Tag Archive for: Human Development Index

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How to Measure Women Empowerment

Since the landmark 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action that increased attention on women empowerment and women’s rights on the international stage, the movement towards gender equality has continued to expand. Women’s empowerment is a central key to reduce poverty and promote development around the world.

The Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) was developed in 1995 by the United Nations Development Programme to measure the relative empowerment of women in a specific country. The GEM supports the Human Development Index (HDI) by adding another measurement index to evaluate development.

The HDI is the leading composite index to measure a country’s social and economic development. This is a single statistic, which combines together a country’s life expectancy, education and income. This was developed to measure development as not just economic advances and increases in income, but to measure the improvements in the human condition. However, the HDI is limited because development contains a wide number of other factors that can measure human well-being.

Similar to the HDI, the GEM is a single statistic that focuses on three indicators: proportion of parliamentary seats held by women, percentage of women in economic decision making positions and income level. Although this statistic conveys the percentage of women in economic and political decision making roles, it does not reveal other more meaningful factors that measure women’s empowerment. Women’s empowerment is multi-dimensional and complex and requires a wider framework.

Measuring women’s empowerment can be broken down into five dimensions: economic, social and cultural, legal, political and psychological.

Economic empowerment includes having control over income and family resources, ownership of assets, opportunity for employment and access to markets and representation in economic decision-making roles. With economic empowerment, women can gain financial independence, enter the workforce, and have equal opportunity to gain positions of economic power.

Social and cultural empowerment includes absence of discrimination against females, control over their own bodies, freedom from sexual and domestic violence, having access to family planning services, greater visibility in social spaces and shifts in cultural norms that place women subservient to men. Social and cultural empowerment is essential to not only giving women control over their own bodies, but also providing them with education opportunities to better their lives.

Legal empowerment provides the framework for legislation that expands knowledge and awareness of legal rights. This will expand the opportunity for individuals to mobilize for increased women’s rights laws, utilizing the judicial system to create reform from above.

Political empowerment includes having the right vote, having knowledge of and the ability to be involved with the political system and being represented in local and national governments. Political empowerment creates female representation in the political system, while voting, lobbying and mobilizing empowers women to support policies and causes that they believe in.

Psychological empowerment involves self-worth and psychological happiness. Psychological empowerment comes with the acceptance of women’s rights and their inclusion in society.

There is no single indicator to measure how far women have come, and how much more women still have yet to go to achieve gender equality. Understanding the different dimensions of women’s empowerment is important to develop policies that will enhance gender equality and begin the shifts in cultural norms to promote women’s rights.

– Sarah Yan

Sources: Agrigender, La Follette
Photo: LitStack

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WaterAid America

WaterAid America
Water sanitation is an issue in development that receives minimal coverage when compared to its impact. Only recently the importance of access to clean water has gained international attention.

A lack of clean water not only makes basic tasks like washing, cooking, and drinking more difficult but also leads to widespread disease. Healthy members of the family are then burdened by taking care of the ill. Livelihoods are often impacted, with women often having to travel long distances to carry water back to their homes, missing out on education or economic opportunities and forcing children to take on responsibility roles in the household.

Established in 1981, WaterAid America works exclusively to provide safe water to at-risk communities globally. It currently works in 27 countries which are among the poorest countries in the world. A country must be on the lower end of the UNDP’s Human Development Index is a criteria for Wateraid to begin work.

The organization works with governments and other international NGOs, receiving funding from the U.S. and U.K. governments to carry out their work. They offer training to foreign departments which lack the resources or background to adequately handle their countries’ crises, thereby creating a sustainable solution rather than a short term intervention.

WaterAid’s impact was documented in Pulitzer Prize winning author Tina Rosenburg’s essay “The Burden of Thirst.” In it, she describes the immense difference made by having access to clean water. Hours previously spent gathering water are instead spent on gathering food or raising animals, diseases plummet and as such, families are no longer forced to care for sick relatives. Girls who previously bore the burden of fetching water are now free to spend their time getting an education.

The problem of unsafe water remains prevalent throughout the world. According to their website, today, 768 million people lack access to clean water and even more, 2.5 billion, lack sanitation.

– Farahnaz Mohammed

Sources: The Burden of Thirst

Angola Remains in Poverty Despite Economic Growth

Angolan children in Uige Angola
Though Angola is one of Africa’s leading exporters of oil, the country ranks 148 out of 187 countries on the United Nations Human Development Index. More than a decade has passed since a 27-year civil war displaced millions of Angolans and killed thousands more.

While the violent conflict involving three liberation movements and several foreign interventions has come to an end, many of Angola’s people continue to live in poverty.

Angola’s GDP has improved significantly since the war ended in 2002, growing 12 percent in 2012. Despite this progress, 67.4 percent of the country’s population lives on less than $2 a day, down from 70.2 percent in 2002. This reduction shows that poverty rates are decreasing, but the economy is growing at a much faster rate.

Foreign investors have provided funds for a national reconstruction program to rebuild the infrastructure destroyed during the civil war. The slums to which many fled during the war are being made over, and landmines are being cleared from formerly uninhabitable areas of the countryside.

While economic indicators seem to tout Angola’s transformation from a war-stricken wasteland to an up-and-coming African power, social indicators reveal that poverty remains an issue yet to be addressed.

President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos and the ruling MPLA party fiercely protect Angola’s image, controlling everything from the country’s economy to private media, but the peaceful image they project is far from the reality of most Angolan citizens.

While Angola’s investors and leaders enjoy immense material wealth, the country remains one of the most undeveloped states in the world. One in five children die before reaching the age of five, and almost 66 percent of people live in slums. Life expectancy hovers at around 51 years.

As Angola becomes an important part of the global economy, millions of its citizens continue to suffer from the long-lasting effects of a brutal civil war and a government focused more on abstract economic measures than true social change.

– Katie Bandera

Source: BBC, United Nations, Rural Poverty Portal
Photo: Reuters

Poverty in Guinea-Bissau

guinea-bissau-povertyThe Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a tiny country in West Africa that borders Senegal, Guinea, and the Atlantic Ocean. Its population is estimated at 1,600,000 people.

Guinea-Bissau is regarded as one of the poorest countries in the world as it has one of the lowest GDP per capitas compared to other nations. In 1998 alone, the GDP per-capita of Guinea-Bissau was only $173 compared to the per-capita GDP of the US at $29,683.

Today, the GDP per-capita of Guinea-Bissau has risen to $625.55. However, this level is still amongst the lowest in the world. Consequently, the population of Guinea-Bissau is suffering with a life expectancy of only 48 years in 2012.

Furthermore, Guinea-Bissau has one of the lowest Human Development Index scores. The poor nation ranks 176th out of 185 countries in 2013.

The economy of Guinea-Bissau relies primarily on agriculture, fish, and groundnuts as exports. In particular, the cashew nut exports have been vital to Guinea-Bissau. Yet in recent days, the exports have been on the decline. Cashew nut farmers have been unable to sell their produce as India, the prime importer of the nuts, has slashed its import size. Farmers are left holding tons of unsold cashews.

Guinea-Bissau’s economic depression is largely the result of a long period of political instability. The nation was a Portuguese colony until its declaration of independence on September 24, 1973. Guinea-Bissau was officially recognized as a country the following year following a socialist-inspired military coup in Portugal. From then on the country would be embroiled in civil unrest and several uprisings. Even now, the coup-prone country is severely embattled. In November 2008, the President of Guinea-Bissau was assassinated, following the death of the head of Joint Chiefs of Staff. In 2012, President Raimundo Pereira was deposed in yet another coup d’état.

Guinea-Bissau has yet to recover complete stability and its political chaos has severely affected its economic situation. Due to this very recent coup d’état, the country’s GDP has contracted 1.5% according to the African Development Bank Group.

However, projections for the future of Guinea-Bissau are not as grim as real GDP growth is expected to recover to 4.2%. Inflation, which had previously been at 5%, is expected to ease to 2.1%. Food imports are expected to decline with a rise in production and export of cashews for 2013.

– Grace Zhao

Sources: IRIN, African Development Bank Group, Info Please, Encyclopedia of the Nations
Photo: Wiki Spaces

10 Facts About Poverty in Benin

benin_children_global_poverty_international_aid__optBenin is a small country in West Africa with a population of roughly 10 million people. Once the site of Dahomey, a West African kingdom that thrived because of its involvement in the slave trade, Benin has been stricken by widespread poverty since gaining independence from France in 1960. Though Benin has a relatively stable democratic government, it remains one of the poorest countries in Africa. Listed below are ten facts about poverty in Benin.

1. Almost 40 percent of Benin’s population lives below the poverty line.

2. Initiatives supported by the IMF and the World Bank have helped Benin’s economy to grow an average of 4.0 percent annually over the past ten years, raising its national per capita income to $780 in 2011.

3. Benin’s economy relies mostly on the cotton trade, and agriculture is the main source of income for 70 percent of the country’s workforce.

4. Benin’s economy is vulnerable not only because it is based primarily on agriculture but also because re-export trade with Nigeria makes up roughly 20 percent of its GDP.

5. There are an average of 58.54 deaths per 1,000 live births in Benin, giving it the 27th highest infant mortality rate in the world.

6. 44.1 percent of Benin’s population is fourteen years old or younger.

7.  The life expectancy in Benin is 56.5 years, shorter than the life expectancies of 165 other countries.

8. Benin ranks 166th on the UN’s Human Development Index out of the 187 countries and territories evaluated.

9. Benin’s hospitals provided .5 beds per 1,000 people in 2010.

10. Extreme poverty has caused human trafficking to increase in recent years. Children can be sold to rich families in neighboring countries for as little as $15.

– Katie Bandera

Sources: World Bank, UNDP, The World Factbook, ABC News
Photo: Voice of Russia

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Understanding Hidden Hunger

Understanding Hidden Hunger
Sight and Life, a prominent group working to fight micronutrient deficiencies prevalent among the world’s poor, has recently released its Hidden Hunger Index. Hidden hunger is defined as a chronic deficiency of necessary micronutrients. Rather than a lack of food or calories, this type of hunger results from a diet low in specific nutrients. This condition affects approximately 1 in 3 people in the world today and accounts for about 7% of diseases around the world. Although the signs are not visible, hidden hunger has long-term consequences for overall health, productivity, and mental development. The most common deficiencies are in vitamin A, iodine, folate, and B vitamins. Women of reproductive age and young children are most severely affected by this condition.

In addition to its negative and often permanent health effects, hidden hunger has numerous economic consequences. It aggravates global poverty in multiple ways and minimizes countries’ growth in economic productivity. It also increases child and maternal mortality, causes birth defects, diseases, and disabilities. Unfortunately, it also restrains the empowerment of women by adversely affecting their health.

The Hidden Hunger Index concluded that hidden hunger in pre-school age children was alarmingly high in sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Afghanistan. High Hidden Hunger Index was found to correlate with low Human Development Index, a measure based on three basic qualities of human well-being: a long and healthy life, education, and standard of living. While many micronutrient deficiencies were found to occur in groups, iodine deficiencies were often found independently. This is probably due to differing country laws on salt iodization. Iodine deficiency accounts for approximately 18 million children born mentally impaired each year.

Hidden hunger and its related health issues are significant obstacles to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) laid out by the United Nations. The Hidden Hunger Index shines a light on micronutrient deficiencies and acts as a tool for activism. While there is information concerning hunger issues with root causes in a lack of food and calories, and about single micronutrient deficiencies, information about multiple micronutrient deficiencies is sorely lacking. Sight and Life developed the Hidden Hunger Index in the hopes that it will “serve as a tool to stimulate global efforts towards scaling up nutrition interventions”.

– Katie Fullerton

Sources: Micronutrient Initiative, Hidden Hunger Index
Photo: The Guardian