Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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Anti-Hunger Rally in London Precedes G8 Summit

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Over the weekend, a rally in London attended by thousands sought to raise awareness around the issue of global hunger and encourage leaders, before the G8 summit later this month, to make ending hunger a top priority. The rally was in London’s famous Hyde Park. It was hosted by the “Enough Food for Everyone – IF” campaign and boasted the likes of Bill Gates and “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle.

Prime Minister David Cameron hosted talks on malnutrition and led the discussion around the fight against global hunger. Boyle believes we can end hunger and that is necessary to do so.  Boyle hopes in a day when no countries which participate in the Olympics will have children dying of hunger. It’s a high goal, but a realistic one according to supporters at the rally.

The G8 summit is set to be held in Northern Ireland on June 17-18 and the rally hoped to put malnutrition on the radar of governments, NGOs, businesses, and nonprofits attending the summit. Cameron discussed the topic with Vice President of Brazil Michel Temer and received a pledge of $4.15 billion by 2020 and a renewed commitment to fight against hunger and malnutrition.  Also in attendance were representatives from 19 African countries, numerous donor countries such at the US and Japan, the EU, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, and UNICEF.

A rally bringing together some of the global leaders in the fight against poverty and hunger is sure to make waves and spread awareness, which is what the Prime Minister hoped to do. Leaders are encouraging those at the G8 summit to focus priorities on hunger and malnutrition. Such action is another important step in the creation of the next generation of development goals.

–  Amanda Kloeppel

Source: The News
Photo: The Guardian

Russell Building 101

Russel_Building
The Russell Building is the Senate Office building, scaled to conform to, but not detract from, its more famous neighbor:  the US Capitol building in Washington, D.C. Rising only three stories above ground, Russell faces Constitution Avenue and  features long lines of classic Doric columns, white marble, and limestone.  At its southwest entrance, twin marble staircases leading down to the Caucus Room complement a three-story rotunda surrounded by Corinthian columns.

Russell housed its first occupants on March 15, 1909, each senator receiving a two-room suite (one for the senator, and the other for the senator’s personal staff). Each office came equipped with a fireplace and a huge window facing either the street or the inner courtyard. In 1912 the first electric subway was installed in place of its preceding bus shuttles.

The famous Caucus Room became the setting for several high-profile investigations, including investigations of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the Teapot Dome scandal in 1923, the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954, and the infamous Watergate investigation in 1973.  Because of its association with these kinds of cases, the building quickly became recognizable to the public, almost as iconic as the neighboring Capitol building.

The Russell building is named in honor of Senator Richard B. Russell, a Democrat from Georgia who occupied the seat from from 1933 to 1971. Russell was often referred to as a “Senator’s Senator”, chairing the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Appropriations Committee, and served as president pro tempore.  A statue of Senator Russell adorns the building’s rotunda.

-Kali Faulwetter

Sources: Senate.gov, aoc.gov
Photo: Natlfire

Uzbekistan: Providing Relief to Those With HIV

HIV-project-Uzbekistan
Rano Isaeva, a healthcare worker in Uzbekistan, took time off of work to attend a training session that teaches her how to provide palliative, or relief focused care, to those living with HIV.

“Patronage nurses bring relief to patients and educate relatives to provide care and support. Often they turn into family members and counselors, trusted and relied upon.” she says.

The main goal of UNDP’s HIV project in Uzbekistan is to provide relief and comfort to families as well as patients. UNDP has trained over 2,000 nurses in several different regions of Uzbekistan. To reach as many nurses as possible the training sessions are offered in Uzbek as well as Russian. During the training, the nurses improve their knowledge about HIV infection, the effects on the body, stages of the disease, signs, symptomatic treatment and pain relief therapy. So far over 35,000 people in all regions of Uzbekistan have been reached by HIV-prevention services.

By the end of 2013 over 5,100 nurses should be trained and able to spread their knowledge in their respective communities.

“Many people in the community ask questions on HIV. Now I am able to answer any questions on prevention measures, how the virus is transmitted and not transmitted, what the consequences may be, and whether it can be treated.,” says Zarifa Jonova, a local community nurse. “Thus, I will make my input in wellbeing of my community,” she says.

The program will also begin to focus on spreading awareness to at-risk populations in the area, including young women, drug users, commercial sex workers, and homosexual men. The program has already offered 10,000 information sessions on treatment as well as prevention.

– Catherine Ulrich

Source: UNDP
Photo: Facebook

Musicians Protest Global Poverty

Musicians
Several popular musicians protest global poverty by writing protest songs about the issue. Stars such as Ed Sheeran, Mumford & Sons, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Will.I.Am, Sting, Elvis Costello, and Green Day are among some of the artists who have joined the agit8 campaign to fight world hunger and poverty.

The agit8 campaign is an event that challenges leaders to stand up to fight poverty during the global G8 summit this year in Northern Ireland. The summit focuses on the world’s most pressing issues, and global leaders have a chance to speak up for issues they care about and feel should be addressed. The agit8 campaign is supported by the One Campaign, which was co-created by musician & activist Bono to help raise awareness about poverty and hunger problems around the world.

The One Campaign also works with filmmakers and actors to demonstrate through movies how protests have led to a major change in the world. Music is another way to lead change because it has the power to get many people involved. When fans learn about the causes their favorite artists support, they can instantly become more aware of global problems and learn how to take action. And with more people aware of the problems of the world, more people are supporting nonprofit organizations and charities to alleviate those problems.

– Katie Brockman

Source Evening Express

The History of UNICEF

Unicef History
UNICEF is one of the biggest names in international aid and humanitarian work in the world today. It has won the Nobel Prize, the first to be awarded to an organization, and not an individual, as well as the Prince of Asturias award. Despite being highly active in fundraising, awareness, relief work and research, very few people know the origins of the organization.

Founded in 1946, UNICEF began with the specific mission of providing emergency food and healthcare to children in the countries that had been destroyed by World War II. Its original name was United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. It was later changed to the United Nation’s Children Fund after being officially adopted as a permanent branch of the UN in 1954.

Though its headquarters are in New York City, it operates in over 190 countries, focusing on the welfare of children in at-risk areas. Since 2006, the organization has concentrated on a few specific areas: child survival and development, basic education and gender equality, mitigating the effects of HIV/AIDS on children, child protection and policy advocacy, and partnerships. UNICEF has been a key player in global development work since its inception. UNICEF operates during emergencies in addition to supporting developing countries to provide children with basic resources and advocate for children’s rights.

UNICEF has significant star power, utilizing celebrities to raise awareness, thus making it a strong cultural force as well. Ambassadors for the organization have included Audrey Hepburn, Queen Rania of Jordan, Richard Attenborough, David Beckham, Jackie Chan, and many others. In 2006, the major football team FC Barcelona sponsored UNICEF, and wears the organization’s name and logo emblazoned on their shirts (a reversal in the usual sponsorship practices for football teams).

It has recently drawn criticism for its stance on international adoption. It came under fire when it was noted that during major disasters, it discouraged adoption agencies from allowing international adoption, offering incentives to keep children in their own countries. Many saw this as a short-sighted policy, which prompted UNICEF to issue a press release, stating: “The case of children separated from their families and communities during war or natural disasters merits special mention. Family tracing should be the first priority and inter-country adoption should only be envisaged for a child once these tracing efforts have proved fruitless, and stable in-country solutions are not available.”

UNICEF has repeatedly shown itself to be the highly influential and one of the most effective operations working towards protecting the rights of children worldwide.

– Farahnaz Mohammed

Source: UNICEF
Photo: UNICEF

Tuberculosis Info

Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis may be the world’s most romanticized disease. La Boheme’s Mimi, Les Miserables’ Fantine, Moulin Rouge’s Satine, among many others, have succumbed to the disease. Despite being a recurring theme in literature and art, the reality of tuberculosis is much uglier.

Tuberculosis, or TB for short, is second only to HIV/AIDS as the leading cause of death from a single infection. It’s symptoms including coughing up sputum or blood, fever, night sweats, weakness and chest pain.

An infection of the lungs, TB is quite insidious. Highly contagious, it can be spread simply by inhaling a few particles from an infected person coughing, spitting or sneezing. It can lie dormant in many individuals, meaning that although they are carriers, they don’t develop the active disease, nor do they transmit it.

However, once infected with the active form of the disease, the symptoms are often mild and so individuals do not immediately seek treatment and often contribute to spreading the infection. People infected with HIV or diabetes are much more likely to get TB because of weakened immune systems. Environmental risk factors including overcrowding and malnutrition make TB a disease of the poor.

TB occurs in almost every country in the world, though mostly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Both treatable and curable, control of the disease is mainly preventative, done through vaccination. Once contracted, antibiotics can be administered to help those infected, though treatment is often difficult because of the resistant nature of the bacteria.

– Farahnaz Mohammed

Source: WHO
Photo: Los Angeles Times

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Pact: Building Local Promise

Pact
Pact is a United States based non-governmental organization (NGO) that focuses on developing communities in regions of the world plagued by health crises, resource dependence, and extreme poverty. Its unique operating procedure partners donors with local communities in such regions as Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa. Pact was founded in 1971 to oversee the distribution of small-scale USAID grants to development assistance organizations.

Pact’s three core values of (a) local solutions, (b) partnerships, and (c) results, put people at the center of their approach. With over 10,000 local partners, Pact customizes its system for every community. For example, Pact leads a development project in Ethiopia funded by USAID. It involves local and federal governments, NGOs, and nonprofits to provide health treatment and formal education for nearly 50,000 kids and adults.

The NGOs focus on local solutions, allowing vulnerable populations to take responsibility for the aid they will receive. Capacity development is highly prioritized in the regions served by Pact; local governments are developed, infrastructure is improved, and effective governance systems are formed.

Partners with Pact, small and large organizations alike, are also assured of progress with tangible success. The organization publishes a yearly report, called “Measuring Pact’s Mission,” where six different impact areas are examined. These impact areas include health, livelihood, natural resource management, and state-society engagement.

While accountability and effectiveness are frequent concerns of NGOs, Pact is the first USAID partner to publish its program data to the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). IATI aims to provide information about NGO spending and its measurable results. While the Initiative is relatively new – the first annual report of IATI was published at the end of April 2013 – it promises a clear picture of where aid money goes.

Pact works in more than 25 countries worldwide, and its program services are incredibly diverse. These programs include formal schooling for children in several African nations, the improvement of health care for HIV/AIDS patients in the Ukraine, and the responsible micro-financing of productive enterprises in Myanmar. Pact’s holistic view of global development and its commitment to aid transparency make the organization a prime example for other development-focused NGOs.

– Naomi Doraisamy

Sources: Pact, International Aid Transparency Initiative
Photo: Pact Facebook

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Google Blimps Bring Internet To Africa

Google Blimps
Some companies provide food to people in countries who need it, others may donate supplies to build homes or schools, and some may send doctors or medical supplies to help the sick. Google is taking a different approach, using their technology skills to bring the internet to Africa via blimps.

The company’s goal is to connect nearly 1 billion people across Africa and Asia to the internet with high-flying blimps and balloons. The Google blimps are beneficial because they can cover a wider area while remaining cost-efficient. Google has created an ecosystem of smartphones that are low-cost with low processing power, and the signals are carried by the balloons. Google also is asking the local government regulators for permission to use television airwaves for their project, because these waves are better at transferring signals through buildings and across large areas of land than traditional WiFi infrastructure.

Google isn’t the first to propose a plan that uses balloons and blimps. Afghanistan already uses blimp technology for surveillance purposes by scanning wide areas that wouldn’t be possible or as simple as other forms of ground technology. The U.S. military is also involved in cloud-type projects involving blimps, and the Army uses them for communication. Instead of using traditional satellites to communicate back and forth with troops on the ground, which is very expensive, they use Combat SkySat balloons.

Google has begun a trial launch of their blimps in South African schools to test how well the new technology performs.

– Katie Brockman

Source Forbes, Wired

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The Evolution of the Millennium Development Goals

millenium-development-goals-end-poverty
With the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals set at the end of this year, the final results will be mixed. Some targets have been met, while others have fallen short. Regardless, having the development goals in place has undoubtedly led to tangible progress on all fronts.

A U.N. panel, co-chaired by British prime minister David Cameron and the presidents of Indonesia and Liberia, last week released a report outlining a set of new goals with a target of the year 2030. These goals are based on the original Millennium Development Goals, and are listed as follows:

  1. End poverty
  2. Empower girls and women and achieve gender equality
  3. Provide quality education and lifelong learning
  4. Ensure healthy lives
  5. Ensure food security and good nutrition
  6. Achieve universal access to water and sanitation
  7. Secure sustainable energy
  8. Create jobs, sustainable livelihoods, and equitable growth
  9. Manage natural resource assets sustainably
  10. Ensure good governance and effective institutions
  11. Ensure stable and peaceful societies
  12. Create a global enabling environment and catalyze long term finance

There are certain ‘absolute’ goals, including the elimination of poverty and universal access to water and sanitation. With the previous target of halving extreme poverty successfully reached ahead of schedule, the goal now is to eliminate that remaining 20% of the world living below the line.

One conspicuous absence from the goals is a specific commitment to addressing economic inequality. Even as extreme poverty is being reduced globally, the gap between the richest and poorest citizens of the world is widening. Consumption by the lowest billion amounts to 1% of global figures, while the richest billion account for 72%. With this gap constantly widening, it’s doubtful whether goals to eliminate poverty can ever truly be met. Wealth redistribution would an effective tool at addressing the poorest parts of society.

These revised development goals will be presented by the panel at the U.N. General Assembly in September, with the intention of agreeing on a clear yet ambitious framework and allowing time for its implementation by the beginning of 2016.

– David Wilson

Source: The Guardian,UN

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Focusing on the Living, Not the Dying

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So much of the emphasis in judging the quality of life of a country, or its progress, focuses on death. The numbers tell how many people die; how many of the dead were mothers, how many were children, the most fatal diseases, the most deaths by violence, etc. Christopher Murray, a Harvard researcher, took issue with this standard of measurement. While he agreed that death was a powerful indicator of a country’s welfare, he also saw a major oversight in using it as a yardstick. To Murray, it was important not solely to focus on the dead, who we can do nothing for, but also examine the quality of life of the living. Not only to think of how to keep people alive but also to ensure they are living well. Murray’s viewpoint was to revolutionize metrics. He spearheaded the shift from measuring mortality to the implementation of the DALY measure – Disability-Adjusted Life Year.

In simplest terms, the DALY measures the number of years a population lives with a disability, adjusting its productivity accordingly (as a major psychological or health problem will undoubtedly decrease a worker’s effectiveness), as well as measuring the impact of shorter life expectancy (often which is related to the disabilities in the DALY). ‘Disability’ in the term covers a wide arrange of conditions, among them pain, arthritis, mental illness such as depression and PTSD, disfigurement and major diseases. A highly sophisticated system, the DALY is weighted to measure the impact of conditions on younger members of a population more than older members to give a more accurate measure of impact on the economic potential of a given population (as the young are seen to have more potential than the aged because of longevity, energy, new skills, etc.).

Measuring the global burden of disease this way has yielded surprising – and often controversial – results. Yet this data is promising and exciting in that it shakes our current system and demands attention to issues that have so far been neglected. For example, depression and suicide are found to be more damaging than tuberculosis or cirrhosis, and one of the fastest-growing diseases is glaucoma. The DALY’s results have not been welcomed by all, however. When first introduced after measuring international statistics, many countries were graded much lower than on an objective mortality scale and hotly contested the results.

The importance of metric systems in foreign aid is steadily increasing: in a world where every dollar could be used in many different ways, expenditure on aid and social programs needs to be well justified, with potential for results from investment. When asked about the use of DALYs to give an accurate picture of the state of global health, Murray stated, “People walk around with a mental map that’s different for every one of us. A real map has got to be a better guide.”

– Farahnaz Mohammed

Source: Discover Magazine
Photo: Change