Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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Baseball Field or Public Education?

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In the summer of 1996 as an eight year old boy, I was privileged to venture into downtown Atlanta during the Summer Olympic Games. I was amazed at my firsthand sight of the many sporting arenas, housing for international athletes, hotels and other buildings that were built in anticipation for the summer games. At that time I was not aware of the amount of money that was being spent for construction, security, planning and promotions by the city of Atlanta and other private enterprises to stage this worldwide event.

In anticipation for the Games, the city of Atlanta spent $209 million alone on the building of Olympic Stadium, an 85,000 seat stadium that held track and field events and the opening and closing ceremonies of the games. At the conclusion of the Olympics about 30,000 seats were removed from the stadium so that it could be converted into a baseball field, which was a more viable use of the venue. The renovated baseball stadium was renamed Turner Field and became the new home of the Atlanta Braves for the start of the 1997 season.

Since its completion, Turner Field has hosted 81 games each summer for the relatively successful Atlanta Braves and their passionate fan base. At only 17 years old, Turner Field is still newer than 14 of the other 29 ball parks used in Major League Baseball. It is still fully operational and relatively new but the Atlanta Braves are not pleased with the venue. On November 11 of this year, the Atlanta Braves announced that they had partnered with nearby Cobb County, Georgia for the building of a new baseball stadium, set to cost $672 million, of which $450 million is to be publicly financed by the county.

Atlanta’s stadium saga is just one example of municipalities that face the debate of the benefits of publicly financed stadiums. Proponents of them promise an increase in public revenue for the city in the form conventions, sporting events, jobs and retail shopping, but years of outside research has proven to be inconclusive on the economic impact of such projects. In 2017, 20 years after the completion of the once-proud stadium, the city of Atlanta will demolish Turner Field and use the land for another project.

Publicly Financed Stadiums are a risky bet for municipalities that could use the same funds for other more noble investments such as infrastructure improvements and education. Ironically Cobb County is the same county that is currently facing a $78 million deficit in its school system but is willing to fund $450 million on a baseball field. Time will tell if the diversion of funds for education towards a new stadium will be a wise investment for the community of Cobb County.

– Travis Whinery
Sources: ESPN, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, USA TODAY, THE MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL

Drawing Global Inequality

Before change must come awareness. Polish cartoonist Pawel Kuczynski has been using his talent for the past decade to do just that. His satirical illustrations evoke grim emotions and cause his viewers to think about the current state of the world. Things are not as they appear and Kuczynski is literally showing the public what they do not know about politics.

Kuczynski’s drawings expose the irony of everyday occurrences by taking them out of context and juxtaposing these normal events with harsh reality. Topics range from political disillusion, pollution, child labor and income inequality. Kuczynski seems to be asking the public to realize the true nature of their place in the world, not only as puppets of a larger global system but also as players in an unbalanced field.

The image above touches on harsh labor, the global economy and inequality. Kuczynski plays on the story of Santa Claus and as homes in the West are filled with gifts, they are completely oblivious as to where these toys are made. The morning sun is replaced by the Chinese Communist Party banner which hangs over child and impoverished laborers as they slave away to make affordable, consumer-friendly products. Ultimately, Kuczynski is criticizing our world’s affection for material goods and our incredible ability to ignore human suffering because it is far away.

We are constantly told the cost of war and how much of our tax dollars are dedicated to defense. Instead of beads on an abacus, soldiers are counted as this businessman tallies up his profits. Even though it costs tax dollars and human lives to sustain a war, money is still to be made. Weapons manufacturers watch their profits soar as wars drag on, and companies on the winning side sit on the edge of their seats to gain a new market. Kuczynski points out that war requires more than dollars – human lives are spent just as quickly – and in the end, it’s all business.

Visit https://pawelkuczynski.com/ for more.

– Alessandra Luppi

Sources: Visual News, Visual News

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10 Global Health Accomplishments From the Past Decade

Global Health Accomplishments WHO
Global health has a huge impact with poverty. In many poverty-stricken areas, a lack of proper health equipment and the spread of diseases is a major function in the poverty trap. These countries rarely have the bare minimum to handle widespread disease and other health complications, making it hard truly to combat a global health issue. Despite these bleak conditions, there have been impressive global health accomplishments. The work and time put in by programs such as United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have made these ten necessary improvements for impoverished areas.

Global health has improved by leaps and bounds over the past decade. Many different factors have caused this great revolution of health, but ten specific reasons can be credited with carrying the weight. Without improvement in these specific areas by programs like USAID and the CDC, many of the great advancements seen today in global health would have never had the funds to be reached.

 

Factors Contributing to Global Health Accomplishments

 

In many areas with great health risks; immunizations and vaccines are not made readily available. Without these treatments, many people are often infected by disease that could otherwise be avoided or contained with the assistance of vaccination and immunization. First, USAID immunization programs have provided the funds to treat up to three million impoverished people per year.

Many nations struggle with health issues because of water deprivation. Second, USAID introduced oral hydration therapy to these areas, in hopes it would counteract dehydration problems. As of today, the oral hydration therapy has been successful in areas all around the globe, with tens of millions of people being properly nourished through the low-cost program yearly.

Thirdly,  not only is the oral hydration therapy combatting worldwide dehydration, USAID has partnered with The United Nations Drinking Water Supply to help some 1.3 billion people receive proper water nourishment sources.

Sanitary water is a vital piece to figuring out the poverty puzzle, but the eradication of poverty begins with the young people. Fourth, the average number of children per family in impoverished nations has dropped from 6.1 in the mid-1960s to 4.2 today. In addition, infant and child deaths have decreased by 50 percent in these impoverished areas.

Fifth, USAID child survival programs have made a 10 percent child mortality rate reduction in just the past eight years. Not only has the number of children’s lives saved risen, but life expectancy has improved by 33 percent in these nations.

The decrease of major diseases worldwide is a major improvement made possible by USAID, CDC, and similar programs worldwide. Sixth, Smallpox has been eradicated, and now only exists in laboratories. Seventh, USAID has accounted for thirty-two HIV/AIDS prevention programs throughout the world.

Eighth, over 850,000 people have been reached by the HIV program, and (ninth) another 40,000 people have been trained to treat the virus. Lastly, programs like the CDC have been responsible for the diminishing malaria cases, from 2004 (2.1 million cases) to 2009 (1.8 million cases).

By combatting major poverty causing issues such as disease epidemics, unsanitary water, and child mortality rates, programs such as USAID and the CDC have been instrumental in causing the turnaround of world poverty. With the continued support from these programs, the world’s impoverished people can be assured of better conditions outside of these ten beneficial starts.

 

10 Key Global Health Accomplishments

 

1. USAID immunizations and vaccines have provided funds to treat up to three million impoverished people per year.

2. Introduction of oral hydration therapy in impoverished areas.

3. Supplied roughly 1.3 billion people proper nourishment sources.

4. Average number of children per impoverished family has dropped from 6.1 to 4.2.

5. 10 percent child mortality rate reduction.

6. Smallpox only exists in laboratories.

7. USAID has 32 HIV/AIDS programs throughout the world.

8. 850,000+ people have been reached by the HIV program.

9. 40,000 have been trained to treat HIV.

10. Diminishing malaria cases, from 2.1 million to 1.8 million over a five year period.

– Zachary Wright

Sources:  USAID, CDC

Photo: USAID

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Education in Pakistan and Why it Matters

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Poverty in Pakistan has allowed the Taliban to flourish.  By promising food security, shelter, protection, and education, the Taliban has been able to gain support in this region. But the Taliban’s presence has had a detrimental effect on Pakistani schools, a strategy that has kept the region impoverished and under Taliban control.  “Education is a prerequisite for development,” said Shakil Ahmad, author of “The Taliban and Girl’s Education in Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

Education is also the key to releasing Pakistan from the grips of the Taliban. When a population does not understand basic politics or economics, it is easy to manipulate them. As a result, most Pakistani schools have either been bombed or taken over by Taliban members, who turn the schools into recruitment programs, where students are taught extremism and trained for terrorism.

For women, the Taliban’s crusade against education is especially damaging. Taliban rule means a strict interpretation of Islamic and Pashtun customary law, which states that women are not allowed to work outside the home, go unveiled, or leave the house without a male family member.  Religious police roam the streets, handing out harsh punishments for anyone in violation of Pashtun.  All girls’ schools were outlawed in January 2009, and  the Taliban threatened that anyone caught educating a girl or any girl receiving an education would be blown up or attacked with acid.

By now, most of the world knows of Malala Yousafazi, the teenage girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban while on her way to school.  This was not a random incident; she was targeted for speaking out in favor of girls’ education.  Today she has fully recovered, and now leads the Malala Fund, an organization to improve education for girls in the developing world.  The mission is a simple one with seemingly insurmountable challenges—educate girls where education is outlawed.  However, Malala believes in taking small steps: her mantra is “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”

– Stephanie Lamm

Sources: Lund University Department of Sociology, Malala Fund
Photo: Center for Economic Research in Pakistan

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International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

On October 17, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty was celebrated in honor of the goal to end world poverty by 2030. Declared by the UN General Assembly, this annual day serves as a reminder to promote the need to end poverty and destitution in all countries, specifically the developing nations.

In celebration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, Interaction, the NGO alliance, highlighted global programs that are already making an impact. One of these programs, A World Vision program in Zambia, has made health care, education, and psycho-social support accessible for more than a quarter million children. The program has also trained nearly 40,000 volunteers to assist people living with HIV across the country. It is programs like these, indeed, that are helping us reach our goal.

In hope to get to zero percent by our lifetime, NGOs, like Interaction, are essential parts of the solution. “We cannot let over a billion people suffer in extreme poverty when we have the tools and the research to change their lives for the better. … We can do better. We have to do better,” said World Bank president Jim Yong Kim.

So far, the world has made significant progress in working toward this goal. While it is bold, it is undoubtedly achievable. Already, extreme poverty rates are half of what they were two decades ago. In 1990, nearly one in two people in the developing world lived in “extreme poverty” or on less than $1.25 a day. Today, this number is about one in five. Because of the help of many institutions, government and nongovernment organizations alike, we have been able to make immense developments. Still, it is not enough. The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty recognizes these groups that have made all the difference through these years and even further, motivates people to help take those next few steps forward.

– Sonia Aviv

Sources: UN, Global Dimension, Devex
Photo: Times Square

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CGI Tackles Maternal Health in Peru

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In September 2013, the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting, with the Batey Relief Alliance, introduced a commitment to improving malnutrition and maternal health in Lima, Peru. The meeting brings together leaders from all around the world to help brainstorm, create, and implement innovative solutions for some of the world’s most concerning challenges.

According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 of deaths, of children ages five and under, is caused by malnutrition. Micronutrients, therefore, are essential for good health. Lacking proper amounts of micronutrients, specifically during pregnancy, can result in serious health issues.

Working with the Peruvian Ministry of Health, Caritas-Lima, and Vitamin Angels, the Batey Relief Alliance will train and send  150 Community Health Promoters to dispense multivitamins, Vitamin A, and anti-worm medicines on a quarterly basis for two years to schools, medical clinics, and community centers alike.

“This is a serious issue we are committed to addressing in Peru, where 34.8% of Peruvians live below the poverty line and maternal mortality death is 98 deaths per every 100,000 births, the majority of which are due to micronutrient deficiency,” said Ulrick Gillard, founder and CEO of the Batey Relief Alliance.

Batey Relief Alliance’s Health Promoters will also educate entire communities about health crises and further prevention techniques. Hopefully, in two years, the Alliance will improve the health and lives of about 2,000 children and 450 pregnant or nursing women.

– Sonia Aviv

Sources: Reuters, World News
Photo: World Bank

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Charity Miles: Miles to Meals

Happen to be in training for that 5K fun run or a marathon for breast cancer research this fall? Running, jogging, power walking and biking are all meaningful activities that strengthen the body and the mind, and helps in the quest to look exceedingly fit in the cocktail dress come Friday night. What if there was a way to convert such health-conscious weekly toils into global humanitarianism?

With the Charity Miles iPhone application, running, biking or walking for charity is easier than ever. The app has the gestalt of physical training apps such as MapMyRun and Nike+ but with the added function of raising money for charity via remote sponsorships.

The mechanics are simple and instantaneous: download the app from the Apple Store, lace up your running shoes, launch the app, pick a charity to support, burn some asphalt and watch as your miles convert to dollars towards humanitarian efforts. Runners and walkers earn 25 cents per mile, while bikers earn 10 centers per mile for their chosen charities. The sponsorship pool for Charity Miles is up to $1,000,000.

The World Food Program (WFP) is one of the many charities taking part in this unique and universally accessible initiative. The non-profit organization works in tandem with United Nations agencies as well as other NGOs to provide food security to those marginalized peoples in refugee camps around the globe. Their mission statement involves food security as an essential organ for the body of global development.

The World Food Program reports that 66 million primary school-age children in impoverished areas attend classes hungry, but with a mere $3.2 billion the entirety of these children’s hunger could be ameliorated.

While we in the first world are running for fitness, millions of our fellow humans across the developing world are on the run for survival, whether it be for a safe haven from military shrapnel or in the desperation for food and clean water.

In response to the Syrian crisis, the WFP’s mission for October is to feed 4 million refugees despite the international community’s more urgent occupation with war. Projects of this nature are funded entirely through donations, such as those that come from crowd-funding efforts of Charity Miles.

Charity Miles marks an optimistic innovation in humanitarian efforts, smartly combining contemporary fitness technologies that instantaneously calculate the results of physical training with instantaneous funding organizations striving to better the lives of the hungry.

So get running. The two miles you run today ultimately puts food on the table for an entire refugee family in Syria.

– Malika Gumpangkum

Sources: Huffington Post1, Huffington Post2, Charity Miles, World Food Program
Photo: The Telegraph

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How to Join the Peace Corps

If you’re one of the people in the world who wants to live, learn, and work with a community overseas, here’s what you need to know: some basic facts about the Peace Corps, as well as a (simplified) application process.

The Peace Corps sends volunteers to over 70 countries in the world. Traditionally, the length of this volunteer service is 27 months. It is unlikely you will be placed on a shorter assignment, unless you are a seasoned professional with 10 or more years of proven work experience. The typical 27 month volunteer will be placed in one of six program areas: education, youth and community development, health, business information and communications technology, agriculture, and environment.

To be eligible for service, you must be a U.S. citizen who is at least 18 years old. Additionally, 90 percent of Peace Corps volunteers have a college undergraduate degree. That being said, there is no maximum age limit, but the average age of Peace Corps volunteers is 28.

Here’s how you join the Peace Corps:

Step One:

Begin your application. Most applications take more than one session to complete, so be thorough; this application requires “two essays, three references, employment history, resume, a list of community and volunteer activities, educational background, and practical skills information.” It will also ask for college transcripts, “outstanding student loan, mortgage, or other financial obligation information,” documents about possible legal obligations, and a completed health history form.

Step Two:

You should be called for an interview within two weeks after an initial review of your application. At the interview, a recruiter will ask you questions about your work experience, skills, interests, as well as your personal feelings toward things like flexibility, cultural awareness and motivation. The recruiter will want to know about your commitment to the Peace Corps, and this offers you an opportunity to ask questions you may have as well.

Step Three:

If the recruiter thinks you are a good fit for the Peace Corps and there are open positions, then you will be nominated. At this time, you are considered recommended to move to the more legal stage of things such as medical clearance and fingerprinting.

Step Four:

This is the legal review stage. The documentation of things like financial obligations, marital status, criminal records and medical history will be examined.  You may be contacted for follow up information, but if everything turns out and all dates line up properly, you will be matched with an open position.

Step Five:

A formal invitation with a specific job description will be sent to you. This will include your leave date and a welcome packet that provides details of the country you will serve, in addition to a detailed job description. You must accept this invitation, and then the Peace Corps will provide you with information about orientation, training, and departure.

Step Six:

After accepting your invitation, you need to receive a complete physical and dental exam. This exam must take place sixty days prior to your departure. The majority of Peace Corps applicants are medically cleared.

Step Seven:

Prepare for departure! The Peace Corps travel office will issue you an electronic ticket that will send you to your pre-service orientation site. A short time after this, you will fly to your final destination and begin your Peace Corps experience.

While on a Peace Corps service, you will come face to face with real poverty, uncomfortable conditions, and a local culture unlike anything in America. Be honest with yourself, be prepared to change, and allow yourself time to adjust. It’s said that joining the Peace Corps is the toughest job you’ll ever love.

– Alycia Rock

Sources: Peace Corps, Peace Corps Apply, Peace Corps FAQ, Matador Network
Photo: Penn State

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Simplified Global Trend Statistics: Gapminder

A web service that specializes in providing time series of development activity statistics for all the world’s countries, Gapminder is a modern museum which allows for a simple overview of overall progress among nations.

It was first formulated in Sweden in 2006 to complement the Trendalyzer software, which is the platform that puts statistics to animated images. In 2007, Google bought Trendalyzer from the Gapminder development team; they soon followed suit and joined Google in California.

Gapminder is free to use and easy to navigate. The Gapminder World section provides not only data for comparing countries; there are sections for U.S. interstate and provinces of China and India versus the rest of the world analyses. Some of the data available goes back as far as the year 1800. Data providers which supplied the information at hand are only a click away; all statistics are verified and official.

A total of 260 countries and territories are covered by Gapminder. Although they all have varying degrees of completion (based upon available data), the minds behind the website have pledged to have no less than two indicators (or categories, one of the two being population) filled in for each separate entity.

The graphs feature anything from birth/death, unemployment, aid provided rates (all conveniently categorized by age), new and fatal cases of cancer among male and female subgroups, number of people living in extreme poverty, amount of women taking birth control, and hundreds more. On the front page, a handful of links for the most important trends are conveniently placed.

The creative, minimalistic design of the charts instills a sense of clarity and order; this is especially beneficial for simplifying numerical stats. Rather than going through official records and having to fumble with digits and percentages, one can easily open it all in one place.

In an attempt to “fight devastating ignorance with fact-based worldviews everyone can understand,” Gapminder is a comprehensive website, accessible to and widely used by teachers and corporations alike. Statistics gain shape for making up a unique overview of the past two centuries. The platform leaves room for free exploration – browsing the website, one feels invited, even compelled, to look up data at random.

Focusing on a specific topic? Gapminder has a whole section of videos, some of which present curious statistical shifts while others are case studies from outside sources explaining certain phenomena.

The website itself is no longer updated on a regular basis; the blog has but a couple scarce posts since 2011, the news section is outdated, and no major changes to the platform itself have been made recently. But the innovative system is not forgotten. Gapminder has released an offline version of its web-based library; a program is available for swift download which puts Gapminder World right on the user’s desktop.

Visualization is the main strategy of Gapminder – trends that don’t seem out of the ordinary on paper will ‘pop out’ in the graphs, saving the user time while providing a fresh perspective on worldwide occurrences. An intelligent take on unifying data, Gapminder is an invaluable tool for studying causal relationships between global factors and understanding social trends.

– Natalia Isaeva

Sources: Gap Minder, Singularity Hub
Photo: Ann Michaelson

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Forum on Sustainable Development, UN Seeks Scientific Input

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Following the termination of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), the UN announced recently the formation of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development. The new organization seeks to supercede the original, which operated from 1992 to 2012, by incorporating more input from the scientific community and providing a centralized, direct interface between data and policy makers.

The CSD was ahead of its time when it was first created, but had major flaws. Representatives from and experts on topics under discussion were not included in key talks, and as such, solutions ranged from impractical to irrelevant.

Members of governing bodies with the power to enact the solutions that were feasible were not always in communication with the CSD, and the measures were not carried through with the necessary vigor. As these problems compounded, the CSD came to be little more than a subsidiary of ECOSOC.

Aware of the numerous faults, the UN commissioned a special report on the CSD’s failures and addressed each of them with the new Forum. Annual meetings will be structured to ensure constant attention, and every four years, an additional meeting will be convened with the aim of attracting the highest level policy makers to streamline the legislative process and make appeals for particular actions directly to those with the power to do so.

In the same vein, the Forum on Sustainable Development will seek greater integration between UN agencies, to give it the greatest possible reach and resources in tackling the broad problems that are its concern.

Most importantly is the UN’s commitment to seek out and utilize the expertise and knowledge of the scientific community. Environmental, biological, and social scientists will be looked to to identify and address the most pressing problems facing the globe; economists will be sought to consider the financial feasibility of all solutions and, indeed, the Forum itself, which will have its own independent budget to operate from.

As a central aegis under which the many (and incontrovertibly convoluted) disciplines can dialogue to tackle issues in the most efficient way, the Forum on Sustainable Development is itself addressing a major issue: the disconnect between information and policy.

Socially segregated from the much of the rest of the world, the work done by scientists remains stuck in academic journals and treatises, unless it contains enough flash and style to appeal to major media outlets. There is an argument to be made that if the general public was aware of the relentless pace of scientific progress in every field, and the severe constraints put on it by a scarcity of funding, favorable sentiment would increase dramatically.

None of this is set to happen until 2016, pending the announcement of post-2015 Development Goals, but the UN appears committed to making the Forum fully equipped to hit the ground running when its objectives are officially announced.

This swift action is a promising sign in an institution which has been known for sluggishness and irrelevance, and is one sign among many recently that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is aware of the UN’s singular place in the contemporary world and the necessity for it to aim for the greatest possible goals.

If the bureaucratic cogs continue to churn at the same rate, the world will have a beacon of hope come 2016, and the coming years may vindicate the often-criticized Mr. Ban.

– Alex Pusateri

Sources: Sci Dev Net: UN Launches New Sustainable Development, All Africa, Sci Dev Net
Photo: UN News Centre