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World TB Day 2018: The Global Fight Against Tuberculosis

World TB Day
Every year on March 24, World Tuberculosis (TB) Day is observed all around the world. World TB Day is an official global health campaign marked by the World Health Organization (WHO). The day is meant to bring awareness and response to Tuberculosis around the world.

The event commemorates the date that Dr. Robert Koch discovered Mycobacterium Tuberculosis in 1882. This is the bacteria that causes Tuberculosis. Thanks to modern medicine, Tuberculosis is now treatable and even curable, though it remains widespread through most of the world.

History of World TB Day

In 1982, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) proposed that March 24 should be World TB Day. This was in honor of the hundredth anniversary of Dr. Koch’s discovery. However, World TB Day was not officially recognized by the World Health Organization and United Nations until 1995.

Meetings, conferences and programs are being conducted around the world in support of the day. The goal of World TB Day is to not only spread awareness about what the disease does but also about how to prevent, treat and cure Tuberculosis. Many global health organizations have supported and promoted World TB Day since its installment, including the World Health Organization, the National Association of Country and City Health Officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The Goals of 2018

On March 24, 2018, the world observed its twenty-fourth World TB Day. The day outlined the international medical goals for this year and beyond. This year’s theme was, “Wanted: Leaders For a TB-Free World.” The World Health Organization is planning to completely eradicate Tuberculosis all over the world. However, that means putting a heavier stance on treatment and prevention methods, both of which will be a heavy influence in this year’s campaign.

The goal is to mobilize political and social movements about Tuberculosis and make further commitments toward eliminating the disease. A full set of campaign material and content about the 2018 day became available March 1 on the website for the Stop TB Partnership.

The Global Goal

As of 2018, Tuberculosis is still the world’s leading infectious killer. It is the cause of over one million deaths worldwide every year. The Stop TB Partnership has three main goals associated with World TB Day:

  1. By 2020, at least 90 percent of the people afflicted with Tuberculosis will have access to proper treatments and therapies.
  2. By 2030, end the current Tuberculosis epidemic.
  3. By 2035, completely eradicate the disease on a global level.

The partnership hopes to create a healthy future for the next and continued generations. By raising awareness about Tuberculosis, many global health organizations can increase funding for proper medical treatments in impoverished areas. Leaders and medical professionals still have a long way to go before people will be able to live in a completely Tuberculosis free world.

As medical advancements are escalated, diseases also escalate. Tuberculosis has mutated into many multi-drug-resistant strains, making prevention harder. In impoverished countries, where they have little to no advanced medicine, prevention and treatment are nearly impossible.

However, advancements toward the Stop TB Partnership’s goals have already started and will continue. The awareness and knowledge spread by World TB Day can slowly help move the world toward a disease-free future.

– Courtney Wallace

Photo: Flickr

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Global Citizen: Success Stories of the Global Poverty Project

Global Citizen: Success Stories of the Global Poverty ProjectThe Global Poverty Project, also known as Global Citizen, is an education and advocacy organization working to increase the number and effectiveness of people taking action to see an end to extreme poverty. Global Citizen’s advocacy work focuses on eight issues: girls and women, food and hunger, health, education, water and sanitation, environment, finance and innovation and citizenship.

Global Citizen has had success stories in these areas: 

  1. Girls and Women
    At the 2017 Global Citizen Festival, Accenture, Citi, Ernst & Young and Procter and Gamble committed to sourcing $100 million each through their supply chains from women-owned businesses, a majority based in developing countries. 
  2. Food and Hunger
    In 2017, the Executive Director of the World Food Program (WFP), David Beasley, confirmed that $575 million of $990 million committed by Congress in May, helped by 49,291 actions taken by Global Citizen, was released to the WFP and others to immediately fight famine.
  3. Health
    Over the past seven years, Global Citizen has taken 1.47 million actions to increase access to global health services, including HIV/AIDS treatment. These actions have led to 48 commitments by governments and are set to affect 626 million people by 2030.
  4. Education
     In Feb. 2018, Global Citizen held the first Global Partnership for Education (GPE) Financing Conference hosted jointly by a G7 leader, French President Emmanuel Macron, and the president of a developing country, Macky Sall of the Republic of Senegal. The conference was held in Dakar, Senegal, to support $2.3 billion for education in developing countries. GPE’s global ambassador, Rihanna, was present and spoke as well.
  5. Water and Sanitation
    At the Global Citizen Festival, Nigeria committed to getting 5.5 million people out of open defecation by the end of 2018. 
  6. Environment
    In the wake of Hurricane Irma, the United Arab Emirates Minister of Climate Change and Environment committed $50 million on the Global Citizen Festival stage to fund renewable energy supplies and another $10 million toward humanitarian relief in Antigua and Barbuda. 
  7. Finance and Innovation
    Global Citizen partners with the private sector to further fight poverty. One of the biggest successes was at the Global Citizen Festival in 2015, where the European Commission committed to increase support for the refugee crisis by €500 million over the existing development aid budget of the European Commission.
  8. Citizenship
    In 2017, over three million Global Citizen supporters’ actions helped to drive $5.7 billion in 143 commitments by calling upon leaders as a collective power to step up for the world’s most vulnerable.

Because of its advocacy and supporters, Global Citizen will continue to reduce poverty significantly in the coming years. 

– Julia Lee

Photo: Flickr

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Education in Pakistan Requires Improvements for the Future

Education in Pakistan
Education in Pakistan is provided by the Constitution of Pakistan, which agrees to provide free education to students between the ages of five and 16. In 2010, the eighteenth amendment to the nation’s Constitution stated that education was a fundamental human right guaranteed to every citizen.

Recently, there has been a decline in the quality of education in Pakistan for the following reasons:

  1. Lack of Proper Planning
    Pakistan is currently behind on its goals with the Millennium Development Project and Education For All. Both focus on improving education and breaking down the barriers that make access to education easier. For the past ten years, Pakistan has struggled with financial management and has not been successful meeting those goals.
  1. Social Constraints
    The problem is not centralized to the government alone. Social and cultural norms have gradually made education less of a priority, thus leading to the decline.
  1. Gender Gap
    In Pakistan, the enrollment of girls in school is 45 percent lower than the enrollment of boys. Pakistan’s society values conservatism, including a girl’s modesty, which limits a family’s willingness to send their daughter to school.

The delivery of education in Pakistan has been hindered by economic, political and security obstacles for the last 10 years, leading to an eventual decline in quality education. To combat this, organizations must use a top-down approach to be successful.

Luckily, the following two organizations are and have been working to alleviate this problem.

United We Reach

United We Reach (UWR) is a nonprofit organization that works to expand educational opportunities for children in socioeconomically stressed areas. In Pakistan specifically, it uses advanced technologies to create and distribute fully scripted lesson plans to students.

It is currently working on a project that integrates local Pakistani experiences with world-class education via tablets. In this project, every teacher at a UWR school is given a tablet that includes an inbuilt Learning Enhancement, Analysis and Feedback (LEAF) system, which acts as a teaching assistant. These tablets assess the student’s progress and send individual reports to the teacher so they know exactly which students are struggling and in what areas.

Global Partnership for Education (GPE)

Global Partnership for Education is the only global organization that is entirely dedicated to improving education in developing countries. It works to align policy-making and future planning to strengthen education systems. GPE has been working in Pakistan alongside UNICEF and USAID for the last six years.

Since it was launched in 2012, national spending on education in Pakistan has increased from 2.14 percent of GDP to 2.6 percent. This has created more jobs as more schools begin to open. While education is its primary focus, it also focuses on using education to improve the following areas:

  • Personal experiences of children with disabilities
  • Countries affected by fragility and conflict
  • Development effectiveness in international communities
  • Early childhood care
  • Girls’ education and gender equality
  • Knowledge and good practice exchange
  • Out-of-school children

While external forces will continue to affect education, its quality and its delivery, organizations like these will continue to balance out the process by working toward improved education systems in Pakistan.

– Chylene Babb

Photo: Flickr

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How to Improve Education for Conflict Areas in Africa

education for conflict areasAreas of conflict have many negative effects on the citizens that inhabit those areas. One of those negative effects is the quality of education. Conflict areas in sub-Saharan Africa, where warfare is prevalent, have the highest numbers of child soldiers; 300,000 soldiers between the ages of 10 and 24 are risking their lives in armed conflicts around the world instead of getting the education that they need. Education for conflict areas should be one of the main focuses of sub-Saharan African countries.

A survey conducted by UNICEF polling in the Central African Republic, Uganda, Chad and Nigeria found that 50 percent of respondents reported that schools have been forced to shut down or been damaged due to war conflicts. Additionally, the survey also found that in Nigeria 76 percent reported disruption to education due to conflict. This percentage was even higher in Uganda where 89 percent reported disruption to education.

Damaged schools along with unsafe travel to class, absent teachers and children being forced into war are all factors disrupting students’ education. In the same UNICEF survey, half of the respondents said that education is vital to providing the skills and opportunities that are needed while also promoting peace.

Some ways to improve education for conflict areas in African countries are to involve and correlate U.N. agencies, non-government organizations and local governments to respond to conflicts and promote education. Another way to improve education in areas of conflict is to create programs that are youth led and that promote nonviolence and tolerance. By promoting peace to youths it will encourage students to get an education as well as teach them to promote peace for future generations.

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is a nonprofit dedicated to bettering education around the world. GPE has been developing programs for youths out of school, including programs for education for conflict areas. These programs include developing ways to identify the number of children out of school and understanding the main obstacle to education. GPE also conducts assessments to create strategies and plans to promote education within individual countries’ governments and to create a dialogue with local education groups. The dialogue between local education groups gives support to decisions on promoting education.

The Effective Support in Fragile and Conflict-affected States policy by the GPE along with its Guidelines for Accelerated Support in Emergency and Early Recovery Situations is one example of how GPE is directly helping conflict areas such as the Central African Republic. These two policies coordinate decisions about how to utilize resources in crisis settings. One technique for doing this is to shift those decisions to non-governmental providers so that people get direct service during acute crises.

– Deanna Wetmore

Photo: Flickr

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Improving Education in Sao Tome and Principe

Education in Sao Tome and PrincipeLocated off the western coast of Africa is Sao Tome and Principe, where primary school is mandatory. The adult literacy rate in the country is 74.9 percent, according to the CIA World Factbook.

The quality of education in Sao Tome and Principe has been on the rise since 2014 due to the implementation of its Quality Education for All Project, which addresses the needs to improve the qualifications of teachers and get grants from organizations such as Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and the World Bank to support the project.

The main purpose of the project is to ensure that more teachers are trained properly. It also aims to make sure that there are more teachers available because, in the past, students have heavily outnumbered teachers.

According to GPE, around 60 percent of teachers are underqualified. The country seeks to remedy this through the project, as well as its Educational Policy Charter, which seeks to “Implement a…high-level training policy for teachers and other education officials to address the quality and efficiency challenges within the education system”.

The World Bank approved $3.5 million for the project just shortly after its implementation in May 2014. The GPE approved $236,600 for the development of the charter and $1.1 million for the project. The funds will be spent on increasing the quality of education in Sao Tome and Principe.

“The education sector has been and remains a priority in public spending in Sao Tome and Principe. Despite important achievements, the education system faces challenges with respect to efficiency, quality and governance,” said Gregor Binkert, World Bank Country Director for Sao Tome and Principe. “This project will help to bridge this gap and will ensure that the children in Sao Tome and Principe are learning the basic skills that will help them achieve a brighter future.”

The funding is also going to benefit schools. They will see technological upgrades as well as new purchases of materials for use in the classrooms, according to the World Bank.

Because of the grants, the country has seen multiple teacher training sessions and has made progress in various areas. The program has trained 26 preschool teachers and a teacher mentoring program was offered to teachers in every primary school.

“The interventions supported by the project will contribute to better teacher training and improvements in the quality of learning in pre-school and primary school for all children in Sao Tome and Principe,” said Geraldo Joao Martins, World Bank Task Team Leader for this Project. These strides are paving the way to an increase in the quality of education in Sao Tome and Principe.

– Dezanii Lewis

Photo: Flickr

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More US Involvement with the Global Partnership for Education

Cory BookerIn October, a resolution regarding the United States’ role in the Global Partnership for Education was introduced to the Senate and the Committee on Foreign Relations.

The resolution was introduced by Senator Cory Booker, a Democrat from New Jersey. The implications of the resolution are deeply tied to the future development of educational opportunities for children all over the world.

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) is the only global fund currently in existence that is solely dedicated to education in developing countries. It was established in 2002 for this purpose and aims to strengthen education systems with the goal of creating dramatic increases in the number of children actively attending schools and learning.

The GPE primarily works to achieve this goal by utilizing donors, international organizations, civil society, teacher organizations, the private section and private foundations. They are currently in the middle of the GPE 2020, a strategic five-year plan that began in 2015.

Senator Booker introduced a resolution to the Senate with various goals in mind, as well as the current obstacles and struggles facing underdeveloped nations where children lack adequate schooling or any form of education whatsoever.

As stated in the bill, the World Health Organization reported in 2011 that an estimated 90 percent of children with disabilities in the developing world do not attend school. Additionally, in 2016, the Global Education Monitoring Report found that an estimated 260 million children worldwide are not in school. Girls are statistically more likely to not be attending school than their male counterparts.

As also mentioned in the bill, the issue of lack of education is linked closely with the emerging threat of violence worldwide. In 1999, the World Bank released a significant study indicating that “every year of school decreases the change of male youth engaging in violent conflict by 20 percent.” Statistics such as these illustrate the far-reaching effects such a bill can have, and why education must be a top priority worldwide.

– Melanie Snyder

Photo: Flickr

Supporting a Global Education Ecosystem

Global Education EcosystemIn September, United Nation members met in New York City to discuss issues dealing with development all over the world. This includes the topic of global education and how to make education accessible to all students. The term “education ecosystem” is the main strategy that U.N. members are looking to instill in education systems to improve the progress of global education.

A global education ecosystem is a system in which a partnership of local government, donors, organizations and nonprofit organizations supports leadership development and innovation while also creating platforms for those leaders to share ideas and knowledge. Although some nonprofit organizations collaborate with local governments and local leaders, such as Global Partnership for Education and The Hunger Project, these organizations are not solely focused on education.

As of today, this type of ecosystem for education does not exist. According to a Matangi Tonga article, almost all of the $17 billion that goes toward education goes directly to local governments. This is a problem because programs created by organizations that could help education development are not getting any meaningful investments to further develop programs they have created.

Supporters of a global education ecosystem think that it is a good solution to developing education because an ecosystem for the global health sector has been successful. The global health ecosystem is a partnership of non-government organizations, civil society organizations, the U.N. and other government organizations. The collaboration of all these separate organizations has contributed to saving millions of lives as well as sharing knowledge so that growth and development can increase worldwide.

With this example of success, it looks as though an ecosystem for global education may be the solution to provide access for more students around the world. Organizations such as Teach for All are looking forward to an opportunity to collaborate with government and other organizations to attain the same goal: a strengthened sustainable global education ecosystem that supports educators and students.

– Deanna Wetmore

Photo: Flickr

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Education in Senegal

Education in SenegalSitting on the Northwest coast of Africa, the tiny country of Senegal is home to one of the most stable and liberated democracies on the continent. Despite its high unemployment and fertility rates, the World Bank classified Senegal as the second fastest growing economy in 2015—with a consistent annual economic growth rate of 6.5 percent.

Senegal’s youth population is exceptionally large, with those 14 and under accounting for 41.5 percent of the total population. Historically, Senegal has struggled with the prospect of developing human capital. The high influx of youth coupled with widespread poverty has left more than 40 percent of the total population illiterate in recent years.

Education in Senegal is free and compulsory until the age of 16. Since 2000, the nation has made significant headway in improving primary school enrollment rates— raising it from 69.8 percent to a steady 92.5 percent in 2009. However, the difficulty is in retaining students: many are discouraged from continuing education after the primary level because of untrained staff, challenging school environments and resource shortages.

The majority of teachers come in for short spurts of time as volunteers or directly out of their own schooling. More often than not, their lack of experience prohibits a comprehensive instruction of the syllabus, and the students fall unwittingly behind—unable to make up for their academic shortcomings within the necessary time frame.

Beyond this, teachers’ unions are continuously dissatisfied with their payment plans, benefits and work environments. Getting an education in Senegal often means dealing with strikes and other union collaboration that disturb the school year—leading to large, unnecessary gaps in the child’s education.

Due to such incidences, the overall achievement rate of secondary school graduates is only 50 percent, despite the public school system having a steady gross enrollment rate of 90 percent.

The struggle to continue education in Senegal past the elementary stage is most pressing for females, many of whom are removed from the system after physical developments and with the argument that it is vital to work within the home.

In 2010, UNICEF shared the story of Aisatou Ba, a young girl who was removed from school at the age of eight to work as a maid. Though she understood the imperative of schooling, the economic pressure placed upon her family made her capacity to augment income a priority.

Stories such as Ba’s run rampant throughout the rural parts of this nation, where surveys illustrate that school attendance from the ‘richest’ households is twice that of the poorest households. This means, even though education in Senegal is free, to many, it remains inaccessible. Even for those who wish to pursue secondary education, lack of resource makes it impossible to make each establishment equitable.

On top of this, statistics show that not only is the rate for girls in secondary school less than one in five, the literacy rate of women to men later in life is 6:10.

Furthermore, students are judged by their previous academic efforts and are forced to compete for a desk at a secondary school. Those who may not have performed well in their first six years of schooling—many of whom are victims of the uneven balance between familial obligations and school attendance—may even be placed in to a class size of 80 students to one teacher.

The cycle of poverty is perpetuated by this system: impoverished students slip out of the educational system without a second glance.

In 2003, the World Bank, in collaboration with the Global Partnership for Education, launched a project in Senegal by the name of Quality Improvement and Equity of Basic Education. The intention is to improve the educational environment at the primary school level, implement mathematics and science classes into the secondary schools and build institutions that are accessible to children in underserved areas.

This project will help provide more thorough instruction to the children already attending school. Futhermore, by bringing schools to poorer areas, it will mobilize impoverished children to seek the free education necessary to transform their lives.

– Briana Fernald

Photo: Flickr

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A Look at Education in Guyana

A Look Into Education in GuyanaWith at least 250 million children out of school, education remains a top priority for countries all over the world. The Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals had education-oriented targets that countries had to meet. While some countries did meet the targets for the Millennium Development Goals, a large portion of those countries were already developed, high-income countries.

Much like other lower-middle income countries, Guyana has had limited success achieving the Millennium Development Goal concerning primary education. The nation is located in South America, just north of Brazil and west of Venezuela. While it has made significant process in other areas, Guyana could do more for education.

Enrollment and Literacy
Perhaps the area with the largest room for improvement, Guyana only allocated about 4 percent of its GDP to education between 2006 and 2012. The lack of spending has led to a decrease in enrollment in primary school education, from 95 percent in 2005 to 84 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, the average amount of time a student should expect to receive education is approximately 10 years, or until they are 16 years old. Guyana’s total literacy rate is approximately 89 percent. The youth literacy rate, however, is 93 percent, suggesting that Guyana’s youth are becoming more educated overall.

Policy and Promotion
Although Guyana’s government has not allocated a large amount of money for education, it still utilizes other methods to promote staying in school. According to Guyana’s Ministry of Education, 2008 marked the beginning of the strategic plan intending to improve Guyana’s quality of education and increase the number of students prepared for the workforce. As recently as 2014, the Ministry of Education has created more plans to encourage students to complete secondary education.

Guyana has also created a large media campaign called “Read. Play. Love.” that stresses the importance of early education. Created through a partnership with the Global Partnership for Education, the campaign addresses parents of children under five and those who live in rural areas. The campaign provides a new way to instill the desire for lifelong learning in children.

Education in Guyana, as in any other country, is a complicated topic with no one-size-fits-all solution. Ways to innovatively address issues in education in Guyana can help lead to solutions for the rest of the world. With the increased spending by the government and more participation by parents, Guyana has the opportunity to make more improvements in education.

– Selasi Amoani

Photo: Flickr

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A Few Successes: Education in Mauritania

Education in MauritaniaTerrorism, corruption, slavery and poverty. These are some of the significant issues that plague most of the African continent. Some of the lowest education and literacy rates can be found in Africa. One of the primary ways a country can help its citizens and begin to climb out of poverty is by providing education. Despite enormous political and economic challenges, one nation is doing this: Mauritania.

Mauritania is a country of about 3.7 million people in the northwest corner of the continent, sharing borders with places such as Mali and Algeria. Given its geographical location and proximity to unstable countries, Mauritania faces egregious challenges both outside its borders and within them. This has undoubtedly made the pursuit of education expansion and overall poverty alleviation measures difficult to implement effectively.

The overall literacy rate in the country suffered a decline between 2000 and 2015. This is clearly a result of failed policies by the government to provide education for its people. When compared to its neighbors, Mauritania spends the least amount of GDP per pupil. The fact that its neighbors suffer from similar if not worse conditions than Mauritania makes this even more absurd.

However, in 2014, the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), a nonprofit fund dedicated to improving education systems in developing countries, began funding a new program in Mauritania. This new program is designated the Mauritania Basic Education Sector Support Project.

There has been a myriad of successes since implementation, most notably the 101 teachers certified under the Teacher Training Initiative curricula and the construction of 10 middle schools in rural areas. This project is continuing to provide training for administrative support staff as well as distributing pedagogical kits to students and schools.

In 2017, The Underrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization teamed up with the Association of Volunteers Against Illiteracy to improve education in Mauritania. This partnership sought to target specifically the Haratin minority by constructing two schools in the city of Nouakchott.

The project was a success, having provided education to over 70 women and children in just under four months. In addition to the school buildings themselves, the Education Spells Freedom project provided a bathroom facility, rugs and school supplies in order to improve the experience of attendees.

The challenges facing Mauritania will not be overcome quickly or easily. Education in Mauritania is a key starting point in the process of improving the lives of Mauritanians. The Education Spells Freedom project and the GPE program in the country should serve as a guide for future nonprofit organization initiatives regarding education in Mauritania and beyond.

– Daniel Cavins

Photo: Flickr