Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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5 Initiatives Fighting Illiteracy

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Technology has, over the years, come to run our lives.  We rely upon it for anything ranging from healthcare innovation to entertainment.  Even now, you are reading this article that was composed on a computer for you to read on the Internet.  No paper newsletter for you.

It is precisely because technology is so all-encompassing for us that the following statistic is so shocking: 1 billion adults worldwide are illiterate.  Equaling 26% of the world’s total adult population, there are 1 billion people who cannot partake in the reading of this article, which you may be taking for granted.

Technology may have made reading and writing even more accessible in our sphere but in lesser-developed areas, such advancements are not seen.  According to UNESCO, the entire continent of Africa has a literacy rate of less than 60%.  Compare that to the 99% literacy rate in the United States.

However, there is hope.

Numerous organizations are dedicated to eradicating illiteracy. Here are five of the top literacy initiatives worldwide.

1. ProLiteracy

The mission statement of ProLiteracy is a perfect articulation of why literacy should be on the forefront of global advocacy: “…when individuals the world over learn to read, write, do basic math and use computers, the more likely they are to lift themselves out of poverty.”  The organization makes literacy for women in developing nations as a top action addressed by their donations and programs.

2. UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning

UNESCO hosts a “LitBase” website, which chronicles programs worldwide that have been successful in combating illiteracy.  In doing so, UNESCO hopes to have a go-to source for advocates interested in starting or joining the cause.

3. World Literacy Foundation

The World Literacy Foundation was founded in 2003 to promote awareness of illiteracy by bringing together various government organizations and NGOs.  Some of the programs championed by the Foundation include the Write On English writing competition in Azerbaijan, founding the Centre of Hope computer center in Uganda and the USAID-supported Fantastic Phonics computer program.

4. Global Literacy Project

A key program of the Global Literacy Project is the shipment of books and basic educational supplies throughout Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.  The Walk-for-Literacy fundraiser housed at Rutgers University is run through the Global Literacy Project as well.

5. Literacy.org

Founded at the University of Pennsylvania through a partnership with UNESCO, literacy.org (formerly the Literacy Research Center) has been training teachers and advocates of literacy since 1983.  Literacy.org also hosted a summer intensive workshop in Philadelphia for mid-career professionals interested in promoting literacy in developing countries.

– Taylor Diamond

Sources: ProLiteracy, UNESCO LitBase, World Literacy Project, Global Literacy Project, Literacy.org
Photo: Vintage 3D

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Why PISA Scores are Deceptive

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For many nations, the recent revelation of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results were a call for celebration. For others, they were a sign that their nation might be falling behind—and, perhaps, cause for outright embarrassment.

PISA is a standardized test designed to evaluate the scholastic performance of 15-year-old students in math, reading and science. Ideally, nations will be able to use these results in order to develop better, more comprehensive curricula and learning strategies.

However, this program is not without its flaws, critics claim.

While the results speak to the scholastic achievement, it fails to account for other educational outcomes. Critics suggest that not only are PISA results not enough to determine the quality of education reliably, some argue that such a task might not even be possible.

Svein Sjøberg of the University of Oslo believes that PISA is comparing apples and oranges in most cases. For Sjøberg, the contextual differences between nations trouble PISA’s fundamental assumption: it is possible to create a universal test that validly measures student achievement across the borders of language, culture and curriculum.

As far as problems go, he argues, this is the tip of the iceberg. A perhaps even more important concern lies within how these scores are interpreted—how they might be used to express the success or failure of an entire system that might have other larger problems.

In Vietnam, for instance, there can be little doubt that their recent ranking was an immense success. Vietnam was ranked 17th overall out of 65 nations, beating many larger industrialized nations.

However, Christian Bodewig of the World Bank has called into question the validity of such scores. He argues that there is other relevant data that PISA largely ignores.

Bodewig says that while many of the students participating in the PISA evaluations did perform well, their performance is not a perfect reflection of the state of education in a given nation. The primary reason for this is that enrollment numbers between nations vary enormously and, in poorer nations in particular, this sort of tabulation can be misleading.

In the case of Vietnam, only some 65 percent of school age children are actually enrolled in school. Compare that with the nearly 90% enrollment rate of the US and the picture of Vietnamese education becomes a bit fuzzier.

The Economist reports that the problems for Vietnamese education are legion, ranging from corruption to homogeneity.

So, what do PISA rankings actually tell us?

Professor Svend Kreiner from the University of Copenhagen in Demark, argues that they don’t tell us that much. In fact, his analysis of the PISA testing model suggests that rankings are largely arbitrary and based on what amounts to luck of the draw.

Depending on which questions a particular set of students receive, their global ranking can fluctuate dramatically.

Still, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) stands by their methodology as the best and most accurate measure of global scholastic achievement available.

It is also clear that participating nations continue to see the value in PISA. Despite its flaws, PISA still helps nations make decisions with regard to the robustness of their systems of education—even if it doesn’t paint a complete picture.

– M. Chase

Sources: The Economist, Sjoberg, Tes Connect, OECD
Photo: Vintage 3D

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Female Politicians Lead Pack in Latin America

 

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Chileans are choosing between a former president who aims to increase accessibility to higher education and a right wing politician wanting to keep taxes low are the candidates in the December 2013 presidential election. What is secondary, but notable, about these candidates is that both are also women.

The Chilean election is indicative of a larger trend in Latin America and the Caribbean of the ascension of female political leaders.

Eight of roughly 29 female presidents worldwide since the 1970s have headed countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, with half elected in the last eight years.

Quotas for women in government explain part of this progress. Argentina pioneered the quota system in the early 1990s with a law requiring that 30 percent of legislative candidates be women. As of 2006, 50 countries have adopted the quota system, including many in Latin America.

In Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Bolivia, every other candidate on a party’s election list is required to be a woman.

In North and South America, with the noteworthy exception of the United States, women are being elected to the highest offices of government.

In Latin America’s largest nation of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff was elected president in 2010 and will run again in 2014.  She previously held the position of energy minister and was ranked #20 in Forbes’ Most Powerful People list in 2013 and second on its list of Most Powerful Women.

Argentina’s Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is serving her second term as the country’s first elected female president, and Laura Chinchilla is Costa Rica’s first female president.

Jamaica’s Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller is the island nation’s first female Prime Minister and has fought for full rights for LGBT Jamaicans. Time Magazine put her on the 100 World’s Most Influential People List in 2012, and U.S. Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke has said that Simpson-Miller is “inspiring a new generation of women, particularly from the Caribbean diaspora, to get involved in public service and make a difference.”

Also in the Caribbean region is Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Trinidad and Tobago’s first female Prime Minister.

According to polls, a substantial shift is taking place in the minds of people in Latin America. Roughly 80 percent of people in the region now believe that women should participate in politics.  That figure contrasts sharply to the 30% who believed this in the 1990s.

Progress for women in some parts of Latin American politics has been relatively recent, with El Salvador allowing women to run for office only since 1961 and Paraguay’s constitution giving women the right to vote that same year.

Despite women rising to the highest levels of government, participation in parliaments is still low even in countries with female heads of state.

Latin America nonetheless boasts the second highest average number of women in the lower houses of congress with 24 percent, only less than Scandinavian and Nordic countries, which both have 42 percent.

Rwanda is the only country in the world where more women than men serve in the lower house of parliament, with Andorra coming in second at 50 percent. In Latin America, Nicaragua has the highest number of female politicians in the lower house at 40 percent.

While these numbers are promising, no country in the region has therefore achieved gender parity, and experts worry that progress for women in government could be reversed. Ingrained sexism, income gaps between the sexes and male dominance in corporations still persist.

In Chile, the income gap between men and women has gotten greater in recent years, with men earning $1,172 per month compared to women’s $811.

Each region and country in the world struggles to bring about political, social, and economic equality of the sexes, but Farida Jalalzai, a gender politics scholar at the University of Missouri-St. Louis asserts, “Latin America is really ahead of the pack. This is interesting because it had seemed to stall by the early 2000s, but no more.”

– Kaylie Cordingley

Sources: New York Times, Time Magazine, Forbes, The Quota Project, The Guardian
Photo: AARP

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For Agencies, Foreign Aid Transparency is Key

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The Obama Administration released data on United States foreign aid earlier this week while Congress is pushing legislation that will make such transparency law. These efforts seek to make aid more effective and to create a more open government. This is by no means, a recent occurrence.

For the past decade, the U.S. has moved toward making foreign aid accountable and transparent, which was started in 2004 with the creation of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Initiated during the Bush Administration, it sought to generate publicly available data on foreign aid and selected which countries to give aid grants to based on how well they do in areas such as rule of law, trade policy and civil liberties.

USAID is revamping a self-audit program that seeks, in addition to being extensive and impartial, for the evaluations to be a spring of learning that the agency can build from. In this vein, they have named their first major series of evaluations USAID Forward.

The benefits of this transparency are multifold, but one of the major boons is that citizens have the ability to become better informed on what the government is doing to combat global poverty. This could do untold good since the majority of Americans vastly overestimate the amount that the United States contributes to foreign aid. The general public believes the U.S. spends 25 percent of the Federal Budget on international aid, when, in actuality, expenditure is only a paltry 0.2 percent.

In the Philippines, the Department of Budget and Management launched the Foreign Aid Transparency Hub, anagrammed as FAiTH, which provides information on what is being done with the aid received in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. This is likely in response to allegations of corruption scandals in relation to foreign aid.

The accountability of aid is a high priority, and Benigno Aquino III, President of the Philippines, says that this accountability stems from gratitude: “Ultimately, FAiTH is more than a hub of information: it is an expression of appreciation for the kindness of those who stand in solidarity with our countrymen.” The pair of accountability and appreciation seems a strong one in winning further donations.

With 3,976 people dead, 1,600 missing, and another 4 million displaced and in need of basic amenities, there is great need for aid. More than $270 million has been donated thus far, and FAiTH is helping ensure further aid does not diminish amid the graft. An oft-used excuse for not donating is that the money never makes its way to those in need. Transparency is an active foe to this pernicious way of thinking, and one that is dramatically making ground.

– Jordan Schunk 

Sources: Brookings, Ingram and Adams, Huffington Post, Inquirer News

2013: Year of Success in Global Health

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2013 marked a year of progress and prospect for global health. In the collaborative effort to end extreme poverty and create growth in developing countries, health plays one of the most important roles. These victories of 2013 create a vision for emerging health care and the impact on development as we enter a new year.

World leaders gathered for the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi to discuss progress achieved and plans for moving forward in the “Decade of Vaccines,” focusing on the importance of building sustainable immunization programs and providing access to children. A significant portion of the conference focused on polio, acknowledging the power of vaccines by recognizing how close we are to declaring the world polio-free. With $4 billion in donor pledges to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we have seen great progress this year in the number of new cases in Afghanistan and Nigeria. The meeting in Abu Dhabi showed growing leadership, especially in the Middle Eastern and Islamic communities, to build strong vaccination programs and child health worldwide.

The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) Alliance confirmed that it was on track to immunize a half-billion children by the end of 2015. Working in 73 developing countries, GAVI strives to deliver affordable and life-saving vaccines against preventable diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, and meningitis. GAVI also works to strengthen immunization programs and health systems within the countries they work in.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria saw a combined pledge of $12 billion from donors around the world. Since it was founded in 2002, The Global Fund has distributed 360 million insecticide-treated bug nets, provided 6.1 million people with antiretroviral therapy for AIDS, and have tested and treated 11.2 million people for tuberculosis. The $12 billion pledged December 2013 is a 30 percent increase in funding that will bring significant change in the progression of the epidemics.

In November, the International Conference on Family Planning was held in Ethiopia. With over 120 countries represented at the conference, the organization was able to call upon delegates to take action with their governments. Targeting the Millennium Development Goals relating to maternal mortality, access to contraception, high quality family planning and sexual reproductive health services. Focusing on these areas further promotes gender equality and women’s rights. When women are empowered and given the tools to make these decisions, countries will benefit through long-term economic growth. Family planning is a necessary and cost-effective, sustainable investment for nations. In the last year alone, 10 developing countries have adopted separate family planning conferences into their own agendas.

– Maris Brummel

Sources: Impatient Optimists, Global Vaccine Summit, The Global Fund, International Conference on Family Planning

Record Levels of Afghan Opium Production

Record Levels of Afghan Opium Production
Part of the U.S. war in Afghanistan has been centered on eradicating opium production and distribution in the war torn nation. Billions of dollars have been invested by the U.S. to achieve this end.

Unfortunately, the U.S. has objectively failed on all counts to realize this goal. Just this past year, Afghan opium was produced at record levels despite a hefty U.S. investment of $7 billion dollars.

Currently, the opium trade composes 15 percent of the Afghan economy. Its heroin production, derived from opium, accounts for over 75 percent of the entire world’s supply.

The prospects of significantly reducing poppy cultivation in Afghanistan seem slim at best due to its embedded nature within the culture as well as the extreme poverty most Afghans live in. The lucrative prices opium sells for can provide a decent living for Afghan families struggling to get by.

For example, just one kilogram of opium can sell for up to $200. This is significantly more money compared to the paltry 41 cents per kilogram one gets for selling wheat.

NPR profiled one farmer who makes $9,000 per year by producing 150 lbs of opium. No other opportunity in Afghanistan provides a comparable income.

Previous measures implemented by the Afghan government have been aimed at providing disincentives for farmers who desire to enter the drug trade. But, resources have become scarce in recent years, forcing the programs to be shuttered.

In one such program, the Afghan government subsidized alternative crops such as cotton. The subsidies inflated the price, making the move away from poppies more palatable for Afghan farmers.

The international community also attempted to provide disincentives by shipping seeds and fertilizer to farmers, but the program in no longer being implemented. Absent these programs, farmers simply return to the lucrative poppy trade.

One of the most disturbing consequences from the ubiquity of opium in the country is the presence of addicts in staggering numbers. Out of the total population of 35 million people, one million are currently addicted.

The treatment capacity to provide for these addicts is extremely limited. The government only has the ability to treat 20,000 people at any one time. Availability for treatment is limited depending on one’s location in the country.

Also, the ease at which one can obtain drugs in Afghanistan only adds to the problem. For instance, in Kabul, the price for heroin only amounts to $6 and to many is as easy to obtain as food.

The major security implications for the sale of these drugs lie with who directly benefits from the profits, namely the Taliban forces. The UK Daily Mail reports that in 2011 the Taliban is estimated to have earned up to $700 million dollars from the sale of opium and heroin.

The strategic importance of eliminating the opium trade in Afghanistan was typified by a comment made by former U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, David Holbrooke. Holbrooke stated, “Breaking the narco-state in Afghanistan is essential, or all else will fail.”

With the inevitable troop draw down coupled with the uncertain status of a residual counterterrorism force to stay behind post-2014 — the possibility of making major headways toward eradicating the Afghan drug trade is nonexistent.

– Zachary Lindberg

Sources: NBC News, Daily Mail, NPR, Christian Science Monitor
Photo: GAIFF

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Michael Jackson: We Are the World 25 for Haiti

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Legendary pop king Michael Jackson has been dead for the past five years, but the sentiment of his charity single “We are the World” rings on brightly and truly. The charity single was originally composed by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and performed by USA for Africa to promote humanitarian efforts against famine in Africa.

Since its release in 1985, the globally-successful super-hit single has gone on to sell over 20 million copies, raising over $63 million for charity and has gleaned three Grammy Awards, an honor regarded as the highest accomplishment in the American music industry.

Following its original release, venerated artists have continued to remake the single. For instance, preserving the benevolence and enthusiasm of the original recording, over eighty artists, including the likes of Justin Bieber and Janet Jackson, participated in recording “We Are the World 25 for Haiti” in 2010 following the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. In the months after the earthquake, Haitians scrambled to recover from the widespread mutilation of their homeland.

According to the Disasters Emergency Committee, as a result of the earthquake, 220,000 lives had been lost, 1.5 million civilians lost their homes, and over 19 million meters of debris, a vast enough amount to stretch from London to Beirut, was scattered through Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital. In response, artists featured on “We are the World 25 for Haiti” rallied together, forgoing royalties, in order to raise money for aid in Haiti. Although the single received largely negative reviews from critics, it was commercially successful, debuting at number two on the Billboard Hot 100.

Despite the efforts of “We are the World” remake, nearly four years after the earthquake in Haiti, recovery remains slow, with many spectating that relief organizations themselves have misused the aid money. However, progress, albeit timely, has indeed taken place. For instance, the United Nations has pledged to donate $2.2 billion to protect Haitians against cholera, while the Red Cross has donated nearly all of its $486 million in donations to help rebuild the nation.

Although critics allege that most relief efforts that have taken place in Haiti only tackle superficial problems rather than healing more inherent, complex issues that require more than mere repair of infrastructure and clean-up of debris, with donations and international support, Haiti continues to rebuild and recover from the destruction wrought by the 2010 earthquake. As long as people around the globe spread the message of “We Are the World,” Haiti, along with other countries affected by natural disasters, will be able to mend and flourish.

– Phoebe Pradhan

Sources: We are the World Foundation, Disasters Emergency Committee, NBC, Billboard, Huffington Post

Mbeki on a Post-Mandela South Africa

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In 2006 South African President Thabo Mbeki presented the Nelson Mandela Memorial Lecture at the University of Witwatersrand.  Aware Mandela’s health was declining, Mbeki spoke of Mandela’s legacy, and the world that he will leave behind.

South African President Mbeki, who spoke of  “a good, a moral, a humane and a caring South Africa,” headed the memorial lecture.  He spoke of harmony, peace, and forgiveness as the tenants of the “new South Africa.”  Mbeki believes South Africa still needs a “Reconstruction and development of the soul,” as Mandela used to say.  Alluding to a new period of economic growth and infrastructure modernization, the South African President says Mandela’s message must not die with him.

“All revolutions…are in the end, and in essence, concerned with human beings and the improvement of the human condition…we must also say that human fulfillment consists of more than access to modern and effective services,” says Mbeki.  Modernization includes “the soul” of human society.  A society can build up infrastructure, grow GDP, and invite investment, but if the collective soul of society is sick, it can never advance.  Mbeki spoke of satisfying the spiritual needs of the people as well as the economic needs for survival.

The leader looks to capitalism as an economic provider, but not a spiritual provider.  “Unsure of what they stand for, people increasingly rely on money as the criterion of value,” says George Soros.  “People deserve respect and admiration because they are rich.  What used to be a medium of exchange has usurped the place of fundamental values, reserving the relationship postulated by economic theory.”

Critic of capitalism, Mbeki says laissez-faire income redistribution is unjust, prompting a “survival of the fittest” mentality in an unequal world.  Mbeki believes economic and social development relies on cooperation rather than competition, saying “nothing can come out of [competition] except the destruction of human society.”

President Thabo Mbeki says the best way to remember Mandela’s legacy is to band together, cooperating rather than competing, for a better South Africa.  Mandela spent his whole life nurturing the soul of human society, and now this job has been handed down to the South African people he loved so dearly.

– Stephanie Lamm

Sources: International Relations and Cooperation, Nelson Mandela
Photo: Giphy.com

The United States African Development Foundation

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The United States African Development Foundation (USADF) is an organization that seeks to give a helping hand to marginalized groups in Africa. The foundation grew out of the African Development Foundation Act of 1980, an initiative that identifies active community participation in Africa as key to developing a better social and economic system. The foundation provides grants of up to $250,000 to various groups that will benefit individuals who are in need, yet remain overlooked by other NGO’s and government organizations. The African Development Foundation provides grants in order to create higher income, improve social conditions, and increase jobs for marginalized groups.

The foundation is currently working in more than 20 countries in Africa. Community groups small and large have the opportunity to apply for a grant with the African Development Foundation. If the foundation finds that the group’s cause will promote more jobs, improve living conditions, and ultimately help to end poverty in Africa, then the foundation agrees to provide the grant. Thus far this year, the foundation has supplied $17 million to help engage marginalized communities in improving the socioeconomic conditions throughout Africa. The majority of USADF’s grants go towards expansion projects, small enterprises, farming associations and cooperatives.

One of the foundation’s program focuses includes a five-year $10 million grant program in the region of Lake Turkana in Kenya. The grant is going towards the development of a sound agricultural system in Kenya which will provide more jobs, and create better food sustainability. The Lake Turkana program will establish an agricultural system that the community can participate in and thrive on well into the future.

The foundation takes government transparency very seriously. As a government organization, USADF desires to operate in the sense of an open government, in which all of their grant plans and financial spending are open for all to see. USADF wants individuals to know where their tax dollars are going, and to be able to understand the issues happening in Africa in a simple way. The foundation also greatly encourages participation from African communities and collaboration with partners across government levels to help achieve their goals.

So far, the USADF has 336 active project grants and 100 small grants. The estimated number of people that the foundation has impacted is 1.5 million. With such high numbers the impact that the foundation is making is clear. USADF intends to increase their number of grants in the years to come and further contribute to ending poverty in Africa.

– Chante Owens

Sources: African Development Foundation, Advance Africa
Photo: Giphy.com

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Rwanda Redefines HIV Care

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In a country where just 20 years ago, genocide claimed nearly one million lives, the Rwandan government has revamped HIV treatment for the poor by reforming the standards of successful care.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are now over 7.5 million people receiving antiretroviral therapy, 150 times as many as a decade ago. Medications have become easier to manage and overall, more effective, forcing some patients to take no more than one pill each day. Also, HIV testing has become much more widely available and the virus is being detected at an earlier stage before the circumstances are too dire.

In Rwanda, many HIV patients are taking their medications as directed, medication which suppresses the virus in their bodies to the point where it is essentially non-detectable. Success here is achieved when the HIV positive individual can earn a living, support their family and care for their community no differently than uninfected individuals. Furthermore, patients who would have previously been hospitalized with severe complications of HIV are now receiving regular preventive care.

The steps forward being taken in this small country are undeniable. Compared with 54 percent of medical patients worldwide, 91 percent of Rwandan patients who require HIV medications have access to life-saving treatment. Even more encouraging, 98 percent of women undergo HIV testing during their prenatal visits. In a country with only one doctor for every 17,000 people, nurses and community health workers have been trained to provide HIV services that were before, only available from physicians. Aggressive media campaigns by the government and other international organizations remind and encourage the public to “Know Your Status” while targeted outreach programs concurrently focus on the high-risk groups.

Rwanda is one of the first sub-Saharan countries to nearly eradicate the transmission of HIV from mothers to their newborns. Due to this, the number of new HIV cases has been cut in half during the last decade, and perhaps soon, it will fulfill the dream of accomplishing an “AIDS free generation.”

– Sonia Aviv

Sources: The Atlantic, The World Bank, BWH Global Health
Photo: AIDS Health