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Five Ways Global Communities Fight Poverty in Ghana

Global Communities Poverty in Ghana
A non-profit organization called Global Communities works to end poverty in Ghana with a 5-point plan in conjunction with USAID’s Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy.

The non-profit organization works in more than 20 countries around the world, with Ghana being a focus of the recent programs. Global Communities, created about 60 years ago, works with the private sector, governments and local communities to provide the “means and ability to live and prosper with dignity,” something it ensures under its organization’s vision.

The Maryland-based organization paired with USAID in support of the Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy to be implemented over the years 2014-2025. The program’s goal seeks to reduce chronic malnutrition by 20 percent over those 11 years. Global Communities has put forth these five goals in hopes of accelerating the fight against malnutrition in Ghana.

1. Provide more opportunities for economic growth through microfinance

Individuals who do not have access to the capital provided by large financial services corporations can gain access to funds through various microfunding institutions. These smaller companies allow a more intimate relationship between the lender and the borrower. Global Communities works through Boafo Microfinance Services in order to provide low-income Ghanaians with the money for new businesses, education and homes.

2. Build a more “resilient” Ghana by improving the nutrition in local diets

In order to reach this goal, Global Communities has partnered with the USAID/Ghana Resiliency in Northern Ghana (RING) program to “reduce poverty and improve the nutritional status of vulnerable populations.” The introduction of the sweet potato in local Ghanaian farms was a successful implementation of the partnership. Both USAID and Global Communities hope to educate communities on the importance of good nutrition instead of just providing temporary relief.

3. Create pathways for urban youth to become financially independent

Global Communities has joined the Youth Inclusive Entrepreneurial Development Initiative For Employment in opening up the construction sector to Ghana’s youth. In five of the biggest cities in Ghana, the initiative hopes to “reach more than 23,000 youth” by teaching them the skills for employment. Because Africa’s youth makes up a majority of the population, targeting this demographic is the most effective way to reducing poverty in Ghana.

4. Improve access to clean water and sanitation

Working with both the public and private sector, Global Communities is working to enhance the current water and sanitation infrastructure. With focus on “slum communities” in three cities, the non-profit seeks to optimize every individual’s condition while constructing water and sanitation services that can be sustainable. These efforts are paired with USAID’s Water Access Sanitation and Hygiene for the Urban Poor (WASH-UP) and USAID’s WASH for Health (W4H). An important part of the relief is affecting a change in behavior which can help create a poverty-free society that operates without relief.

5. Upgrade local neighborhoods and reinforce political and social institutions

After the basic needs of food, water and shelter are met, a society can begin to upgrade its political, economic and social conditions. Global Communities, with the Bill & Melinda Gates SCALE-UP program, echoes this idea as it reinforces educational and financial institutions for residents in the low-income communities of Accra and Sekondi-Takoradi. The expansion of government services, such as female inclusivity and public transportation, in those regions is being implemented through the Our City, Our Say project.

Global Communities is just part of a larger non-profit coalition fighting against global poverty in Ghana. The process includes numerous programs with funding from various foreign governments, each generating results through their focus on different parts of the Ghanaian society. Readers can follow the various programs and outcomes on the Global Communities website.

– Jacob Hess

Sources: Global Communities 1, Global Communities 2, USAID 1, USAID 2
Photo: Borgen Project

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The Emergence of the Sweet Potato

Sweet-Potato‘Alafie Wuljo’ – otherwise known as healthy potato – has recently become one of Ghana’s most famous crops. This sweet potato variety was introduced in a USAID project in order to counter vitamin A deficiency, a condition that weakens the immune system and can lead to blindness. The project’s main goal is to improve the livelihood and nutritional status of Ghana’s most vulnerable populations.

Sweet potatoes are primarily beneficial to children, whose vitamin A requirements can be met simply by eating the healthy potato. Notably, the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey states that “28 percent of Ghanaian children under the age 5 are stunted, 7.5 percent are wasted, and 13.9 percent are underweight.” Therefore, the emerging sweet potato is necessary to improve the health of starving and malnourished children.

The International Potato Center (CIP) plans to reach 15 million households in the next 10 years by responding to the demand for the orange-fleshed sweet potato. The CIP director states, “We can soon claim to have reached a milestone in our history by reaching one million households in Africa with sweet potato – preventing blindness and stunting in children along the way.”

The little orange potato has assisted Ghana’s vulnerable communities while also bringing camaraderie to villages. At one of the communities’ harvest celebrations, young children were taught how to cook the potatoes and now everyone wants to grow these crops.

The expansion of crops in Ghana, however, is not the only focus of USAID’s project to diminish malnutrition in Ghana. Aside from agricultural initiatives, efforts to improve the lives of villagers include areas such as clean water, sanitation and hygiene. All of these factors are interrelated and can work together to improve standards of living.

Through the use of new crops in Ghana, USAID aims to decrease chronic malnutrition, measured by stunting, by 20 percent through the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future Initiative and Global Health Initiative, the Office of Food for Peace development programs, resilience efforts and other nutrition investments.

– Megan Hadley

Sources: USAID 1, USAID 2, JSI, The World’s Healthiest Foods, My Joy Online
Photo: Google Images

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Nutrition Strategy Counters Vitamin A Deficiency in Ghana

Ghana Vitamin A Deficiency
As a leader in fighting extreme global poverty, government agency USAID is currently revolutionizing health and nutrition for northern Ghanaians. In order to counter the vitamin A deficiency from which many people in Ghana suffer, USAID introduced the sweet potato to the country. Since its introduction, the sweet potato has become one of the region’s most popular vegetables, USAID reports.

The implementation of the sweet potato is part of USAID’s 2014-2025 Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Strategy. The project is aligned with the 2025 World Health Assembly Nutrition Targets and focuses on decreasing chronic malnutrition and improving other nutrition investments. According to USAID, over one-third of children under the age of five, in five northern districts, suffer from stunted growth resulting from poor nutrition, so the strategy is crucial for bettering the future generations.

USAID team members visited Ghana last year and taught 439 women in 17 districts how to grow the sweet potato. The crop instantly became admired, with villagers calling it “Alafie Wuljo,” or “healthy potato” in the Dagbani language. Ghanaians have also been taught different ways to cook the potato, such as schoolchildren enjoying sweet potato fries.

“Now everyone wants to grow orange-fleshed sweet potatoes,” said the head of the project, Phillipe LeMay, in a USAID article.

The Nutrition Strategy goes beyond just the sweet potato. The project also focuses on educating farmers about other nutritious crops, linking farmers to markets, helping community members create savings and loans, promoting better hygiene and improving water and sanitation infrastructure.

USAID and the government of Ghana aim to change the lives of roughly 300,000 people with this project. Northern Ghana is an area of particular focus because it is relatively remote with a harsh climate and limited resources. This work will also be assisting with the goals of the U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future. Feed the Future aims to decrease child stunting by 20 percent and double incomes of vulnerable households. With USAID tactics, this is becoming a reality.

The project has received positive responses thus far. The Ghanaian government has taken the initiative to promote a solution to vitamin A deficiency and nutrition in general, according to USAID, which has beneficial long-term effects. The organized training provided by USAID has also educated many people on how to practice proper sanitation and good nutrition.

“I now understand the links between poor sanitation, diarrheal diseases and nutrition,” said West Gonja District member Ama Nuzaara, in a USAID article. “I also make sure that my children wash their hands with soap and water after they use the toilet. I do this for my family’s health and well-being.”

– Kerri Whelan

Sources: USAID 1, JSI, USAID 2, Feed the Future
Photo: Feed the Future

Using Nutrition to Improve Literacy in Afghanistan

Literacy_in_AfghanistanNutrition and Education International (NEI) is aiding the Afghanistan government in carrying out nutrition programs that aim to improve literacy in Afghanistan.

Education has been a priority of the Afghan government postwar, but childhood stunting is affecting brain health and learning development in Afghan children. Studies have linked childhood stunting to poor cognitive development.

A third of Afghanistan’s population falls short of daily calorie needs, with 20 percent of the population lacking enough protein in their diet and 40 percent of children ‘stunted,’ or small for their age.

“A malnourished mother has a higher risk of delivering a fetus that is malnourished, small for its gestational age, and sometimes even premature,” explained child-health expert Zulfiqar Bhutta. “By virtue of this handicap, these babies often have issues with lifelong learning.”

To tackle the issue of food security in Afghanistan, NEI has been working with local governments and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) to encourage the farming of soybeans.

Soybean was selected because it contains high-quality protein, zinc, iron and plenty of calories. In a country recovering from a war, cultivating soybeans is the most economical option.

NEI program has also provided employment and education for Afghans. NEI has trained over 70,000 farmers on cultivating soybeans and how to turn them into flour and milk.

Soybean is not a traditional part of the Afghan diet or landscape and the endeavor was initially met with criticisms, but with government support and local trainers that teach villagers about the benefits of soy, the program has expanded.

In 2014, the Republic of Korea contributed $12 million to the WFP to build Afghanistan’s first soy milk factory. The leftover soybean pulp will be distributed to local women as chicken feed in order to encourage them to raise poultry and generate income.

NEI aims to eliminate protein malnutrition all over Afghanistan by aid farmers in producing 300,000 metric tons of soybeans, which in turn will provide growing children with more protein in their diets, which then has a direct effect on increasing literacy in Africa.

– Marie Helene Ngom

Sources: WFP, Project Literacy
Photo: Google Images

 

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Improving Nutrition Boosts IQs in Developing World

As Nutrition Improves, Developing Countries Get Smarter
To say poverty is a complex issue is an understatement. The conditions that lead to and perpetuate poverty occur across levels, making it different for individuals, organizations and governments to address. Targeting initiatives toward healthy individual development is imperative to reduce poverty in the long-term.

Poverty, at its core, is a stressor. An inability to gain access to proper nutrition, quality medical care and education greatly affect the well-being of individuals and families.

For children, the effects of extreme poverty are magnified, which has implications for brain development, psychological well-being and ability to handle conflict. Iodine deficiency, which is common in developing countries, can lead to neural tube defects during pregnancy, especially if the fetus is female.

Iodine deficiency is the most common preventable cause of mental retardation in children; the CDC estimates that 18 million children worldwide are born disabled as a result of the deficiency. Currently, two billion people are at risk for iodine deficiency.

Iodine, in addition to other micronutrients, is critical for healthy brain development and functioning. Initiatives to address micronutrient deficiency work to not only reduce world hunger but also ensure that children can have healthy brain development.

Ensuring healthy brain development is not just preventing deficiencies, it gives children increased potential to develop abstract thinking skills. As noted by James Flynn, a psychologist who researches global patterns of IQ scores, intelligence increases as societies modernize.

Through modernization, individuals are more likely to have access to education, have more cognitively demanding work and utilize logic more often in their daily lives. In turn, critical thinking becomes more necessary and there is a need for individuals to have strong working memory and abstract thinking skills.

Flynn has also documented the “Flynn Effect”: as societies develop, the average IQ score increases. This is happening rapidly in developing countries; Kenya, for example, has seen an eleven point increase in IQ scores over a fourteen-year period. In contrast, the U.S. has seen an eighteen point increase over a 55-year period.

While it is difficult to untangle all of the factors contributing to developing countries’ increasing IQ scores, access to education and better nutrition are most likely strong influences on this gain. These countries are developing and modernizing simultaneously, which accelerates the increase in intelligence scores.

Flynn also argues that, in developed countries, the trend towards smaller families have exposed children to more adult speech, which further improves a child’s intelligence. Perhaps it is arguable, too, that as impoverished communities gain access to medical care and family planning and the birth rate reduces, these children reap similar benefits.

As organizations continue to implement programs fighting world hunger and reducing micronutrient deficiencies, this gain in IQ scores for developing countries is an important reminder that at its core, development work is an investment.

Investing in nutrition for individuals in poverty can bring better brain health, which leads to improved academic performance and increased resiliency, thus empowering people both now and in the future.

– Priscilla McCelvey

Sources: CDC, Vintage Books, Scientific American, UNICEF
Photo: Flickr

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6 Reasons Breadfruit Can Solve World Hunger

Breadfruit Could Solve World Hunger
What is breadfruit? Although it sounds fictitious, it is actually a real food with the potential to contribute to the eradication of world hunger.

Breadfruit is shaped like a football and has a prickly texture. The fruit grows on trees and is highly nutritious. It is not well known because many people find it bland and tasteless.

However, there are 6 reasons why food critics should stop turning up their noses at this fruit and they all pertain to helping starving people.

  1. Breadfruit is native to the Pacific Islands and grows best in sunny and humid climates. About 80 percent of the world’s hungry live in tropical and subtropical regions. Because these regions are best for these trees, the fruit has the potential to feed thousands of hungry people.
  2. Breadfruit trees grow easily and begin to bear fruit within three to five years. They are not high maintenance and continue to produce fruit for decades. On average, larger trees can produce between 400-600 fruits while smaller trees can produce approximately 100 fruits.
  3. Breadfruit is nutritious. It is high in fiber, carbohydrates, calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, thiamine, and niacin.
  4. Breadfruit can be prepared in a variety of ways including fried, frozen, fermented, pickled, boiled, baked, and roasted. It can also be ground into flour.
  5. Currently, there are pilot projects working to distribute the fruit to places in need such as Honduras and the Caribbean. The Breadfruit Institute in Hawaii is a member of the Alliance to End Hunger. With their hard work and the work of other organizations such as Trees That Feed Foundation, breadfruit has fed people in Jamaica, Kenya, and Haiti.
  6. There are many fans advocating for the fruit. Olelo pa’a Faith Ogawa, a private chef says, “I feel it’s the food of the future. If I were to speak to the breadfruit spirit, it would tell me: ‘Grow me! Eat me! It can feed villages!’”

– Kelsey Parrotte

Sources: Business Insider, National Tropical Botanical Garden, Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post

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UN Promotes Breastfeeding

On August 1, 2014, the United Nations kicked off World Breastfeeding Week in the hopes of launching a worldwide initiative to educate and encourage more mothers to breastfeed. World Breastfeeding Week is celebrated in 170 countries around the world from August 1 to August 7.

This year’s particular celebration is focused on promoting the link between breastfeeding and the Millennium Development Goals, especially MDG 4: decreasing child mortality.

Among the United Nations officials launching the start of this week was Executive Director of the U.N. Children’s Fund, Anthony Lake. In a statement marking the importance of World Breastfeeding Week, Lake stressed, “Immediate breastfeeding within the first hour of birth could prevent one in five unnecessary deaths…that’s more than 500,000 children every year, more than 1,500 children every day.”

Breastfeeding not only supplies good nutrition for infants, but also reduces the risk of malnourishment and the risk of obesity later in life. “By supporting nutrition and strengthening the bond between mother and child,” said Lake, “breastfeeding also supports healthy brain development.” Breastfeeding also helps prevent growth stunting, a tragedy that affects millions of children every year both physically and cognitively.

Although breastfeeding is the most cost-effective and healthy way to support young babies, fewer than half of the world’s newborns are breastfed regularly.

In order to change this, UNICEF is working with governments and local communities to end false marketing and the use of breast milk substitutes, in order to make it easier for women to breastfeed their infants.

Dr. Noel Zagre, the UNICEF Regional Nutrition Advisor for Equatorial and Southern Africa, explained that too often people talk about breastfeeding in general terms. However, the important thing is to teach mothers how to breastfeed effectively, meaning putting the child on breast milk no more than an hour after birth and continuing to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months of life.

Although the number of children under the age of five that die each year has declined in recent decades, there are still nearly seven million that die every year. Forty percent of these children are newborns.

Dr. Zagre noted evidence that “many countries are not yet doing very well even though we know that we have also observed a lot of progress in other countries…some countries are still having very low exclusive breastfeeding rates like five percent while others are…reaching 89 to 95 percent.”

The United Nations is determined to institute plans to promote breastfeeding and educate communities and governments around the world about infant health and the importance of breastfeeding effectively. Although progress has been slow, Dr. Zagre noted the importance of bridging the gap between these startling statistics.

– Cambria Arvizo

Sources: UN 1, UN 2, All Africa
Photo: Tribune

New Fish Drying Method Feeds Burundi

A new fish drying method pioneered by a tiny U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization project in Burundi has had tremendous results. Instead of laying the sardine-like ngagala in the hot sand, raised racks were implemented to dry the fish. This simple strategy has cut fish waste by half, created employment for hundreds of Burundians and caused a boost in the economic prospects of fishing.

Ndagala have been a staple of the Burundian diet for centuries. With some 60 percent of Burundians currently lacking the essential amount of protein in their diets, the nutrients from ndagala are a precious commodity.

However, before the FAO project, the ndagala drying process was wasteful, inefficient and extremely physically taxing.

The old method of drying the fish took place on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in Burundi. Women laborers would lay the ndagala on the sand to dry in the sun, where they were easy targets for animals and ran the risk of being trampled and contaminated.

According to the FAO, around 15 percent of the fish catch was lost or spoiled during the drying process.

But 10 years ago, with the help of Burundi’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, FAO launched a project in a village called Mvugo. This project installed 48 cheap wire-mesh racks suspended a meter above the ground, offered training and distributed leaflets on how to build the racks.

The benefits of this tiny project were almost immediately apparent.

This new method reduced drying time from three days, to only eight hours. The racks protect the fish from animals, and can be covered from the rain to prevent spoilage. Workers need not bend over to spread and turn the fish, reducing the physical toll of the labor.

The overall quality of the fish improved. According to rack owner Domitien Ndabaneze, “Our fishes are of a good quality without small gravel or stones and they are dried in hygienic conditions. With our products, customers are no longer concerned with eating sandy fish.”

The price of fish has more than doubled, from 4,000 Burundian francs in 2004 ($2.5/kg), to 9000 ($6/kg) in 2013. The increasingly lucrative trade has attracted more men workers, and the total acreage dedicated to fishing on the shores of Lake Tanganyika has expanded dramatically.

Manufacturers of the racks have sprung up on the coastline, and thanks to the increased shelf life of the fish they can be transported inland to feed other Burundi villages.

This impactful project is an example of how small-scale solutions can have large-scale benefits. The FAO plans to continually promote and strengthen the use of drying racks in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Zambia, in hopes that more villagers will experience the life-improving benefits of this simple invention.

–Grace Flaherty

Sources: FAO, UN
Photo: UN

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What Do We Really Know About Our Food?

food
The average person makes approximately 200 food-related decision per day. This statistic makes it seem as though food is one of the few things over which we have control. Or do we? While the choice is entirely up to each individual, do we always have all the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision?

Socially learning which foods are poisonous and which are nutritious was a crucial evolutionary step. But in the era of the grocery store, information about food is abundant and often confusing. What is more, food information provided by labels, the media or even so-called independent reviewers usually comes with ulterior motives.

According to Public Health Perspectives blogger, Beth Skwarecki, the concept of nutrition can be manipulated for marketing purposes or to even create a fear fad. Take, for example, the controversial topic of genetically modified organisms. There is so much information both against and for it that most of the information is more confusing than informative to consumers.

As a teacher of nutrition at a community college, Skwarecki says that it is important for people to develop their “baloney detectors.” Once you understand the science behind each topic, it is much easier to make an informed decision.

This method might work in developed countries, but what about people in poor countries? Residents of the industrialized world have better access to information, so that if someone takes the time to research the issue, he or she can make better food choices. But what about people in developing nations that depend on foreign aid to cover their most basic nutritional needs?

Low income and food insecure people are the most vulnerable to lack of nutrition. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, while substantial progress has been made over the last decade in agricultural practices, progress in nutrition and health of poor farmers and consumers in developing countries is still slow.

One of the strategies proposed is to increase access to nutritional food. However, this also means implementing educational programs that would allow people to understand where their food comes from, and where to find the most added-value nutrition.

So whether it is for people in advanced nations or in the developing world, one of the most important elements to nutrition is having access to correct information. In the end, this comes back to the most basic notion of having a say in what we eat, and how we allow the content of our food to impact our lives.

-Sahar Abi Hassan

Sources: Public Health Perspectives, International Food Policy Research Institute
Photo: The World Bank

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What Soylent Could Mean For World Hunger

world_globe_borgen_africa
In 1973, the sci-fi film “Soylent Green” portrayed a dystopian future society characterized by overpopulation and the effects of global warming in which the people ate wafers to survive. At the film’s conclusion, everyone becomes privy to the fact that the wafers are actually made of people. Four decades later, a group of three men in their twenties have taken the idea of everyone eating one easy food to survive and produced their own product called Soylent, thankfully people free.

When Rob Rhinehart and his team sat down to create this meal replacement, they decided that they needed to pull out all of the essential nutrients needed for health and functioning and combine them to make one super drink. With that goal in mind, they developed a powdered drink with what has been described as a “doughy” nature. You add water, drink a meal’s worth and you can power through the rest of your day.

Soylent consists of sodium, fatty acids, zinc, manganese, potassium, phosphorus, calcium, fiber, protein, iron, magnesium and a slew of vitamins. Despite its name, there are only trace amounts of soy, and Rhinehart’s team is currently in the process of getting a gluten-free version out on the market. Rhinehart claims that you can live on Soylent, and Soylent has made up 90 percent of his diet for the past year and a half.

There is speculation, however, about how much necessary nutrition one actually gets from living off of Soylent. Lee Hutchinson from Ars Technica, who has purchased large boxes of Soylent to supplement the occasional meal, has written numerous articles about living on Soylent and what Soylent could mean for busy, anti-cooking people. She explains that, while the types and amounts of nutrients in Soylent are based on U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowances, “It’s still not wholly certain that simply hitting roughly 100 percent of the RDA standards is enough.”

Likely in anticipation of this criticism, Rhinehart stated that the ingredient list would change and evolve as their product made progress on the market.

So far, Soylent is being marketed toward the busy workaholics who simply can’t fit in the time for meal preparation and would rather mix up a powdered drink to get them through the day. As an added plus, Soylent is markedly cheaper than weekly groceries, with a month’s supply costing only $70.

Little is being said, though, about how Soylent could prove to be an important product in feeding the world’s hungry. The past and current packaged food products that are being sent to impoverished areas like sub-Saharan Africa have had mixed success. MANA nutrition, which produces packets of peanut paste that require little preparation, are cheap and instrumental in helping bring people back from the brink of starving to death. What it lacks is the minimal nutrition Soylent provides people — something that is important in improving quality of life.

Another widely used food supplement was produced as a powdered milk substance, similar to Soylent in that you simply add water. Again, there is a lack of essential nutrients in milk, but it was easy for many families and efficient to produce and distribute.

One issue that Soylent would face, were it implemented as a source of food aid, is the water mixing aspect. In some poverty-stricken areas, plentiful, not to mention clean, water is often a precious resource rather than an abundant luxury. This is an issue that the powdered milk supplement faced, as the lowest possible maintenance necessary will often see the best results.

There are other potential problems with providing people with Soylent to survive on. Innovative Development brings up the fact that chewing is an essential action to establish proper functioning of the digestive system. They also explore the option that people who have been exposed to war and famine may have different dietary needs. The introduction of Soylent to a fragile body system may have unforeseen negative effects, particularly on children whose bodies are just developing.

At this point, Soylent isn’t necessarily ready to be shipped out en masse to Africa, but it does have its perks for addressing world hunger. Often, approaches to feeding the poor focus on survival, which is of course an important aspect. But beyond that, nutrition is incredibly important for establishing a healthy, stable society where people can be productive and live in a happy environment.

– Magdalen Wagner

Sources: The New Yorker, Ars Technica, Soylent, Innovate Development, Seattle Gluten Free