Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

Why Is There Hunger in Mongolia?

Hunger in MongoliaHunger in Mongolia is one of the major challenges faced by the country, as it has led to poverty. The poverty rate has declined over the last decade but still remains at over 22 percent. Approximately 20 percent of children under five years old are anemic (most due to iron deficiency), while about 13 percent of them are undernourished or suffering from other nutrition-based conditions such as skin diseases and rickets.

Hunger in Mongolia stems from the dzud, a weather phenomenon where a summer drought is followed by a harsh winter. Dzuds negatively affect the economy, especially among the herder population, which accounts for over a third of all employment in the country. Their livestock, which herding families rely on for food, transportation and income, often do not survive the dzud, resulting in food insecurity and malnutrition.

According to the secretary-general of the Mongolian Red Cross, Nordov Bolormaa, over 150,000 Mongolians across 17 of 21 provinces were affected by this February’s dzud. The Mongolian government discovered that over 40,000 animals had died by early February. Over a million livestock died in the winter of 2015-2016, and the dzud of 2009-2010, one of the worst recorded, saw over nine million animal deaths.

Several organizations are working to address both the short-term and long-term effects of hunger in Mongolia. The Red Cross placed an emergency appeal for over $835,000 to help over 25,000 people in Mongolia who are vulnerable to the effects of the dzud. The Asian Development Bank approved a grant to address child malnutrition, planning to work directly with families in Mongolia to educate them about the causes of malnutrition and ways to prevent it. These programs are vital to helping Mongolians better endure the dzud and establish a solid foundation to reduce hunger and malnutrition.

 

– Jalil Perry

Photo: Flickr

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Pope and Catholic Church Target Hunger in Vatican City

Hunger_in_Vatican_CityOn July 4, 2017, Pope Francis made a vibrant statement regarding the world’s suffering and hungry. He declared world hunger to be a direct result of nothing less than indifference and selfishness. Further, he saw the effects of these same problems in his immediate surroundings—there is hunger in Vatican City. Since the beginning of his service, Pope Francis has made addressing poverty, hunger and homelessness some of the most important goals for the Catholic Church in hopes to lead by example.

Due largely to the Catholic Church’s presence in the world’s smallest country, many of the poor and needy draw near to the Vatican. As the impoverished seek refuge, hunger is becoming a bigger problem for the Church to address. With Pope Francis at the helm of the Vatican’s efforts, the needy are being tended to with a vigorous priority.

Pope Francis has personally addressed hunger by appealing to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and pointing out the “uneven distribution of resources and the lack of agricultural development.” The Vatican has sponsored several refugees and their families facing the challenges of displacement, especially hunger. Further, the rest of Europe’s Catholic community has been encouraged to follow suit in accepting, housing and aiding those seeking refuge.

Contrary to tradition, Pope Francis insists on mobilizing the church by sending out the Vatican’s almoner. In the past, the almoner waits for letters from the poor for guidance on how to meet needs. However, Polish Archbishop Konrad Krajewski has taken to the streets of Vatican City in attempts to help the poor and hungry. Krajewski’s method aligns with the rumors of Pope Francis instructing him to “sell his desk” since he would not be needing it.

One of the more controversial techniques to fight hunger in Vatican City came with a corporate lease of a Vatican building to McDonald’s in 2016. While some members of the Church and the Catholic community responded with alternative uses of the building, like housing the homeless, that attitude has since shifted as McDonald’s promised to hand out over 1,000 meals to the poor in their first six months of operations.

The 2030 Development Agenda of the U.N. reflects this same commitment of the Catholic Church. The fight for universal food security cannot be put off and Pope Francis recognizes that it is a demanding task. However, intentions to provide for everyone are not enough. Rather, people need to make a commitment to their country to increase the level of nutrition, to improve agricultural operations, to improve living conditions of rural communities and promote effective distribution of resources like food supplies. When a country is unable to provide for its people, then intergovernmental institutions need to step in. As Pope Francis said in his July 4 address, every person has a right to be free from poverty and hunger. Further, it is the duty of the entire human family to intervene and actually do something about it.

– Taylor Elkins

Photo: Flickr;

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Poverty and Hunger in Finland

Hunger in Finland

In America, Finland (along with its fellow Scandinavian nations) is often portrayed as a utopia bereft of human suffering and a model for the rest of the world. The simple truth, however, is that economic troubles in Finland are real, and the nation has had its own set of struggles in the wake of the Great Recession.

The Finnish labor market has experienced three recessions since the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Business Insider reports that Finland suffered the worst economic contraction of any Eurozone nation during that same crisis. The country’s public debt doubled to more than 60 percent of its GDP by 2015.

According to Eurostat, as of August 2017, Finland’s unemployment rate stood at 8.7 percent. That number is not bad, but could be better. Today, 35 percent of Finland’s unemployed are long-term unemployed, representing a significant challenge for the nation as a whole.

However, the potential for these issues to cause poverty and hunger in Finland has been mitigated by the nation’s public welfare system. No one in Finland lives below the international poverty line due to a wide net of benefits covering both the young and the old. According to OECD data, the poverty rate ratio is only 0.04. Social spending at 30.8 percent of GDP and a well-funded, efficient public schooling system undoubtedly contribute to these successes. And there are other innovative ideas as well.

Those who pay close attention to American politics will know that 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently revealed that she considered running on a platform of universal basic income, a plan she scrapped because she could not make the numbers work. Earlier this year, the Finnish government started a test run for that very same idea.

Finland’s idea was to give 2,000 Finns ages 25 to 28 who had been unemployed for a year or more, or had less than six months of work experience, a monthly subsidy of €560 for two years, regardless of whether they found work.

However, after a government pushing austerity came to power, the trial size was cut to one-fifth of the original plan, making it too small to be scientifically useful, and regular social programs were scaled back, making it even more difficult to measure the program’s effects. The program may or may not help alleviate poverty and encourage economic growth, but it will be hard to know given the small sample size and lack of controls. Still, the presence of ideas like this show a healthy willingness to experiment by trial and error.

Earlier this year, the Finnish central bank affirmed that Finland finally seems to be emerging from the Great Recession. The bank forecasts that this year will see exports recover and GDP growth reach 1.3 percent, in part due to the Competitiveness Pact signed last year. Strong social programs, powered by economic activity inherent in free and open markets, will hopefully keep poverty and hunger in Finland at a historic low.

– Chuck Hasenauer

Photo: Flickr

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Food from Electricity as a High-Tech Solution to Poverty

High-Tech Solution to PovertyElectric-powered food: it sounds too good to be true. And for now, it probably is. But, according to Business Insider, Finnish scientists with the Food From Electricity project earlier this year synthesized a nutrient-rich protein using only water, electricity, carbon dioxide and microbes. The high-tech solution to poverty is reportedly nutritious enough to serve as a meal, being 50 percent (or more) protein and 25 percent carbohydrates. It is a promising step, but the process must be much more efficient before it can be adopted on a grand scale.

This research is the result of a collaboration between the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT). VTT scientist Juha-Pekka Pitkänen has affirmed that, in practice, “all the raw materials are available from the air. In the future, the technology can be transported to, for instance, deserts and other areas facing famine.” As this method does not require a location with the appropriate temperatures or soil type for agriculture, desert conditions will have no effect on its viability.

Business Insider theorizes two possible ways the technology might be used: to provide food for starving people in areas inhospitable to traditional agriculture and to reduce the demand for food livestock and the crops necessary to sustain it.

The second manner of use would bring down global emissions of greenhouse gases, a large portion of which the livestock industry is directly responsible for. Studies show that poorer countries are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, not least because they lack the financial means to combat those effects. Poorer nations are disproportionately in low-lying areas vulnerable to sea level rises. The nation of Kiribati, spread out over many island reefs and atolls in the Pacific, is a good example of a place already wrestling with less fertile soil and frequent flooding.

As a high-tech solution to poverty, food from electricity has a long way to go. LUT reports that producing one gram of protein in this manner currently takes about two weeks. As researchers model and adjust the process to allow the microbes to grow better, the hope is that the total time required will be reduced. At the same time, researchers want to produce larger quantities of the protein so as to pilot a commercialization effort and eventually develop the process into a compact product for mass production and distribution.

Aside from addressing general poverty, food from electricity has the rare potential to address climate change from both sides of the equation, tackling it at its source while mitigating its impoverishing effects. It will be interesting to see how this technology develops in the future.

– Chuck Hasenauer

Photo: Google

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15 Facts About the Syrian Civil War

Facts About the Syrian Civil WarWhile constantly in the news, the atrocities of the Syrian civil war, one of the greatest humanitarian crises in recent history, have become somewhat normalized to readers. However, it is imperative to remain at least aware, if not critical of the causes of such ongoing brutality. Here are 15 facts about the Syrian civil war to stay informed:

  1. In 2011, the Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad responded to civilians peacefully protesting wrongful imprisonment and torture by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning many more.
  2.  In July 2011, defectors from the military as well as Syrian civilians formed the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group aiming to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad and his authoritarian regime.
  3. President Assad encouraged extremists to join the rebellion against his government, and even released jihadist prisoners in order to tinge the rebellion with extremism and make it more difficult for foreign backers to support them.
  4. Neighboring countries with Sunni majorities generally support the rebels while Shia majorities tend to support President Assad. In 2012, Iran intervened on President Assad’s behalf and supplies officers and cargo to government forces. In response, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan sent aid to the rebels to counter Iran’s influence.
  5. The Syrian civil war has become a proxy war between international powers. The United States, under the Obama administration, supported Syrian rebels through CIA training, making it a participant in the war. Russia, on the other hand, backs President Assad.
  6. Syrian Kurds carved out a semi-autonomous region in the north and northeast of Syria. The Kurds support neither the government nor the opposition. The United States has supported the Kurds as one of the most effective anti-Islamic State forces on the ground.
  7. Almost all the forces in Syria fighting against each other are also fighting the Islamic State. In 2011, al-Qaeda forces joined the rebellion against President Assad before beginning to seize control of territory in Syria, by which time they had renamed themselves the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL), and labeling their territories its caliphate. Kurdish forces and Syrian rebels have been combating the rising power of ISIS. The United States has also directly intervened with air strikes.
  8. The United States launched a program to train Syrian rebels to fight ISIS, but not President Assad. The program was criticized for showing that the United States opposes ISIS more than Assad.
  9. President Bashar al-Assad is using chemical weapons against civilians. While the Syrian military as well as Assad himself deny such claims, organizations such as Human Rights Watch has documented the use of chlorine and sarin gas by the Syrian government against its own people.
  10. The United Nations commission of inquiry has evidence implicating all parties in the conflict of war crimes. Rebel forces, as well as the Syrian government and ISIS, have committed war crimes including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances. They have also been accused of leveraging access to food, water and health services as a method of combat.
  11. Entering its seventh year, the Syrian conflict has killed almost half a million Syrians, injured more than a million and displaced over 12 million, just about half of the country’s population before the war.
  12. 6.5 million of these displaced individuals are still in Syria. Internally displaced persons tend to be especially vulnerable, especially if they are still in areas of conflict. International aid agencies cannot easily access these areas.
  13. Most Syrian refugees are currently in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. While these areas are relatively safe for displaced Syrians, they remain unstable themselves.
  14. The mass exodus of Syrian refugees to Europe has created its own political crisis. European voters have largely rejected refugees in the wake of the rise of right-wing populism.
  15. Charity organizations across the globe are working to help the millions of Syrians affected by the war. The main charity groups include UNHCR, UNICEF, Doctors Without Border, Oxfam, the International Red Cross and Save the Children.

– Richa Bijlani

Photo: Flickr

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Florida Schools Waive Regulations for Caribbean Scholars

Florida Universities Waived Rules and Regulations for Caribbean ScholarsFollowing a request from Governor Rick Scott, Florida schools have waived their rules and regulations for Caribbean scholars who have been left deprived and affected by Hurricanes Maria and Irma. State Education Commissioner, Pam Stewart was one of the signees of the order for students from Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and other Caribbean nations.

In a public address, Stewart announced, “Entire communities were destroyed, and we do not know how long it will take to restore schools and other essential infrastructure…It is critical that these students and teachers have the opportunity to participate in our state’s outstanding public education system. We are pleased to remove barriers to enrollment and help these students and teachers return to the classroom.”

As of now, students from the islands are able to continue their classes and permeate into the Florida public school curriculums without their birth certificates, official transcripts and health forms that transfer students would traditionally be required to have. Also, those who are seeking teaching positions are being given the opportunity to apply without their health records and age verifications, along with proof of degree-attainment and subject-mastery documentation. The federal government has obliged school districts to label students affected by hurricanes as “homeless” to allow the students to be eligible for free meals and more accessible transportation.

Futhermore, some public colleges in Florida have agreed to offer in-state tuition to affected Caribbean students. These colleges include: Broward College, Hillsborough Community College, Miami Dade College, Palm Beach State College, Seminole State College of Florida, the University of Central Florida, Valencia College and St. Petersburg College.

In a statement made by Scott, the governor claimed he wanted to, “ensure students from Puerto Rico can more easily continue their education here in Florida and that teachers from Puerto Rico have every opportunity to continue to succeed in their careers.” He also pointed out that, “as families work to rebuild their lives following the unbelievable devastation caused by Hurricane Maria, we are doing everything we can to help them throughout this process.”

While their education is furthered in the U.S., many of the students wish for recovery for their respective homes. However, because these Florida schools have waived their rules and regulations for Caribbean scholars affected by the hurricanes, many students are able to continue following their dreams and their career paths. Without initiatives like these, many hurricane victims would have to be stuck on pause until the recovery of their homes.

– Jalil Perry

Photo: Flickr

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USAID to Help Salvadorans with Youth Education Programs

Help SalvadoransThe U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is providing job training to equip Salvadorans with skills they can use for future employment and economic opportunities. Larry Sacks, the former USAID and El Salvador Mission Director, was in El Salvador in 1999 and was fearful of the violence that he experienced. He became aware that many Salvadorans are threatened by similar violence every day, and has since been part of USAID initiatives to help Salvadorans.

Youth are the primary victims of violence in El Salvador. Furthermore, many young people have a hard time accessing basic healthcare. Due to the low quality and limited access to basic health services, 41 percent of the HIV/AIDS cases in El Salvador are among young people age 15 to 19.

Poverty, along with the lack of education and job opportunities, forces youth to migrate across international borders to seek better opportunities. Most make their way to the United States,  however many enter illegally. As a result, they have limited access to healthcare and social security in the U.S. as well. This puts young adults at a higher risk of becoming a part of youth gangs, participating in criminal activities and substance abuse.

USAID provides aid that will help Salvadorans thrive, eliminating the need for high rates of migration to other states. USAID is partnering with the government of El Salvador, the Ministry of Education, private sector partners and higher education institutions in both the U.S. and El Salvador.

The activities provided are directed towards young adults at the lower secondary level, grades seven to nine, as they are most susceptible to dropping out of school and most vulnerable to joining gangs.

The education programs that USAID has provided in El Salvador, particularly in high-crime areas, help to keep more than 100,000 youth in school. By providing young Salvadorans with education and a safe environment, they are less likely to join gangs. Further, with USAID’s new programs, over 20,000 youth have now received job training.

– Chloe Turner

Photo: Flickr

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Investments Key to Improving Education in Guinea

Education in Guinea
Several factors contribute to extreme poverty in Guinea. Guinea has made it a priority to address the major factors that add to this plight, one of which is education. With a population of around 10 million and a literacy rate of around 30 percent for young males and females, Guinea’s Strategic Poverty Reduction Document includes education as an important factor in helping to reduce overall poverty in the country. Guinea has received help from a few different nonprofits in order to develop strategies to meet these goals.

UNICEF is working to resolve the lack of investment in education that Guinea experiences. Classrooms have begun to overcrowd recently, partially due to refugee influxes, making it difficult for students to get the time and attention they need to succeed. Investments in additional classrooms and training staff are a part of UNICEF’s plan to alleviate this pressure, as well as adding new teaching styles to cater to the uniqueness of pupils.

Through UNICEF, the Global Partnership for Education is chipping away at specific goals to target the main issues surrounding education in Guinea. The partnership has set priorities of making education more universal and available, making improvements in quality and training and strengthening government to make investments in their people’s education and support reforms.

World Education, a nonprofit dedicated to improving quality of life through access to education, has been present in Guinea since the late 1990s. World Education has focused its efforts primarily on capacity building through several different methods. They have worked to engage NGOs within Guinea and support community participation projects as well as received funding to kickstart such programs.

While most extremely poor nations experience education issues, it is important to recognize the work of the aforementioned organizations and the role of government in education. With consistent effort in this area, the state of education in Guinea can improve.

– Casey Hess

Photo: Flickr

10 Facts About the Libyan Genocide

Libyan GenocideIn 2011, multiple Arab countries saw political uprisings in a movement that became known as the Arab Spring. In Libya, this uprising led to a months-long war with international involvement and high civilian casualties. With the high number of civilian casualties, some raised concerns about genocide being a part of this conflict. Going through the facts of the conflict will help to determine whether there was a Libyan genocide.

  1. Anti-government protests began on February 15, 2011 in Benghazi. Following the Libyan security crackdown on the protest, demonstrations continued and spread throughout the week.
  2. Responses to protests became more violent, with security forces and aircraft firing into crowds. At least 500 civilians were killed. By February 21, Libya’s deputy U.N. representative called on Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi to resign due to what the representative stated was a Libyan genocide.
  3. International leaders began cutting off Gadhafi and the Libyan government from assets and imposed sanctions on the country.
  4. On March 17, the U.N. Security Council voted for a no-fly zone over Libya and called upon member states to take “all necessary measures…to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat.”
  5. Libyan forces laid siege to the city of Misrata from March to May, cutting off all contact and food supplies to the city.
  6. In early May, an International Criminal Court prosecutor announced that he would be seeking arrest warrants in connection to the deaths of pro-democracy activists. These warrants were officially requested on May 16 for Gadhafi, his son and his brother-in-law.
  7. An article in The Guardian from June 18 reports that lawyers in Misrata had documentation of orders from Gadhafi to lay siege to the city in response to opposition. The lawyers planned to give the documents to war crimes investigators when it was safe to enter the city.
  8. On October 20, Muammar Gadhafi was captured and killed in his hometown of Sirte, Libya. While some skirmishes continued, this effectively ended this war.
  9. On October 23, three days after Gadhafi’s death, Libya’s interim leaders declared freedom. During the following week, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to end military operations in Libya. NATO forces pulled out of the country and a new acting prime minister was elected.
  10. The arrest warrant for Muammar Gadhafi was rescinded in November due to his death. Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of Muammar, was captured by fighters that same month, but has not been seen since 2014. He was sentenced to death in absentia in July 2015 by a court in Tripoli.

The warfare and civilian casualties seen in Libya in 2011 led to war crimes investigations. Despite this, the actions taken by Gadhafi during the conflict did not meet the criteria set forth in the U.N. Genocide Convention. This is because the fighting was based around political ideological groups and differences within the country, and not national, ethnical, racial or religious groups. Unless other evidence arises, it does not appear there was a Libyan genocide in 2011.

– Erik Beck

Photo: Google

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PMI Expansion Malaria Treatment for 90 Million More People

PMI ExpansionIn late September, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced that they would be leading an enterprise to expand the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI). The PMI expansion is expected to bring life-saving malaria prevention and treatment to four additional countries: Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Niger and Sierra Leone. With these additions, PMI will have programs operating in 24 Sub-Saharan African countries where malaria poses a genuine public health threat.

Launched in 2005, PMI is an interagency initiative in collaboration with USAID and in conjunction with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. PMI was originally established with the goal of cutting mortality caused by malaria in half across 15 African countries. This came during a time when the U.S. decided to put malaria control at the forefront of its global aid agenda. It seeks to approach this goal by increasing concentration on four essential malaria treatment and prevention measures: insecticide-treated mosquito nets, indoor residual spraying, accurate diagnoses and preventative prenatal treatments. With its focused strategy, PMI has contributed to the aversion of 6.8 million malaria-related deaths between 2001 and 2015. In 2016 alone, PMI protected over 16 million people by spraying homes with insecticide and distributed 42 million bed nets.

In total, approximately 480 million people have benefited from the work being done by PMI. This latest PMI expansion will bring malaria treatment and prevention to an additional 90 million people. This is spectacular news given how life-threatening the disease still is, even after so much progress has been made. Today, malaria still takes the life of a child every 30 seconds, amounting to a staggering 3,000 children every single day. Though heartbreaking, this statistic should not come as a surprise, considering 40 percent of the world’s population lives in high-risk regions for malaria. With the continued effort aid agencies like PMI and USAID, that number is projected to decrease significantly. Hopefully, sometime in the coming years, the world will witness the complete eradication of malaria.

– Micaela Fischer

Photo: Flickr