that is lacking.

The work towards creating a financial sector that could meet these development objectives has had challenges due to inadequacies in technical and entrepreneurial skills as well as the lack of proper documentation of financial records. Although this poses an issue with increasing credit access in Lesotho and creating an inclusive financial sector as a whole, without a strong foundation of a stable, liquid and efficient financial sector, the nation will continue to have challenges in creating sustainable growth.

– Bilen Kassie
Photo: Flickr

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Displacement in Syria

Displacement in Syria
Syria is a country located in the Middle East that has been in constant warfare since 2011, leaving millions of people displaced.

Today, there are several nonprofit organizations that are directly affecting the lives of people that are affected by war and, as a result, displacement in Syria.

United Nations Work on Displacement in Syria

The United Nations estimates that 6.6 million people are internally displaced in Syria. Refugees considered, there are approximately 12 million people in and bordering Syria that need humanitarian assistance.

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has teamed up with other United Nations humanitarian and development agencies to appeal for $8 billion in new funding to help millions of refugees.

The first aspect of the appeal is the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP) for 2018-2019.

The plan will give $4.4 billion in support for over 5 million refugees in neighboring countries and close to 4 million people in the communities hosting these refugees.

The second aspect is known as the 2017 Syria Humanitarian Response Plan and seeks to provide $3.2 billion in humanitarian support and protection to over 13 million people in Syria.

The Case of Idlib

Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria, has been hit with bombings and airstrikes in the past few months. It is estimated that over 1 million people living in Idlib were previously displaced from elsewhere in the country and citizens still face uncertainty with constant violence.

Many citizens remain trapped in the city, with the main exits of the city closed. It is estimated that 30,000 people from the city have fled the country since the violence began. More than 2 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance even before the violence began.

Displacement in Syria and Water Issues

Overpopulated makeshift settlements in Syria are often reliant on unsafe drinking water.

It is estimated that 35 percent of the population relies on sources of drinking water that are not safe. Areas with the largest refugee populations have faced drastically low levels of water.

Many refugees rely on less than 22 liters of water a day, less than one-tenth of what the average citizen of the United States uses.

The World Health Organization has tested and treated 650 unsafe sources of drinking water in 2017 alone. The production of water storage tanks and groundwater wells has provided water to over 200,000 people.

The WHO has developed a disease reporting system that monitors the spread of infectious diseases. Around 1670 sentinel sites have been built across the country. This system allows professionals to rapidly detect and respond to typhoid fever, measles and polio in Syria and in neighboring countries.

The WHO is also supporting the integration of mental health services into health care and community centers in Syria. More than 400 health care facilities have been built and are proving mental health assistance.

The WHO also started the Mental Health Gap Action Programme in northwest Syria in 2017. The program has trained more than 250 Syrian health care workers and mental health professionals.

Displacement in Syria is the direct consequence of the constant violence present in the country since 2011. Due to the unsafe situation in the country, people are moving from their homes in search of a safer environment in the country or abroad. Organizations such as WHO and UNHCR are providing important humanitarian support to those in need.

– Casey Geier

Photo: Flickr

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Top Five Most Generous Countries in the World

Top Five Most Generous Countries in the World
Each year, the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) publishes the World Giving Index, highlighting the most generous countries in the world pertaining to how they respond to polls and research conducted by Gallup.

According to the 2018 Index, the most important questions were: In the past month, have you helped a stranger or someone you didn’t know who needed help? Donated money to a charity? Volunteered your time to an organization?

Top Five Most Generous Countries in the World

CAF tallies the scores and produces rankings for each. In the article below, CAF’s top five most generous countries in 2018 are presented.

5. Ireland

The Irish received high marks in helping a stranger and donating money, as 64 percent of pollsters saying yes to doing both in the last month, but only 40 percent affirmed that they had volunteered their time, bringing them down to fifth.

This ranking marks a three-spot improvement from 2017’s World Giving Index when the country came in at number eight.

Another interesting aspect of charity and giving in Ireland is the Charities Regulator organization. Under Ireland’s Charities Act 2009, the organization is an independent authority, appointed by the Minister of Justice whose key functions are to “establish and maintain a register of charitable organizations operating in Ireland and ensure their compliance with the Charities Acts.”

The Charities Regulator regulates the charity sector to ensure no malpractice or gross negligence on part of the charities and nonprofits operating in the country.

4. United States of America

The U.S. comes in at number four this year, a one spot improvement from last year’s index. Similar to Ireland, the U.S. received high marks in the helping a stranger and donating money categories, at 72 percent and 61 percent respectively. However, only a mere 39 percent of people said they volunteered their time.

Though the U.S. comes in at number four this year, they are number two on CAF’s five-year average list.

It’s important to note that only around 1 percent of the U.S. budget goes to foreign assistance, so even though the citizens of the country should be proud of themselves, there is still a lot of work to do to alleviate poverty around the world.

3. New Zealand

Coming in at number three on the list of the most generous countries in the world is an island country in the southwest Pacific, New Zealand. This is a one-spot bump for New Zealand from landing at fourth in 2017.

Over 65 percent of New Zealanders say they helped a stranger in the past month, while 68 percent donated money. Only 40 percent of New Zealand’s population mentions volunteering their time. New Zealand comes in at number three in CAF’s five-year average index as well.

2. Australia

The runner-up on the list of most generous countries in the world is New Zealand’s neighbor, Australia. Almost 65 percent of people from the country helped out a stranger, 71 percent donated money and 40 percent of them donated their time.

The number two spot represents a four-spot jump for the country from 2017. Like the other nations on the list, Australia is ranked in the top ten for the five-year average index as well, landing in the number four spot behind their neighbor, New Zealand.

Like Ireland, Australia has an organization devoted to monitoring and aiding charities and nonprofits called the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC).

Unlike Ireland’s Charities Regulator, however, the ACNC is endorsed and operates under the Australian government.

The ACNC helps the 56,650 registered Australian charities understand and meet their obligations to the public through information, advice and guidance. They also help the public understand the work of the nonprofit sector and offer a free searchable database of all Australian charities.

1. Indonesia

While only 46 percent of Indonesian residents say they helped a stranger in the last month, a whopping 78 percent say they donated money and 53 percent say they volunteered their time, making Indonesia the only country in CAF’s top 20 to break the 50 percent mark in this category.

The number one spot represents a one-spot raise from last year’s rankings where the country was number two, behind only Myanmar. Indonesia ranks seventh in the index’s five-year average.

It could be expected to see countries like the United States and Australia toward the top of the list. These countries are quite wealthy, but perhaps the most astonishing thing about Indonesia coming in number one is that the country is quite poor. Despite having a steady economy and labor force, 40 percent of the country lives below the poverty line, making their number one ranking even more impressive and inspiring.

These five nations listed in the article as the most generous countries provide a good example for other countries to increase their work in helping the people in need and eradicating world poverty.

– Nick Hodges

Photo: Flickr

5 Women Entrepreneurship Organizations

Women Entrepreneurship Opportunities Many governments and companies around the world have come to realize that encouraging the advancement of women is essential to the development of communities as a whole.

Five organizations, in particular, are making huge strides to help women entrepreneurship through financing and training programs.

Kiva

Kiva is a crowdfunded lending organization that gives loans to those who can’t access fair and affordable sources of credit.

As an international nonprofit organization operating in over 80 countries, it provides opportunities for people who are financially excluded from the capital to become farmers, pursue an education, or develop business ventures.

It operates by pooling money from lenders that each pay a small part of the loans to minimize the cost to individual lenders while maximizing its effectiveness by joining resources with others.

Since 2005, Kiva has funded $1.22 billion worth of loans to 3 million lenders. While loans are available to both men and women, 81 percent of Kiva borrowers are women.

In support of Kiva’s values and success, Bank of America and the U.S. Department of State partnered with Kiva in 2017 to support the “Women’s Entrepreneurship Fund” that hopes to support 1 million women entrepreneurs by 2021.

Kula Project

The Kula Project is an organization that works out of Rwanda. It is designed to develop entrepreneurs through vocational fellowship programs.

These programs provide business investment training, tips on creating or improving business plans and industry training in artisan goods, coffee farming and agribusiness.

Another important part of the Kula Project’s resources is its one-on-one mentorships that provide information on financial planning, family health and business leadership.

Both men and women can participate in the Kula Project’s fellowship program, but women are particularly benefitting through the organization’s Women’s Centers that focus on training them to create their own sewing, weaving and agriculture businesses to sell handmade products on the local market.

With a business model that focuses on listening to the needs of the community, Kula Project is working to plant the seeds for future success and allow the community to sustain its own development.

Women’s Global Empowerment Fund

The Women’s Global Empowerment Fund (WGEF) provides both microcredit loans and vocational training for business and leadership development for women in Uganda.

WGEF aims to create sustainable human development through the use of social capital building programs that aim to alleviate poverty, empower women, strengthen food security and health among families and generate an atmosphere of self-determination.

The Credit Plus program created by WGEF has assisted women in opening restaurants, bakeries, hotels, construction projects and small to medium scale agriculture projects that also increase local food production, giving women entrepreneurs the opportunity to be new leaders in society.

These successes are even more impressive due to the nature of the post-conflict region.

The clients of WGEF have been former abductees, child soldiers and victims of gender-based violence and they have the full support of the Women’s Global Empowerment Fund.

Friendship Bridge

According to the United Nations and Harvard Business Review, when women earn an income, they invest 90 percent of it into their families and communities. In comparison, men invest 35 percent for the same purpose.

With this understanding, Friendship Bridge works with a mission to empower impoverished communities in Guatemala by supporting women entrepreneurs.

Friendship Bridge uses their Microcredit Plus Program, small loans to impoverished women, as a sustainable business model to lift women out of poverty.

The organization relies on a group lending model that they call “Trust Banks” to instill accountability but also to create support through social capital. Today, the organization helps to support as many as 22,000 women.

Friendship Bridge’s Client Continuum strategy believes that the combination of financial capital (credit), human capital (skills) and social capital (networks) accelerate the services they provide to not only become entrepreneurs but leaders as well.

Clients are required to undergo non-formal education sessions to accompany their microloans, with options for further mentorship and advanced training in business practices or technical training.

These educational advancements have helped women open businesses in textiles, the food industry and has given people the opportunity to access education.

As an added bonus to this organization’s great work in alleviating poverty, it is addressing the largest group of immigrants coming to America, assist them in creating livelihoods and make them want to stay.

Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi)

The Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative, backed by the World Bank, works to address the financial and social constraints that small and medium women-owned enterprises face in developing countries.

This is a widespread collaborative initiative that includes 14 governments, 8 multilateral development banks and both public and private stakeholders.

Starting with $340 million for women entrepreneurs in the first year, the organization is expected to mobilize $1.6 billion in additional investment funds from the public and private sectors and development partners.

These funds will work to provide women with access to debt, equity, venture capital and insurance markets, link women-led small and medium enterprises to supply chains, connect women entrepreneurs with networks and mentorship and improve legal limitations that constrain women-led businesses.

These five organizations and initiatives have proven invaluable in changing the quality of women’s lives, and consequently, transforming the communities in which they live.

Advocacy remains an important part of this change in making sure that people are aware of these ideas and opportunities for change.

– Sara Andresen

Photo: Flickr

 

Top 10 Facts About Living Conditions in Syria

Top 10 Facts About Living Conditions in Syria
Since the Arab Spring that occurred in March 2011, Syria has been embroiled in a civil war.

In the preceding seven years, the living conditions for the people of Syria have deteriorated significantly and thrown almost 80 percent of the country’s population into poverty.

In the article below, top 10 facts about living conditions in a war-torn country of Syria are presented.

Top 10 Facts About Living Conditions in Syria

  1. The number one threat to the people living in Syria is the high level of violence. In a complex civil war that involves many different participants, civilians have been caught in the crossfire. Children often fare the worst, facing violence, exploitation and recruitment, death and injury. The people of Syria endure bombings, extrajudicial killings, detainment, torture and chemical attacks that have led to the deaths of over 500,000 people. Some improvement has been made, however, by providing more investigative mechanisms like the work of the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) to document and help prevent the violence and hold people accountable.
  2. The war has forced more than 6.6 million people to become internally displaced, leaving their homes in order to escape violence. Oftentimes, Syrians take shelter in informal settlements in abandoned buildings with extended family members. UNHCR Shelter already has over 400,000 displaced people and is still working to provide official collective shelters and emergency shelter interventions in order to reduce suffering and decrease displacement.
  3. In Syria, 10.5 million people have insecure access to food or are unable to meet their basic food needs. There are a number of factors that contribute to this, such as the large numbers of displaced people, damaged or detained agriculture land and severely high food prices. The United States alone has provided over 2.7 billion dollars in emergency food assistance to Syria since 2012, which has helped to provide gravely needed aid.
  4. Lack of water has been a major issue throughout the Syrian civil war as 14.6 million people need access to clean water. All sides of the war have held water hostage, but it has left many civilians as collateral damage. Due to damaged infrastructure, there is severely limited running water, forcing Syrians to be almost entirely dependent on foreign aid.
  5. Due to the conflict, Syria’s once priority on education has fallen by the wayside. One in four schools are no longer operational, and over two million children are not in school. However, strides of progress have been made. Five million children are currently attending schools in Syria. Through donors and brave teachers, these children have been able to receive schooling, though more work needs to be done.
  6. The trauma of war is pervasive and can severely impact mental health. In Idlib alone, 90 percent of the population suffers from depression due to their difficult living conditions. For children, being out of school can impact their mental health. In combating this, the No Lost Generation put forward by UNICEF helps 4.2 million children, providing psychosocial support and helping them return to normalcy by getting them back into schools.
  7. The major difficulty in maintaining the physical well-being and health of Syrians is the inability of health workers to access people in need. Over 200 hospitals have been targeted, making Syria one of the most dangerous places in the world for health care workers. More than 11 million people are in need of health assistance. The WHO has managed to deliver 14 million treatments, showing how, despite the danger, many international health workers have not given up.
  8. Discrimination has also played a role in the living conditions in Syria. It is most significant for the ISIS-held areas, where at least 25 men have been murdered after being accused of homosexuality. Women are severely restricted, mostly by their freedom of movement. The religious minority of Yazidi girls have also been tortured or sexually enslaved.
  9. Like many other countries across the world who endure poverty, priorities have to be shifted and culture is lost along the way. ISIS has also specifically targeted six sites of cultural heritage, damaging and endangering many parts of history. This is considered to be a war crime and has led to the organization ALIPH raising millions of dollars to protect these sites.
  10. The Assad regime continues to be one of the main perpetrators of violence and human rights abuses against the Syrian people. Over 12,000 people have been killed while being detained by the government. In coordination with Russia, the Syrian government has also used internationally banned tactics such as cluster munitions, incendiary weapons and chemical weapons. For those living in Syria, the government poses a threat, and the hope for change is an end to the war and the installation of a new democratic government.

The top 10 facts about living conditions in Syria are shown to be some of the harshest in the world. Embroiled in a civil war that has lasted for seven years, millions have been thrown into poverty, face violence and lack access to basic needs required for life.

However, the people of Syria are not alone. International groups have not given up on the people in Syria and continue to offer aid and assistance to all those in need, despite the danger and risk involved.

Because that is what it will take to end the immense human suffering borne out of war- courage and a willingness to never give up.

– Brenna Boytim
Photo: Flickr

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Food Crisis in Yemen

Food Crisis in Yemen
Located at the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia, Yemen is home to 20 million people that are food insecure.

The Famine Early Warning System Network has determined that the country is in a crisis phase and that the most vulnerable families could enter into a catastrophe phase.

Recent war and conflicts have exaggerated the food crisis in Yemen and if nothing is done, the U.N. warns that it could become a famine.

Factors Affecting Food Crisis in Yemen

One factor that prevents access to food in the country is the temporary hold on operations at main ports that supply a large percentage of Yemen with food due to the conflict. The country imports around 90 percent of its food and with main ports shut down due to conflict, these vital goods cannot reach the people who need them.

However, some humanitarian aid comes through these ports and that aid is vital to preventing starvation and death for at-risk regions who rely on ports like Al Huddayah and Salif.

Another factor is the decrease in Yemen’s currency value- Yemeni rial (YER). As its value decreases prices for basic needs like food rise, leaving those without financial means to go hungry.

The Yemeni rial value dropped by half between July and October and food prices have increased steadily. This leaves already impoverished households unable to provide food for their families.

This financial situation poses even more of a danger than the inability to access ports because even if imports were being let into Yemen, many would be unable to afford them.

As a result of these issues, more than 2 million people have been displaced and 14 million are in desperate need of food.

Relief In Yemen

There are high rates of malnutrition among children due to the food crisis in Yemen. Around 3 million children under the age of 5, as well as nursing or pregnant women, are at risk of malnutrition. UNICEF has recently revised their humanitarian response plan regarding Yemen and raised its required funding from $378 million to $424 million.

The organization has treated 195,000 children with severe acute malnutrition since September 2018 and plans to reach a total of 276,000 children at the end of the year.

FAO and Mercy Corps

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations has stated that 190 regions in Yemen are experiencing pre-famine conditions. FAO plans to focus their efforts on improving agriculture production to relieve the pressure of food insecurity in the country.

Their 2018-2020 plan of action for the country includes focusing on famine-risk regions by providing emergency relief and then teaching sustainable farming and improving planning for future famine events.

Mercy Corps is another group focused on combating the food crisis in Yemen. They focus on regions that have been severely overwhelmed by violence.

They have provided food vouchers to impoverished household and treat severely malnourished children. The organization not only focuses on providing food but also clean water, sanitation, disease prevention and helps sesame farmers improve their farming techniques.

Last year, they reached 3.7 million people with their assistance. Even though conflict sometimes disrupts their efforts, they are more than ever determined to help the people.

Yemen is one of the Middle East’s poorest countries and the citizens of the country desperately need assistance if they are going to survive this awful food crisis.

Focusing on access, financial relief and ending the conflict are vital keys to ending the food crisis in Yemen. Most of all, these people are suffering and need urgent action due to the dire instability of the situation.

– Olivia Halliburton

Photo: Flickr

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Mongolia

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Mongolia
Mongolia is run by a multi-party democratic government that has made major strides in social accomplishments since the transition from a single party government.

After the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Mongolia needed to regulate its economy since the Soviet Union and the Eastern European bloc were Mongolia’s only trading partners.

With both partners inaccessible after 1991, international financial organizations such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund advised Mongolia to transition from a planned to a market economy.

This resulted in the privatization of the country’s assets, elimination of government subsidies, reductions in government and a balanced budget.

These dramatic events heavily influenced the education of women and their position in the labor industry.

The top 10 facts about girls’ education in Mongolia will highlight the benefits, struggles and social situations girls in Mongolia face when it comes to their education.

Top 10 Facts About Girls’ Education in Mongolia

  1. Since 2002, rates of female unemployment and poverty have increased despite the economic growth of the country. The percentage of women living in absolute poverty remains above 30 percent.
  2. Thousands of women lost their jobs after the Mongolian economy transitioned from a planned to a market one. The percent of the female labor force is estimated to be at 5.7, a 0.7 percent difference from the world’s average of 5.0 percent.
  3. The dominant attitude toward women in the country is that they are primarily responsible for housework and children. The Time Use survey from 2007 showed that almost 70 percent of housework is run by women, equivalent to 5.6 hours per day in comparison to 2.7 hours for men. In low-income families, income generated by males is usually used to pay for the girls’ education. The social idea that men are considered physically stronger to survive heavy physical work such as mining, herding and construction result in parents more inclined to enroll their daughters in higher education. The traditional practice of making the youngest son heir to family property may also be another reason for parents desiring to keep their boys at home.
  4. The collapse of the Soviet Union sparked a “reverse gender gap”. More women are in higher education than men because many Mongolian families began sending their daughters to school and university in the capital of Mongolia. Many parents believe that their daughters will take better care of them in their old age. Others believe women need to learn other skills than herding livestock and housework.
  5. The literacy rate for females that are 15-24 years old is at 97.3 percent, which is higher than for males of the same age that are at 94.1 percent. The net attendance ratio for secondary school participation from 2008-20012 is at 95.2 percent for females, compared to males who stand at 90.7 percent.
  6. Despite the fact that Mongolian women are better educated than their male peers, statistics show that they are less likely to make use of this education. According to a study launched in the Mongolia capital, Ulaanbaatar, the gender gap in labor force participation has more than doubled in the last two decades, exceeding 12.6 percent in 2018.
  7. In poor households, women work longer hours than men because families are beginning to depend more on subsistence production, which is deemed the female’s job in Mongolia. Many women are urged to stay home rather than pursue alternative economic opportunities, compromising their health and education. The shift to a free market economy has led to a persistent wage gap, inefficient investments in education, and loss of contributions for women to improve in economic growth.
  8. Employed women earn less than 12.5 percent per month than men on average. According to the National Statistics Office and World Development Indicators, men are 10 percent more likely to participate in the labor force at 68 percent compared to women at 58 percent.
  9. The Shirin Pandju Merali Foundation established a university scholarship program for Mongolian women in the summer of 2010. The program was supported by the Asia Foundation and its local partner, the Zorig Foundation. The competitive program selects 60 girls from low-income families to attend the National University of Mongolia and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology. Many women decide to enroll in science fields, increasing the representation in the advancement of technology and innovation.
  10. The World Bank suggests that gender gaps can be reduced by improving the legal and regulatory environment that tackles gender-specific constraints. Specifically, enforcing anti-discrimination policies, monitoring gender indicator and upgrading eldercare and childcare services will encourage more women to hold more secure, entrepreneurship jobs. Long-term measures to decrease the gender norms and discriminations among employers and providing access to finance and training will allow women entrepreneurs to realize the full potential of their businesses.

Mongolia is addressing the challenges that face women in education. Reducing the school dropout rates, especially in rural areas, improving the coverage and quality of preschool education, and upgrading the teaching quality are some ways Mongolia is working to achieve universal primary education of 100 percent.

These top 10 facts about girls’ education in Mongolia highlight the gender disparities between women and men in education.

In order for Mongolia to efficiently address the issues women face in the labor, economic and entrepreneur industry, as well as unemployment, the obstacles women are facing in the education system must be corrected and revised.

– Aria Ma

Photo: Flickr