Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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Bpeace Aids Entrepreneurs in Historically Violent Communities

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Bpeace, short for Business Council for Peace, is an organization comprised of business savvy individuals who have combined their efforts to aid business owners in areas who have suffered from violence and war.

Bpeace volunteers help decrease violence in conflict-ridden communities by accelerating job creation and, in turn, decreasing poverty. They have aided business owners in countries like Rwanda, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Guatemala and more.

Bpeace was founded in 2002 in New York City. Serving as a pro bono management consulting firm, Bpeace helps entrepreneurs scale their businesses, create significant employment for members of their communities and expand the economic power of women.

The founders of Bpeace believe the most efficient way to spread world peace is by creating jobs, and they apply this philosophy to all of their practices. Jobs have a big multiplier effect. This creates local purchasing power, which helps families become sustainable.

Since 2009, Bpeace has held an event called Pedal for Peace that brings together donors and bikers to raise money for local entrepreneurs in developing countries. Participants ride either a sixty-mile or 25-mile race while donating at least $500. Every dollar is donated to families in Afghanistan, El Salvador and Guatemala.

In 2015, Bpeace provided mentoring to over 65 entrepreneurs, with their efforts reaching 2,657 employees. In total, 12,000 families have been positively affected by Bpeace’s effort. Bpeace also assists business owners with finances to keep violence away from their businesses.

Karina Koper, a business owner in Guatemala, uses the financial assistance she receives from Bpeace to pay for her employees to take cabs to and from work to avoid being mugged or assaulted and to pay off gangs from messing with her shops.

Another example of this is Veronica Mejia Handal, a business owner in El Salvador, who received social media marketing training from Bpeace and used her newfound skills to market herself to potential customers around the world.

Today, Bpeace continues to help entrepreneurs, creates jobs and helps end gang violence by spreading employment to constituents of all backgrounds.

– Julia Hettiger

Sources: Fox Business, Bpeace 1, Bpeace 2, Indiegogo
Photo: Pause for Thought

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Fighting Malnutrition in Honduras

Malnutrition_in_Honduras
Honduras is the third poorest nation in the Americas. One-third of the population lives below the poverty line and 1.5 million Hondurans or 20% of the population, face hunger on a daily basis.

However, malnutrition is especially problematic for children.

  • In rural Honduras, the problem is especially acute with 48% of the population suffering from malnutrition.
  • 10% of infants born in Honduras are underweight as a result of malnutrition in the country.
  • One out of two children in the poorest communities suffers from stunted growth.
  • 50% of children between the ages of 2 and 6 suffer from anemia.
  • 29% of Honduran children younger than 5 years old suffer from slow growth rates.

Fortunately, several organizations are providing funding to the country to alleviate malnutrition.

World Bank and the United Nations

The growing rates of malnutrition in Honduras have prompted the World Bank and the United Nations to act. Currently, the organization is supporting a program called the AIN-C with the United States and investing $20 million into Honduras.

The money will be divided among nearly 1,000 Honduran communities and benefit 16,000 children.

World Food Programme

In addition, the World Food Programme (WFP) implemented the School Meals Programme in Honduras, which has provided 1.2 million children in primary school with food aid.

The program targets the very poorest communities in the country and provides the children with daily meals in order to encourage school enrollment. In addition to the program, the WFP has implemented the Purchase for Progress (P4P) program.

The P4P is a program that buys products from small farmers in order to help support the community. In partnership with other buyers, they have purchased $60 million in food from local Honduran communities.

Hopefully, as the international community continues to support poverty reducing programs in Honduras, the rate of malnutrition will decrease throughout the country.

– Robert Cross

Sources: Hope International, World Bank, World Food Programme
Photo: Wikimedia

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What is the Africa Governance Initiative?

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One of the hallmarks of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s premiership is his commitment to the development of Africa. Since leaving office in 2007, Blair continues his dedication to Africa’s poor through the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI).

In Sub-Saharan Africa, nearly 50 percent of all people live in poverty. Around 239 million Africans face food insecurity and 70 percent do not have electricity.

In 2008, AGI was founded upon a mission to establish enduring governments that will lift impoverished Africans out of poverty.

The AGI team strives to achieve this goal by working with public officials to improve their policies, strategies and capacities to affect change within their respective countries.

Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was elected in 2006, noted, “There you stand, trying to re-build a nation in an environment where everyone wants to see change take place right away…. Only you cannot because the capacity to implement whatever change you have in mind does not exist.”

Liberia is one of six African countries AGI works with. The others are Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Rwanda—where AGI was piloted.

AGI operates by working “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the highest levels of government. With a cornerstone platform of prioritization, planning and performance management, AGI tailors its programs to the specific needs of each country.

In 1994, many Rwandans fled the country or died as a result of genocide. Rwanda felt the devastating effects of the genocide for more than a decade after. In 2008, AGI came to Rwanda to help President Paul Kagame and his government put Rwanda back on a path toward development.

The initiatives AGI undertook in Rwanda were tailored to their Vision 2020 plan. Vision 2020 is the government’s plan to make Rwanda a middle-income country by 2020.

Together the AGI team and the Rwandan government developed the Strategic Capacity Building Initiative (SCBI). The SCBI paired government workers with technical experts to recognize and address the reasons why capacity building in Rwanda failed in the past.

After much research and deliberation, SCBI decided on four measures that would be the key to program implementation in the future.

These measures are priority driven, having government ownership of programs and strategies, focusing on delivery of relevant work in a real context and lastly long-term investment or, in other words, youth involvement.

Phase 1 AGI’s Program

  • Phase 1 of the program targeted energy, agriculture, mining and investment.
  • In the energy sector, Rwanda quickly took the initiative to become a world example for sustainable development.
  • In 2014, Rwanda completed the construction of East Africa’s first large-scale solar power plant.

The process of legal negotiations, considering international guidelines for best practice and leveraging long-term investment leading up to the construction took just seven months—what AGI calls, “lighting-fast by international standards.”

The plant is located about an hour outside of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. Since its implementation just last year, the plant has already produced 8.5 megawatts of electricity.

This replaced expensive and dirty diesel fuel with clean and cheap solar energy which now powers 12,000 homes.

Plans for the future include increasing solar capacity to 250 megawatts, which could power close to 353,000 more homes.

Other successes from the SCBI include increased wages for farmers and a fairer mining industry. Between 2000 and 2010 Rwanda was considered one of the world’s ten fastest growing economies. Since 2007, poverty in Rwanda decreased by nearly 8 percent.

“I set up AGI to help African governments bridge the gap between plans and results, to get from power plans to power plants, from a line in a speech to a line of children outside their new school,” said Blair.

Rwanda’s successes show that it is not corruption, but a need for proper capacity building that hinders development.

The Rwanda government’s eagerness to continue with SCBI and other projects is a testament to Africa’s ability to become a world leader in raising its people out of poverty.

– Celestina Radogno

Sources: Africa Governance Initiative 1, Africa Governance Initiative 2, Africa Governance Initiative 3, Africa Governance Initiative 4, Africa Governance Initiative 5, CIA World Fact Book, Huffington Post, Tony Blair, World Hunger
Photo: Diallo Kenyatta

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Creating Ways to Continue Education Despite War and Conflict

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Elementary school is a time that is remembered by new backpacks and the smell of fresh pencils and erasers. Small children proudly sport new outfits and seek out new friends in various classes.

This is the idealized picture of what a small proportion of the world’s children is able to enjoy. In war-torn developing countries, though, elementary schools look very different.

A recent article from The Guardian found that “Almost 50 million children and young people living in conflict areas are out of school, more than half of them primary age, and reports of attacks on education are rising.”

Multiple studies done over the years have found that when it comes to war, education is one of the first casualties. War and other such conflicts cause damage to buildings, displaced families, necessary certificates to be lost, and a change in priorities.

While this is often the case, new programs are springing up that provide access to school even amidst such turmoil.

UNICEF, for instance, has been working with the Ministry of Education to find solutions.

In an article focused on Yemen, the UNICEF site stated that they are, “working with the Government to help organize catch-up classes for those who have missed their education and encourage as many children as possible to return to school for the new school year.”

The combined efforts of UNICEF and the Ministry of Education have also worked to help children take exams that were missed due to schools being closed during the fighting.

War Child is another organization that has been working in several war-torn countries to improve education despite war and conflict.

On their site they shared, “In Afghanistan we’re providing education for the street children who use our drop-in-centres. We’ve also opened 20 Early Childhood Development Centres to provide 620 children aged 4-6 with a pre-school education.”

Similar work is being done in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Uganda and Syria.

These programs allow for children to receive the education that is needed to help end the cycle of poverty in these developing nations despite the negative impacts of war.

– Katherine Martin

Sources: The Guardian, UNICEF, War Child
Photo: Google Images

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End Poverty Day: World Bank Group President Visits Ghana

Ghana and the world bank
On October 16, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim visited Ghana to participate in high-level talks, launch a report on poverty in Africa, highlight Ghana’s progress toward ending extreme poverty and commemorate End Poverty Day.

Earlier this month, the World Bank released a report showing that the percentage of people living in extreme poverty around the world will have fallen to 9.6 percent  in 2015, which is below 10 percent for the first time.

With this percentage, the Bank estimates that 702 million people still live in extreme poverty today around the world. Jim Yong Kim’s visit to Accra is part of several activities focusing on the World Bank’s goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030.

Several African countries, such as Ghana, are successful in reducing extreme poverty. From 1991/92 (under the $1.90 poverty line) to 2005/06, Ghana reduced extreme poverty from 47.3 percent to 25.2 percent.

However, the whole region lags behind the rest of the world in progressing toward the elimination of poverty. Based on an extreme poverty line of $1.90 a day, Sub-Saharan poverty fell from 56 percent in 1990 to 35 percent from 1990 to 2015.

Rapid population growth remains a key obstacle in many countries’ progress.

Firstly, joined by Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama and other development partners as well as civil society leaders, private sector representatives and student leaders, Dr. Kim visited “End Poverty Day” in Jamestown, Accra to launch the regional flagship report, “Poverty in a Rising Africa,” with the other participants.

The content of his report includes whether Africa’s growth covers enough citizens on the continent, the challenges related to poverty data and updates on poverty and other trends related to human well-being.

In the afternoon at the University of Ghana, Legon, Kim also participated in a “Shared Prosperity Forum,” along with government ministers from Africa, civil society and private sector leaders, to share thoughts on what it will take to end extreme poverty in Africa and the rest of the world by 2030. Participants explored Ghana’s own path toward prosperity.

The World Bank’s current portfolio for Sub-Saharan Africa consists of $11.6 billion for 103 projects, including $1.2 billion in IBRD loans and $10.4 billion in IDA commitments.

IFC is a member of the World Bank Group focused on the private sector. It has a total committed investment portfolio of $10.3 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa. IFC also offers advice to governments and businesses to emphasize the roles of private sectors in the global effort to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity.

MIGA, the political risk insurance and credit enhancement arm of the World Bank Group, has a gross exposure of $3.3 billion in the region. Ending poverty is a goal that the World is fighting for.

– Shengyu Wang

Sources: World Bank, GBN
Photo: Flickr

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Smartphones Affect Education Gaps in Rural Pakistan

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Throughout rural Pakistan, many teachers don’t have access to quality educational training for a variety of reasons, including cost, distance and family commitments.

Online distance learning could easily fill-in these educational gaps, but limited Internet coverage has proven to be a stumbling block for educators and students alike.

Developments in Literacy (DIL), a nonprofit founded by Pakistani-Americans in order to bring quality education to disadvantaged children in underdeveloped regions, has created a revolutionary solution to end this problem.

Funded by USAID, DIL created a mobile distance learning program known as mLearning. The parameters of the program were straightforward. Teachers were each given a smartphone with video lessons loaded onto them, giving teachers unlimited access to the material.

Once a month, teachers would meet at one of the 23 WiFi hubs DIL established throughout the nations to download more training videos. The 8- to 10-minute videos cover a variety of techniques to engage and inspire students to love learning, especially math and English.

Although the program’s focus is on bettering the understanding of school subjects and the teaching ability of rural educators, the end-game is to inspire children to stay in school. The goal is to have smartphones affect education gaps in rural Pakistan.

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The average number of years that Pakistani children stay in school is only eight years, with most dropping out before age 16. This low level of academic participation has capped the Pakistani literacy rate at 57 percent, with only 45 percent literacy for women.

Because of this, mLearning is aimed at improving the education and opportunities of poor children and at-risk rural girls through better teacher training and learning resources.

During the course of the initial mLearning program, 200 teachers were given smartphones and completed the program from January 2013 to November 2014. Currently, more than 5,000 children benefit from being taught by teachers who have participated in mLearning.

Since the end of mLearning, the educational aid videos have been shared with 40 schools not affiliated with DIL, and countless teachers have shared the videos personally from their smartphones.

That’s the real brilliance behind mLearning using smartphones as its method of delivery. Since DIL owns the majority of the content, teachers are able to share the videos freely.

mLearning’s results thus far have been impressive. Across the board, teachers reported a 30 percent increase in their English skills and a 40 percent increase in their comprehension of mathematics. As the mLearning videos continue to be spread around, DIL is looking to expand the program.

– Claire Colby

Sources: USAID, World Factbook
Photo: USAID
Photo: The Hindu.Com

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FAO Social Protection Program to End Cycle of Rural Poverty

fao_social_protection_program
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) updated its social protection plan by adding agricultural and rural development measures.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on reducing poverty have been met by many developing countries; however, there are still high levels of extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Evidence has shown that the three elements of the FAO social protection program: social assistance, social insurance and labor market protection, are very effective in reducing poverty and hunger.

In 2013, the program helped relieve up to 150 million people out of extreme poverty.

The most common form of social protection in developing countries is social assistance, which provides conditional or unconditional cash transfers to households and individuals.

These incentives account for large income losses and lack of savings when farmers are unable to produce enough to survive.

“Most of the world’s poor and hungry continue to live in rural area. According to the World Bank, about 78 percent of the planet’s poor are found in rural areas”, stated FAO Assistant Director-General Jomo Kwame Sundaram.

Rural households depend on subsistence agriculture to survive; the cash incentives provided by the FAO have proven to encourage households to invest in the education and health of their children.

These acts help end the generational cycle of poverty and bring FAO closer to achieving the first “Zero-Hunger Generation” goal.

The FAO social protection program has also allowed impoverished rural farmers in developing countries to weather the effects of external shocks such as floods, pests, droughts and price volatility.

José Graziano da Silva, FAO Director-General, stated that “With climate change, the shocks happen year after year; it eats away at the capacity of rural poor to cope with it.

Social protection offers poor families a kind of buffer to protect them from external shocks.”

The most recent edition of The State of Food and Agriculture 2015 explains how the addition of agricultural and rural development measures to the social protection program will sustainably move people out of poverty and hunger.

The report illustrates that agricultural input subsidies, such as fertilizer, have been well received across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

There was an increase in food and fertilizer costs in 2007-2008, so the FAO agricultural incentive was instrumental in providing food security for rural households.

The report also addresses the issue of credit and how little of it is allocated to agricultural needs.

It goes on to emphasize that “leveraging public expenditure on agriculture and social programs” is imperative in strengthening agricultural and rural development.

Agricultural incentives and credit fosters independence amongst rural farmers. They become more financially capable and are able to manage household risks.

Providing credit also allows poor rural farmers to make investments in livestock and machinery, therefore increasing their productivity and income.

– Marie Helene Ngom

Sources: BBC, FAO
Photo: Google Images

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Early Childhood Development and Economic Stability

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Early childhood development (ECD), or the time from a child’s birth to turning 8 years old, is considered the most critical window of childhood development.

During this eight-year window, children undergo intensive physical and social growth, shaping their bodies and perceptions of society.

But many children in developing nations lack the nutrition, healthcare and social engagement necessary during ECD to have a strong foundation for future growth and development.

ECD initiatives, ranging from parental training to preschool, have been shown to dramatically improve children’s earning potential and help them to escape the poverty cycle.

In the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, the United Nations specifically addressed the value of ECD in Goal 4, stating that by 2030 all children will “have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education.”

The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, echoed the importance of providing aid to ECD for the termination of global poverty, saying, “Children have been educated who otherwise would have missed out.”

Through aid efforts, programs are sprouting throughout some of the world’s poorest regions, showing promising results.

The World Bank reports that children in developing nations who have participated in ECD programs have higher levels of cognitive and academic performance than their peers.

Children who have benefitted from ECD initiatives are also more prepared to enter primary school and learn more efficiently while in class. This early success in schools has led to lower levels of dropouts and grade repetitions.

As educational levels rise, so does earning potential. Especially for girls. For every year of primary education a girl receives, her earning potential rises 10 percent to 20 percent, and for every additional year of secondary education, her earning potential rises another 15 percent to 25 percent, empowering her in the workforce.

As the workforces in developing nations expand with more educated and skilled laborers, the population at large benefits from an expanded consumer base.

With increased earning and buying power comes a more complex and stable economy that is less susceptible to shock and a higher gross domestic income.

According to UNICEF, this increase in school attendance shrinks the gap between the wealthiest and poorest families, hoisting children and their families out of the poverty cycle.

– Claire Colby

Sources: The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2 UNICEF, UN, USAID, World Bank
Photo: Sharp School

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How Pumpkins Boost the Ugandan Economy

Ugandan EconomyThe fall season is the time of year filled with caramel apples, trick-or-treating, corn mazes and pumpkin carving. But beyond the excitement of children at Old McDonald’s pumpkin patch, what is the worth of a pumpkin?

In Uganda, the pumpkin is a source of income that has helped boost the economy.

According to ONE, “Pumpkins can be grown all over Uganda and are often grown adjacent to cash crops. During harvest time, these pumpkins become great to sell for extra income!”

Looking at the Ugandan economy, extra income is still in great need for the large majority of the population.

While the African Economic Outlook, AEO, shows that Real GDP, gross domestic product, or the value of all goods and services produced in a single year, has increased from 4.7 to 6.3 since 2013, there is still a lot of progress to be made.

The AEO has stated that “this recovery in economic activity is mainly supported by public investment on infrastructure, recovery in private domestic consumption and investment demand, and a rebound in agriculture.”

For many in Uganda, this rebound is taking place thanks to the innovative thinking of Henry Kasozi. As chairman of the Nkokonjeru Women Saving and Credit Project, Kasozi teaches women and children how to grow pumpkins.

Since 2009, over 200 women and children have benefited from learning to cultivate pumpkins. For these individuals, it has become their main source of income.

With a fast growth cycle and multiple uses, the pumpkins have proven to be quite the cash crop.

In an interview for The Daily Monitor he stated, “the idea to grow pumpkins was born out of the realization that they take few months to grow and serve several purposes. They can serve as food, sauce, animal feeds and medicine among others.”

According to Web MD, pumpkins are legitimate sources of medicine. Both pumpkin seeds and oils have proven health benefits that have aided in alleviating various diseases.

On their site they state that “the chemicals in the pumpkin seed cause an increase in urination (diuretic effect), which helps relieve bladder discomfort. Pumpkin seed also contains a chemical that might kill intestinal worms.”

With worms and bladder/kidney infections being a large threat to the health of Ugandan citizens, pumpkins have become increasingly popular for these medicinal treatments.

Pumpkins have also shown to be a good source of calories and nutrients for the malnourished, which is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such as Uganda.

Pumpkins are more than a squash to carve into, but also a poverty-fighting and economy-boosting cash crop.

– Katherine Martin

Sources: ONE, African Economic Outlook, Farm Radio Weekly, Daily Monitor, WebMD
Photo: Wikipedia

Guinea Fowl Farming Creates Thousands of Jobs in Ghana

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Favored by both roadside barbecue stands and upscale restaurants throughout Ghana, the nutritious and low-fat guinea fowl represents a lucrative business for smallholder farmers who want a low-maintenance livestock to raise.

The World Bank’s West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP) is helping guinea fowl farmers in Northern Ghana scale up operations. Its initial investment in 80 farmers has benefited more than 50,000 people.

Guinea fowl farming could create thousands of jobs and earn export revenue.

In order to build a food system to feed every African, WAAPP works with researchers, farmers and others to promote the guinea fowl industry into an engine of job creation in rural Ghana.

During the past two years, WAAPP has helped 80 guinea fowl farmers in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions of Ghana scale up operations.

It has also revitalized the production of a homegrown vaccine to combat Newcastle disease, a virus that is deadly to poultry.

Since 2013, more than 38 million doses of the vaccine have been released to 137,400 farmers. Moreover, the vaccine is now being exported to other West African countries, including Niger and The Gambia.

Benefited by WAAPP, participants could receive a starter kit that includes financial support, an incubator, generator, 500 eggs, dewormer, feed and vaccines.

In addition, agricultural trainers visit those farmers regularly to teach them how to care for birds so as to reduce mortality.

Moreover, the production rate of guinea fowl has been increased by more than five times due to applying incubators and techniques, such as housing birds to protect them from hawks.

With the help from WAAPP, farmers have raised their production from less than 100 birds per year to production of between 600 and 800 birds per quarter.

“Before WAAPP gave us technologies and techniques to protect our birds from predators and disease, I couldn’t make more than 100 birds a year. Now our losses are very few— this year alone we had over 800 birds so I hired people to help me,” said Gideon Anaba, a guinea fowl farmer in Boku, Ghana.

“Thanks to income from this business, I paid my children’s university bills without going in for a loan.”

Adamu Mubarik, a 34-year-old guinea fowl farmer from Garu Tempane, received a starter kit from WAAPP in 2013 and now produces up to 3,200 birds a year. He is also willing to help others on the path to success.

He incubates eggs for other farmers for as low as 20 pesewas, or US $0.05 cents, per egg and gives young people advice on how to get started as a guinea fowl farmer.

He was once a university graduate who faced the difficulty of finding a job and had no choice but to rely on his uncle in Accra for support. But because of WAAPP assistance, he’s an entrepreneur who can afford his sister’s tuition fee as well as his family.

Moreover, he can expand his business to create jobs and serve the needs of his district.

“The Bank is supporting Ghana’s guinea fowl farming because it’s ripe for expansion—it has the potential to create thousands of jobs, earn revenue by selling to the local and international market and help alleviate poverty,” said Henry Kerali, World Bank Country Director, Ghana.

– Shengyu Wang

Sources: World Bank, Mother Earth News
Photo: Yakubu Family Ghana