Category: International Cooperation

Turning Oppression into Opportunity

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Nicholas Kristof likes to take his kids with him when he travels, but they don’t spend a lot of time at ­resorts. In 2008, he took his eldest son, Gregory, then 16, to South Sudan, and they sneaked without visas into two parts of northern Sudan—Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan, where the war is now raging. At 13, his daughter, ­Caroline, complained to him that her friends always went to the Caribbean for vacation. “So we went to the Caribbean—Haiti,” he says with a wry smile. “The cholera clinics.”

The New York Times columnist, and co-author of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, Nicholas Kristof has raised our consciousness about the struggle for gender equality and forced us to look at injustice around the world. Kristof uses his twice-weekly New York Times column as a bully pulpit to advocate against one uncomfortable global injustice or another, from government abuses in the Sudan to the torture of circumcision that mothers ­inflict on their daughters across Africa and parts of Asia.

He has spent the last ten years focusing on the oppression of women. Half the Sky, published in 2009, tells heart-wrenching, grisly stories of female exploitation, sex trafficking, slavery, and death. Not the typical stuff of Oprah’s Book Club, but after Winfrey devoted an entire show to it, sales of the book skyrocketed and it spent more than 60 weeks on the best-seller list. The book inspired the kind of grassroots activism that MoveOn.org would envy: It’s been discussed among prison populations, turned book groups from Connecticut to Oregon into fund-raisers for women’s organizations, and inspired a documentary series by the same name that will air on PBS in October.

Today, Kristof continues to make us think about the world’s unsung victims and heroes. “We in the news business don’t cover reproductive health, sex trafficking, and maternal mortality very well,” says Kristof, who has made it his job to change that record.

“People always ask me, ‘Do you get depressed when reporting on poverty and global conflicts?’ …I go back because it is hard to deal with.”

Grantmaking to Latin America

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While the nonprofit sector in Latin America is among the smallest in the world, these nations are on the cusp of significant philanthropic transformation. This is due, in part, to a rising middle class, technology connecting more citizens and increasing corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Concerning grantmaking in Latin America and the Caribbean: Findings show that Canadian and European foundations favor funding programs in Central American and Andean countries, while Caribbean foundations almost exclusively fund within their own region. U.S. foundations favor Mexico and Brazil, although grants are made extensively across the region.

Nearly two-thirds (64.2 percent) of all grant dollars went to two countries—Mexico and Brazil. Four other countries—Peru, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile—comprised the next 22 percent. The remaining 13.8 percent was distributed among the other 39 countries of the region.

Net US migration from Mexico dips to zero

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Mexico has directed more immigrants to the United States over the past four decades than any other nation.

In fact, the United States’ Mexican immigrants represent the largest chunk of immigrants in any country in the world.

But now Mexican migration into the States has come to a standstill and may soon reverse, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center. This marks a dramatic change in the wave of Mexican migration that brought 12 million people to America over four decades.

Between 2005 and 2010, about 1.4 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States, which is roughly the same number of Mexicans who left over the same period.

The report attributes the drop to the drastic decline in birthrates in Mexico, the increasingly dangerous passage across the border, and the flagging American economy.

Revolutionary toilets to provide safe sanitation

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A toilet that uses little or no water is expected to improve sanitation in the developing world. Last year the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, named after the Microsoft co-founder and his wife, gave grants to eight universities around the world to help create a hygienic toilet that is safe and affordable and can transform waste into energy.

About 2.6 billion people – or 40 per cent of world’s population mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia – lack access to safe sanitation and are forced to defecate in the open.

Open defecation leads to sanitation problems that cause 1.5 million children under five to die each year.

The winner of the Reinvent the Toilet fair was a team from the California Institute of Technology. Professor Michael Hoffman’s design toilet is solar powered, generating hydrogen gas and electricity [EPA]

The designs needed to operate at a cost of no more than five cents a day and would ideally capture energy or other resources.

Other designs submitted included a lavatory that used microwave energy to turn human waste into electricity. Another turned excrement into charcoal, while a third used urine for flushing.

The Toilet Revolution is coming

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This week, engineers, philanthropists, media and more from around the world will gather at the the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle for the “Reinvent the Toilet Fair,” a $3 million project funded in grants by the Foundation that will showcase revolutionary new toilets that don’t need water, electricity or even a connection to a sewage system.

The goal of the project is to help improve the lives of the 2.6 billion people in the third world who do not have access to a toilet.

Lack of access to proper sewage can expose people to deadly diseases, and as Bill Gates notes on his blog, “we need new ideas to help reduce disease and find new ways to turn crap into valuable stuff, like fuel, fertilizer, and fresh water.”

Leaving Hollywood for Cambodia’s garbage dumps

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Scott Neeson’s final epiphany came one day in June 2004. The high-powered Hollywood executive stood, ankle deep in trash, at the sprawling landfill of Stung Meanchey, a poor shantytown in Cambodia’s capital.

In a haze of toxic fumes and burning waste, swarms of Phnom Penh’s most destitute were rooting through refuse, jostling for scraps of recyclables in newly dumped loads of rubbish. They earned 4,000 riel ($1) a day—if they were lucky. Many of the garbage sorters were young children. Covered in filthy rags, they were scruffy, sickly, and sad.

Clasped to Mr. Neeson’s ear was his cellphone. Calling the movie mogul from a US airport, a Hollywood superstar’s agent was complaining bitterly about inadequate in-flight entertainment on a private jet that Sony Pictures Entertainment, where Neeson was head of overseas theatrical releases, had provided for his client.

Neeson overheard the actor griping in the background. ” ‘My life wasn’t meant to be this difficult.’ Those were his exact words,” Neeson says. “I was standing there in that humid, stinking garbage dump with children sick with typhoid, and this guy was refusing to get on a Gulfstream IV because he couldn’t find a specific item onboard,” he recalls. “If I ever wanted validation I was doing the right thing, this was it.”

Doing the right thing meant turning his back on a successful career in the movie business, with his $1 million salary. Instead, he would dedicate himself full time to a new mission: to save hundreds of the poorest children in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Much to everyone’s surprise, within months the Australian native, who as president of 20th Century Fox International had overseen the global success of block-busters like “Titanic,” “Braveheart,” and “Die Another Day,” quit Hollywood. He sold his mansion in Los Angeles and held a garage sale for “all the useless stuff I owned.” He sold off his Porsche and yacht, too.

His sole focus would now be his charity which he had set up the previous year after coming face to face, while on vacation in Cambodia, with children living at the garbage dump.  [Read full CS Monitor article]

 Further reading     Further reading

 

Move from success to significance

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When a Silicon Valley firm goes public, it can result in scores of employees instantly becoming millionaires. But what happens then? Following is an excerpt of a San Francisco Chronicle op ed written by Kerry Olson and Dave Katz, co-founders of the Firelight Foundation:

Wealthy folks will eventually have to ask themselves an important question: What should I do with this money?

As a couple who was fortunate enough to face that question when we benefited from Juniper Networks’ IPO more than a decade ago, we would urge [IPO firm] employees to consider devoting a share of their newfound wealth to philanthropy.

They are well suited to charitable giving, but not just because they have money. They’ve proved that they rapidly can build a successful, innovative organization from scratch – as well as identify needs within a community and then meet them. Skills like these are crucial to solving the difficult social, scientific and political problems plaguing our world today.

Previously unimaginable lifestyles will be within reach – but so will the ability to help people and causes in life-changing ways. And while it may be tempting to take care of all the friends and family who come calling, an ad hoc approach to charity can grow overwhelming – and lead to well-intentioned but counterproductive giving.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provides an instructive model. The Gates foundation’s investments in vaccinations and antibiotics have saved millions of lives and generated billions in economic activity in Africa. Such willingness to try new approaches to solving social problems – and to evaluate candidly whether they’re working – comes directly out of the culture of entrepreneurship embodied by [many] Silicon Valley firms.

 

The philanthropic force of connected giving

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As governments around the world pull back, the philanthropic sector will be a critical force in meeting global needs. In what is called the “Giving Pledge”, 81 billionaires have committed to give more than half of their wealth to charitable organizations.  This level of philanthropy, over $37 billion by Warren Buffett alone, is historically unprecedented.

Warren Buffett most lasting contribution will not be his money; rather that he has successfully leveraged his social network and the media to inspire other billionaires to give extraordinary wealth for charitable good.  He is reshaping the way the rich think about money and giving.

And in the same way Warren Buffett has used media to get other billionaires to pledge their fortune to charity, people all over the world have used social media to raise money and inspire their network to join them in giving.

Indeed, according to Blackbaud, people are 200 times more likely to donate to a cause if their friends ask them to support a charity, in comparison to receiving an e-mail solicitation from the organization.  This is part of a distinct cultural shift – you no longer have to be a professional to be a fundraiser.

With the rise in connected giving will come the use of social data for fundraising.  Seventy percent of Millennials ages 20-35 report they prefer to give online, making online giving as the #1 preferred method of giving.

The IDC, a technology research firm, estimates that the total amount of data doubles every two years.  Social media data is a major part of this growth.  Marketers are interested in the “social network value” of a customer– how one person’s purchase influences others to buy a product.  Similarly, nonprofits are becoming aware how a donation can have a ripple effect in the donor’s network.

–Matt Bishop, founder and CEO of iGiveMore

 

 

Humanitarian aid plus covert aid to Syria

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The United States has announced it is sending an additional $12 million in humanitarian aid to Syria, warning of a “dire and rapidly deteriorating” situation inside the country.

Citing U.N. estimates, the White House said up to 1.5 million Syrians are in need of aid, including more than 130,000 who have fled the country amid the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

“With these additional funds, the United States is now providing over $76 million in assistance for food, water, medical supplies, clothing, hygiene kits, and other humanitarian relief to those most urgently in need,” the White House said.

The move comes a day after U.S. officials told CNN that President Barack Obama had signed a directive authorizing covert, supposed non-lethal U.S. support for Syrian rebel fighters by the CIA and other agencies. It was unclear exactly what the secret order, referred to as an intelligence “finding,” authorized and when it was signed, but the sources said it was within the past several months.

Food production for developing nations

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The Obama administration drafted some of the world’s largest food and finance companies to invest more than $3 billion in projects aimed at helping the world’s poorest farmers grow enough food to not only feed themselves and their families but to earn a livelihood as well.

President Obama and the leaders of four African countries introduced the group of 45 companies, the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, at the last summit meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations. The alliance includes well-known multinational giants like Monsanto, Diageo and Swiss Re as well as little-known businesses like Mullege, an Ethiopian coffee exporter.

The U.S. administration also reported on the progress of what is known as the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative, the largest international effort in decades to combat hunger by investing in the fundamentals of agriculture, including seeds, fertilizer, grain storage, roads and infrastructure. The initiative, first agreed upon by the Group of 8 leaders at their meeting in L’Aquila, Italy, in 2009, was a pledge to put $22 billion into food and agriculture projects. Although much of the money had previously been earmarked for agriculture projects, about $6 billion was new. Apparently most all of the $22 billion is budgeted and appropriated, and over half of this disbursed.