Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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Listen to the Poor

Listen to the Poor

In 2010, Armando Barrientos had a plan: just give direct money and resources to the poor, no need for the expensive aid industry. The argument made calls for community involvement, by directly transferring money to the poor. In this way, the recipients have a chance to decide what to do with that money. According to Barrientos’ argument in the Guardian, this model is being implemented in several countries including Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, and India. These countries provide “regular transfers of money to households in poverty with the aim of improving their nutrition, making sure children go to school and ensuring expectant mothers have regular check-ups.” Nevertheless, these same social transfer programs are difficult to set up without the help of the international community.

This year, the aim is a little higher; The Guardian posted an article discussing these social transfer programs in a broader light. The goal is to know how the poor and affected communities feel about these programs, if the programs actually help or detract the communities, and how the recipients can make better use of these money transfers. Recently, governments and aid donors have been more interested in involving the recipient communities in the decision-making, monitoring, and evaluating of “social protection programs.” Although the very concept of money transfers has generated positive results and is appreciated in several countries including Palestine, Mozambique, Yemen, and Uganda, monetary transactions are not sufficient enough in order to meet people’s basic needs.

Additionally, the access to cash transfers is confusing and alienating as the extremely poor either: do not know how to become eligible for funds, how to apply to receive funds, or are stuck on waiting lists for too long. Cash transfer recipients are reluctant to complain about such conditions regarding long waiting and the insufficiency of cash because the recipients are afraid to be regarded as “troublemakers,” which may cost them their access to funds altogether.

It is more efficient and effective to include the recipients in the decision-making process since the money directly affects them and their communities. It is also ethical, “people have a right to a say over what affects them.” The poor need a voice that will be listened to in order to improve social protection and cash transfer programs, making aid more effective, fair, and beneficial to the global community.

– Leen Abdallah
Source: Guardian

Flooding Disaster in Mozambique

Flooding Disaster in MozambiqueThe nation of Mozambique experienced one of the worst floods in recent history due to extremely high amounts of rainfall throughout the month of January. Flooding in Mozambique damaged the province of Gaza. Over 250,000 have been affected by the floods, with 150,000 people forced out of their homes in the province and over 100 killed.

While the victims of flooding in Mozambique are dealing with destroyed homes and families, the natural disaster has been exacerbated by the outbreak of cholera. There have been over 250 cases so far, fortunately, no cases have proved fatal. Mozambique has experienced problems with cholera for years, so their response has been effective thus far. However, the potential for more flooding means that they must remain vigilant.

The complete rebuilding effort is estimated to cost over $30 million, according to The Humanitarian Country Team in Mozambique, an organization comprised of NGO and UN officials. UNICEF itself seeks $6.8 million from this fund to pay for projects to improve the welfare of children and those around them, like building clean water pumps and constructing new homes.

According to Jesper Morch of UNICEF, “emergency supplies and funding has been depleted…we urgently need additional funds if we are to help many children and families recover.”

– Jake Simon

Sources: news24, UNICEF, Al Jazeera
Photo: Times Live

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Red Nose Day Turns 25

Red Nose Day Turns 25March 15 will mark the 25th anniversary of the charity organization Comic Relief’s Biannual Red Nose Day. The event, which began in the UK in 1988, is an all-day affair that showcases British comedians performing telethon-style with the ultimate goal of raising money for poverty reduction in Africa. Since the first event, the organization has raised 660 million pounds for the cause.

What now appears to the public as a well-rehearsed and professional telethon was once a much more amateur affair with the most earnest of the organizers and performers of Red Nose Day holding it together. British talk show host and comedian Jonathan Ross recalls one mix-up from the early years when Welsh comedian Griff Rhys Jones began a comedic bit with his trademark enthusiasm only to realize that he was supposed to be presenting a tragic event. Despite moments of confusion, the event was a wild success and continues to be an important national event to this day.

The organization does not simply raise money to be passed on to indiscriminate sources. Walking through the halls of a Comic Relief-assisted school in Accra, Ross was impressed by the real-world impact that a little money collected from thousands of people can make. He recognized the importance of the school to the community in helping the children gain a solid education to escape poverty.  When faced with the reality of the effect that the charity money makes, it is obvious that the school is more than just a place to collect impressive donation statistics or take riveting photos for a catalog. It is an institution that means a great deal to the community.

Ross admits that the idea of using comedy to highlight the tragedy, as in the staggering poverty in Africa, is a risky way to raise awareness. Regardless, the performers and the organization have built a large following in the early years that has only grown since then. At the least, Red Nose Day is a bright and cheery way to bring awareness to global poverty on the international stage.

– Sean Morales

Source: The Guardian

Smog From China is Crossing Borders

Smog From China is Crossing BordersSmog in China is an ongoing issue. China’s ongoing process of industrialization has resulted in extreme amounts of pollution in many of its cities. Because of the national dependence on particularly dirty fossil fuels, millions of citizens wear surgical masks when venturing outside because the air is just too dirty to breathe safely.

Until recently, the problem has been largely confined to China itself. Those afraid of global climate change, however, have been calling attention to the issue for years. Now, smog from China is crossing borders and affecting its Japanese neighbors. This presents another challenge to test Chinese-Japanese already strained relations.

Associate Professor Toshihiko Takemura of Kyushu University, who studies pollution for the University, explained that in Kyushu, “the level of air pollution has been detectable in everyday lives since a few years ago.”

China is notorious for quashing public dissent on sensitive issues like government shortcomings. However, in recent weeks, there have been uncanny amounts of focus put on environmental shortcomings by both state television and party officials.

Hopefully, the new Chinese Premier will work hard to drastically reduce China’s levels of pollution, bettering the health of the country’s citizens while improving relations with China’s estranged neighbor.

– Jake Simon

Source: news.com.au
Photo: Japan Times

Everything You Need to Know About Malnutrition

Malnutrition is not necessarily about not having enough to eat, but rather not having the right minerals and vitamins in what you eat. This World Food Program (WFP) video says everything you need to know about malnutrition – in two minutes.

The cycle of malnutrition starts in the womb, malnourished mothers give birth to children with health problems who grow up to be adults with health problems, then raising the next generation, and so on. The goal of the WFP is not just to treat malnutrition, but to also help it from happening in the first place. WFP realizes that it costs half as much to help a child under two, than it does to wait until the child is older and in need of greater assistance.

In raw figures, WFP indicates it would cost $3.6 billion to provide the special foods needed to treat all the moderately malnourished infants and toddlers in the world. Seemingly a large sum of money, but it is less than half of the $10 billion that Europeans spend on ice cream annually. Thus, the amount needed to treat malnourished is attainable.

Relatively, the fight against malnutrition is not that daunting; the world has the ability and the means, “the challenge is to do it.”

– Mary Purcell

Source: Youtube

Free Oxford Course on Climate Change

Free Oxford Course on Climate Change
Oxford University, one of the top-rated British schools, boasting such notable alumni as Stephen Hawking, Kris Kristofferson, and Dr. Seuss is now offering a free online course on climate change titled “An Introduction to the Science of Climate and Climate Change.”

The course, conducted entirely online, is being made available through the website www.climate.net, which is a global program that aims to educate the public about climate science, thereby increasing awareness of climate change-related issues.

The course content outlines the basics of climate science and modeling, which considers specific variables involving climate change in an attempt to paint a wider picture of the possible effects on local ecosystems and weather patterns. In addition to having a greater understanding of climate science and modeling, this course on climate change will also allow for a deeper interpretation of the modeling results. Once completed with an overall score of 90 percent or higher, there is also the option to take the advanced course titled “Constructing and Applying High Resolution Climate Scenarios.” This course is tutor-supported, allowing for instructor feedback that enables the student to have a better grasp of the production and/or analysis of climate-related data.

This course is a wonderful opportunity for anyone looking to be better informed on the often confusing climate-related issues that dominate the daily news. And even better, it educates those looking to separate truth from fiction in regards to global warming, annual rainfall, and food security, all issues that underpin global poverty.

– Brian Turner

Source: Climate Education
Photo: The Telegraph

5 Reasons Why Social Responsibility Matters in Business

5 Reasons Why Social Responsibility Matters in BusinessBusinesses and economic systems are bending under the expectations and obligations to be socially responsible. On a global level, governments and private corporations must be more and more accountable for their impact on the environment, and for who they help or hurt.

Here are 5 reasons why social responsibility matters in business:

1. Consumers Look For Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

  • More than 88% of consumers think companies should try to achieve their business goals while improving society and the environment
  • 83% of consumers think companies should support charities and nonprofits with financial donations

2. Employees Look For and Perform Better for Socially Responsible Businesses

  • 32% of employees would seriously consider leaving their job if their company gave no/little money to charity
  • 65% would seriously consider leaving their job if their company harmed the environment
  • 83% would seriously consider leaving their job if their employer used child labor in sweatshop factories
  • CSR practices are seen as important to employee morale (50%), loyalty (41%), retention (29%), recruitment of top employees (25%) and productivity (12%)

3. It is a competitive advantage (Harvard Business Review)

  • Every company needs “a unique position – doing things differently from competitors.” Philanthropic projects show a particular and distinctive identity.
  • “CSR can be much more than a cost, a constraint, or a charitable deed – it can be a source of opportunity, innovation, and competitive advantage.”

4. Capitalism focused strictly on profit is no longer viable

  • Investors will sever business ties with companies that are caught damaging the environment or engaging in socially damaging practices.
  • A fourth sector of the economy is emerging – “for-benefit.” Different from non-profit, for-profit, or governmental sectors, this is a group that operates on earned income but gives top priority to an explicit social mission over profit for the sake of profit.

5. It is a moral obligation

  • Domestically – businesses need to give back to the communities and nations that provided them the opportunity to succeed
  • Globally – economic and security concerns/events can immediately have a negative global impact. Investing, developing, and doing-no-harm will strengthen all sectors of business.

– Mary Purcell

Source: Movingworlds.org
Photo: Chieforganizer.org

 

Poverty Reduction Can Take Many Paths

Poverty Reduction Can Take Many Paths
With a need as immense as reducing global poverty, there are many different ways one can choose to affect change and inspire others to get involved. Poverty reduction can take many paths and many methods can be employed in the fight. One compelling and effective approach is the use of documentary film as a means of educating and emotionally inspiring others.

In an effort to raise awareness and ignite involvement, the non-profit organization Global Citizen has partnered with Development and Aid World News Service (DAWNS) to provide two $1,000 grants for humanitarian documentaries.

By going to the Global Citizen website, interested parties can vote for the 12 finalists who have started projects to impact and create a better understanding of the complex effects of extreme poverty.

One film follows 15 grassroots organizers in Cameroon who are mobilizing communities through peacebuilding, social justice, human rights and more. Another tries to tell the day-to-day story of war victims in Somalia. Many others address women’s issues, such as a film based in Libya which consist of interviews with Nobel Peace Prize winners, or an entry from Gambia focusing on the largely female impoverished agricultural population, or in the Hindu culture of India where boys represent status and girls are regarded as a financial drain on the family, or in Sub-Saharan Africa where maternal death is still systemic.

Finalist Nosarieme Garrick, an African woman living in America, focuses on innovations on the African continent evolving from younger generations. Her series will follow unexpected and “hopeful” developments in the humanitarian, music, fashion, film, arts and business sectors. Garrick wants to change the perception of “her” continent. “Africa is a growing force to be reckoned with. As young people return back from the diaspora, and democracies become more stable, the former image of the “Hopeless Continent” is in desperate need of shedding.”

Anyone can affect change in a way that speaks to them; it’s just a matter of taking that first, crucial step.

– Mary Purcell

Source: Global Poverty Project

 

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Who is Benefiting From Land and Water Grabbing?

Who is Benefiting From Land and Water Grabbing?It is assumed that the already existing gap between developed and developing nations is large and apparent enough that wealthier nations would try and fill this gap and bring these opposite ends closer together. According to an ABC Environmental article, however, wealthy nations are instead competing over ‘land’ and ‘water grabbing’ to appease their growing populations and the “stressed” supply of basic necessities such as food and water. Investors in a foreign land, or better yet, the land-grabbers, are countries and investment firms from biofuel producers to large-scale farming operations (agricultural investors).

Since 2000, the major countries that have contributed to this land purchasing are the U.S., Malaysia, the U.K., China, and the U.A.E. Experts aren’t sure of these investors’ motives but it is clear that they are only focusing on buying land where there is clear access to water.

‘Land grabbing’ is defined by Paolo D’Odorico, a professor at the University of Virginia, as “a deal for about two km2 or more that converts an environmentally important area currently used by local people to commercial production.” According to an environmental study, 454 billion cubic meters sums up the ‘water-grabbing’ per year by corporations on a global scale, which is about 5 percent of the world’s annual water consumption. According to the public database Land Matrix “1,217 deals have taken place, which transferred over 830,000 square kilometers of land” since 2000, with 62 percent of such deals happening in Africa alone.

From 2005 to 2009, during a major food price crisis, land purchases, which fall under a very low level of regulation, skyrocketed. In 2011, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the U.N. released guidelines that advise investors to consider the people and communities whose land is being used. However, such guidelines are viewed as humanitarian concerns and have little enforcement, meaning that they aren’t strict enough to have corporations and investors abide by them or even care for them.

Governments who are interested in and have been leasing and selling land to foreign countries and investors are mainly those in Eastern Africa and Southeast Asia. They are interested in these sales because they want to modernize their farming and believe this is the way to do it. However, the reality is that the resulting development from such ‘land and water grabbing’ depends on the investors’ terms and conditions, as well as their sense of morality.

The main problem is that the majority of these sales are happening in poor countries in which there are high rates of hunger and where resources valuable to the local populations are being purchased by wealthier developed nations or even by private corporations. The main question of the matter is this: Who is benefiting from land and water grabbing? Are these sales helping the local people since it is their land? Or are these purchases only concerned about foreign benefits and the population concerns of developed nations?

– Leen Abdallah

Source: ABC
Photo: Water Governance

The Top 3 Suprising Health Benefits of Globalization

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Contrary to popular opinion, globalization has several little known and widely unpublicized effects on overall health and longevity. Previously, this phenomenon was primarily centered around the interconnectedness of people, ideas and economic capital; however, recent findings show that it might not be operating within the preconceived limitations and that there may actually be some health benefits of globalization.

Researchers at the University of Netherlands and Luephana University collaborated to analyze the mortality rates of globalized versus non-globalized countries. Utilizing the Maastricht Globalization Index (MGI) as a barometer to measure the various associations between globalization and health in a nation, scientists were able to determine-via statistical analysis-certain positive outcomes. Their results were unexpected, and what emerged from the study were three surprising health benefits of globalization.

  1. Infant Mortality Rates – In comparing the MGI to infant mortality rates, research values overwhelmingly showed that those countries with greater globalization levels also had reduced infant mortality rates. Scientists theorized that the converse relationship between the two might have to do with the higher educational, GDP and neo-natal care levels of a globalized versus non-globalized nations.
  2. Under Five Mortality Rates – Following the completion of the study, researchers were also able to determine that under-five mortality rates were decreased in those nations exhibiting higher levels of globalization. In regards to under-five mortality rates, the decreased numbers of female smokers was a significant contributor to the health benefits of globalization.
  3. Adult Mortality Rates – Even more surprising, the MGI showed a significant correlation between higher rates of globalization and lower rates of adult mortality in a nation. These health benefits of globalization were the most unexpected, and researchers found that improved access to sanitation was the greatest statistical contributor.

It appears that based upon these findings, there is a certain amount of scientific evidence highlighting the health benefits of globalization. Thus, advocating for the increased economic stability and food security factors of global poverty reduction is exactly what is needed to combat infant, under five, and adult mortality rates.

– Brian Turner

Source: Globalization and Health

Photo: Imperial International Public Health