Recession pushing millions into poverty says the World Bank

The World Bank released revised economic indicators ahead of the G-20 meetings in London. They say that in 2009 the world's economy will grow by 1.7 percent, but if you removed China and India from the world there would be no growth at all.

The stats and figures related to poverty are included in this snippet that comes from AFP via the Google News.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick said the recession was expected to trap 53 million more people in poverty this year, defined as subsistence living on less than 1.25 dollars a day.

"This comes after soaring food and fuel prices of recent years, which pushed 130 to 155 million people into extreme poverty, many of whom have still not recovered," Zoellick said in a speech in London.

Poor people in developing countries have little buffer to protect them against the effects of the crisis.

"In London, Washington, and Paris people talk of bonuses or no bonuses. In parts of Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, the struggle is for food or no food," he said.

Zoellick called on the Group of 20 industrialized and developing countries and the European Union, whose leaders are holding a crisis meeting in London Thursday, to support measures to help developing countries, such as the bank's appeal to developed countries to donate 0.7 percent of their stimulus spending to its Vulnerability Fund.

"Unlike economic crises in the past sixty years, this is a global crisis. It will require a global solution," the former US trade envoy said.

"These events could next become a social and human crisis, with political implications," he added.

How the aid expulsions are effecting other areas of Sudan

The Sudan kicking out aid organizations has hurt the people of Darfur, but it also effects many other areas of the country too. The expulsions may have kicked out the only aid group for a certain area. The Overseas Development Institute says that areas in Eastern and Southern Sudan may have no aid groups working there at all.

From this IRIN article that we found at All Africa, we learn how the expulsions hurt other battleground areas destroyed by the Sudan war.

NGO expulsions have left humanitarian gaps not only in Darfur, but also in eastern Sudan and the so-called Three Areas bordering on Southern Sudan, Abyei, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile - volatile regions key to the success of a 2005 peace accord.

"The expulsions have left large parts of the Three Areas and eastern Sudan without humanitarian assistance or recovery and reintegration support," writes Sara Pantuliano, research fellow with the Humanitarian Policy Group of the Overseas Development Institute. "Unlike in Darfur, there is very little additional capacity beyond the expelled agencies to even attempt to fill these gaps."

Before its expulsion, Oxfam GB was working in Red Sea State, eastern Sudan. "We have been working with very remote, marginalised communities who have very little support from anywhere else," Alun McDonald, Oxfam GB regional media and communications officer for Horn, East and Central Africa, told IRIN. The region, which has high rates of poverty, malnutrition and illiteracy, often suffers regular floods and droughts.

"Last time the floods hit, many villages were submerged and thousands of people lost their homes, animals and farms... if the floods strike again this year, with nearly all the aid agencies expelled, communities will be extremely vulnerable," McDonald said. "The decision to expel us from eastern Sudan will affect the poorest people in the state."

Children at risk

Kassala and Red Sea states have the highest malnutrition rates in Sudan, according to ODI. The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that the expulsions will leave more than 100,000 vulnerable children in northern Sudan without support.

Access to health services has also been reduced in Southern Kordofan. According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO), at least 30 percent of the state's health facilities remain without direct implementing partner support, and may suspend services in routine immunisation, nutrition and feeding programmes following the expulsions.

"...The expulsion means we can no longer support 56 health clinics that we've helped to build or rehabilitate since the peace agreement in 2005. We can no longer provide these clinics with essential medicines, staff training or support for community health education initiatives," Kurt Tjossem, International Rescue Committee (IRC) regional director for the Horn and East Africa region, told IRIN.

Before its expulsion, the IRC was working in Kassala, Red Sea, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan "... supporting... lifesaving medical care, water, sanitation and livelihoods for around 1.1 million people".

Now, the IRC has been forced to stop its water and sanitation programmes in these areas. Fewer than 40 percent of the population of Kassala and Red Sea states have access to safe drinking water.

"In former SPLM [Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, which governs Southern Sudan and is a partner in the national unity government, GNU] areas of both Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, particularly Kaoda and Kurmuk, NGOs deliver most essential services," according to the ODI.

350 African migrants feared drowned

More than 300 African migrants are feared drowned in the seas between Libya and Europe as illegal trafficking has increased in recent days.

The boats that carry Africans to Europe usually do not have any safety equipment. Smugglers try to cram as many people as they can into the boats to maximize their profits.

From this Reuters story that we found at WNED, Ali Shuaib tells us the findings of security officials fighting the traffcking.

At least 23 bodies of drowned migrants were recovered by Libyan coastguards near the wreckage of three rickety boats which sailed from the coastal village of Sidi Belal near Tripoli, Libya's most influential daily, Oea, said Tuesday, quoting security officials.

One of the boats was carrying 365 people although it was only supposed to hold 75, Libyan officials said. It was one of four migrant ships which sailed from Libya between Saturday and Sunday, apparently heading for Italy.

"After more than two days of searching, we have found no more bodies or survivors or the boat," a Libyan official said.

Among those missing were people from Somalia, Nigeria, Eritrea, Kurdish areas of Syria, Algeria, Morocco, the Palestinian territories and Tunisia, officials said.

A Libyan security official quoted a Tunisian survivor as saying: "I was on board the boat with 13 other Tunisians among the 365 migrants. I'm the only survivor. All my fellow Tunisians drowned."

A fourth ship crammed with more than 350 migrants broke down near Libya's offshore Buri oilfield but Libyan coastguards towed the vessel to the port of Tripoli and rescued all the migrants, including women and children.

Another voice being heard before G-20: The Archbishop of Canterbury

The Rev. Rowan Williams was interviewed for his thoughts on the eve of the G-20 meetings. The Archbishop told BBC Radio that he wanted the needs of poorer nations put on the top of the agenda.

Rev. Williams wants to see the Millennium Development Goals promoted more by the leaders of the rich world, and he praised British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for doing so.

This Press Association story that we found in the Guardian relates the interview.

But he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "This is no time to think of alibis for that because there is no economic problem that is just local in our world.

"We have already seen growth rates slowing down in Africa. It is estimated that perhaps as many as over 50 million people could be in absolute poverty in the next few years.

"So I think that has to be at the top of the list this week."

The archbishop was among the signatories to a statement issued by Britain's religious leaders this week ahead of the G20, urging the politicians to remember the poor and vulnerable.

"To forget their needs would be to compound regrettable past failures with needless future injustices," they said.

Dr Williams said the economic crisis had raised a fundamental question about whether the practices of recent years were "a sensible way to run a human race".

"I'm certainly not saying this is just a wake-up call and we ought to be glad of the bracing message. People really are suffering and that's a major problem," he said.

"But if we can at least take the opportunity of saying: how did we get here? Is this a sensible way to run an economy? Is this a sensible way to run a human race, you might almost say.

"That is the fundamental question. And that is why … we can't lose sight of the connection with the environmental issue as well."

Video: The Millennium Villages

This is a story from ABC News that aired in January.

Russia enters the global recession

The latest report from the World Bank deals with Russia and forecasts how it's economy will fare in the near future. The World Bank says that the Russian economy will recede on 2009. The news of the report sent the stock markets in Russia falling as well as a drop in the value of the ruble.

From the story in the New York Times writer Ellen Barry tells us how this will impact the poor in Russia.

The World Bank released a grim report on Russia on Monday, projecting a 4.5 percent contraction in the economy in 2009 and warning that the financial crisis would push 5.8 million Russians into poverty unless the government shifted more spending to poor families.

The report was a sharp revision of the World Bank’s November forecast, which predicted an increase of 3 percent in gross domestic product in 2009. World Bank analysts also took a more pessimistic view than the Russian government, whose experts are predicting a 2.2 percent contraction.
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The World Bank report addresses a particular worry of Russian authorities: that unemployment will translate into civil unrest. Already, nearly 6.4 million Russians are unemployed and 1.1 million are on forced leave or working part-time schedules.

By the end of 2009, unemployment will probably reach 12 percent, the World Bank predicts. The poverty rate will climb to 15.5 percent, erasing some of the gains made in the last decade, when poverty fell to 10 percent from about 20 percent, the report said.

The report recommends a package of payments, including increases of 70 percent in unemployment subsidies and 220 percent in child welfare payments, which Mr. Bogetic said “could alleviate some of this social pain.”

“These instruments are better than all the others in reaching the poor,” he said. “You need to jack them up sufficiently.”

It's time to shake up the financial system

I know, I know whenever the man opens his mouth you will read about it here. But, I largely agree with Muhammad Yunus, and we are currently reading his latest book "Creating a World Without Poverty"

So here are the latest thoughts from Yunus from the Bangladeshi paper the Daily Star, the Nobel laureate spoke at a conference about women.

Asked if the financial downturn has not exposed the fragility of the conventional banking system, Yunus said: “The crisis is not going to disappear. If anything, it is going to intensify.”

The crisis originated in one country due to a few individuals and engulfed the entire world.

"This shows the fragile structure of a country," he said.

“We cannot continue with the same framework of financial institutions which insist on collateral for giving credit. They have to be redesigned as two thirds of the world does not accept the present system," Yunus said.

"We have to create a new financial structure.”

The new financial system, he suggested, should be more inclusive.

Microcredit should not be relegated as a footnote but integrated into the main system, said the Nobel laureate, whose Grameen Bank has pulled millions out of poverty in Bangladesh.

Yunus said the financial meltdown offered a “great great opportunity to shake out old ideas about banking and bring in new ideas and a new system”.

“We cannot go back to the old system. We will have to go to a new system and come up with new ideas about banking," Yunus said.

He suggested the right to credit should be made a law like the right to food, education and health.

How tight credit could hurt food production

The leader of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization is warning how tighter credit could effect food supply. Jacques Diouf says that small farmers will be unable to get credit to expand production.

Diouf comments are one of many were seeing before the G-20 meeting in London. As every interest or politician is making their voices heard in hopes of swaying what comes of the G-20 meeting. Diouf is calling on the G-20 to make more investments in agriculture to keep food supply growing and to prevent another increase in food prices.

From the Wall Street Journal, writer Patrick Barta explains the FAO's stance.

In 2007 and 2008, prices of corn, rice, and other grains rocketed higher amid a perfect storm of tight supplies, market speculation, and rising demand for crops in developing countries and for use in biofuels. The price spikes made it harder for people to afford basic foodstuffs, triggering violent protests in some developing countries and leading many economists to call for substantial new spending on farm production.

Prices have fallen by a third or more since then, and some analysts have warned of a possible glut of rice or other commodities as economic growth slows.

But grains prices are still 27% higher than in 2005, Mr. Diouf said, and global stocks remain low. Moreover, the number of people with insufficient food continues to climb. He said it's possible the tally of undernourished people in the world will surpass one billion, from 963 million in 2007, as the full brunt of higher food prices filters through.

A number of countries have stepped up rural spending over the past year, including China, which is making agricultural investments a key element of its economic stimulus initiatives.

But food-policy specialists fear any gains from such stimulus efforts could be offset by reduced credit from the private sector, making it harder for farmers to maintain output. The FAO is projecting global cereals production to decline this year due to smaller plantings and adverse weather, leaving 32 countries -- including Bangladesh, Haiti and Zimbabwe -- in need of foreign assistance.

Although governments are spending more, the global credit crunch "will constrain expansion of agriculture in the developing world this year," said Joachim von Braun, director of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, in a recent interview. "We consider this to be a very precarious situation."

Mr. Diouf said the credit crunch hurts food-challenged countries in at least two ways: by making it harder for them to raise money to buy imported crops and by raising the cost of loans to small farmers.

With less credit available, farmers could be forced to hold back on planting or borrow from black-market lenders, saddling them with high-interest debts that could constrain their output for years.

Human Rights Watch says that Kenyan police abuse Somali refugees

Human Rights Watch has issued a new report that details abuse of Somali refugees at the hands of Kenyan police.

Somalis flee their country due to the war between an Islamic led insurgency against the Somalian government. A large refugee camp holds 250,000 people just inside the Kenya's boarder, with thousands more trying to arrive every day.

Instead of safety, Human Rights Watch says that Kenyan police forcibly deport the people seeking asylum.

The website for Human Rights Watch has the full report available for download, as well as a slideshow with photos of the refugee camps.

From his Reuters article, writer Richard Lough details some of the claims in the report.

Human Rights Watch spoke to dozens of refugees and documented cases of corrupt police officials routinely demanding cash from Somalis as they arrived or left the camps for other parts of Kenya.

The Kenyan government closed its porous desert frontier with Somalia in January 2007 after the United States helped push the Islamic Courts group out of power. The United Nations and aid agencies denounced the move at the time as a violation of human rights.

HRW said in its report that it recognized Kenya's legitimate security concerns. But it said the closure had failed to stem the influx of tens of thousands of refugees and instead had given rise to the proliferation of people-smuggling groups.

Although asylum seekers are paying smugglers up to $500 to ensure they reached Dadaab safely, police corruption was so endemic that the fee did not guarantee safe passage, it added.

"Emboldened by the power over refugees that the border closure has given them, Kenyan police detain the new arrivals, seek bribes -- sometimes using threats and violence including sexual violence -- and deport back to Somalia those unable to pay," the report said.

HRW accused the Kenyan authorities of forcibly returning hundreds, perhaps thousands, of asylum seekers and refugees across the border in a direct breach of international law.

Development aid at highest level ever: OECD

A 30 country group that monitors development aid says giving to the under-developed world is at the highest levels ever.

Poverty fighting advocates are applauding the following figures, but urge that the poor nations must receive the money immediately.

Our snippet of the release comes from the Straits Times.

DEVELOPMENT aid given by OECD member states rose by 10.2 per cent in 2008 to a record US$119.8 billion (S$182 billion), despite the global financial downturn, the organisation said on Monday.

The total marks the highest dollar figure ever recorded, the 30-country Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development said, three days before the G20 summit to tackle the financial crisis is held in London.

The figures refer to the OECD's aid agency, its 22-member Development Assistance Committee (DAC) which includes the world's most advanced economies.

Aid to Africa totalled $26 billion in 2008, of which $22.5 billion went to sub-Saharan countries.

The largest donors by volume in 2008 were the United States, Germany, Britain, France and Japan.

Five countries exceeded the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income: Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Africa's hopes for the G-20 meeting

Writer Edward Harris does a great job in describing the impact of the global economic recession on Africa. In his Associated Press story, Harris describes how the recession effects underdeveloped nations differently, and what they hope to see from the upcoming G-20 meeting.

As leaders of the Group of 20 industrialized nations prepare for an April 2 summit in London to hash out a coordinated economic plan, Africans and international activists are hoping that rich country leaders turn their attention to poor nations, too. Unlike the narrower Group of Eight forum, Africa has a seat at the G-20 in South Africa.

Africa's exposure to the global meltdown is fundamentally different to that in developed countries: its economies are mostly based on hard cash, so lack of bank liquidity that translates into lower lending isn't the main problem in Africa. And few Africans hold mortgages, so there's no subprime mess.

Most African countries are instead suffering from depressed global demand for the natural resources that provide the lion's share of their incomes.

Also hurting the continent:

— The drying up of crucial direct investment from overseas.

— A drop in remittances sent back home from African emigres.

— A stampede of foreign money out of fragile local stock exchanges as overseas investors seek safer waters.

— An expected drop in direct aid from richer nations now preoccupied with their own people.

While Africa is projected by the International Monetary Fund to squeeze out economic growth of about 3 percent in 2009 even as the global economy recedes for the first time in years, that's only about half of what Africa has seen recently, and it's too little to halt the spread of poverty.

ActionAid, a South African charity, says the global economic downturn translates into about a $50 billion — or 10 percent — drop in income for Africa by the end of the year.

"Although developing countries didn't make this crisis, it has become all too clear that they are in the firing line when it comes to suffering its worst effects," says Claire Melamed of ActionAid.

Promoting health insurance for poor children in South Carolina

South Carolina has 130,000 uninsured children. The state does run an insurance program that could cover them. So state legislators are looking at improving efforts to get the word out about the program.

From the Post and Courier writer Yvonne Wenger details the State's effort to promote the program.

"This is a message to all the parents in South Carolina: If your children do not have medical insurance coverage, we want you to know that you may qualify," said Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg.

The state Legislature has set aside money since 2007 for an estimated 70,000 children to receive coverage for checkups, hospital stays, dental care, eye exams, prescriptions and other services through the S.C. Healthy Connections Kids. So far, only 12,000 children have signed up.

Legislative budget writers are still drafting the state's spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1, and money for the State Children's Health Insurance Program was included in the House-passed version.

On Thursday, Sue Berkowitz, director of S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center, and Frank Knapp, president of the state Small Business Chamber of Commerce, announced an effort to get 650,000 fliers in the hands of parents whose children could benefit.

Rep. David Mack, D-North Charleston, is among legislators who will be distributing fliers to local school districts as a way to get the word out.

"This is not only the morally right thing to do, it is the fiscally responsible thing to do," Mack said. If a child gets the proper preventive care, then expensive health problems can be avoided, he said.

Thousands protest the upcoming G-20 meeting

London was full of tens of thousands of protesters to begin the fun around the G-20 meetings. The protesters ranged in interests from environmentalists, trade unions, and anti-capitalists.

From Australian paper The Age, reporter Guy Jackson explains the protests.

Police estimated the crowd at up to 35,000 but there was no sign of the feared violence as the placard-waving crowd snaked along the six-kilometre (four-mile) route to Hyde Park.

An alliance of more than 150 unions, charities and environment groups joined the march to demand action to save jobs, create a low-carbon economy and impose stricter controls on the finance sector.

World leaders, including US President Barack Obama on his first visit to Europe since he took office, will meet in London on Thursday for the Group of 20 summit amid the deepest global recession since the 1930s.

Organisers of the Put People First march for "jobs, justice and climate" had rejected as "smears" claims in police briefings that the march could be hijacked by anarchists bent on violence.

The general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Brendan Barber, said the demonstration had a clear message for the presidents and prime ministers heading to London.

"Never before has such a wide coalition come together with such a clear message for world leaders," he said.

"The old ideas of unregulated free markets do not work, and have brought the world's economy to near-collapse, failed to fight poverty and have done far too little to move to a low-carbon economy."

A lifetime in poverty increases heart disease risk

A new study finds that lifelong poverty increases one's chances of having heart disease. The researchers behind the study says it shows how important it is to provide medical help and prevention for the poor.

From this story in Reuters, writer Amy Norton tells us how the study was conducted.

In this latest study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers found that lifelong disadvantage may translate into an "accumulation of risk" for heart disease.

They found that among more than 1,800 U.S. adults in a long-term heart- health study, greater lifetime exposure to poverty was related to increasing heart disease risks. Those who were disadvantaged as children and adults were 82 percent more likely to develop heart disease than those who were comparatively well off in childhood and adulthood.

Much of the disparity seemed to be explained by higher rates of "classic" heart disease risk factors, said lead researcher Dr. Eric B. Loucks, who was at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, at the time of the study.

People who were disadvantaged throughout life were, for example, more likely to smoke or be obese, explained Loucks, who is now an assistant professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

The study included 1,835 men and women who were followed between 1971 and 2003. During that time, 144 developed heart-artery blockages, suffered a heart attack or died from heart disease.

The researchers gave each participant a "score" for lifelong socioeconomic status -- using fathers' education as an indicator of childhood status, and participants' own education and job as a measure of adulthood status.

Overall, the researchers found, men and women with the greatest lifelong exposure to poverty faced the greatest heart risks.

Video: Food prices double in Sierra Leone

The above video accompanies an article written about Fatu's struggle to provide food in Sierra Leone. Telegraph writer Jessica Salter gives us some background on the conditions of the country.

Sierra Leone is officially the worst place in the world for a child to be born. One in four children die before their fifth birthday and one in three children under five are moderately or severely underweight.

The country was devastated by the civil war which wracked the country from 1991-2002. Tens of thousands of people died in the conflict and more than one-third of the 6m population was displaced.

Kroo Bay, where more than 5,000 people live crammed together in flimsy tin-roofed huts, is built on mounds of rubbish and the area is regularly flooded bringing in deadly diseases.

US Senate hearing on food security

Here is a look at what took place on Tuesday's hearing on food prices and food security. The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee called the hearing to see what impact hunger has on national security, and it has a large one.

Deborah Tate from the Voice of America tells us why committee chair Senator John Kerry called the hearing.

The chairman of the committee, Democrat John Kerry of Massachusetts, says hunger is one of the greatest diplomatic and moral challenges the world faces.

Kerry says the problem affects some 850 million people and is particularly acute in Africa.

"One in three people are malnourished, and food security today is worse than it was in 1970. Conflict, poor governance and HIV/AIDS have all reduced basic access to food. Now drought, aggravated by climate change, makes the situation even more desperate," he said.

The hearing comes as the Obama administration reviews U.S. development aid. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton submitted a letter to the Foreign Relations Committee, saying she hopes to make food security a priority for U.S. development programs.

The top Republican on the committee, Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, has reintroduced legislation, the Global Food Security Act, that would make long-range agricultural productivity a major goal of U.S. development programs.

"I believe the food security challenge is an opportunity for the United States. We are the undisputed leader in agricultural technology. And a more focused effort on our part to join with other nations to increase [crop] yields, create economic opportunities for the rural poor and broaden agricultural knowledge could strengthen relations around the world and open a new era of United States diplomacy," he said.
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Political scientist Robert Paarlberg of Wellesley College in Massachusetts expressed concern that the United States has reduced its agricultural development aid to Africa during the past quarter century, as agricultural production on the content declined.

"The per capita production of maize has actually dropped by 14 percent since 1980. The average income of these farmers is less than $1 per day and one-third are chronically malnourished. But to make things worse, over the last 25 years, the United States government has essentially walked away from this problem. Since the 1980s, the United States government has cut its official development assistance to agriculture in Africa by roughly 85 percent. The staff at USAID [the United States Agency for International Development] that handle agriculture has been cut by nearly 90 percent. So as things have been getting steadily worse in Africa, the United States government has curiously been doing steadily less," he said.

Paarlberg says that because African farmers do not have access to fertilizer, irrigation or powered machinery, agricultural production in Africa has lagged behind population growth for most of the last three decades.

How much money a family in Zimbabwe needs

Zimbabwe has suffered hyper inflation for some time now. It got so bad that Zimbabwe had to dump it's own currency, and now conducts commerce with the South African or American dollars.

The government recently conducted a survey that shows how much a family now needs for basic goods such as food, housing and transportation. The Zimbabwe Herald tells us how much a family needs for basics.

A FAMILY in Zimbabwe required as much as US$552 for basics in January according to latest official poverty assessment report.

The Central Statistical Office, a national statistics agency which also calculates inflation said on Tuesday of the US$552, US$177 was needed for food.

This average family will need to spend US$375 on basics such as accommodation, transport to get to and from work, school fees and clothes, among other basics.

There is no provision for luxuries.

According to CSO, PDL represents the cost of a given standard of living that must be attained if a person should not be considered as poor.

Going by the CSO definition of PDL, the majority of workers in Zimbabwe will be found in the poor category. Government is paying civil servants US$100 per month.

World Bank grants Rwanda $80 million

The World Bank has granted $80 million dollars to the country of Rwanda. The money is used to fund government run poverty fighting projects.

The World Bank has been supporting Rwanda's budget with direct grants since 2001, the size of last year's grant was $70 million.

For a run down on some of the projects the money will be used for, we go to All Africa and reporter Sam Ruburika.

According to James Musoni, the minister of finance, the fifth PRSG will be utilized in human capital and infrastructure development especially in specific areas that are still an impediment to the country's social economic development.

The Minister mentioned areas such as education, where the fund is expected to help increase the number of teachers and the development of science and technology in schools.

The agriculture sector, for its part, is to benefit from important infrastructure works such as distribution of electricity into rural areas, construction of roads to ease access to the markets and also facilitate the growth of Rwanda's exports.

Furthermore, the grant will be used to deepen and broaden the financial sector thus facilitating the private sector in accessing credit.
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US$ 10 million of PRSG V will be earmarked for rural agriculture development which according to Victoria Kakwa, the World Bank country manager, has been improving over the years.

She hailed the progress of Rwanda's economy which registered an impressive growth of 11% in 2008.

The agenda for the G-20

The BBC has a really good breakdown of the issues that are ahead for the G-20 meeting. The one-day summit is taking place in London on April 2nd.

Of course, the big topic will be the world economic recession. The leaders of the world's wealthiest countries will talk about what they can do to get the economy growing again.

The BBC has the agenda divided into 5 categories, reviving the world economy, restoring lending, tougher rules for banks, a bigger role for International Monetary Fund, and more help for developing countries. It is that last heading that we will focus on in our snippet, but we encourage you to give the full article a look at.

The world's poorest countries are likely to be hard-hit by the downturn.

The World Bank estimates that an extra 50 million people will fall into poverty because of the global recession.

But there is concern that many countries are now likely to cut their development aid.

Gordon Brown would like world leaders to pledge to maintain that aid, and if possible to increase it in line with targets agreed at the Gleneagles summit in 2005.

However, development groups such as the Overseas Development Institute say that at least $50bn more is needed for sub-Saharan Africa to escape the worst effects of the crisis.

Swaziland Supreme court rules for free education

The Supreme Court of Swaziland has ordered the government to provide free education as ruled in the Nation's Constitution. Swaziland started to charge tuition fees to students citing budget constraints for doing so.

With access to education being one of the Millennium Development Goals, we go to IRIN for more details, and an English lesson from the Swaziland Supreme Court.

"I make a declaration that every Swazi child of whatever grade attending primary school is entitled to education free of charge, at no cost and no requirement of any contribution of any such child regarding tuition, supply of textbooks and all inputs that ensure access to education," High Court Judge Mabel Agyemang ruled.

The labour support group, Swaziland National Ex-Miners Workers Union (SNEWA), brought the lawsuit to compel the government to honour the 2005 constitution, promulgated by sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch, King Mswati III.

In February 2009, Mswati said at the opening of parliament that free education was desirable, however, it was not feasible due to budgetary constraints.

Parliamentarians pointed out that free education was already offered to children in the form of government-purchased textbooks and the payment of tuition fees for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), an argument used by lawyers acting on behalf of government.

Judge Agyemang rejected this argument, saying: "I reiterate that the context in which the world 'free' appears in Section 29 (6) [of the constitution] as an adjective to describe the word 'education' leaves no ambiguity to the reader.

"It seems to me that the respondents [the government] are seeking to have the court give the words 'free education' an interpretation which will only do violence to the language, will at best be artificial and in reality be absurd," she said.

A government spokesperson declined to comment, but said lawyers were reviewing the decision and had not ruled out appealing it.

The Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civil Organisations, an umbrella group of human rights groupings, labour organizations and humanitarian aid societies, said they hoped government would abide by the ruling rather than appealing it.

The Times of Swaziland, a local newspaper, said in an editorial after the judge’s decision that the government could afford free education if it shelved unnecessary and expensive "luxury" projects, such as a new national airport.

A former cabinet minister, in office when the constitution was adopted, told IRIN that free education could have been financed by the government, with grant assistance from the European Union, but was put on hold to address the issue of OVC education.

Using the seeds of a horseradish tree to purify water

A scientific study going on in Zimbabwe is testing the use of a certain seed to purify water.

The study couldn't have been done at a better place, as Zimbabwe's water system is a catastrophe. The contaminated drinking water in the country caused a large cholera outbreak, which claimed the lives of over 3.000 people. Less than a third of the people in Southern Africa have access to clean water, the number is even less in Zimbabwe.

From the IPS, reporters Busani Bafana and Zahira Kharsany tell us about the research.

Water and sanitation experts are currently investigating if a powder made from the seeds of the Moringa Oleifera, commonly known as the drumstick or horseradish tree, can be used as a filter to purify water.
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"Water quality is a problem in Zimbabwe, and this is not only confined to urban areas but happens in rural areas too," explained NUST civil engineer Ellen Mangore.

She told IPS the research project is modelled on water treatment practices in Sudan, where the seed is used pounded or whole to purify water. Moringa Oleifera is a small tree whose leaves are popularly used to make salad, while its elongated fruit is eaten as a vegetable.

Researchers place their hopes in the Moringa tree seed for water purification, as the tree is widely found in Zimbabwe. In addition, it is drought tolerant and grows in locations with as little as 500 millimetres of annual rainfall.

In addition, NUST investigates other simple water treatment methods, such as purification with household bleach and sand filtration columns.


So far, the treatment of water with Moringa seed powder has proven to be an effective method of reducing water-borne diseases and correct pH, said Mangore, as have the other tested methods.

"Our test results also showed that household bleach is a very strong disinfectant and raised the levels of free and total chlorine in the water, while the simple filtration columns resulted in almost 85 percent reduction in total suspended solids," she explained.

US aid group kicked out of North Korea

Once again a government puts politics over the good of it's people. North Korea has kicked out the aid group Mercy Corps, who have provided food the the North Korean people.

North Korea has been messing with nuclear weapons again. Many feel that the expulsion of Mercy Corps is in response to US criticism of the nuclear program. North Korea has also detained two US journalists accused of spying.

From the Reuters article written by Paul Eckert, we hear from Mercy Corps and their hopes to return to North Korea soon.

Amid tensions over North Korea's nuclear program and an expected missile launch next month, its reclusive government informed Washington last week of its decision not to accept more U.S. assistance, the State Department said.

North Korea said a 2008 protocol, which would have provided 500,000 metric tons of U.S. food aid over a 12-month period, was "no longer in effect," said Paul Majarowitz, director of Mercy Corps NGO Food Assistance Program in North Korea.

"We were given a letter by the North Korean government that asked us to close our field offices by March 20, and our main office by March 31, and have all of our staff and equipment out of the country by March 31," he said.

The expulsion covered only the food aid program, not the private aid agencies themselves, Majarowitz added.

"We're complying with that request and, at the same time, we're negotiating with them, trying to see if there is an avenue to restart or to resume the program," he said in remarks at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington.
...

U.N. investigator Vitit Muntarbhorn told the world body's Human Rights Council last week the situation in North Korea was "dire and desperate". Authorities were moving to close all markets on which many people rely for food, he said.

North Korean authorities were also apparently planning to ban small-lot, or "kitchen" farming, which had been vital for the survival of much of the population, while army personnel were forcing farmers to provide them food, Muntarbhorn said.

Video: Darfur aid crisis story from Al Jazeera

A dire prediction: Climate change effects on food security

One of the top advisers to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is warning of famines in 30 years. Nina Fedoroff says that a billion people will face famine in this mid-century. Fedoroff says the effects of climate change and rising temperatures will hurt food production and cause a real challenge for us in years ahead.

From the Times Online reporter Lewis Smith interviewed Fedoroff, who pointed at a heatwave from 2003 as evidence.

During the 2003 European heatwave, she said, crop yields fell by 20 to 25 per cent in France and this is a pattern likely to be repeated on a much wider scale in the future.

Some years will see worldwide heatwaves which will put a great strain on food supplies and, if they take place two years in a row, they could damage crop yields so drastically that they leave a billion people in danger of starvation.

Even wealthy countries like Britain and the United States, said Dr Fedoroff, will struggle to feed many of their citizens, with the poorest in society likely to suffer the most. “I think that’s what we are facing,” she told The Times on a brief visit to London before heading to a OECD conference in Paris later this week, where she will call on governments to do more to guard against food shortages in the coming decades.

“Everybody knows the summer 2003 heatwave killed 30,000 to 50,000 people but do you know it decreased crop productions by 20 to 25 per cent? That’s huge. That summer was an anomoly but the projections are that’s going to be a typical summer. It could be by the mid century, it could be by the end of the century.”

Crop production has already been affected by an increase in drought frequency in parts of Africa but temperature rises forecast as a result of climate change mean that large areas of Europe, the US and central America, Australia and Asia are likely to be similarly affected in the future.

Like Professor Beddington and Bob Watson, the chief scientist at the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, Dr Fedoroff believes genetic engineering must be expanded if the world is going to be able to feed itself.

UN warns on the growing humanitarian crisis in Darfur

The United Nations is issuing a warning on the growing humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The government of Sudan expelled many aid organizations from the country and prevented them from giving aid to the people of Darfur. On top of that, rebel leaders are refusing are help from the Sudanese government.

From the Guardian, Xan Rice tells us about the warning from the UN.

Some of the most vulnerable people in Darfur face a high risk of "increased morbidity and mortality" since the expulsion of 16 aid agencies three weeks ago, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan warned today.

Ameerah Haq said that while the immediate needs of the 4.7 million people reliant on relief in Darfur were mostly being met through stopgap measures, up to 650,000 people were without access to full healthcare. Feeding programmes for malnourished children and pregnant women also remained disrupted.

Many clinics remain closed, while others are being run by local staff at a basic level. One agency today expressed concern at reports that "non-health professionals" in displaced persons' camps were using the medical equipment it had been forced to leave behind.

Some 13 foreign agencies and three local organisations responsible for at least half the aid provision in Darfur were kicked out on 4 March, minutes after the international criminal court issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir. Humanitarian officials have warned that Sudan's pledge to fill the aid gap is unlikely to succeed while supplies of food, medicine and water are all under threat. Darfur's main rebel group has urged people to reject all government assistance.

The World Food Programme (WFP) is distributing a two-month ration to 1.1 million displaced people who were served by Care, Solidarités, Action Against Hunger and Save the Children, which have all been expelled. But Rachid Jafaar, a WFP official, warned this was "unsustainable", and the organisation could not guarantee that all the people affected, at 140 sites, would receive food.

The situation has been exacerbated by a surge in attacks on aid workers, which has severely restricted the activities of some of the agencies left on the ground. Three foreign Médecins Sans Frontières workers were kidnapped for several days by a militia supportive of Bashir, and a local employee of a Canadian aid agency was shot dead on Monday night.

NGO officials say Sudan's national security service has been overruling the state humanitarian affairs commission on issues of which aid groups are allowed to work, and where. Haq said Bashir's government, which worked with the UN on the needs assessment mission and is supplying services through the health ministry and water department, needed to take urgent action to improve aid provision.

Creating opportunity for youths in Sierra Leone's slums

A new program in Sierra Leone is creating opportunity for youths who live in slums.

YES or Youth Employment Secretariat has been formed by the countries government with support from the United Nations. The program develops jobs and businesses for the youth who live in the slums of Freetown.

The jobs range from tie-dying to soap-making. The youths can then spin off from the program to create their own money making businesses or non-profits.

The story from IRIN, gives us a clean water non-profit as an example.

Home to 13,000 people, Kroo bay slum in central Freetown had just two running water taps before Sidiki Mansark formed the “West Sie Boys” youth cooperative and set up public showers for slum residents.

“We saw the people lacking, and we decided to do something about it,” Mansark told IRIN. “Now everyone comes to us when they want a shower. We are not rich yet, but water is life and we want to bring it to the people.”

Youth unemployment programmes must move beyond post-conflict skills-training, such as tie-dying, tailoring and soap-making, to identify market opportunities in emerging industries in order to lower the 1.2 million-strong youth unemployment statistics, say youth employment experts in Sierra Leone.

“We need electricians, mobile phone repairers, air conditioning cleaners -- and this requires us to research emerging markets, to attract private sector investment and get more support for apprenticeship schemes,” said Helga Gibbons, International Monitoring and Evaluation Advisor at the government’s newly formed Youth Employment Secretariat (YES).

With 60 percent of the country’s youth population unemployed and many fearful that unemployment compounded by chronic poverty could derail fragile stability, donors and partners are looking for new solutions.

Shifting mentalities

Set up in 2008, YES, supported by the UN Development Programme, has established a fund of US$700,000 to distribute grants and micro-finance loans to youth groups that present viable applications for business start-ups, public works projects or agricultural initiatives.

Hundreds of youth groups who have applied for funding are awaiting approval, among them the Water Sie Boys who requested US$9,000 to open a new community shower.

Gibbons said youths need better business-management training to use this money profitably. “Many youth groups still see themselves as non-profits rather than money-making enterprises…this mentality has to shift,” she told IRIN. Ultimately all business plans will be dependent both on their own merits and on the vagaries of the wider economy, she said.

YES’s partner, the NGO International Rescue Committee (IRC), is trying to match urban youths with existing businesses, such as pharmacies, and asking them to open a new branch. Youth development coordinator Annalisa Busati told IRIN that this way, “they [youths] get the backing of the firm’s name, branding and supply chain, and they can avoid common business start-up mistakes.”

Hearing on global food crisis today in Washington

A hearing on food prices around the world is taking place on Capitol Hill today. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee chaired by Senator John Kerry will conduct the hearing.

Last year, food prices generally soared up over 60 percent, pushing millions of people into hunger. Although the prices have since recovered from these record highs, they are still higher than in previous years.

From the Political Intelligence blog at the Boston Globe, Foon Rhee details the hearing.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, under the gavel of chairman John F. Kerry, is holding a hearing today on what the United States can do to help alleviate the global food crisis.

“We’re faced with two disasters—soaring food prices leaving millions hungry every year and an ailing economy. The challenges are overwhelming, but we have to do much more than send emergency food aid to countries facing scarcity,” Kerry said in a statement.

“We live in a world where nearly one billion people suffer from chronic food insecurity,” Senator Richard Lugar, the panel's ranking Republican, added,. “Hungry people are desperate people, and desperation often sows the seeds of conflict and extremism."

He is a cosponsor of a bill designed to improve US and global efforts to increase crop yields, create rural economic opportunities, broaden trade relations, and improve scientific cooperation.

The scheduled witnesses are: Daniel R. Glickman, former Secretary of Agriculture during the Clinton administration; Catherine Bertini, former executive director of the World Food Program; David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World; Robert Paarlberg, professor of political science at Wellesley College; Edwin C. Price, associate vice chancellor and director of Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture; and Gebisa Ejeta, professor of agronomy at Purdue University.

Sudanese aid worker shot dead in Darfur

A Sudanese man who works for a Canadian aid organization serving Darfur was shot dead yesterday, for his cell phone.

It's the latest act of violence against the those who provide aid for the people in Darfur. In March, a group from Medecins Sans Frontieres were kidnapped, but they have since been returned.

From this AFP article that we found at Yahoo News, see learn more about the tragedy.

"He was ambushed on Saturday by men who wanted his Thuraya satellite telephone," Mark Simmons, country director for the Fellowship for African Relief, told AFP.

"They came to his home on Monday evening to take the phone, but it wasn't there. The armed men then opened fire on him."

Simmons said the attack took place in west Darfur, near the border with Chad.

"We've been in Sudan for 24 years and this is the first time that one of our workers is killed," he said.

The killing came after Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, accused by the International Criminal Court of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, expelled 13 foreign relief agencies earlier this month.

Beshir has stepped up his defiance of the West since the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him on March 4, vowing to expel foreign aid groups and to replace them with Sudanese organisations.

An early start to volunteering; college student spends six months in India

A young woman is spending a half a year in India helping poor children. While there, she continues her college studies via the internet. That is part of the story of Brooke McCall, who stated volunteering and making a difference in high school. She has created a web site about her current effort at Only Today org.

The Daily Press from Orange County California tells us more about the young world traveler, with this story from Greg Hardesty.

In India, her mission is twofold: Teaching English and geography to kids from the slums and refugee camps, and trying to raise $15,000 to send 50 of those students to college.

Her uncle, Chris White, who works at the Irvine office of Cisco Systems, the giant networking supplier, set up McCall to live at the India home of Lea King, a Cisco marketing executive in Bangalore, who connected McCall to several nonprofit organizations.

McCall works six days a week for the nonprofits.

Most of that time is spent at the Indira Gandhi International Academy, which educates about 230 kids from Sri Lanka who are transported each day from a refugee camp.

Outside class, she's raising money for an 8-year- old boy with a severe leg infection. The goal is to keep him in school.

McCall's other miniproject has a similar theme. She's convinced the parents of a 17-year-old girl not to marry off their daughter so that she, too, can stay in school.

Book Review "The Life You Can Save" by Peter Singer

You might remember Peter Singer from the 1970's when he declared that animals have equal rights to humans. Singer continues to try to sway opinions with his latest book "The Life You Can Save." In it, he suggests how Americans can change their charitable giving to help combat world poverty.

We found a review of the work in the Boston Globe, from freelance writer and book critic Bill Williams.

Peter Singer is on a crusade to convince Americans that they can play a vital role in ending world poverty, without undue sacrifice.

The Princeton bioethics professor's latest book, "The Life You Can Save," offers a stark indictment of extreme economic disparity in a world where 10 million children under the age of 5 die each year from starvation and treatable illnesses.

Americans are generous with their time and money, but little of it is directed at helping those outside US borders. Among industrialized nations, the United States ranks near the bottom in the proportion of national income given as foreign aid.

Like a veteran debater, Singer weighs the reasons why people do not give more, cites examples of noble generosity, and offers a voluntary plan that could raise $510 billion to combat poverty.

One of Singer's favorite examples of American excess is bottled water, which has become a staple in many households. Meanwhile, millions of people do not have access to clean water, sanitation, medical care, and enough food to maintain health.

Some people balk because they think the scale of extreme poverty is so great that small donations would not make a difference, or they are more likely to help the needy closer to home, or they wonder what happens to their donations.

The slowing textile industry in Cambodia

Foreign investors invaded Cambodia with cash to establish a thriving textile industry in the 1990's. The jobs in the clothing factories helped to bring many Cambodians over the poverty level.

Now with the global recession slowing down demand for clothes, many jobs in Cambodia are being lost. Some factories are shutting down while owing their workers back pay.

From this exaustive Reuters story on textiles in Cambodia, writer Ek Madra shows us the impact on the nations poverty line.

The sector represents about 16 percent of Cambodia's GDP, so the factory closures will hurt, with a ripple effect in the countryside as the money sent home by garment workers dries up.

The International Monetary Fund says the economy could shrink 0.5 percent in 2009 and the garment trade slump is a big factor.

But Kang Chandararot, director of the Cambodian Institute of Development Study (CIDS), said even if the double-digit growth of recent years was out of reach, 4 or 5 percent may be possible thanks to a bountiful rice crop in 2008/09 and the record $950 million in aid pledged by international donors for 2009.

"Cambodia could use the aid of nearly $1 billon to invest in infrastructures to stimulate its economy," Chandararot said.

People surviving on less than $1 a day are deemed to be living in poverty. Garment workers earn on average $2.7 a day so the loss of these jobs will hurt.

"More people will be pushed into poverty," said Huot Chea of the World Bank in Cambodia.

Historical data is lacking in Cambodia, but the World Bank says 45 to 50 percent of the people lived in poverty in 1994. Prime Minister Hun Sen says that was cut to 30 percent by 2008 thanks to the garment sector, tourism and agriculture.

Numbers of people in poverty in New York state increasing

A report for areas of upstate New York show increasing poverty in the region. The State's Community Action Association compiled the report using US Census Bureau data and numbers from area aid agencies.

The details show what anti-poverty workers already now, the number of people in poverty in New York state are increasing. From the Schenectady Daily Gazette, reporter Sara Foss gets some reaction.

“This confirmed what we see,” said Deb Schimpf, executive director of the Schenectady Community Action Program.

“It’s what we expected, but it’s still hard to meet the need,” said Mike Saccocio, executive director of the City Mission of Schenectady.

The New York State Community Action Association, which wrote the report, hopes that it will serve as a resource for community-based organizations, elected officials and the public. It was put together using 2005, 2006 and 2007 data from the United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, and provides poverty rates for every county in the state, as well as upstate cities.

“Policy makers need good poverty information,” said Denise Harlow, CEO of the New York State Community Action Association. The report, she said, “elevates the issues of poverty.” According to the 2009 New York State Poverty Report, the statewide poverty rate is 14 percent, compared to a national poverty rate of 13.3 percent. More than 2.6 million New Yorkers live in households with incomes below the poverty line — $18,310 for a family of three. Statewide, the median income is $52,944.

In Albany County, the poverty rate is 12.4 percent, in Fulton County 16.4 percent, in Montgomery County 13.1 percent, in Rensselaer County 11.5 percent, in Saratoga County 6.6 percent, in Schenectady County 11.4 percent and in Schoharie County 11.7 percent.

The rates are much higher in area cities. In Albany, the poverty rate is 26.7 percent; approximately 39.2 percent of children live in poverty. In Saratoga Springs, the poverty rate is 8.4 percent; approximately 25.4 percent of children live in poverty. In Schenectady, the poverty rate is 21.1 percent; approximately 28.7 percent of children live in poverty.

A Sari designing NGO to empower the women of India

We learned of the work of a non governmental Organization that works in India that helps to improve the lives of women. The NGO called "Hosur Development Foundation" helps women to design sari clothing so they can go on to form their own sari crafting businesses.

The story from Andhra News gives us more details on the NGO.

A self-help group has been training rural women in sari designing in Tamil Nadu to make them self-reliant.

Under patronage of the Tamil Nadu Government and the Central Government, a non- government organization 'Hosur Development Foundation' is running the self-help group for the socio-economic development of women and their empowerment.

A group of 140 women are working in this self-help group for making designs on the saris.

"We are making designs on saris and tailoring it. The Central and the State Government have provided their assistance to us. Earlier, we faced quite a lot of difficulties, but now we are earning 2000 rupees per month. We are hoping to earn more," said Seetha, member of the self-help group.

With the help of government subsidies the women are successfully engaged in the jobs.We are providing the State and the Central Government subsidies for the members.

They can use it for their economic growth, cultural development and economic status," said Arumugam, Assistant Project Officer, self-help group, Krishnakiri District.

Comment on the aid expulsions from Darfur

A very under-reported story that has been going on in recent weeks are the expulsions of aid grounds and NGO's who provide much need food and support to the people of Darfur. The government of Sudan has been kicking out the aid groups and leaving a vacuum of need for the refugees of Darfur.

We normally don't leave commentaries up through the weekend, but Jim Wallis wrote a piece for God's Politics that has been weighing on our minds lately. Again, our blog's goal is to shed light on a very under-reported subject in the American press. The actions of the government of Sudan seem to have been forgotten in all the news of the global recession, so we felt led to give this commentary some attention through the weekend.

Here we are again, and again, and again. It is not a new message or a new concern. People have been suffering, starving, raped, beaten and killed year in and year out. There are those who have committed years, entire lives, to the cause. They have preached, they have marched, they have sung, they have divested, and they have been arrested to make their voices heard. Politicians, celebrities, faith leaders, and activists have joined together to stand up and speak out. The campaigns have gone on so long and the education so effective that 58 percent of Americans can now locate this remote country on a map. But, “never again” has turned into “once again,” and history repeats itself with genocide in Darfur.

Over the past few weeks, 13 international humanitarian organizations have been expelled from Sudan at the dictate of Omar al-Bashir, president of Sudan. These actions came soon after the International Criminal Court handed down an indictment of al-Bashir and issued a warrant for his arrest for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Darfur. As a result, 1.1 million Darfuris are without food, 1.5 million without health care, and more than 1 million without access to clean drinking water. If there was any doubt as to whether or not he was truly acting in the best interest of his people, his use of food and water as weapons of war show that he just does not care about the people of Darfur.

Over the past month, officials have spoken to me about invoking Article 16 of the Court’s statutes which would allow the U.N. Security Council to defer proceedings for a year or even more. They argue that this would allow the Khartoum government to take positive steps forward in taking care of its people and moving toward peace. With the expulsion of these humanitarian organizations, al-Bashir has shown that he has no interest in the well-being of the people of Darfur or in bringing piece. These actions show that once again there comes a time when a political leader has so violated standards of international law and morality that he should no longer be treated as a sovereign, even in his own country, but as a criminal. Actions like this show that he should no longer be president, but prosecuted and brought to justice like the international fugitive of the law he now is. If he was serious about peace and progress, the first thing he should do is welcome the aid organizations back into his country, and without that he has ensured that this warrant will be pursued.
...

Again, and again, and again. The unacceptable has been accepted, atrocities have been ignored. When the dust clears and the bodies are buried, burned, or left to rot in forsaken camps, the whole world will mourn for what has been done. But, what Sudan needs is not apologies in the future, but hope today. Until the killing has stopped and peace restored, Sudan needs people of conscience across the world who will stand in solidarity today, tomorrow, and the day after that – again, and again, and again.

Extending credit to farmers without collateral established in Uganda

A new credit program will begin to extend credit to farmers in Africa who are without collateral. The hope is that small farmers will be able to borrow money for improved seeds and fertilizer. The improved tools should be able to provide the farmers enough food to live on for a full year, and maybe a little extra to sell.

The lending program will operate in Uganda, Ghana, Mozambique and Tanzania.

The Standard Bank of South Africa put up the money for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa who will conduct the program. $100 million dollars will be put into the fund over the next three years.

Kofi Annan is a chair person for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. He spoke at the unveiling ceremony which was attended by reporter Hellen Mukiibi of New Vision.

"Inflation, food shortages, and trade imbalances all pose huge social, economic, and political risks. But while credit is frozen worldwide, Africa cannot wait for a thaw," Annan said at the unveiling event in Accra on Wednesday.

"Programmes such as this, which increase the productivity of smallholder farmers and help catalyse an African Green Revolution, will ultimately enable Africa to achieve food security and stability, and thus improve the entire global outlook."

Standard Bank Group boss Jacko Maree said "as a leading emerging markets bank, our goal is to perform a transformative role in the continent's agricultural sector in partnership with other organisations.

Transforming small scale farmers into medium-sized enterprises is essential to address the food security and to stimulate economic growth." Similar to farmers in developing countries, the Uganda small land holders lack access to finance.

This been the worldwide major obstacle preventing farmers from investing in basic inputs, such as good seeds, fertilisers and small-scale irrigation needed to raise farm productivity and generate profit.

As a result, their yields poor, estimated at one-quarter of the global average leading to pervasive hunger and poverty across Africa.

Food giveaway has to turn people away

A food giveaway in Georgia saw such a huge demand that people had to be turned away.

The giveaway is part of an USDA Emergency Food Assistance Program. The program distributes food through community action agencies and food banks. The recent food bill and economic stimulus packages increased the number of giveaways the USDA conducts.

From the Athens Banner Hearld, writer Merritt Melanco shows us how great the need is.

More than 200 people gathered at Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2872 at dawn Thursday to pick up bags to free groceries from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and several dozen were turned away after food ran out.

"The last couple of these, we had to go out to the corner and hold up signs, flag people down just to get them in here to get the groceries," said Gwen Maxey, community services coordinator for ACTION Inc., the agency that handles the USDA's local commodities distribution. "So this, to me, is just a sign of the times."

As the line snaked around the VFW parking lot, volunteers handed out numbered tickets representing one household's allotment of groceries. It was clear by 8:15 a.m. that there weren't enough tickets to go around. The scene was similar at a Oconee County grocery pick-up location, where volunteers ran out of groceries by 10 a.m. - a first in Oconee County, said Elaine Whitmire, ACTION Inc.'s community services coordinator for the county.

With more and more companies laying off employees and the state reaching an all-time high of 9.2 percent unemployment, Maxey isn't surprised to see new faces in the line, she said.

They are all sorts of people: Construction workers who haven't found a job in months; people who were laid off and are trying to make their savings last as long as they can; grandparents who need the extra food because their children and grandchildren have moved back home.

"It's just really bad out there right now," said Billie Riley, who retired after 22 years working at a local hospital. "My daughter lost her job, so she had to move in with me. We're all in the same house now, which is fine. But I've only got Social Security coming in."

Afghan women taking desparate measures

A gruesome story in the BBC today really shows the plight of women in Afghanistan. The story describes women burning themselves or self-immolation to escape their lives.

Even though the nations constitution makes equal rights a priority, it doesn't match the reality in the lives of the countries women. Many women are in poverty, illiterate or are victims of domestic abuse. A large number of the women who burn themselves are ones who are about to be married. Many take to burning because they dont see a way out or any way to improve their lives.

From the BBC, Martin Patience looks at the work of a burn center practitioner, Dr Mohammed Jalili.

At the hospital, Dr Jalili was treating two women. He had operated on 20-year-old Anargol three times, including a skin graft operation on her badly scarred neck.

Anargol says she had committed self-immolation after arguing with her husband.

When asked whether she had a message for other women, she had a shocking response.

"Don't burn yourself," she said, lying on her hospital bed. "If you want a way out, use a gun: it's less painful."

It was an absolute cry of despair, and something rarely heard from women in this deeply conservative society.

But according to Soraya Balaigh, director of the provincial department for women's affairs, it is an emotion that many women relate to.

"Pressure is often put on these women by their husbands or the mothers-in-law," she says.

"Violence is common and many women are desperate. I had a woman in this office who begged me to kill her here rather than send her back."

Surveying hunger in the states

A new survey is being taken nationwide to examine hunger in America. People who ask for food assistance at food pantries across the nation will be surveyed to see the extent of hunger in the states.

From the Gazette Extra in Janesville Wisconsin, reporter Shelly Birkelo tells us more.

People seeking help at ECHO on Tuesday might have helped others.

Clients looking for food or emergency lodging were asked to take the 82-question Hunger in America survey.

The nationwide survey is taken every four years to measure how much food assistance available to low-income people, said Gina Wilson, director of agency relations at Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin.

The information will be used “by advocates, legislators and people who are trying to secure more funding for assistance for people who need help with food,’’ she said.

“We learn a good bit in the client interviews about what client circumstances are,’’ she said.

The information is kept confidential.

“We will not share information about you with anybody else, including this agency, and the information you give will not be used to determine your eligibility for benefits from any program,’’ according to a copy of the survey.

A food bank profile: Sparrow Serivces in Lake Oswgo, Oregon

A profile on a food bank caught our eye this morning. The Oregon newspaper Lake Oswego Review profiled Sparrow Services which is based out of Hope Community Church.

The story echoed what we are hearing from many food bank leaders, that there is a new face of hunger in America due to the recession. People who were once well off now have to receive donations to feed themselves, some do it in secret.

Reporter for the Lake Oswego Review Cliff Newell, interviewed Sparrow Services leader Keith Dickerson for the story.

Certainly, Sparrow Services is doing great work by feeding the hungry. Yet perhaps what is most unique about it is who these hungry people are.

“We don’t get many transients any more,” Keith Dickerson said, “where we just give them some popup cans of Vienna sausage or some chili.”

Instead, Sparrow Services receives people who live in Lake Oswego. Not down-and-outers, but people who not long ago were well off and who often still live in fine homes. But in these times they are going hungry.

“There’s a big demand in Lake Oswego,” Keith Dickerson said. “I’ve pastored in Illinois, Minnesota, and Georgia, and our food ministry in Lake Oswego is different from anywhere else. Hungry people here are in the stealth mode. They want to be anonymous, and we often find out about them from a neighbor or co-worker.

“Sometimes people who need food the worse are the last ones to let you know. They’re meek and quiet and appreciative. They come in softly and leave gratefully. They are people in great need.

“Approaching them is an art, it’s a different dance. You can’t do it brazenly but quietly. The art is giving them the permission to take what the community has for them.

“Some live in nice homes, but they’re tax assessment poor. Sometimes they short themselves on things they need.

“These are people now having to say to themselves ‘I could go hungry.’ That’s been an awakening for us.”

Stimulus in the Philippines

In our searches today, we found part of the plan the Philippines has to keep their economy thriving during the global recession.

A cash transfer program in the Philippines will give mothers and their children money if the parents promise to keep their kids in school.

From Business World Onlne, Maria Eloisa I. Calderon fills us in on the program, as well as gives us the latest poverty stats for the country.

The program involves handing out cash — P500 for healthcare and P300 per child for education (a maximum of P1,400 per family) — to mothers on condition that their children are sent to school.

"We have identified 320,00 households this year but the President [Gloria Macapagal Arroyo] gave an order for us to double it to P700,000," Ms. Pablo told BusinessWorld, adding the additional budget will be drawn from the President’s social fund.

The DSWD, which has drawn up a five-year plan to 2012 for the conditional cash transfer program, will need an estimated P10 billion every year for every 700,000 families, she said.

In its latest MDG progress report, the National Economic and Development Authority said the proportion of people living in extreme poverty had fallen to 13.5% in 2003 from 24.3% in 1991.

The UNDP is currently conducting a survey to get an estimate of how many people in the Asia-Pacific region have fallen back to poverty as a result of the crisis. Mr. Chhibber pointed out that a "significant part" of the roughly 400 million people who have risen out of poverty in recent years on the back of buoyant economic growth would be adversely affected.

"A global recovery from this crisis is going to take much longer ... and therefore, much more Asian solutions to this crisis must be found," he said.

The bloody transition of power in Madagascar

We have been watching for a few days now a bloody transition of power in Madagascar.

Madagascar's new president Andry Rajoelina has been installed by the military's actions. The nations military stormed the former President's palace where he was forced to resign.

From the International Herald Tribune, we get details of the overthrow, and reaction from the international community.

The nation's worst unrest in years killed at least 135 people, devastated a $390 million-a-year tourism sector and worried multinational firms with investments in its mining and oil industries.

The outcome was also a slap against the African Union, which has censured recent violent transfers of power that have damaged the continent's reputation with investors. Experts said Western donors could consider cutting aid to the world's fourth-largest island, but only in the short term.

"With so many people below the poverty line, I can't see the international community abandoning Madagascar in the long run, and he knows this," said Lydie Boka, of the Paris-based risk group StrategieCo, referring to Mr. Rajoelina.

While the military was crucial in installing the opposition leader, analysts said he also had the backing of Didier Ratsiraka, the exiled former president, and his allies. Some analysts said that France, the former colonial ruler, had also given him tacit support.

Mr. Ravalomanana's whereabouts on Wednesday were unclear. The opposition had accused him of corruption and of losing touch with the majority of the population who eke out a living on less than $2 a day.

There was a heavy military presence at the palace where Mr. Ravalomanana capitulated. A Reuters TV witness saw broken windows and furniture, as well as a crowbar lodged in the door of a safe. It was not clear whether departing presidential guards, the army or the public had ransacked the building.

For the new president's first speech, Rajoelina said that he would make poverty reduction a top priority. Corruption in the face of poverty is a factor in the whole transition to begin with.

From the paper Easy Bourse, this AFP story tells us Rajoelina's comments.

Madagascar's acting president, Andry Rajoelina, said Wednesday in his first speech since being swept to power by the army that fighting poverty on the island would be his priority.

"I will do everything I can to ensure that Madagascans are lifted out of poverty," Rajoelina told around 15,000 supporters during a rally in the capital Antananarivo.
"We will do everything we can to ensure that the standard of living of Madagascans starts improving as soon as possible," he added.

The 34-year-old leader, who was confirmed as acting president by the constitutional court earlier Wednesday, vowed to bring food prices down, notably rice.

One of the most symbolic measures he announced during his speech was his decision to sell outgoing president Marc Ravalomanana's plane.

"For the good of the Madagascan people, I will sell Force One," he said, adding that the money would be used "to establish a hospital for the people's health, which is a higher priority."

Force One is a Boeing 737 that Ravalomanana recently purchased from Disney World for $60 million.

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Tuberculosis amongst the homeless in America

Most often the disease tuberculosis is associated with poverty in the under-developed world. But it does exist in America, and our homeless population is often at risk.

From the Stockton Record, writer Jennifer Torres details a new tuberculosis scanning program that is ongoing in California homeless shelters.

Tuberculosis affects far fewer Americans than it does residents of developing countries. Still, the United States has experienced somewhat recent epidemics; the number of tuberculosis cases reported nationally rose sharply in the late 1980s and early 1990s, an increase linked in part to the spread of HIV as well as increased immigration, poverty and homelessness.

Rates of tuberculosis - a contagious disease caused by bacteria, which typically affects the lungs - have dropped in the years since, but progress, at least in California, has slowed.

Now, as poverty continues to spread and funding for prevention programs is threatened, some public health advocates warn that gains in fighting the treatable disease could be lost.

San Joaquin County has the fourth-highest tuberculosis rate in California, according to the most recent data available from the state Public Health Department. It is one of 10 counties with a tuberculosis rate higher than the statewide average of 7.2 cases per 100,000 residents. (That rate, meanwhile, is much higher than the U.S. average of 4.4.)

"I think it's good that they check us for tuberculosis," Carlos Salazar said as he put his public health card back into his wallet and carried his backpack to a bed at the homeless shelter. Salazar, originally from Guatemala, has lived in the United States for 19 years and at the homeless shelter for about two months. "If they find out you have it, you can get the right treatment."

Since fall 2007, single men at the Stockton shelter have been required to be tested for tuberculosis through the county public health office within three days of checking in. If their test comes back negative, they receive a clearance with their photo on it.

How the global recession will impact Asia

The Asian Development Bank has released a study that examines the effect the global recession will have in Asia. The bad news is, that it will increase the already high level of poverty in the region. The good news is, that many economies in Asia are isolated enough from the global financial system that their economies will continue to grow.

From IPS, reporter Prime Sarmiento unpacks the report for us.

The AsDB study, presented at a forum here earlier this month, expects a 6.7 percent growth for South Asia in 2009. This may be modest compared to the 8.6 percent growth posted in 2007, but still implies that the AsDB does not expect the sub-region to fall into recession anytime soon.

Participants at the forum were agreed that the poor, especially in countries like Nepal and Bangladesh, whose economies depend heavily on remittances from its nationals working abroad, were likely to be worst hit.

"While some countries in South Asia have had relatively less exposure to the crisis from the adverse impacts of capital flows, more than half of the 900 million people in developing Asia who survive on 1.25 US dollars a day live in the sub-region, so any tempering of growth is a serious cause for concern," AsDB president Haruhiko Kuroda said at the forum

In a speech delivered at the forum, Arun Shourie, member of India's parliament and former minister of public sector divestment, noted that behind all the macroeconomic data are people who will lose their livelihoods or cannot send their children to school.

South Asia may be home to some of the world's growing economies but positive fundamentals have not done much to improve the plight of the sub-continent's poor.

India, one of Asia's economic powerhouses, has posted an impressive eight to nine percent growth in the past few years. But 30 percent of India's one billion populace subsists on less than two dollars a day.

The situation is worse in poorer economies like Nepal and Bangladesh where nearly 40 percent of the population live below the poverty level, experts at the forum said. The crisis will further intensify inequities with the wealthy remaining unscathed and the poor suffering more.

Mental Health in Africa

It's tough enough to receive care for a physical illness in Africa. A story from the Associated Press shows just how difficult care is for mental illness.

Several factors stand in the way of the mentally ill receiving care. Poverty of course is a factor, either the ill are too poor to purchase care, or governments are too poor to provide it to the public.

Social stigmas against the mentally ill still exist in some areas. The ill may be treated less than humanely, being accused of being cursed or possessed. In some cases a mentally ill person will seek a witch doctor, only to suffer abuse from the witch doctors treatment.

In this AP article that we found in the International Herald Tribune we learn of some of the funding available for the mentally ill in Africa, and even catch glimpses of the abuse. Please be advised that our snippet is graphic.

In Kenya and many other African countries, poverty, lack of access and the stigma of mental disease prevent many patients from getting the help they desperately need. Despite some recent progress, just 0.01 percent of Kenya's health budget is spent on mental health, compared to around 6 percent in the U.S., for example.

Yet about a quarter of Kenyans seeking medical help have problems with mental health, says Dr. David Kiima, director of mental health. He estimates that about 10 percent of Kenya's people have mental health issues, and about 1 percent have disorders serious enough to warrant inpatient treatment.

The problem is worse in some other African countries such as Liberia, which suffered 15 years of brutal civil war and had numerous child soldiers. The World Health Organization says up to 85 percent of mentally ill people in the developing world never get treatment.

"The community does not see these people as human beings. They do not see their suffering," says Edah Maina, who heads the Kenya Society for the Mentally Handicapped.

Over the last seven years, the organization has forcefully taken more than 3,000 children and adults with mental disabilities from homes where they were abused. The organization tries to educate families to accept their mentally ill relatives back and treat them well. But some refuse, and the mentally ill may then end up in a government hospital for the rest of their lives.

The bland beige binders lining the walls in Maina's busy Nairobi office hide a litany of nightmares. In one photo, a 16-year-old autistic girl is led from a dark shed into the sun but can no longer see the light that warms her. After being locked up by her mother for 12 years, she has gone blind.

A grainy video shows a man with mental disabilities chained in a dog's kennel by his parents for a decade. In another incident, rescue workers open a corrugated iron door to reveal a chained, emaciated man with schizophrenia. His legs dangle uselessly after 15 years of malnutrition and confinement.

Countless other files show insects feeding on tied-up, swollen limbs and open sores festering under plastic bags used as diapers.

"Sometimes we can't sleep for days after an intervention," Maina admits.

A much needed new Wastewater treatment plant in Nicaragua

For over 80 years, waste has been dumped into Nicaragua's Lake Managua. The lake has been described by environmentalists as the "World's Largest Toilet." Further, over 80 percent on Nicaragua's water is polluted.

Even as far back as 1969, the Nicaraguan government declared neighborhoods around the Lake Managua uninhabitable. Only now does the area have it's own waste water treatment plant.

From the IPS, José Adán Silva tells us about Nicaragua's big step in fulfilling the neglected Millennium Development Goal.

Ruth Selma Herrera, president of the Empresa Nicaragüense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados - Nicaragua’s water and sewage utility - said the new plant is processing 132,000 cubic metres of wastewater a day, and will process 180,000 cubic metres a day when it reaches full operating capacity.

The wastewater from 60 chemical companies and Managua’s 1.2 million people has been dumped untreated into the lake from 17 drains since 1927, when the government ordered all sewage to be channeled into the lake until a new sewer system was built.

But the system was not in place until 2007, when 32 kilometres of underground drainage and sewage pipes running to the treatment plant were completed.

"It is an old dream of the Nicaraguan people to salvage the beautiful gifts that God gave this land of lakes and volcanoes and, thanks to God, the government and friendly countries, we are giving a start to that dream," Herrera remarked to IPS.

Work on the plant began in 1997, with funding from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the governments of Germany and other European countries, and the Nicaraguan treasury. The total cost was 85.5 billion dollars.

More than 120,000 users of the sewage system are now connected to the treatment plant, which will begin to ease pollution of the 1,040 square kilometre lake which is located in western Nicaragua, near the Pacific coast.

Comment on the global recession reaching Africa

For the last few years, economic growth in Africa was really moving up fast. But, the credit crisis that began in America is now reaching the underdeveloped world.

A commentary in today's Toronto Star spells out what might be ahead for Africa. Craig and Marc Kielburger describes the fear that the global economic recession could undo all of Africa's recent gains.

The past decade has seen many changes to Africa's economic climate. Foreign aid has helped create jobs through development projects. Soaring commodity prices made raw materials enormously profitable. The region even began moving into stock markets. Companies gained capital investment. A middle class started to emerge as people followed the North American example and began investing their savings.

These markets were fast growing — the Nairobi Stock Exchange expanded from about $1 billion dollars in 2002 to $12 billion in 2008. And, despite the crippling poverty and AIDS pandemic still ravishing the continent, the World Bank estimated 6.5 per cent growth for the region in 2008.

Along came the financial crisis. As North American markets plunged, Africa followed suit. The Nairobi Stock Exchange has lost nearly half its value since October on declining oil, mining and commodity stocks. As well, tourism - East Africa's leading foreign exchange earner — is expected to fall by 20 per cent in 2009.

Then, there is aid. Expatriates working overseas and sending money home are being laid off. And aid from Western nations has been readjusted as these governments bail out their own industries.

The United States has just started distributing its $787 billion (U.S.) bailout to jumpstart its domestic economy. But, that kind of money simply isn't available in African economies. Unable to finance stimulus for the local economy, these nations need international aid to stay afloat.

"If the issues of Africa and the rest of the third world are not given the same or more development aid, a lot of the good work is likely to regress, plunging the continent back into poverty, high mortality rates, war and disease," says N'drangu.

Sudanese exile group calls on UN seize Sudan Oil revenues

A group of Sudanese exiles are calling on the United Nations to create an oil for food program for the people of Darfur.

The government of Sudan has kicked out many agencies that provide much needed aid to Darfur. Creating an aid vacuum to an already urgent humanitarian crisis. To combat the problem the Sudanese exiles want the UN to step in.

The Sudan Tribune carries an article about the press conference.

The Sudanese Group for Transparency and Good Governance held a press conference in London to discuss establishing a UN-controlled fund of Sudanese oil revenues, saying the measure could fill the gap in the relief effort in Darfur after the expulsion of the international humanitarian organizations, and guarantee to South Sudan its full share of oil revenues in accordance with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.

Haroun Abdulhameed Haroun, the chairperson of the organization, said “peace can not materialize unless the oil revenue is directed to satisfy the needs, desires and welfare of the Sudanese people.” He proposed that oil revenues be used to address the major problems of Darfur refugees rather than financing a regime that he described as criminally violent, corrupt and irresponsible.

According to the proposal of the Sudanese Group for Transparency and Good Governance, the fund would also compensate victims of war and dam construction, as well as to rehabilitate the war-affected areas and “to save the unity of Sudan.”

Organizers claimed that the UN-controlled fund is necessary because “all Darfur is now transformed into a displaced area… The living situation in the camps is miserable as the government is impeding humanitarian aid and expelling the working organizations in this field.”

They also cited lack of compensation for war victims, saying this deficit “is proved by allocating only $30 million for compensation according to the deformed Abuja Peace Agreement. This sum of money merely equals the sum paid in compensation of two victims of the Lockerbie incident in Scotland/UK.”

“The Sudanese government does not respect or fulfill its promises to pay the small sum of allocated (in the budget) for the development and reconstruction in accordance to the unfair and partial peace agreements in Darfur, East and Kurdofan. This is made worse by the deprivation of fair compensation to victims of newly constructed dams in northern Sudan,” complained the group.

Marching to support seniors meals in Hawaii

An annual march to call attention to hungry seniors took place in Hawaii yesterday.

The Lanakila Meals on Wheels helps what is a very poor senior population on the island. The average senior in Hawaii only has an income of $19,000 dollars.

From the Honolulu Advertiser, reporter Dan Nakaso attended the event. Video of the march follows our snippet.

More than 300 senior citizens, children and others carrying signs reading "End Senior Hunger" and "Our Kupuna Need You" marched from Honolulu Hale to the state Capitol yesterday to raise awareness about the elderly who rely on the state's biggest food program for seniors on O'ahu, Lanakila Meals on Wheels.

Yesterday marked the seventh annual march and came at a time when Lanakila Meals on Wheels has a waiting list of 300 names, with more added every day, said Brandon Mitsuda, the program's deputy director.

Maria Loa, 83, of Waikiki, has participated in every march and has been receiving Meals on Wheels for six years.

The meal delivery to Loa once a day "really, really, really, really, really helps," she said. "It means a lot."

While donations are badly needed, Mitsuda said, Lanakila also needs hundreds of volunteers for a variety of jobs, including helping with 19 Kupuna Wellness Centers and delivering food to hundreds of senior citizens across O'ahu.

Last year, Lanakila served more than 250,000 meals to seniors "while food costs are ever-rising and government funding remains flat," Mitsuda said.

The displaced people of Nepal

It has been a few years since the "People's War" has finished in Nepal. The war caused over 50,000 Nepalese to flee from their homes. The war finished in 2006, but many of the displaced people still haven't returned home.

The government of Nepal has been slow in developing a program to help the people without homes. The Non-Governmental Organizations who help the displaced people say their government has totally neglected them.

From the IRIN we learn about the situation from interviews with NGO's that operate in Nepal.

In a mid-2008 IDP report produced by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the number of IDPs in Nepal was estimated to be 50,000-70,000, and UN officials say these numbers will not have changed since then.

“There is virtually nothing for them to return to. They have no house or other resources to generate income,” said Geeta Gautam, an official from the Informal Sector Service Centre (INSEC), a local human rights NGO.

The Nepal Ministry of Peace and Reconstruction, which is responsible for the welfare of the IDPs, is still in the process of setting up poverty alleviation, health care and employment programmes, but has been unable to make much progress due to a lack of reliable data, officials said.

Activists and experts working on the IDP issue are concerned about the growing vulnerability of women and children - the worst victims of displacement-induced poverty.

“Children’s education has been severely hampered and the women have great difficulty supporting their families,” explained Gautam.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) said there was an urgent need for national IDP policy to be implemented: IDPs should be able to return to their former villages, and get reintegrated and resettled. NRC country director Phillipe Clerc said he was concerned by the apparent lack of government interest in the matter.

Even two years after the launch of the national IDP policy, a large number of women are still seeking information on civil documentation, widows’ allowances, property restitution, children's education and shelter, said Clerc.

On top of all the other crises

The United Nations has issued a new report that gives warnings on a future water crisis. The UN warns that by 2030 half of the population of the world will be without water. The report blames climate change, diet changes, and biofuel production.

From the Reuters story explaining the report, writer Patrick Worsnip focuses on the effect of Biofuel production is water supply.

The report added to recent U.N. warnings about the downsides of developing biofuels to replace heavily polluting hydrocarbons as an energy source, because of the water needed to grow crops like corn and sugar cane to produce ethanol.

Saying about 2,500 liters of water is needed to make 1 liter of biofuel, it said implementing all current national biofuel policies and plans would take 180 cubic kilometers of extra irrigation water and 30 million hectares of cropland.

"The impact could be large for some countries, including China and India, and for some regions of large countries, such as the United States," it said. "There could also be significant implications for water resources, with possible feedback into global grain markets."

When oil prices peaked at over $140 a barrel last year, "the kneejerk reaction was 'well, we are going to grow our energy - biofuels.' But nobody took account of how much water it was going to require," William Cosgrove, coordinator of the report, told journalists.

On the positive side, the report pointed to successful water policies in Uganda and Turkey and said a U.N. goal of halving the population lacking access to safe drinking water by 2015 would be achieved except in sub-Saharan Africa.

IMF - Africa summit concludes

The summit between the International Monetary Fund and African political and economic leaders has just wrapped up. The summit concluded with a joint statement made by President Jakaya Kikwete, IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

The leaders plead with the international community to not give up on aid to the rest of the world. The fear is that governments will instead only bail out their own economies while cutting aid to the rest of the world.

For our snippet, we decided to hear from the second in command from the UN. Dr Asha-Rose Migiro was a little more direct in her comments

From the IPP Media story that wrapped up the summit, Perege Gumbo recorded the comments from Dr Migiro.

United Nations Deputy Secretary General Dr Asha-Rose Migiro had earlier underscored the importance of overseas development assistance to Africa, especially at this time when the world is facing an economic downturn.

She told the meeting that the continent urgently needs the assistance so as to attain the eight UN Millennium Develop Goals, where it is lagging behind, as well as address other pressing issues.

The UN`s second-in-command said it was of crucial importance for international organisations and development partners to protect Africa`s poorest and vulnerable countries from the impact of the financial crisis by honouring their financial commitments.

She noted that private external finance had been frozen and there was little room to raise more domestic revenue, adding that there was a need for a genuine desire to deliver on existing commitments to increase ODA or the MDGs would remain elusive.

Dr Migiro underscored the gravity of Africa`s plight, saying the economic downturn combined with high food prices, climate change and volatile energy prices in presenting daunting challenges to the continent`s policy makers.

She called on the donor community to deliver on promises made at different times and meetings, such as the one made at the 2005 Gleneagles G8 Summit to more than double annual ODA to Africa by next year worth US$ 62 billion in nominal terms.

``The amount sounds like a huge sum, but it appears more attainable when we consider the trillions of dollars that have been committed to stimulus packages in industrialised countries,`` she told the meeting, called to discuss how African economies could cope in the wake of the global crunch.

South African food pantries visit the states for ideas

A group of South Africans who head up a national food bank are in the states for ideas. People from Food Bank South Africa visited the Food Bank of Northern Indiana in South Bend.

From the South Bend Tribune, reporter Sue Lowe talks to Bob Forney from the Global Food Banking Network, who organized the trip.

There have been food pantries in South Africa for years, but the national food bank network is new. Forney described conditions in South Africa that make us realize our good fortune.

He said unemployment is 40 percent and that's not counting the people who have just given up.

Stuart McPherson, with the Food Bank in Cape Town, South Africa, said the country needs to feed 6 million refugees who have streamed in from neighboring countries.
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Forney said the government has a defined role in operating the regional food banks in the country along with private citizens and business.

He predicted that in the next couple of years, the country will have the fifth or sixth largest food bank network in the world.

He said the South Bend food bank is a good place for the group to visit because the country has many cities the size of South Bend and rural areas like much of the six counties the South Bend food bank serves.

The Food Bank of Northern Indiana works with almost 200 agencies that provide food for people in need.

A Kenyan training program for young carpenters

What started as a joke by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon turned into a great training program for Kenyan youth.

During a visit to a Kenyan slum, Moon wondered why the young people were not working. It was explained to Moon that there were no jobs to be had. After the visit, a UN program was started to help the youths gain construction skills.

As writer Dann Okoth explains in this Standard story, the youths are not working on heavy machinery, but instead are making themselves more employable.

But the youth were not going to spend their money in purchasing huge earth-moving equipment or building materials.

Instead, they opted to use the money to hone their skills in construction on how best to offer professional service.

"Most of the youth were already involved in the industry as unskilled workers anyway," he says.

Sijenji adds Habitat engaged the youth in a training programme to produce cheap building blocks. The youths have since learned to produce the low-cost Stabilised Soil Blocks and soon, they would begin producing the highly popular and futurist Hydroform Interlocking Blocks.

"So far we have witnessed the successes of the programme as more youth have been trained in building and construction," he says.

According to the co-ordinator, 120 youths will be sent to Kenya Water Institute to train as plumbers and Don Bosco Catholic Church training facility to train as electricians.

In all, he says, 320 youth would have graduated by the end of the first phase of the programme.

"The youth will gain more from the Kibera slum upgrading project since they will be contracted as skilled rather than as unskilled labourers like they did before," say Sijenji.

Besides that, many are looking forward to forming their own companies and bid for jobs as building contractors.

"Our aim is to form our own companies that could competitively bid for such contracts on equal level with big companies," he says.

Teach a man to fish a commentary

A director at the Earth Institute of Columbia University uses an old proverb in his latest commentary. Pedro Sanchez tells us how helping hungry people grow more food will do more than giving food, and it can be even cheaper.

The commentary is excerpted by the Guardian but will published in it's entirety in tomorrow's issue of Nature.

New evidence from the Millennium Villages project, which I direct, shows that helping farmers help themselves is more effective than food aid and costs a sixth as much. Farmers were given access to fertilisers, improved seeds, training and markets. Their maize yields more than doubled as a result. Similar results were seen in Malawi after its government provided fertiliser and seeds to farmers. In just two years, Malawi went from being a recipient of food aid to a food exporter.

It costs $812 to deliver one tonne of maize as US food aid to Africa. The fertiliser and seed that Millennium Village farmers need to produce an additional tonne of maize cost $135 on average.

Buying food aid locally, as the UN World Food Programme is increasingly doing, is another important step away from the inefficiency of food aid. Purchasing a tonne of maize in an African country costs approximately $320.

Although estimates on costs may vary, their underlying message is clear. Turning away from food aid and providing subsidies or credit to farmers in poor countries could help millions obtain their own food, begin the escape from poverty, and also meet much of the demand for food aid in developing countries – without costing more.

Fortunately, some donors are starting to shift away from food aid for the chronically hungry. The UN World Food Programme now buys some of its food aid in poor countries. The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon is leading the development of a fund that would provide support for farmers in poor countries to grow more food. The Spanish government has pledged €1 billion over five years for this initiative, and the European parliament has committed the same amount. What is urgently needed now is an innovative financial mechanism that can deliver the funds rapidly and effectively to African governments that have shown a serious commitment to end hunger.

To paraphrase the popular proverb, giving someone a fish so they can "eat for a day" is only a solution for the most hungry who cannot help themselves or are the victims of war and famine. For most people in poor countries, we must give them the tools to fish so they can eat for a lifetime, and at one sixth of the cost.

A visit to fair trade farmers in Mexico

A great before and after perspective of the benefits of fair trade comes from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle today.

Writer Joseph Sorrentino has visited a group of Mexican coffee farmers in the past. Now, the farmers in the Cuetzalan countryside have become organic fair trade, so Sorrentino has returned to see how their lives are different.

In Cuetzalan—a six-hour bus ride from Mexico City—I contacted Tosepan Titataniske (Nahuatl dialect for "together we will overcome"), a fair trade cooperative. Tosepan provided me with guides to take me to the villages. It's important to have guides because some of the villages are remote and all are indigenous. Campesinos don't always appreciate strangers—especially unaccompanied ones carrying cameras.

There's no denying that life in el campo—the countryside—is hard. Cuetzalan is covered in mist or light rain most days from November to March, and coffee is harvested from October through January. Mud is everywhere, and walking is tricky—especially on the many hills. When the sun does shine, it's hot and humid (though gorgeous). Throughout Mexico, campesinos typically farm just a couple of acres. And here, coffee plants are grown in the shade of tall trees and scattered among other plants, not lined up in neat rows. Harvesting is done by hand.

Bags of dried coffee can weigh 110 pounds. I asked one man how he got his bags to market. He said he took a bus to town. When I asked how he got his bags to the bus, he smiled and tapped his back. In other villages I visited, farmers carried 70-pound bags on their backs along a seven-hour hike through the mountains.

All of the campesinos I interviewed in the area belonged to the fair-trade co-op Tosepan, and all grew organic coffee. A study by researchers at Tufts University found that fair trade doubles a campesino's income; in Cuetzalan, in what was clearly a much less rigorous study, I estimated that fair trade pays campesinos between 40 and 60 percent more. Every campesino I met believed in fair trade.

"We're grateful to fair trade because it gives us a better price," said Martha Hernandez Julian, who grows coffee in Xalcuahuta. "Those working in non-fair trade are much worse off." There's also an appreciation for the idea of sustainability. "We live better because of Tosepan and fair trade because they're preserving the environment. We use only organics; it's better for us, our families and our children."
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I returned from Mexico convinced that fair trade can make a difference. I saw the improvements in people's lives. People proudly showed me their houses built with low-interest loans and stores opened with Tosepan's guidance.

The money alone might not be enough to completely lift campesinos out of poverty. But as David Blas of the fair trade Mexican Vanilla Plantation put it to me, "It's a start."

The large number of homeless children in Texas strains resources

Texas has so many homeless children that the amount is straining social and government services. The state is home to 337,000 homeless children or 5 percent of all kids in Texas.

The large number is due in part to the Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. Many of the children's families who were left homeless by the storms have yet to afford new homes. Or as in the case for Hurricane Katrina, move back out of the state, after many fled to Texas after the storm.

From this Associated Press article that we found in the Star Telegram, we learn of the demands made of a Fort Worth homeless shelter.

The All Church Home for Children’s emergency youth shelter has housed more than three times as many homeless children this year as in the same period last year, officials say. And the Fort Worth agency’s program for homeless single mothers and their children is not only full, but counselors are at a loss to find other programs for referrals.

"Right now, the perception is that everyone is full with a waiting list," said Barbara Clark-Galupi, vice president of marketing for the children’s home. "These are families who have never been homeless and all of a sudden have a crisis, and it is very hard right now to find a place for them."

The lack of options is not unique to Dallas-Fort Worth. A study by the National Center on Family Homelessness released Tuesday placed Texas last of all states in how homeless children fare.

The ranking considered four areas: the percentage of homeless children; their overall well-being; risk factors for homelessness, such as poverty and foreclosure rates; and how the state is addressing the problems.

Dr. Ellen Bassuk, president of Family Homelessness, said the child poverty level in Texas is 23 percent compared with 18 percent nationwide.

"You’re a big state; you’ve got a significant problem," said Bassuk, who also is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "Texas needs to respond."

The report

The report defined as homeless any child age 18 or younger living with at least one parent or caregiver in such places as emergency shelters, motels, cars or campgrounds because of economic hardships or loss of their homes.

The definition did not include runaways or abandoned children.

The center estimates that 1.5 million children nationwide experienced homelessness at least once in 2005-06. The states that fared best were Connecticut, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island and North Dakota. At the bottom were Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, New Mexico and Louisiana.

In that time, Texas had more than 337,000 homeless children — just over 5 percent of all kids in the state, according to the study. It noted, however, that that number may have been temporarily inflated by families who lost their homes during Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005.

"We had a huge influx of families right after Katrina, and they didn’t leave," said Carol Klocek, executive director of the Presbyterian Night Shelter. "They are families that we still see."

Bassuk said that while Texas has a trust created to provide low-income housing — something a lot of states don’t have — it has no statewide plan to address homeless issues.

The study found that 1 of every 50 kids nationwide is homeless each year. The rate in Texas is probably a bit higher.

State officials and advocacy groups differ on the number of homeless children in Texas now — estimates range from 55,000 to 250,000 — but all agree that the numbers are increasing.

The Presbyterian Night Shelter’s Lowden-Schutts Building, which serves homeless woman and their children, helped twice as many families in 2008 as in 2007, Klocek said.

After a slight dip around the holidays, families are once again streaming in.

As the number of families seeking help increased, funding for some agencies has decreased. The YWCA of Fort Worth operates the only early childhood development program for homeless infants and pre-schoolers in Tarrant County and has seen its Department of Housing and Urban Development funding fall from $114,000 in 2008 to $92,000 in 2009.

"At one time, it was $140,000," said Judi Bishop, executive director. "It is just a never-ending cycle of trying to have enough money to provide the services that people need."

'Recipe for disaster’

Gerber said the Texas Interagency Council for the Homeless, which coordinates the state’s homeless resources and services, hopes to release a comprehensive plan next month to battle homelessness.

Ken Martin, executive director of the Texas Homeless Network, an information clearinghouse for more than 250 organizations that help the homeless, said there are signs that the problem is being taken seriously. Still, he called the percentage of Texans without health care insurance, the lack of affordable housing and high poverty rates a "recipe for disaster."

"At the other end of the scale are people who are way over their heads in houses they can’t afford," Martin said. "When they lose their jobs or have a healthcare crisis, they’re out on the street and they take their kids with them."

Journalists trying to live on $3 dollars a day

A number of journalists at making a go of living on $3 dollars a day, which is the poverty line in the US. The challenge is being issued by the SNAP Into Action Project, a group that fights hunger in America.

From the Hartford Couriant, columnist Melissa Pionzio explains her lack of success on living on $3 dollars a day.

It's been one week since I accepted a reader's challenge to try to live on $3 a day, which is the amount that people who live below the poverty line live on every single day.

Well, I made it to Sunday, and finally gave up. I had nearly run out of the $21 worth of food that I had purchased - plus my co-workers were pretty sick of hearing me whine about what I missed - that afternoon cup of coffee and sweet snack.

Need a reminder? The $3 a day initiative is part of the SNAP Into Action Against Hunger program. SNAP, which stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is the new name for the Food Stamp Program, which helps feed millions of hungry Americans every month. Last week, I and dozens of other concerned Connecticut residents agreed to try to live on the minimum - some for the whole 40 days of Lent! (CNN correspondent Sean Callebs just finished a month long committment to the SNAP initiative, which he chronicled on his blog).

I hope they are more successful than I was.

I guess it wasn't so much the small amount of food I consumed each day - although I was often hungry and did think about food all the time. For me, it was the tedium of eating the same foods every day.

I know that sounds bratty, but it's the truth. I ate yogurt and bananas, English muffins and peanut butter and pasta or rice with either vegetables or sauce. I ate this every day for five days. I tried to vary it up. Sometimes I'd have an English muffin with peanut butter instead of yogurt for breakfast or I'd have an English muffin with tomato sauce - a kind of fake pizza - instead of pasta, pasta, pasta.

I'm not in love with pasta any more.

The effectiveness of aid

The new book by Dambisa Moyo entitled "Dead Aid" has reopened the debate on if aid to the underdeveloped world really works. In her book, Moyo makes the claim that cutting off all assistance to Africa would stimulate growth in the continent.

But let's be clear here, international aid has helped, Africa is growing, but it might not be the perfect solution. Of course, we would all want to see Africa self-supporting, but removing all non-emergency aid will not make that happen. Making the aid more effective will help, as well as more free market solutions, which Moyo also proposes.

From this IRIN article that touches on Moyo's book, it examines how Norway has critiqued their own aid and altered it to do more good.

"Norwegian aid constitutes 3 percent of the total aid to Zambia, which was equal to 0.8 percent of Zambia's GDP in 2005. Our report showed that aid is more successful when it is channelled towards technical support. So the dialogue between NORAD and Zambia has become less political and more technical," NORAD's Ase Seim, coordinator of the report, told IRIN. A follow-up report is due to be released in 2009.

An example of a technical programme was computerizing Zambia's Office of the Auditor General, which received $1.6 million between 1997 and 2008, with support for restructuring and staff training, which means there are now regular audits of government activities - making a direct improvement in governance.

The financial downturn has hit Zambia hard in recent months, with copper prices - the mainstay of the economy - dropping dramatically on the back of falling global demand. Shrinking government revenues mean less state spending.

"Right now we are doing the annual audit. However, our budget has been cut by 17 percent by the government because they have less money than last year. So, yes, we have improved our audit methodology through the creation of manuals and computerization in the past few years; in the long term we still have areas that are not fully sustainable without consistent funds," Louis Mwanga, deputy director of Planning at the Office of the Auditor General, told IRIN.

Prescription to African governments

While Dead Aid criticises bilateral and multilateral aid, it also offers some alternatives to prevailing policy, such as the increased use of global capital markets by African policy-makers to raise investment funds: Moyo does not believe that the current financial environment should be a deterrent.

"In the current climate, my prescription to African governments is to focus on ensuring that when the market bounces back, which it will, then they need to be ready to go into the international marketplace to raise bonds. My view is that there is a lot of preparatory work that needs to be done to get bond ratings and to familiarize their countries with international investors."

The IMF uses the words "Great Recession"

The head of the International Monetary Fund is visiting Africa this week. During his visit, Dominique Strauss-Kahn spoke to political and economic leaders about the "Great Recession" that is about to hit Africa's shores.

The global recession which began in the United States is moving to other parts of the world. The underdeveloped world will soon begin to feel the collapse of world trade that has been an effect of this crisis.

From Reuters, writer Lesley Wroughton and George Obulutsa detail Strauss-Kahn's comments on what lies ahead for Africa.

"The IMF expects global growth to slow below zero this year, the worst performance in most of our lifetimes," IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told African political and financial leaders in the Tanzanian capital.

"Continued deleveraging by world financial institutions, combined with a collapse in consumer and business confidence is depressing domestic demand across the globe, while world trade is falling at an alarming rate and commodity prices have tumbled," Strauss-Kahn added.

As advanced countries focus on problems in their own economies, Strauss-Kahn called on the international community not to forget Africa, where regional growth is expected to slow sharply to 3 percent this year, half the rate of the past five years.

That forecast may "even be too optimistic", he said.

"Even though the crisis has been slow in reaching Africa's shores, we all know it is coming and its impact will be severe," he said. "We must ensure that the voices of the poor are heard. We must ensure that Africa is not left out," he added.

The IMF chief warned that millions of people in Africa will be thrown back into poverty by the crisis, while fragile political systems will be tested.

"This is not only about protecting economic growth and household incomes - it is also about containing the threat of civil unrest, perhaps even war. It is about people and their futures," he added.

Related Video

World Vision statement on expulsions from Darfur

At least 10 aid organizations have been kicked out of Darfur by the government of Sudan. Which has created of vacuum of aid to the refuges of the area.

World Vision has issued a statement on the expulsions. While they themselves have yet to kicked out, they say the condition of people there remains critical.

Humanitarian agency World Vision is deeply worried that the forced departure of several large relief groups from Sudan will create gaps in critical humanitarian services to thousands of vulnerable children and adults, putting them at risk in the war-torn region of Darfur.

World Vision's license to operate in Sudan has not been affected at this point in time, and the agency plans to continue providing more than 500,000 people in South Darfur with life-saving food, water, sanitation, medical care and other humanitarian services.

World Vision will also continue running humanitarian, recovery and development programmes in Khartoum State, Blue Nile State and Southern Sudan.

World Vision currently provides monthly food rations to more than 300,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in camps for displaced people and conflict-affected areas of South Darfur.

World Vision also runs supplemental feeding centers, primary health clinics, clean water and improved sanitation programmes, temporary schools, Child-Friendly Spaces, and vocational training for women.

World Vision is deeply concerned about the prospect of fewer humanitarian resources at a time when needs remain critical in war-ravaged Darfur and encourages donors to continue supporting aid programmes for the region’s needy people.

Geldof urges governments to stay strong

Sir Bob Geldof gave a speech in London today where he urges world governments to stay the course on aid. He asks the governments to continue to give aid to the under developed world despite the world recession.

From Africasia, this AFP story made record of the speech.

"All that is required is that governments hold their nerve in the face of fear, intolerance, short-termism and stupidity while planning together a way out of this mess," Geldof said.

"We will get there. This moment will pass. There will be great pain and there will be great depravation before it all ends -- but end it will.

"And we hasten that end by removing one of the causes in this moment's conception -- the unheeding of the poor."

Geldof joked he had not worn sunglasses to hide his "swollen" left eye -- the result of an insect bite suffered on a recent visit to Africa -- "because you would've confused me with (U2 frontman) Bono, which is easy to do."

What in the world to do now? A preview to the G20 meeting

So if the poor nations don't have enough money to bail themselves out of the global recession...

and the World Bank and the IMF don't have enough money to bail the poor nations out...

and the rich nations don't have enough money to bail the poor nations out..

what do the leaders of the world do?

Do we think they will be able answer this question during the G-20 meeting coming up in London?

As a preview to the meeting and the problems that will be talked about, Reuters Alert-Net has an article interviewing think tanks that monitor the World Bank and the IMF. Writer Megan Rowling asks the tough questions.

"With likely declines in aid and the drying up of other sources of finance, poor countries are in a bind as to where they can get cheap finance," said Jesse Griffiths, coordinator of the London-based Bretton Woods Project, an advocacy organisation that monitors the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The World Bank says the global economic crisis is trapping up to 53 million more people in poverty in developing countries, threatening the achievement of internationally agreed targets to reduce poverty, with child mortality rates set to soar.

Almost 40 percent of 107 developing countries are highly exposed to the poverty effects of the crisis and the remainder are moderately exposed, with less than 10 percent facing little risk, according to the Bank. In response, governments need to finance job creation, essential services, infrastructure and safety net programmes for the vulnerable, it says.

Sam Worthington, president of InterAction, a coalition of 175 U.S.-based aid agencies, told AlertNet developing countries should not be left to cope on their own. "Any effort to jumpstart the global economy and reform global financial systems must take into account the severe impact of this economic recession on the world's poorest people ... We as the affluent part of the world bear a responsibility for these negative consequences."

Nick Highton, head of the Centre for Aid and Public Expenditure at the London-based Overseas Development Institute, urged donors to use existing aid mechanisms rather than inventing new initiatives to deal with the credit crunch, which would place an extra burden on recipient countries.

"I would argue it's...about getting quick injections of flexible money into government budgets so they can do their own fiscal stimulus package if they haven't got the resources already," he told AlertNet.

But will rich countries be prepared to offer this kind of support just as they're digging deep to bail out their own struggling economies and ailing banks?

"It's very hard to see how maintaining or increasing aid spending does - except by a rather long, tortuous route - generate a fiscal stimulus for the rich countries that are providing aid. So there's every reason to be not too optimistic about this," Highton said.

"And it's most unfortunate because...this an example of when you want aid to be exactly the reverse," he added.

Selling Bonds to provide vaccines

Investors in the UK can buy bonds that will help provide vaccines to the developing world. International Finance Facility for Immunization raises cash to give free vaccines to over 72 countries. The money raised goes to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization.

IRIN gives us more details about the bond, and explores the new concerns that socially conscious investing has in this global recession. For more on the bonds, you can click to the GAVI website.

“Normally, when people see a brochure with a poverty-stricken baby on the front, they are being asked for charitable contributions,” said Alan Gillespie, IFFim’s chair, “But with these bonds, we are saying ‘Here are the needs, we are asking you to make an investment.’ Your capital will be paid back with interest from rich donor countries.”

Similar to bonds that governments issue to cover debt, the vaccine bonds raise cash to buy and distribute vaccines by promising a return on investment, said George Richardson, the head of capital markets at the World Bank, which manages the bonds. “We are not asking for handouts. These are investments that support a good cause and have fixed market returns,” he said.

But a good cause is not enough to convince UK secondary school teacher Rosanna Magdalen to make the minimum investment of US$1400, even when she is told that amount can immunise 130 children against five life-threatening diseases, or that her earnings will not be taxed.

“Great idea, the principle is fantastic. I would do it if I had the extra money, but I think anyone would be loath to take any risk in the current financial climate," said Magdalen. "I think HSBC [bank] will be hard pressed to find anyone who would invest. Banks are no longer seen as infallible.”

Risky unregulated lending has been blamed for the global recession, which has forced governments in the US and Europe to pledge some two trillion dollars to rescue their economies.

The World Bank’s Richardson said while he cannot change consumer distrust of banks, vaccine bonds give people a socially-responsible way to save. “Even in a recession, there are people who will diligently put away money,” said Richardson.
...

On 2 March HSBC started offering the IFFim vaccine bonds as a five-year tax-free savings account with a 16-percent return. The governments of the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway and South Africa have collectively pledged US$5.3 billion over the next 20 years to repay investors.

World Bank uses the word "recession"

Some very scary figures being cited by the World Bank today. The bank released a report ahead of a major summit of finance leaders to inform them of the depth of the world economic crisis.

The World Bank is warning that the economic needs to bail the world out of the recession could exceed the resources of the international banks. The bank calls on world leaders to contribute 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product to a "vulnerability fund" The fund would be set up for countries without the resources to bail themselves out.

From this Associated Press story that we found in Oregon's Mail Tribune writer Anthony Faiola explains what is in the World Bank report.

The report said that 94 out of 116 developing countries have been hit by economic slowdowns. Net private capital flows to emerging markets are plunging, set to fall to $165 billion this year — or 17 percent of their 2007 levels. Falling demand in the West is sparking the sharpest drop in world trade in 80 years, sending sales of the products and commodities of poorer nations spiraling down, the report said.

That decline is touching off a wave of job losses. Cambodia has lost 30,000 jobs in the garment industry. In India, more than half a million jobs vanished in the last three months of 2008, including cuts in the gems, jewelry, auto and textile industries, according to the World Bank.

As a result, the report estimates that at least 98 countries may have problems financing at least $268 billion in public and private debt this year. It noted a worsening in market conditions could raise that figure as high as $700 billion.

Additionally, only one quarter of vulnerable developing countries, the World Bank said, have the ability to launch their own stimulus programs or to independently finance measures such as job-creation or safety-net programs.

To help them, multilateral lenders will need to dig deep. The World Bank remains well financed and is positioned to almost triple spending to $35 billion this year. But it warned the scope of the need in the developing world will exceed the combined ability of major multilateral lenders, and it called on governments in major nations and the private sector to pitch in more.

For instance, its sister organization, the International Monetary Fund, recently received $100 billion more from Japan, but is still asking more affluent nations to come up with an additional $150 billion to replenish its rapidly diminishing funds. While the World Bank aims to reduce global poverty largely through long-term projects in the developing world, the IMF is charged with offering bigger, more immediate bailouts to countries on the verge of economic collapse. The list of countries fitting that description has soared in recent months.

Susan Tsvangirai has died in a car crash

The newly installed Prime Minister of Zimbabwe and his wife has been involved in car crash. Reports are saying that Morgan Tsvangirai's wife Susan has died in the accident while the Prime Minister has minor injuries.

Details on the accident from the Earth Times.

The wife of Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Susan, died in a car crash on Friday in which the prime minister was also hurt, party officials have confirmed. "Morgan is badly bruised and cut, but I'm afraid Susan has died," said Eddie Cross, a member of the MDC executive.

The prime minister has been transferred to hospital in Harare and is receiving treatment for his injuries.

The accident occurred on a notoriously dangerous stretch of road about 100 km south of Harare. Accounts from different officials varied, but James Maridade, Tsvangirai's spokesman said his vehicle side-swiped an oncoming vehicle and rolled three times.

The couple were travelling in an MDC Landcruiser with two accompanying security vehicles, on their way to Buhera in the south-east of the country for a rally of his Movement for Democratic Change. The other vehicle involved was apparently a truck.

"Morgan will be devastated, they were a real team," said Cross.

The couple had been married since 1978.

The accident comes just three weeks after Tsvangirai was sworn in as the country's prime minister, following protracted negotiations with President Robert Mugabe.

This is on the eve of a visit from the International Monetary Fund to Zimbabwe. Officials in the country requested the IMF visit to review monetary policies, and perhaps receive emergency bailout money from the fund.

We don't know if this will halt the IMF visit or not but here are the details from this CNN story.

During the visit, which is being made "at the request of Zimbabwe's authorities," the mission team will discuss with government officials "their policies to address the acute economic and humanitarian crisis facing the country," the IMF said in a news release.

The visit to Harare will last from Monday through March 24, the IMF said.
...

Zimbabwe's economic crisis has stretched for months. Its inflation rate -- the highest in the world -- has been fueled by acute shortages of all essentials, including food, fuel and electricity. The country has now abandoned its worthless legal tender -- the dollar -- and instead is using the U.S. dollar, the British pound and the South African rand.

Estimates put the unemployment rate at 94 percent in a country where, according to the United Nations, more than half the population is facing starvation.

The new government is likely to use the IMF visit to seek international aid to revive the battered economy, which many commentators blame on President Robert Mugabe's policies. Last month, Morgan Tsvangirai, the new prime minister, said the country needs about $5 billion to kick-start the economy, of which $2 billion was required immediately.

Controversial economist Moyo takes aim at rock stars

The economist Dambisya Moyo is making a lot of news lately to drum up sales for her latest book "Dead Aid". As a part of the book tour, the economist criticized rock stars who promote African Aid such as Bono and Bob Geldof.

Moyo is of the opinion that foreign aid breeds corruption. She claims that aid makes African leaders more accountable to the donors than to the African public.

From the Sydney Morning Herald, Damiem Murphy records Moyo's complaint to rock starts who try to drum up aid for Africa.

Finally somebody has shown the chutzpah to say "enough already" to those wealthy world-weary worrywarts Bono and Bob Geldof. Sydney-bound Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian-born economist, says the singers have glamorised aid to Africa to such an extent that it is damaging the very people it is supposed to help.

Moyo's book Dead Aid has received huge publicity in the US and Europe, not least because she is been bold enough to speak out against the beatific Bono and the sainted Sir Bob and such feel-good moments as the Live Aid concert of 1985.

Moyo, who is heading to Asia to promote her book, hopes to get to Sydney next month. "Celebrities have raised millions, but it only served to further corrupt governments with the leaders able to steal money without suffering any consequences for years while at the same time the people have been made further aid-dependent. Today Africa is far poorer than it was 40 years ago."

Moyo argues that aid has not only perpetuated African poverty, but also worsened it, and thinks it would be a good idea for all aid to be halted within five years. A firm believer in market forces, she thinks African countries should look towards other sources of finance as India and China did over the years when billions was being given to Africans.

"You get the corruption - historically, leaders have stolen the money without penalty - and you get the dependency, which kills entrepreneurship. You also disenfranchise African citizens, because the government is beholden to foreign donors and not accountable to its people."

It takes everyone to meet the MDG's, a perspective from Nigeria

With only 6 years left, there is a lot of concern over whether the Millennium Development Goals will be met by the target year of 2015. Many countries in the under developed world are not even half way to the goals.

In 2000, the United Nations and it's member states set up the MDG's in a declaration to try to cut human suffering. The goals were meant to halve poverty as well to find solutions to hunger, disease, gender equality, and education.

A story in All Africa has some optimistic views on meeting the MDG's in Nigeria. but the people interviewed say it needs everyone working to meet the goals. In his analysis, Murjanatu Mohammed Abba talked to coordinator of the Millennium Villages Project, Dr Tony Chevron.

In Kaduna, for instance, the programme coordinator of one of the millennium village projects in Africa, popularly known as Pampaida, Dr Tony Chevon, is still of the view that the MDGs can be attained with their kind of organizational plans.

He explained that there are14 of the millennium village projects and two of such projects are situated in Nigeria with one situated in Ikara Local Government Area of Kaduna Dtate and the other one in Akoko North-west Local Government Area of Ondo state.

Taking stock of the progress made by his office, Dr Chevon pointed out that," The purpose of the millennium village project is to eradicate poverty and also assist the rural people in attaining the MDGs and we have been here for about two and a half years and I think with the data we have, we have made milestones as far as some of the goals are concerned, especially the social-related goals like health, water and sanitation, education. I think we made tremendous progress in also the area of agriculture and livelihood".

He reiterated that the goals are achievable, noting that all it requires is concerted efforts by all stakeholders, principally comprising the local communities, local governments as well as the states and federal governments.

According to the programme coordinator, due to the success recorded by the millennium village programme, a lot of important personalities like members of the National Assembly, the Senate and many organizations have visited the project and have given very good remarks. Against that background, he said, the federal government is trying to buy and step up what they have in Pampaida into 111 local government areas across the country.

Preparatory to that, he added that his organization even had to invite some people from outside the country in an effort to achieve that noble objective.

Dr. Chevon, who argued that none of the MGDs are unattainable when all hands are not on deck, also appealed to people at the helm of affair to be transparent and accountable by using the federal government's MDGs intervention fund judiciously to serve the purpose for which it was released .

"We are aware that the federal government is using some funds gotten through the debt relief through the office of the special assistant to the president on the MDGs. And it is releasing a lot of money to the states and also releasing some money to NAPEP to ensure the MDGs are achieved. If such monies are spent by the people who receive such monies, then, there is no reason why Nigeria should not achieve these goals", he argued.

According to Dr.Chevon,"We also need to increase our communication awareness. It's sad that some people at some line ministries don't even know anything about the MDGs. It is not that they cannot know and be part of the process. Somebody has a role to tell the public, tell the people, even the civil servants, what the MDGs are, and how best we can work together to achieve them", he emphasized.

He envisaged: "Therefore, all the MDGs are achievable within the target year of 2015 if we put our hands together and are able to coordinate ourselves more properly. I don't see why we should not achieve these goals. Although we do have challenges, we don't keep a lot of records. So we need to orient ourselves in record keeping. A lot of money is also required to achieve the MDGs .Those saddled with the responsibilities should be transparent and accountable and should use these monies for the purpose for which it is released".

Another humanitarian aid group kicked out of Darfur

The government of Sudan has ordered another humanitarian aid group to leave the country. Leaving the people of Sudan and Darfur without critical aid. Sudan has kicked out 10 such groups already.

The organization Action Against Hunger released a press release about their expulsion. In the release they state grave concern over the people left behind in Sudan. We found the release from Reuters Alert Net.

On Wednesday, 4th March, the Sudanese authorities ordered humanitarian organisation Action Against Hunger / Action contre la Faim (ACF) to leave the country. The ACF offices in Khartoum were sealed off and the organisation's programmes throughout Sudan were brought to a halt. ACF deplores this decision and wishes to express its concern about the fate of millions of Sudanese.

ACF has been present in Sudan since 1985, running programmes in food assistance and treatment of malnutrition, as well as providing access to water and sanitation. In 2008, ACF provided assistance to around 450,000 people in Sudan, 80% of which were in Darfur. ACF distributed 800,000 food rations and almost 10,000 tonnes of food in this region, where almost 2.5 million people survive primarily thanks to humanitarian assistance. In addition, 100,000 people in Darfur benefitted from water, sanitation and hygiene programmes.

"If Action Against Hunger has to discontinue its activities in Sudan, 450,000 people will be immediately deprived of emergency assistance and will be left alone to find food and water", says Francois Danel, Executive Director of ACF-France.

Related Video

"A Powerful Noise" screens tonight

We wanted to give this movie another mention as it's a great story about women fighting poverty. The movie "A Powerful Noise" will be shown in theaters across the country tonight. The film profiles three women, who not only hav to overcome poverty in their own lives, but help others who struggle as well.

The event is sponsored by CARE, and will be shown nationwide tonight at 8pm. You can find out more by going to the movie's website.

From the Boston City Guide Examiner, entertainment reporter Charlene Peters tells us about the viewings in the Boston Area.

“A Powerful Noise” is so much more than just a film. It is a catalyst for change and a compelling reminder that the solution to global poverty and injustice lies in the ability of women and girls to have a voice in their societies.

"The world isn't living up to its potential right now because most women and girls lack basic human rights and opportunities we often take for granted in the United States," says Christy Turlington Burns, CARE advocate for maternal health and contributing editor for Marie Claire magazine. "But like the three women featured in ‘A Powerful Noise,’ you can become a champion in your own community to help impact the lives of other women in our world. You can start taking action by joining us on March 5 to really learn about the issues facing women and girls in poor countries."

Powerful Noise Live will take viewers into the lives of three women: a young widow in Vietnam, a mother in Bosnia and a matriarch in Mali. During the LIVE event, movie theaters across the country will turn into community forums as experts and celebrities give their personal insight into the problems – and solutions – facing women and girls in the global fight against poverty.

A third of Americans were uninsured in the last two years

A new report shows that a third of people in the US have gone uninsured at some point in the last two years. The advocacy group Families USA released the report today. The percentage translated to 87 million people under the age of 65.

It should be pointed out that this includes people that were uninsured for a portion of those two years as well as the entire period. Even your humble blogger went uninsured for a couple of months while we were switching insurances.

In this Reuters article that we found at Sign On San Diego, reporter Will Dunham gives us more of the insurance stats.

The report assessed how many people under age 65 went without either public or private health insurance for some or all of the two-year period covering 2007 and 2008. People 65 and older are covered by the government's Medicare program.

Of 262 million Americans under 65, 33 percent were uninsured at some point during those two years, according to the report. This included 60.1 million adults and 26.6 million children and teens up to age 18, according to the report.

Among those uninsured, 75 percent had no coverage for at least six months and 60 percent for at least nine months, according to the report based on survey data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

About 52 percent of individuals and families with incomes between the official poverty line and twice the poverty line - $21,200 to $42,400 of annual income for a family of four - were uninsured at some point during 2007 and 2008.

The government's most recent official estimate, based on Census Bureau figures, put the number of uninsured at 45.7 million in 2007. But that figure included only those who had no coverage for the entire year.

“There are a number of facets that are essential to healthcare reform - bending the cost growth curve and improving quality, but expanding coverage has got to be among the top objectives of healthcare reform,” Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said in a telephone interview.

High cases of malaria in Children and pregnant women

A nutritionist has worries about the high rates of malaria that she sees among children and pregnant women in Ghana. Nutritionist Hannah Adjei, who works the Ghana Health Service spoke at a forum about her concerns yesterday.

Adjei says that proper nutrition plays a role in recovery from malaria. Malnourished children take longer to recover from the disease if they do at all.

From the Ghanaian Chronicle writer William N-lanjerborr Jalulah reports on the forum's presentation.

Speaking at a forum in Bolgatanga, the nutritionist said malaria remained the single largest killer of children, accounting for about 26% of deaths, and 40% of out-patient and hospital admission cases.

According to her, the limited availability of preventive items such as Long Lasting Insecticide Treated Nets had been identified as a key bottleneck in the fight against malaria and associated child mortality.

Madam Adjei said the disease was more frequent and severe among malnourished children, leading to higher morbidity and mortality.

She said a recent study in northern Ghana, reported that underweight children were significantly more likely to have clinical malaria and anemia.

She said the main objective of the NMCCSP was to improve utilisation of selected community-based health and nutrition services for children under the age of two, and pregnant women in the target districts.

The project would also support priority areas, like nutrition and malaria control in the programme of work of the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service, which were known to have strong links with child survival, but have received inadequate attention.

Video on the rural poor in America from Nick News

A recent episode of Nick News did a story on the rural poor in America. The story shows children that even with the economic recession is making many more people poor, there have been people dealing with it for a long time. Nickelodeon doesn't allow embedding of the video, but you can find the link below. This would be a good video to show children it they haven't caught it already.

http://www.nick.com/turbonick/?extvideoid=119785

Teen pregnancy in Nigeria

Nigeria has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world. The high rate in maternal deaths are due to lack of access to health care and poverty.

The Voice of America profiles a health organization in Nigeria called Conmpass. The group tries to lead after school discussions with young women to educate them about sex and pregnancy. VOA reporter Brian Padden tells us about the problems of teen pregnancy in Nigeria.

Dr. Mariam Jagun, with Compass, a Nigerian health organization, says more than 20 percent of adolescents girls in this neighborhood are mothers.

"For teenage pregnancy the problem about it is, because they are pregnant early and they are not prepared for it, they are less likely to go for antenatal care," Jagun said.

She says teenagers having babies in Nigeria perpetuates a cycle of poverty and exposes both mother and child to greater health risks. To break the cycle, Compass volunteers reach out to teenagers in Pedro Village to make sure they know that health-care options are available.

Elizabeth Uzo - two months pregnant- says sometimes she feels ashamed.

Dr. Jagun says the Nigerian government, with support from international aid organizations, is trying to reduce the high rates of maternal and infant mortality. More than 200 free health clinics provide care to five million women and children in poor neighborhoods.

The Lagos State has also set up youth friendly centers to provide adolescents accurate and confidential counseling on sex related matters.

The impact of the global economic recession on women

A conference hosted by the United Nations on the status of women is underway. The UN commission is examining what impact the global credit crisis is having on women.

Amongst the factors that are impacting women, they may be at higher risk of being victims of violence during a recession. The conference is also talking about woman's jobs being more likely to be cut during the recession.

Writer Thalif Deen is covering the meeting for the IPS.

Addressing the CSW, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang said: "Historically, economic recessions have placed a disproportionate burden on women."

He pointed out that women are more likely than men to be in vulnerable jobs; to be under-employed or without a job; lack social protection; and to have limited access to and control over economic and financial resources.

The most widespread negative impact could be in the Asia-Pacific region which has one of the highest ratios of women of working age. And, among working women, about 65 percent are in vulnerable employment, largely in the region's informal sector.

Many of them have no benefits - such as maternity leave and pensions - or job security, and are at great risk of falling into poverty in economic downturns, according to the Bangkok-based U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Women's unequal access to decent and productive employment opportunities costs the Asia-Pacific region about 42 to 47 billion dollars a year.

Thelma Kay, director of ESCAP's Social Development Division, told IPS that in many families, household expenditures, such as for food and child-rearing, are managed by women.

"Women dependents are having to care for their entire families on less income, and working women are having to support families with their wages alone, which, on average, are lower often considerably than men's," Kay said.

On top of that, she said, food prices have spiraled over the last two years, forcing women to make difficult financial choices.

"And where school costs become unbearable, it is the girl-children who are more likely to be taken out of the classroom," Kay said.

Decentralizing water in Namibia

A well intended program in Namibia to hand over ownership of water supply may become a poverty trap.

The Namibian government has a program that is turning over operating water holes to local villages. Instead of the government providing the water for free, the villages pay a bill to local management. However, many people in Namibia have trouble keeping up with the costs, and say that those with livestock should pay more.

From this fascinating story from IPS, writer Servaas van den Bosch explains the water policy of the country.

Rural water supply - affecting half of Namibia’s 2 million people - touches on a sensitive apartheid legacy. The South African Water Act of 1956 tied water rights up with land tenure, thus restricting access to boreholes. Communal farmers received water for free, a policy that was designed - successfully - to create dependency on the regime. By repairing pumps and supplying diesel, the colonial government ensured loyalty from the rural population.

The main focus of the rural water supply reform programme, started in 1997, was cost-recovery of operation and maintenance of boreholes. Although ecological sustainability is mentioned in many policies, protection of resources seems secondary to the decentralisation process, say experts.

"The reform is meant to empower people by giving them ownership of the infrastructure, they will manage resources more sustainably", says Timo Katumye, of the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry in Rundu.

Water Point Associations (WPAs) were started all over the country and formalised by the Water Resource Management Act of 2004. Under this legislation, water is still owned by the state, but the WPAs are responsible for collection of levies and repair of infrastructure. Of the 7731 communities using a water point, 5213 have established a WPA.

In Epingiro the government has invested in two, thousand-litre, plastic reservoirs to replace the open cement dam. The pump has been fixed and a wooden fence erected to keep the cattle from damaging the water point. The ‘rehabilitation’ is a sure sign that the facility will be ‘handed over’ soon. In Ministry jargon this means shifting all costs for the water supply to the WPA.

Pompa boy Hausiku Joseph is not sure what to think about that. First of all he wasn’t around when the villagers elected him as one of seven Water Point Committee members, the executive that runs the WPA. And although he gets the equivalent of $7 U.S. a month for this honour, the money is gathered as the need arises.

"We tell people to go cut grass for the thatching industry whenever we need money for the WPA", he says. Contributions are usually only made in the dry season. "As long as there is rain people won’t be bothered to pay."

He thinks the old colonial system worked better: "The South Africans used to pay for everything, this government should also provide water for free."

An interfaith alliance to fight poverty forms in Delaware

A new interfaith alliance has formed in the state of Delaware to join people together to fight poverty. The alliance is beginning to bring people together by having a series of worship services designed to educate about the problems of the world.

From the Cape Gazette, writer Tom Walsh attended the first service.

When a service began the evening of Sunday, Feb. 22, at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Rehoboth Beach, parishioners sat quietly in worship and lamentation. As candles were lit throughout the partially darkened room, one church member rose silently and took the pulpit.

“I work at home and my husband [works] in a factory,” said the parishioner. “We are raising four children who are the orphans of my husband’s sister. She died of AIDS, as have so many in our nation of Zambia. Between my husband’s job and what I am able to contribute, we average less than $1 a day. Life is very hard for us in Zambia. I do not know how we will make it.”

As the testimony continued, parishioners learned the hard reality of what life is like for millions of people living throughout poverty-stricken areas of the world. Although the gloomy tale painted a bleak picture of worldwide conditions for many, it served as an appropriate beginning for a new mission centered at local churches.

The first of many services to be held throughout the year, the evening of worship was the official kickoff of the Progressive Interfaith Alliance in 2009. After gathering last year with a mission to foster understanding and share in prayer and fellowship, the group has grown with every meeting. Current members are All Saints’ Episcopal Church, St. George’s Chapel, Epworth United Methodist Church, Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church, Seaside Jewish Community and Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware.

The Rev. Max Wolf, pastor of All Saints’, explained that while the Interfaith Alliance holds members of many faiths, all the group members have devoted themselves to a common goal.

With a motive to follow the millennium development goals set forth by the United Nations at the turn of the century, the Interfaith Alliance has strived to do its part, one step at a time.

Working conditions of the Tea plantations in Kenya

Tea is a major export in Kenya, it makes up twenty percent of the countries gross domestic product. However, the working conditions for tea workers are tough.

Many workers of the tea plantations live in small shacks, many too small for entire families. So men are forced to live apart from their families. Women often sell their bodies to the men at the plantation, because they are unable to pick enough to make a good wage.

In this story about Kenya's tea trade, the IRIN profiles two tea workers who have fallen victim to the sex trade.

David Wanjala, 38, a married father of six, came from Vihiga, in Western Province, to pick tea near Kericho town, a tea-growing hub in Rift Valley Province, but because of poor pay he is unable to visit his family as often as he would like.

"When I came here seven years ago I brought my family with me, but I later realised I couldn't afford to keep them here; I took them back home and I now live alone," he told IRIN/PlusNews.

"The money I am paid here is too little even for one person ... because of these frustrations, [I] used it to buy sex and alcohol. Sex is cheap here because even the women who work here are paid little and they use their bodies to get extra income."

Wanjala said he only stopped visiting local sex workers after he tested HIV-positive two years ago. "I am lucky because my wife is negative and the doctors have told me how to stay with her without infecting her - people I know have infected their spouses."

Kenya's Rift Valley has a general HIV prevalence of seven percent, slightly lower than the national prevalence of 7.4 percent.

Consolata Awuor, a single mother of two who works on a large tea farm, says her job as a tea picker does not bring in enough to pay her rent, feed and clothe her family, and pay her sons' school fees, so she moonlights as a sex worker in Kericho town.

"For us women, we get even less pay because we cannot pick as much tea leaves [as the men]," she said. "Together with a few friends, we have rented a tin room in town where we provide sex and sell alcohol ... most of our clients are our fellow tea workers."

Awuor is aware of the risk she is running because many large tea companies distribute condoms to employees and hold regular forums to educate them about HIV, but quitting transactional sex would mean pulling her children out of school and having them grow up in poverty, just as she did.

"Missing Meals" a different way of measuring hunger

Second Harvest Heartland of Minnesota released a new study today that measures hunger in a different way. The food bank says that 125 million meals are being missed by people in need.

The St Paul Star Tribune collects other findings from the study. Writer Paul Walsh was at it's presentation.

The "Missing Meals" study is a collection of secondary data that pinpoints exactly how many meals Minnesotans in need are missing. This breaks from the pattern of hunger-relief organizations simply identifying the number of individuals seeking meal assistance.

Among the report's other key findings:

• On average, low-income Minnesotans in the seven county metro area missed 8 percent of their meals.

• About 22 percent of meals for needy Minnesotans is supplied through federal nutrition programs, such as food stamps or school lunch programs.

• There are more than 950,000 Minnesotans who are classified as low-income.

Last year, Second Harvest Heartland assisted with the distribution of 41 million pounds of groceries to hungry seniors, families and children through more than 1,000 non-profit member agencies and programs serving 59 counties in Minnesota and western Wisconsin. For more information, visit www.2harvest.org.

Increase in requests for Indian child sponsorships

It's not often we report on two press releases in a row, but those are the stories that just happen to strike out fancy today.

Child sponsoring agency Action Aid is reporting a spike in requests for giving money to children in India. This increase started with the award winning success of "Slumdog Millionaire"

In this press release from Action Aid that we found in Reuters Alert Net, the agency tells us about the flood of requests.

With Slumdog mania sweeping the country, the charity ActionAid is having to rush the contact details of scores of Indian children to its offices in the UK.

ActionAid’s fundraising director, Richard Turner confirmed that the unprecedented surge in demand to sponsor children from India had taken the charity by surprise. He said: “We’re calling it the slumdog effect. We haven’t seen such a high level of interest in one country for a long time.”

On average, ActionAid will field just over 500 enquiries a week for child sponsorship.

But the week following the film’s success at the BAFTAS saw the number of enquires rocket to a staggering 1,400 with many specifically asking about children in India.

And since sweeping the board at the Oscars, the film’s effect has continued with ActionAid receiving more and more enquiries about Indian children every day.

Richard Turner continued: “Child sponsorship has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of children and is one of the most rewarding ways of giving.

“Sponsors’ money helps towards securing a decent education, better health care and economic security for children and the communities in which they live.”

Muhammad Yunus calls for a redesign of the financial world

Muhammad Yunus is calling for a radical redesign of the financial world in the wake of the global credit crisis. In giving a lecture to an UK award ceremony for development, Yunus called on the financial world to give more credit to people in poverty.

Yunus is founder of the Grameen Bank, a microcredit bank he began that gave small loans to Bangladeshi women who did not have collateral. The bank had 99 percent of it's loans payed back. Since then, Yunus has branched out into other ventures that benefit those in poverty.

From the press release on the award ceremony that we found at One World net, are excerpts from Yunus' lecture.

Nobel Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank has called for an urgent redesign of the world’s financial systems and a major shift to a more “inclusive” banking system through microcredit and “social business”. Professor Yunus delivered the Inaugural Ashden Awards Lecture to over 400 people at the Royal Geographical Society last week.
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Responding to the global financial crisis, Professor Yunus described it as an opportunity to bring about fundamental change:

“The financial, environmental and food crises are all interrelated and are all driven by selfishness. We must seize this opportunity to come up with an alternative financial system, based on trust and selflessness. The poor are suffering from financial apartheid. They make up two-thirds of the world’s population but are currently excluded from the system. The real issue is not whether the poor are credit-worthy but whether banks are people worthy” said Professor Yunus.
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“While the financial world collapses all around us, our schemes are thriving - so who is really credit worthy?” he remarked.

Professor Yunus’ lecture also set out his “social business” approach described in his recent book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism where he calls for the creation of new businesses that are not founded on the profit motive, but on the motive to help others.

Iraqi refugees return to the Middle East to escape poverty in US

The Salt Lake Tribune has a fascinating story today about Iraqi refugees. Flushed out of their country due to the danger and violence many have settled here in the US. Now, many are returning to Iraq or the middle east, exposing the problems with the current refugee system.

Reporter Julia Lyon details the complaints the refugees and human right organizations have against the refugee program.

As human rights organizations call for aid and resettlement for millions of Iraqi refugees, some who are exasperated by America's refugee system are going home or attempting to return to other countries in the Middle East. They feel abandoned by federal policies that offer limited and brief financial support and leave many refugees living in poverty.

Refugees planning to leave acknowledge they may be less safe in Iraq, but believe they will be better able to afford food, pay rent and receive medical care.

Educated Iraqis eager to re-establish their middle-class lifestyle are
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making flaws in the U.S. resettlement system more apparent, while the troubled economy is compounding them, critics charge.

"They're brought out of one crisis into another," said Bob Carey, the chairman of Refugee Council USA, a coalition of refugee advocacy groups. "It's not the type of welcome the U.S. refugee program was envisioned to provide."

From the U.S. State Department to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is not recommending large-scale return, officials say they have heard the stories of Iraqis returning but believe it to be more a trickle than a flood. The number is not tracked.

About a dozen Utah Iraqis have left or are on the verge of leaving for Iraq or other Middle Eastern countries. For some, Utah's Muslim community has collected donations for plane tickets.

An Iraqi family with seven children living in Utah returned to Iraq a few weeks ago. Another Iraqi single mother is planning to leave for Syria soon. "We feel like we're human beings there," said Mohammed Abd, an Iraqi refugee whose family briefly considered leaving Utah. "We feel like here we are mice."
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Today, the government allots $850 per refugee to set up households, but the agencies take up to half for administrative costs and the remainder can disappear in a family's first month. Depending on a refugee's family size or employment, additional cash assistance may be available for a few more months. Refugees are also eligible for the benefits that all poor Americans can receive such as food stamps.

The global recession effect on the Philippines

25.4 million Filipinos live below the poverty line. Even more are at risk of falling below that line due to the international credit crisis, which has caused the global recession. Those especially vulnerable in the Philippines are those who work in exports.

In this story from the IRIN, we look at the thousands of job at risk in the Philippines.

The National Economic Development Authority projects that 800,000 workers are vulnerable to retrenchment due to the downturn.

These include workers in export-oriented industries, particularly semi-conductors and electronics, as well as Filipinos employed abroad, said Socio-Planning Economic Secretary Ralph Recto.

Labour Secretary Marianito Roque reported that since October at least 34,000 people have been laid off, with this year’s job losses expected to reach 300,000.

In October, government data showed unemployment in October at 2.53 million, while those underemployed, or whose jobs do not fit their education or skills, numbered about six million.

However, the IBON Foundation, an independent think-tank, estimates that unemployment and underemployment are above 10 million, possibly hitting 11 million this year.

Yet with the global financial crisis wreaking havoc on local employment, addressing basic labour issues such as providing decent work has become more difficult to achieve – potentially undermining the Millennium Development Goal of eradicating poverty and hunger.

Productive employment and decent work have been integrated as one of the key indicators in achieving this goal.

About 25.4 million Filipinos are estimated to be living below the Asian Poverty Line of $1.35/day, roughly one in three, while the MDG-1 target aims to halve the number of Filipinos living in extreme poverty - 12.7 million - by 2015.

Even before the International Labor Organization (ILO) successfully advocated for the inclusion of productive employment and decent work in the MDG in 2006, the Philippines had began laying the groundwork in pursuing these goals, involving the tripartite participation of the government, labor and employers’ groups.

Dubbed the Philippine Common Agenda, it covered three cycles beginning in 2002. The last cycle, covering the period 2008-2010, has the theme “Narrowing Decent Work Deficits” as an action framework.