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Alleviating Elderly Hunger in South Korea

Hunger in South Korea
A quick economic recovery after the end of World War II and the signing of the Korean War Armistice in 1953 has mitigated growing rates of poverty and hunger in South Korea. Poverty, however, is a particular threat to the elderly population in South Korea, which has been aptly named the “forgotten” generation.

According to a 2011 report by the government-funded Korea Labor Institute, 48.6% of the country’s elderly — individuals aged 65 and over — struggled with relative poverty. Relative poverty, as opposed to absolute poverty, is defined as earning 50% or less of the median household income.

More recently, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that approximately half of the country’s elderly were living in poverty in 2015. This poverty rate has been considered the highest among the 34 nations studied by the OECD.

Pastor Choi Seong-Won has been an organizer of a weekly mobile-kitchen for 18 years. He has helped to alleviate the economic hardships of the elderly homeless by providing lunches over the weekends. Seong-Won told CNN that the reason for this emergence of elderly poverty and hunger in South Korea “is the more than two years of serious economic crisis in Korea, along with the global economic downturn. Wealthy people will be fine no matter the situation, but people going through economic struggles say now is a really difficult time.”

Other local churches in Korea have fed 300 to 500 seniors as they lined up for food. However, charitable meals will not solve the problem of elderly poverty and hunger in South Korea alone.

Bernard Rowan, professor of political science at Chicago State University, also discussed the causes of poverty in the Korea Times. Rowan cites population growth among the elderly in Korea shifts in cultural traditions as causal factors. Traditionally, Korean culture has placed great emphasis on respecting seniors. The present-day lifestyle, however, has left many parents and grandparents to find work for themselves.

“That may include their emotional lives too,” Rowan explains. “A great many live incredibly alone.”

A Rise in Suicide Rates

Yet, these rates in poverty among the elderly have not only affected hunger in South Korea but have also contributed to higher rates of suicide. According to Statistics Korea, 50.3 out of every 100,000 Seoul citizens 60 years or older took their lives in 2014, the highest rate among all Korean age groups.

Seventy-year-old Seong Young-sook expressed her struggles to a CNN reporter saying, “I feel that my generation is being forgotten.” She continued, “I tried to kill myself next to my husband’s grave. Someone discovered me and I survived.”

Given that elderly poverty and hunger in South Korea are both affecting suicide rates, strategy and swift action are key to alleviating the problem.

Brainstorming and Enacting Solutions

In order to relieve elderly hunger in South Korea, the government recently updated its 1988 national pension system, now offering a “basic pension” retirement program. This expansion targets the poorest seniors and provides them with less than $200 a month.

The government plans to reach 90% of the population over the age of 64 by 2060.

Rowan also shared strategies to help reduce poverty among the elderly. The author suggests increasing the number of employment and volunteer opportunities for Korean elders in order to tap their knowledge and experience as well as continue to engage the demographic.

Kim Bok-soon, author of the Korea Labor Institute report, also offered a similar solution that goes beyond the pension program. He believes that the government’s labor market policy should be revised to accommodate elderly workers.

Public officials must continue to take action to alleviate elderly hunger in South Korea as well as high suicide rates.

– Priscilla Son

Photo: Flickr

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Tax Inspectors Without Borders

financing-for-developmentTax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB), convened at the Third International Conference On Financing For Development back in July, is a joint operation between the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the United Nations Development Programme.

TIWB will play a vital role in unlocking billions of dollars over the 15-year course of the Sustainable Development Goals.

TIWB’s strategy has evolved out of the revelation that every year, roughly $3 trillion in government revenue goes uncollected due to tax avoidance.

IMF researchers estimate that developing nations lose $213 billion each year for those reasons. Finding a way to get their hands on that money could help those governments invest more in education, health, energy, infrastructure and the like.

Tax law can be dense, confusing and hard to follow, especially when multinationals make it that way on purpose. For this reason, TIWB will send in highly trained tax accountants and audit specialists that will work with national tax agencies. They will strengthen tax audit capabilities and help design smarter tax policies.

The details are less exciting than the results.

Pilot projects are underway in Europe, Latin America and Africa, all of which are helping national governments increase revenue stream that will be vital for financing the Sustainable Development Goals. The numbers speak for themselves. From 2011 to 2014, tax revenue in Colombia increased from $3.3 million to $33.2 million.

TIWB is extending the hard work of previous initiatives including the Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation and the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

They all arose in an environment where multinationals are gaining in power and influence and governments around the world are strapped for cash. In trying to rebalance the scales, they are looking for everyone to pay their fair share.

The money that will come from more effective regulation will be crucial for funding the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, the expertise and training that the TIWB will provide to developing country governments around the world is an extension of the philosophy embodied in the SDGs themselves.

This form of technical training and capacity building will lead to more professionals in developing countries and their skills will become necessary to help their countries develop.

– John Wachter

Sources: The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2, OECD 1, OECD 2, UNDP
Photo: TaxLinked

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5 Ways to Ensure Effective Health Aid Dispersal

Health AidNot all aid is created equal. In the fight against global poverty, ensuring sufficient funds for aid programs is only half the battle. The other half is ensuring that aid is results-oriented, transparent, expedient and cost-effective.

During the second High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Paris in 2005, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries formulated the Paris Declaration. This declaration was meant to set benchmarks for how to measure the five key categories of effective aid: ownership, alignment, harmonization, results and mutual accountability.

While these five categories are intended to measure the effectiveness of all kinds of aid, they are particularly pertinent to health aid. Developing public health infrastructure in poorer countries is the “gift that keeps on giving,” ideally continuing to serve local populations well after aid has ceased. Thus, a robust public health outcome is an ideal metric to judge the quality of aid using the five categories of the Paris Declaration.

1. Ownership

Ownership, according to the Paris Declaration, involves partner countries exercising “effective leadership over their development policies and strategies.” This category is a measurement of how much aid recipients are involved in developing and executing programs that actually take advantage of the aid they are receiving. Aid strategies have traditionally assumed that once a country reaches middle-income status, it will have sufficient resources and self-interest to invest in public health, but unfortunately, this is not always the case.

For example, Nigeria is technically a middle-income country, but it spends less on public health than Rwanda, which a low-income country. Health aid can really only be considered effective if countries take ownership of health programs that outlive donor support as the country transitions into middle-income status.

Ownership is especially important given a recent estimate by the World Health Organization that predicts that in the next few decades, there will be a global health workforce shortage of up to 12.9 million. Aid programs need to ensure that recipients are developing adequate long-term strategies, especially when it comes to investing in health training and education.

2. Alignment

The dimension of alignment measures how well aid matches up with recipient strategies for dispersal and development. Development experts often criticize “tied” aid. This is aid that is contingent on the recipient procuring health products from the donor country, using their distribution infrastructure, employing foreign personnel or involving some other condition which is often not the most cost-effective or desirable for the recipient. Alignment essentially means “untying” aid to make sure that it aligns closely with the national development strategy of the recipient country.

A topical example of the alignment of health aid in the Global Food Security Act of 2015. This bill, currently introduced to the House and awaiting consideration, encourages local procurement of food aid for U.S. aid programs (among other things). Traditionally, food aid dispersal from the U.S. has been tied, requiring that a certain percentage of that aid be procured from the U.S. and dispersed using the U.S. merchant marine.

However, this bill seeks to do away with those requirements and favors recipient-country producers. This encourages the growth of local agriculture and health aid infrastructure, rather than out-competing them. Additionally, local procurement is faster, and in the event of a humanitarian emergency, recipient populations would not have to wait as long for foreign aid to reach them.

3. Harmonization

Harmonization involves cutting down on the plurality of programs that may have the same goal yet interfere and undermine each other. An aid recipient country may be host to dozens of organizations or programs that target public health outcomes yet do not communicate with each other, thus creating redundancies or inefficiency.

Harmonization is especially critical to public health, more so in emergencies. Currently, there is no standard system whereby donors can track and share how much and to where health aid is going, making it difficult to determine where it is most needed. The recent Ebola epidemic was a particularly disastrous indication of the need for better logistics and donor coordination; it is difficult to tell if health aid has even reached a recipient population, much less if it is redundant, or necessary.

4. Results

Just as it is important to harmonize aid efforts, tracking the progress of health programs has also been an ongoing challenge for donors and recipients. Health aid, despite good intentions, can be totally ineffective when it isn’t results-oriented. Tracking public health outcomes generally involves better data collection and census practices, which can be incredibly difficult to implement in developing countries that lack basic infrastructure.

Very recently, the Girls Count Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives. This act directs the Secretary of State as well as the United States Agency for International Aid and Development (USAID) to work with developing countries to build adequate civil registration systems as well as create economic and social policies that are deliberately inclusive of women and girls. The idea is that better demographic data and inclusive policy can help traditionally marginalized populations (such as women) take advantage of existing social safety nets. Additionally, better demographic data would lead to more effective health aid, as donors often lack access to accurate census information and thus may be unaware of vulnerable populations, or unable to determine the impact of aid.

5. Mutual Accountability

The final category calls for recipients and donors to exercise “mutual accountability and transparency in the use of development resources.” This emphasis on accountability stems from a history of aid inefficiencies due to a lack of transparency, or even outright corruption in recipient countries. For example, millions of dollars in aid money were simply pocketed by corrupt dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of the Republic of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) during the ’70s and ’80s.

Conversely, donor countries must be transparent about where aid flows are going in order to provide recipient countries (as well as other donors) with accurate information they can present to their citizens. In general, developing genuine partnerships between donors and recipients is crucial in ensuring that resulting health and development programs are effective and long-lasting.

– Derek Marion

Sources: Reuters, Devex, Partners in Health, OECD
Photo: OECD

New Report Ranks Education Around the World

education
By ranking school performance in various countries, it becomes clearer which nation’s educational needs are not being met. In a report titled, “Universal Basic Skills: What countries stand to gain,” written by economists Eric Hanushek and Ludger Woessmann, 76 countries were ranked by test scores. Asian countries ranked the highest and the United States trailed behind in 28th place.

Many developing countries were closer to the bottom of the list, with Ghana receiving the lowest score of all 76 countries. As Andreas Schleicher, the Education Director of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD,  points out, “the quality of schooling in a country is a powerful predictor of the wealth countries will produce in the long run.”

Hanushek and Woessmann believe that studying the discrepancies between nations can also lead to finding solutions to these discrepancies.

“This report offers a glimpse of the stunning economic and social benefits that all countries, regardless of their national wealth, stand to gain if they ensure that every child not only has access to education but, through that education, acquires at least the baseline level of skills needed to participate fully in society,” explain Hanushek and Woessmann. They also contend that if poorer countries try to emulate the educational practices of the more successful countries, they could meet the goal of “universal basic skills” within the next decade.

Hanushek and Woessmann also believe that if a country acquires these universal basic skills, poverty levels will decrease and the country will be able to better provide quality health care and technologies.

“Only improved knowledge capital makes these larger social goals feasible,” says Hanushek and Woessmann.

To the economists dedicated to studying this issue, it is not simply a contest to see which nation is smarter. An adequate education affects most, if not all, areas of a person’s livelihood. By prioritizing education, other problems stemming from poverty will consequently diminish, and people with higher education levels will have more resources and opportunities. If these findings gain traction, school systems around the world will benefit as they enact changes to prioritize the nation’s education needs.

– Melissa Binns

Sources: The Independent, OECD
Photo: Unicef

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Economy Strong, Poverty in Israel

Poverty_in_Israel
Over the last several years, Israel has enjoyed economic growth and low unemployment. Unfortunately, that is not all good news. A report recently released by Israel’s National Insurance Institute and the Central Bureau of Statistics indicate that over 1.7 million people, or 23.5 percent of the population, live below the poverty line. Of the 1.7 million people living in poverty, 817,000 of them are children and 180,000 of them are elderly. In addition, one in five households is living at or below the poverty line.

In recent years, Israel has been seen as up and coming in the high-tech sector, drawing international attention. Even though Israel is seeing significant progress, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a statement saying, “Israel’s output growth remains relatively strong, unemployment is at historically low levels…However, average living standards remain well below those of top-ranking OECD countries, the rate of relative poverty is the highest in the OECD area.” The report also adds that the poverty problem is affecting some groups more than others, “Among Arabs and in the rapidly growing ultra-Orthodox Jewish community poverty is over one in two, mainly due to low employment rates among Arab women and ultra-Orthodox men”

The OECD indicated that Israel surpassed some of the average measures of other OCED members; it ranked far below average in similar social themed categories. These categories included housing, education and skills, social connections, work life balance, environment quality, personal security, and civic engagement. Fixing some of these social problems could help alleviate poverty in Israel. Action that should be taken should target groups that are endemic with poverty and other related problems such as Arabs and the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

The OECD did offer several options for different solutions that could help alleviate poverty in Israel. One major suggestion was to improve education, especially in areas with severe levels of poverty. Another suggestion was to begin the process of pension and welfare reform to ensure that it is capable of coping with an aging population. Finally, the OECD favored sales tax increases over income tax increases so the tax does not become more of a burden on already cash-strapped families.

– Colleen Eckvahl

Sources: Your Middle East, JTA
Photo: Ivarfjeld

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What is the OECD?

OECD_policies_
What is the OECD?

In short: OECD stands for Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. It is an international economic organization whose mission is to “promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.”

A little more detail: In the beginning, the OECD was actually named the OEEC – the Organization for European Economic Co-operation. It was founded in April of 1948, with 18 original European participants. The first and original principles of the OEEC were as follows: “Promote cooperation between participating countries and their national production programs for the reconstruction of Europe; Develop intra-European trade by reducing tariffs and other barriers to the expansion of trade; Study the feasibility of creating a customs union or free trade area; Study multi-lateralization of payments; and Achieve conditions for better utilization of labor.”

In 1961, the OEEC became the OECD, and membership was extended to non-European countries. Most OECD members are regarded as “developed countries” with a high human development index. To this day, according to Pierre Tristam at about.com, the OECD remains one of the most cited sources for “economic data and information” because the organization keeps vast databases and “conducts some of the world’s most authoritative analyses and studies on the world economy.”

The OECD said that it provides a forum in which countries can work together to “seek solutions to common problems.” The organization aims to identify good practices and to coordinate “domestic and international policies.” It is committed to democracy and a sustainable market economy. Some of these good practices include taxes and social security, leisure time, school systems and “pension systems” that look after country’s elderly citizens, since the OECD tries to look at issues “that directly affect the lives of ordinary people.”

Its reach extends to the environment, the economy and social issues. The OECD is committed to helping the lives of ordinary people, thus making life harder for those “whose actions undermine a fair and open society,” such as terrorists, unethical businessmen and tax evaders.

The OECD promotes policies designed:

“To achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a rising standard of living in Member countries, while maintaining financial stability, and thus to contribute to the development of the world economy; to contribute to sound economic expansion in Member as well as nonmember countries in the process of economic development; and to contribute to the expansion of world trade on a multilateral, nondiscriminatory basis in accordance with international obligations.”

As of 2013, the OECD has 34 active member countries, including the United States, and “is in accession talks with the Russian Federation.”

– Alycia Rock

Sources: OECD: About, OECD: Report 2013, Middle East About, OECD
Photo: CIB

Most Generous Donor Countries

Most Generous Donor Countries
The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development has released their list of the world’s most generous countries in terms of granting foreign aid. The list is topped by European countries, even though the amount of international giving among European Union member countries has continued to fall for the past three years.

The countries are listed by the highest percentage of aid given compared to each country’s Gross National Income (GNI). The most generous countries on the list are Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and The Netherlands. Luxembourg was easily the most generous, giving 1% of the country’s GNI. Switzerland and France tied for tenth place, each giving 0.45% of their GNIs.

The United States did not even come close to being placed in the list of the top ten. The United States gave only 0.2% of our GNI in the past year. One of the common misconceptions about U.S. foreign aid is that we give a massive amount of foreign aid. This list of top donor countries shows how untrue that is. With less than 1% of the U.S. federal budget set aside for international aid and development we, as a country, could certainly do better and make a bigger, more positive, difference in the world.

– Kevin Sullivan

Source: 24/7 Wall St.
Source: CRW Flags