Tag Archive for: World Health Organization

Posts

, ,

Expanding Safe Water Access in Kiribati

Safe Water Access in Kiribati
Kiribati is facing an urgent water crisis, with limited access to safe drinking water and sanitation placing communities at continual risk of disease. As reported by the World Health Organization (WHO), safe water access in Kiribati remains critically low. WHO’s 2022 indicators show low access to safely managed drinking water, particularly in rural communities. Kiribati also faces sanitation challenges, with limited access to safely managed sanitation services in WHO’s 2022 reporting, according to the WHO. These conditions contribute directly to the spread of waterborne and sanitation-related diseases, placing vulnerable communities at heightened risk. WHO identifies unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene as public health risks. These figures highlight the need for urgent intervention to strengthen water security and reduce preventable disease exposure.

The South Tarawa Water Supply Project

Several major organizations have collaborated to address the unsafe water and sanitation issues in Kiribati. The Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the Green Climate Fund have co-financed, alongside the Kiribati government, a $92.06 million project on the island of South Tarawa, Kiribati. The primary goal is to substantially increase the population’s access to safely managed drinking water services that can withstand climate and disaster-related challenges, providing reliable, safe water access in Kiribati. Much of the investment targets infrastructure, through the construction and maintenance of two water desalination plants and new water supply networks.

In addition to infrastructure, the project aims to combat poor hygiene in the region, with new practices delivered through community programs. Education on safe sanitation practices will also be a focus, with initiatives introduced in several South Tarawa schools. Finally, the project will ensure the continued management and safeguarding of these new water sources, with it yet to outline specific activities. The first drinking water distribution system in South Tarawa, the McKenzie Desalination Plant, was commissioned and completed in 2025. However, the Betio desalination plant is delayed due to water-quality concerns, while parts of the distribution network remain under development. As a result, the project has not yet translated into widespread safe water access, with progress dependent on the completion of the remaining systems. This project operates in accordance with the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank’s community safeguards, ensuring the minimization of adverse social and environmental outcomes.

Current Update – July 2026

The South Tarawa Water Supply Project provides community updates and consultations, detailing the project’s recent activities and progress. July’s update emphasized the importance of community involvement, calling for all in the community to help sustain and ensure solid maintenance of the water system. Community outreach and hygiene education are part of the project’s official objectives. Community engagement remains important to the project’s long-term operation.

The South Tarawa Water Supply Project represents a major step toward securing safe water access in Kiribati by building reliable and disaster-resilient water systems for the community. By combining the construction of new infrastructure, necessary upgrades to water supply routes, community engagement and strengthened hygiene, the initiative is establishing the systems needed to sustain safe water access in South Tarawa. Continued progress of this project is crucial to ensuring long-term improvements to public health and daily life in Kiribati.

– Xavier Stephens

Xavier is based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and focuses on Good News, Technology and Solutions, and Global Health for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

, ,

How Clean Cooking Technologies Can Help Reduce Global Poverty

Clean Cooking Technologies
For millions of families throughout the world, cooking a meal can be more than gathering a few ingredients and turning on the stove. For example, families who cook with wood must find the right wood, build the fire, burn it, manage the smoke at the right point and place the food to let it cook. This process is extremely time-consuming and unhealthy, mainly for families who rely on it for every meal of the day. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 2.1 billion people worldwide cook using open fire or inefficient stoves that use polluting fuels. Household air pollution contributed to an estimated 2.9 million deaths in 2021.

Clean Cooking

Clean cooking refers to cooking technologies and fuels that meet health-based emissions standards. According to WHO, these include electricity, solar, liquid petroleum gas (LPG), natural gas, and ethanol, while some advanced biomass cookstoves can also qualify when they meet WHO’s standards.

However, easy access to clean cooking remains hard for some families, especially those living in poverty. In 2023, approximately 2.1 billion people still relied on polluting fuels and technologies for cooking. The World Bank reported that global access to clean cooking was 74% that year, but progress has slowed significantly. Many low-income families’ biggest barrier remains affordability.

The Health Effects of Polluting Fuels

When people burn solid fuels inefficiently, the process releases harmful pollutants. These pollutants include fine particulate matter that can travel deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. Long-term exposure to this household air pollution is associated with several diseases. Some include:

  • Stroke
  • Ischaemic heart disease
  • Acute lower respiratory infections
  • Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
  • Lung cancer

Women and Children: Effects on Health and Time

In many communities, women and children spend more time on household chores and collecting the cooking fuel or the wood, increasing their exposure to smoke. Due to this reason, they bear a disproportionate share of the health burden from household air pollution. Gathering fuel can cause physical exhaustion and musculoskeletal injuries. For women and children, it can also eat away valuable time that could go toward education, paid work, childcare or other productive activities.

Connection Between Cooking and Poverty

The International Energy Agency reported that Kenya increased clean-cooking access from 10% in 2013 to 31% in 2023. However, 69% of households still relied on polluting fuels. In rural areas, 84% of households used traditional biomass stoves, and 79% of rural households used three-stone stoves. More than 60% of Kenyan households spent at least 7.5 hours per week collecting and preparing fuel. These fuel-collection demands can create a burden for households with limited financial resources, especially in rural areas where access to clean cooking remains low.

Pay-as-You-Go LPG in Nairobi

One approach to this problem comes from Nairobi, Kenya. Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) LPG systems allow households to purchase cooking fuel in smaller increments instead of paying the entire cost upfront.

Making Transition Easier

Nairobi families faced difficulty affording LPG because traditional cylinders need a large upfront payment. PAYG technology allowed families to buy fuels in smaller increments through smart mobile payments.

Results of Pay-as-You-Go LPG System

The PAYG LPG program addresses the high upfront cost that can make clean cooking fuels difficult to adopt for lower-income households. The program has displayed measurable results. Researchers analyzed data from 426 PayGo Energy customers in Nairobi from January 2018 to June 2020. During COVID-19, 95% of customers who were active at the beginning of the lockdown continued using PAYG LPG. LPG consumption among the households increased from 1.12 to 1.22 kilograms per person per month, while the number of daily cooking events increased by 60%. The same WHO report compared these households with a group in Eldoret that did not have access to PAYG meters. Those households, which had to purchase LPG in larger quantities, reduced their average LPG use by 75% during lockdown.

Making Clean Cooking More Accessible

The Nairobi case does not mean that PAYG LPG will work identically in every community. The system addresses affordability by allowing households to purchase LPG in smaller increments. Other communities may require different strategies based on their infrastructure, resources and needs.

A Healthier Way Forward

Clean cooking connects several global development priorities, including health, economic opportunity and poverty reduction. However, expanding clean cooking access requires more than introducing a new technology. Communities need solutions that families can afford, access reliably and incorporate into their daily lives. When the transition is made easier, clean cooking can be a part of every family’s daily lives.

– Lalitha Maddirevula

Lalitha is based in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, US and focuses on Technology and Solutions, and Global Health for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

, ,

The Fight Against Tuberculosis in Timor-Leste

Tuberculosis in Timor-Leste
To much of the developed world, tuberculosis may seem like a distant threat. In 2024, however, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 10.7 million people developed TB worldwide and 1.23 million died from the disease. The WHO South-East Asia Region accounted for 34% of global TB cases, making it central to efforts to reduce the disease burden. Recently, efforts have increased to combat tuberculosis worldwide.

Why Tuberculosis in Timor-Leste is So Prevalent

The circumstances facing this small Southeast Asian nation demonstrate the challenges surrounding tuberculosis in Timor-Leste.

Timor-Leste is a small, ethnically diverse country on the Malay Archipelago, about 400 kilometers north of Australia. Following the 1999 referendum that began its transition from Indonesian rule, Timor-Leste has struggled with extreme poverty, with an estimated 44% of the population living on less than three dollars a day.

When a person becomes seriously ill in Timor-Leste, location and income limit options. About 70% of the population lives in rural areas. That means in order to get to a hospital, a would-be patient must make a journey of several hours, most likely on foot. With a lack of paved roads and a steep, mountainous environment, travel can be taxing. Accounting for the intense heat of the dry season and the flash floods of the rainy season, the trip becomes almost impossible for an ill person to endure. For many Timor-Leste citizens, reaching a hospital when illness strikes is not a realistic option. These barriers help explain why access to tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment remains challenging in Timor-Leste.

Efforts to Address Health Care Access in Timor-Leste

Since the pandemic, a time when many nations became attuned to the state of their health care systems, some organizations implemented efforts to fix this issue in Timor-Leste. In 2020, for example, the IOM—a branch of the UN’s migration offices—developed a program to train health care workers in Timor-Leste to use new diagnostic technologies. The program aimed to strengthen tuberculosis diagnosis and build the skills of health care workers in Timor-Leste. In 2024, IOM reported its successes: they had trained six radiographers, 60 medical doctors, and three laboratory technicians to detect tuberculosis with sophisticated new technologies, as well as educating 700 health care workers on tuberculosis diagnostic guidelines, according to an article on their website. These figures represent improvement, but the fight will not end without help from allies abroad.

International Efforts Against Tuberculosis

Combatting tuberculosis in Timor-Leste requires support. By providing the resources necessary to make health care accessible, hundreds of lives can be saved every year. With this in mind, on June 11, 2026, Senators Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) and Todd Young (Indiana) officially reintroduced the End Tuberculosis Now Act. The bipartisan bill would make tuberculosis elimination a U.S. foreign-assistance priority and strengthen coordination around research, diagnosis, treatment and prevention.

Senator Young stated: “Tuberculosis is preventable, treatable and curable, yet it continues to claim far too many lives around the world. The End Tuberculosis Now Act will strengthen efforts to expand access to diagnosis and treatment, support the development of new tools and vaccines and improve our ability to detect and respond to future infectious disease threats. By helping countries combat tuberculosis before it spreads further, we can save lives, strengthen global health security and better protect Americans from emerging infectious diseases.”

It remains to be seen whether Congress will pass the bill. The legislation is one example of international policy efforts aimed at reducing the global burden of tuberculosis.

– Madison Hoar

Madison is based in Birmingham, AL, USA and focuses on Global Health for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

, ,

HIV/AIDS in Rwanda

HIV/AIDS in Rwanda The AIDS epidemic began in the early 1980s and has since become one of the world’s most difficult and devastating health hurdles to overcome. Due to the quick rise of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda, there was poor public understanding of how the disease spread, causing misinformation and fear. In Rwanda, before the turn of the century, there was little awareness of the dangers of HIV/AIDS and no prevention of mother-to-child transmission. From around 1996 to 1998, cases of HIV in the country peaked, only exacerbating the already permeating stigma and misinformation associated with the disease. Since 2005, however, rates of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda have relatively stabilized due to the persistent efforts of the Ministry of Health in Rwanda and international organizations.

Rwandan Ministry of Health Initiatives

The Ministry of Health combats the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS by updating its HIV guidelines every two years to curb the spread of misinformation, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports. Furthermore, it promotes age-specific counseling and medical training to help patients who have contracted the disease. Their media campaigns like “STOP SIDA” have also spread awareness for HIV prevention and treatment. The Ministry has increased its HIV testing efforts to catch the disease earlier. Consequently, new HIV infections have decreased by 56% over the last 15 years, according to WHO.

United States Support

The United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is just one program that provides medical aid to combat HIV/AIDS in Rwanda. PEPFAR supports more than 50 countries around the world to prevent HIV infections and control the pandemic. Both PEPFAR and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) partner with the Rwandan Ministry of Health in their efforts against the spread of HIV/AIDS. This has proven quite effective and the life expectancy of those with HIV who receive treatment has increased by more than 25 years as a result. Of approximately 250,000 infected persons in Rwanda, around 210,000 of them are actively being treated for HIV, a great increase from the 1990s when there was little awareness of the disease at all.

United Nations’ Efforts

The United Nations began the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) in 1996 to fight AIDS around the world. In Rwanda, UNAIDS has expanded HIV testing services to 99% of the country’s health facilities and prioritized prevention. The program also encourages outreach in communities with high rates of HIV infections. Moreover, UNAIDS implemented the 90-90-90 target as its goal for 2020, which consisted of diagnosing 90% of all people infected by HIV, 90% of those diagnosed beginning antiretroviral therapy (ARV) and 90% of those on ARVs having fully suppressed viral load.

The Present Day

A 2018/2019 study found that HIV among adults in Rwanda was as low as 3%. Research also revealed lower rates of HIV in younger generations than their older counterparts, indicating successful prevention measures in the country. With a negative trend in cases of HIV, it is clear the efforts against HIV/AIDS in Rwanda have proven successful and will continue to decline over time.

– Hannah Hipólito

Hannah is based in Tampa, FL, USA and focuses on Good News and Politics for The Borgen Project.

Photo: Flickr

, ,

Disability and Poverty in Greece

Disability and Poverty in GreeceDisability and poverty can affect many areas around the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 1.3 billion people have disabilities worldwide. Unfortunately, many people with disabilities often suffer from poverty as well. The combination of these two forces is a plight a lot harsher than many think. Disability and poverty in Greece is a struggle, but work is being done to address the challenges. 

The Link Between Disability and Poverty in Greece

The country has particular issues with access when it comes to disability and poverty in Greece. According to a policy brief done by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2021, people with disabilities deal with problems in getting the appropriate health care they need. The report cites how people have to resort to private health care because of the lack of public health care. Private health care is generally more expensive and is an option that impoverished people likely do not have.

Greece also has issues with children who have disabilities. Children who have what is described as physical disabilities often do not have the correct equipment to support them in classrooms. The education system in Greece also lacks sufficient personnel to help children who have physical and mental disabilities.

The theme of access for people with disabilities appears to extend to various areas in Greece. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Confederation of Disabled People Greece reported in 2020 that there was a lack of assistance provided to physically disabled individuals who were confined to their homes during the crisis.

In Greece, the majority of people with disabilities face challenges due to inadequate access to physical buildings. This encompasses a lack of access to buildings, transportation and mainstream areas. It’s crucial to highlight that, according to the U.S. Department of State, such access is mandated by law. Further, according to the report, some governmental agencies within Greece stated that certain work companies excluded people who have disabilities from jobs. This includes hiring boards looking over people who have disabilities.

Actions to Help

Tactics like these are what inadvertently cause people with disabilities to fall into instances of poverty. The disability unemployment rate rose to 31.1% in 2018 from 8.9% in 2002, with predictions of the pandemic to increase the number, according to the European Commission report on disability equality in 2021.

Greece is working to solve the issue of disability and poverty in the country. In 2021, the government launched the Child Guarantee Program in partnership with UNICEF. The program is designed to support children who have disabilities in getting the quality social services they need. Together for Children, a network of different aid organizations, also provided aid for those with intellectual disabilities.

The initiative has contacted more than 2000 families to help these young people. The Upraise Disability project also helped many people with disabilities in terms of online access. The project helped around 17 people get the assistance they needed through online programs, including things like access to their therapy, among other things, during the pandemic.

– Madison McCray
Photo: Flickr