Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

Smartphone App to Detect Blindness in Kenya

Smartphone App Blindness Kenya
The product of collaboration between The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a group of Kenyan doctors, The Portable Eye Examination Kit (or PEEK), is a smartphone app that promises to help deal with blindness in Kenya, Business Daily Africa reports.

According to PEEK’s official website, any smartphone equipped with the app can provide accurate eye tests by taking high quality photos of the retina. Such photos will enable an ophthalmologist to “view cataracts clearly enough for treatment classification, detect signs of glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and signs of nerve disease.” The app displays its versatility in that it will also help doctors with identifying other health problems including “severe high blood pressure and diabetes.”

According to their website, PEEK’s developers believe that this advanced technology simplifies the process of retinal analysis, saving users considerable time and effort, compared to the traditional method of using an ophthalmoscope.

In a March 3 article, Ventures Africa reported that PEEK has recently been launched in the Trans-Nzoia county in Kenya. As it is explained later in the article, this particular county was chosen due to its high rate of vision problems. In an interview with Ventures Africa, one of the co-founders of the app Dr. Hillary Rono said that “out of the 2.5 million people in the region, 80 percent have eye problems that, if not checked, would lead to avoidable blindness.” More surprisingly, “five in every 1,000 people in the region are blind,” Dr. Rono continued.

PEEK has been brought to use in up to 350 schools in Trans-Nzoia, as reported by Business Daily Africa. Ventures Africa reports that “21,000 school children in the district and 900 were found visually impaired and were referred to the Kitale County Hospital Eye Unit for treatment.”

PEEK has already made considerable strides in combatting blindness in Kenya, and its developers hope to expand the project in the future. According to Business Daily Africa, the app is in line with Operation Eyesight and Christian Blind Mission, sponsored by the Standard Chartered Bank. The project has “helped to restore sight to more than 8,000 children,” said the bank’s chief executive Lamin Manjang. “The project has a target to reach 120 million people globally.”

Although considerable progress has been made in the fight against blindness in Kenya, much work remains to be done. “With around 1 in 10 men and 1 in 20 women color-blind, it’s important to be aware of what you can and can’t see,” says PEEK’s website. Developers are still exploring ways to add new capabilities to the app, including a wider range of color blindness and contrast tests.

– Hoa Nguyen

Sources: Peek Vision, Business Daily Africa, Ventures Africa
Photo: TechIslet

,

Crowdsourcing Multinationals Solve Social Problems

Crowdsourcing
The process of collecting contributions in the form of ideas and services is not a new phenomenon. In fact, crowdsourcing has historically been used to solve challenging innovation problems.

Companies have for a long time used consumer wisdom to tackle tough scientific and technological challenges, design new products, generate marketing ideas and increase customer satisfaction. Platforms like the Heineken Ideas Brewery, BMW customer innovation lab and My Starbucks Ideas show how major organizations are successfully tapping into the power of the crowd to co-create innovative concepts.

Beyond simply a new approach to research and development, some companies have taken crowdsourcing a step further. Organizations are now using the powerful platform to tackle social challenges in the areas of sustainability and poverty reduction.

Unilever Foundry Ideas is a crowdsourcing platform that was launched by a corporate giant, Unilever in 2015. Through the platform, Unilever seeks to make sustainable living mainstream by sourcing ideas from customers and entrepreneurs. An article in CSR Asia talks about the success of Unilever Foundry ideas highlighting how it has generated over 300 ideas to encourage recycling of bathroom products, reduction of water dependency while doing laundry and invention of concepts for more luxurious and sustainable showers for the future.

“Big social, environment and economic issues are so huge that no one organization or company or group can solve them alone,” says a Unilever Foundry Ideas representative. “Aspects of sustainability affect all of us and so all of us have ideas.”

General Electric has the open innovation branch of its Ecomagination program. This is a collaborative problem-solving environment.

Open innovation posts a variety of challenges and creates an open call to the global brain, a growing community of over 400 million, to submit creative ideas to tackle these challenges. Contributors of winning ideas normally receive cash prizes, internships and future collaboration opportunities.

Open innovation has so far fielded challenges in the areas of solving water scarcity through Water Reuse and managing chronic disease by developing wearable monitoring technologies to mention a few.

BASF, one of the world’s leading chemical companies, has the co-creation platform the Creator Space. In 2015, Creator Space conducted a tour in six cities around the globe, Mumbai, Shanghai, New York, Sao Paulo, Barcelona and Ludwigshafen. Creator space aimed to develop solutions for problems that citizens in the different cities were facing. It did this through enlisting inputs from government officials, NGOs, the society as well as artists.

In Mumbai, for example, BASF Creator Space was tackling the challenge of water accessibility. According to a white paper on the Mumbai visit, a holistic approach has been developed to augment Mumbai city’s plans to revamp the on-grid water infrastructure.

Coca-Cola takes part in the crowdsourcing space by hosting an annual grant challenge known as “Shaping a Better Future”. For the grant, Coca-Cola has partnered with the Global Shapers Community of the World Economic Forum to scale proven solutions to the world’s biggest problems.

There are over 500 Global Shaper hubs around the world that comprise of young people with an exceptional drive to make a contribution to their communities. They have a focus on matters such as bettering the environment, kick-starting civic engagement and eradicating poverty to name a few.

Coca-Cola offers five 10,000 dollar grants through the program to accelerate the most impactful and promising Global Shaper hub projects.

François Pétavy, eYeka CEO notes that crowdsourcing often has its beginnings in the creation of better products and experiences, but often results in a more collaborative and sustainable world.

– June Samo

Sources: BASF 1, BASF 2, Coca-Cola, Crowdsourcing.org, CSR Asia, Entrepreneur, GE 1, GE 2, Open Innovation, Unilever

Emma Watson: HeForShe and Gender Equality

Emma Watson
On March 8, 2016, Emma Watson turned the Empire State Building pink in honor of International Women’s Day. As a U.N. Women Global Goodwill Ambassador, Watson helped launch the HeForShe solidarity movement for gender equality in 2014 and continues to keep the issue at the forefront of international politics.

In fact, Watson admitted in a February 2016 interview with feminist author bell hooks that she was taking a year off from acting to focus solely on her work with U.N. Women and the HeForShe movement.

The HeForShe movement affirms that gender equality is not just a women’s issue but an issue that affects all people. HeForShe recognizes men and boys as partners for women’s rights and provides a platform from which they can become agents of change towards the achievement of gender equality.

While some progress towards gender equality has been made over the last decade, major disparities still exist. The World Economic Forum’s 2015 Global Gender Gap Report revealed that the global average annual earnings for women in 2015 just reached the average annual amount men were earning ten years go.

The Forum states that achieving equal pay will take 118 years if economic progress continues at its current pace.

Emma Watson has spoken around the globe on the issue of gender equality in order to involve hundreds-of-thousands of men in the movement.

In the first quarter of 2016 alone, she’s started an online feminist book club, organized HeForShe arts week in New York City, unveiled a new HeForShe website and released a 26-page report in Esquire Magazine on why gender equality is an issue that involves all of us. So far, HeForShe has been the subject of more than 2 billion conversations on social media.

One of the most notable initiatives of the movement Watson helped organize is IMPACT 10x10x10. IMPACT engages governments, corporations, and universities and has them make concrete commitments to gender equality. The three IMPACT groups are made up of ten heads of states, ten corporate executives, and ten university leaders.

The participating IMPACT Champions, all male, include the Prime Minister of Japan, the President of Rwanda, the CEO of Tupperware Brands, the COO of Twitter, and the President of the University of Sao Paulo Brazil.

These individuals are committed to making gender equality an institutional priority and then sharing what they learn with other organizations so that their changes can be replicated.

Watson and the ten IMPACT corporate executives recently met at the 2016 UN World Economic Forum in Davos to unveil their Corporate Gender Parity Report. The report revealed that within the ten corporations, 71% of board members were male, 73% of senior leadership positions were male and 60% of the overall global workforce were male.

The report also revealed the impact commitments the corporations plan on implementing to achieve gender parity. They include:

  • Embedding gender equality in company policies through programs like mandatory bias training and male-focused gender curricula to educate and empower men as gender equality advocates;
  • Increasing the percentage of women in senior leadership positions through mentoring opportunities;
  • Creating thousands of HeForShe male champions within each company;
  • Reaching complete gender parity in undergraduate intake programs to build the pipeline of future female leaders;
  • During the presentation of the report, Watson stated that full female participation in the workforce would bring a $28 trillion boost to the global economy.

In a recent interview at the inaugural HeForShe arts week, Watson was asked what’s next for gender equality and she stated, “we really want to crowdsource as many different strategies from all over the world so that we can try and build a really comprehensive guide to how we can make a tangible difference and make it happen.”

HeForShe is off to an impressive start in 2016 and continues to power towards its goal of gender equality by 2030.

– Brian Zepka

Sources: HeForShe 1, HeForShe 2, HeForShe 3, Paper Mag, World Economic Forum, HeForShe Impact 10x10x10 2015 Corporate Parity Report, HeForShe YouTube Channel
Photo: Flickr

 

, ,

The Clinton Foundation: Bill’s Other Legacy

The Clinton Foundation
Bill Clinton will always be remembered first and foremost for his eight years in the White House, but he has another legacy that deserves just as much attention: The Clinton Foundation.

Founded in 1997 with a focus on Little Rock, Arkansas, the foundation has grown into an international powerhouse that has raised more than $2 billion to fund charity work around the world.

Like most ex-presidents, Clinton initially faded from the public eye. According to the Washington Post, he spent much of his time watching TiVo. Then, in 2002, he moved the Clinton Foundation to Harlem, New York, following Hillary Clinton’s successful election bid for U.S. Senate.

The foundation brought in consultants from Booz Allen Hamilton to give advice to small business owners in the local community, and the projects piled on from there. Using his celebrity power, Clinton was able to consistently recruit top-notch partners. Besides Booz Allen, he also brought in Princeton Review to bolster local students’ SAT scores.

It was not until 2002, however, that Clinton’s international work began. He met an old friend, former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, at an AIDS conference. Mandela reminded Clinton of a promise he made while still in office, a promise to help Africa after he left.

That promise materialized into the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). According to the Clinton Foundation Website, CHAI has helped reduce the cost of lifesaving HIV/AIDS medication from $10,000 annually for one patient to only $100 to $200. This has helped over eight million people in developing countries, many of them in Africa, afford medication without which they’d die.

CHAI was so successful that it became its own organization, but the Clinton Foundation actively promotes nine other initiatives: the Clinton Climate Initiative, the Clinton Development Initiative, the Clinton Foundation in Haiti, the Clinton Glustra Enterprise Partnership, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, the Clinton Presidential Center and Too Small to Fail and No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project.

The Clinton Foundation is unique in that its initiatives are its own. It consists of over 2,000 employees that serve both as administrators and field workers. As such, it operates more as a nonprofit consulting firm than a grant-making agency. A New York Times story from 2015, for example, reports that the group’s work in Rwanda includes such diverse efforts as teaching farmers to double their yields, training nurses and specialists and supporting factories that turn soybeans into cooking oil.

Behind the power of the Clinton Foundation is Bill’s celebrity. As ex-President of the most powerful country in the world, he truly is a star among stars. With this power, he has been able to raise funds that few others on Earth could hope to achieve and partner with the best organizations to put the money to good use.

As the 2016 presidential election approaches, increasing scrutiny is being paid to the foundation. With Hillary as the first female President and Bill as the first “First Man,” some people would worry about influence-buying through the foundation. Still, the breadth and depth of the good work of the Clinton Foundation cannot be denied. Bill could’ve easily faded into the background after his presidency. Instead, he used his influence and recognition to benefit not just the United States, but the entire world.

– Dennis Sawyers

Sources: New York Times, The Clinton Foundation, The Washington Post

, , ,

Five Ways Global Communities Fight Poverty in Ghana

Global Communities Poverty in Ghana
A non-profit organization called Global Communities works to end poverty in Ghana with a 5-point plan in conjunction with USAID’s Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy.

The non-profit organization works in more than 20 countries around the world, with Ghana being a focus of the recent programs. Global Communities, created about 60 years ago, works with the private sector, governments and local communities to provide the “means and ability to live and prosper with dignity,” something it ensures under its organization’s vision.

The Maryland-based organization paired with USAID in support of the Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy to be implemented over the years 2014-2025. The program’s goal seeks to reduce chronic malnutrition by 20 percent over those 11 years. Global Communities has put forth these five goals in hopes of accelerating the fight against malnutrition in Ghana.

1. Provide more opportunities for economic growth through microfinance

Individuals who do not have access to the capital provided by large financial services corporations can gain access to funds through various microfunding institutions. These smaller companies allow a more intimate relationship between the lender and the borrower. Global Communities works through Boafo Microfinance Services in order to provide low-income Ghanaians with the money for new businesses, education and homes.

2. Build a more “resilient” Ghana by improving the nutrition in local diets

In order to reach this goal, Global Communities has partnered with the USAID/Ghana Resiliency in Northern Ghana (RING) program to “reduce poverty and improve the nutritional status of vulnerable populations.” The introduction of the sweet potato in local Ghanaian farms was a successful implementation of the partnership. Both USAID and Global Communities hope to educate communities on the importance of good nutrition instead of just providing temporary relief.

3. Create pathways for urban youth to become financially independent

Global Communities has joined the Youth Inclusive Entrepreneurial Development Initiative For Employment in opening up the construction sector to Ghana’s youth. In five of the biggest cities in Ghana, the initiative hopes to “reach more than 23,000 youth” by teaching them the skills for employment. Because Africa’s youth makes up a majority of the population, targeting this demographic is the most effective way to reducing poverty in Ghana.

4. Improve access to clean water and sanitation

Working with both the public and private sector, Global Communities is working to enhance the current water and sanitation infrastructure. With focus on “slum communities” in three cities, the non-profit seeks to optimize every individual’s condition while constructing water and sanitation services that can be sustainable. These efforts are paired with USAID’s Water Access Sanitation and Hygiene for the Urban Poor (WASH-UP) and USAID’s WASH for Health (W4H). An important part of the relief is affecting a change in behavior which can help create a poverty-free society that operates without relief.

5. Upgrade local neighborhoods and reinforce political and social institutions

After the basic needs of food, water and shelter are met, a society can begin to upgrade its political, economic and social conditions. Global Communities, with the Bill & Melinda Gates SCALE-UP program, echoes this idea as it reinforces educational and financial institutions for residents in the low-income communities of Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi. The expansion of government services, such as female inclusivity and public transportation, in those regions is being implemented through the Our City, Our Say project.

Global Communities is just part of a larger non-profit coalition fighting against global poverty in Ghana. The process includes numerous programs with funding from various foreign governments, each generating results through their focus on different parts of the Ghanaian society. Readers can follow the various programs and outcomes on the Global Communities website.

– Jacob Hess

Sources: Global Communities 1, Global Communities 2, USAID 1, USAID 2
Photo: Borgen Project

, , , ,

The UN Unites Gender Equality and Global Education

Gender Equality
International Women’s Day 2016 rekindled awareness of the progress of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly the fifth goal to achieve gender equality.

While the number of impoverished women has decreased by 50 percent since 1995 and 90 percent of girls attend primary school, the lack of access to secondary school and the prevailing workplace gender gap beg the question: How will gender equality be achieved by 2030?

Fast Company reported that in North Africa and the Middle East, millennial women have as few employment opportunities as did their mothers and grandmothers and they are three times less likely to run a business than their male counterparts. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president of the Republic of Liberia, estimated that full gender equality will require a minimum of 80 years.

One of the surest catalysts to accelerate gender equality is to give women and girls better access to education. Educated women lead healthier lives, provide for their families and better contribute to society. Consequently, in order for the world to complete the fifth SDG, it must achieve worldwide quality education as well.

“Education is key to opening up so many opportunities for girls. We can’t emphasize that enough,” Terri McCullough, director of No Ceilings: The Full Participation Project, told Bustle.

On March 8, the U.N. Statistical Commission met with the Economic and Social Council and the U.N. General Assembly to discuss electing gender equality as a global education indicator.

Indicators enable world leaders to monitor the progress of the SDGs within their countries to ensure the goals remain on track. Both gender equality and global education require reaching out to the 510 million women who remain illiterate.

If approved, the official statement would read, “Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development, including gender equality and human rights, are mainstreamed at all levels in (a) national education policies, (b) curricula, (c) teacher education and (d) student assessment.”

Establishing gender equality as a global education indicator will help countries analyze each factor of global education and pinpoint where progress is lacking. One major barrier between women and education is negative cultural perception of educated females.

In order to help more girls receive an education, countries must change the public opinion of girls and education. The Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report launched an Instagram campaign to investigate the pervasiveness of gender bias in textbooks worldwide. GEM Report will also host a side-event at the May 2016 Women Deliver Conference to improve training for female teachers.

The balance of gender equality and education benefits men as well as women. Mandisa Shields of The Daily Orange pointed out that when women are not qualified to work in the fields of their choice, men are required to fill the vacant positions, weakening the labor force. As a result, countries suffer both academically and economically.

The ultimate goal of each country is absolute eradication of global poverty, a goal that depends on the full completions of the other SDGs. At the announcement of the SDGs, Irish president Michael Higgins told the U.N., “We cannot achieve the new Sustainable Development Goals if we do not achieve gender equality.”

– Sarah Prellwitz

Sources: Daily Orange, EFA Report, Bustle, Fast Company, Irish Aid

, ,

World Leaders Meet to Discuss Global Education Aims

World Leaders in DubaiLeaders from the private and public sectors came together in Dubai on March 12-13 to discuss tactics for improving global education in the fourth annual Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF).

During the two-day event, speakers lectured on a variety of topics pertinent to the advancement of global education. These included such timely topics as the need for education to combat the spread of terrorism, and the lack of access to education for refugees, such as the three million children currently out of school due to war in Syria.

Workshops and debates were also held to challenge attendees to consider the practicality of solutions.

The Varkey Foundation, a nonprofit organization with the goal of improving education for underprivileged children, convened educators, academics, nonprofit leaders and government leaders, including 22 education ministers.

The aim of the Varkey Foundation is involving everyone in producing real-world global education solutions.

“The main topic will be rethinking collective responsibility for public education. This is in the context that there are still half a billion children in failing schools all around the world,” Varkey CEO Vikas Pota told Education Journal prior to the summit.

Sunny Varkey, Founder of the Varkey Foundation, did an interview with the online magazine Teach UAE. In that article he states, “it is not only important to find more money to overcome the crisis, but my belief is that by pooling our creativity, generosity, and persistence, we can collectively overcome this education crisis. If we work together – government, business and civil society – we have it in our power to finally give every child their birthright: a good education.”

Notable among the speakers at this year’s summit were: Tariq Al Gurg, CEO, Dubai Cares, UAE, as well as Sir Martin Sorrel, Group Chief Executive of WPP and Irina Bokova, Director General of UNESCO. According to the UNESCO website, Bokova spoke to the need for stronger education systems and the importance of strong teachers.

Bokova also spoke of the importance of education in combating radicalism. “Education is a vital tool also in the fight against violent extremism, to counter radicalisation‎.”

The GESF summit also featured a Global Teacher Prize. The winner was picked from a list of 50 which were drawn from thousands of nominations from countries around the world. According to the Education Journal, the idea behind this was to nominate an exceptional teacher in order to highlight the importance of educators.

The winner of the prize at this year’s summit was Hanan Al-Hroub, a female Palestinian teacher. The prize includes an award of $1 million.

The MENA Herald reported that The Varkey Foundation initiated three new alliances for promoting global education which met for the first time at the GESF 2016 Summit: the Alliance on Girls’ Education, the Alliance on Teachers and the Alliance on Innovation. Alliance partners include government leaders and representatives from UNESCO, Harvard University and Amazon.

They will produce their findings and recommendations at next year’s summit.

– Katherine Hamblen

Sources: Financial Express, TeachUAE, Education Journal, UNESCO, MENA Herald, The Herald
Photo: Education Journal Me

,

Moringa Leaf Tea: The Natural Way to Fight Diabetes

Moringa Leaf Tea
Vanessa Zommi is a young entrepreneur in Cameroon who decided to fight back against diabetes after losing both of her grandparents to the disease. When she was 17 years old, her mother was also diagnosed with diabetes, which was when Zommi decided to take action. Since then, Zommi has developed a natural way to fight diabetes using Moringa leaf tea.

“She came across the Moringa oleifera tree, which grew in her region, and discovered it has a number of nutritional and medicinal benefits,” says an article about Zommi in How We Made It In Africa. “One of these is reducing blood sugar levels to treat diabetes and, after a bit more research, Zommi found she could easily process the Moringa leaf into a tasty tea.”

According to the article, studies show that two hours after drinking the tea, sugar levels in the body decrease. Zommi’s discovery led to the development of her own business, the Emerald Moringa Tea Company, which now supplies over 40 African offices with the medicinal Moringa leaf tea.

According to Zommi’s team research, about 15 percent of the Buea population aged 15 to 99 suffer from diabetes and up to 80 percent are not aware of their condition. The disease is prevalent in the region in part because of a lack of access to healthy food that is high in nutrients and low in sugar.

Another problem is that the high cost of medicine and healthcare makes diabetes a low priority disease in the eyes of healthcare providers. Moringa leaf tea is an affordable, practical treatment for Cameroonians.

Zommi’s company currently employs nine people and is looking at expanding its distribution to other regions in Cameroon, as well as other parts of Africa. In 2015, she became one of the top 12 finalists for the Anzisha Prize, Africa’s premier award for young entrepreneurs. Shortly after she became a finalist for the award, she met with the president of Cameroon, Paul Biya, to discuss ideas for the future.

Zommi is a strong advocate of African women in entrepreneurship, as she believes it is a way to empower women both financially and socially. Her advice to young aspiring entrepreneurs is to educate themselves in any way they can and just take the leap. “I hope through my story that I can be a role model for young girls who want to do something like this,” she said.

– Megan Hadley

Sources: How We Made it in Africa, Anzisha Prize, Emerald Moringa Tea
Photo: Flickr

,

How to Utilize Big Data in the Fight Against Poverty

Big Data Fight Against Poverty
Big Data, as its name would suggest, refers to large sets of unstructured and structured data generated at high speeds from digital and traditional data sources around the globe. The big data movement has gained momentum over the years, particularly in the business sphere, but experts have also realized that insights derived from big data have implications for the fight against poverty.

In the agricultural space for example, The Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa has found that farmers in Africa barely produce what they need to get by.

Food Policy experts have found that helping these farmers in Africa and other parts of the world produce more food is key to lifting millions out of poverty. One of the key ways of attaining this goal, according to the experts, is by providing farmers, scientists and entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector with adequate access to data and information generated at agricultural research centres worldwide.

Ft Magazine highlights how big data is being used to mitigate the harmful effects that accompany natural disasters. It explains that in the aftermath of the devastating Haiti earthquake of 2010, researchers at the Karolinska Institute of Columbia University successfully managed to track the locations of 600,000 displaced people using data mining techniques.

The article in Ft Magazine also illustrates how analyzing data from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook can provide early warning systems for both human and natural disasters. For example, increased references to food or ethnic strife on these sites can serve as indicators of possible famine or civil unrest.

Mark Van Rijmenam, the founder of Datafloq, further empathizes the use of Big data in the disaster response field, saying “Big data offers, for example, the possibility to predict food shortages by combining variables such as drought, weather conditions, migrations, market prices, seasonal variation and previous productions.”

In the area of public health and sanitation, Van Rijmenam talks about harnessing data from call detail records to map variations in the population of low-income dwellers in order to direct efforts at building water pipes and latrine facilities for the slum dwellers. This effort will see improved sanitation in such areas, bringing about better health.

A pilot program by the World Bank in Tanzania called SMS for life has generated major improvements in the distribution of malarial medical stock. By getting clinical workers to send an SMS with their stock count every week, the program has enabled senior coordinating staff to re-stock clinics more accurately.

SMS for life has managed to reduce the number of rural health facilities in Tanzania without medical stock from 78 percent to 26 percent.

World Bank blogger Alla Morrison has likened the transformative potential of big data to the transformative effect that electricity had on industry in the 19th century. She argues that big data is a game changer for business, and notes the unprecedented productivity gains in the second industrial revolution due to businesses in all sectors taking advantage of the new electrical resource.

Likewise, as humanity forges ahead, it is important that organizations, governments and individuals take advantage of big data to address the seemingly intractable challenge of poverty.

— June Samo

Sources: Enterra Solutions 1, Enterra Solutions 2, FT Magazine, IEEE, SAS, Smart Data Collective, UN GLOBAL PULSE, World Bank 1, World Bank 2
Photo: Flickr

Five Important Facts About Stunting from Malnutrition

stuntingThe first of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is to end global poverty. The second is to end world hunger. Fighting the undernourishment of mothers and children is a huge component to ending world hunger.

According to the U.N., one in nine people or 795 million people are undernourished. Poor nutrition causes 45 percent of deaths in children under five.

One of the key indicators of child malnutrition is stunting, a condition in which children are much shorter for their age than they should be.

The following are five important facts about stunting:

1. One in four of the world’s children suffer stunted growth.

According to the U.N. World Food Programme, in developing countries the proportion can rise to as high as one in three. The World Health Organization indicates that stunting affects approximately 162 million children globally. The World Health Assembly, the decision making body of the WHO, drafted the resolution to reduce stunting in children under the age of five by 40 percent.

2. Stunting is caused by poor maternal health and nutrition.

The first 1,000 days from a mother’s pregnancy to a child’s second birthday are vitally important to a child’s overall health and development. It is during this period that good nutrition sets up a child for a healthy life.

Stunting in 20 percent of children occurs in the womb from women that are malnourished themselves. The WHO lists several maternal contributors to stunting that include short stature, short birth spacing, and adolescent pregnancy, breastfeeding complications, and severe infectious diseases.

3. Stunting has lasting effects for the child.

1000 Days is an organization that brings attention to the importance of nutrition in early child development. They note that the effects of stunting last a lifetime. Some include impaired brain development, lower IQ, weakened immune system and greater risk of serious diseases like diabetes and cancer later in life. The problem becomes a vicious cycle in which girls that suffer from malnourishment grow up to be mothers that give birth to malnourished babies.

4. Stunting is a huge strain on economic growth and prosperity.

Good nutrition is a staple of any good economy. The World Bank finds that the investment in nutrition improving programs far outweigh their costs. Ignoring the nutritional development of a country’s human capital will lead to direct losses in productivity, from poor physical status and indirect losses, poor cognitive development and losses in schooling. In fact, economists find that stunting can result in a three percent drop in overall GDP.

Research shows a strong relationship between the height of a labor force and productivity. A 2005 paper in the Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that reduced adult height for childhood stunting is associated with a 1.4 percent loss in productivity for each one percent loss in adult height.

5. Stunting is irreversible but also preventable.

Once stunting occurs, it cannot be reversed. However, if adequate conditions exist for mothers during pregnancy to access proper nutrition, stunting can be prevented. Significant progress in reducing the number of stunted children has already been seen.

Progress has been seen in many countries like Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and India. These countries have launched specific programs to tackle the effects of malnutrition such as the Rajmata Jijau Mother–Child Health and Nutrition Mission in India and CRECER – the National Strategy against Child Malnutrition in Peru.

– Michael A. Clark

Sources: 1000 Days, NHRI, U.N., UNICEF, World Bank, World Food Programme, World Health Organization
Photo: Flickr