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Cultural Survival. Loss of Indigenous Languages. "An indigenous language dies on average once every two weeks." More. The UN has proclaimed 2008 'International Year of Languages.' " The organization Cultural Survival is fighting for indigenous languages and other issues of indigenous people.
Grassroots Learning. "The Listening Project [from the Collaborative for Development Action] is based on the belief that aid providers have much to learn from the wisdom and experience of aid recipients—and that what they learn can transform their overall approach." Summary.
Nobel Prizes. The Nobel Prize organization has recently put short videos from some of its recipients, including Desmund Tutu on leadership (3:44) and Muhammad Yunus on poverty (0:58).
Refugee Women's Alliance. ReWA is a Seattle-area organization serving refugee and immigrant women and families.
The Story of Stuff. Interesting 20-minute video on stuff—the things we buy, how they're made, and the consequences of the process.
Motivation for Personal Goals. Want to lose weight? Exercise? Put out a contract on yourself. If you lose, the money goes to charity. Stickk.com
"The Biggest [Philanthropy] Stories of 2006."This is a great overview of the biggest recent events. And they're mostly international—from Warren Buffett's donation to the Gates Foundation to Grameen's winning of the Nobel Peace Prize. This page has short summaries of each of the ten stories plus links to more detailed information. More.
Give a Better World. What to buy for the person who has everything? TisBest lets you give a donation to a nonprofit. The recipient picks from a list of 200 organizations.
Nonprofit FAQ. Here's a thorough FAQ on nonprofits, with information and advice on just about anything you'd want to know about nonprofit organizations.
What would the world look like if everyone lived like me? The Consumer Consequences game, developed by American Public Media, tries to show you the impact of your lifestyle and how to reduce your footprint.
Urban Migration. There's a vast flood of people to cities. Bombay (Mubai) alone is increasing at a rate of one million people per year. This article says that urbanization has a lot of good characteristics (increased status of women, better access to health care and education, etc.), but that housing all these people is a problem. The focus is housing and architecture for the third world. More.
Urban Migration. World Population becomes more Urban than Rural ."
UN Millennium Reports. The detailed analysis and recommendations the UN Millennium Project Task Forces are presented in a series of in-depth reports. Reports on hunger, education and gender equality, HIV, child health, environment, water and sanitation, slum dwellers, etc.
World Development Report 2008. This report on third world economic segments (agriculture, fisheries, timber, etc.) is from the World Bank. There is also a strategy document for meeting the Millennium Development Goals (these were set in 2000 and we're halfway there). "We are the first generation that can end poverty."
Human Development Reports. These country summaries might be useful when Pangea interest groups are doing research in new parts of the world.
"Getting Through the Bottleneck": An interesting Jeffrey Sachs article (2003) about positive trends vs. risks in the third world.
Worldmapper. This creates different maps of the world, with the size of each country proportional to various things – infant mortality, life expectancy, population, wealth, etc.
Maps. Interesting maps of world population, hunger, distribution of drought risk, etc.
Maps of Global Statistics. A new set of maps shows how countries are handling the world's greatest development challenges like stopping AIDS, educating children, and turning poverty around. See: http://devdata.worldbank.org/atlas-mdg/large.html
The happiest countries in the world. Interesting map: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/3686
Africa and Terrorism. In response to fears of terrorism, the US military is expanding its presence in Africa. More.
Colonization of Africa. A fascinating summary of the European scramble for African colonies in the late 1800s.
Education in Kenya. "African Leadership Academy seeks to transform Africa by developing and supporting future generations of African leaders." More.
Tanzanian Economy Improving. "Tanzania's economy is growing but its deficit is worrying." More.
The World Bank's role in Africa. This report is not laudatory.
Africa to Suffer the Most Severe Impact from Climate Change? The World Wildlife Fund explored the change in glaciers in African mountains. Minority Rights Group International is also concerned about climate change on worldwide minority populations in its annual State of the World's Minorities Report.
Conflicts over Water Rights in East Africa. More.
Water Scarce in Lake Chad. Lake Chad, once the world's 7th largest lake, has shrunk by 90% in area in the last 35 years. More.
War in Congo. "Conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo have taken the lives of an estimated 5.4 million people since 1998 and continue to leave as many as 45,000 dead every month." More on the problem and some optimistic news.
OneWorld's Person of the Year. From eight finalists, this year's winner is Molly Melching & the Women of Senegal for their work in ending genital cutting.
Background on Kenya's recent violence
Unrest in Kenya. Riots in response to recent presidential election (a second term for Kibaki). There are 100,000 people displaced due to violence.
Child Soldiers in Africa. This is the title of a recent book. Read an excerpt. Young people have been at the forefront of political conflict in many parts of the world, even when it has turned violent. In some of those situations, for a variety of reasons, including coercion, poverty, or the seductive nature of violence, children become killers before they are able to grasp the fundamentals of morality.
"New Power in Africa: China's Trade With Africa Carries a Price Tag." The positives and negatives of China's deepening ties with Africa; China has pledged over $20 billion to finance trade and infrastructure across Africa, but it is also exporting huge volumes of manufactured goods to those same countries, hampering Africa's ability to make its own products and develop healthy, diverse economies; some anti-Chinese sentiment is brewing among Africans who cite job loss and lax safety standards as results of China's investment in Africa. More.
AIDS in Africa. From the book 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen (2007):
"Each chapter of 28 tells the story of an person involved with the pandemic, from the long-distance trucker who believes he has slept with 100,000 people to the female Congolese doctor who treats patients at an ARV clinic even as civil war rages around her to the fourteen-year-old Ethiopian orphan fending for herself and her baby brother on the slum streets of Addis Ababa." For details on some of the stories, go to the author's site.
Slavery Ongoing in Parts of Africa. "Across western Africa [Niger, Chad, Mali, and Mauritania], hundreds of thousands of people are being held in what is known as 'chattel slavery,' which Americans may associate only with the transatlantic slave trade and the Old South." More.
Progress Toward UN Millennium Development Goals in Africa. The African Regional Youth Initiative site has a comparison of African countries on their progress toward the Millennium Development Goals here.
Religion in Africa. Some good maps: Islam in Africa, center of global Christianity through time, and indigenous tribal peoples of Africa. More.
Water Access in Guatemala. Pangea has funded a water project in Guatemala (Magdalina). A 3-minute video from Global Water Challenge highlights the water problem through the eyes of a 12-year-old Guatemalan girl. More.
Skyrocketing food prices threaten nutritional crisis for poor Central Americans. More.
Haiti's Economy. Things must be pretty bad when people reminisce about Papa Doc and the good old days. "Haiti's Poverty Stirs Nostalgia for Old Ghosts."
Haiti and Foreign Aid. "This valley used to produce nearly enough rice to feed the entire country, but back in the 1980s the International Monetary Fund and World Bank demanded that Haiti drop import tariffs in return for loans. Haiti was soon flooded with cheap and heavily subsidised US food…. It is estimated that the US rice crop costs $1.8bn to grow, but its farmers get subsidies of $1.3bn, and there was no way that Haiti could cope with competition like that." More.
Truth and Reconciliation in Guatemala. "Five former paramilitary members have been sentenced to 780 years each in prison for massacring 26 people [in 1982] during one of the more horrifying incidents in Guatemala's long civil war." More here and here.
Guatemala. An in-depth series of videos about MercyCorps' work in Guatemala. "For the mostly poor, indigenous families of Guatemala's central highlands, access to productive farmland is a first step out of poverty. Using that land to break into lucrative agricultural markets is a critical leap forward." More.
Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala. This is a Pangea grantee. Video (10:00).
Maoist Rebels in Nepal. More .
Improvements in Nepal. After 240 years as a monarchy, the Seven-Party Alliance declared the country a "federal democratic republic state." New elections are promised for April. The Maoists are included and have promised to return seized property and stop extortion and kidnapping. More
Recent flooding in Myanmar. See before and after satellite photos showing the damage done by the cyclone. Note the green and brown areas before (left) that have been turned blue (right).
Languages. Southeast Asia has 700 languages. How should they coexist with English?
Cambodia's Angkor Bigger than Supposed. Angkor "was once the center of an incredibly vast city with an elaborate water network…. Between A.D. 800 and 1500, Angkor's complex canals, roads, irrigated fields, and dense settlements sprawled across more than 1,160 square miles, almost the size of Rhode Island…. The city was the preindustrial world's largest urban complex, made possible by some of the most complicated hydraulic works the world had ever seen." More
Burma. Update on efforts against the dictatorship. Some of the most needed items for people attacking the regime are bicycles, cameras, and cell phones to keep the world's attention on the problems.
Water Shortage in Central Asia. "The Great Thirst": Drought and disease threaten to set off a water war in volatile Central Asia (this is from 2002). More.
Environment. List of 12 steps to curbing climate change: "It could be useful for setting up some enviromental criteria for rating projects, whether we decide to consciously include enviromental projects or simply screen all projects for environmental suitability.
Promoting Sustainability in Less-Developed Countries. A short article about economic development and environmental degradation.
Profiting from Third-World Debt? "Vulture funds identify countries that are on the brink of a major debt restructuring or debt relief deal and buy the debt from the creditors at a huge discount before it is restructured or relieved. Then the company sues the debtor for the original amount of the debt, often with interest and penalty fees added on top, making a tremendous profit."
Proposal for improved US foreign policy (by the Center for Global Development). "…Our foreign assistance programs are out of date and badly in need of modernization. Recent new foreign assistance initiatives and increases in funding are a promising start, but they fall far short of what is needed to make our programs more effective in meeting the challenges of the 21st century." More. Also, Congress is reconsidering US foreign aid philosophy.
How Much Does a Country Really Make? Conventional accounting overlooks the important source of money that ex-pats (a Kenyan citizen working in the UK, for example) are to their home country. More.
Foreign Workers and Third World Economies. The world has 190 million migrant workers. Money sent home by migrants is an important addition to the economies of some countries. This interactive graphic documents where they are, where they come from, and the money they send home.
How to Provide International Aid … and How Not To. "When international assistance is given in the context of a violent conflict, it becomes a part of that context and thus also of the conflict. Although aid agencies often seek to be neutral or nonpartisan toward the winners and losers of a war; the impact of their aid is not neutral regarding whether conflict worsens or abates. When given in conflict settings, aid can reinforce, exacerbate, and prolong the conflict; it can also help to reduce tensions and strengthen people's capacities to disengage from fighting and find peaceful options for solving problems." More. This book is a part of the Collaborative for Development Action's larger Do No Harm project.
How is Money Best Given to Nonprofits? A recent study found that "to maximize the impact on grant recipients, foundations 'should make larger, longer-term operating grants' of unrestricted funds that can be used to support the organization and its overall mission, not just specific projects or programs." More
Land Use over Time. "…Nearly all of the 350 million people alive in [the year] 1400 lived in a handful of civilizations [including Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia, Indonesia, Indochina, the Islamic West Asia, Europe, Aztec, and Inca,] occupying a very small proportion of the earth's surface. Even more astoundingly, that still holds true today: 70 percent of the world's six billion people live on those same 4.25 million square miles [7% of the Earth's surface]." More.
Microloans. Do you like the idea behind the microlending organization Kiva? Here are some similar sites:
Economic Action for Africa. A recent issue of the Co-op America Quarterly. "This is a must-read. There is an article on how to help make corporations more socially responsible (for their extraction of African raw goods: chocolate, rubber, diamonds, coffee, gold, and crude oil). There is an article on how global warming affects Africa disproportionately (droughts, leading to armed conflict) and how both our country and Africa can build up renewable energy… There is an article on divesting (selectively) from Sudan, in the hopes that divestment will bring about change similarly to what happened in South Africa… and there are articles on fair trade products and microcredit." You can download the issue for free here.
Foreign Food Aid. What is the impact of sending food to countries that have their own farming industry? " U.S. rethinks foreign food aid ."
How do you fight third world poverty? By creating "enclaves of efficiency." Here's an interesting excerpt from The World's Banker by Sebastion Mallaby.
Millennium Village Project. Harper's Magazine discusses the Millennium Village Project in general, and Sauri village that Pangea visited in Kenya in particular. While the results are good, the issue is sustainability. Neither Kenya nor the village have been able to make the contributions they promised; and villagers are pushing back at the time required for all the committee meetings mandated by the program. Not a failure, but not a slam dunk success either. Interesting reading.
The Financial Importance of Migrants. There was an article about a recent visit to the US by some high ranking official from Uganda. Curiously, his main interest wasn't in talking with US government officials. Rather, it was talking with much more important people, the organizations representing Ugandan ex-patriots, who send lots of money back home. Here's an interesting article about this phenomenon.
"About 200 million migrants from different countries are scattered across the globe, supporting a population back home that is as big if not bigger. Were these half-billion or so people to constitute a state—migration nation—it would rank as the world's third largest…. Migrants worldwide sent home an estimated $300 billion last year—nearly three times the world's foreign aid budgets combined. These sums—'remittances'—bring Morocco more money than tourism does. They bring Sri Lanka more money than tea does…."
Economic Challenges in Africa. Although economic liberalisation in Africa's economies is greater than ever before, there are signs that many have reached a "freedom plateau" where they will remain unless and until third-generation economic reforms are implemented. More.
Low-Tech Approaches to Agriculture. Farming the old-fashioned way in Mexico. More.
Increased food yields. Increased use of fertilizer is the trick. "Ending Famine, Simply by Ignoring the Experts."
More Biofuel = Less Food. "The rush towards biofuels is threatening world food production and the lives of billions of people…." More: "Rush for biofuels threatens starvation on a global scale" and "Charities Struggle to Respond to Rising Food and Fuel Costs."
World commodity prices. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has statistics on food and hunger. There is an interesting map showing the changing hunger needs over the past 30 years.
Long-Term Food Production. A financial take on the long-term problem of global food production (he recommends buying food stocks…). "Could we really run out of food?"
Failed States Index. "The world's weakest states aren't just a danger to themselves. They can threaten the progress and stability of countries half a world away." More
Corruption. Which countries are the most corrupt? Here's a chart. The US looks pretty good at #20 (though beaten by many European countries). At the bottom is Myanmar (Burma). More. .
Good Governance. Which African countries are best run? Here's a chart. South Africa is near the top, Rwanda is much improved since 2000 (#18 out of 48), and Kenya (#15) and Tanzania (#14) are above average. The full list is here.
Cambodia and Human Rights. "The highest ranking surviving leader of the brutal Khmer Rouge was arrested and charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity as the trial drew closer in the deaths of 1.7 million people from 1975 to 1979." "Former Khmer Rouge Leader Arrested."
Malaria. The Gates Foundation has called for the worldwide eradication of malaria. But is this even possible? More.
Improvements in Child Health. "More children are surviving beyond their fifth birthday…. The child mortality rate—the number of under-fives dying per thousand live births—dropped by almost a quarter worldwide between 1990 and 2006."
2008 is the International Year of Sanitation. More.
US Efforts to Fight AIDS + George Bush's legacy. "So far, roughly 1.4 million AIDS patients have received lifesaving medicine paid for with American dollars, up from 50,000 before the initiative. Even Mr. Bush's most ardent foes … find it difficult to argue with the numbers." More.
US Government's Malaria Initiative. In 2005, the US launched a 5-year, $1.2 billion effort to reach 85% of Africa's most vulnerable groups (children under five and pregnant women) with prevention and treatment measures. More.
International Seed Bank. "Around the world, scientists are risking their lives to retrieve seeds destined for a massive vault near the North Pole. Their work just might save mankind." The "doomsday vault" of the Global Crop Diversity Trust is in Svalbard, Norway. More
Malaria. Bed nets are the best way to prevent malaria. But should this be a government initiative or a private one? More
Progress on AIDS? A new UNAIDS document "2007 AIDS Epidemic Update" shows that worldwide deaths due to AIDS, while still enormous, has at least leveled off. Sub-Saharan Africa still has 2/3 of the HIV-infected people. (I found the "Slides and Graphics" section at the bottom of the web page to have good summaries.)
Don't forget the obvious diseases. "Chronic, non-infectious diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes kill more than twice as many people than HIV/AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis…. Often thought to be diseases of the rich, most of these deaths will be in the developing world." More
Malaria. The Seattle Times recently had an excellent in-depth summary of malaria—how it works, where it remains a problem, and progress being made to stop it. As big a problem as it still is, notice that malaria used to be endemic to most of the US and Europe—so there has been substantial progress.
AIDS Prevention vs. Treatment. AIDS prevention efforts are not keeping pace with the gains being made in treating people with HIV. More.
AIDS in Africa. How, and How Not, to Stop AIDS in Africa by William Easterly.
Malaria and Gates Foundation. The latest on the Gates Foundation's work with malaria.
Haitians eating clay. "Poverty and tradition drive some Haitians to eat cakes of clay, salt, and butter. Nutritionists fight local beliefs about the dish's merits." Video.
Dengue fever is spreading. Dengue is a disease spread by mosquitoes, and there are no vaccines or treatments. It is endemic in many tropical areas, including Southeast Asia. Global warming appears to be the reason that it is now spreading to new areas. More.
Global warming in Africa. "Climate Change Threatens Continent"
Third World Challenges. Worldmapper has lots of intriguing maps. They now have hundreds on all sorts of topics—health, policy, science, nature, and so on.
Cooking Kills. Smoke from indoor cooking fires kills an estimated 1.5 million people per year, making it the fourth-biggest health risk in the poorest countries. Pangea bought new, more efficient stoves for Joshua Machinga's Pathfinder School in Kenya to address this problem of smoke. More.
Cooking Kills (II). Dr. Amy Smith of MIT says that the biggest killer of children under 5 is respiratory illness caused by cooking fires—two million children per year. She's working on low-tech ways to turn available materials into clean fuel.
Hunger. In a recent UN report: "Global hunger is still on the rise. …There has been virtually no progress made on reducing hunger, despite the commitments made by Governments in 1996 and again at the Millennium Summit in 2000. While in 1996, the number of people suffering from undernourishment was estimated to be about 800 million people, FAO's latest estimate suggests that there are now 854 million people who do not get enough to eat every day. More than 6 million children die from hunger-related illness every year before their fifth birthday."
Complete documentHow Much Does Health Cost? A recent UNAIDS report estimates various approaches to third-world AIDS treatment. The smallest estimate is $14–18 billion per year. More.
Human Trafficking. "Human trafficking affects hundreds of thousands of lives every year, and especially those of young women and girls. Literally enslaved, these victims suffer a physical and emotional toll that is heartbreaking. The good news is that the international community is paying more attention than ever. Learn what governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and concerned citizens are doing to combat trafficking--on the social, economic, educational, and legal fronts." More.
Slave Trade Remains Large. "Approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders each year and millions more are traded domestically. The International Labour Organisation estimates that there are at least 2.5m people in forced labour at any one time, including sexual exploitation, as a result of trafficking." More.
Human Trafficking … in Seattle? Audio at KUOW Weekday (54:00)
Sex Trafficking. "A Call On Governments from Women's Anti-Trafficking Groups Around the World to Make Specific Commitments for Steps They Will Take to End Sex Trafficking": article about the recent Vienna Forum to Fight Human Trafficking.
"Trafficking in Persons: A Gender & Rights Perspective." This document from UNIFEM (the UN Development Fund for Women) gives a lot of background on the issue. More.
One Laptop Per Child. Formerly the "$100 PC," this program tries to get laptops into the third world. Because of widespread interest for the laptops in the West, there's a Give 1 Get 1 program through which you can buy one for yourself if you also donate one. (Editorial comment: the technology is impressive—it uses 10% the electricity of a conventional laptop, for example—but I do wonder if not having a laptop is at the top of the list for most third-world children.) More.
One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). "Great idea. Shame about the mediocre computer." There is now competition for this extreme low end of the PC market.
Solar Engineers. The Barefoot College has trained people in 28 villages in India and Bhutan to install and maintain solar equipment. These villages are all very remote, meaning that conventional electric grid power would be a long time coming. More.
How can technology help the third world? "In early February, the United States National Academy of Engineering released a report on "Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st Century." The goal is to focus attention on the potential of technology to help the world address poverty and environmental threats. The list includes potential breakthroughs such as low-cost solar power, safe disposal of CO2 from power plants, nuclear fusion, new educational technologies, and the control of environmental side effects from nitrogen fertilizers. The report, like the Gates Foundation's similar list of Grand Challenges in Global Health, highlights a new global priority: promoting advanced technologies for sustainable development." More.
Environmentally-smart trash/stove. A giant stove outside Nairobi, Kenya burns trash and reduces the need to cut trees.
Low-Cost Solar Panels. The Light up the World Foundation has been recognized for its solar panels. More.
LifeStraw is a thick, ten-inch-long drinking
straw that will purify water. You use it like a regular straw. It uses
a filter plus iodine-impregnated resin to trap or kill most pathogens.
It lasts for 700 liters.
Transporting Water. Instead of carrying water in a jar on
your head, you can roll it on the ground. The Hippo
Roller is a drum with a handle that can be pushed (it looks rather like
those things you flatten your lawn with). It carries 20 gallons (about 160
pounds) of water, roughly 4 times what can be supported on the head. This
organization also has a drip
irrigation system.
Problem of Unexploded Land Mines. "In Vietnam's Quang Tri Province, a child is killed or maimed nearly once a week by landmines and unexploded bombs left over from the Vietnam war." Peace Trees Vietnam is an organization based on Bainbridge Island that has been working to clear land mines for over ten years.
Animals to Help Find Land Mines? A Smithsonian article is titled "Bees and Rats: Sniffing out Bombs and Bacteria." (Scroll about 2/3 down.) As for the magnitude of the problem, another article says "Some 60 people are maimed or killed by buried mines every day. The Red Cross estimates that 80-120 million landmines currently are deployed in 70 countries worldwide, with an average 40,000 new landmines deployed each week."
Philanthropy: A US Innovation." Organized philanthropy as it is practiced now in the U.S. is one of this nation's great social innovations." More (PDF).
TED: the Technology, Entertainment, and Design conference. Much of the content of these amazing conferences is now available as videos online.
Invasive Water Hyacinth. Here is a good article (PDF) summarizing the problems with water hyacinths in Lake Victoria and other large bodies of water.
Dark Tourism. There's a new name for the visiting of places of suffering, such as the Cambodian Killing Fields or Auschwitz. More.
Video for All. On May 10, 2008 (named "Pangea Day"), the TED Conference sponsored simultaneous screening of videos from around the world. "Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future." More .
Charity. Not every industry giant sees the problems of the world like Bill Gates. Cornelius Vanderbilt's shipping fortune in the mid-1800s was worth $150 billion in today's dollars, and yet he was notoriously uncharitable. Vanderbilt started with nothing, and his response to the poor was: "Let them do what I have done." In 1872, Mark Twain's savage pen attacked Vanderbilt:
All I wish and urge upon you now is that you crush out your native instincts and go and do something worthy of praise—go and do something you need not blush to see in print—do something that may rouse one solitary good example to the thousands of young men who emulate your energy and your industry; shine as one solitary grain of pure gold upon the heaped rubbish of your life. Do this, I beseech you, else through your example we shall shortly have in our midst five hundred Vanderbilts, which God Forbid. Go, oh please go, and do one worthy act. Go, boldly, grandly, nobly, and give four dollars to some great public charity. It will break your heart, no doubt; but no matter, you have but a little while to live, and it is better to die suddenly and nobly than to live a century longer the same Vanderbilt you are now. More.