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World Renew Tackles Global Poverty

From Asia to Uganda, World Renew, formerly known as The Christian Reformed World Relief Committee, is addressing the problems facing the most impoverished of communities all over the world. The name-change came in 2012 after the organization felt that that the work being done was growing larger and more significant. “The name better reflects who we are and what we are about as a trusted, established non-profit that is working to help eradicate the root causes of extreme global poverty through the renewal of relationships with God, neighbor, and the environment,” says World Renew’s Canadian director, Ida Mutoigo.

It is estimated that World Renew works with 1.86 million people who live in poverty in 35 different countries. This organization is known for its advocacy and quick responses to disasters like the 2011 earthquake in Japan or the conflict that currently exists in Syria. World Renew is also known for aiding with the systemic problems that affect the world’s poor. By focusing on things like AIDS, agriculture, literacy, health, the environment, sanitation and gender equality, the organization helps communities develop and thrive.

There are also unique programs where one can sponsor a refugee or “Free A Family,” where the charity works with a specific family with the help of a contributor’s donations and periodically gives the contributor updates on the family throughout the year. This program intends to provide a family with “nutritious food, clean water, improved health, and increased income.” Another interesting way World Renew helps is by providing materials for someone to throw his or her own “National Baby Shower,” an event where attendees can learn about child and maternal health.

World Renew also encourages individuals to create a campaign of their own by coming up with a “Passion Project.” In addition, there are 24 individual blogs on the World Renew website where volunteers focus posts updates on a specific country.

World Renew’s dedication to advocacy, disaster relief and community development has made change throughout the world. “Sometimes that change is as small as a baby chick, and sometimes it’s as big as community-wide peace-building and reconciliation between ethnic or religious groups,” says World Renew. Either way, its efforts have impacted the global poverty cause.

– Melissa Binns

Sources: Give.org,  The Rapidian, World Renew

How Corporations Fight Poverty

Corporations Fight Poverty
Private companies recently have been making global poverty a priority, squeezing their way into the realm where charities and governments once operated alone. Corporations fight poverty on a much larger scale and with greater resources. 

Western countries like Britain and the United States, as well as Australia and other countries, have started to put their faith in the private sector to develop economies and alleviate global poverty. IKEA is the largest donor to the United Nations refugee agency.

“There must be a major role for the private sector in the development sphere,” Julie Bishop, Foreign Minister of Australia, stated a few weeks ago. She said that a sturdy private sector promotes more jobs and growth and helps to reduce global poverty.

Private individuals, especially those who are wealthy, can play a large role in reducing global poverty through impact investment and philanthropy.

“The profit motive is viewed by many to implicitly mean ‘exploitation’. But that is not necessarily the case,” says Mark Ingram, owner of Business for Millennium Development, an organization that links big corporations with small markets in developing countries. “Business engagement with the poor can be designed with intentional mutual benefit.”

Impact investing, which is investing in socially responsible offers, funds poverty alleviation efforts and other social projects that may not be funded otherwise.

Impact investing needs to offer incentives to potential clients if it wants to encourage global poverty reduction. Mark Haefele, global chief investment officer at UBS Wealth Management, suggests using stronger policy and tax incentives, education-related initiative and social impact bonds.

Considering how much wealth is concentrated among individuals, the scale of poverty-related philanthropy will probably increase in the next years. Haefele also points out that corporations need to recognize that attempts to fight global poverty are more effective when funds are invested sustainably, and when they partner with other corporations or the government.

Banks also play an intermediate role between capital and social programs that can help alleviate global poverty.

As long as investors’ standards continue to shift towards reducing global poverty, the fight against poverty will strengthen even more as social and financial profits become more aligned with each other. At this point, no investor will be able to afford to ignore socially responsible investing.

– Colleen Moore

Sources: Sydney Morning Herald, FTAlphaville
Photo: Foreign Policy

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Kiva: Microfinancing and the Gift of Investment

kiva
Interested in empowering the poor? Look no further than Kiva, a San Francisco based nonprofit that has provided over $542,899,850 in small loans to poor entrepreneurs around the world. Founded in 2004, Kiva makes it easy for individuals to lend as little as $25 to provide affordable capital to beneficiaries and help them start or improve a small business.

This practice of lending is known as microfinancing, and Kiva operates under the idea that poor individuals are able to lift themselves from poverty if given access to the proper financial services, such as access to loans and savings accounts.

Kiva keeps things personal and helps prevent the dehumanization of the poor by connecting the lender and the borrower directly. Using a person-to-person setup, Kiva allows potential lenders to browse the stories, pictures and loan proposals of beneficiaries before choosing an individual to lend to.

Kiva loans have a 0% interest rate and 100% of each loan goes directly to the borrower. Kiva does not take a cut, rather, their business operations are funded through donations from various grants, corporate sponsors and foundations.

The lending process begins with the selection of Field Partners in the 73 countries where Kiva works. These partners consist of social businesses, schools, microfinance organizations or other nonprofits that are committed to using credit to empower the poor.

Kiva Field Partners identify borrowers, administer loans and send pictures as well as stories of the borrowers to a team of volunteers that translate the stories and publish them to Kiva.org. Lenders then browse these stories and are able lend anywhere from $25 to the full price of the loan to the borrower they select.

As the borrowers repay their loans, Kiva provides repayments to lenders. Kiva boasts an impressive 98.93% repayment rate over 1.2 million funded borrowers. Once loans are repaid, individuals can re-lend their money to another borrower – and another, and another.

Traditionally, credit is often available to the poor through informal or erratic means. However, in many cases, these informal moneylenders charge such high interest rates that business owners are left with little working capital.

Kiva’s work allows the poor to attain affordable credit, which opens the door to economic opportunity. Studies by the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) show that borrowing money helps households manage cash flow and regulate consumption as well as deal with everyday crises that may arise. Tangible impacts seen include households making greater investments in the education of their children, better nutrition and living conditions, and an increase in healthcare services when needed by members of the household.

In summary, using the resources provided by lenders via Kiva allows poor households, “to make the transformation from ‘every-day survival’ to ‘planning for the future.’”

– Madisson Barnett

Sources: Monica Brand: Stanford, CGAP, Kiva
Photo: Kiva

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Universal Healthcare to End Global Poverty

World map
World Bank president Jim Yong Kim spoke in Tokyo last week on how to promote economic growth in developing countries.  Kim says that the most crucial factor in poverty alleviation is universal health coverage. “Anyone who has provided health care to poor people knows that even tiny out-of-pocket charges can drastically reduce their use of needed services,” he said. “This is both unjust and unnecessary.”

According to the World Heath Organization, 100 million people fall into poverty each year due to medical expenses.  Kim believes implementing universal health insurance coverage in every country could help end extreme poverty by 2030.

In May 2013, Kim announced his support of universal health insurance coverage to the 66th World Health assembly saying, “We have the opportunity to unite global health and the fight against poverty in action focused on clear goals.”  These goals include decreasing child and maternal mortality, developing a monitoring framework for universal coverage, improving health education and performing scientific research on delivery techniques.

Last year the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution urging countries to eliminate point-of-service fees in order to make health care more accessible.  Now, Kim pushes developing countries to shift towards a universal model.  Japan has been providing universal coverage since 1961, when many thought it was not financially possible.  In Japan, a patient can pay a maximum of 30% of medical bills while the rest is paid through social insurance programs and taxes.

In the U.S., Kim has been a strong supporter of the Affordable Care Act, saying his only concern is that it doesn’t go far enough to expand access to medical care. Kim told those at the conference that universal healthcare is “one of the best things you can do to spur immediate and long-term economic growth … and one way of reducing inequality (which can) slow economic growth.”

– Stephanie Lamm

Sources: Aljazeera, The World Bank, Money News, Think Progress