Poverty News Blog

Poverty levels for school districts in Oregon

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:15:00 +0000

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released statistics that measured poverty for the nation's school districts. For the state of Oregon, the census figures show that rural areas of the state have the highest levels of poor children. Meanwhile, the Portland metro area and other towns had lower levels of the poor.

From The Oregonian, writer Betsy Hammond breaks down the numbers. Oregon Live also has this file that lists poverty levels for all of Oregon's schools.

Statewide, the lowest rates are in Lake Oswego, Sherwood, Corbett and West Linn-Wilsonville. Six percent or fewer of school-age children in those districts live in households below the poverty level, the bureau reported this month.

On the flip side are Woodburn, nearly every school district in southeast Oregon's Harney County, the Powers school district in southwest Oregon and the Three Rivers school district around Grants Pass. One-quarter to one-third of all school-age children in those areas live below the poverty line, defined as income of $22,050 a year for a family of four.

Schools face a much greater challenge getting students to read and do math at grade level in high-poverty communities. A federal report released last week showed that a student who attends a school serving mainly low-income and working-class students is about 12 times more likely to attend a chronically low-performing school than a student whose school serves mostly moderate- or high-income students.

"Whenever you are dealing with students at risk, you have issues," said Peter Maluk, director of federal programs for the Three Rivers district. "We see more and more needy families, and we need to be sensitive to helping them and giving their kids a solid education."

Maluk's district won competitive federal grants to help serve homeless students and to offer after-school academic and enrichment programs. He said he is proud of the results Three Rivers has achieved teaching low-income students.

When schools do a good job, they can be the best place for children from poor families, said Holly Pruett, executive director of Stand for Children in Oregon.

"For children living in poverty, schools are the essential lifeline to the skills and the inspiration to be able to succeed in life," she said.

Fish farming project in Kenya unveiled

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:52:00 +0000

Kenya's government has started a new project to introduce the work of fish farming to people who need jobs. The government plans on building several ponds and training people in raising fish so the people can eventually sell them in market for income.

From the New Nation, we read more details about the project.

The ambitious project worth over Sh1 billion is also projected to create about 120,000 new jobs.

The Ministry of Fisheries Development will oversee construction of 200 fish ponds in 140 constituencies.

Funded through the economic stimulus programme, each of the constituencies will receive Sh8 million for the project.
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Fisheries minister Paul Otuoma last week launched the first of 20 ponds in Gatundu South, Central Province.

“The traditional fish sources are no longer dependable to meet the rising demand in the country,” said the minister during the function.

According the minister, statistics indicate that in 1999 the country harvested 1.2 million tonnes of Nile Perch variety though stocks have dwindled to 300 metric tonnes.

Agricultural developments bring 2.3 million out of poverty each year

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:04:00 +0000

A new study brings us very good news about the impact on agricultural research. Farming investment in sub-Saharan Africa brings around 2.3 million of the region's residents out of poverty each year.

Innovation and technology can do a lot, but the reports authors say that other developments are needed. Improvements in access to credit, and access to the same fertilizer and seeds that the Western World uses can help bring more people in Sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty.

From the Walta Information Center, we read more about the study on how agricultural research can help.

The study, authored by Drs. Arega Alene and Ousmane Coulibaly of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), finds that payoffs from agricultural research are impressive with an estimated aggregate rate of return of 55 per cent.

However, the researchers say that the actual impacts are not large enough to offset the poverty-increasing effects of population growth and environmental degradation in the region.

The study which has been published in the Food Policy journal further demonstrates that doubling investments in agricultural research and development in SSA from the current $650 million will reduce poverty by two percentage point annually.

“However, this would not be realized without a more efficient extension, credit, and input supply systems,” says Alene.

The researchers also established that agricultural research had contributed significantly to productivity growth in SSA. Highest returns to agricultural research were found in Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria and Ethiopia, and were attributable to sustained national research investments with modest research capacity, long-term Consultative Group of International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) operations, and regional technology spillovers.

International agricultural research conducted by the CGIAR contributed about 56 per cent of the total poverty reduction impact in the region.

According to the study, in view of the significant long-term research investments and demonstrated successes in the region, the poverty reduction that is due to IITA research within the CGIAR ranges from half to one million poor people annually.

The WTO meets in Geneva

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:32:00 +0000

The World Trade Organization always seems to bring trouble wherever it goes. This time the streets of Geneva had protests that local police had to clear away with tear gas.

The protesters opinions on why they hate the WTO are as varied as the nations that represent it. Some protest the inaction of the WTO, while others blame the WTO on making things even more unequal between the rich and the poor.

The WTO trade ministers will meet now through Wednesday. They plan to talk about the steep drop in world trade that has happened along with the global economic recession.

From this Associated Press article that we found at Newsday, writer Bradley S. Klapper summarises what is on the WTO agenda this week.

As the World Trade Organization started its first ministerial conference in four years, a familiar debate was taking place among ministers and Cabinet members from over 100 countries. They are scheduled through Wednesday to discuss efforts to stabilize and rejuvenate commerce in the face of increased protectionism, unemployment and exporting of jobs.

Security was high near the Geneva conference venue, after police over the weekend fired tear gas and rubber bullets at violent demonstrators who burned cars and broke shop windows in the city center. Geneva police arrested 14 people.

Much more serious clashes have occurred at previous meetings of trade chiefs, but the coming session lacks the specific goals of conferences that sought to conclude or advance a new global trade deal. The last so-called ministerial — a summit gathering all member countries' trade representatives — was held in Hong Kong in 2005, and came after contentious gatherings in Cancun, Mexico, two years earlier and Seattle in 1999.

The WTO called the meeting of its 153 members to examine major issues at a time when global exports are falling at the fastest rate since the Great Depression and the organization's long-sought Doha liberalization round is limping into its ninth year.

Perhaps energy access should have been a MDG

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Ahead of the climate change conference next week in Copenhagen, the United Nations Development Programme put together a study that shows access to electricity around the globe.

For most of the world, people are lucky to have access to power for just a couple of hours a day, if at all. But improved access to power in the under-developed world could improve the health, income and the environment around those in poverty.

From the IPS, writer Rajiv Fernando examines the report from the UNDP.

The report finds that the disparity is particularly pronounced in developing and least developed countries such as Burundi, Liberia and Chad, where 97 percent of people don't have access to electricity.

Normally, this kind of data would not have been made widely available, especially since the anti-poverty U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) do not specifically highlight a need for energy access.

The primary motivation behind the study was to create a 'catch-all' document for the array of energy access data available from developing countries, which has yet to be made accessible in a single publication.

There were many contributors to the report, including Minoru Takada, head of the Sustainable Energy Programme, Environment and Energy Group for UNDP. He is the originator of the concept of the publication and directed its development over a period of two years.

For energy access to be expanded in poor countries, there also has to be a political will by developed nations to help spread the technology for energy sustainability, the authors say.

"First, both at the national and global levels, there's a lack of real political commitment," Takada told IPS. "We really need political commitments at the national and global levels to tackle the energy poverty challenge within a specific timeframe. To help on making political commitment, which is my second point, we need to rectify a wrong perception that universal access to modern energy at the household level can explode greenhouse gas emissions."

According to Takada, not only is the contribution of universal access to modern energy at the household level – both electricity and modern cooking fuels – to global CO2 emissions negligible but also, will, most likely, end up promoting low carbon pathways.

Video: the story of Savita

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:37:00 +0000

The Guardian presents this story from Save The Children about another preventable death of a child in India. Savita died of diarrhea at the age of two.

US/Britain call for investigation on Ethiopian aid money

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:36:00 +0000

The US and Britain are calling for an investigation over how Ethiopia handles aid money. There have been accusations that Ethiopia has politicized who benefits from the aid money.

From this Daily Nation article that we found at All Africa, writer Argaw Ashine tells us more about the allegation and receives quotes from both sides.

A week ago, Ethiopia's main opposition group, the Forum for Democratic Dialogue accused the government of using its access to foreign-funded, anti-poverty programmes to gain support for the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front.

Ethiopia scheduled a general election for May 2010.

"We are very much concerned about it," Mr Karl Wycoff, United Sates deputy assistant secretary of state, told reporters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
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Ethiopian authorities denied the allegation. Mr Mitiku Kassa Minister for disaster and emergency told the Nation his government was trying to investigate the issue however the allegation is 'baseless'. "We are always doing our humanitarian work regardless of any discrimination" Mr Mitiku said.

Land grabs in Ethiopia

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:45:00 +0000

A chunk of land the size of Nebraska has been sold off in Ethiopia in recent years. The government there is leasing farm land to wealthier nations, who hope to use the land to help feed their own people.

Critics of the fast selling say that the land should be used to feed hungry Ethiopians, meanwhile those who apologize for the land grabs hope it will help feed a booming population world wide.

From the Washington Post comes this video that summaries the entire story.

Also from the Washington Post writer Stephanie McCrummen recieves arguments from both sides of the debate.

The scale and pace of the land scramble have alarmed policymakers and others concerned about the implications for food security in countries such as Ethiopia, where officials recently appealed for food aid for about 6 million people as drought devastates parts of East Africa. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is in the midst of a food security summit in Rome, where some of the 62 heads of state attending are to discuss a code of conduct to govern land deals, which are being struck with little public input.

"These contracts are pretty thin; no safeguards are being introduced," said David Hallam, a deputy director at the FAO. "You see statements from ministers where they're basically promising everything with no controls, no conditions."

The harshest critics of the practice conjure images of poor Africans starving as food is hauled off to rich countries. Some express concern that decades of industrial farming will leave good land spoiled even as local populations surge. And skeptics also say the political contexts cannot be ignored.

"We don't trust this government," said Merera Gudina, a leading opposition figure here who accuses Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of using the land policy to hold on to power. "We are afraid this government is buying diplomatic support by giving away land."

But many experts are cautiously hopeful, saying that big agribusiness could feed millions by industrializing agriculture in countries such as Ethiopia, where about 80 percent of its 75 million people are farmers who plow their fields with oxen.

"If these deals are negotiated well, I tell you, it will change the dynamics of the food economy in this country," said Mafa Chipeta, the FAO's representative in Ethiopia, dismissing the worst-case scenarios. "I can't believe Ethiopia or any other government would allow their country to be used like an empty womb. The human spirit would not allow it."

The origin of Bread for the World

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 13:44:00 +0000

The Rev. Arthur Simon began the organization Bread for the World when he saw something over and over again at his church, people going hungry. Rev. Simon is traveling to promote a new book on the formation of Bread for the World. His stop over the weekend in Allentown, Pennsylvania caught the attention of the local paper the Morning Call. Writer Christopher Baxter asked Rev. Simon about the organization's origin.

'People were running out of food, that was the most common,'' Simon told a crowd gathered Sunday for church service at Luther Crest, an Allentown retirement community. ''But I found the harder we worked at it, the further behind we got.''

Out of the pain and suffering came Bread for the World, which 35 years later has become one of the country's leading citizens advocacy groups, boasting more than 60,000 members nationally united by a common mission to prevent people from going hungry.

Simon's message, delivered as a call-to-action sermon to lobby Congress for better hunger and poverty prevention, comes as more Americans struggle amid the economic downturn to put food on the table.

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics released this month, about 49 million people, or 14.6 percent of U.S. households, were ''food insecure'' at some time during the past year, the most since tracking began in 1995.

The department defines ''food insecure'' as those without access to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle.

''I hope it's a short-term crisis, and we've got to deal with that,'' said Simon, 79, brother of the late Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois. ''I think it will improve with the economy, but meanwhile we have to take some meaningful action.''

Video: What is poverty? from Compassion International

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 04:00:00 +0000

The following video speaks to the loss of hope that those in severe poverty feel. The video comes from Compassion International.

A couple of new scientific studies on the poor in the US

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:31:00 +0000

The following article serves as a good reminder that what the press and sometime ourselves calls poverty in the US is really just being poor. A story on a couple of scientific studies examine what impact the income transfer policies of the US have on its recipients.

From the Science Centric, comes this summary of the studies published by Wiley-Blackwell.

Almost all Americans already live far above subsistence poverty, most because of their earnings, and the rest because of government transfer programs. This decline in material poverty is obscured by weaknesses in how the official U.S. poverty measure counts income. Based on the official U.S. poverty measure, in 2007, the poverty rate for American families was 12.5 percent, about the same as it was in 1968.

What is now called poverty is really 'income inequality.' Many families earning too much to be considered victims of poverty but who lack the 'human capital,' education, training, and family support systems to provide a stable economic future for their children. In an effort to properly measure poverty levels and brainstorm long-term solutions to the issue, three socioeconomic experts and researchers joined in a call and response format debate in a recent issue of Policy Studies Journal.

In their article, 'Income Transfers Alone Won't Eradicate Poverty,' Douglas J. Besharov J.D. and Douglas M. Call of the University of Maryland, claim that government-issued cash transfers to families in need do little in the long-term to help lift people out of poverty. Besharov and Call claim that although government intervention is often required to reduce income inequality and provide social assistance, it cannot be accomplished through income transfers alone. The authors argue that, although income transfers have a role to play in lessening the impact of material deprivation, real progress in raising incomes will require building the human capital of the economically disadvantaged. This means both increasing the earnings capacity of lower-income workers and reducing the number of female-headed families.

In his response to Besharov's and Call's article on income transfers, 'Measuring Poverty and Assessing the Role of Income Transfers in Contemporary Anti-Poverty Policy: Comments on Besharov and Call,' Robert D. Plotnick analyses the current economic and political trade-offs among different types of income support programs. Plotnick, says, 'The current poverty measurement approach in the U.S. has shortcomings that give us a misleading view of the level and trend in poverty, but absolute poverty statistics still provide useful, relevant information.' He focuses on the central theme to the debate: how best to reduce poverty among working age families with children.

"Land Grabs"

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:15:00 +0000

One of the topics that came up during this past week's World Food Summit was the "land grabs" taking place in Africa. Lybia's Muammar Gaddafi accused rich nations of buying up large tracts of farm land for use to feed their own countries.

From IPS, writer Paul Virgo looks into the debate that started last week.

The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the summit's host, said it is estimated that up to 20 million hectares of African land have been acquired by foreign interests in the last three years.

States such as Saudi Arabia and China started to look for farmland abroad after a spike in the price of staples such as wheat and rice in 2007-08, prompting fears that smallholder farmers may be displaced from their territories, worsening the situation in countries already suffering grave food insecurity.

The rise in food prices and the financial crisis have driven more than 100 million people into the ranks of the hungry this year, to take their number beyond the one-billion mark for the first time, the FAO says. So it is perhaps understandable that hostility to foreign land purchases in Africa remains high.

"Our leaders (in Africa) are selling all our land," Huguette Akplogan Dossa, coordinator of the African Network on the Right to Food, told IPS. "Selling national land is not a good thing. They have to think about what is good for the people. If they come to buy our lands for production, take it to their countries, transform it and sell it back to us very expensively, it is another form of colonialism. We have to ban it."

However, the FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) are reluctant to stigmatise a possible source of capital, given that a long-running decline in agricultural investment is perhaps the main reason why so many people in rural areas of developing countries struggle to feed themselves.

"It is the wrong language to call them land grabs. They are investments in farmland like investments in oil exploration," Kanayo Nwanze, head of IFAD, told a news conference. "The fact there are distortions does not suggest this should be banned."

FAO and IFAD admit that the acquisitions, which continued to be called 'land grabs' in summit papers despite Nwanze's objections, have had negative impacts in some cases. But they insist foreign investment can also help smallholders gain access to the resources they need to haul themselves out of poverty. So they are holding consultations on an international code of conduct to encourage positive forms of foreign agricultural investment and discourage bad practices.

"What strikes me is the heterogeneity of these situations. It appears superficially that all of these so-called land grabs are similar; it's big foreign companies pushing smallholders off the land, and indeed some of them do look like that," IFAD Assistant President Kevin Cleaver told IPS.

"But others are much more similar to old private investments in sugar, rubber and tea that actually put money into a country, developed an area that was underdeveloped, and helped smallholders," Cleaver said. "My point is not to give a message about whether it is good or bad. I know for certain that the situation is highly heterogeneous. My suspicion is that there are horrible cases of grotesque exploitation and there are other cases of useful private investment."

The challenge to feed the world

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:59:00 +0000

With the world's population due to rise by a third by 2050, even more people will be hungry in addition to the 1 billion people who are hungry now. Further complicating the immediate need is the steady rise of food prices back to the highs of last year.

From the Economist comes this examination of the problem and some warnings of what to avoid.

It may be too late to avoid another bout of price rises. Despite a global recession and the largest grain harvest on record in 2008, food prices are heading up again. Still, countries have a brief window of opportunity in which to set long-term policy goals without being distracted by panic measures. They need to do two things: invest in the productive capacity of agriculture and improve the operation of food markets.

Governments have done one but not the other. Over the past year investment has risen faster than anyone expected. But distrust of markets and a reaction against farm trade are growing. Unless governments restrain those impulses, they will undermine the gains from rising investment.

For most of the past 25 years, investment in agriculture has declined relentlessly. In 2005 most developing countries were investing only around 5% of public revenues in farming. The share of Western aid going to agriculture fell by around three-quarters between 1980 and 2006. This disinvestment laid waste to productivity. During the Green Revolution of the 1960s, staple-crop yields were rising by 3-6% a year. Now they are rising by only 1-2% a year; in poor countries, yields are flat.

Fortunately, the food-price spike of 2007-08 shocked governments out of their quarter-century of neglect. The World Bank and many rich countries have doubled the money they put into poor countries’ farming. In the poor countries themselves, agriculture has gone from being a sideshow for the government—something the minister of agriculture does—into its main event, which everyone needs to worry about. This is as it should be: farming is far and away the single most important economic activity in most poor places.
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There is, however, a danger inherent in all this government activity: the temptation of self-reliance. The food-price rise of 2007-08 made all countries worry about “food security”—quite rightly. But over the past year “food security” (ensuring everyone has enough to eat) has shaded into “food self-sufficiency” (growing it all yourself). Self-sufficiency has become a common policy goal in many countries (see article).

In itself, self-sufficiency is not bad. If poor countries have a comparative advantage in producing their own food, they should do so (and that will often be the case). The problem is that the new rhetoric of self-sufficiency coincides with a growing distrust of markets and trade. Grain importers no longer trust world markets to supply their needs. “Land grabbers” are snapping up land abroad to use for food production. Everywhere, governments are more involved in farming through input subsidies. In these conditions self-sufficiency could easily sprout protective walls.

New UNICEF study on preventable diseases in the third world

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:18:00 +0000

A new study from UNICEF has prompted a rash of stories about preventable diseases that kill children in the under-developed world. While most of the world focuses it's attention on eradicating AIDS, diseases such as diarrhea and pneumonia kill millions of children a year in the under-developed world.

Our snippet comes from Yahoo News, which we found as we signed into our e-mail this morning. We were somewhat surprised that they would put this story on their front page instead a celebrity piece. Associated Press writer Margie Mason gives us some statistics from UNICEF.

Diarrhea doesn't make headlines. Nor does pneumonia. AIDS and malaria tend to get most of the attention.

Yet even though cheap tools could prevent and cure both diseases, they kill an estimated 3.5 million kids under 5 each a year globally — more than HIV and malaria combined.

"They have been neglected, because donor or partnership mechanisms shifted their emphasis to HIV and AIDS and other issues," said Dr. Tesfaye Shiferaw, a UNICEF official in Africa. "These age-old traditional killers remain with us. The ones dying are the children of the poor."

Global spending on maternal, newborn and child health was about $3.5 billion in 2006, according to a report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That same year, nearly $9 billion was devoted to HIV and AIDS, according to UNAIDS.

Pneumonia is the biggest killer of children under 5, claiming more then 2 million lives annually or about 20 percent of all child deaths. AIDS, in contrast, accounts for about 2 percent.

If identified early, pneumonia can be treated with inexpensive antibiotics. Yet UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimate less than 20 percent of those sickened receive the drugs.

A vaccine has been available since 2000 but has not yet reached many children in developing countries. The GAVI Alliance, a global partnership, hopes to introduce it to 42 countries by 2015.

Diarrheal diseases, such as cholera and rotavirus, kill 1.5 million kids each year, most under 2 years old. The children die from dehydration, weakened immune systems and malnutrition. Often they get sick from drinking dirty water.

We guess Senegal will have to export instead

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:46:00 +0000

The rice harvest is booming in Senegal... but no one there wants to eat it. After the food crisis of last year, Senegal decided to produce more rice. The problem is, the tastes of the public still prefer the rice imported from Asia.

It's an example of the public's preference running counter to the efforts to increase local food production to protect against future food price shocks.

From this AFP article that we found at Google News, writer Laurence Boutreux tries to answer why the Senegalese prefer foreign rice.

But the Senegalese, who serve rice with so many meals, said no thanks. Why? That's where it gets sticky.

Explanations range from taste to social standing to the legacy of colonialism. Whatever the reason, the government is now figuring out how to promote locally grown rice and hopes to import none of the staple by 2012.

It seems they may have a hard time achieving that goal. Last year, over three quarters of the 800,000 tonnes of rice consumed by the Senegalese was imported from Asia.

The impetus for change came from the food crisis, which had sent prices of imported rice soaring. Senegal has since been pushing locally grown rice to rely less on agricultural imports, but despite good crops, much remains unsold.
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According to the latest official estimates -- disputed by some producers -- the rice harvest will be at 508,481 tonnes for 2009, up 25 percent compared to 2008.

The figures have prompted a promise from Senegal's agriculture minister that the country "will not import a single kernel of rice in 2012".

But what if no one eats it?

One expert blamed the problem on the legacy of colonialism.

"It dates back to the colonisation," said Wore Gana Seck, the head of the commission for durable development and environment at Senegal's economic and social council.

"Before the Senegalese ate millet and sorghum, but the French imposed a monoculture of peanuts on farmers and imported broken rice from their other colony Indochina for the Senegalese to eat," she says.

Increase in poor children attending New Jersey Schools

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:13:00 +0000

US Census Bureau data released yesterday shows the percentages of poor children in the nation's school districts. For most parts of the US the percentages of poor children increased from 2007 to 2008.

From the Press of Atlantic City, we find this story that examines the school districts in the New Jersey area. Writer Diane D’Amico begins her story by introducing us to an area school principal.

Gladys Lauriello didn’t realize her family was poor when she went to school in Wildwood. But now, as Lauriello works as principal in the same building where she attended class, she recognizes the signs of poverty that characterized her youth.

She wasn’t surprised to learn that U.S. Census Bureau data released Wednesday show that 36 percent of school-age children in Wildwood live in poverty. That’s the highest percentage among school districts in New Jersey.

“It’s probably a low estimate, frankly,” said Lauriello, the Wildwood High School principal.

New Jersey annually ranks at or near the top among the states in household income. But it has some of the poorest school districts in the country, according to The Press of Atlantic City analysis of the census poverty data. And area school districts, including Atlantic City, Pleasantville, Vineland and Bridgeton, number among the nation’s worst in terms of percent or number of children age 5 to 17 living in poverty.

The percentage of impoverished children increased in 70 percent of area school districts from 2007 to 2008. The number of children in poverty grew by 9 percent in Atlantic and Cape May counties and by 16 percent in Ocean County. The number in poverty increased by 5 percent statewide. The percentage of impoverished schoolchildren increased in two-thirds of districts statewide last year, although a number of them grew by less than a percentage point.

In terms of the percentage of children in poverty, Atlantic City and Bridgeton rank among the worst 10 percent of districts in the nation and Wildwood is in the worst 3 percent. Thirty-two New Jersey districts rank among the 10 percent nationwide with the highest number of impoverished children. Those include Bridgeton, Millville and Pleasantville from this area. Atlantic City and Vineland rank in the worst 5 percent.

Video: a sad tale from India's slums

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:08:00 +0000

In this video from the Guardian, we see the story of Surma, who lost her son to an easily preventable disease. Parmesh died of diarrhea, but it is not an isolated case. The deaths of children in India's slums have doubled in recent years.

The failure of the World Food Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:20:00 +0000

The three day World Food Summit has now concluded in Rome. According to all anti-hunger advocates it was a failure.

A couple of reasons are given for why the summit failed to come up with funding goals or a deadline for ending hunger. Some point to the lack of any ability of the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization to bully developed nations into action. Others say it's a lack of interest by any elected officials of the developed world over people starving to death.

From the IPS, writer Paul Virgo gives us the analysis.

At best it reflects the limits of the U.N. and its flagship body in the fight against hunger, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), activists say.

At worst, they say it shows wealthy countries’ leaders lack the political will to really to put their backs into solving a problem that - no matter how unjust and scandalous, in a world with more than enough to feed everyone - generally does not directly affect the voters who put them into office.

Either way it is probably bad news for the 1.02 billion people, almost one sixth of the global population, who go to bed every night with empty stomachs.

FAO Director General Jacques Diouf tried to make the best of it Monday after the approval of a toothless declaration.

He pointed out consensus had been achieved on the need to end the long- running decline in agricultural investment, which is one of the major reasons many people in rural areas of developing countries struggle to feed themselves.

But, Diouf admitted "regret" that countries had failed to commit themselves to wiping out hunger by 2025 and that developed nations had not agreed to allocate 44 billion dollars in aid to agriculture per year.

That figure sounds like an awful lot of money, but it was not such an ambitious target if one considers other ways money is spent.
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The summit was skipped by all but one of the leaders of countries in the Group of Eight leading world economic powers - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who only had to take a short drive from his office to reach the FAO’s headquarters.

The G8 pledged to devote 20 million dollars to agricultural aid over the next three years at the L’Aquila summit in July. So some believe the no-shows here imply they want to implement their food security policies via G8 organs or other bodies, such as the World Bank, which has frequently been accused of infringing national sovereignty by trying to promote models of development imported from the West that are not appropriate in poorer countries.

"The absence of the G8 leaders is a clear message that the rich countries are still trying to impose their policies on poor countries," said Sergio Marelli, head of the association of Italian non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

"Agro-food policies and management of resources for their implementation can only be the competence of the specialised United Nations agencies, above all the FAO and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and should not be handed to the World Bank," Marelli said. "We believe assigning the World Bank the role of policy-maker would mean giving it back to the institution that has the greatest responsibility for the current food crisis."

Aborigine poverty in Australia compared to torture

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:15:00 +0000

A leader of Amnesty International spoke out about aborigine poverty in Australia. Irene Khan compared the poverty to torture and called on Australia's government to end what she called "discriminatory" practices.

From the Sydney Morning Herald, this AAP story recorded Khan's comments.

The poverty experienced by many Aborigines is as morally reprehensible as torture and must be eradicated, Amnesty International secretary-general Irene Khan says.

In Australia for a week-long visit, Ms Khan has also called on the Rudd government to end the discriminatory measures of the Northern Territory intervention into remote indigenous communities.

They were "stigmatising and disempowering an already marginalised people", she said.

Ms Khan visited Aboriginal homeland communities in central Australia before addressing the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.

The poverty she saw northeast of Alice Springs reminded her of a third world country, she said in a statement.

"That indigenous peoples experience human rights violations on a continent of such privilege is not merely disheartening, it is morally outrageous," she said.

"The moral imperative to eradicate such poverty is no less an imperative on government than to eliminate torture."

Ms Khan, the first woman, first Asian and first Muslim to head the world's largest human rights organisation, also blasted federal Labor for continuing the former Howard government's interventionist policies.

She was particularly scathing of the compulsory quarantining of welfare payments and suggested there was a "real risk" Labor could squander an opportunity to change direction.

"The blunt force of the intervention's heavy-handed one-size-fits-all approach cannot deliver the desired results," Ms Khan said.

"The government will not secure the long-term protection of women and children unless there is an integrated human rights solution that empowers peoples and engages them to take responsibility for the solutions."

The Racial Discrimination Act was suspended in the Northern Territory to allow the intervention's more controversial measures to be introduced.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin has vowed to reinstate the act and will introduce the relevant legislation into federal parliament within days.

But Ms Khan warned Labor needed to do so "in line with Australia's international obligations not to discriminate against indigenous peoples".

Poverty cause of war according to Afghanistan's residents

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:50:00 +0000

Further proof that the fight in Afghanistan should not be waged by soldiers but by humanitarians and social businesspeople comes from Oxfam today. While people in the West believe the cause of the war in Afghanistan is the Taliban, a survey shows that most of Afghanistan's residents believe that poverty is it's cause.

From Reuters, writer Jonathon Burch details the survey from Oxfam.

After three decades of war, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world. It is also one of the most corrupt. Unemployment stands at 40 percent and more than half the country live below the poverty line.

On top of that, violence is at its highest levels since U.S.-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001.

The report, based on a survey of more than 700 ordinary Afghans by British charity Oxfam and several local aid groups, found that 70 percent of people questioned viewed poverty and unemployment as the main drivers of the conflict.

Nearly half of those surveyed said corruption and the ineffectiveness of their government were the main reasons for the continued fighting, while 36 percent said the Taliban insurgency was to blame.

The 704 respondents from around the country were allowed to give multiple answers on reasons for the conflict.
...

There are some 110,000 foreign soldiers in Afghanistan, 68,000 of them American, trying to quell a strengthening Taliban insurgency that has spread to previously peaceful areas.

U.S. President Barack Obama is in the final stages of deciding whether to send up to 40,000 more U.S. troops.

But ordinary Afghans are frustrated at the slow pace of development, endemic corruption and the inability of Afghan and international security forces to stop the violence.

Instead, one of the poorest nations in the world will soon see more American soldiers coming into the country. So our question is, how do soldiers fight poverty? Most likely by killing those who live in it.

New survey on child exploitation in the UK

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:43:00 +0000

A UK children's charity has conducted a study that says there needs to give more help given to sexually exploited children. But the results were not all bad, the charity Barnado's is encouraged by the steps that are beginning to be made in fighting the problem.

The survey also finds that the criminals who exploit and traffic children are becoming more sophisticated in their efforts.

From the UK's Huddersfield Examiner, writer Nick Lavigueur gives us the survey for us.

Based on a survey of Barnardo’s 21 specialist sexual exploitation services, the report revealed around 80% of local authorities did not have any specialist work for sexually exploited children and young people.

The report also revealed more than 1,000 children had been referred to Barnardo’s after being sexually exploited over the course of last year (2007/8).

Barnados also revealed that of the 609 sexually exploited children and young people they are currently working with, 90 appear to have been trafficked within the UK – approximately one in six.

Recent research carried out in Yorkshire also identified children as young as 11 and 12 were being sexually exploited.

Barnardo’s Chief Executive Martin Narey said: “We don’t know the true extent of this problem, but we do know, however hidden from the public eye it might be, it affects many thousands of children.

Rich Nation vs Poor Nation again at Food Summit

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:35:00 +0000

Again the fight between wealthy and poor nations is seen at an international summit. The battle is taking center stage again this week at the UN's World Food Summit taking place in Rome.

Poor nations attending the summit are criticizing agricultural practices of the rich nations. While the rich nations are fighting any concrete deadlines or new funding levels for hunger.

From this story on the summit that we found at the New York Times, writer Neil MacFarquhar describes the battle.

In the hard-fought negotiations over a draft declaration from the three-day talks, richer nations succeeded in removing a goal to end world hunger by 2025 and declined to commit to increasing agricultural aid to nearly 20 percent of all international development aid, where it peaked in 1980 before gradually falling.

Instead, the draft declaration restated the United Nations target of halving world hunger by 2015 and said that eradicating hunger should come “at the earliest possible date.” Diplomats from wealthier countries argued that creating a deadline for eradicating hunger was unrealistic, according to officials involved in the negotiations. The United Nations estimates that the number of people facing hunger around the world rose to more than one billion this year.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations had hoped the meeting would set an agriculture aid target of $44 billion annually toward helping farmers in poorer countries. To meet demand by 2050, agriculture output needs to grow by 70 percent, the organization said.

The draft declaration instead commits to “substantially increase” agriculture aid. Leaders of industrialized nations meeting in Italy last July agreed to spend more than $22 billion on agriculture aid over the next three years, but not all of that constitutes new aid, and the nations have been slow to figure out how it might be distributed.

The Rome conference was prompted by a sharp rise in the price of basic commodities like rice and wheat that incited food riots in many countries in 2008, a crisis that Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, warned could easily be repeated.

The pope decried the “greed which causes speculation to rear its head even in the marketing of cereals, as if food were to be treated just like any other commodity.” Rising demand, weather and supply shocks, and not speculation alone, are considered to be at the root of the food crisis.

Hunger protests planned in Pakistan

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:49:00 +0000

Protest are planned throughout Pakistan this weekend give voice to rampant food insecurity in the country. 60 million Pakistanis struggle to put food on the table. Global Call to Action Against Poverty will organize the rallies.

A government subsidy program to provide low cost bread to people has many concerns over corruption. The massive subsidies continue even while the government faces bankruptcy. To help avoid a collapse, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have promised aid to Pakistan.

For more on the suspect subsidy program, we go to this IPS article written by Zofeen Ebrahim.

Even an initiative such as ‘sasti roti’ (cheap unleavened bread) being provided by the provincial government of Punjab is suspect. Questions are being asked about its sustainability on the one hand and, on the other, why it cannot be extended to provinces like Sindh.

Haris Gazdar, a Karachi-based economist, said: "We must know who is paying for it. Is it the government, farmers through lower procurement rate or other provinces through forced up market prices due to reduced supply from (largely farming) Punjab?"

"It is coming out from our own (provincial) budget. We are slashing down our non-developmental budget and the administrative expenditure significantly," said Sajjad Ahmed Bhutta, district coordination officer in Lahore, capital of the Punjab.

"Out of 5,000 tandoors (clay ovens) in Lahore, 3,200 are registered with the government’s scheme to sell the rotis at fixed rates,’’ said Bahadur Khan, president of the Nanbai (leavened bread-makers) Association of Lahore. The scheme has also been introduced in other big cities of the province including Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, Muzaffargarh, Sargodha, Liah, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bhakkar and a few others.

For its part the government is providing these tandoor shops with flour at a subsidised rate of Rs 250 (three US dollars) per kg when the same is selling in retail shops at Rs 333 (four dollars) per kg.

"But this solution can't go on indefinitely without fixing the local production problem which is in the hands of big feudals," said Najma Sadeque, a senior journalist and development expert. "It also means there was no major physical wheat shortage in the first place.’’

Many believe that it was the food crisis more than terrorism or anything else that proved to be former president Pervez Musharraf’s undoing at the February elections where irate voters trounced the party that backed him.

Musharraf appeared aware of the brewing crisis and, during the last two years of his nearly nine years in power, resorted to dishing out massive subsidies on wheat and other staples that economists say the country is still paying for.

Musharraf’s successor, President Asif Ali Zardari, is now trying his best to convince Pakistanis that his government is capable of steering the country out of the mess - mainly by seeking a bailout worth 10 billion dollars and stave off bankruptcy.

UK aid money to Nigeria sees sharp increase in a decade

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:17:00 +0000

The UK's assistance to Nigeria has skyrocketed in the past 10 years. Starting at 15 million pounds in 1999, it is now at 120 million in 2009. The figures are according to the Department for International Development.

From the Daily Champion story that we found at All Africa, we read more about the funding levels.

It said the aid would rise to 140 million pounds in 2010, adding that the gesture was in recognition of Nigeria's poverty reduction challenge and reform efforts.

It said the DFID was delighted to be participating in the launch of a joint country partnership strategy with other agencies as it would ensure that international assistance was focused on the right priorities.

It stated that the initiative would also allow development partners to co-ordinate more effectively with the National Planning Commission to avoid duplication of efforts and increase the impact of the assistance.

The assistance, the statement said, would ensure that Nigeria utilised its own resources more efficiently and effectively to achieve the MDGs.

New health alliance to fight the "other" diseases

noreply@blogger.com (Kale) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:13:00 +0000

A new alliance has gathered to fight non-communicable disease in the under-developed world. This new health alliance includes organizations from the US, India and China. Health issues such as tobacco use, and pollution kill 11.5 million people per year.

From this AFP article that we found at Google News, we read more about the new alliance and what it plans to combat.

The Global Alliance for Chronic Disease, which brings together institutions managing an estimated 80 percent of all public health research funding worldwide, announced its first targets for action in a statement this week.

The alliance said it would seek to reduce hypertension, tobacco use and the indoor pollution caused by the types of cooking stoves used in many developing countries.

The group, founded last year by organizations from the United States, China, India, Canada, Britain and Australia, said the three priorities were chosen because they contribute to one in five deaths worldwide each year.

The targets were selected during the organization's inaugural scientific summit, held in November in New Delhi, India.

According to the World Health Organization, which belongs to the group's board, chronic non-communicable diseases (CNCDs) were responsible for some 60 percent of the 58 million deaths worldwide recorded in 2006.

The number of deaths caused by CNCDs is twice the combined total of deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, maternal and peri-natal conditions and nutritional deficiencies, according to the alliance.

"The health impact and socio-economic cost of CNCDs is enormous and rising, upending efforts to combat poverty," the group said in a statement.