Tag Archive for: Global Poverty

Inflammation and stories on global poverty

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Embrace Infant Health in the Developing World

Embrace Infant Health in the Developing World

The Embrace infant health “sleeping bag” is an innovative, low-cost baby warmer, engineered for at-risk babies in developing countries. Around the world over 20 million low-birth-weight and premature babies are born every year, in the right environment, these babies can still thrive. However, in impoverished areas without resources or in turmoil, these babies are at risk of dying – and over four million will die within their first month of life. Amazingly, just keeping these newborns at the right temperature can be the difference between life and death.

The design of the Embrace incorporates materials that will stay a constant 98.6F, the critical temperature for a newborn’s survival. After being heated via any AC power source, the “WarmPak” inside the wrap traps the heat and then slowly releases it for up to 6 hours, keeping the “microclimate” inside the Embrace perfect for healthy development. Under normal conditions, a baby’s body temperature can be maintained through basic contact with the mother, but sometimes this is not always an option. Particularly for women who are working and/or caring for other children, who may be recovering from a traumatic birth, and those in disaster-relief and post-conflict settings.

The biggest problem these pre-mature babies face is hypothermia, when they cannot regulate their own body temperature and cannot stay warm. Average room temperature for these tiny bodies actually feels freezing to them. Those that can survive even without proper care will often develop life-long problems like diabetes, heart disease, and low IQ. Simply keeping a baby warm can save its life immediately and allow proper development in the long term.

– Mary Purcell

Source: Embraceglobal.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

10 Countries with the Shortest Life Expectancy

LifeExpectancy

The 10 countries with the shortest life expectancy can be found in one continent, Africa, with the exception of Afghanistan. Short life expectancy in sub-Saharan Africa can be caused by famine, poor governments, low levels of education (research has suggested that education correlates with healthcare awareness), availability of clean water and the existence of widespread AIDS. In Afghanistan, the main reason for short life expectancy has been due to infant mortality and women not surviving through childbirth. According to The Guardian, better access to healthcare in the last decade has helped cut infant mortality rates in Afghanistan.

What can we do? Well, donating and persuading our government to give more foreign aid helps solve the poverty issue. Once these countries move up, they can begin to fund higher levels of education, afford advanced agricultural tools which can help sustain growth, and improve healthcare.

(Listed top-to-bottom from the country with the shortest life expectancy)

  1. Chad: 48.69
  2. Guinea-Bissau: 49.11
  3. South Africa: 49.41
  4. Swaziland: 49.42
  5. Afghanistan: 49.72
  6. Central African Republic: 50.48
  7. Somalia: 50.80
  8. Zimbabwe: 51.82
  9. Lesotho: 51.86
  10. Mozambique: 52.02

– Leen Abdallah

Source: CIA World Factbook, The Guardian, Econs Guide
Photo: Google: Short Life Expectancy

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Obama’s State of the Union and Global Poverty

obama global poverty

President Obama’s State of the Union speech for 2013 is a grand vision of America, mapping out the ambitious future he sees for it. He spoke of fellow citizens who put their neighbors and civil “obligations” before their own needs, as examples of the American identity. He said, “America must remain a beacon to all who seek freedom.” And he affirmed the necessity to eradicate extreme poverty around the world, as a matter of principle and self-interest.

“We also know that progress in the most impoverished parts of our world enriches us all. Not only because it creates new markets, more stable order in certain regions of the world, but also because it’s the right thing to do.”

Obama went on to say that the United States would join with their international allies in a mission to end “extreme poverty in the next two decades.” A proclamation of concerted effort to connect more people to the global economy, to elevate women’s social status, encourage Americans to serve communities in need – to help them help themselves, save children from preventable death, and work towards eliminating AIDS.

Obama talked of Americans living in poverty, asking Congress to raise the minimum wage to $9.00 so that no one working full time would still have to suffer from lack of adequate pay. Additionally, he stressed how fare and free international trade would “support millions of American jobs,” thus helping to increase income for everyone.

In the President’s eloquent fashion, he connected the strength and honor of American citizens to citizens all over the world fighting for human rights and integrity. In the end, he asked citizens to be “the authors of the next great chapter in our American story.”

– Mary Purcell

Source: You Tube

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

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