Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

Oxfam Provides Water from Lake to Lips in 6 Weeks

Water-System-Congo

North of Lake Kivu in the city of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, civil strife has caused thousands of refugees to flee to the Bulengo Camp. Home to about 45,000, Bulengo has been given the remodeling of a lifetime thanks to the hard work of Oxfam volunteers. Over a six week period, a basic yet high-functioning water filtration system has been set up that provides enough clean water for the entire camp.

The entire system is comprised of hundreds of meters of piping. Water is pumped directly from Lake Kivu and sent to large tanks. Within these tanks, the water is filtered and chlorinated to prevent diseases such as cholera. The tanks can hold up to 70,000 liters (approximately 18,492 gallons) each and are filled twice a day.

An amazing aspect of this system, aside from the fact that it provides the most basic need to thousands, is that the system is managed by the refugees. They maintain the pipes and check the chlorination process to ensure everything runs smoothly from the lake to the lips of thirsty refugees. The best job, however, is that of the young children who run to the taps in the camp to freely fill up their buckets and bottles.

Oxfam shows that through providing basic building materials, it is possible to greatly impact more than 45,000 people. It is proven through successful aid work that developing countries do not need the most modern technology; they do not only require a constant stream of millions of dollars but also the time and creativity of those willing to go out to these countries and help. In a matter of just six weeks, thousands of lives have instantly changed. There was no need for excessive donors, elongated presentations or even extensive research on how to solve the problem. Six weeks, plastic pipes and plastic bottles was all it took to get clean water from lake to lips.

– Deena Dulgerian

Source:Oxfam International

Sting Promotes Indestructible Soccer Ball

Kids in war-torn Darfur playing soccer with a ball made from crumpled trash bags, encircled with twine was the catalyst for Tim Jahnigen’s invention of the indestructible soccer ball.  His compassion for these kids who had suffered so much, but still had the spirit to play and thrive, compelled him to create a ball that would never wear out, never deflate, and never need a pump. His idea remained in the concept stage until Sting provided the support necessary to start the One World Futbol Project.

With Sting promoting the indestructible soccer ball, soon Chevrolet came on as the founding financial sponsor for the project, and now these supper soccer balls are distributed around the world. Through the group’s  “Buy One, Give One” program, for every ball purchased they will donate another to an organization working with disadvantaged communities, including refugee camps, conflict zones, disaster areas, and inner cities. Overall, 100 organizations help to distribute balls in 120 countries – a symbol for kindness, caring, and compassion that does make us all One World.

– Mary Purcell

Source: You Tube

Perspectives of Poverty

Rich Edward KabzelaIn 2008, Duncan McNicholl did a fellowship in Malawi. Upon returning home, he reacted strongly to photos of organizations that depicted a rather distorted version of people living in rural Africa. In 2010, he returned to Malawi to work with the Water and Sanitation team and came up with an idea for a photography project called Perspectives of Poverty with the goal of showing the people of rural Africa in a different light.

By taking two different photos of the same person, one as the symbol of poverty and the other at their finest, McNicholl wanted to change the way we perceived the people who lived in rural Africa. Organizations, in pursuit of funding, tend to depict those living in these areas as the typical symbol of poverty, “a teary-eyed African child, dressed in rags, smothered in flies, with a look of desperation.” Having had firsthand experience living in these regions, McNichol “felt lied to” finding these photos incomplete, inaccurate and outrageous.

“How had these photos failed so spectacularly to capture the intelligence, the laughter, the resilience and the capabilities of so many incredible people?” he writes.

Pictured above is Edward Kabzela, an area borehole maintenance mechanic of the Chagunda Village in Malawi. Besides being an area mechanic, Kabezla also takes part in other business ventures such as growing tobacco and owning a basket weaving business. McNicholl writes that Kabzela is “a great example of how little a thatched roof says about someone’s livelihood.” Upon hearing about how some photos portrayed his village of Chagunda, he commented that when NGOs come they take pictures of “only people who are dressed poorly.”

McNicholl is unsure of what Perspectives of Poverty will look like when it is done and will continue taking photos like these to possibly put on exhibit.

– Rafael Panlilio
Source: Water Wellness

Unpaid Corporate Tax Could End World Hunger

Oxfam Cracks Down On Tax Dodging
On January 31, Oxfam came out with a statement revealing that a third of the unpaid corporate tax belonging to developing countries could end world hunger. The amount lost to corporate tax dodgers is estimated at around $160 billion, more than three times the $50.2 billion needed a year to end hunger globally.

Tax dodging practices are possible through a combination of legal and illegal activities such as tax havens, price manipulation across borders, and false invoicing. Oxfam has urged the UK government to close loopholes that allow corporate tax dodging to continue. Chief Executive of Oxfam Barbara Stocking, regarding UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s attendance at the U.N. high panel meeting last week, said that “David Cameron should be pushing for an end to global hunger by 2025, and an end to tax dodging which could pay for this and much more. These companies are effectively taking food from hungry mouths.”

A week before the U.N. high panel meeting, Cameron spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland promising to prioritize tax evasion.“This is an issue whose time has come,” said Cameron. “After years of abuse, people across the planet are rightly calling for more action and most importantly there is gathering political will to actually do something about it.”

Oxfam was one of 100 organizations to launch the Enough Food for Everyone If campaign. The campaign plans to hold Cameron to his “commitment to lead the world in a battle against hunger.”

– Rafael Panlilio

Source: Gov.UK, Oxfam
Photo: Oxfam

India Organizes Call to Action Summit

UNICEF India 2_opt
India has organized a national summit on Call to Action for Child Survival and Development from February 7th to 9th. Held in Mahabalipuram, the summit brought together both national and international experts, policymakers, as well as representatives of developmental agencies including the U.N., to assess challenges and work toward achieving India’s development goals.

India is the regional front-runner when it comes to social entrepreneurship and its rapid advances in the health sector, specifically in dealing with maternal and child mortality rates. The summit additionally presents the need to build upon this great momentum both locally and globally. Since the 1990s, India’s maternal mortality rate has dropped by more than 50 percent, while its child mortality rate has reduced by 45 percent.

The United States government has pledged its support for India’s Call to Action initiative. USAID has been actively working with the government of India in its development undertakings, especially eradicating preventable child deaths. USAID is now initiating the Country Development Cooperation Strategy, which will focus on fostering partnerships locally and work towards co-funding rather than fully funding agreements in support of the efforts for finding solutions for child survival.

USAID expressed its commitment to this effort voicing, “An investment in India’s children is an investment in India’s future.”

– Pimrapee Thungkasemvathana

Source: USAID
Photo: UNICEF India

World’s 100 Richest People Could End Global Poverty

Billionaires_end_poverty_Warren_buffett
According to Oxfam, an international NGO committed to fighting poverty, the money made by the world’s top 100 billionaires in the last year alone could end global poverty four times over.

Oxfam asserts that the wealth amassed by the world’s richest is encouraging inequality and deepening a divide between those in abject poverty and the rest of the world – making it even more difficult to end poverty once and for all. They assert that the world’s rich are getting richer at the expense of those in extreme poverty, and that the $240 billion that was collected in 2012 by the wealthiest 100 billionaires could end global poverty four times over.

Although a few American billionaires have already pledged to donate much of their wealth back into the public sphere, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, the exact figure has not been disclosed, and foreign billionaires have not made any such pledge to match those given by Gates and Buffet.

The Chief Executive for Oxfam GB Barbara Stocking cites a report that will be unveiled at the upcoming World Economic Forum. The report, titled “The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All”, found that within the last 20 years, the wealthiest 1% have increased their wealth by 60%. Stocking points out that this trend has led to extreme poverty as low-income earners have taken home an even smaller share of the total income as the rich get richer, which has also stifled growth and investment.

The report states that this trend has affected even Westernized countries, citing levels of high income inequality in the UK and South Africa. The report points out that top earners in China own over 60% of the overall income, similar to the situation in South Africa, where income inequality has risen even past levels seen at the end of apartheid.

Income inequality also persists across the United States, where the portion of total national income going to the top 1% has doubled within the last 30 years – the top 1% now take home 20% of the national income.

Oxfam is urging global leaders to committ to lowering income inequality levels to those seen in the 1990s, and Stocking asserts that doing away with tax havens, which reportedly would create $189 billion in additional tax revenues, would help alleviate the problem.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund have taken a similar stance, saying that income inequality hinders development and growth, and say that they aim to fund projects that limit the perpetual cycle of inequality.

– Christina Mattos Kindlon

Source: The Guardian

Health Care Success in Rwanda

rwanda-hospital

1994 marked the end of genocide in Rwanda and the beginning of an effort to rebuild a country that was dismantled by genocide. Now, almost two decades later, Rwanda has become a story of evident progress.

In the last two decades, Rwanda has seen tremendous social and economic improvement. The percentage of the population living below the poverty line has sharply decreased from 78 percent in 1994 to 45 percent in 2013. The gross domestic product of Rwanda has more than tripled. Average life expectancy has doubled from 28 years to 56 years of age. Maternal mortality has decreased by 60 percent. The chance of a child under 5 dying has decreased by 70 percent. 99 percent of primary-school-age children are in school.

How has this happened?

According to a research study conducted by Partners in Health that was recently published in the British Medical Journal, improved health care has been the Rwandan answer.

Cameron Nutt, a member of the Partners in Health research team, stated, “The Rwandan government has attacked the deadliest diseases in the most vulnerable parts of the population”. It has subsidized the prices of many medicines and made it possible for nearly 98 percent of the population to have health insurance and access to preventative care, such as mosquito nets and vaccines. Rwandan leaders have taken a proactive approach to ensure the advancement of its health care system. The country has successfully utilized Western aid to train Rwandans in medical fields and improve the way in which major diseases, such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, are treated.

For Rwanda, health care has meant vast amounts of change and improvement. Health care has equated for fewer people living below the poverty line, more people living longer, and more people being able to work and contribute to their country. Health care has resulted in successful development.

– Angela Hooks

Sources: NY Times, The Dartmouth

Photo Source: PHR

The Queen of Katwe

Imagine living in a slum. There is little food to split between you and your family and you are a minority in your age group because you have regularly attended school before. This was exactly the situation that teenager Phiona Mutesi found herself in when she started learning chess.

The slum where Phiona lives is called Katwe, and it is located right in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, where veteran and refugee Robert Katende began a chess program for children, giving them food in return for completing a lesson. Of his program, Katende has said that he had started it hoping to teach analytic and problem-solving skills that the children could apply to succeed in their own lives.

This was the program that would come to change Phiona’s life and turn her into “The Queen of Katwe”.

“I was living a hard life, where I was sleeping on the streets, and you couldn’t have anything to eat in the streets. So that’s when I decided for my brother to get a cup of porridge,” Mutesi told CNN.

Although she was unfamiliar with the game, as is most of Uganda, Phiona worked hard, practicing every day for a year. Eventually, she began to win against older children and compete for titles. Since those early days, Phiona has represented her country in several international chess competitions in countries such as Sudan, Siberia, and Istanbul.

Although life for her is still hard – she still lives in the Katwe slum with her family – winning competitions and working hard to one day become a Grandmaster keeps her hopeful. A grant that she has received through her competing has even allowed her to go back to school and develop her reading and writing skills.

While Phiona’s story of success has yet to win her the chess title of Grandmaster, she has gained another, unofficial reputation as the ultimate underdog. She is an underdog on the global chess stage both because she comes from Africa, a continent where chess is culturally absent in most countries, and because she is from Uganda specifically, a nation that is one of the poorest on the continent. The fact that she is from Katwe, a slum, is a strike against her even to other Ugandans. However, despite these odds, she has achieved enormous success given her circumstances.

Phiona Mutesi’s inspiring story was written into a book called “The Queen of Katwe,” by Tim Crothers, and was published in October of 2012. Since then, Disney has bought the rights to the story and has started making a movie to chronicle Phiona’s journey to the international chess stage. The Queen of Katwe remains steadfast in attaining her dream of becoming a Grandmaster and is an inspiration to us all.

– Nina Narang

Source: CNN

UN Central Emergency Response Fund

UN Central Emergency Response FundIn December of 2012, the United Nations had called for financial support for the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) which has financed humanitarian programs that saved millions of lives. Donors pledged $384 million for 2013. On January 21, the United Nations announced that $100 million was to be allocated to 12 poorly-funded crises around the world.

Since 2006, the UN CERF has helped speed up relief efforts by collecting donations to ensure that programs providing life-saving assistance receive adequate funding. Since then, the Fund has managed to secure a total of $900 million to address crises. In 2012, CERF allocated a total of $465 million to programs delivering humanitarian aid in 49 countries including Syria, South Sudan, Haiti and Pakistan, the highest amount allocated in a year.

On December 11, 2012, in a statement at the high-level CERF conference, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Valerie Amos, praised the Fund’s work in aiding those affected by crises. “CERF’s support has been critical to saving the lives and livelihoods of millions of people throughout the world,” Amos said. “It has bolstered the transformative agenda, which aims to strengthen humanitarian response, and our efforts to have a robust and well-coordinated UN-led humanitarian response in support of national efforts.”

Amos reviewed CERF’s work in supporting Syrians in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, refugees in South Sudan, and disaster response in Haiti and Cuba post-Hurricane Sandy. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon had also praised the fund’s range of services: “From flood zones to war zones, CERF stops crises from turning into catastrophes.”  Ban Ki-Moon emphasized the Fund’s ability to mobilize funds “in stubbornly under-funded situations” through its “quick, targeted support” mechanism.

CERF supports the following countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Burundi, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan, Uganda and Yemen. CERF selection criteria include humanitarian needs and analysis of funding levels. These situations include the Sahrawi refugee operation in Algeria, life-saving programs in Eritrea and agencies working in Afghanistan.

The objective is to target ‘forgotten’ or ‘neglected’ emergencies. A second round of allocating funding will follow in July 2013. Amos reiterated that the CERF continues to help millions of people “after the media spotlight fades.” She hopes more governments will cooperate with CERF in providing funds to those trapped in “hidden emergencies.”

“CERF is more than a message from the international community – it is a real help for the most vulnerable members of our human family,” concluded Ki-Moon.

– Rafael Panlilio

Source: UN News, UN News, OCHA

A Penny Saved, A World Changed? Diverting

A Penny Saved, A World Changed? Diverting
Let me start by saying that I love my dog.

When I’m not working on this blog I am teaching English to Ethiopian immigrants here in Columbus, OH. I work mostly with adults and so far the class has been a great experience and I learn a few neat things as I teach and converse with the students. Just the other day we spent a long time learning the new term “pet”. Most English speakers will be able to recognize that word and meaning right away because they have heard it or used it many, many times and they have the linguistic competence to use the word without thinking much about it. The first step of explaining the new word was easy enough and led to the understanding that these “pets” where animals. We would ask “Did you have any pets back home?” “Yes, three cows and a goat.”

We spent a few minutes more explaining the difference between domesticated pets and livestock and continued with the day’s lesson. One man asked whether pets should be called “it” or “he/she”. After answering that man’s question I realized how much we really do love our pets. To many pet owners, their animals are almost human. I’m much more than guilty of being “that dog guy”, I will talk to the dog of a stranger in a foggy park at dusk, I will share the bed with my dog and I’ll even talk to the dogs’ owners sometimes.

That being said, my dog is a dog. She (I still can’t call her “it”) may seem almost human, but she is just a dog. I was thinking about this recently as I stopped in the store to buy some dog food. My healthy, four-year-old dog eats generic, dry, boring dog food that comes in 50 lb. bags. Walking around the dog care aisle I saw designer foods that cost a hefty penny more and I remembered the simple fact that people love their dogs. But, what about the difference? One national name brand dog food is about $12.50 for about 18.5lbs. of food. One designer name brand food costs $29 for 15 lbs. Even if we disregard 3.5 lb. the difference in favor of the cheaper alternative that gives us about $16.50 saved. Now, $16.50 saved for every 15lbs of dog food will add up to a significant sum by the end of the year, especially with multiple dogs.

What if that money went to help other humans, other people? The idea of diverting isn’t anything new, save a bit of money on things here and there and give to a greater cause, but it does work. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t love animals, or that we shouldn’t occasionally spoil the creatures we spend so much time with, but maybe we could take a chunk of that saved change and share it with our human brothers and sisters as well, be it through groups like The Borgen Project or any organization you’d like.

– Kevin Sullivan

Photo: DoggySpace