Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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Drowning in Bangladesh: A Public Health Crisis

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When one thinks of a public health crisis, maybe the mind goes to the incidence of AIDS, the measles outbreak in Disneyland or maybe even obesity. Rarely does one think of drowning as a public health issue, yet over 350,000 people die every year due to drowning.

In Bangladesh, this problem is particularly severe. Drowning accounts for 43 percent of all deaths among children between one and four years of age, making drowning the leading cause of death among children.

In a region crisscrossed by many rivers and frequented by monsoons and cyclones, flooding is a constant concern during the rainy season. As expected, the death rate rises rapidly during these rainy months. Many children drown close to their homes when adults leave them unsupervised to go to work. Many children die because they do not know how to swim.

Bangladesh is hastening to control the problem. In collaboration with UNICEF, the Alliance for Safe Children and the Royal Life Saving Society Australia, an NGO named, SwimSafe, is providing training to community swimming instructors. These instructors teach children to swim and float, to be confident in the water, to save someone who is drowning and to identify life-threatening water hazards. By using ponds that are in close proximity to schools and health centers as makeshift pools, SwimSafe is able to generate interest in the program and has taught more than 130,000 children in Bangladesh water survival skills. The Bangladeshi government has now made swimming compulsory in schools.

The Johns Hopkins Injury Research Unit at the Bloomberg School of Public Health is working on evaluating the effectiveness of two initiatives on reducing drowning in Bangladesh. One is providing adult supervision by enrolling families in community daycare centers and the other is implementing playpens that would effectively restrict the ability of children to access water hazards. To date, nearly 30,000 children have been enrolled in 2,000 daycare centers and playpens are being designed and manufactured locally. In this effort, they are being supported by WHO and Bloomberg Philanthropies which has committed $10 million to this cause.

Apart from initiatives like these, Bangladesh needs approaches that can reduce the flooding that is endemic to the country. The WHO provides five recommendations for national efforts that can reduce the impact of floods including better land use and conservation of wetlands and forests. Without a doubt, improving infrastructure such as developing better irrigation methods, safer bridges and stagnant water control will contribute significantly.

Most importantly, early warnings of impending floods and disaster conditions delivered in accessible ways to the local population can alert them to take appropriate precautions. Bangladesh also needs rapid response methods for when disaster strikes. International cooperation by neighboring countries will go a long way to help provide disaster relief to a region that experiences severe storms and cyclones on a regular basis.

Greater attention given to drowning as a real public health crisis will bring in more funding and solutions to this problem that claims thousands of young lives everyday.

– Mithila Rajagopal

Sources: BBC, Bloomberg 1, Bloomberg 2, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, SwimSafe, WHO
Photo: Flickr

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Hunger in Lao PDR

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Since 1990, hunger in Lao People’s Democratic Republic, or PDR, has dropped from 34.5 percent to 20.1 percent in 2014. Though this decline of over 14 percent is promising, Lao PDR remains one of the world’s hardest hit countries by poverty. Citizens, mostly in northern and rural provinces, suffer from malnutrition, stunting and what the International Food Policy Research Institute, or IFPRI, calls “hidden hunger.”

Child nutrition is significantly lacking in Lao PDR. Forty-four percent of children are stunted due to poor diets that are lacking in key nutrients, including vitamin A, iodine, healthy fats and protein. As a result, over 40 percent of children in Lao PDR are anemic. The problem of “hidden hunger,” or a pronounced deficiency of key nutrients in childhood, has long term effects on the brain and the physical development of a child.

Lao PDR has the second highest rate of poverty in Southeast Asia, after Timor-Leste and continues to deal with gaps in its economics and wealth distribution. According to the IFPRI, Lao PDR ranks 61 out of 76 countries facing extreme hunger, with the country ranking at 76 being the most affected. Poverty and extreme hunger remains alarming in rural regions of the country, where access to healthcare and adequate nutrition remains scarce.

For example, in the province of Houaphan, 50.5 percent of the population faces extreme poverty. Those who live in this province often depend on agriculture to work and eat; however, the region is susceptible to natural disasters and wavering weather conditions, causing productivity to be low.

Recognizing the impact of climate and environmental factors on the nutrition of individuals, the government of Lao PDR launched the National Nutrition Strategy, aimed at addressing the causes of malnutrition, hunger and economic disparity. In conjunction with the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Administration, this strategy will tackle hunger at its most basic causes.

The FAO said, “To address the immediate causes (at the individual level), the focus will be on improving nutrient intake and reducing infectious diseases that affect the biological utilization of food.”

As the completion of the Millennium Development Goals quickly approaches, Lao PDR is still not quite on track when it comes to meeting them. Resources are needed to complete these goals and not enough are being provided to Lao PDR that will improve overall development.

Lao PDR depends largely on agriculture and farming, yet those regions are affected by poverty and lack the resources to contribute to the nation’s economic stability. It is in the nation’s best interest that the government develop those programs that focus on educating rural families on sustainable farming practices and how to effectively maintain agriculture and livestock in the face of climate change, so that poverty will give way to sustainability.

– Candice Hughes

Sources: FAO, International Food Policy Research Institute, UNDP, WFP
Photo: Flickr

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Hugh Jackman Releases Video for Global Citizen

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Actor Hugh Jackman, best known for his role as “Wolverine” Marvel’s X-Men series, recently released a video urging others to help end global poverty through the platform Global Citizen and through the initiative of the Global Poverty Project.  “The world has the resources, the policy leaders have the ideas, the question is, do we as global citizens have the will?” asks Jackman in the new video.

This is not the first video Jackman has made regarding the issue of global poverty. In 2013, globalcitizen.org released an impactful video where Jackman explains the organization’s “Live Below the Line” fundraiser. Four thousand people took part in the fundraiser by living below the poverty line, or surviving off of two dollars a day for five days. Their efforts raised $440,000 toward ending extreme poverty. “Lines can’t help it, they separate things. But we can also be the ones who color outside those lines. We can voyage out to cross over lines for the sake of each other and for the planet,” explains Jackman.

Now, Jackman is focusing on the positive: global poverty has been cut in half in the past 20 years. Poverty now has the potential to be completely eliminated by 2030. This year is crucial as world leaders will be making important decisions regarding the future of extreme poverty. Global Citizen remarks that the year 2015 could be a “turning point.”

Global Citizen launched in 2012 and quickly gained the support of many celebrities, including rapper Jay-Z, actress Katie Holmes and singer Carrie Underwood. Every year, Global Citizen hosts a festival attended by many celebrities. In order to win the opportunity to attend, steps toward ending poverty must be taken, such as signing online petitions.

“I am thrilled to be a part of this year’s Global Citizen Festival to further the movement to end extreme poverty,” Jackman was quoted as saying at last year’s festival, which was held in Central Park. “This is a cause that has been close to my heart for many years, and I look forward to joining 60,000 Global Citizens in Central Park as we change the world for the better.”

Jackman’s dedication to the cause is admirable, and chances are this is not the last call-to-action we will see from him.

– Melissa Binns

Sources: Global Citizen, Huffington Post, People
Photo: Zimbio

Energy Poverty Affects Sub-Saharan Africa

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Lack of electricity is more than just an inconvenience—it is life-threatening. Two out of every three people in sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to electricity. Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia comprise 95 percent of all people without electricity. While this region hosts only 13 percent of the entire world’s population, at least 48 percent of sub-Saharan Africans make up the total population of people without electricity globally. The already at-risk economies continue to fail due to the lack of electricity affecting health and education. Thirty percent of all schools and health centers are without electricity.  Without proper health and education, the chances of escaping poverty are slim to none.

“Energy plays a big role in this: from mass communications to the refrigeration of vaccines,” says Richard Bridle, an energy analyst with the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative. “We don’t usually talk about how the global economy will benefit because that isn’t the key motivation, though economic growth will certainly benefit if we enhance health, education, clean water, sanitation, heating, transport, cooking add communication services.”

Some argue that putting more investment in infrastructure would fix the issue, but this notion has proven itself to be easier said than done. “Infrastructure can only be deployed and operated in a financially sustainable electricity sector that can recover costs, make investments, provide reliable electricity and meet social and environmental obligations,” explains Bridle. “So, really, it is the lack of a viable electricity sector that is the key gap.”

The funding needed to give sub-Saharan Africa electricity by 2030 is reportedly an enormous amount that affected nations would have to pay themselves. The best shot at fixing this is outside support, which is why many are eagerly waiting to hear about the 2015 version of the U.S.’s Electrify Africa Act. This bill would ensure progress on the issue.

“Energy poverty matters for the same reason that poverty matters,” Bridle says. “We have a duty to ensure that those less well-off then ourselves have access to a good standard of living and equal opportunities.”

– Melissa Binns

Sources: Fuel Fix, World Finance
Photo: United Nations Foundation

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Outernet Delivers Information Equality

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An estimated 60 percent of the world’s population has no Internet access. Of the people with regular Internet access, several million can only access censored information. Syed Karim, founder of Outernet, plans to change all that.

In 2012, Karim founded Outernet to bring the Internet to the remotest parts of the globe. To him, information is a human right as basic as food or water, and the Internet is the best information delivery system in history. Outernet is a datacasting company that could change the way isolated communities receive Internet. Using hardware of its own design, the company can bounce prepackaged streams of data off small satellites and onto Wi-Fi-enabled devices anywhere in the world.

Outernet’s hardware innovations come in three forms. The first is the durable 24-inch satellite dish that receives the data stream. Designed like a folding colander, the dish can expand and contract by unfolding a series of overlapping panels. It can fold down small enough to fit into a bucket, making it easy to transport. Instead of the small motor most satellite dishes use to rotate, the Outernet dish articulates on a threaded screw that makes it extra durable, especially under windy conditions. Outernet has also perfected a device called a Lantern that serves as both a data stream receiver and a portable Wi-Fi hot spot. Lanterns are about the size of water bottles and can receive almost any information on the Internet.

Perhaps the most impressive of Outernet’s accomplishments is its fleet of CubeSats, shoebox-sized satellites that bounce uni-directional data down to Earth’s surface. This past March, the U.K. Space Agency agreed to fund the fleet of CubeSats. By 2016, Outernet plans to have three of the tiny, inexpensive satellites in orbit, each delivered by piggybacking on launches for larger projects. “It costs about $100,000 per kilogram,” Karim said. “The cost of the launch is much more expensive than the satellite itself.”

The service Outernet provides is not the same as conventional Internet access. It works more like a conventional radio. The signal is one-way and generalized. As Syed Karim put it, “When you talk about the internet, you talk about two main functions: communication and information access… It’s the communication part that makes it so expensive.” Because the service is only information, not communication, it is also much harder to jam. The signal sent from Outernet’s CubeSats is almost impossible to censor.

If Outernet succeeds in its mission, basic information will become available to everyone, everywhere. Censorship will be, if not a thing of the past, then at least much more difficult to pull off. Farmers in rural India could request price predictions for the upcoming year before deciding what to plant. Schools in rural Africa could download the most up-to-date lessons and facts to learn from, and not rely on old, potentially inaccurate textbooks. Information could become as widely distributed as food or electricity, and the world could take one more step toward equality.

– Marina Middleton

Sources: World.Mic, Outernet, Gizmodo, Wired
Photo: Indie GoGo

Poverty and Crime

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Crime is problematic because it counteracts the purpose of microenterprise when introduced to a poverty ridden area. Crime is considered to be a major hindrance to a country’s development according to the United Nations. Therefore, crime needs to be addressed in order to have a lasting effect on increasing any country’s well being.

One problem that impoverished individuals face is the inability to secure resources and develop extended networks to increase their potential for opportunities. One in four children are in a family that is on welfare. It affects not only macro but microeconomic levels, thus nurturing instability.

Neighborhoods have characteristics that affect their inhabitants; crime and health problems alike have been linked to these characteristics. Studies have shown that increased collaboration and shared beliefs in these areas allow for more results to counter the negative effects of poverty.

Neighborhoods with concentrated poverty isolate their residents from the resources and networks they need to reach their potential and deprive the larger community of the neighborhood’s human capital. Unemployment is a contributing factor, as is education. A correlation has been found between less education and an increase in crime. There is also a correlation between poverty, violence and drug use as poverty increases the effects of violence and increases illegal drug use.

Crime and poverty occur in geographically concentrated areas. There is a high correlation between where crime occurs and poverty stricken areas. Various crimes occur in these areas, but violent crimes occur at a much higher rate compared to more prosperous communities.

Community policing is a method that has been successful in the past, alleviating crime issues. A stabilized community provides results that demonstrate that crime can decrease in poverty stricken areas.

The areas where poverty and crime are concentrated need safe microenterprise opportunities that have the potential to be fruitful, without worry for macro and microeconomic consequences due to crime.

– Erika Wright

Sources: Hud User, Poverties.org
Photo: Flickr

The Shoe That Grows and Helps Save Lives

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According to the World Health Organization, about 300,000 people are infected with parasitic worms around the world. Between 10,000 and 135,000 of them die each year due to these parasites. These deaths could have been prevented with something as simple as adequate footwear.

Many people who live in poverty do not have access to adequate shoes that fit and have no holes in the sole. This is dangerous. Sanitation in poverty-stricken areas is not reliable, and it is not uncommon for children to go barefoot almost all the time in areas where sharp objects and human waste are on the ground. Without shoes, exposure to human waste can lead to parasitic worm infestations that come with a host of side-effects, “…including abdominal pain, diarrhea, blood and protein loss, rectal prolapse, and physical and cognitive growth retardation,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Kenton Lee, a designer, inventor and reverend, wants to make these illnesses a thing of the past. He has collaborated with the company, Proof of Concept, to design a simple way to keep children from contracting soil-borne illnesses. The project, launched by charity, Because International, has partnered with organizations in Ecuador, Haiti, Ghana and Kenya to bring his solution to the children who need it most.

The Shoe That Grows is an inexpensive, durable sandal that can expand up to five sizes. Made from compressed rubber, leather and common metal snaps, the shoe comes in two sizes, large and small. The small shoe lasts from kindergarten to fourth grade, and the large lasts from fourth to about ninth grade. The materials are easy to repair and replace, even in countries with few resources. Because they are also very light, it is easy to transport large shipments of the shoes wherever they need to go. A donation of 50 pairs of shoes can fit into a duffel bag and be treated as a carry-on item for an airplane flight.

While an individual pair of shoes costs about $30 to make, larger orders bring the price down to $12 or even $10 each.

The project’s website has successfully distributed hundreds of shoes through its “Fill a Duffle” campaign. For $10 a pair, a duffel bag is filled with about 50 pairs of shoes. Once full, the duffel is sent to areas in need, and donors can even choose the areas they want their donation to reach.

The shoes are sold out right now, but will be available to donate and to buy in America again come July.

– Marina Middleton

Sources: World.Mic, In Habitat, Geek.com, The Shoe That Grows
Photo: Because International

Religion’s Role in Climate Change and Poverty

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Pope Francis will deliver an encyclical this summer on the subject of climate change. In preparation for the speech, the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences held a heavily attended workshop on April 28 in Rome. Included among the guest groups were the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and the Heartland Institute.

Another prominent guest, Cardinal Peter Turkson, asserted that “irrespective of the causes of climate change,” Christians are obligated to help the poor. Therein lies a complicating factor: Christians must now consider altruism without unwittingly aggravating the causes of climate change.

This brings to light a much more generalized question regarding religion’s role in the alleviation of poverty, or lack thereof. Fundamentalist Christians, for example, would read the Bible and disregard any pontifical command to pay attention to climate change.

The picture becomes even cloudier when politics are factored in. Most Evangelical Christians and Mormons are conservative Republicans who believe that the scientific evidence supporting the phenomena of climate change is inaccurate and/or falsified.

Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and Evangelical Christian, attempts to bridge the gap between science and evangelical faith. She is a member of a statistical minority; according to the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, only 44 percent of evangelicals believe that global warming is both real and the result of human behavior. Some politicians even believe that God would not let human behavior destroy the planet.

Hayhoe debunks biblical arguments such as those saying that bad things still happen even with a Judeo-Christian God in existence because that God grants free will to His people. “That’s really what climate change is,” she explains, “It’s a casualty of the decisions that we have made.”

She goes on to hypothesize that many evangelicals fear the concept of climate change for two reasons. First, they erroneously believe that all scientists are atheists. Second, their typically conservative political viewpoints biases them against any and all potential “big government” interventions.

To make matters of religion and politics even more complicated, most Jews lean politically left and are beginning to take active steps as a community to alleviate climate change. The Reconstructionist and Reform movements tend to be the most liberal, followed by the Conservative and Orthodox Jews. Generally, the more traditional the sect is in its practice of Judaism, the less environmentally active that movement tends to be.

Consequently, researchers find a startling, ironic commonality between the most observant Jews and the most observant Christians. It appears that the more conservatively a religious sect’s people practice that religion, the less likely they are to take steps to stop climate change.

Adding fuel to that fire, it is the poorest populations that suffer the most from the effects of climate change. The one demographic that both Jewish and Christian ideologies make the most efforts to help is the very group that falls on the receiving end of their most devout groups’ inaction.

So what is to be done? Should the secular American population vote in politicians who choose religious freedom over environmental activism, or vice-versa? Maybe the next election cycle will bring forth more people like Katharine Hayhoe, but then again, maybe not. Only time and ballots can tell.

– Leah Zazofsky

Sources: Slate, The Heartland Institute, Yale Climate Connections
Photo: Telegraph

‘My Village, My Home’ Tool Helps with Vaccination

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Small villages can be like family, and viewing their communities like houses is helping nurses save lives. One in five children worldwide are not receiving vaccinations for dangerous but preventable diseases. According to the World Health Organization, this is not up to par with the expectations that were set for the year 2015.

However, with the introduction of “My Village, My Home” to health workers, children who still need to get a vaccination can be documented.  Introduced by the Maternal and Child Health Integrated Program to 28 different health centers in India in 2011, “My Village, My Home” is a tool used to keep track of the vaccinated children in the community.

Each child in the village receives a “plank” that makes up the foundation of the sketched house. The oldest children are at the bottom of the drawn home. Once a child is vaccinated, their plank is shaded in, turning the plank into a metaphorical brick. The idea is that a strong, well-built house is the safest place to live. The less shaded bricks there are, the weaker the house is. A new house can be drawn each year to document newborns.

A study conducted by USAID shows that keeping records of vaccinated children in this simple way makes a significant difference. When the concept was implemented in Deoghar and Jamatara, districts in eastern India had poor vaccination rates. Today, only a mere  1.9 percent of children remain unvaccinated. USAID is attempting to spread the word and encourage health workers to make a point of congratulating parents who make the decision to vaccinate their child.

“By using the tool, I am able to count all the [children] in my community with their immunization status on a single chart,” says Esther Das, a health worker in an Indian village called Chandradeepa. Das, who was acknowledged in 2014 at a celebration for “India’s three-year freedom from polio” as the district’s best performer, credits “My Village, My Home” for making a huge difference for the infants in her community. With any luck, word of this tool will spread to more communities and save even more lives.

– Melissa Binns

Sources: USAID, MCHIP
Photo: Usnews.com

Learning from China to Reduce Poverty

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In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals were established. These eight goals focused on halving world poverty by 2015; however, that benchmark was met after five years, proving that reducing poverty is not only necessary but possible. According to The Economist, a large contributor to this decline in poverty is China who “pulled 680 million people out of misery in 1981-2010, and reduced its extreme-poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now.”

China developed a system that took many people out of poverty, and it is this system that could help other nations do the same. During the 30 years that poverty was reduced in half, China was focusing on strengthening its economy. By letting smaller businesses grow, it helped millions of people flourish in a country which had the most poverty.

But how can we learn from China and apply this to the rest of the world so that poverty can be eradicated by 2030 as the World Bank hopes to see?

The World Bank has worked closely with China in the past with the Southwest and Qinba Mountains Poverty Project. Focused on developing a more efficient way to monitor the rates and locations of poverty within the country, this system has helped China succeed in developing better agricultural practices, education and improving access to clean drinking water. Although their projects have been successful, the World Bank and China continue to work together to reach people who are still living in poor conditions.

Their partnership has implemented a Sustainable Development in Poor Countries Project. “The project will pilot new ways to provide poverty reduction assistance to the poorest communities by enabling communities to select and implement initiatives themselves,” says the World Bank.  Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank, strongly believes that it is possible to end poverty by 2030. Learning from China and applying similar methods in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty levels have risen in some areas, can help make this goal a reality.

Along with the efforts of the World Bank, the U.N. is also trying to maintain the development progress China has made. The Division for Sustainable Development, or DSD, aims to eradicate poverty as well as educate people to continue to thrive. With these new projects in place, it is possible to see poverty end in our lifetime.

– Kimberly Quitzon

Sources: The Economist, The World Bank, YaleGlobal Online
Photo: Chinadaily US Edition