Amnesty report calls the Niger Delta a "resource curse"

Amnesty International has released a report that talks about the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The Niger Delta is rich with oil, and only a few people get rich from the oil.

However, wastes from the oil production has caused contamination of the area's water and soil. Many in Delta region have not seen any benefits in their lives from the sale of the oil.

The poverty and resentment have spawned violent groups who sabotage the oil production, only leading to more pollution. The militia groups cause oil spills, waste dumping, and set fires to wells.

From Canada com, this AFP tells us more about the Amnesty report on Nigeria.

In a report released Tuesday, Amnesty described the situation in the Niger Delta, home to 31 million people, as a "human rights tragedy" which has fuelled anger and conflict.

"People living in the Niger Delta have to drink, cook with, and wash in polluted water; they eat fish contaminated with oil and other toxins -- if they are lucky enough to still be able to find fish," said the report.

Farmland in the region, one of the most important wetlands on earth, is being destroyed by oil spills.

"After oil spills the air they breathe reeks of oil, gas and other pollutants; they complain of breathing problems, skin lesions and other health problems, but their concerns are not taken seriously," the report added.

Amnesty blames both the government and multi-national oil giants for the rights abuses in the south of Africa's most populous country.

"Their poverty, and its contrast with the wealth generated by oil, has become one of the world's starkest and most disturbing examples of the resource curse," the report said.

Oxfam calls on G-8 to increase agriculture aid

The G-8 meets in Italy next week to talk about world issues. Ahead of the meeting of leaders of the eight richest nations, Oxfam asks that the countries commit to spending more money to help poor farmers.

From Reuters, reporter Lesley Wroughton summarizes the statement from Oxfam.

In a new report, Oxfam said agricultural assistance by Group of Eight donor countries had fallen sharply, to around $5 billion a year in 2007 from $20 billion in the 1980s.
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"A substantial increase in long-term agriculture investments is loose change compared to ongoing investments in rich countries or the trillions of dollars spent globally this year on the financial bailout," said the report's author, Emily Alpert.

"Strengthening the agricultural sectors of developing countries is a crucial part of the long-term solution to the world's food, financial and climate crises," she added.

A devastating crisis in food prices last year, which led to increased hunger, malnutrition and the risk of social unrest in many poor countries, illustrated why investment in agriculture was necessary to boost global food supplies, Oxfam added.

Years of underinvestment have caused stagnating yields, degraded lands and a scarcity of fresh water in poor countries, it said.

Investment by donors, national governments and the private sector in poor countries should target women and help improve knowledge about environmentally-sustainable farming methods in the wake of climate changes, the report said.

In Africa, governments spend on average 4.5 percent of their budgets on agriculture, the report said.

Shifting the focus on U.S. food aid

In a speech yesterday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the U.S. will make changes in how it fights global hunger. Right now, the US spends a lot more in food aid than it does on projects that help develop the food production of the under-developed world. Valsack wants to change that, and said that they plan meet with agriculture ministers in Africa on how to best to help the continent's food security.

From this Reuters article, writer Mark Weinraub provides more background on US policy.

President Barack Obama has said his administration will ask Congress to double funding for agricultural development aid to $1 billion by 2010.

Aid groups have urged the administration and Congress to do more to address global hunger and poverty.

The United States is the world's largest donor of emergency food aid -- mainly crops grown by American farmers -- but spends 20 times as much on food aid to Africa as it spends on programs that could boost African food production, according to research by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

U.S. annual spending on African farming projects topped $400 million in the 1980s, but by 2006 had dwindled to just $60 million, the council has said.

Vilsack said the United States wants to invest in roads and other infrastructure projects in foreign countries to ensure that food is accessible to everyone who needs it.

Developing nations may also be able to produce more food for trade, helping to improve the global economy, he said.

Gaza poverty level sees dramatic increase within a year

The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a statement about conditions in the Gaza strip yesterday. The Red Cross says that there has been a "dramatic increase in poverty" in the Gaza strip since the collapse of the Gaza economy last year. Conditions were only worsened by the Israeli offensive back in January.

The Red Cross says that 70 percent of Gaza Palestinians are in poverty, which is especially troubling because half of the population is children. The Red Cross also warns that the water and sanitation system in the area could collapse soon.

From Reuters, writer Stephanie Nebehay gives us more details.

Stringent import restrictions imposed by Israel are crippling reconstruction efforts by donors who have pledged $4.5 billion, it said. Basic medicines are in short supply and the water and sanitation system is on the brink of collapse.

The humanitarian agency called on Israeli authorities to lift the restrictions and allow spare parts, water pipes and building materials into the Hamas-ruled coastal territory devastated by the Dec. 27-Jan. 18 offensive.

"Gaza neighbourhoods particularly hard hit by the Israeli strikes will continue to look like the epicentre of a massive earthquake unless vast quantities of cement, steel and other building materials are allowed into the territory for reconstruction," the ICRC said in a report.

Israeli forces bombed and then invaded Gaza to root out militants firing rockets into southern Israel. According to a Palestinian rights group, 1,417 people including 926 civilians were killed, along with 10 Israeli soldiers and 3 civilians.

Many Gazans are "sliding ever deeper into despair", with thousands whose homes and belongings were destroyed still lacking adequate shelter, the Geneva-based ICRC said.

Hospitals are run down, with much of their equipment unreliable and in need of repair after daily power cuts.

A follow up on what happened at the U.N. last week

All nations agreed on a document from the special session of the United Nations that concluded last week. The plan contains proposals for helping the under-developed world through the global economic recession. Critiques of the agreement range from it being too weak, to relief that all nations could agree on something.

However, controversy has stemmed from the UN summit due to proposed reform of the IMF and World Bank. The plan only says that reform needs to be done, not what should be done. Despite agreeing to the plan, the US says any reform is up to IMF and World Bank shareholders, meaning you have to go through us first.

From the IPS, reporter Thalif Deen describes the aftermath of the summit.

Perhaps one of the farthest reaching proposals was "the urgent need" for further reform of the governance of the Bretton Woods institutions (BWI) - namely the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) - where rich nations exercise disproportionate power based on their shareholdings.

The outcome document calls for "a fair and equitable representation of developing countries, in order to increase the credibility and accountability of these institutions."

"However," said Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), the U.S. delegates "indicated governance structures of the BW institutions should not be influenced by the United Nations (therefore refusing democratic scrutiny) and that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) should be left to do business as usual."

She said the 27-member European Union (EU) complimented the outcome document as being highly ambitious, "which is cynical indeed when most developing nations feel they have been railroaded into accepting a very weak compromise, with only an ad hoc U.N. working group to continue the work."

"Civil society is angry that no concrete bailout measures have been agreed on for the most affected: women and the socially marginalised," she added.

The document also says: "We recognise that it is imperative to undertake, as a matter of priority, a comprehensive and fast-tracked reform of the IMF."

Not so fast, says the United States.

Speaking after the adoption of the document, a U.S. delegate said the BWI had "governance structures independent of the United Nations".

"Any decisions on their reform could only be made by shareholders and their boards of governors. The United States did not interpret the language in the document as endorsing a formal United Nations role in decision affecting them," he said in a statement Friday.

Improving a drought resistant food

A research institute has developed new varieties of the pigeon pea, which could help Sub-Saharan Africa become more food secure. The pigeon pea is a high protein pea often called the "poor man's meat" and can grow well despite droughts. The Indian based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics have developed varieties of the seeds for growing in different climates and altitudes.

From the Voice of America, reporter Cathy Majtenyi describes the scientists work.

In Kenya, ICRISAT is growing more than 40 varieties of pigeon pea cross-bred to thrive in different altitudes, temperatures, rainfall, and other conditions.

They also want a breed resistant to wilt, a disease that hits pigeon pea plants especially hard.

Farmers have cultivated pigeon pea in this East African nation for centuries. But traditional varieties tend to take about 10 months to mature.

Some of the new varieties being developed and tested in Kenya mature within five months of being planted, enabling farmers to have two or more harvests a year.

And that is good news for farmers such as Bernard Nzuma, who says that his family's food security has increased because of the new varieties that he grows.

"It resists the drought so there is food security. I'm able to have income and take care of the family needs. The pigeon pea leaves are good for improving the fertility of the soil. I use the leaves to feed my animals and also as fertilizer," Nzuma said.

The Las Cruses Chiapas Connection

A New Mexico State University professor is working on a book that profiles the struggle of the poor in Mexico's southernmost state.

Professor Christine Eber travels to the Chiapas for anthropology trips, during her time there, she became friends with Flor de Margarita Pérez Pérez. Perez has been a struggling to survive through most of her life, going from one craft co-op to another to sell goods for money.

Eber has also started a charity that helps to find markets for the crafters in Perez's community, called the Las Cruses Chiapas Connection.

From the Silver City Sun News, writer Daniella De Luc interviews Eber about the book and it's subject.

"After knowing Margarita for over 20 years, I have had the opportunity to see the changes through her eyes," Eber said. "With this book, we would like to reach a broad audience and help them understand the conditions of life in Chiapas for indigenous people."

As part of these efforts, Eber recently had her first book translated into Spanish. Eber intends to make a bilingual edition of the life story called "Restless Spirits: The Journey of a Tzotzil-Maya Woman." She will submit the manuscript for publication in fall 2009.

Chiapas has a tumultuous history including long-standing inequalities in access to land and resources, disease and poverty and non-existent health and educational facilities. To combat these setbacks and to support their families, indigenous groups in Chiapas have formed cooperatives that build upon local knowledge and skills in order to market coffee, weavings or other artisan work, Eber said.

"Margarita has been involved in many cooperatives and social movements since she was a teenager. Through her life story, we would like to give a glimpse of the struggles her people go through, and how life has changed in highland Chiapas since the 1960s," Eber said.

When the armed uprising of the Zapatista movement took place in 1994, Pérez Pérez said she was unsure what it was, but thought that the Zapatistas were going to help change the way of life for the better for indigenous people in highlands Chiapas. She is still committed to the struggles of social injustices but doesn't see change happening overnight.

"Although I was very excited at first, later as they were saying, 'We're going to win, we're going to win a better life.' As the years passed, I didn't see any triumph. I began to think, 'Ah, the triumph will not come now.' All we can do is to struggle and struggle more and not give up," Pérez Pérez said.

"I could die in a week, or in a few months, so it's better that I not focus on triumph. It's better just to struggle so that something might change in the future," she said.

Women make up 70% of the poverty population

A microcredit firm called Okiocredit has completed a study that looks at the percentages of women who are in poverty from country to country. The study finds that women make up 70% of the poverty population, and it remains around that percentage regardless of nation.

Okiocredit performs loans in the countries of Bulgaria, Kenya, Peru and the Philippines. We found the story about the study in the business website, BDaily.

Dr Shobha Arole, Oikocredit board president said: “A lack of access to basic education, economic and property rights means 70% of the world’s poor are female.

“These are the groups who are marginalised, victims of violence ad vulnerable in every sense of the word.”

Oikocredit offers microfinance to families in poverty around the globe, reaching 69 different countries, with 16.8 million people assisted by the private cooperative financial institution since it was established in 1975.
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One of the problems highlighted by the report is that even if microcredit is taken out in a women’s name, she will not necessarily have control over it.

The report said: “It is possible that a husband or male family members use the money, with the woman taking the microcredit simply because she is more eligible.

“Some writers state that women, instead of benefiting, actually suffer if they have access to microfinance funds. It is suggested that their husbands may see this as encouragement to decrease their contribution to the household.”

FAO: 1 billion hungry people in the world

In years past, it was natural disasters that led to increases of hungry people, but now it's mankind's doing.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization says there are now 1 billion hungry people in the world, that's more then ever before. The FAO puts the blame squarely on the global recession and rising food prices.

From this VOA story that we found at New Jersey News Room, writer Joe De Caupa recieved some quotes from FAO director Jacques Diouf.

"The number of those suffering from chronic hunger in the world has topped one billion in 2009. One billion and 20 million to be more precise," he says.

Diouf says a "dangerous mix" of the global economic slowdown and very high food prices pushed another 100 million people into the hungry category over the past year.

"Neither drought, nor floods or disastrous harvests can be held to blame this time. Worsening hunger in the last three years largely stems from economic shocks," he says.

This includes the global credit crunch, falling trade and investment flows, declining remittances and budgetary pressures on development aid.

"The financial and economic crisis is having a particularly profound impact on poor and rural households, specifically, the rural landless, the urban poor and the female-headed households," he says.

The latest figures show the number of hungry people in the Asia-Pacific region is up 10.5 percent. In sub-Saharan Africa, there's an 11.8 percent increase. The Near East and North Africa are up 13.5 percent. Latin America and the Caribbean show a 12.8 percent increase. Even developed countries are not immune, showing a nearly 15 and a half percent hike in the number of hungry people.

The FAO leader says the world's food system is "fragile and vulnerable."

Even simple sewing machines can empower Tanzanian women

There is a stat cited in the following story that blows me away, I will have to look into it to see if it's correct. Is it true that AIDS orphans make up 85% of Tanzania's population?

At any rate, we found out about a great mission operated by a Wisconsin nun. Sister Stella Storch visits Tanzania and gives sewing skills and tools to the young female orphans there.

From The Fond du Lac Reporter, we read this interview with the Sister.

Sister Stella Storch, coordinator of peace, justice and ecology for the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Agnes, recently returned from Tanzania, East Africa. Each year, after this annual visit, she comes back to share the story of "Empowering Women's Future: the AIDS Orphan Sewing Project."

Storch said AIDS orphans, who live on less than $1 per person a day, make up 85 percent of the country's population

Many of the girls who come to the sewing project walk one to two hours each way, and one girl walks three hours. The girls, most of whom are 15 to 20 years old, are willing to do this for three years in order to learn the basics of sewing, and, ultimately, to become tailors, Storch said.

Upon graduation, they are given a sewing machine so they are fully independent. The first three graduates staff a store in town that sells their dresses and nightgowns. Occasionally, they receive a contract from the government to sew uniforms for children going to school.

Not many showing up to the UN summit on the global recession

The United Nations is currently holding an "emergency" summit on the global economic recession. Big topics like reform of the IMF and World Bank, and stimulating the economies of the under-developed world were to be discussed. However, only 14 heads of states have shown up to the summit.

The first day featured heavy criticism of the US for not having enough regulations in place to prevent what caused the recession. From CBS News, foreign affairs reporter Pamela Falk gave this anylasis.

On the first day, the message was clear: developing countries are the victims of the financial crisis and they need money. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, "surely, if the world can mobilize more than $18 trillion to keep the financial sector afloat, it can find more than $18 billion to keep commitments in Africa."

Security ahead of the "United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development" was tight. New York City Police blocked the perimeter of the U.N., and plans were readied for the red carpet treatment of presidents arriving at the General Assembly.

The problem was, almost no one showed up. Of the 140 nations participating, only a dozen presidents and prime ministers are attending, and it was postponed from early June because the "outcome document" – a set of proposals for the reform of the world financial system – had no consensus.
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The draft outcome document proposes debt relief and increased aid to poor countries, "fast-tracked" reform of the Bretton Woods institutions (in particular the IMF), and it calls for expansion of the regulation of credit rating agencies and hedge funds.

Much of the brainpower for the final document came from Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics, who headed a Commission of Experts on Financial and Monetary Reform, who warned of "another debt crisis further along" if industrialized nations do not help poor nations, but his comments were muted compared to his proposal a few months earlier, when he called for a drastic overhaul of the international financial system. (See: "U.N. Recommendation On World Economy: Replace The Dollar")

Poverty levels in Estonia hold steady

A new survey conducted by Statistics Estonia shows that 19 percent of Estonia's population lives in relative poverty. The country in Europe's Baltic region is one of the top ten poorest countries in Europe.

From Baltic business News, writer Marge Tubalkain-Trell details the survey.

In 2007, a person was considered to be at-risk-of-poverty if his/her monthly equalised disposable income was below 4,340 kroons. The at-risk-of-poverty threshold rose by 860 kroons compared to 2006. The share of persons living in relative poverty did not change significantly compared to the previous year, but the difference in income between the poorest and richest fifth of the population decreased by 0.5 percentage points. The difference in income between the poorest and richest fifth of the population was fivefold. In Europe the income distribution was more unequal than in Estonia in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, United Kingdom, Portugal and Greece. The inequality level was similar to Estonia’s in Italy, Spain and Germany.

In 2007, incomes grew for the entire population. Incomes increased most in the smallest and medium income quintiles — in the first, second and third — by about a quarter. In the fifth income quintile that comprises of richer people income increased by 13%. The distribution of income in society remained at about the same level as in previous years — there was no significant mobility between the quintiles irrespective of occupation, age and gender. The richest households in Estonia are households without children where all members are working (their at-risk-of-poverty rate is 4%) and the poorest are households with children where nobody works. In the latter the at-risk-of-poverty rate increased by three percentage points during the year and rose to 87% in 2007.

Due to the decrease in the differences of incomes, income inequality slightly lessened between Estonians and non-Estonians and the urban and rural population. Ethnic Estonian citizens’ income increased on average 17% over the year, while the income of non-Estonians with other or unspecified citizenship grew by about a fourth. Similarly, the income of the urban population grew by 17% and that of the rural population by about a fourth.

In Northern Estonia the concentration of richer people among the overall population was the highest — 55% of Northern Estonians belonged to the fourth or fifth income quintiles. In Northeastern Estonia (Ida-Viru county) most people were poor — nearly 60% of people belonged to the first or second income quintiles. Central, Western and Southern Estonians had a comparatively even income distribution. The ratio of rich and poor people tends to be more equal in the cities, in the countryside the poor are a larger majority.

Island nation of Mauritius sees it's economy wash away

The island of Mauritius once had a thriving textile industry, but during the global economic recession, orders coming into the island's textile plants had dried up. To make matters worse, the government does not have an unemployment insurance program.

The island off of the African coast in the Indian Ocean also had a thriving tourism industry, but that has also had a sharp decrease, as people from rich nations don't travel as much as they used to.

From IPS, Nasseem Ackbarally explains the problems in the nation dealing with a recession that they did not cause.

"How will I pay my mortgage loan and my utility bills? How will I send my children to school? How will I buy food?" asks Anita Goodye, a mother of three who lost her job at clothing manufacturer Shibani Knitwear in January, together with 500 other workers.

Thousands of textile and manufacturing workers on the island find themselves in a similar situation to Goodye. They struggle to make ends meet after jobs were cut and several factories closed down because of lack of orders. According to finance minister Ramakrishna Sithanen, about 5,000 jobs, or seven percent of the textile and manufacturing workforce, have been lost in the first quarter of 2009 alone.

"Mauritius is riding through a class four cyclone, and the longer its duration, the heavier will be the consequences," he declared on national television, using the cyclone as a metaphor for the turbulent financial times the island state is facing.

Far away seems the economic miracle of the 1990s that provided jobs and money to many Mauritians, allowed for the expansion of the textile, manufacturing and tourism industries and served as a model for economic success to other African governments.

"We live in uncertainty because our factories, big and small, are producing and exporting less. If the crisis persists, many more workers will lose their jobs," predicts Eric Mangar, manager of Movement for Food Security, a local NGO working against poverty and hunger.

Sacked workers, mostly women, demonstrated on the streets in March in front of Government House in Port-Louis. They demanded jobs, but, above all, their unpaid salary for the past months.

Several factories, including Shibani Knitwear, Chentex Garments have not paid their workers since November 2008, when the economic downturn started to have an impact in Mauritius. Women are most affected by the financial crisis because 60 percent of the island’s textile workers are female.

"Our factories are receiving much less orders for textiles," comments François Woo, director of the Compagnie Mauricienne de Textile, employing 5,000 people. According to the Central Statistics Office, exports declined by 10.5 percent between 2007 and 2008. He fears the financial crisis will completely destroy Mauritius’ textile industry and with it tens of thousands of jobs.

It takes 90 minutes to start a conversation

It's "An Inconvenient Truth" of poverty issues. The Australian charity Global Poverty Project is producing a movie that hopes to get people talking about poverty, just as Al Gore's movie did for global warming.

From the ABC we are introduced to the Global Poverty Project and it's founder Hugh Evans.

"There are lots of people talking about extreme poverty but there isn't a coherent narrative or conversation around how we can end it within our lifetime," the humanitarian and activist told ABC News Online.

"I wanted to work with a team of experts around the world to create a groundbreaking presentation that communicates how we can actually end extreme poverty within our lifetime, in such a way that anyone can sit though this 90-minute presentation and be equally compelled and challenged, but also raise a debate."

Evans - who is also an author, co-chaired the Youth 2020 Summit and was among Who Magazine's Most Beautiful People this year - wants you to listen, for 90 minutes to be exact.

And when Evans wants you to listen, a lot of important people, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Hugh Jackman, the Queen, and those inside 10 Downing Street, do too.
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As for the mission to eradicate extreme poverty in his lifetime, Evans says it just needs to start with a conversation.

"The reality is that 27,000 people continue to die every day due to causes that can be prevented ... it's the greatest challenge of our generation and surely we need to be debating in the public forum how we can end it in our lifetime.

"And that's exactly what the Global Poverty Project is trying to achieve."

Medical Journal critiques US President's AIDS-fighting program

A British Medical Journal says that the US President's AIDS-fighting program could do more to prevent transmission among drug users. The AIDS program called PEPFAR which began with our last President, George Bush, does not do needle exchanges or treatment for drug dependency.

The outgoing administration left it up to future the Obama Presidency to change PEPFAR to begin needle exchanges or drug treatment, and Obama has been on record as being in favor for it. PREFAR currently only uses education projects for drug users. The lack of these programs is further complicated by needle exchanges being illegal in some African countries.

From this IRIN article that we found at Reuters AlertNet, we see more details about PEPFAR's preferences to combat AIDS.

Researchers have estimated that 1.2 million deaths in Africa were averted between 2004 and 2007 as a direct result of interventions funded by PEPFAR.

However, HIV activists have heavily criticised its prevention track record, including stipulations that one-third of funding be spent on programmes promoting abstinence outside of marriage, and limited funds for progammes targeting high-risk populations such as sex workers and intravenous drug users.

PEPFAR was reauthorized for an additional five years in 2008, but stayed mute on the issue of needle-exchange initiatives; media reports quoted former US Global AIDS Coordinator Mark Dybul as saying that it would be up to President Barack Obama's administration and the US Congress to decide whether to implement such programmes.

In Kenya, PEPFAR representatives were reluctant to comment on the Lancet report but said in a statement: "Our work with IDUs and non-injecting drug users is part of a balanced prevention portfolio that reflects the drivers of the epidemic in Kenya."

Although heterosexual transmission is still the main means of HIV infection, in sub-Saharan Africa there could be up to three million people who inject drugs, with more than 200,000 in Kenya and at least 250,000 in South Africa; prevalence is often higher among intravenous drug users than in the general population.

"The criminal nature of drug use in these countries means drug users are usually arrested and imprisoned, rarely ever getting treatment for their addictions," Anne Gathumbi, of the Open Society of East Africa, a think-tank based in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. "The few treatment programmes that exist are mainly detox centres with very high rates of relapse."

Trying to forge peace in Sudan

Washington is hosting leaders from Southern and Northern Sudan to try to negotiate peace in the country. Rival ethic groups have warred in bloody clashes in recent months. The attacks include destroying and stealing boats full of food aid meant for a rival tribe.

Trying to broker any kind of peace will be difficult. The conflict is complicated by accusations of some of the groups being armed by the Khartoum government. Meanwhile, some factions of the tribes have disarmed while others took the opportunity to gather more weapons, suggesting a lack of cohesive leadership.

From this IRIN article that we found at Reuters Alertnet, we find some background about the armed conflict in Sudan.

On 12 June, fighting broke out close to Nasir in Upper Nile State, Southern Sudan, when hundreds of armed Jikany Nuer men attacked a flotilla of 31 boats, including 27 carrying grain and other supplies for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), according to UN officials and eyewitnesses.

"The boats were carrying supplies to our enemy," said Jikany youth Peter Gatwech, recovering from a bullet wound to his stomach in Nasir hospital.

Dozens of people in Nasir said the attack on the boats was prompted after three other boats - thought to be carrying ammunition or arms upstream to the Lou - joined the convoy.

The attack cut supplies to the more than 19,000 displaced Lou Nuer people in the eastern town of Akobo, who had fled earlier fighting against the Murele.

The river convoy had to pass through Nasir - home of the Jikany Nuer people - and the latter want revenge for an attack by Lou gunmen on 8 May that left 71 mainly women and children dead in the village of Torkech.

"They killed so many of us," said Thiyang Gatbel, a young Jikany girl shot in the arm during the night attack, and still recovering in hospital. "We were sleeping outside under mosquito nets, and they surrounded the village."

In May, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General and head of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), Ashraf Qazi, warned that death rates in the south had outnumbered those in the war-torn western region of Darfur.

CPA needs bolstering

Southern Sudan and the north must bolster efforts to implement the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) to ease tensions in the south and avoid possible conflict with the north, observers have warned.

"If this agreement fails, there is a risk that all of Sudan will go to war again," said Melanie Teff of Refugees International. "Every possible step must be taken to prevent a return to the horrors of the past."

The CPA ended 22 years of conflict between north and south, and led to the establishment of a semi-autonomous administration in Southern Sudan.

"The danger of violence across Southern Sudan could intensify in the months ahead," the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a 21 June report. It warned of the "failure of the government of Southern Sudan and the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) to protect civilians".

The great North South Divide, or reforming the IMF and World Bank

A commentary focuses on an upcoming UN conference that will focus on the global recession. Many are calling on reform of the IMF and World Bank at this conference. Critics say that the policies of the big banks have been ineffective in helping poor nations through the global economic recession.

Next weeks conference is expected to have this debate between poor nations and rich ones, or the north vs the south. The south wants more say in how the IMF and World Bank are run, while the north says that they alone should set the policy.

In his opinion piece for Al Jazerra, Aldo Caliari from the Rethinking Brtetton Woods think tank frames the debate to come.

The continued clash between northern and southern world views about what role the UN should take to tackle the financial crisis was again writ large, as painfully slow negotiations took place earlier this year.

Developing countries say the conference should centre on the causes of the crisis and the need for reforms in the international monetary and financial architecture – namely the IMF and the World Bank.

Northern, or developed, governments demand that a UN-convened conference should stay focused on development issues and how to mitigate the impact of the downturn – i.e. more aid.

The developed nations insist that reform of the financial and monetary systems are best left to G20 leaders and the IMF and World Bank themselves.

If only that separation between reforming the IMF and the World Bank and development was so easy to make.

The reality is that it does not take long to trace the effects of the economic crisis on the developing world, or to see that poorer nations will be hit harder.

In turn, it is a fairly shared view among the main global economic institutions that failures in regulation, loose monetary policy and lax prudential supervision in the world's dominant economies were the proximate cause of the crisis.

So the assertion that "development" aspects should be addressed separately from "systemic" ones is, at best, impractical and, at worst, a simple way to dodge a broader debate on necessary reform.

Besides, allowing the World Bank and the IMF to intervene or even define their own reform would be suspect, to say the least.

Giving aid to artisans to preserve crafts of the third world

Many art forms in the under-developed world are under constant threat of vanishing due to lack of access to materials or a market to sell from. A story in The Washington Times highlights a business that helps to bring these crafts to the marketplace. Artecnica travels to the under-developed world to find artisans whose crafts are worthy of an international market.

For our snippet, Designer Tucker Robbins from Artecnica mentions a charity that they cooperate with. Reporter Kim cook tells us about Aid for Artisans.

He cites the group Aid to Artisans (ATA) as having done good work in Honduras, Guatemala and Peru. The nonprofit organization, which also has had projects in Iraq and elsewhere, tries to create economic opportunity for artisans in regions where craft traditions are at risk, often where civil strife has taken a toll, particularly on women.

Many of its products are sold online, including beautifully worked iron bowls and screens forged by artists in Haiti's ironcraft center, Croix de Bouquet. ATA has worked with them on their techniques, and helped them devise better ways to purchase raw materials and market their wares.

ATA's Colleen Pendleton says red tape can make it difficult in some places to get ATA projects off the ground, but so far no country has rebuffed them.

She points to Artecnica as one of her group's most successful partnerships: "In 2002, Artecnica founded Design With Conscience, a program that promotes self-sustaining communities of skilled artisans in underdeveloped countries. They've invited talented, internationally known designers to team with them and with artisans in need around the world."

Former Colombian journalist Marcella Echevarria has started the design firm SURevolution, which brings Indian and Latin American handcrafts such as textiles, baskets, ceramics and an array of fashion pieces to the luxury marketplace. Earthy black La Chamba pottery is made from the mica-rich clay of the Colombian hills. Velvety smooth bowls are turned out of rosewood stumps from carefully managed forests in Bolivia, by workshops whose earnings help raise their community twice above the country's poverty line.

"When you think about it, embedded in textiles, metals and ceramics you find the DNA of us as world citizens. We deserve to know about the techniques, materials and craftsmanship, because they're the carriers of our identity," Miss Echevarria says.

Houses made of cardboard

German scientists believe that they have found a way to solve Africa's housing shortage. Gerd Niemoeller has created a cardboard house. The house has been standing up to wind and rain tests, and the scientists believe they are ready to begin production.

Niemoeller's cardboard houses are intended to be sued as emergency shelters or to replace slum housing.

From Jansamachar, we learn more about the design of the houses.

The breakthrough came with Niemoeller's revolutionary method of honeycomb cardboard soaked in polymer resins. Resembling a honeycomb wafer biscuit, this structural design has been a mainstay in aircraft and yacht design for decades, but not in housing.

"Up until now honeycomb structural construction elements have been produced primarily from aluminium. But that of course entails a local industrial capacity which is costly and very energy-intensive - which is unaffordable in the Third World," says Niemoeller.

That's where his "paper house" comes in.

"People want to stay in their own countries. It's only the dire circumstances of poverty which force them to become refugees," he says. "The changing climate will only exacerbate this trend critically, unless we can come up with alternatives."

Niemoeller uses cellulose, primarily from recycled paper, which is soaked in polymer resins. The cellulose mass is subjected to extreme heat and pressure and is formed into wafer-like honeycomb structural elements.

Each honeycomb is a mini-vacuum which helps to hold the panel together and increase tensile strength.

"If you put a nail in the wall, you damage only one single honeycomb without damaging the vacuum properties of the surrounding honeycombs," says the 58-year-old engineer from Luebeck, Germany.

"A 4-centimetre-thick wall has the tensile strength of a 40-centimetre-thick conventional compressed board wall," he says.

Namibia's progress on meeting the MDG's

The government of Namibia has released a new report that tracks the countries progress on meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Despite progress in some area's maternal deaths have been increasing in the country.

From the New Era, we read more of what is included in the report.

According to the just released second MDG Report 2008, the country achieved goals of reducing the number of severely poor households, the survival rate in Grade 8, the ratio of females to men in secondary education, the literacy rate of women compared to their male counterparts, HIV/AIDS prevalence rate amongst the 15 to 19 year age group and incidences of malaria.

These targets fall under MDGs relating to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

But Prime Minister Nahas Angula said unless the country focuses on education, agriculture and health, it is unlikely to make progress in other goals as well. He singled out primary health care, under nutrition,
sanitation and maternal health as being critical issues that should be addressed by the relevant ministries.

Infant mortality deaths have dropped from 57 per 1 000 live birth in 1993 to 49 per 1 000 live births currently, but with the target put at 38 deaths per 1 000 live births by 2012, the country is unlikely to achieve the goal.

The country is also unlikely to meet the under five mortality rate target of 45 deaths per 1 000 live births. Currently 69 deaths per 1 000 live births are reported.

Infant mortality and under five mortality, which are under the reduce child mortality goal have increased because of the HIV/AIDS and under nutrition, while maternal deaths have almost doubled from 225 deaths per 100 000 live births in 1993 449 deaths per 100 000 live births to date. The target for 2012 is 337 deaths per 100 000 live births.

Leaving everything for Cambodia

A family from the Louisville, Kentucky area left all the comforts of America to work in a hospital in Cambodia. Drs. Lori and Bill Housworth and their three children left for Cambodia after a volunteer visit to the country in 2002 moved them to do more.

The family fights with mosquitoes daily, and one of the children almost got taken away by an elephant, but the family says that have received more from the Cambodian people than they have given.

From the Courier Journal, writer Laura Ungar tells us the Housworth's story.

Living and working in Cambodia, the Housworths are reminded each day of why they are there.

The terrible legacy of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge regime remains. According to Friends Without a Border, 1.5 million people were executed, starved or died as the result of forced labor at their hands in the 1970s. "The genocide left the country's infrastructure decimated and her people orphaned," the organization wrote. "Today, many Cambodians still struggle to reconstruct their lives, while battling abject poverty."

Children suffering everything from dengue fever to heart defects come to Angkor from 60-190 miles away, often coming by ox-cart and motor scooters and selling belongings or borrowing money for travel expenses.

Bill recalled a girl who fell out of a tree. As her chest filled with blood, her family traveled 60 miles down a bumpy dirt road to the hospital, where she spent a week, but survived.

Bill said the hospital sees 400 children a day, and every evening the staff must make hard decisions about who is sickest and can stay. Many families set up camp on the grounds while children are treated, cooking food rations the hospital gives them.

Bill spends about a fifth of his time doctoring and the rest teaching residents and overseeing a mostly-Cambodian staff of 240, including 30 doctors and 100 nurses. Under his leadership, the hospital recently launched a heart surgery program in which donors pay for congenital defect repairs costing about $6,000. Six surgeries have been done so far, one on a little girl named Mey who had a hole in the wall between the two upper chambers of her heart.

Two Green Bay Packers visit Kenya

Two American Football players, Aaron Kampman and Donald Driver visited Kenya this summer. The mission trip to Kenya was arraigned by World Vision. The two athletes visited children and brought gifts to them.

From the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, writer Mike Vandermause talks to Donald Driver about the trip.

The 10-day excursion included two nights in a dorm-like hotel in Mutomo, Kenya, with no air conditioning or ceiling fans. At least the players were provided with mosquito nets so they could sleep.

"There's no way you would be able to sleep without mosquitoes tearing you up," said Driver. "You have bugs in your room that you've never seen in your life."

Driver spent part of his teen years in Houston living out of a U-Haul truck, but some of the conditions in Africa astounded even him.

"It touched me, because I've lived homeless before, but to that extent, no. I've never lived like that," he said. "I think that makes you appreciate the way you live. I didn't have any problems compared to what they have over there."

Why would two highly paid professional athletes, joined by their wives, spend their offseason free time walking through the slums of Nairobi, standing amid squalid conditions, witnessing the heartbreaking reality of a country stricken by hunger, an AIDS epidemic and an unsanitary water supply?

For Driver, who was reluctant when his wife, Betina, first suggested the trip, it was an eye-opening experience.

"It changes your perspective on life," he said. "It makes you appreciate what you have. You can't complain about the little things we complain about."

Be sure to enter our contest!

Don't forget to enter our contest, for a chance to win one of the t-shirts above from Moju Project, all you have to do is write a couple of sentences in the comment field.

We we're recently introduced to a charity called MojuProject. The MojuProject helps to feed orphans through the selling of T-Shirts. Each T-shirt feeds a orphan for a month. All the proceeds go to two orphanage groups called Children's Hopecrest and Feed My Starving Children.

Gerrid Smith of MojuProject has offered to us an opportunity to give away free t-shirts through our first ever comment contest. The best three comments will win one of the MojuProject T-Shirts. All you have to do is provide the best comment that answers the following question, first let me give you some background to set up the question.

In his book "Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism" Muhammad Yunus describes the concept of "social business." Following in the steps of microcredit, people create "social business" that try to lift people out of poverty, looking to maximize human benefit instead of maximizing profit. Money is given by people to start the business, but once that business begins to sell its goods or services, the business only returns that same money without interest or profit. When the business becomes self sustaining, the money gained from selling the goods and services are not put in an investor's pockets, but used to give more benefits to the poor.

Examples of a social business would be; medical services that charge the cheapest rate possible without a profit motive, or selling highly nutritious foods to people who don't have access to them without profit.

The hope is that such social businesses could become self sustaining instead of non-profits constantly asking for donations, or governments constantly asking for peoples taxes.

So, the question for our contest is... what "social business" would you propose to create? What are the greatest needs of those in poverty, and how could a business help these people?

Give us your ideas and the three best comments will win a T-Shirt! Leave your entries in the comments below, and a way to contact you in case you win!

Teens spending part of the Summer, volunteering

Teens from Wichita, Kansas learned more about the plight of the homeless in the U.S. Instead of heading to a foreign country for their missions trip this year, the teens from Andover's Hope Community Church spent a week working for the Inter-Faith Ministries homeless shelter.



From the Wichita Eagle, writer Joe Rodriguez spoke to one of the teens, Aaron Schnieder.

"They're just nice people that something bad happened to," he said.

Schneider learned the lesson as part of a mission project with more than 25 other teenagers from Andover's Hope Community Church.

They spent the week away from their homes, and away from their cell phones and other electronic devices.

They were allowed to bring only what fit into one backpack and $20 each to cover their expenses, including food.
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The idea was to make the teens more aware of issues such as poverty and homelessness and provide them the opportunity to do local mission work, a project leader said.

Lacey Gould, event coordinator for the youth at Hope Community Church, said many of the teens didn't even know local people struggled with issues such as homelessness. Many teens, she said, had the perception of homeless as "scary" and "older men."

"I think they realized this week it really could be anybody," she said. "They met a lot of families with children. I think they just started to perceive it differently."

Anti-Poverty march this weekend in Jackson, Mississippi

An anti-poverty march will take place in Jackson, Mississippi this weekend. The size of the march is what we are not sure on. Organizers say "busloads" yet the local police will not have extra patrols around for the march.

The organizers are the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who traces their roots to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The march will begin in the inner city and make it's way to the state capitol. Some say the numbers may be small, and that the SCLC should have done more to get the word out.

From Macon dot com, writer Shelia Byrd tells us more about the conference's roots.

The SCLC was co-founded by the King in 1957. When King was killed in 1968, he was working on a similar initiative to reduce poverty, especially in hard-hit areas of the country. Evans said efforts to help the poor on a large-scale began to wane after that.

"We just let it lay. I'm not trying to be accusatory, but we went into the 70s doing our own things and it ended last year with almost the ruin of America," Evans said.

The renewed push comes as the nation grapples with a deep recession, and Congress has steered billions in federal dollars to corporate bailouts. Clay has said the poor have been left out.

King's campaign was to culminate in a march in Washington, D.C., and Clay said initially that's where the SCLC had planned to revive the movement.

But he said God instead directed him to go to Jackson, a capital city with a population of 176,614 that is nearly 71 percent black. Twenty-three percent of the population lives under the poverty level. He said Mississippi also is home to the Delta region, considered among the poorest areas in the nation.

Some residents living in a poor area of Jackson where people are to gather Saturday said they weren't told about the march.

The young nanny's of India

Many young girls from the ages of 12 to 15 are employed as nanny's in India. Even though there is a law in India that makes this illegal, a loophole in laws makes it impossible to prosecute, for a similar law make the practice legal.

Regardless of the law loophole, its is a culturally accepted practice to have young girls employed as nanny's even though they should be enjoying their own childhood.

From Time Magazine, writer Nilanjana Bhowmick introduces us to one such nanny.

Asha's day starts at 8 a.m., when she wakes up and makes breakfast for the family she lives with as a nanny in Noida, a suburb of New Delhi. She takes the kids down to play, feeds them, bathes them and puts up with their tantrums. Asha is around 14 years old — a few years older than the children she minds. Neha, 12, works as a daily maid for a family in New Delhi. her day starts in the kitchen, where she struggles over the high sink every morning to wash the breakfast dishes. Like Asha, Neha has never been to school, and like Asha, she is one of hundreds of thousands of child laborers believed to be working as domestic helpers in homes across the nation.

Hiring young children to work as nannies and maids in India is increasingly common. It's also illegal. In 2006, India banned the employment of children below the age of 14 in homes and restaurants. And though the law has gone largely ignored by thousands of employers, it is getting more attention on national and international levels. Earlier this week, a U.S. State Department report on human trafficking indicted India for its lack of commitment to the issue, coinciding with a June 15 statement by a trial court in Delhi about the need to punish agencies that recruit children, along with child workers' family members. "We have lost our national conscience," says Shantha Sinha, chairperson for the National Commission of Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). "Otherwise why would educated people break the law at every moment by employing minors as domestic help and behaving like they are doing the children a favor?"

The Trafficking in Persons Report 2009, released on Tuesday, gave India a Tier 2 rating for the sixth consecutive year, citing that India has not been able to suppress human trafficking, "particularly bonded labor." According to a 2001 census, an estimated 185, 595 children are employed as domestic help and in small roadside eateries, a number that is believed to have grown today. Most child domestic workers in India are trafficked by placement agencies operating in poor states like Orissa, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The agencies pay families in advance for their children and then place them at jobs in cities, tying the child to the agency until he or she pays off the money given to his family. The June court statement issued out of Delhi was over the case of local couple who had been accused by police of hiring and ill-treating a 15-year-old girl working as their maid. The couple pleaded that they did not know the girl was a minor, and that the placement agency told them that she was over 18. The case put the spotlight back on the thousands of illegal agencies operating in the Delhi and surrounding region, and the need for a regulatory body to monitor their activities. Out of the 5000 odd placement agencies in the area, only 33 are registered.

Australia's Anglicare demands a new form of assistance

The Australian NGO Anglicare has released a new report on poverty in Australia. The report says that the global economic recession has not created a new class of poor in Australia. Anglicare is also calling on government to come up with a different model of assistance, one that treats the root causes of poverty.

From the ABC, reporter Simon Santow talks to the Anglicare CEO.

SIMON SANTOW: Single parents, people living alone, renters, people dependent on welfare and Indigenous Australians continue to be the poorest in society.

And Peter Kell rejects recent reports that there's evidence a new class of poor arising from the global financial crisis is swamping social services.

PETER KELL: The experience of our emergency relief centres would indicate that it's not a major part of the people that we are helping.

However I would put one caveat on that. This report deals with the period ending in February this year. Unemployment here is only just starting on the rise. All the economists tell us that it is going to get to 8 or 9 per cent from its current 5 point something.

So the demand for this kind of help is clearly going to go up over the next 12 to 18 months as unemployment goes up.

SIMON SANTOW: Anglicare says it has welcomed huge boosts to the amount of money provided for emergency relief for the poor but now it wants the focus to move beyond bandaids and towards tackling the underlying causes of poverty.

PETER KELL: We need to work out how we wrap around the immediate help of food vouchers, rent payments, utility payments with other case management assistance which helps people with their other needs, their needs in relation to child problems or lack of skilling, lack of education, not even knowing how to prepare a nutritious meal - all these sorts of things which we sort of take for granted in normal Australia but which go to present these people on this continuum of despair that they are on.

Video: Poverty simulation for teachers in Texas

Teachers in Abilene, Texas experienced a life in being poor through some role playing. Another poverty simulation took place to help teachers gain some insight on what it's like for their students who are poor.

From this video, that we found in the Reporter News, a Curriculum Consultant Valinda Miller explains the simulation.

A profile of a pregnant woman with malaria

World Vision gives us this profile of a pregnant mother struggling with malaria. The disease is preventable, yet 10,000 pregnant women die of malaria every year in sub-Saharan Africa. Insecticide treated mosquito nets can keep people safe, but it is a struggle for aid groups to distribute the nets and make sure they are being used.

From World Vision, writers Andrea Peer and Jessie Lester introduce us to Esperance.

At 18 years old, Esperance contracted malaria for the first time. “It started on Tuesday,” she explains. “I had no appetite and a terrible headache. I was also coughing and felt nauseous, like I wanted to vomit. I couldn’t eat,” she says.

Esperance grew up in the mountains of Rwanda, where temperatures were not warm enough to host the anopheles mosquito that carries the malaria parasite. When she married and moved to a warmer region, Esperance was exposed to the disease for the first time. “Near my new home there is a river and bushes. A lot of mosquitoes come and bite us. That’s why I believe I am suffering from malaria,” she says.

Four days after her fever began, Esperance slipped into a coma, and her husband of seven months carried her on foot to Rwanda’s Kigeme Hospital, one hour away.

Because she had never contracted malaria, Esperance’s body had no immunity to the disease, making her risk extremely high. And if that wasn’t frightening enough, this young woman’s bout with the illness came at the worst possible time — four months into her first pregnancy.

Hyacinth Umhoza, a nurse at Kigeme Hospital, acknowledges that the risk of malaria is much greater for women who are pregnant. “Their immune system[s] [are] weakened because they are feeding two bodies, so vitamins and minerals go to two people. Any disease can attack both of them,” she explains.

At the hospital, Esperance received three rounds of intravenous therapy, which finally brought her out of the coma. “When you get someone who is unconscious and you bring them back, it is a miracle,” says Hyacinth. “Esperance has recovered. It seems that God is behind this,” she adds.

Report claims that climate change is slowing China's poverty fighting efforts

Greenpeace and Oxfam released a new study that says that climate change is slowing China's efforts to eliminate poverty. The study focused on three counties within China and shows how weather has effected crops, or in some cases lives.

The irony is that China's investments in energy have done a lot to reduce poverty in the country. However, those same investments have increased emissions. The authors of the report urge China to now cut emissions.

From Reuters India, writer Emma Graham-Harrison was present at the reports release.

One county in southwestern Sichuan is grappling with an increase in torrential rains which have destroyed homes by undermining their foundations and damaged fields.

A second case study looks at a poor corner of southeastern Guangdong province that is troubled by a rise in droughts and flooding -- because when rain does come it is much heavier -- causing crop failure, damage to roads and other problems.

In northwestern Gansu, a third county is suffering from intensified drought that has forced some 34,000 people to leave their homes and left thousands more with limited drinking water.

"The impact of climate change on poor communities is a new phenomenon, a new challenge, in man's fight against poverty," economist Hu (Angang) said.

The impact on people in areas like these, already grappling with problems like remote location and limited resources, may make it harder for Beijing to continue lifting ordinary Chinese citizens out of poverty, the report said.

"Environmental degradation, drought and increased disaster risk and incidence mean that in the future we will have to deal with more and more people falling back into poverty," it said.

Médecins Sans Frontières vacates Bakool area of Somalia

A region of Somalia will no longer receive much needed health care from Médecins Sans Frontières. The health aid charity has decided that it is too unsafe to continue to provide services there. MSF operated the largest in-patient facility in the Bakool region of Somalia.

From the Médecins Sans Frontières website, we learn the reasons for the departure.

After nine years of providing health care for the population in Bakool region, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reached the regrettable conclusion that we do not have sufficient security to continue our work. This decision was MSF’s alone and we were not expelled by the authorities. Our medical activities elsewhere in Somalia continue.

Somalia is a very difficult place to provide humanitarian assistance as was underlined by the abduction of two MSF medical staff in Bakool in April 2009. MSF is grateful that the incident was resolved positively with the help of the community.

However, following the abduction and other serious incidents over the past year, MSF can no longer safely provide quality medical care to the people living in Bakool.

For the past months, MSF has run the project from a distance, complemented by short visits of international technical support staff. With the abduction, the possibility of even this approach has been eroded.

“Given the immense needs in Bakool and beyond we have continued to work under difficult circumstances, but unfortunately we now have to concede that the risks there have reached unacceptable levels,” said Jerome Oberreit, director of operations at MSF.

U.S.: global recession lends to a rise in human trafficking

The U. S. State Department says that the global financial crisis has made more people vulnerable to human trafficking. More people are forced into labor or sex out of desperation.

From this Reuters story, writer Deborah Charles attended a press conference that the State Department had to reveal their report on human trafficking.

In its annual "Trafficking in Persons" report, which tracks "modern slavery" like forced labor and the sex trade, the State Department said growing poverty around the world has sparked an increase in both supply and demand for human trafficking.

"In a time of economic crisis, victims are more vulnerable, affected communities are more vulnerable," Luis de Baca said as he presented the report.

"Persons who are under economic stress are more likely to fall prey to the wiles of the traffickers who often get their victims through promises of a better life, promises of better earnings," he said.

De Baca said human trafficking can be valued at about $50 billion a year. That includes about $31 billion profit earned by the traffickers plus about $20 billion in opportunity cost from lost labor of the people who are put into bondage.
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The State Department expanded a blacklist of governments it believes are not doing enough to stop human trafficking to 17, out of 175 countries it monitors in the annual report.

Chad, Malaysia, Niger, Mauritania and Zimbabwe were included among the worst offenders -- putting them at risk of losing some U.S. aid.

Cuba, Myanmar and North Korea have received the lowest ranking in each year they have been included in the report started nine years ago.

The lowest ranking means the United States could withhold aid that is not humanitarian or trade-related.

Bill Clinton becomes UN Special Envoy to Haiti

Former President Bill Clinton is now the United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti. Clinton says that he wants to use the job to help to improve the lives of Haitians and to help them escape poverty.

From this Associated Press article that we found at WPBF, writer Edith Lederer attended a press conference that announced the appointment.

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and was in the throes of a food crisis and political deadlock when four tropical storms battered it last fall, killing some 800 people and doing $1 billion in damage. Hunger worsened, poverty deepened and hard-won stability threatened to come apart five years after a bloody rebellion.

Clinton said he will try to do in Haiti what the U.N. attempted to do when he was the top U.N. envoy promoting recovery from the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami -- "to leave things better than they were before the natural disasters."

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who appointed Clinton to the US$1-a-year post on May 19, told a news conference that "no one is better placed" than the former U.S. president to help Haiti's president and prime minister promote their new economic development program and to help ensure that governments deliver on the US$335 million they pledged in April for Haiti's recovery.

"Haiti is at a turning point," Ban said. "It has a real chance for stability and potential prosperity. ... And we wanted to send a message to the international community: Haiti needs and deserves our help."

Sitting beside the secretary-general, Clinton said that even after the devastation caused by last year's storms "I think Haiti ... has the best chance to escape the darker aspects of its history in the 35 years I have been going there."

Stores have goods again in Zimbabwe

If you have the money, there is again plenty to buy in the stores of Zimbabwe. Last year, store shelves were empty thought the country do to the hyper inflation of the Zim currency. Once Zimbabwe scrapped their local currency and lifted import restrictions people can shop again.

From South Africa's 24 News, we hear more from a Zimbabwe shopper.

"It a luxury for those who have money to buy," said Marian Chituku, a 36-year-old mother of three, holding a loaf of bread as she walked out of a supermarket in the working-class suburb of Chitungwiza, outside the capital.

"The shops are full, but to us there is no difference because we cannot afford the goods. They are as good as non-existent. We only see them on the shelves."

Chituku said her family has tea - without milk - in the late morning, skips lunch and then eat dinner as their only meal in order to stretch her income from a vegetable stall in the township.

But in Harare's leafy suburbs, supermarkets are a shopper's paradise for the select few deciding between imported haddock fillets or full-shell mussels.

"You can get everything you want here," Josephine Marucchi, a housewife from the posh suburb of Mount Pleasant, said pausing to choose from the various brands of cheese before completing the sentence: "as long as you have money.

"It's completely different from last year when people had money and the shops were empty," she added.

World Vision says thousands at risk of disease in Sri Lanka

Monsoon rains are about to come to Sri Lanka, and for those who are in displacement camps, the rains could cause diseases. World Vision is concerned about the poor sanitation at the camps that could create rivers of sewage running through the camps.

From this World Vision press release, writer Rachel Wolff receives comments from workers in the country.

“We are very worried about the outbreak of diseases,” said Suresh Bartlett, World Vision's national director in Sri Lanka. “When the rains come in two weeks or so I can’t imagine what conditions will be like due to the lack of any proper drainage and toilet system.”

The sanitation facilities in the largest camps where most of the displaced are living are woefully inadequate and at least 11,500 more latrines are needed in the camps to comply with international minimum standards. With the monsoon rains expected to arrive within the next two weeks, at least 2,500 are needed immediately to meet even the most basic needs and to prevent a potential health crisis.

Unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation facilities give rise to waterborne diseases such as diarrhea and cholera as well as malaria and dengue fever, according to World Vision health experts. Most fatalities occur in young children.

“Camps further north in Jaffna have already experienced rains and there we have seen people trying to keep their things dry in overturned buckets and hanging their babies in saris to keep them off the ground and out of flood waters, “ said Bartlett.

Food aid destroyed by tribal fighters in Sudan

A caravan of boats delivering food aid to Southern Sudan was attacked by tribal fighters. 800 tons of food has either been looted or destroyed from boats trying to give the food to the rival faction. The U.N.s World Food Programme tried to fly in some food Saturday, but it was far short of what is needed to feed to people.

From this Reuters story that we found at The New York Times, we learn more details about the attacks.

About 40 southern Sudanese soldiers and civilians were killed when tribal fighters ambushed boats carrying food aid, the latest in a string of ethnic attacks threatening a fragile peace deal, officials said Sunday.

Members of the Jikany Nuer group opened fire Friday on 27 boats loaded with emergency rations destined for an area controlled by the rival Lou Nuer tribe, the United Nations World Food Program said.

Hundreds have been killed and more than 135,000 displaced in southern Sudan this year in tribal killings. The violence is rooted in longstanding feuds over cattle, aggravated by political discontent and weapons left over from two decades of civil war.

A United Nations official said the attack on Friday was thought to be the first in which southern Sudanese soldiers had suffered significant casualties in the tribal clashes.

The minister of information for Upper Nile State, Thon Mom, said the attack killed at least 40 people, including troops from the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the former rebel group based in southern Sudan. The troops were escorting the convoy south on the Sobat River to the town of Akobo.

“Women and children who were on the boats were also killed, either directly by bullets or by drowning after jumping into the river,” said Malaak Ayuen Ajok, an army spokesman.

He said the Jikany Nuer fighters had demanded to search some of the barges, south of the settlement of Nasir, suspecting they were carrying arms and ammunition to the Lou Nuer.

They searched one barge, finding only sorghum and other rations, but opened fire when the rest of the convoy continued on its journey, he added.

The officials said they were awaiting more detailed information on the attack. “It could be less than 40 killed,” Mr. Ajok said. “It could be more. We should find out later today.”

No aid allowed into Eritrea

There may be many who are starving in the nation of Eritrea, but it's hard for the international community to determine. The government of Eritrea refuses any food aid, and has poor relations with the United Nations. The country also has strict government controls over Non-Govermental Organizations, so much so, that there are now only 5 government approved NGO's.

From the IRIN, we find out more about the government policy that is questioned with the recent failed harvest.

According to a recent report by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), rates of acute malnutrition in the northern provinces of Gash Barka and Anseba were above the emergency threshold of 15 percent; by February 2009, admission rates to therapeutic feeding centres were already two to six times greater than in 2008.

UNICEF warned that higher global food prices could be affecting up to 2 million Eritreans, more than half the population of 3.6 million. UN agencies have projected that the 1.3 million people living below the poverty line would suffer most.

Heruy Asgodom, head of Eritrea's agriculture department, acknowledged: "The rains have been poor again this year," but added, "We don't need food aid - we don't believe in it."

Eritrea is difficult terrain for humanitarian agencies, a result of strained relations with the UN system, allegedly flowing from its border dispute with archrival Ethiopia.

Marcus Prior, spokesman for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), said the government was not issuing work permits to international humanitarian staff, and with "movement restrictions, and the curtailing of project activities by key partners, it is difficult to get an accurate picture of the real needs in Eritrea at this time".

The agency is feeding 17 million people in the Horn of Africa, which is still struggling to recover from its worst humanitarian crisis since 1984. Prior said WFP was "concerned" that malnourished children and pregnant mothers in Eritrea might "need the same level of assistance that the agency is already providing in neighbouring countries".

Eritrea suspended food aid in favour of a cash-for-work policy in 2006, "integrating" 94,500 tons of donor food into its new programme. Aid workers speculate that food-for-work was funded by "redirecting" supplies "seized" from a WFP warehouse. According to the US government, "this food aid later appeared on the local market". WFP still has an office in Asmara, the capital, but currently runs no operations in the country.

The government argues it rejected general food distribution because a "few have tended to use relief assistance as a political tool, and in a manner that would ultimately perpetuate dependency rather than eliminating it". It bred "lethargy", which the more dignified food-for-work programmes avoid.

1.2 billion people in the under-developed world are illiterate

New research has found that over 1.2 billion people in the under-developed world cannot read or write their own name. The research was conducted at a Malaysian university by Prof Emeritus Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing.

From this story in the Malaysian New Straits Times, writer Adrian David attended the revealing of the research.

Lim said less than 40 per cent of school-going children in developing countries were enrolled, with 50 per cent of them dropping out after six years.

At the global level, almost one-third of those who were illiterate and three billion of those who lived in abject poverty earning less than US$1 a day, were from the Commonwealth, he said.

Lim said this meant that the Commonwealth had 330 million illiterates and one billion very poor.

Lim was speaking at the Stakeholders Forum of the 17th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers, themed `Making Connections and Building Partnerships: Towards and Beyond Global Education Goals and Targets’ at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

Lim said of the 6.7 billion world population, only 900 million who lived in 57 countries termed as developed or industrialised, were rich.

“In contrast, five billion people live in the developing world of 120 low- and middle-income countries.

The first ever Poverty News Blog Contest!

We we're recently introduced to a charity called MojuProject. The MojuProject helps to feed orphans through the selling of T-Shirts. Each T-shirt feeds a orphan for a month. All the proceeds go to two orphanage groups called Children's Hopecrest and Feed My Starving Children.

Gerrid Smith of MojuProject has offered to us an opportunity to give away free t-shirts through our first ever comment contest. The best three comments will win one of the MojuProject T-Shirts. All you have to do is provide the best comment that answers the following question, first let me give you some background to set up the question.

In his book "Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism" Muhammad Yunus describes the concept of "social business." Following in the steps of microcredit, people create "social business" that try to lift people out of poverty, looking to maximize human benefit instead of maximizing profit. Money is given by people to start the business, but once that business begins to sell its goods or services, the business only returns that same money without interest or profit. When the business becomes self sustaining, the money gained from selling the goods and services are not put in an investor's pockets, but used to give more benefits to the poor.

Examples of a social business would be; medical services that charge the cheapest rate possible without a profit motive, or selling highly nutritious foods to people who don't have access to them without profit.

The hope is that such social businesses could become self sustaining instead of non-profits constantly asking for donations, or governments constantly asking for peoples taxes.

So, the question for our contest is... what "social business" would you propose to create? What are the greatest needs of those in poverty, and how could a business help these people?

Give us your ideas and the three best comments will win a T-Shirt! Leave your entries in the comments below, and a way to contact you in case you win!

Zimbabwean girls as young as 12 turning to prostitution for food

Save The Children says that young girls in Zimbabwe are turning to prostitution for food. The girls as young as 12 are selling their bodies for as little as a few cookies.

The charity fears that human traffickers could bring the desperate children to South Africa for next year's World Cup. The children would be used to satisfy the demands of travelers from around the globe who will come to the country for the football event.

From the BBC, reporter Mike Thomson talked to a head teacher of a school who has seen the problem firsthand.

Unemployment in Zimbabwe is thought to top 90% and many cannot afford to pay for food, medical care or school fees.

The deputy head teacher of a large school with 1,500 pupils east of Victoria Falls told the BBC that hundreds of her female students are now selling their bodies for whatever they can get.

"It could be books, it could be biscuits, chips, some even just to be given a hug."

Throughout my conversation with the deputy head, two small teenage girls in threadbare school uniforms sat watching from a brick wall by the playground. Both are orphans.

The older one, who is 14, said she knows many girls here who have become prostitutes.

"I don't want to do that but life is so difficult, so very difficult. Both my parents are dead and I rarely see my two sisters. Recently I stood by the river and I thought about throwing myself in but I didn't. I don't know why."

Analysis of the G-8 aid commitments to Africa

The big story yesterday was the new report from the ONE Campaign on the G-8 fulfillment of aid promises. ONE had really attacked Italy and France for dragging the whole G-8 aid average down. ONE says that the two countries had fallen way short of it's promises to double aid to the African continent.

Despite the broken promises, China gives more aid for African infrastructure than the whole G-8 combined. This is one of the reasons that Sir Bob Geldof wants more international voices to contribute to solve the problems of poverty, instead of just eight nations.

We found a great analysis of all this in TIME Magazine, writer Vivienne Walt analyzes the difficulty that rich nations have in keeping commitments while trying to prevent collapses at home due to the global recession.

It may be no surprise, in light of the global economic recession, that the world's richest nations have failed to deliver much of the aid they promised Africa four years ago. But campaigners are not letting the Group of 8 (G-8) industrialized countries off the hook. According to ONE, an advocacy group founded by U2 singer Bono, most of the blame for the shortfall in pledges made at the high-profile Gleneagles summit in 2005 rests on just two countries — Italy and France. Italy, which next month hosts a summit of G-8 leaders, has delivered a miniscule 3% of the amount it pledged at Gleneagles, according to ONE's annual DATA report tracking aid delivery. France has given just 7% of its pledged amount.

At Gleneagles, the leaders of the U.S., Japan and the wealthiest European countries vowed to supply $21.5 billion in aid to Africa by 2010, to help the continent work its way out of poverty by tackling dire problems in health and education. But with just a year to go to 2010, only $7 billion of the additional $21.5 billion has come through — with France and Italy accounting for the bulk of the shortfall, although that could rise to about $11 billion by the end of this year. The star of the donors is Britain, which is on track to become the first G-8 country to meet the target of spending 0.7% of its national income on aid. Still, the G-8 as a whole looks unlikely to achieve its targets. (See pictures of the global financial crisis.)

The leaders who pledged the $21.5 billion in 2005 obviously hadn't anticipated the global downturn that would force them to spend hundreds of billions on bailing out their own floundering economies. And the squeeze on the finances of G-8 countries is likely to worsen, next year, as governments scramble to lower their deficits, rather than risk inflation in the midst of rising unemployment. Overseas aid could then suffer even further cuts. "As governments look to cut deficits, they will look to cut all parts of their budgets and these parts that are to help the poorest may or may not be cut as part of that process," Bill Gates told reporters in London on Thursday at the launch of the DATA report. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation operates in numerous African countries, and its $27.5 billion endowment makes it a far more significant donor than foreign governments are in some countries.

Cuts in aid budgets by the industrialized nations could prove disastrous for some African countries, according to the Africa Progress Panel, a group led by former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. "The financial meltdown that evolved into an economic recession has now become a development crisis," warns the Panel's report released on Wednesday. "Combined with the food crisis, the volatility in fuel costs and climate change, it threatens to reverse Africa's recent progress."

Corruption within aid groups

A recent scandal where food aid was stolen from World Vision has brought more attention to corruption within aid groups. Two World Vision workers in Liberia robbed World Vision of food and construction supplies then sold them for a profit. Since finding out about the theft, World Vision has installed more double checks to ensure the aid gets to the people.

Still the question remains why there is so much graft with aid agency's, and why it's so hard to catch. In his article for Reuters Alert Net, writer George Fominyen looks into why aid seems to fall into corrupt hands.

Dishonest staff are not the only problem. Some anti-graft watchers also blame corruption on a lack or resources for external monitoring.

"Often, in an effort to cut overhead costs, on-site external monitoring is de-prioritised. Regular audits only pick up areas where procedures have not been followed, not where procedures have been manipulated to cover up fraud," says Jessica Shultz, programme coordinator at the Norway-based U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre.

In addition, there is a sense of complacency towards corruption.

"Paying bribes to get goods past a road block, for example, may seem acceptable at the height of an emergency when lives may really be at stake. However, that thinking is being challenged now even in emergency situations," Shultz said.

A notorious corruption case surfaced in 2002 when a study brought to light allegations of widespread sexual exploitation of refugee children in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone by aid workers and peacekeepers from 40 agencies in exchange for relief supplies.

Food distribution, a cornerstone of humanitarian assistance, is particularly vulnerable because the complex logistics of aid delivery make corruption hard to detect.

Moreover, food is a valuable commodity and there are many opportunities for corruption in the process of shipping, storing and distributing food aid.

The Microcredit Summit Campaign meets in Colombia

The Microcredit Summit Campaign is now holding a conference in Colombia. Conference attendees are talking about ways to expand microcredit, despite the global recession getting in the way. Some ideas are a stock exchange that deals only in stock for microcredit banks, and changing some countries laws that make the very practice of microcredit illegal.

A lucky student from Indiana University got to travel to Colombia to cover the summit. From the Indiana Daily Student, reporter Nathaniel Kenninger gives us this summary.

“The challenge is finding a way to give the more than 1 billion people who still lack financial services in the world a helping hand especially as microfinance and microbusinessmen are being greatly affected by the world financial crisis,” said Reynold Walter, executive director of Fundacion de Asesoria Financiera a Instituciones de Desarrollo y Servicio Social in Guatemala.

Some of the recommendations discussed at the summit to increase the poor’s access to financial services include using technology to create cost-effective e-banking, creating a stock market that trades only in microfinance and microenterprise organizations, and creating a legal framework for the microfinance industry.

“Microfinance doesn’t have a home or regulatory framework to allow for sustainability,” Yunus said. “Taking savings as a microfinance institution is an illegal activity in many countries, and these antiquated laws must be changed.”

Speakers cited the ongoing worldwide financial crisis as reason to take drastic action soon.

“The financial crisis has shown the world that microfinance is how the world should do banking,” said Elisabeth Rhyne, managing director of the Center for Financial Inclusion at ACCION USA, an American microfinance firm. “(Microfinance) has a way to change how private industry does business and how to work toward full financial inclusion. In short, microfinance shows how business can have a soul.”

The summit also had sessions on how to improve transparency in interest rate pricing, integration of microfinance with health care, use of technology for greater efficiency and how microfinance institutions can have a positive impact on gender equality and the environment.

Russian town revolts due to lack of jobs

We found this unique look at how the global recession is effecting small towns in Russia from Time Magazine.

The town of Pikalyovo has rampant unemployment after the local cement factories closed down. People there took to the streets to protest over never receiving back pay. The protest got Vladamir Putin's attention, and the Russian government is taking steps to make sure more protests don't occur in the country.

From Time Magazine, reporter John Wendle gives us the story of the Pikalyovo.

For three months, Pikalyovo's citizens had been living in crippling poverty after the town's recession-hit cement and brick factories started closing down. Thousands of workers were laid off and almost overnight nearly 25% of Pikalyovo's 20,000 residents were unemployed. After making several pleas to their employers for back pay — at one point crashing a meeting at the mayor's office to demand their jobs back — the workers turned to desperate measures. On June 2, they staged a strike along a major highway linking the city of Vologda to St. Petersburg, blocking the route for hours. Finally Moscow took notice and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin flew in by helicopter to force local politicians and factory owners to pay the town's workers the money owed to them. Now Pikalyovo's shops, cafes and banks are doing good business again, but as the recession sweeps across Russia, small single-industry towns all over the country are just one factory closure away from suffering the same plight. (See pictures of Putin.)

"You wouldn't have seen anything like this — people were fed up and angry," says Alexander Plush, 41, another former factory worker standing in line at the ATM. Plush had worked for 17 years at one of the Pikalyovo's cement factories until it closed a few months ago. "Before we got paid, people were living on bread and water and the food they could grow in their gardens this early in the year," he says.

The situation was so bleak that, according to Russian media, people in Pikalyovo were forced to eat wild plants, while the city's hot water was shut off after residents couldn't pay their bills. When Putin came in to save the day, he saw PR potential in Pikalyovo's distress. During a nationally televised meeting in the town, the prime minister scolded local officials and factory owners, including billionaire tycoon Oleg Deripaska, a onetime Kremlin favorite whose investment company Basic Element owns the town's BaselCement factory. "You have made thousands of people hostage to your ambitions, your lack of professionalism — or maybe simply your trivial greed," Putin said.

Yet even Putin's harsh words and the disbursal of pay have not put an end to the feeling here that the crisis will continue. "It's unlikely the situation will change. Receiving our pay was a small gesture, a short-term solution," says Denis Yershov, a former employee at the local electricity plant who helped block the road last week. "I'll be happy when we have work again. I'll be happy when we have stability and I'm able to feed my family."

Yershov's sentiments — and those of nearly everyone else TIME spoke to in Pikaylovo — are playing out at checkout counters in shops all over town. "People are only buying the cheapest brands. It's like they don't believe the change will last," says Oksana Gavrilova, a staunch Putin supporter who had worked at the EuroCement factory for eight years before she was laid off. Leaning down into a nearly empty cooler to grab a kielbasa, she says, "Without the factories, Pikalyovo is nothing."

And she is right. Pikalyovo is one of hundreds of cities across Russia whose populations are supported by just one factory or one industry. If that factory or industry is wiped out by the global economic downturn — as Pikalyovo's was when the price of cement dropped and Deripaska's company Basic Element put half of its workforce on forced leave — the whole town is sent into a tailspin

The ONE Campaign reports on the G-8 aid promises

The ONE Campaign releases it's examination of aid commitments by the developed world today. The report focuses on the G-8's pledges of doubling aid to Africa, and how well they they have kept them.

You can download the full report here.

To summarize, Canada, the U. S. and Japan are meeting their commitments. Germany and the U. K. are almost there. France has been disappointing, and Italy has been a failure according to the ONE Campaign.

From All Africa, we hearmore from the ONE Campaign about their new report.

"France's delivery [of aid] is disappointing, and Italy's performance is an utter failure," the group, named ONE, said in its report. ONE has its origins in campaigns for debt relief and claims the backing of two million members.

In a report which examined the progress made by the G8 grouping of developed nations in meeting their 2005 commitment to double aid to Africa by 2010, the group said the G8 have delivered only a third of the extra help they promised - U.S. $7 billion of $21.5 billion.

"ONE's projections show that by the end of 2009 they will have delivered about half of their 2010 promise, with Italy and France responsible for 80 per cent of the shortfall. This leaves just one year, 2010, for the G8 to make up the rest...

"ONE projects that they will deliver an additional $3.46 billion in 2009, far short of the need," the group added.

Its report was released to follow Wednesday's Africa Progress Panel report which warned of the severe implications for Africa of the global economic crisis.ONE sees its role as to monitor aid from developed countries. It looks to the Africa Progress Panel and other civil society groups to assess corresponding commitments - on issues such as good governance - made by African leaders.

ONE's report said some members of the G8 were meeting "and even beating" their aid targets for Africa. "Others, most notably Italy and France, have made exceptionally poor progress..."

U. S. cuts aid to Nicaragua

The U. S. has stopped 60 million dollars of aid to Nicaragua. The U. S. government cut the aid because of concerns about democracy and free markets in the country.

From this Associated Press story that we found at Oregon Live, reporter Matthew Lee recieves an explanation from the government about the cuts in aid.

The board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a U.S. taxpayer-funded operation set up by former President George W. Bush to fight poverty in developing nations, said Wednesday it had cut $62 million from a $175 million program for Nicaragua because of problems in recent elections.

"This decision is made with deep disappointment, as our partnership with Nicaragua has yielded tremendous progress over the past years in reducing poverty through innovative economic growth projects," said Rodney Bent, the corporation's chief executive.

The cut in aid follows a suspension in new U.S. assistance announced last November after municipal elections that the opposition said were marred by fraud. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, a leader of the Sandinistas in the 1980s, declared the protests were unconstitutional.

In March, Ortega accused the U.S. of punishing the poor with the suspension and defended the local elections, in which his Sandinistas won a majority of mayorships, as fair. The opposition said the vote was fraudulent and complained that international observers were not allowed.

Bent said the MCC would only back countries whose "governments actively demonstrate a commitment to democracy and the rule of law, as well as economic freedom and social investment."

Russia says they want to become a leader in global food supply

Recently, Russia announced an aggressive plan to boost the amount of food it grows and supplies to the world. Russia plans on spending more money and using more of it's land to grow food and become a leader in global food supply.

In this analysis from Guardian writers Amie Ferris-Rotman and Karl Plume, many say that Russia will need to spend more on infrastructure to follow through with their ambitious plans.

The Kremlin's pledge to ease a world food shortage needs investment in port capacity and farming know-how if Russia and its Black Sea neighbours are to usurp the United States as the world's biggest grain supplier. Russia, with a tenth of the world's arable land, said at the weekend it could double grain exports within 15 years. By becoming a top supplier in a world where every sixth person goes hungry, it aims to carve out a similar key role in food security to the one it holds in energy supply.

But while some in the grain markets believe the Black Sea region can become the bread basket for the entire world, right now it does not have the capacity to do so.
"They are some years away from being considered a massive grain powerhouse," said Gavin Maguire, director at Chicago brokerage EHedger, though he added the region had potential.

"If they did invest significantly in the infrastructure there -- building roads, building rail and port facilities that are capable of moving meaningful amounts of grain -- we could have something interesting emerge over the next decade or so."
Russia plans to add 50 percent to its grain harvests by bringing into use some 20 million hectares of derelict farmland, or an area the size of West African nation Senegal. The target was unveiled by President Dmitry Medvedev at the Kremlin's showcase World Grain Forum in St Petersburg.

This extra grain could meet a chunk of a forecast 50 percent rise in world demand over the next two decades, a result of the more than 60 million people born each year, Asia's rapid growth and the better diet sought by a 2 billion-strong middle class.

Medvedev called the world's fixation with profit "immoral" and backed a proposal to create a global grain reserve to better administer food resources and curb price spikes such as those that led to riots from Haiti to Senegal to Indonesia last year.

U.N. aid for small farmers has increased

The agriculture arm of the United Nations says that funds for farming support has increased despite the global recession. The U. N. International Fund for Agricultural Development says they now have a 1.2 billion dollar budget to support small farmers.

From Reuters Alert Net, reporter Muchena Zigomo interviews the head of the IFAD, Kanayo Nwanze.

"On the contrary, the food crisis of 2007/08 brought back agriculture on the agenda, and there seems to be a feeling that agriculture is one of the ways out of this economic crisis," Nwanze told Reuters in an interview.

"We've just completed, in December, our replenishment for the 2010-2012 cycle and our members increased their pledges by 67 percent, so we're going to be able to move our portfolio to about $1 billion to $1.2 billion per year from about $700-$750 million per year," he said.

He said due to IFAD's ability to co-finance projects with the World Bank and other multilateral lenders, a total of about $7.5 billion would be available for small-scale farmers over the next three years.

Small subsistence farmers around the world have been hard hit by ballooning prices of seed and fertiliser, threatening billions of people with hunger. IFAD says small farms feed up to 2 billion people, about a third of the global population.

Nwanze said smallholder farms in Africa -- which account for 95 percent of the continent's agricultural output -- are among the worst affected by the price spikes.

"If we are able to increase support for small-scale farmers on this continent, then I think many countries (in Africa) will achieve (economic) growth and get on the road to ending poverty," he said.

"We have statistics from the World Bank to show that investment in agriculture is 2-4 times more effective in reducing poverty than any other sector."

Report on the economic state of Africa from the World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum on Africa is currently meeting, and the picture they give of the economic conditions in the continent is not a good one. A report released by the Forum says that the global recession will drag millions back into poverty. The report also says the recession will make Africa lose at least 50 billion dollars this year.

From All Africa, we find this summary of the report.

The report, published at the meeting of the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town, was drawn up by an international review panel established to monitor whether the world's leaders are meeting their commitments to Africa. The group, known as the Africa Progress Panel, is headed by former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan.

The panel said many African nations had worked hard to establish macroeconomic stability and pursue sound economic policies over the last year. Even as economic turbulence began to cut the demand for exports in the second half of 2008, many countries managed to achieve high rates of growth in per capita income, and investment continued to flow into the continent.

"However, since early 2009, capital inflows have come under growing pressure as global liquidity tightened, exchange rates and capital markets became more volatile," the panel said. "And investors have become more concerned about an increase in political and macroeconomic risks and the liquidity of their assets."

Summarizing forecasts which it said "paint an increasingly gloomy picture," the panel noted that:

* The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reduced its growth forecast for sub-Saharan Africa from 5.5 percent in 2008 to to 1.7 percent this year;
* The IMF is predicting that a continued decline in economic activity could result in more than 53 million people being added to those living on less than $2 a day;
* The Institute of International Finance predicts an 82 percent decline of net capital flows to developing countries, from $929 billion to $165 billion, with Africa expected to suffer particularly badly;
* The World Bank estimates that by the end of 2009, sub-Saharan Africa nations will have lost expected incomes of at least $50 billion; and
* The bank is warning that 43 of Africa's 53 states are highly exposed and vulnerable to the effects of the global crisis.

Comment: Same ol' Same ol' for the IMF

Here in the states, President Obama requested money from Congress to give to the International Monetary Fund to the tune of 108 billion dollars. Obama wants to give the IMF the money to help the under-developed world through the global recession.

Critics of the IMF say that this is a time to demand better operation of the IMF, so the money can be used without any stipulations set upon the loan recipient. Stipulations that the critics say have hurt the economies of the under-developed world.

From the blog God's Politics, Jubilee USA Network coordinator Hayley Hathaway lays out her critique of the IMF, and asks Congress to make demands of the IMF.

Ask the IMF’s Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and he’ll say the IMF has seen the light and has reformed its ways – but look at the institution’s loans given out during the financial crisis, and you’ll see the same old pattern. The IMF just keeps imposing conditions that restrict governments’ spending instead of allowing them to do what the U.S. and Europe are doing – stimulating their economies by investing in jobs, education, and health care. Instead, many countries with new IMF loans are having to freeze spending. Thanks to continued pressure from activists, civil society, and Global South governments, the IMF has improved on some of its policies and rhetoric, but recent loans show they have a long way to go.

Now Congress might give the infamous institution a blank check. If anything’s going to change, new money for the IMF must only come with significant reforms – reforms which will allow countries around the world to respond to the crisis with stimulus spending (and not restrict health care and education spending). To avoid the debt trap, money should come in the form of grants or debt relief, not new loans. To make sure the IMF is doing its job, Congress must also require key improvements on the institution’s transparency and accountability.

New agriculture support funding to be operated by the World Bank

A grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will help to start new agriculture support funding. The World Bank will operate the fund that aims to grow financial services for rural areas in the under-developed world.

From India E News, Arun Kumar gives us more details on the new fund.

In a time of tight credit, the Facility will support grants to bank and non-bank institutions for activities to increase access to financial services, such as savings, credit, payments and insurance, in rural areas in developing countries as profitable business lines, the bank announced Monday.

'In India, a country with relatively high rural banking outreach, 45 percent of smallholder farmers did not have a savings account, and 69 percent did not have a credit account with formal financial institutions,' it noted announcing the new venture in recognition of the financial crisis hitting the poorest the hardest.

'There is a great need among smallholder farmers, who make up the bulk of the world's poor, for ways to save and manage their money,' said Carlos Cuevas, Deputy Director of Financial Services for the Poor for the Bill and amp; Melinda Gates Foundation.

'Having access to safe and reliable financial services such as savings, credit and insurance, allows poor farmers to safeguard cash, which they often receive only once a year during harvest. In this way, they can better provide for their families, prepare for emergencies, and build long term financial security.'

'We need to ensure sustainable access to financial services as a fundamental way to reduce poverty,' said Renate Kloeppinger-Todd, Rural Finance Adviser at the World Bank.

'The Facility will enable financial institutions to provide new opportunities for smallholder farmers to make productivity enhancing investments and to use new technology and services.'

Nicaragua; the poorest country in the Americas

During the global recession as many as 52,000 jobs could be lost in Nicaragua. Already the poorest country in the Americas, many are saying the country will fall well short of meeting Millennium Development Goal number 1, halving poverty by 2015.

From the IPS story, José Adán Silva examines how the country is reeling from the global recession.

In late 2008 the president of the Central Bank, Antenor Rosales, forecast three percent GDP growth for 2009. In January he revised the estimate downward, to between one and two percent.

The non-governmental Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (FUNIDES) predicted in March that GDP would shrink by between 0.4 and 1.7 percent. It also estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 people would lose their jobs, and between 33,000 and 64,000 people would sink into poverty this year.

In this Central American country of 5.7 million, 47 percent of the populations live on less than two dollars a day, according to the United Nations.

This month the Central Bank confirmed a fall in exports in the first quarter of the year.

Rosales said exports from January to March were worth 355 million dollars, 11 percent below exports for the same period in 2008. "The hardest-hit product is coffee," he added.

The Nicaraguan economy is based on agriculture and livestock, and its main sources of revenue are exports of grains, meat and meat products, textile manufacturing, tourism, and remittances from workers living abroad.

According to the Nicaraguan Civil Society Network for Migrations, one million Nicaraguans are working outside the country, and they send home between 750 million and 850 million dollars a year.

Exports from duty free zones make up 37 percent of total exports in Nicaragua. In the first quarter of 2009 they brought in 243 million dollars, 15 percent less than in the same period last year.

Textile factories in the free zones are among those hit hardest by the crisis. Two companies closed down in May, bringing to 131 the number of firms that have gone under since 2007. A further four may close their doors in the coming months.

New malaria drug could be ready by 2012

A new malaria fighting drug from Glaxo Smith Kline is in it's final round of testing. If everything continues to go well, the drug could be available to the public by 2012.

From iAfrica, writer Janine Erasmus fills us in on the drug's progress.

GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) RTS,S malaria vaccine has entered phase three of its clinical trial. This is the critical proof-of-concept stage and if it succeeds, the drug could be on the market by 2012.

Viewed as the most advanced malaria vaccine available, the RTS,S vaccine passed its initial tests with flying colours.

The results of the earlier studies were published in the December 2008 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. Experts subsequently recommended that studies be advanced to the next stage.

This is significant because few vaccines manage to meet the rigorous standards of a full clinical trial, which may take up to 12 years. For any drug to make it this far shows that it is very promising indeed, and RTS,S is the first malaria candidate to do so.

Could be ready for 2012

Should phase three trials be successful, the manufacturer is hoping to apply for regulatory approval in 2011 to begin marketing the drug by 2012.

To date, GSK has invested over $300-million (R3-billion) in getting RTS,S to this stage since the drug's initial discovery in 1981. The pharmaceutical giant received funding for further development in 2001, from the non-profit PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative. This initiative was born out of a grant to PATH — the Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health — by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Malaria Vaccine Initiative is also striving to ensure that RTS,S is accessible to those who need it most, and has entered into talks with other organisations to see how the price can be kept as low as possible.

The organisation's director Christian Loucq said emphatically that the cost to African babies and mothers would be zero.

GSK has stated that the development of an effective malaria vaccine, especially for women and children, is one of its primary goals. The disease kills close on one-million people every year. Of these, 90 percent live in sub-Saharan Africa, and most are children under the age of five.

The Red Cross is feeding Zimbabwe's prisoners

The International Red Cross is now feeding Zimbabwe's prisoners to keep them from starving to death. The Red Cross is feeding over 6,300 prisoners and the numbers are expected to rise as the Red Cross expands the aid to more cities in Zimbabwe.

Before the recent harvest, some seven million people in Zimbabwe were receiving some sort of food assistance. The huge amount was caused by the collapse of the nation's economy and the cholera outbreak that killed thousands.

From the IRIN, we learn more about the Red Cross' operation in Zimbabwe and a documentary that may have helped to coax it.

Askar Umarbekov, ICRC head of operations in Zimbabwe, told IRIN that the prisons in most provinces had been surveyed, but declined to divulge the prisoners' state of health as all findings were confidential.

Prisons in the second city, Bulawayo, and most other provinces had been seen by the ICRC teams, but those in and around the capital, Harare, have yet to be visited.

A report by Zimbabwe's Association for Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation of the Offender, an NGO advocating the rights of prisoners, said at least 20 inmates were dying daily in the country's jails.

In March 2009 the South African investigative television documentary programme, Special Assignment, secretly filmed conditions in two of Zimbabwe's 55 prisons and revealed emaciated inmates surviving on a daily handful of prison rations of sadza, or maize-meal porridge, the staple food.

Justice and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa told local media a few days before the documentary was broadcast: "As I speak, the [overall] prison population is at its lowest - 14,000; we have never been that low." He admitted to poor nutritional levels, but dismissed reports that cholera was afflicting inmates.

Umarbekov said the documentary programme, Hell Hole, had had an impact but "was not directly linked" to the ICRC's "offer of services made in December 2008" to the prison authorities to assist in providing adequate nutrition to prisoners. Food assistance to prisons started in April 2009, he said.

A call for African governments to help small farmers

80 percent of all food production in Africa comes from small farms, so it's very important that those farms have all the support they can. Often it's the small farmer that doesn't have the new technology in seeds or fertilizer that can help achieve great yields from their crops.

A representative from the United Nations Agriculture arm is calling on African governments to do more to help the small farmer. From Business Day, reporter Siaka Momoh received the latest remarks from the International Fund for Agricultural Development leader Kanayo F. Nwanze

The prime place of agriculture in the scheme of things in Africa came to light again recently in Cairo, Egypt as Kanayo F. Nwanze, president of the UN’s rural poverty agency, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) urged African governments to create a dynamic smallholder agricultural sector.

For him, African governments that nourish their agriculture sectors can limit the impact of the global financial crisis on poor rural communities and help their countries emerge from the current turmoil.

“The impact on Africa of the recent food and fuel crisis – and now an unprecedented global economic crisis – has been severe and threatens to undo the continent’s notable economic progress,” said IFAD president Kanayo F. Nwanze.

“Resuming economic growth, resolving the food crisis and tackling the challenge of poverty must necessarily be based on creating a dynamic smallholder agriculture sector. Investing in smallholder agriculture is the most sustainable safety net for societies,” said Nwanze.

Smallholder farms in Africa number some 80 million and supply up to 80 per cent of African agricultural production.

Nwanze was speaking in view of the Joint Annual Meeting of Ministers of Finance and Economy of the African Union (AU) and of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) which held on 6-7 June in Cairo . The theme of this year’s meeting, which Nwanze attended, was “Enhancing the effectiveness of fiscal policy for domestic resources mobilization”.
...

Up to 40 per cent of labour in sub-Saharan Africa is concentrated in the agriculture sector, which generates more than 30 per cent of export earnings.

On average, basic staples such as maize, rice and wheat account for 20 per cent of the food consumed in sub-Saharan Africa .

Africa is heavily dependent on imports: 45 per cent of rice and 85 per cent of wheat, as well as almost all the fertilizer in sub-Saharan Africa , is imported.

Group encourages people to donate One Day's Wages

One of our favorite bloggers has started a new charity to help fight global poverty. The charity called One Day's Wages tires to encourage people to donate a days earnings to fight global poverty.

From the Puget Sound Business Journal, writer Clay Holtzman introduces us to the new charity started by Eugene Cho.

The group, One Day’s Wages, was granted status as a nonprofit in May and will unveil a website to accept donations this month. Founded by Eugene Cho and his wife, Min Hee Cho, One Day’s Wages is using social networking tools such as Facebook and Twitter to seek funds. The nonprofit’s mission is not associated with any faith, the Chos said.

The concept is simple: Donate a single workday’s worth of wages — equal to $192 for an income of $50,000 a year — and have donors renew the pledge each year on their birthday.

“My wife and I want to do our part to impact the larger world,” said Eugene Cho, a blogger and Christian pastor at Quest Church in Seattle.

The nonprofit’s Facebook group, called Fight Global Poverty, lists an astounding 803,000 members. The Chos pledged to give $1 for every member of the Facebook group, up to $100,000, and Eugene Cho asked his 2,000 friends on Facebook to consider joining the group. From there word spread rapidly, he said.

“It is pretty stunning to us,” Eugene Cho said of the interest the concept has received.

One Day’s Wages has begun receiving donations but will not make grants until September after screening groups to be eligible to receive the donations, Cho said.

Cho said the idea came to him and his wife three years ago after one of their three children asked about poor children in a television commercial. The question resonated, so Cho and his wife pledged one year of their household income — about $68,000 — to fight poverty. From that, One Day’s Wages was born and the Chos increased their total pledge to $100,000, some of which might go to cover administrative costs for One Day’s Wages.

Boosting irrigation in Nigeria

Irrigation for agriculture will receive a boost in Nigeria thanks to more government funding. A politician of Nigeria made the announcement of the new funding during the weekend.

From the Vanguard, we read more details of the irrigation projects going on for the Hadejia-jama'are River Basin.

Managing Director, Hadejia-Jama’are River Basin Authority (HJRBDA), Alhaji Sanusi Abdullahi, said yesterday that N4.35 billion had been made available to the authority to boost food security.

Abdullahi who made this known in Abuja said the basin had three major projects to boost food supply.

“We have Kano River Irrigation project which has a near completion aspect of about 7,500 hectares gross and we have another project at Hadejia valley.

“And we have another one which is Kano State project, but is being supported by the Federal Government. We call it Bagwi Irrigation project and Watari Dam with about 800 hectares.

“We hope to complete the projects by the end of next year because we have to stop construction during the rainy season and resume work during the dry season,” he added.

He noted that the current economic recession had also affected the progress of some of the activities of the basin, adding that adequate funding would guarantee the acquisition of the potential of the basin.

Teens selling sibilings for sex in South Africa

South Africa's government is preparing a first of it's kind human trafficking bill. The bill would create laws specifically designed to prosecute human trafficking. Before now, human trafficking offenses were termed as other offenses, which made it harder to prosecute criminals who practice in this trade.

Testimony before the government on the bills has brought different aspects of the crime to light. An NGO that works with South Africa found a very disturbing one.

From the Independent On-Line, Amandeep Parmar was present at the testimony.

Western Cape teens are selling their younger brothers and sisters to their friends for group sex sessions, according to a local NGO.
Teens selling sibilings for sex in South Africa
Tanyan Gradwell, of Metamorphic Adventures, which does youth development work in schools across the Western Cape, found children between 14 and 18 would invite friends around for group sex sessions with their siblings or cousins who are as young as 11 years old.

The older kids tend to use the money either to contribute to the household income or, more often, to fuel a drug or alcohol dependency.

"It most commonly happens during the school holidays while parents are at work and the children are bored, with nothing constructive to do," said Gradwell.

She found the problem in affluent as well as disadvantaged and government schools, mainly in the Metropole area and southern suburbs such as Rondebosch and Bergvliet.

The revelations came amid a workshop on the new Trafficking In Persons Bill last week.

The bill would be the first of its kind in South Africa, despite this being one of the hubs of the trade, with an estimated 750 000 people trafficked yearly here.

U. N.: India may not meet MDG 1

Despite the outstanding growth that India experienced in recent years, the global economic recession may prevent the country from reaching Millennium Development Goal number 1, which is halving hunger by 2015.

From Malaysia's Bernama, we read more about the United Nations report that examines India's progress.

"As the full implications of the global financial crisis unfold, questions are being raised on its impact on India's human development and achievement of the MDGs," the Press Trust of India (PTI) quoted the UNDP India Senior Assistant Country Director Seeta Prabhu as saying.

India is doing good by the government's definition of poverty, but not as per the World Bank's estimates, Prabhu said in a paper titled 'Global Financial Crisis: Impact on India's Poor'.

"If the national poverty line is used as the definition, the country is generally considered to be well on track to reduce the headcount ratio of poverty, but not if the World Bank's estimates of proportion of population below the newly defined extreme poverty line of USD 1.25 per day is considered," she said in her paper.

Besides, she said, irrespective of the poverty estimate one uses, there is a distinct possibility that poverty levels may be higher than expected in the next couple of years till the economy resumes a faster growth path.

"Higher food prices would aggravate the situation and push back further the possibility of India reaching the target in Goal-I which aims at hunger eradication by 2015," she said.

Heifer opens education center

Heifer International has opened an education center in Little Rock, Arkansas. The center will be used to show the public how important farming and livestock raising is to the battle against poverty.

From the Arkansas Democrat and Gazette, reporter Samantha Friedman attended the opening ceremony.

Exotic animals - water buffalo, alpacas, yaks and others - were among the main attractions Friday at the opening of Heifer International's $13.5 million educational facility.

The charity, with headquarters in Little Rock, opened Heifer Village with a morning dedication ceremony. The animals were representative of the 29 types of livestock, plants and trees Heifer has given to millions of families around the world through its "passing on the gift" tradition of teaching people to become self-sufficient.

"We're all about animals, and the purpose is to let people see the kind of animals that we use in the field," Heifer spokesman Ray White said. "One of the things about hunger and poverty and understanding these issues is a lot of times, people aren't familiar with animal agriculture, and the closest they've ever been to a cow is the meat counter at the grocery store."

A crowd of 2,500 to 3,000 is expected for events this weekend, White said.

The 16,000-square-foot Heifer Village at 1 World Ave. is also known as the Polly Murphy & Christoph Keller Jr. Education Center in honor of its largest donor, the Keller family. Keller Enterprises donated $3.5 million toward the project.

Polly Winter of Alexandria, La., whose maiden name is Murphy, and her late husband, the Right Rev. Christoph Keller Jr., discovered Heifer's strategy of alleviating hunger in 1968, when they were invited to visit the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, she said. Winter and 15 family members representing four generations attended the dedication.

"Heifer saw early on that sustaining farming and animal husbandry would require treating the land with respect and using its resources right," Winter told guests. She said that Heifer's encouragement of sharing resources, protecting the planet and training others to do the same mirror the Kellers' priorities.

Trust

Something simple can be used to stop poverty, trust. Muhammad Yunus says that if you trust the people in poverty, they can pull themselves out of it.

From this Opinion piece found at Thailand's The Nation, Supalak Ganjanakhundee has Yunus describe how trust is used at his Grameen Bank.

The interesting thing about Grameen, which in Bengali means "village", is that it runs contrary to conventional banking rules. The borrowers don't need to mortgage their houses, land or other valuables as collateral for the loan.

As a result, no legal instruments are needed and no legal papers are signed between the lenders and the borrowers.

"Since there are no legal papers, we don't need a lawyer. Everything is based on trust," he said.

Loaning to the poor can become problematic for conventional banks because the debt eventually becomes a non-performing loan.

Perhaps such rhetoric is only a stereotypical negative attitude toward the poor, because there are few bad loans at the Grameen Bank. In fact, repayment levels are high at 90 to 95 per cent of the total debt.

"We lend money. They pay back. It has been working [like this] for the last 32 years", he said.

Professor Yunus said it was not just in Bangladesh that micro-credit had been doing well: it's working in other countries too.

However, it is not that easy to have such high-performing loans in the banking system, he said. The key of the success is that "the people don't come to the bank, but the bank goes to the people. That way, we know them very well. We become a part of their families," he explained.

Mobilizing marchers in Mississippi

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference has been trying to mobilize people to join them in an anti-poverty march in Jackson, Mississippi. The state has one of the biggest concentrations of poor people in the nation. The SCLC hopes to give more attention to the people struggling, and that they are struggling even harder in this recession.

From this Associated Press article that we found in the Picayune Item, SCLC leader Rev. Byron Clay describes his plans for the march.

Clay was in Jackson on Wednesday to announce details about the campaign, which is similar to the initiative Dr. Martin Luther King was working on before he was killed in 1968. The renewed push comes as the nation grapples with a national recession, and Congress steers billions in federal dollars to corporate bailouts. Clay said America’s poor have been left to fend for themselves.

“The working families in this nation are in deep trouble,” Clay said.

The June 20 demonstration will be held at the Mississippi Capitol. Poverty hearings will follow Aug. 1-5 at the SCLC’s national convention in Memphis, Tenn.

Initially, the SCLC wanted to take its march to Washington, D.C.

“We had pretty much concluded that’s where we were going to go,” Clay said. “And one morning the Lord spoke to me and said ’Take this march to Jackson, Miss.”’

He said Mississippi leads the nation in “terms of suffering and poverty. We thought we would bring the nation here so they can witness firsthand.”

But the SCLC will be more than 100 miles away from pockets of the Mississippi Delta with some of the highest illiteracy, teen pregnancy and disease rates in the nation. Surrounded by fertile flatlands, the area was once a sea of cotton plantations, where blacks often worked as sharecroppers for white landowners. Many of its residents still live in ramshackle homes and some towns have streets that haven’t been paved for decades.

World Bank loans 900 million to Pakistan

The World Bank has announced a 900 million dollar loan package to Pakistan. The aid will go primarily to education, but a portion of the money will also go to a microcredit fund.

From the AFP News via Google, we learn more about the loans.

The credits from the International Development Association, the World Bank's concessionary lending arm that specializes in helping the world's poorest 78 countries, carry a 0.75 percent service fee, a 10-year grace period, and a maturity of 35 years.

"Even where there have been gains in student enrollment as in Punjab and Sindh, these have yet to translate into improved student learning," World Bank country director for Pakistan Yusupha Crookes said in the statement.

A 350 million dollar package was approved for the Punjab province and a 300 million dollar package approved for the Sindh province.

The aid will help education by focusing on "improving governance, management, and capacity in education -- which are at the heart of both the provincial governments' reform strategies," Crookes said.

The Bank also approved 250 million dollar package for an anti-poverty program that has received 646 million dollars from the World Bank since 2000.

The program, which has reached more than 2.5 million people, includes funds for micro-credit loans and skills and enterprise development training.

Here is a way to make U.S. aid more effective

Here is one for the people who say we don't need more aid money, but need more effective use of aid money.

A U.S. congressional report says that U.S. food aid could purchase food cheaper and get the food to the people faster. The problem standing in the way is the requirement that all U.S. food aid be purchased in the U.S. Many international programs purchase the food close to the locations that need it. Instead the U.S. buys it's own farmers food and sends that food half a world away.

From the Washington Independent, Mike Lillis gives us the details in the report.

“The way the United States does in-kind food aid is particularly costly and inefficient,” said Kimberly Elliot, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. “The key is flexibility, and cash offers that better than anything else.”
Elliot’s is not a new argument, but it is one that hasn’t gotten very far on Capitol Hill. That’s because the nation’s largest food aid program, called Food for Peace, requires that the crops be purchased from U.S. growers, processed through U.S. companies, and shipped using U.S.-flagged vessels — an enormous prize for America’s farmers, millers and shippers, who continually lobby Congress to keep the program exactly as it is.

And Congress continuously listens.

Each year during the second half of his tenure in the White House, President George W. Bush proposed that up to 25 percent of the Food for Peace funding — roughly $2 billion a year for the last half of the decade — go to buy food closer to those who need it. In each case, the proposal went exactly nowhere in Congress.

Not that Food for Peace was ever designed to be a humanitarian endeavor. Created in 1954, the program’s aim was to help farmers get rid of surplus crops without sinking local food markets. Elliot said that, in the decades since, the design might have changed, but the intent has not. “We no longer have the government buying up surplus stocks,” Elliot said. “Instead they’re just writing checks … But it’s still a way of subsidizing farmers.”

While that might be good for the homeland, it doesn’t make for the best system to address global hunger, the GAO report suggests. The United Nations World Food Program, purchasing food locally in Africa between 2001 and 2008, spent 34 percent less than comparable aid provided to the same region by the U.S. Agency for International Development, which was required to purchase, package and ship the food from the United States, GAO found. For aid to Asia, the cost difference was 29 percent, again favoring local purchases.

Delivery times also suffer when food is shipped in-kind, GAO found. Analyzing WFP aid to 10 African nations between 2004 and 2008, GAO reported that it took an average of 147 days for in-kind international deliveries to arrive, while local and regional purchases took just 35 and 41 days, respectively.

The report arrives as the number of poor and malnourished people has topped 1 billion, a problem exacerbated by spikes in food and fuel prices going back several years. And while the need has grown, the food-aid dollar, under the in-kind system, isn’t going nearly as far. Another GAO report, released in 2007, found that the jump in business and shipping costs consumed roughly 65 percent of America’s emergency food aid budget — a trend resulting in a 52 percent decline in the amount of food delivered in the five years previous.

Video: The youth living in Congo's war, part 2

Here is the second of three videos released by Medecins sans Frontieres. The series called Condition: Critical gives voice to the youth of Eastern Congo, who are being raised within a war.

In part two, the Congolese filmmakers describe their motivation for producing the videos.

Child well being in the U.S. at same level as in 1975

Again we see how the recession hurts the most vulnerable. A study that examines factors in childrens health says that the level of well being is the same as in 1975. Children are at an increased chance for obesity, as parents substitute nutritious foods for cheaper food. Also, there are more children being raised in poor conditions due to the global recession.

From AFP news via Google, writer Karin Zeitvogel attended the press conference that unveiled the report.

"We are in a period where, at least in economic well-being, we may be back where we were in 1975," Ruby Takanishi, head of the Foundation for Child Development which funded the 2009 Child Well-Being Index, told reporters at the launch of the report Wednesday in Washington.

The index, which uses US government data to assess how American children are doing in areas ranging from health to community-connectedness, shows that the welfare of US children began to decline last year as the country plunged into recession, and projected it would continue its downward slide.

"As the impact of the current recession reverberates through parents' employment and income patterns in families, as people are forced to move, lose their houses or otherwise have severe economic restrictions on what they can do, there will be impacts on child well-being," said Kenneth Land, research coordinator for the index.

Comparing current data with information from past recessions, the report predicts that child well-being will continue to sour until at least 2010, even though, said Land, economists are projecting that the economy will round the corner this year.

"The decline in child well-being will be driven most directly by the decline of material well-being," Land said.

"The number and percentage of children living below the poverty line will go up. The percentage of children living with at least one parent employed full-time, year-round will decline as the impact of job loss is felt," he said.

Median family income was projected to decline as unemployment rises, and single-parent families headed by men would be the hardest hit because more jobs are being cut in sectors like construction, dominated by male workers, than those in which women traditionally work, such as health care and education.

Number of people fleeing Somalia now reaches 7,000 per month

The fighting has been going on in Somalia for a long time, but the numbers of people fleeing the country is greater than ever before. The United Nations says that 7000 people a month a fleeing Somalia for Kenya. The refugee camps in Kenya are unable to feed and house all of the new people coming in, many wait for days before even being noticed by a camp worker.

From Reuters, writer Frank Nyakairu describes the situation there.

Eighteen years of civil conflict in Somalia show no sign of abatement, with foreign militants joining Islamist rebels seeking to topple a new government that is the 15th attempt to restore central rule since 1991.

About 80,000 people have died in the last two years alone, while a million Somalis are refugees in their own land, three million need urgent food aid and hundreds of thousands have crossed borders into Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya.

"We have been receiving an average of 7,000 refugees (per month) since January and from what they tell us, the major reason why they leave their country is increasing insecurity," said Anne Campbell, head of the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR's sub-office in Dadaab, north Kenya.

Located 100 km (60 miles) from the border, Dadaab's three main camps -- Dagahaley, Ifo and Hagadera -- are a large settlement of mainly flimsy huts and tents on sandy scrubland.

Set up in 1991, the camp was designed for 90,000 refugees but now houses 275,000, mainly Somalis.

Aid agencies expect this number to keep increasing, and are seeking more space from the Kenyan government.

"We are preparing for a higher influx in mid-June because the rain has made it impossible for those fleeing the current fighting to reach the border easily," added Campbell.

Report confirms increased use of food banks in Southern California

A new hunger report shows that use of food banks in Southern California is up an average of 24 percent. Some local food banks have seen increases as much at 40 percent.

From The Pasadena Star News, writer Robert S. Hong visited some of the food banks for his story.

In El Monte, the pantry at Our Saviour Center has seen a daily increase of about 43 percent, according to Dorris Dann, director of volunteers. The center serves 180 to 300 people a day, compared with about 145 people a year ago.

"Some days, the people never seem to stop coming," Dann said. "It's really telling when they open the bag of food before they get out of the parking lot to feed their children."

In Orange County, demand has gone up 30 percent to 35 percent. Even people from more affluent neighborhoods have had to turn to food pantries, said Joe Schoeningh, director of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County.

"All is not bleak, although it is very difficult to make ends meet at this point," Schoeningh said.

One bright spot is that Americans continue to give, even during tough economic times, and that has helped food pantries struggle through, he said.

Food donations are still needed. Donors and volunteers can visit www.lafoodbank.org to find out how to help, Flood said.

Maria Bermudez has been coming to Our Saviour Center's pantry for five years. She cleans homes and her husband does construction, but work has been scarce, she said. At times, they don't have enough food to get through the week, Bermudez said.

"It is a great help," she said. "When we come here, we get food for a couple of days."

Jacob Zuma makes pledges to lower poverty in State of the nation speech

The newly elected President of South Africa recently made his first State of the Nation speech. In the speech, Jacob Zuma made poverty reduction his biggest concern.

From the Voice of America, writer Scott Bobb gives us the details of the speech.

South African President Jacob Zuma says poverty reduction will be the cornerstone of his government's policy and immediate action is needed to reduce the impact of the global economic downturn on the most vulnerable. He made the remarks during his first state-of-the-nation speech since taking office last month.

In his first major speech as South Africa's president, Jacob Zuma showed he had heard the voters who overwhelmingly elected him six weeks ago. He said the plight of the 40 percent of South Africans living in poverty would be his top priority.

"We shall not rest and we dare not falter, in our drive to eradicate poverty," said Mr. Zuma.

Mr. Zuma pledged to create 500,000 jobs by the end of this year and four million jobs in the next five years.

He pledged to fast-track a public-works program to build schools, health centers, roads and information networks. And he said initiatives would be strengthened to increase skill levels of unemployed and under-employed workers.

In a country with one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world, Mr. Zuma pledged to reduce the rate of HIV infection by 50 percent in three years and extend anti-retroviral treatment to 80 percent of those suffering from AIDS.

The state of the Millennium Development Goals, from December 2008

In searching for news stories today, we found something from December of 2008 that still deserves a mention. The Independent did a story about how the numbers of hungry had changed in the year 2008. At the end of the article contained a summary of each Millennium Development Goal and how the world in general stands in meeting them. Here is that final portion of Geoffrey Lean's story.

Global targets: a progress report

Goal one Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger between 1990 and 2015.

Progress 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty, down from 42 per cent of the world population in 1990 to 26 per cent in 2005. Up to 75 per cent of the population is employed except in parts of Africa and Asia. Undernourished under-fives dropped from 33 per cent in 1990 to 26 per cent in 2006.

Success or failure? Still possible by 2015 but lack of progress in sub-Saharan Africa, where workers earn less than $1 a day.

Goal two Universal primary education by 2015.

Progress 570 million children worldwide enrolled in school. Those not enrolled fell from 103 million in 1999 to 73 million in 2006. Primary school enrolment reached 88 per cent in 2006, up 5 per cent per cent from 2000.

Success or failure? 38 million children in sub-Saharan Africa are not enrolled, while in southern Asia 18 million do not go to school. This goal may not be achieved by 2015, and there are barriers on girls going to school.

Goal three Promote gender equality in education by 2015 and empower women.

Progress 55 per cent of children not in school are girls. Women occupy about 30 per cent of parliamentary seats in 20 countries. Women occupy 40 per cent of all paid jobs, up 5 per cent on 1990.

Success or failure? 113 countries failed to achieve equality of enrolment; only 18 will meet the target. Since 2000, the proportion of women in parliaments rose from 13.5 to 17.9 per cent.

Goal four Reduce child mortality of under-fives by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.

Progress Deaths of under-fives declined from 93 to 72 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2006, and child deaths dropped below 10 million a year in 2006.

Success or failure? Children born in developing countries still 13 times more likely to die under five. Between 1990 and 2006, 26 countries made no progress in reducing childhood deaths, while in 27 others the mortality rate is flat or getting worse.

Goal five Improve maternal health and reduce mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015.

Progress Maternal mortality decreased by less than 1 per cent per year between 1990 and 2005; 60 per cent of births were attended by health professionals in 2006, up 10 per cent since 1990.

Success or failure? 500,000 women a year in developing countries die during pregnancy. Worst progress of all goals.

Goal six Universal access to treatment for Aids/HIV by 2010 and reverse spread of HIV/Aids and malaria by 2015.

Progress New HIV cases declined from three million a year in 2001 to 2.7 million in 2007. Funding increased tenfold within a decade. Mosquito net production rose from 30 million in 2004 to 95 million in 2007.

Success or failure? 7,500 people a day infected with HIV; 5,500 die of Aids-related illness; 500 million new cases of malaria a year.

Goal seven Reduce loss of biodiversity by 2010 and halve number of people without access to safe water or sanitation by 2015.

Progress Deforestation declined to 7.3 million hectares a year; 1.6 billion people have access to drinking water since 1990.

Success or failure? 40 per cent of the world lives with water scarcity, and fish stocks are overexploited. One billion people still have no access to safe drinking water and 2.5 billion have no access to basic sanitation, yet target may still be achieved.

Goal eight Develop a global partnership for development.

Progress The UK is among the few nations to meet targets of giving 0.15 per cent of gross national Income in aid. The burden of debt in developing countries fell from 13 per cent of exports in 2000 to 7 per cent in 2006.

Success or failure? Aid dropped from £67bn in 2005 to £64bn in 2007 but needs to increase by £18bn a year. A third of essential medicines are available in 30 developing countries.

Grameen Bank about to open in the U.K.

While in London to give a lecture, the Guardian had an opportunity to interview Muhammad Yunus. The "Banker To The Poor" set up Grameen Bank over 20 years ago and it became a model for microcredit lending to poor people who want to start up their own business.

Yunus is now bringing Grameen Bank to the western world, with a branch in New York and one coming soon to Glasgow. Interviewer Alison Benjamin asked Yunus about some of the challenges of setting up the branches in those two cities.

The biggest hurdle to setting up Grameen America last year, he explained, was finding a mainstream bank that would open a savings account for its borrowers. Under Grameen rules, borrowers are required to save a small weekly amount, but in the US, Grameen is a programme, not a bank. Even with Yunus's clout, it took time to persuade the branches of Citibank to open accounts for customers who wanted to deposit only $2 a week.

"These are the lessons that we need to now bring together to ask ourselves what kind of financial system we should be creating when we move out of this crisis," Yunus said.

There are now 660 Grameen borrowers in New York City, with an average loan of $2,200. More projects are planned in cities across the US, where, Yunus has said, he wants Grameen to become as "ubiquitous as fast food".

After the lecture, I ask him how the Grameen model will translate to inner-city Glasgow, where three generations of unemployment is not uncommon in some families. He readily admits it will be difficult to wean people off welfare and make them more self-reliant. "We don't know what all the problems will be," he replies.

Despite his calm, thoughtful demeanour, this champion of the poor is openly critical of welfare systems for deterring people from working. "Today, neither the welfare officer nor the welfare recipient has any incentive to move people out of welfare," he says. "If you earn a dollar it is deducted from your welfare cheque. Wrong things have been built into the system."

Yunus believes a better system would reward people for finding work by matching every dollar earned, rather then deducting it. In the US, Grameen has negotiated a welfare holiday that allows borrowers to claim welfare for three years while they build up their small business. Similar waivers may have to be looked at for the Scottish model, which is being developed with Glasgow Caledonian University and is in the process of raising £1.5m.

The full lecture that Yunus gave at the British Council is available at the Guardian, we have also linked to it at our Facebook group.

Numbers of hungry in South Asia hits a 40 year high

The global recession has added 100 million people in South Asia to the numbers who are always hungry. This brings the number to a 40 year high, or just over 400 million total. These numbers are according to a new UNICEF survey of the region.

From the Taiwan Times, this Associated Press article further reviews the numbers.

The region's poor, who have borne the brunt of the economic trouble, desperately need governments to spend more money on food, health care and education to alleviate the crisis, said Daniel Toole, a regional director for the U.N. Children's Fund, or UNICEF.

At least 405 million people in South Asia suffered from chronic hunger in 2007-2008, up from 300 million in 20004-2006, according to a UNICEF report Tuesday.

"Without urgent, inclusive government response, the poor of South Asia, nearly 20 percent of the world's population, will sink further into poverty and malnutrition with long-term negative consequences for growth and development in the region and globally," the report said.

The report focused on the economic crisis's impact on women and children in eight South Asian nations _ Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Nearly 33 percent of South Asia's 1.8 billion people eat less than the minimum recommended daily requirements. Three-quarters live in households earning less than $2 a day, the report said.

The poor spend more than half of their income on food, which has become more expensive and made life even more difficult for them, it said. Nearly half of the region's children are malnourished.

UNICEF also criticized India for not doing enough to lift the poor up during the period of economic boom. They say that their efforts were wasted instead on too much military spending. They also accuse Pakistan of the same high military spending, instead of helping those in poverty.

From the Financial Times, writer James Lamont covers this angle to the story.

Aniruddha Bonnerjee, an economic and social policy consultant for Unicef, said there had been “stagnation” in the fight against malnutrition and that stubbornly high food prices posed a growing threat to poor families. He warned that with India’s growth rates now almost half what they were two years ago, New Delhi would find it more difficult to boost spending on health, education and food to nurture its human capital.

“If there was no progress against malnutrition and hunger when growth was higher, how are you going to do it now?” he asked.

Mr Bonnerjee said some Asian countries had managed to halve poverty over five years during times of high economic growth; India was falling far short of that achievement. Mr Singh’s championing of “inclusive growth” was electioneering and had left large swathes of the population untouched, he said.

Unicef was also critical of high military budgets in the region at the cost of social protection. India is modernising its armed forces and projecting its power more widely than in the past.

“A number of countries in south Asia decide to invest in the military and not to increase investment in their people.” said Daniel Toole, Unicef’s regional director “Budgetary allocations can be more than 10 per cent in the military, while education is only 2 per cent.”

Visiting the Lend a Hand Center in Kentucky

Some time ago we found a video at USA Today that profiled two women who have dedicated their lives to fight Appalachian Mountain poverty. Peggy Kemner and Irma Gall founded the Lend A Hand Center in Kentucky. The center is devoted to health and well-being of the poor in the area.

Someone else read that USA Today story as well, and was so moved by it that he and his son paid a visit to the Center. From The Daily Globe, writer Julie Buntjer, tells us about the trip Martin and Michael Lucin made to the Appalachian Mountains.

Recalling his first glimpse of poverty deep in the Appalachian Mountains, Martin said it was stark.

“It was abject poverty, plain and simple,” he said. “The face of poverty is different now than what it used to be. (Kemner and Gall) made a huge difference. Fifty years ago, I think people just didn’t have enough to eat. Now, some people might not have enough to eat, but people who have a little money to buy food don’t know what food to buy.”

Some of the families they encountered live on fast food and Mountain Dew, and they have health issues to prove it. Tooth decay, diabetes and associated ailments are common among those who visit the local clinics. There were also a number of people being treated for issues relating to tobacco use, which is quite common in the region.

“The reason I asked Peggy to set (the visit) up was I thought that an experience like that would impact the kind of doctor (Michael) will become,” said Martin. “What Michael ended up doing … was seeing the health and the medical (aspects) of poverty.”

Michael is slated to graduate in spring 2010 from the University of South Dakota in Vermillion and then plans to attend medical school. He remains uncertain of the type of practice he will pursue.

After working alongside medical professionals for a week in Guatemala last November, Michael said he noted some similarities about the two experiences.

“The trip kind of built on (the fact that) different areas have different health issues,” said Michael. “Follow a family doctor here and you’ll see a lot of colds, common things. But if you go to Guatemala, you’ll see a lot of parasite-type stuff.

“At the same time, if you go to Kentucky — the area we were in — you see a lot higher prevalence of the things that are associated with smoking, like emphysema and a lot of lung problems,” Michael said.

Related Video

Review of the Munk Debate on international aid

Last night in Toronto a big debate over international aid was streamed on line. Dambisa Moyo and Paul Collier were amongst the experts debating whether aid has done more good or bad.

To review some of what happened last night we turn to the Toronto Star, writer Iain Marlow describes which participant drew the biggest applause.

Dambisa Moyo is possibly the only person who can get applause in Canada by saying, after listening to Stephen Lewis speak, "If you listen to what Stephen has said, it's littered with negatives."

It helps, of course, that Moyo is a celebrated African-born, Oxford- and Harvard-educated economist. She is also the author of Dead Aid, a book scathingly critical of current Western aid policies.

The multiple exchanges between Moyo and Canada's celebrated former UN special envoy for HIV-AIDS took place last night at the Munk Debate on Foreign Aid at the Royal Ontario Museum. About 800 packed the auditorium while 300 watched on big screens.

The debate also featured Hernando de Soto, a Peruvian thinker and development consultant, and Paul Collier, an Oxford professor and government adviser.

The debate topic was: "Whether aid has done more harm than good." Collier and Lewis said no; Moyo and de Soto said yes.

But it was really a two-person show between Lewis and Moyo, both extremely passionate and involved personally with the plight of Africa.

At one point, after a vigorous defence of Western foreign aid, Lewis pointed out that Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, bought Moyo's book for his entire cabinet.

"Did you autograph it?" Lewis asked her. She replied jokingly: "Of course, and they gave me aid money."

The need to develop for the youth in Timor-Leste

The country of Timor-Leste has a very young population. Much of that population doesn't have much to do because jobs are scarce. Many youth join street gangs, or the youth who want to stay off the streets turn to martial arts groups, but even some of those groups have bad elements.

From the IRIN, we hear from a leader of a youth group in Timor-Leste who has over 20,000 members.

Disenchantment among young people who fought for independence during Timor-Leste's resistance years could lead to unrest if they are not included in the country's development process, analysts warned.

"They feel their existence is not relevant any more in this independence era," said Ozorio Leque, 28, leader of Colimau 2000 - a youth group set up by activists during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste.

A large number of disenfranchised youth are dissatisfied with high unemployment, low wages and lack of access to education, with only 27 percent completing secondary school. The World Bank estimates that by next year nearly 40 percent of the population will be between 15 and 29 years old.

Many turn to martial arts groups, with as many as 20,000 registered and 90,000 unregistered members.

"There is an assumption that when you join a group, you will be protected. The other reason is that most of the younger generation lack skills and knowledge so they take whatever they can get," said Leque.

About half the 1.1 million population lives below the poverty line. In Dili, unemployment is as high as 62 percent among those aged 15 to 19, while eight out of 10 young people engage in subsistence activities.

Leque, who claims that Colimau 2000 has more than 20,000 members, is due at Dili District Court on 22 June to be tried for crimes related to events in 2006.

On 28 April 2006, he launched a verbal tirade against the government before a mob attacked the government palace and destroyed state vehicles.

More on Canadian international aid

A poll conducted in Canada shows that most people there don't support changing the government's aid policy.

Most Canadians want to give more money to poor countries, something their government once again declined to do. However, most Canadians don't want to link aid to the countries' economic interests or use it to increase trade.

From the Globe and Mail writer Campbell Clark gives us the results of the polling.

“For them, it's not about selling stuff. It's not about us getting an advantage. It's about us giving money for development,” said Innovative Research Group pollster Simon MacDougall.

In February, the Conservative government revamped Canada's bilateral aid program, dropping countries from Africa, the world's poorest continent, from the list of major aid recipients, and adding some from the Americas – notably those with whom Canada has recently signed free-trade deals, or started trade talks: Peru, Colombia and the Caribbean. However, the Conservatives have also untied all food aid so that it doesn't have to be bought in Canada. In addition, they've promised that all kinds of aid will be untied by 2012 so none of it has to be purchased through contracts with Canadian companies.

A poll conducted by Innovative Research Group for the Munk Centre for International Studies found that 61 per cent of respondents believe foreign aid does more good than harm.

And half, or 49 per cent, support the idea of more than doubling aid to late prime minister Lester B. Pearson's goal of 0.7 per cent of the size of the Canadian economy – an increase to about $10-billion per year. (Canada now spends about $4.1-billion on aid.)

The poll used an internet panel with 1,383 respondents, a sample size that is typically considered accurate within 2.6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. However, an internet panel is not a random sample so does not have a statistically valid margin of error.

The poll was conducted as the Munk Centre prepares for a debate on aid today as part of its Munk Debates series.

A Chamber luncheon becomes opportunity to shed light on human trafficking

A non-profit in the Dallas area recently had a chance to make a presentation at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Mosaic Family Services was able to shed light to on the fastest growing criminal activity worldwide, human trafficking.

The lady who made the presentation to area business leaders was once trafficked herself. From the Cleburne Times-Review writer Matt Smith reports on Sofije Kusari's presentation.

Sofije Kusari, a refugee from Kosovo who fled to the United States in 1985, discussed the growing problem at the Keene Chamber of Commerce monthly luncheon on Thursday.

Between 600,000 and 800,000 victims are trafficked across international borders annually, according to the U.S. Department of State. About 14,500 to 17,500 are trafficked into the United States.

Mosaic serves to support, educate and empower individuals and families and to serve as a turning point from victimization and self-defeat, Kusari said.

The organization focuses on refugee case management, multicultural family violence cases, substance abuse, human trafficking and other problems, she said.

Kusari has worked with the organization for several years and has received several recognitions including the DFW International’s Humanitarian of the Year Award in 2000.

Trafficking amounts to modern-day slavery, Kusari said, and affects men, women and children.

Many become victims of commercial sex exploitation, she said, while others fall prey to or are forced into labor exploitation such as domestic servitude, sweatshop factories or migrant agricultural work.

Some victims are forced, other fraudulently induced through promises of jobs or education. Others coerced through threats to themselves or family members, Kusari said.

Break the Cycle begins

The Break The Cycle event begins this week with young people cycling long trips to raise awareness on the struggle of the poor. The trips are put on by Global Agents of Change. We mentioned this event a few times during the winter, when Global AFC wAS looking for cyclists.

A cyclist for one of the North American trips was profiled in a story for the Georgina Advocate. Writer L.H. Tiffany Hsieh introduces us to Jenika Wong.

Jenika Wong doesn't classify herself as an avid cyclist. Once she tried to bike on Hwy. 7 and was flagged down by the police and told never to do that again.

"I was pretty turned off from cycling in Markham after that, because of safety," said the 22-year-old Unionville resident, who is currently studying international development and philosophy at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus.

But on Saturday, Ms Wong was leading the second annual Break the Cycle pledge ride in Toronto to raise funds for a microcredit initiative spearheaded by Global Agents for Change (Global AFC), a youth-led charitable organization that supports sustainable solutions to global poverty.

And in July and August, the Global AFC ride leader will cycle 4,000 km between Amsterdam and Istanbul with 24 other young riders, mostly from the Toronto and Vancouver areas, to raise $100,000 for microcredit collectively.

"If successful, it will be the largest youth-run microcredit fund in the world," said Ms Wong, whose personal goal is to raise $4,000."

Live debate tonight on international aid

The Canadian Newspaper the Globe and Mail will have live streaming tonight on a debate about international aid. The debate will discuss the good and the bad of foreign aid practices in governments around the globe. Professor of Economics at Oxford University Paul Collier will be participating in the debate.

As a preview of the debate, Paul Collier wrote a piece on Canadian aid for the Globe and Mail. With Canada's recent promise of making their international aid dollars more targeted and effective, Professor Collier has one suggestion that could help Haiti.

The Canadian opportunity to assist this effort lies in Haiti, where Canada is the second-largest aid donor, and which is a classic country of the bottom billion. What's more, much of the heavy lifting has already been done - the Brazilians have provided 9,000 peacekeepers, ensuring stability, and the Americans have provided Haitian exporters privileged market access, opening new economic opportunities.

The government of Haiti has recently decided to seize this rare chance to create jobs by attracting foreign firms into light manufacturing. The key bottleneck to this effort is infrastructure, without which firms cannot produce competitively.

Is private finance queuing up to provide this infrastructure? No, it is looking to public agencies to provide the necessary finance and guarantees that would make the remaining risks acceptable. To do so, they need immediate outside financial support. They need strategic aid. And here is where Canadian aid can play an immediate, tangible role.

Bureaucracies hate change and are good at avoiding it. But either the Canadian aid program is speedily refocused to meet the new infrastructure priorities of the country it is intended to assist, or it is business as usual disguised by a fog of well-meaning words.

There is a simple reason why aid matters for fragile, impoverished countries: They are extremely short of capital, and private finance is reluctant to take the risks. During the 1990s, the World Bank scaled back lending on infrastructure in Africa on the expectation that private finance would fill the gap. Instead it was filled by the government of China on contractual terms that were opaque and potentially disadvantageous. On three different measures the rate of return on private investment shows up as being higher in Africa than any other region of the world, yet even at the height of the global boom private capital inflows were modest. Now is the time for public capital.

The case of Canada in Haiti provides an ideal example of the modest but serious role that foreign aid can play. Put simply, it is to reinforce positive local forces for change.

The welfare system in the U.S.: rewarding work when jobs are cut

The revamping of the welfare system in the 1990s has been by most accounts a success. The changes rewarded those who work, under the assumption that low-skill, low wage jobs were easy to find.

The global recession is challenging the changes made to the welfare reform in the 90s. As jobs are cut at drastic rates, how does the welfare system continue to "make work pay"? A recent conference in Washington tried to answer this welfare question. From this New York Times story that we found at Blue Ridge Now.com, writer Jason DeParle attended the conference.

“We have a work-based safety net without work,” said Timothy M. Smeeding, an economist at the University of Wisconsin. “We’re really in a pickle.”

The economic crisis is the toughest test yet of a safety net refashioned 13 years ago when President Bill Clinton kept a pledge to “end welfare as we know it” and joined a Republican-led Congress in sharply restricting cash aid. In the boom years that followed, millions of people left welfare for work and poverty rates plunged, though skeptics warned that needy families would be left with nothing when the economy faltered.

Few people thought the faltering would prove so swift and severe. Within weeks of taking office, President Obama had signed off on measures to spend more than $100 billion to shore up the safety net.

Some of the money goes to programs reserved for people who work (like unemployment insurance and wage subsidies). Even more bolsters programs that include the nonworking poor (like food stamps and Medicaid).

While that might suggest a desire for a broader safety net than the one that has emerged in recent years, aides say the package was as much an effort to jump-start the economy as an expression of aid philosophy.

“We’re not at the moment narrowly focused on, Is there a work-based safety net?” said Martha Coven, a White House official who spoke at the poverty conference. “We’re focused on, Is there work?”

A crisis this large would challenge any safety net. Nearly 14 million Americans are unemployed, and more than 100,000 people join their ranks each week. Eight states have double-digit unemployment rates; California and Michigan have counties where the rate reaches Depression-era levels of 25 percent.

Still, the challenges seem especially stark when set against the assumption on which the modern safety net was built: that low-wage jobs, however onerous, were at least easy to get. Urging the needy to take them, policy makers expanded wage subsidies (which now top $5,000 a year in some states), while putting time limits on cash benefits, cutting access to training and giving states wide discretion to turn aid-seekers away.