Aid agencies in Somalia are asking for $11 million to give the hundred of displaced people, due to fighting in the capital, emergency water and sanitation, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Over 200,000 people have left Mogadishu since early May when violence erupted due to tensions between the Government and the opposition Al-Shabab and Hisb-ul-Islam groups.

OCHA reported that more than 600,000 displaced people, settled in the Afgooye corridor outside Mogadishu, desperately needed water, sanitation and hygiene services.

Currently, Aid agencies are only able to supply two to eight liters of water per person per day in that area, while between 7.5 and 15 liters-less than one flush of an average toilet-is considered the bare minimum required for survival.

There is also only one latrine for ever 212 displaced people in the Afgooye corridor.

A primary concern is that the lack of water may have adverse effects on the efforts to prevent the spread of communicable diseases in overcrowded situations.

Source: UN News Centre

GlaxoSmithKline is a research-based pharmaceutical company that is working to "improve the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer." The "Positive Action for Children Fund" will grant up to $80 million over a ten-year period to NGOs and those who work to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS.

GSK will also contribute $16 million toward a public-private partnership for researching antiretroviral drugs. This fund will help find new beneficial fixed dose combinations for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. In addition, it will help lower the cost of treatment by entering into a voluntary license agreement with the South African abacavir manufacturer, Aspen Pharmacare Ltd.

Since 2001, GSK has agreed to 8 voluntary licenses for antiretroviral manufacturing in Africa. This allowed for more choices and greater security of supply of antiretroviral drugs within Africa, resulting in 279 million tablets of Epivir and Combivir provided to patients during this period. By continuing in this fashion with the development of the "Positive Action for Children Fund," treatment will be made available to people with HIV/AIDS in the poorest nations.

 

During U.S. President Obama's visit to Ghana, the 44th President spoke in front of Ghana's Parliament on June 11. In his speech, Obama praised Africa's achievements, offered warnings and charity as well.

Ghana is one of Africa's leading economic countries, which has demonstrated impressive rates of growth in its economy alongside countries like Botswana and Mozambique. However, Obama also noted the terrible conditions in countries like Zimbabwe, Sudan, Congo and Liberia where financial collapse is a very real threat and violence is a daily occurrence.

The President committed $63 billion to a comprehensive global strategy excluding the Global Poverty Act, which is another part of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. The bill would commit $854 billion, over the course of eleven years.

In relation to the bill, then Senator Obama stated, "We can - and must - make it a priority of our foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter, and clean drinking water. As we strive to rebuild America's standing in the world, this legislation will not only commit to reducing global poverty, but will also demonstrate our promise and support to those in the developing world."

Read Full Text of Obama's Speech Here.

Source: Digital Journal

President Obama made his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa on July 10-11, 2009, visiting Ghana after attending the G8 Summit in Italy. Obama is the third consecutive U.S. President to stop in Ghana, one of the top African nations that has consistently been reducing poverty and improving lives through economic growth.

Some Ghana stats:

* Ghanaian citizens have participated in five consecutive peaceful transitions of power. (See an overview Ghanaian elections here.)

* In 2004, the Ghanaian government announced the elimination of school fees for primary schools. This coupled with a new school feeding program, increased enrollment rates for primary school boys from 60% in 2004-2005 to 84% in 2007-2008, and girls from 58% to 82%.

* Ghana currently receives funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and is one of the 15 focus countries in the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI). PMI's work in Ghana aims to distribute more than one million bed nets, spray 100,000 houses with pesticides that kill mosquitoes carrying malaria, and to provide 1.2 million doses of malaria medicine to treat children under five.

* Ghana has a 5-year, $547 million compact with the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), focused on agriculture, rural development and infrastructure improvement. During President George W. Bush's visit to Ghana in 2008, then President Kafuor renamed a main highway in Accra (a project of the MCC) the "George W. Bush Highway."

* Ghana has experienced 4-5% annual growth over the past 20 years, and has nearly halved its poverty rate since 1992, putting it on track to achieve the first Millennium Development Goal by 2015.

* In 2007, Ghana was the United States' tenth largest trading partner in sub-Saharan Africa and the sixth largest exporter to the U.S. (Compare even more key development stats between Ghana, Sub-Saharan Africa and the U.S. here).

President Obama's recent trip to Ghana showcases the country's success story as a concrete example of how targeted smart aid, joined with good governance, can lead to noticeable, positive change.

Source: ONE

 

According to Nicolas de Torrente, the Executive Director of Doctors Without Borders U.S.A, in a letter to the editor of the New York Times, the quality of food children intake after the age of exclusive breast-feeding is just as important as the quantity. To maintain health and spurn growth, children between the ages of 6 and 24 months need energy from grains and fats, along with essential nutrients found in animal-source proteins like milk.

"In ‘malnutrition hot spots' like the Sahel, East Africa and South Asia, where most of the world's five million malnutrition-related deaths occur each year, poor families already struggle, and often fail, to provide their children with such varied diets," said Torrente.

The director of Doctors Without Borders believes it is critical to improve the World Food Program's ability to distribute general food as the global food crisis carries on.

"But increasing the quantity of food aid is not enough," said Torrente. "Stemming and reversing the high rate of malnutrition-related deaths in the young should be a top priority."

By providing "ready-to-use" nutrient-rich and dense foods as well as other nutritional supplements targeted to the specific needs of small children, Torrente is convinced of a promising impact.

"Enhancing existing food aid with these supplements may increase the global cost of food aid, but if the world truly seeks to contain this growing crisis, this cannot be seen as a luxury," said Torrente.

-- Jaimie Hwang

Source: Doctors without Borders

 

African representatives at the recently ended World Trade Organization Aid for Trade conference in Geneva expressed their satisfaction with the outcome.

Mohamed Ibn Chambas, the executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) attended the conference and said that trade can be a powerful tool for economic growth and poverty reduction in Africa.

The Aid for Trade initiative was launched by WTO in 2005 to promote the participation of developing nations in global trade on a win-win basis. Unfortunately, Chambas notes that Africa's participation in global trade still remains incredibly low.

The Aid for Trade conference did, however, propose specific initiatives designed to address infrastructural constraints, energy, roads, etc. that could be improved to give African nations a more competitive edge in participating in world trade.

Source: VOA News

The international aid agency Oxfam released a report on how the effects of climate change are drastically increasing global hunger.

The report says poor people in developing countries are growing even poorer due to unpredictable weather patterns that lead to more natural disasters and lower crop yields.

Oxfam urges G8 leaders to reduce carbon emissions by at least 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and to provide $150 billion to help poor nations adjust to the climate change.

Source: BBC World Service

Senators Dick Durbin, Patty Murray and Bob Corker introduced the Water for the World Act of 2009 (S. 624) that will enable 100 million people to gain access to safe, clean drinking water and sanitation by 2015.

"Access to safe drinking water is a right that everyone in the world ought to enjoy but too few are able to realize," Durbin said. "Water access is no longer simply a global health and development issue; it is a mortal and long-term threat that is increasingly becoming a national security issue. The United States needs to do much more to ensure that global water access is protected and expanded."

Approximately one billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water and two out of every five people live without basic sanitation services. Pressure on global water supplies, particularly in developing nations, will continue as global warming, rapid industrialization and population and economic growth rise.

The need to combat the global water crises is important because water issues contribute to regional tensions, global health, child and maternal mortality and economic growth.

To goal of the bill would:

* Target underdeveloped countries with focused initiatives to improve access to clean water and sanitation;
* Foster global cooperation on research and technology development, including regional partnerships among experts on clean water;
* Provide technical assistance and capacity-building to develop expertise within countries facing water and sanitation challenges;
* Provide seed money for the deployment of clean water and sanitation technologies; and
* Strengthen the human infrastructure at USAID and the State Department to implement clean water and sanitation programs effectively and to ensure that water receives priority attention in our foreign policy efforts.

Read Full Bill Here.

Source: durbin.senate.gov

In September of 2008, two Social Justice high school teachers took on a month-long experiment to start eating on one dollar a day. Their project taught them about food, economics and nutrition. Because the economics of food is relevant to people's daily lives, the experiment focused on food choices, consumerism, waste, poverty, social psychology, etc.

According to their blog, the initial motivation behind the experiment was not concrete. For Christopher Greenslate, M.Ed. graduate of the Institute for Humane Education, and his partner Kerri, the teachers were just interested in the challenge and wanted to see things differently after completing their experience.

The rules for their experiment, as listed on their blog, were:

1. All food consumed each day must total $1 for each of us.

2. We cannot accept free food or "donated" food unless it is available for everyone in our area. (i.e. foraging, samples in stores, dumpster diving)

3. Any food we plant, we pay for.

4. We will do our best to cook a variety of meals; ramen noodles can only be prepared if there is no other way to stay under one dollar. (We have six packages and will buy no more)

5. Should we decide to have guests over for dinner they must eat from our share; meaning they don't get to eat their own dollar's worth of food.

Read their blog here.

Although 980 million people live on less than a dollar a day, poverty is not unbeatable. By bringing U.S. political attention to the issue, we can make a big impact to improve the living standards of those who do not have access to enough food, basic education, sanitation and health facilities. In the past 20 years, the number of the world's chronically undernourished fell by 50 percent. By making one phone call to our representatives, we can continue to make the situation better. Encouraging our senators to cosponsor legislation, such as the Global Food Security Act, makes funds available to USAID for providing food in countries suffering food crises and allows them to make plans to bring an end to the poverty cycle in developing countries. Between 1999 and 2004, an estimated 135 million people were lifted out of severe poverty in low-income countries. With your support, we can improve the lives of millions by ensuring they have the means to survive. Please call or email your senators today and ask them to cosponsor the Global Food Security Act.

Howard Buffet is a down-to-earth Illinois soybean and corn farmer with an ambitious agenda to end world hunger.

The middle child of billionaire Warren Buffett, Howard, has spent a small part of his father's fortune for philanthropy. For the past four years, Howard has spent a decent amount of time traveling through Africa, coming up with ideas to help poor farmers increase crop yield to feed their families as well as reducing the world's food shortage. His foundation has allocated about $38 million this year to developing a disease-resistant sweet potato, encouraging poachers to switch to farming, provide micro credits, and helping farmers market their crops to United Nations' hunger-relief programs. Howard is also working on a project to give African corn breeders access to Monsanto's biotechnology for drought-tolerant corn.

Howard believes that getting Africa to feed itself is challenging because of the geography of the land and the education level and poor financial conditions of the farmers. So, he strives to develop ways for African farmers to increase their harvests without elevating costs, thus his interest in developing crops that resist disease and drought.

Read more about Howard Buffett here.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Due to the global economic crises that has lowered incomes and increased unemployment, world hunger is projected to reach a record high in 2009 with 1.02 billion people being hungry on the daily, as their access to food is reduced, according to new estimates published by FAO on Tuesday.

"A dangerous mix of the global economic slowdown combined with stubbornly high food prices in many countries has pushed some 100 million more people than last year into chronic hunger and poverty," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. "The silent hunger crisis - affecting one sixth of all of humanity - poses a serious risk for world peace and security. We urgently need to forge a broad consensus on the total and rapid eradication of hunger in the world and to take the necessary actions."

Almost all of the world's hungry reside in developing nations. In Asia and the Pacific, approximately 642 million people are chronically hungry; in Sub-Saharan Africa 265 million; in Latin America and the Caribbean 53 million; in the Near East and North Africa 42 million; and in developed countries 15 million in total.

Poor countries, Diouf said, require development, economic and policy tools needed to increase their agricultural production and productivity.

Smallholder farmers in developing countries make up much of the world's poor. But, if helped, farmers not only have the potential to meet their own needs, said Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), but they can boost food security and stimulate overall economic growth. Providing smallholder farmers with access to not only seeds and fertilizers but tailored technologies, infrastructure, rural finance, and markets is vital.

"For most developing countries there is little doubt that investing in smallholder agriculture is the most sustainable safety net, particularly during a time of global economic crisis," Nwanze said.

Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme wholeheartedly agreed.

"The world must pull together to ensure emergency needs are met as long term solutions are advanced," Sheeran added.

Read more about the "grip of the crisis" here.

Source: Cattle Network

 

For those living in the developed world, a power outage is usually nothing more than a brief inconvenience. For the people living in many poor countries, however, electricity is something they must do without every day. They resort to using wood or dung for fuel to heat their homes or cook their food. As a result, their tiny kitchens are filled with dangerous smoke that, with prolonged exposure, can eventually destroy their lungs and take their life. To combat this issue, Practical Action has created a simple smoke hood that is cost-effective and efficient. The communities that have installed these vents in their homes have seen a significant change in people's health and comfort.

Source: PracticalAction.org

 

The World Health Organization recently published data on child mortality rates throughout the world, comparing the numbers from 1990 to 2007. Their findings are as follows:

Under-5 mortality rate per 1000 live births, 1990

Under-5 mortality rate per 1000 live births, 2007: 

Key:

While there are still areas where children are at risk, child mortality has made a significant turn for the better over the last 20 years. Improving child health is one of the MDGs, and these two charts are proof that the goal is not impossible. 

After a failed attempt to climb K2, the world's second highest peak, former mountain climber Greg Mortenson found himself welcomed into a small village in northern Pakistan. As his health slowly improved, he soaked in every aspect of life in Korphe. He was amazed at the way the people survived on so little, and heartbroken to find out that the children had nowhere to go to school. By the time he was well enough to return home to the US, Mortenson had become determined that he could make a difference, and he vowed to come back some day and build them a school.

Now, thirteen years later, a cozy school house with several classrooms stands in the little village of Korphe, and over 70 other schools have been established throughout remote villages in central Asia. As director of the Central Asia Institute, Mortenson's work centers around building schools for children and advocating for the education for girls. He has endured countless hardships while attempting to reach his goals, but perservered nonetheless. His story, published in a book called Three Cups of Tea, is a powerful account of how one man's determination can positively affect the lives of many.

Read more about it here.

 

(Slum in India)

 

On March 25, Mr. Miller of North Carolina, Mr. Price of North Carolina, Mr. Castle, Mr. Hinchey, Mr. Ellison, Ms. Moore of Wisconsin and Mr. Jackson of Illinois introduced the ‘Shelter, Land, and Urban Management (SLUM) Assistance Act of 2009' H.R. 1702. The bill was then referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Congress gathered statistics that resulted in the eventual drawing up of the bill. Some findings follow: approximately one billion people currently live in slums, and more than half of this population is under the age of 25. It is estimated that by 2030 the number of people living in slums, which are characterized by inadequate access to safe water, sanitation, and other essential infrastructure, overcrowding, poorly structured housing, and insecure residential and property ownership status, will double. Insecure lease and real property ownership tenure often subject slum dwellers to arbitrary, often supra-market rents, forced evictions, threats and harassment. In 2007 alone, approximately five million people were subject to forced evictions, and projections show that the number of forced evictions are likely to increase to between 40 million and 70 million in the next 20 years. Due to the insecurity of tenure, economic development is severely inhibited by undermining investment incentives and limiting the growth of credit markets. This jeopardizes the ability of families to achieve sustainable livelihoods and assured access to shelter, and often contributes to conflict over property rights.

Congress' findings led to the creation of The Shelter, Land, and Urban Management (SLUM) Assistance Act of 2009, which would authorize assistance for affordable housing and sustainable urban development in developing nations. The bill directs the President, through the Secretary of State and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), to develop a strategy to provide affordable housing and sustainable urban development in developing countries. Other sections of the bill authorizes the President to provide technical assistance and financial support to developing countries for basic shelter and affordable housing, primarily for residents of impoverished urban areas; safe water, sanitation, and solid waste water removal services; real property use and ownership rights; and government urban planning.

 

 

The Global Food Security Act of 2009, S. 384, will authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2010 through 2014 to provide assistance to foreign countries to promote food security, to stimulate rural economies and to improve emergency response to food crises.

The bill states that the objective of U.S. policy is to promote global food security, improve agricultural productivity and support the development of institutions of higher learning. In order to uphold these goals, the Global Food Security Act of 2009 directs the president to assign a Special Coordinator for Food Security to advise the president on global food security issues and to oversee implementation of a comprehensive food security strategy. The president would be required to report on the strategy implementation to specific congressional committees each year.

Other sections of the bill amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 expanding the scope of assistance to include conservation farming, nutrition for vulnerable populations and economic integration of persons in extreme poverty. In addition, the bill includes biotechnological advances appropriate to local ecological conditions under agricultural research.

In order to improve emergency response to food crises, the Global Food Security Act of 2009 establishes a United States Emergency Rapid Response to Food Crisis Fund and authorizes the president to provide assistance under this act for unexpected critical food assistance needs.

 

On April 29, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Representative Howard Berman (D-CA- 28) and Representative Mark Kirk (R-IL-10) introduced H.R. 2139, the "Initiating Foreign Assistance Reform Act of 2009," to increase political accountability of foreign assistance.

The bill directs President Obama to develop and execute a comprehensive national strategy to advance the U.S. foreign policy goal of furthering global development. It also acts as a precursor to a larger reform effort later this year, including a complete rewrite of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

The "Initiating Foreign Assistance Act of 1961" has four key sections. It requires the president to develop and implement a National Strategy for Global Development, which will define the roles of each department and agency involved in U.S. global development policies, programs and activities to make them more efficient. In order to monitor the effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance, the bill also requires the president to set up a thorough evaluation system and provide transparency of the National strategy for both U.S. taxpayers and recipients of U.S. foreign assistance. Information on the planning, allocating, disbursement, contracting, monitoring and evaluating of foreign assistance will all be made publicly available. In addition, the national strategy will also identify objectives for U.S. development programs aiming to reduce poverty and fostering economic-growth in developing nations. Lastly, the bill repeals and reforms outdated provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

Read Complete Bill Information Here.

With more than 1.2 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, it's hard not to ask the most powerful nation to do more. That's exactly what The Borgen Project, arguably one of the most tech-savvy nonprofit organizations on the internet, set out to do.

Launched in 2003 by Clint Borgen, The Borgen Project works to bring U.S. political attention to global poverty, and is now headquartered in Seattle. In 1999, the founder and president of the organization was a 21-year old volunteer working in a Kosovo refugee camp, during the war and genocide. From his harrowing experience on the ground, and through the atrocities he witnessed, Borgen found a need for a powerful force that could put pressure on Congress and the White House to increase efforts to address global poverty. Today, one man's project has evolved into a web-based movement that utilizes social media to raise awareness for the cause.

The nonpartisan organization is known for having access to congressional leaders on a national level. Using the Web to mobilize people across the globe, The Borgen Project encourages people to call their congressional leaders to urge them to support specific poverty-reduction bills. Connecting with people through over 180 social media sites, The Borgen Project effectively uses internet platforms like YouTube, social networking sites like MySpace, and its blog to mobilize and educate citizens on basic advocacy skills so that they can communicate with their government to make poverty a political priority.

Some of the ways The Borgen Project successfully uses social media include demonstrating how to perform a hero call through a YouTube video, and having interviews and event videos available online. The nonprofit's Facebook group is growing daily, and new links on poverty-reduction are regularly updated on the forum. The blog is also educational and newsworthy. Through all these various web channels, The Borgen Project continues to build buzz for the cause, mobilize people to contact congressional leaders and raise money for the rising movement.