Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

Improving Credit Access in Jordan and SMEs

Credit access in Jordan
Credit access in Jordan has improved dramatically over the past two years thanks in part to changes in the regulation of funds by the government and the creation of newer, better lending programs across the country.

This year, global indicator, Doing Business has given Jordan’s overall credit access performance a ranking of 159 out of 189 countries, which shows an increase from a dismal 2016 ranking of 185 out of 189 countries. The continued improvement of these numbers will hopefully help Jordan to start pulling itself out of its nine-year stagnation of economic growth.

Background of Credit Access in Jordan

Lack of credit access in Jordan affects all citizens, but especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In 2016, SMEs accounted for an estimated 98 percent of all Jordanian business and affected 40 percent of the country’s GDP.

A 2011 survey by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) reported that 70 percent of SMEs considered themselves ‘credit constrained’ and thus had to put plans of growing and improving their business on hold.

Before the recent creation of new lending systems, SMEs found themselves having to choose between going to one of the many banks in Jordan for a loan and utilizing non-profit microfinance institutions (MFIs). Each of these methods proved to have significant flaws that made accessing credit impractical, if not impossible.

On the one hand, banks found it difficult to work with SMEs as most of them did not have enough collateral to mitigate the risk of providing the smaller business with a loan. On the other hand, while MFIs can provide loans to SMEs without the necessity of collateral, a system of regulation for MFIs did not yet exist within the Jordanian government.

Without regulation, interest rates varied wildly between MFIs, with some of them even going beyond the legal standard. As no clear method of recording credit existed, clients reported receiving the wrong amount of funds.

Remedying the Situation

Providing businesses with alternative forms of funding seems like the best method of helping them cross over the current financial gap. The Jordanian government, as a 2016 Oxford Business Group article reports, has already begun to put forward “initiatives with banks and multilateral institutions to offer more credit to smaller businesses”. The creation of the first credit bureau in Jordan, for example, will hopefully provide a more regulated method of credit access in Jordan than MFIs.

SMEs can also look into more private funding programs. The peer-to-peer lending program liwwa, for example, allows any SME with “business operations that are managed ethically” to apply for loans and, if accepted, campaign to receive loans from an individual or institutional investors. The program also helps regulate these funds by offering such services as negotiating overdue loan repayments with borrowers and investigating the businesses of borrowers to assure qualification. While the program has only processed 305 loans so far, this number can hopefully grow in the future.

The Jordan Loan Guarantee Corporation also provides SMEs with a more accessible finance option by acting as a facilitator between borrowers and investors. Created by a collaboration of USAID with the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), this program supports businesses that “(1) have a well-defined marketing opportunity to start-up or expand, (2) need financing to achieve their goal; but (3) lack the collateral banks usually require for making loans” by offering a ‘loan guarantee’ to possible investors (mostly banks in this case). A loan guarantee means that in the case of a borrower defaulting on their loan, a business like JLGC will pay the investor back a large percentage of their investment. So far, the program has issued over 214 loans guaranteed and allowed SMEs to access over $50 million in finances.

Further success in these programs will provide SMEs with the opportunity to expand and thus create more job opportunities for those currently struggling to find employment. Along with this, if credit access in Jordan continues to improve, financially constrained entrepreneurial individuals will have more opportunity to create their business ventures.

Both of the aforementioned benefits can allow even those in poverty to change their social status and become consumers. This, along with expanding businesses, will hopefully improve Jordan’s rate of economic growth.

 – Lyz Frerking
Photo: Flickr

Strategies for Economic Growth in the Dominican Republic

Economic Growth in the Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic (DR) — with assistance from the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, the Caribbean Development Bank and other institutions — has instilled a clear strategy for economic development. Fortunately, the Dominican Republic is now reaping the fruits of such labor.

Up-to-Date Advances

There are several facets to the economic growth in the Dominican Republic, but two pillars of such growth stand out. As outlined in the Caribbean Growth Forum, two of these pillars are improving business climate and modernizing the public sector, and these well-planed has created extreme progress in the DR.

First Pillar

The speed at which companies seek to register their businesses has decreased from 45 to 7 days. The rate at which property titles are issued and bills for bankruptcy law are finalized both occur much more rapidly. Ultimately, such changes benefit both small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and creditors, since the former has greater borrowing capacity, while the latter has better protection.

The Dominican Republic’s business climate has also improved through the implementation of programs for non-reimbursable seed money to boost entrepreneurship amongst the youth. The Industry and Commerce Ministry created a training pilot to fortify business management practices to over 5000 SMEs.

These initiatives are crucial to empowering bright minds in the community to take risks on business endeavors and successfully manage such startups. Moreover, this also allows for greater attraction of investors, who seek to capitalize on promising entrepreneurial undertakings. SMEs already in existence would, of course, benefit from the training in commercial management.

Loans For Change

A significant stride to improve the business climate in the Dominican Republic came in the form of a $300 million policy centered loan from the Inter-American Development Bank in 2017. This effort seeks to support financial regulations in order to increase productivity, foster the creation of institutions to finance productive development as well as improve protection of contracts and transactions.

Additionally, this plan of action would update administrative processes, facilitate growth in competitiveness and help institutions that focus on promoting innovation and production developments. Finally, the loan would work to reduce evasion and avoidance of social security contributions by strengthening fiscal and social security systems, which would ultimately boost labor formalities.

Second Pillar

According to the World Bank, the Citizen Observatory for Public Procurement and 25 other committees have been created to monitor public contracts. By doing so, the changes would:

  • Foster private sector confidence
  • Encourage SMEs to participate in public contracting
  • Form greater transparency, especially in what is “open procurement”

In 2015, the Inter-American Development Bank financed a $25 million project that worked to develop the Dominican Republic’s fiscal structure. In doing so, the project enables the processes of planning, monitoring and evaluating budgets, and helps modernize the ways of conducting the management of public funds. In addition, the endeavor also fosters greater participation of SMEs — particularly led by women — in public purchases.

What Now?

There are a set of focal points that would illustrate and improve the effectiveness of the strategies regarding the economic growth in the DR. The set includes creating a feedback-loop that would help assess reform implementation and accomplishment of goals, and therefore scale outreach and media interactions with stakeholders and set greater definitions of reforms, their timelines and other indicators of performance.

In the past decade, economic growth in the DR has been achieved through the execution of new strategies of development. These strategies, amongst other details, coincide with the DR’s 2030 National Development Strategy and have set the country on track for continued growth.

A Nation’s Future

The Dominican Republic, with the support of international institutions, is a step closer to accomplishing its goals. Already, the country has experienced success in many vital aspects of its economy’s sustainability, and its potential for continued growth is abundant.

– Roberto Carlos Ventura
Photo: Flickr

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Top 10 Facts About Poverty in Vietnam

Facts About Poverty in Vietnam
Since 2010, Vietnam has undergone major success in transforming its country into a lower middle-income nation. It has also achieved its Millennium Development Goal targets in reducing poverty in Vietnam and have since then established new goals. Despite its continual development, there are a few concerning disparities, such as regional inequalities between city dwellers and the Vietnamese minority groups that populate mountainous regions. But, the country is still making impressive progress. Below are ten important facts about poverty in Vietnam.

Top 10 Facts About Poverty in Vietnam

    1. Because of rapid economic growth in the 1990s, Vietnam experienced a drastic improvement, especially in the southeast where poverty dropped from 32.7 percent of people living below the poverty line in 1993 to less than 7.6 percent as recorded in 1998. According to the Asian Development Bank, six other countries in Southeast Asia still have from 8.6 to 32.1 percent of their populations struggling under the national poverty line.
    2. The United States has been strategizing with Vietnam to transform it into a more sustainable developing country and partner. A five-year plan was developed in 2014 where $86 million is being allocated to improve trade, grow the private sector and develop higher education. Another $239 million is assigned to areas of international health, climate change, disaster relief and vulnerable groups important to a successful economic and social fabric. USAID is also allotting funds of $19 million to the issue of dioxin contamination at Danang and Bien Hoa Airbase along with other general environmental pollution issues they may find with 19 million dollars.
    3. To continue addressing the issues stemming from poverty, Vietnam set Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are 17 goals to be achieved by 2030 that improve the country’s poverty rate, healthcare system and address issues of equality. Vietnam has further narrowed its focus to accommodate the needs of more vulnerable groups such as the disabled, women, children, and ethnic minorities.
    4. In the past few years, Vietnam has already achieved 10 of the impressive Sustainable Development Goals. Since 2016, 93.4 percent of households have had access to clean water. Gender equality is increasing, as 26.7 percent of the seats in National Parliaments will be held by women in the 2016 to 2021 term. Health insurance coverage had reached 86.4 of the population in 2017.
    5. The participation rate in organized education is 87.9 percent among females and 91.1 percent among males. Education is often cited as one of the most influential factors in lifting Vietnam completely out of poverty.
    6. Renewable energy made up 35 percent of the total final energy consumption in 2015. In 2016, electricity became accessible to 100 percent of the population.
    7. In South Asia, child marriage has decreased by nearly 20 percent in the last decade. However, in 2014, one in 10 women aged 20 to 24 has reported that they had been married before turning 18. The child marriage rates among the women in Vietnam have not seen much decrease. To end this practice by 2030 will take significantly more effort.
    8. By 2020, Vietnam hopes to achieve its own goal of becoming a developed nation.
    9. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) strives to deliver Vietnam into the upper middle-income country status. It has given Vietnam $16 billion since 1993 to promote job creation in the economy, as well as encouraged environmental sustainability. The ADB is supporting Vietnam through a 2016 to 2020 partnership that will promote investments and policy reforms that benefit environmentally sustainable economic development as well as increase equality in the social classes.
    10. Overlooked ethnic minorities and groups struggling in mountainous areas are taking an active role in eliminating their poverty. In developing strategies to improve their communities, they have worked with the Poverty Reduction Policies Project to come up with sustainable solutions. More than 11,500 men and women in such communities from 8 different pilot provinces in Vietnam have attended meetings to discuss innovative lifestyle changes. For instance, one northern mountain province, the small village Na Vuong, has incorporated cow breeding into their livelihoods to increase income for many families.

The level of progress that Vietnam has attained is a token to its continual support from countries and organizations all around the globe. As others from outside the borders are delivering the necessary attention to poverty in Vietnam, those from within the country that are still suffering from a worse poverty rate due to geological, ethnic, gender, and other disparities have been hard at work to raise themselves out of their oppressive reality.

– Alice Lieu
Photo: Google

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Empowering Women Through Education and Entrepreneurship Reduces Poverty

Empowering Women Through Education and Entrepreneurship
A majority of the world’s poor are women, and gender inequality pervasive in countries around the world is a key reason for this occurrence. Women face barriers to obtaining education and entering the economy that men do not — globally, 33 million fewer girls than boys are enrolled in primary education, and women constitute 61 percent of the illiterate population between the ages of 15 and 24.

Education and Entrepreneurship

Empowering women through education and entrepreneurship reduces poverty by increasing their employability and enabling them to provide for their families and contribute to the economic development of their communities.

Without education, girls are more likely to be trafficked or become child brides; it is also more likely that women and their families will live in poverty. Education is crucial to the reduction of poverty, as it enables women to acquire jobs, help provide for their families and contribute to their local economy.

Women’s incomes rise between 10-20 percent per year of education they receive. This rise in income can be the factor that raises families out of poverty, as women reinvest 90 percent of their incomes into their families (50-60 percent more than men do). This can improve a family’s economic status and increases its food security.

Empowerment in the Workplace

However, many women and girls do not receive the education they need to acquire good jobs. Even women who can obtain an education are not guaranteed work in some developing countries where social norms relegate women to the domestic sphere. In fact, these options can often consign women to duties of housework and childcare and discourage them from entering the workforce.

By empowering women through education and entrepreneurship, women can break down these social norms that restrict not only their own success, but also the prosperity of their communities.

Women who are able to work still face substantial inequality. They often have lower incomes than men in the same positions, and more than one billion women cannot access basic financial services. For example, women farmers in many developing countries are restricted from owning land, accessing credit and acquiring productive resources.

Women also do not receive the same support from national and international development organizations as men do, though they on average produce higher values of output than men. Empowering women through education and entrepreneurship can reduce poverty by allowing women to be productive workers and contribute to the economy.

Economic Benefits of Female Empowerment

The World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization estimate that developing countries’ agricultural output would increase by between 2.5-4 percent if female farmers had equal access to productive agricultural resources and services. If such resources became available, it would reduce the number of hungry people worldwide by 150 million.

In Malawi and Ghana, improving women’s access to resources increased the production of corn by more than 15 percent, and Burkina Faso experienced a production gain of six percent when fertilizer and labor were reallocated on an equal basis.

With the rapidly rising global population, this increase in food production is crucial to people’s survival. In addition, if gender inequality and the financial barriers women face are addressed, $28 trillion could be added to the global annual GDP by 2025.

Addressing & Reducing Global Poverty

To reduce global poverty, the world needs women; but women need the opportunity to obtain an education and be a part of the economy. The Protecting Girls’ Access to Education in Vulnerable Settings Act and the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act both empower women. They both have the ability to reduce poverty by helping women achieve equality and would each cost less than $500,000 over a four-year period.

The Protecting Girls’ Access to Education Act would prioritize efforts to provide girls and women — particularly those in vulnerable settings such as conflict zones and refugee camps — access to safe primary and secondary education. It would focus on reducing discrimination against displaced girls and improving their educational and entrepreneurial opportunities.

The Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act would require the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to conduct a gender-analysis to identify and understand gender gaps so as to better address these in the workplace. Gender-specific measures to empower women would be established in USAID programs, and the agency would expand support for businesses owned and managed by women. The act also emphasizes the importance of eliminating gender-based violence.

Goal of Gender Equality

The United Nations, FAO, World Bank, World Economic Forum and others all recognize the importance of gender equality in the reduction of global poverty. The Protecting Girls’ Access to Education in Vulnerable Settings Act and the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act are two bills the United States government could pass to help solve the issue of gender inequality and poverty.

Empowering women through education and entrepreneurship will reduce poverty levels among current and future generations, and will benefit not only developing countries but the whole world as well. ­

– Laura Turner
Photo: Flickr

Dedication and Improvement Towards Education in Guyana

Education in Guyana
Howard Steven Friedman, a writer for the Huffington Post, stated in “America’s Poverty-Education Link” that poverty and education are linked as one and can be the determinant of the other. This means that without education, one is less likely to rise in social ranking in society. In fact, in the United States, 46 percent of Americans who failed to obtain college degrees remained in the lower income rankings.

Personal Testimonies of Education in Guyana

In The Borgen Project’s interview with Nadira Barclay, a student of Guyana, she stated her belief that “there are factors such as not having enough money to travel to school that affect your quality and quantity of education.” That being said, living in poverty takes away the means one may need to succeed educationally.

For Barclay, her education in Guyana brought her through only primary school — grades 1-6; since she lived in the countryside, the only way she would have been able to attend secondary school with minimal costs was to live with someone closer to the school. Due to the fact that she was a young girl, however, her father did not allow her to make the transition.

This is a prime example of the inconveniences students face while trying to pursue education in Guyana. Since Barclay only had a Primary school education, her ability and qualifications to work were limited, which is why today she works as a home health aide for the elderly.

On the other hand, Famida Sukhdeo, an individual Barclay cares for who is also from Guyana, explained, “I had to leave school to take care of my grandmother who was sick. I had to basically babysit her. I had to feed her, bathe her, and clean for her.” Sukhdeo’s case is one of many Guyanese women. For Sukhdeo, she spent her time in the workforce as a nanny, a job not far from what she had to do when she dropped out of school, due to her limited ability to read and write.

Redefining Educational Opportunities

So far, readers have seen the issue of travel costs, sex and domestic responsibilities in relations to education. Both Barclay and Sukhdeo were women raised in poverty who did not have a choice but to comply to gender-based restrictions despite their want to pursue higher education, as their options were limited by their social standings.

Unlike the United States that requires all children to attend school of all levels — from elementary to high school — Guyana makes no such stipulations. In fact, only primary school, which serves children ages 6 to 11, is compulsory. After completion, adolescents are no longer required to attend school and mostly resort to performing domestic tasks such as housekeeping and raising cattle.

As of 2012, Guyana’s expenditure on education from the total GDP was 3.18 percent, 5.22 percent lower than in 2000. According to both Barclay and Sukdheo, back when they were living in Guyana, the government played a bigger role in promoting and supporting education. For instance: “They used to give out clothes, supplies and money to children for school, but all that has stopped.”

Since there is less effort being given towards education in Guyana, research demonstrates that as the age of the population increases, so does the illiteracy rate. As both Barclay and Sukhdeo were able to explain, their lack of education affected them in the long run, especially for employment.

Support and Advocacy Efforts

As of 2002 and continuing to the present day, Global Partnership for Education, coordinated through the World Bank has begun working to improve the quality and quantity of education. This is being done by targeting areas: increasing the number of trained faculty, providing increased access to technology improving the conditions of physical facilities and so on.

So far, the Global Partnership for Education and the government of Guyana have agreed on two goals: increasing the learning outcomes for all regardless of background, and decreasing the differences of education received depending on factors, such as location.

There have also been goals set in place to measure Guyana’s progress: increasing literacy among fourth grade students to 50 percent, increasing the quantity of sixth grade students who reach 50 percent or more in core subjects to 40 percent, and increasing the number of students who pass core subject tests in secondary schools to 60 percent.

A Brighter Future

By continually working with the Global Partnership for Education, education in Guyana will continue to improve as the awareness and importance of education spreads. Thanks to continued organizational efforts and a U.S. education-geared grant of $1.7 million, the quality of education and quality of life of its recipients should both hopefully improve.

– Jessica Ramtahal
Photo: Flickr

The Growing Importance of Credit Access in Mali

Credit Access in Mali
Mali is a landlocked country located in West Africa with a population of approximately 18 million people. While the national poverty fell from 55.6 percent in 2001 to 43.6 percent in 2010, Mali remains 175th out of 188 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index.

Diagnosing the Problem

Credit access in Mali stands out as one the leading impediments to economic growth. A smallholder farmer is refused a loan seven times out of ten because of the high risk and unpredictable nature associated with the agricultural sector. This difficulty accessing credit is only further compounded by the fact that about 80 percent of the entire labor force actively participates in farming.

Credit serves an important role in the growth of developing countries’ economies. Increased credit access in Mali is essential for allowing farmers, businesses and consumers across Mali to utilize investment capital and thus help expand economic activity. If 70 percent of farmers are refused loans from the start in a country where 80 percent of the workforce is engaged in farming, significant economic growth becomes nearly impossible.  

Moussa Sylvain Diakite, a mango producer and exporter in Bamako, explains this discrepancy noting that “Malian banks have a commercial focus and not an agricultural one which is why they struggle to accompany agricultural activities.”

Improving Credit Access in Mali

One of the leading initiatives to improve credit access in Mali is the Agricultural Competitiveness and Diversification Project. Led by the Malian government and the World Bank, the program hopes to provide financial support to both individual Mali farmers seeking credit and commercial banks. By enfranchising Mali farmers and reducing risk for commercial banks that offer them loans, the Agricultural Competitiveness and Diversification Project will help scale agricultural production and the number of small and medium enterprises throughout Mali.

Above all, the Project works to “reduce the risk of investing in agriculture endeavors through technical assistance, new technologies, and greater knowledge of the supply chain and key actors,” according to World Bank Agribusiness Specialist Yeyande Kasse Sangho.

Benefits of Greater Credit Access in Mali

Researchers who partnered with Soro Yiriwaso, a microfinance institution in Mali, conducted a two-stage randomized evaluation in 198 villages in rural Mali. The findings point to agricultural lending as an effective means of increasing investments in the agricultural sector, as well as increasing profits and yields.

Village households which were offered loans spent about $10.35 more on fertilizer and $5.08 more on herbicides and insecticides than the households in villages that did not get loans. These loans also contributed to an increase in the value of agricultural output by $32. Many of these households also received grants invested 14 percent more on inputs than households that did not receive grants. Those households also saw output and farm profits increase by 13 percent and 12 percent, respectively.

As the relationships between farmers and commercial banks strengthen, credit access will only continue to spread in Mali and enable further economic growth. With continued efforts and projects as the ones mentioned above, there’s significant hope that the focus on credit access in Mali will serve as an example for the economic development of other impoverished regions.

– McAfee Sheehan
Photo: Flickr

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Beyonce, Jay-Z To Headline Global Citizen Mandela 100 Festival

Mandela 100 Festival
Singer Beyonce and her spouse, rapper Jay-Z, will be among several major artists to perform at Global Citizen’s Mandela 100 Festival in December 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Other artists scheduled to perform are Ed Sheeran, Chris Martin, Pharrell Williams, D’banj, Femi Kuti, Sho Madjozi, Tiwa Savage and Wizkid. This latest concert campaign is said to be Global Citizen’s ”biggest campaign on the Global Goals to end extreme poverty ever.”

According to Global Citizen, the festival is to represent a celebration of Mandela’s legacy as an exemplary leader, his fight against apartheid, and his methods of non-violent protest that shaped the future of South Africa, setting an example worldwide. The Mandela 100 festival will be the first-ever musical event organized by Global Citizen in Africa

 A Global Initiative

As an organization that is composed of members worldwide, Global Citizen is a model example of a successful nongovernmental organization (NGO), a true grassroots movement. The organization has projected some major numbers for 2018: an estimated 2.25 billion people worldwide are expected to receive some form of poverty relief from Global Citizen, ranging from a year of free education for children to clean water for an entire community.

Global Citizen divides its goals into nine separate categories, each representing a broad set of issues that need to be resolved. They are:

  • Girls and Women
  • Health
  • Finance/Innovation
  • Education
  • Food and Hunger
  • Water and Sanitation
  • Environment
  • Citizenship

Global Citizen’s goal is to eliminate extreme poverty worldwide by 2030—just 12 years from now. And it seems that the organization may accomplish its goals, having secured a whopping $2.9 billion in funding from government organizations worldwide for 2018 alone.

How Everyone Can Help

But besides relying on funding from government bodies, Global Citizen asks that individuals take action as well, through twitter, email or petition. Global Citizen’s website offers a streamlined way for its constituents to influence representatives not only in their own country but in countries worldwide.

Some of the most recent and significant contributions to Global Citizen have come from the U.K., Norway and the E.U. These nations gave £225 million, Kr.2.07 billion and  €337.5 million to Global Citizen’s Global Partnership for Education project, respectively.

Mandela 100 Festival: A Festival For The People

The Mandela 100 Festival begins on December 2, 2018, and besides the proceeds going toward Global Citizen’s international fight against poverty, the other goal of the festival experience is to ignite a passion in young people to feel empowered to make changes in the world. Global Citizen wants to involve youth, on an international level, in the fight against extreme poverty.

Global Citizen’s website states it wishes to “galvanize young, passionate people across Africa to pressure their leaders to make important strides.” In fact, the motto for the festival is “Be The Generation.” Considering that Global Citizen is expecting to end abject poverty worldwide in little over a decade, millennials may just become the generation to tip the scales in the ongoing fight to elevate all members of our global community.

– Jason Crosby
Photo: Google

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Top 5 Mandela Quotes on Poverty

Mandela Quotes on PovertyPoverty can be an all too common sight, particularly when images and statistics saturate social media placing a wedge of detachment between the impoverished and those not impoverished. There are more than 640 million people suffering from extreme poverty today. To each of these people, poverty carries a burden difficult to understand from the perspective of those that just hear, read or see it on the news. Poverty is a hardship that is not nearly as simple as lacking food, clothing or shelter.

Nelson Mandela, the former first black president of South Africa and anti-apartheid revolutionary, had constantly implored the world to re-open its dulled senses to the tribulations of poverty. From his years as a lawyer and human rights activist, he successfully overturned apartheid in South Africa and ventured beyond the borders to end the injustice of poverty in all nations.

“He proved that equal respect and treatment of every person is and must continue to be an achievable reality everywhere in the world,” Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service, said in a statement. “Nelson Mandela was a modern-day prophet for human dignity whose voice was heard around the world.” Below are the top five Nelson Mandela quotes on poverty that invite a renewed and clearer understanding of how his views on poverty can inspire the world.

Top 5 Mandela Quotes on Poverty

  1. “Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” – London’s Trafalgar Square in 2005.
  2. “Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times — times in which the world boasts breathtaking advances in science, technology, industry and wealth accumulation — that they have to rank alongside slavery and apartheid as social evils.” – London’s Trafalgar Square in 2005.
  3. “Do not look the other way; do not hesitate. Recognise that the world is hungry for action, not words. Act with courage and vision.”
  4. “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.” – London’s Trafalgar Square in 2005.
  5. “In this new century, millions of people in the world’s poorest countries remain imprisoned, enslaved and in chains. They are trapped in the prison of poverty. It is time to set them free.”

These five quotes depict a powerful image of poverty that scrutinizes aspects of status beyond just its basic definition. Mandela chose to focus on an optimistic possibility of overcoming poverty as opposed to becoming overwhelmed by the tragedy of it. The attitude of those who witness poverty can be a force large enough to reinvigorate the world to push for the change it needs.

 

– Alice Lieu
Photo: Flickr

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Reducing the Brain Drain

Reducing the Brain DrainThe “Brain Drain” is the migration of professionals from one country to another in search of a higher standard of living. In 2000, 65 million economically active people were living outside of their home country. This drain usually flows from developing to developed countries, which has extremely negative effects on the developing nations, who have lost many of their most talented professionals.

These professionals have attained high levels of education at home and abroad, but utilize their innovative potential in developed countries, where their opportunities are better. Developed countries reap the majority of the rewards from the innovation of foreign workers while the countries of origin for these professionals merely receive the occasional remittance.

The Economic Dangers of Brain Drain

This trend of skilled and educated citizens living in developed countries is being exacerbated by the growing inequality between the world’s wealthy and poor. Many developing countries have experienced a shortage of high-skilled laborers, taxpayer dollars from would-be members of their upper class and technological innovation. Among the doctoral graduates in science and engineering in the USA, 79 percent of those from India and 88 percent from China remained in the United States.

Overall, there are almost one million immigrants in the United States from South Asia who have achieved above a tertiary level of education. The skills these students acquire in the United States and in other developed nations don’t migrate back to their host countries, which makes reducing the brain drain seem impossible.

Additionally, many of these students become high earning professionals in some of the highest tax brackets; however, their countries of origin do not receive the tax dollars on these high earnings. Some South Asian countries are some of the poorest in the world and could desperately use the funding towards poverty-reducing measures.

More Than Just The Money

Besides higher wages and a better standard of living, professionals leave their origin countries for more developed ones because of a lack of research funding, poor facilities and limited career structures. These issues are extremely important to consider when evaluating how to combat the brain drain. Fortunately, these infrastructural deficiencies have more reasonable solutions that can over time reduce global inequality.

Research has shown that an increase in wages does not provide the sole incentive for educated professionals and students to remain in their origin country. A study in Pakistan revealed that a small portion of people funded for a doctorate faced many disincentives that did not stem from the wage gap.

Although, wage inequalities between the source and destination countries are so significant that a small increase in wages in origin countries will not be enough to reduce the brain drain. The focus then must turn to solving the infrastructural deficiencies that are driving young professionals toward developed nations.

Supercourse

Currently, foreign scientists in developed nations produce 4.5 more publications and 10 times more patents than those in their origin countries. This is mainly due to the infrastructural inequality between developed and developing nations. The solution to bridging the patent and publication gap is to increase the connectivity between professionals in developed and developing countries. One revolutionary network has already been developed to do just that at the University of Pittsburgh; it is called Supercourse.

Supercourse provides free online lectures to all and has already connected over 20,000 scientists to share their knowledge. This network continues to grow and make information less exclusive and contained only in the institutions of developed countries. Scientists around the world will have the materials necessary to create change in their origin countries. Supercourse has the potential to spearhead research and innovation in developing nations that will hopefully reduce brain drain.

Professionals will continue to migrate in search of better opportunities, but increasing access to information and support could be a long-term solution reducing the brain drain effects on developing countries.

– Anand Tayal
Photo: Flickr