Showing posts from category *Main.
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Demography and Women’s Empowerment: Urgency for Action?
›Why do Middle Eastern women participate in economic life at a rate lower than that of female citizens of other regions? According to Nadereh Chamlou, a senior advisor at the World Bank, restrictive social norms are to blame. At the Middle East and Environmental Change and Security Programs’ “Demography and Women’s Empowerment: Urgency for Action?” event, Chamlou argued that the region’s women must be empowered to participate in a more significant way if their countries are to effectively exploit, instead of squander, the current economic “window of opportunity.”
According to Chamlou, the region is facing a “demographic window of opportunity” where its relatively high numbers of working-age people create the potential for rapid economic growth. However, Middle Eastern countries also have the highest dependency rates in the world. Without opening more economic opportunities for women, the region’s demographic window of opportunity will not be exploited to its full advantage.
Chamlou disputed the commonly held assumptions regarding the historic lack of female participation in the Middle East’s economic sphere, such as the belief that women abstain from joining the workforce because they do not possess the necessary education and skills. She cited statistics showing that the region’s women are represented at a near-equal level as men in secondary school, and to an even greater degree at the university level. They are also studying in marketable fields, disproving the theory that they are not acquiring employable skills.
A survey conducted by the World Bank in three Middle Eastern capital cities — Amman, Jordan; Cairo, Egypt; and Sana’a, Yemen — showed that negative male attitudes regarding women working outside the home were the most significant reason for poor female representation in the workforce. Notably, negative male attitudes restricted women’s participation far more than child-rearing duties. Despite the successful efforts of most Middle Eastern states to improve female education, conservative social norms that pose a barrier to female empowerment remain in place.
Chamlou concluded her remarks with three policy recommendations: 1) Focus on medium-educated, middle-class women; 2) Undertake more efforts to bring married women into the workforce; and 3) Place a greater emphasis on changing attitudes, particularly among conservative younger men, towards women working outside the home. Such changes could more effectively utilize the Middle East’s demographic window of opportunity.
Luke Hagberg is an intern and Haleh Esfandiari is director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center.
Sources: Population Reference Bureau.
Photo Credit: Adapted from “Obey Stikman,” courtesy of flickr user sabeth718. -
Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control
›As geoengineering becomes a more politically and technologically appealing approach to addressing climate change, it is critical to heed the lessons of history and understand the limits of our control over nature, said James Fleming of Colby College. Speaking at the launch of his new book, Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control, at the Wilson Center on October 6, Fleming brought what he called a “historically informed view of the humanities” to a growing policy discussion: the possibility of using geoengineering as a “quick fix” for the problem of climate change.
Not So Ancient History
“When facing unprecedented challenges, it’s good to take a look at the precedents,” said Fleming. He pointed to recent weather management projects conducted in China, U.S. experiments in the 1940s, and older historical discussions about geoengineering as evidence of humanity’s long fascination with “fixing of the sky.”In 2008, “they had 30,000 Chinese artillerists shooting chemicals at the clouds to keep either the venues clear or get the rain down on the weekend before the Olympics started,” Fleming said. “And they’re still doing this kind of stuff. So now there’s inter-regional tensions in China, because imagine rains comes across the country, some places get hit some places get missed, there’s intermittent showers, but now every intermittent shower is seen as a managed event where ‘you took my rain away from my farmland.’ So as soon as you start managing the sky, you start fighting about it.”
In 1839, the United States’ first meteorologist, James Espy, proposed lighting regular fires along the Appalachians to induce rainfall on the eastern seaboard. “What if Espy’s idea actually worked?” asked Fleming. “It’d very much like that Chinese story today, where there’s internecine struggles between keeping and taking the rain away from others,” he said.
The Threat of Militarization
Fleming highlighted a number of fundamental ethical concerns raised by atmospheric scientist Alan Robock:
In 1947 Nobel Laureate Irving Langmuir, in conjunction with GE and the U.S. military, experimented with controlling Hurricane King by seeding it with dry ice. They expected the storm to continue its course off the coast of Florida into the Atlantic, but instead it veered west and hit Savannah, Georgia, causing considerable damage. The lesson, said Fleming, is that “you can intervene in a cloud, but you can’t point it downwind – you can’t tell it what to do.”- Who has the moral right to change the climate?
- Where would be the “global thermostat” be?
- Will it reduce incentives for mitigation?
- Could it be commercialized and/or militarized?
Other U.S. military research into geoengineering included researching the possibility of inducing west-to-east moving rain storms in Europe to help neutralize a Soviet invasion and using the magnetosphere to create selective blackouts over Moscow.
“Shall we fix the sky – is it broken?” asked Fleming. “And if it is broken should we have people with military hardware shooting at it?”
One possible institutional counter could be strengthening the UN Environmental Modification Convention (ENMOD), which Fleming said “has been revisited again twice, and could be revisited again if large-scale environmental modification were to get more serious – if there’s deployment of geoengineering techniques.” The treaty prohibits environmental modification “through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.”
The Once and Future Earth
The Greek myth of Phaeton illustrates how old, but also flawed, the human desire to control climate really is, said Fleming. In the myth, Phaeton convinces his father, Helios, to let him drive the sun’s chariot for a day. However, Phaeton falters, lacking the strength and experience to control the reins, and Zeus intervenes to save the world from immolation. “Take up Phaeton’s reins,” said Fleming, should be interpreted as “control your carbon emissions,” rather than trying to control the sky.
We should consider geoengineering to be only an “interesting hypothetical exercise,” said Fleming, until the consequences and results of such colossal tinkering can be better assessed. “Even perfect climate prediction would lead to climate chaos, because the country that could do that could trump its competitors” in various markets, he said. However, such predictions might never be possible, considering the difficulty in modeling cultural and ethical norms, as well as the geostrategic implications – in short, the human element.
Fleming cautioned against the fundamental belief that you can accurately model the impact of geoengineering projects, reminding would-be geoengineers that “you can only have one Earth to experiment on, you don’t have a lot drosophila Earths or laboratory rat-Earths – you only have one.”
Event Resources
Sources: NASA, Toronto Star, U.S. State Department.
Image Credit: Adapted from original by Craig Phillips for The Wilson Quarterly, reproduced with permission. -
Mapping World Bank-Funded Projects
›The World Bank recently released their interactive “Mapping for Results Platform” that allows users to see where and how World Bank funding is being spent. Users can view project costs and expenditures by sector at sub-national levels and overlay this with human development data such as poverty, population, and health indicators. In the current beta version, interactive maps and downloadable data are available for Kenya, Bolivia, and the Philippines.
The example map shown above shows all of the World Bank’s 38 active water and sanitation, health, and agricultural projects in Kenya, as well as malnutrition rates by district. Clicking on any of the projects on the map displays the project name, financing amount, and exact location of the program.
Presumably, in the final version, all 2,669 active World Bank projects and 15,246 project locations – accounting for $136.91 billion – will be included.
Image Credit: World Bank Mapping for Results Platform. -
Tamara Kreinin on Women’s Empowerment, Population Growth, and Sustainability
›“We know that when that when we empower women – whether it’s giving them control over their bodies and access to family planning or whether it’s by including them in planning around climate change – their agency can make huge leaps for us,” said Tamara Kreinin, executive director of women and population at the UN Foundation, in this interview with ECSP.
Seventy percent of the world’s poor are women and they’re also the members of the household most likely to be responsible for food, water, and firewood collection.
“At the same time, we know that women are often not at the table,” she said. “They’re not at the table in country when countries are creating aid to adaptation strategies around the environment and climate change, and they’re not at the table at places like Copenhagen and some of the big climate change meetings.”
The “Pop Audio” series is also available as podcasts on iTunes. -
Meeting the Health Challenges of the Urban Poor
›November 2, 2010 // By Joshua NickellFifty percent of the world’s population now lives in cities, a figure that is predicted to rise to 60 percent by 2030, and 70 percent by mid-century, according to UN figures. The majority of this growth will occur in the Global South, where most of the world’s slums are found.
Why the rampant urban migration? Prospects for better health care, education, and employment are drawing the world’s poor out of rural areas into cities. But as the number of impoverished city-dwellers and slums grows, it is becoming increasingly important for society to consider how it will address the problems associated with this unprecedented degree of global urbanization.
At a recent event, “Meeting the Health Challenge of Urban Poverty and Slums,” co-hosted by the Wilson Center on the Hill program and the Comparative Urban Studies Project, Jacob Kumaresan, director of WHO Center for Health Development in Kobe, Japan, and Richard B. Lamporte, director of new program development, Jhpiego, discussed poverty and health challenges in rapidly growing urban slums.
The chances that the world’s rapidly growing number of city-dwellers will live a healthy and prosperous life depend on the services and opportunities cities can offer. As Kumaresan pointed out, there is currently no shortage of problems. Among other ills, he stated that 170 million urban residents currently do not have access to a latrine, while more than 1.2 million people will die from urban air pollution this year alone. As more individuals migrate to cities, these problems will be compounded.
Kumaresan also noted that cities have the “worst and the most unimaginable disparities when it comes to health.” While urban centers have more hospitals and attract many of the best doctors, the hospitals are often not managed or governed well. As a result, many poor urbanites suffer worse health care than their rural neighbors.
For instance, Kumaresan noted that tuberculosis rates in rural parts of India are half those of urban settings. Kumaresan also emphasized that these disparities are certainly not limited to the Global South: developed cities like New York and Los Angeles contend with similar inequities.
To address these issues, Kumaresan encouraged policymakers to examine the unique circumstances and conditions of their cities. “You’ve got to do analytical work to see what the problems are in each city, and to look not at the averages, but to unmask the differentials,” he said.
In Osaka, Japan, tuberculosis rates are 12 times higher than the rest of the country, said Kumaresan, primarily because of high affliction rates among its homeless population. As such, it is important for Osaka’s policymakers to address its tuberculosis problem by considering related socio-economic factors and following through with concrete policy actions.
Lamporte emphasized the importance of giving aid and development organizations flexible funding in order to allow them to better address unique local urban problems and inequities. He advised international donors to devote a certain percentage of their funding to integrated initiatives. “Certainly the goalposts could be set, but having some element of complementary funding … would be extremely useful,” he said.
As both Lamporte and Kumaresan pointed out, the future of the city is increasingly becoming the future of the world. As such, it is crucial to have “an urban optic going into the future,” according to Lamporte. If not, he argued, it will be at our own peril, as disease and unrest find increasingly sturdy footholds in urban slums. As the transformation from a rural to an urban planet continues, it will be essential for emerging and growing cities must use successful urban development techniques from both the Global North and the South.
Joshua Nickell is an intern with the Program on America and the Global Economy.
Sources: IRIN, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, UN, World Health Organization.
Photo Credit: “kibera_photoshow08,” courtesy of flickr user newbeatphoto. -
Rare Earths Intrigue: In Response to Chinese Ban, Japan and Vietnam Make a Deal
›November 2, 2010 // By Schuyler NullThe BBC is reporting that Japan has reached an agreement with Vietnam that will help provide a secure supply of rare earth minerals, after China reportedly stopped exports to Japan during an ongoing territorial dispute last month.
China produces nearly all (97 percent, according to the GAO) of the rare earth minerals used around the world, minerals that are used in many advanced electronics including mobile phones, missiles, and key components of cleaner energy tech. Japanese companies are expected to gain exclusive exploration and mining rights in northwest Vietnam in exchange for technical assistance on nuclear reactors.
China’s reported export freeze on rare earths raised warning flags in the region as well as in Washington, where fears over exclusive supply of the crucial minerals have been growing for some time – particularly in the defense community. (Although Bloomberg reports a new Pentagon study says it’s not such a big deal after all.) Control over and access to resources has become an important concern in East Asian diplomacy, as population and consumption in the region rises. For more, check out The New Security Beat’s coverage of the many diplomatic fault lines at play between the lower Mekong countries, China, and the United States, rare earth minerals and green energy, and the conflict potential of future resource scarcity.
Sources: BBC, Bloomberg, Government Accountability Office, The New York Times, TechNewsDaily.
Image Credit: Adapted from “The Huc Bridge, Hanoi,” courtesy of flickr user -aw-. -
Mobile Phones for Maternal Health in the Developing World
›With rising use in the developing world, cell phones and mobile technologies can create “connected and coordinated health systems that save more lives,” said Josh Nesbit at the GHI event “New Applications for Existing Technologies to Improve Maternal Health,” on October 27. Capitalizing on these new technologies could increase efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and efficacy of public health programs. Nesbit, executive director of FrontlineSMS: Medic, was joined by Alain Labrique, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and David Aylward, executive director of the mHealth Alliance at the United Nations Foundation, to discuss the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the prevention of maternal mortality.
Collaborations for mHealthWhile “cell phones can’t save lives, the lack of information does kill,” said Aylward. Using technology that many people already own and use, mobile technology is an appropriate tool for disseminating health data and information. Existing technologies such as mobile phones and SMS text messaging can revolutionize healthcare by improving data collection and disease tracking, expanding patient diagnostics, and advancing education and awareness among health workers and patients.
With 64 percent of all mobile phone users located in the developing world, the use of mobile devices to improve health services in low-income countries is especially promising.
Aylward hopes that mobile health technology (mHealth) will help combat maternal mortality in the developing world. With approximately 350,000 women dying in childbirth each year, and only marginal progresses towards achieving Millennium Development Goal 5, finding such innovative solutions to improve maternal health is crucial.
Public-private partnerships are particularly important when considering the long-term sustainability of mHealth programs. “This didn’t happen because of the World Bank, it happened because people who are very poor voted with their very limited funds to have access to information,” said Aylward.
Aylward is hopeful that government and donor support will continue to become more supportive of mobile technology and coordinated in their implementation of mHealth programs globally.
Mobile Health Solutions in the Developing World
“Through mobile tools, we can act as quickly as possible to improve access to skilled birth attendants, emergency obstetric care, and access to reproductive health commodities,” said Nesbit.Nesbit’s organization, FrontlineSMS: Medic, is working to eliminate barriers created by the lack of resources and infrastructure in the developing world using mobile health technology. Now working in 20 countries, the organization uses free software “that enables large-scale, two-way text messaging using only a laptop, a GSM modem, and inexpensive cell phones,” explained Nesbit.
“One of the best measures is whether people continue to use your tools, and they will if it impacts their lives positively and they won’t if it doesn’t—sometimes it’s as simple as that,” said Nesbit on why communities in the developing world are eagerly embracing mobile technology.
Moving forward, Nesbit hopes to “scale and replicate, both vertically and horizontally, models that we’ve shown can work, but also to build new tools” and work with the health community “to help identify the needs and the gaps in these systems.”
However, Nesbit stresses that “these are very much tools and not solutions; they become solutions when they are paired with people on the ground who use them.”
Compressing the Time Between Crisis and Care
“The opportunities for mobile phones to act synergistically with existing health systems in low- to middle-income countries are many,” said Labrique. The current challenge is to harness this technology to improve health outcomes in the developing world, where disease burden is disproportionately high.
In the developing world, “decisions influenced by the lack of resources, such as poverty, or lack of information have led to highly convoluted patterns of care-seeking,” said Labrique.“Delayed decision-making compounded by delayed transport can have tragic consequences for maternal mortality,” said Labrique, and the most immediate use of mobile technology is “getting the necessary care, on time, to where these deaths are taking place.” Cell phones can help women, their families, and local health workers to seek timely, appropriate medical help for an obstetric emergency.
“Addressing equity and access to phones when evaluating the impact or success of mHealth interventions is critical,” Labrique said. Although cell phone use is high and steadily increasing, social and cultural norms in some countries might prevent women from using them. Further, Labrique notes, in Bangladesh, cell phone use among the poorest families is noticeably less than those with higher socioeconomic status.
“ICT and mHealth solutions have tremendous promise to improve maternal health in resource limited settings; however, it’s important not to let the technology guide the public health agenda,” said Labrique. More data is needed to determine how these tools might strengthen and enhance health systems and a clearer research agenda can help ensure evidence-based solutions guide programming.
For more from David Aylward and mHealth, be sure to see “Watch: David Aylward on How Wireless Technology is Changing Global Health and Empowering Women.”
Sources: Lancet, United Nations Foundation.
Photo Credit: “‘SMS till you drop’ — mobile phone ad on van in Kampala, Uganda,” courtesy of flickr user futureatlas.com. -
PATH Foundation’s ‘Population, Health, and Environment Leadership as a Way of Life’
›PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc. (PFPI) just released a short documentary, Population-Health-Environment (PHE) Leadership as a Way of Life in All Walks of Life. The video features interviews with peer educators and local government officials who have partnered with PFPI on integrated coastal resource management in the Philippines that combines family planning and reproductive health services with environmental services.
According to those interviewed, an integrated approach is the best way to alleviate food insecurity in the area. “We cannot separate population, health, and environment, they should be implemented hand in hand,” said Marlyn Alcanises, a Fisheries and Coastal Resource Management program officer. “Even if we manage our coastal resources well, if there are many children due to high fertility and population growth, many people are hungry.”
The comprehensive program has been successful in addressing the social and environmental problems in the Verde Island Passage of the Philippines, one of Asia’s most densely populated regions, as well as a marine biodiversity hotspot and sea lane for many commercial ships.
The program uses community-based distribution of contraceptives to increase access to family planning, micro-credit schemes to finance sustainable livelihoods and alleviate poverty, and advocacy campaigns to increase government support for integrated health and environment programs.
Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator Cecilia Zulueta praised the integrated approach, saying “it can slow down population growth, decrease the number of malnutrition cases, lessen the number of out-of-school youth, and it can also decrease the crime rate, because if one does not have a stable source of income it may force him to engage in illegal activities.”
In ECSP’s FOCUS Issue 15, “Fishing for Families: Reproductive Health and Integrated Coastal Management in the Philippines,” Joan Castro and Leona D’Agnes demonstrated that PFPI’s Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management project (IPOPCORM) was more cost-effective and had a greater impact on the wellbeing of both human reproductive health and coastal resources than non-integrated programs. In a study measuring the impacts of integrated versus single-sector reproductive health (RH) or coastal resource management (CRM) programs, they found the integrated approach met or exceeded single-sector outcomes for 26 out of 27 indicators.
Reducing high fertility rates reduces pressure on natural resources, decreases high rates of malnutrition, crime and HIV/AIDS, and preserves local fisheries, “making life sustainable for both humans and nature,” as PFPI puts it in the documentary. The hope is that the community leaders featured in the documentary will inspire others in similar situations to take the lead on integrated issues in their communities.
“Even if we are doing environmental conservation through population management in our province but the others are not, it will still create conflict somehow,” said Alcanises. “I believe that whatever program is being done in one province should also be done in other provinces, in order to avoid conflict and promote balance in program implementation.”
Julio Lopez, president of the Galera Association of Managers and Entertainers said, “this land is ours, and we are responsible in taking care of it.”
PFPI, along with the University of Rhode Island’s Coastal Resource Center and Conservation International, is part of the BALANCED project, which last year launched the PHE Toolkit as a resource for PHE professionals. For more on PFPI’s IPOPCORM program, see ECSP’s interviews with Joan Casto and Leona D’Agnes on our YouTube channel: “Joan Castro – Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM)” and “Leona D’Agnes on Population, Health, and Environment.”
Video Credit: “Population-Health-Environment (PHE) A Video Documentary,” courtesy of YouTube user PATHFoundationPhils.
Sources: Population Reference Bureau.
