CAIRO — The Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and the World Bank launched a new app, Tamweely, to support entrepreneurship in Egypt. It connects start-ups to financiers and provides them with educational tools. Boosting entrepreneurship in Egypt could be crucial for the country’s economy. Egypt is demographically dominated by young people, but its youth unemployment was at an astounding 30 percent in 2016. Dina Sherif, co-founder of the social enterprise Ahead of the Curve and fellow at the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force, sees entrepreneurship as a way to boost employment opportunities and reduce inequity in Egypt.…
Author: Lena Riebl
Lena Riebl
Lena is from Leipzig, Germany, and is currently an exchange student at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. Her academic interests include American Studies, history and international politics. Lena is a soup enthusiast: if she could only eat one food for the rest of her life, it would be potato soup!
MADRID — Almost a decade after the housing bubble burst in Spain in 2008, the country’s GDP continues to grow in 2017 for the third year in succession, and unemployment rates are dropping. Although economic recovery in Spain seems to be under way, various challenges remain. A Boom, then a Burst After Spain adopted the euro in 1999, the country’s economy experienced a boom. Cheap loans helped finance large numbers of construction projects. Housing prices rose by 44 percent between 2004 and 2008, until the bubble burst and Spain was hit hard by the recession. The economy contracted in the…
NEW DELHI — Educational opportunities and literacy rates among girls are on the rise in India. For most rural elderly women, these changes are coming too late. However, in the grandmothers’ school in Fangane, Maharashtra, elderly women are given a second chance at acquiring literacy. A Priority: Female Education In recent years, the Indian government has taken steps to enhance female education. In 2009, the Right to Education Act was signed into law, granting free and compulsory primary education to every child in the country regardless of factors such as class and sex. In 2013 and 2014, 48 percent of…
ANKARA — Due to the closure of several countries’ borders and the implementation of the EU-Turkey refugee deal in 2016, nearly 75,000 people are stranded in southeast Europe at the moment. UNICEF warns that the insecurity they have to endure in camps can heighten psychosocial distress and constitutes a risk for refugees’ mental health. Many refugees’ mental health is already burdened by traumatic experiences in their war-torn home countries or during their migration, including physical, psychological and sexual violence. A study published by the German Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists in 2015 found that of refugees living in Germany, between 40…
SEATTLE — The Start Network, consisting of 42 aid agencies from five continents, seeks to challenge and improve the prevailing global system of humanitarian aid. Currently, the network is developing a project modeled to advance drought response. When drought hits a region, the devastating effects are felt gradually. It can take months until crop failures and dying livestock result in famine for rural populations. Families’ assets erode slowly as they react to the crises by selling their livestock and pulling children from school. According to the Start Network, this can lead to a “spiral of destitution and malnutrition” and can…
HARARE, Zimbabwe — With 21 percent of the population living at $1.90 per day and more than 72 percent below the relative poverty line according to 2011 World Bank data, Zimbabwe is one of the poorest countries in the world. In large parts of the country, poverty in Zimbabwe can be accredited to the failing economic policies under the authoritarian government of President Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has been in power for more than three decades since Zimbabwe gained its independence in 1980. In the late 1990s, the first of a long streak of poor economic policy decisions were made, giving…
SEATTLE — On May 23, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was elected as the new World Health Organization (WHO) director-general by the organization’s member states. He will succeed Margaret Chan in the position on July 1 and will be faced with the challenge of reforming the organization that has been underfunded and severely criticized in recent years. The slow and ineffective response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014 elicited sharp criticism of the United Nations agency. It took months for the WHO to declare a public health emergency — “precious months,” according to Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard…
ABUJA, Nigeria — According to the World Health Organization (WHO), female genital mutilation, or FGM, is a collective term that includes many different procedures that purposefully injure or alter female genitalia for non-medical reasons. There are a variety of practices performed on girls, ranging from removing the clitoris and/or the labia to narrowing the vaginal orifice. The most commonly practiced form of genital mutilation in Nigeria is the removal of flesh. There are no health benefits associated with FGM, but great risks to the mental and physical health of the girls affected. The WHO lists a number of complications associated…
SEATTLE — In the past quarter-century, the percentage of the Togolese population with access to safer water sources has been steadily increasing from less than 50 percent in 1990 to 63.1 percent in 2015. Despite this improvement, water quality in Togo is still relatively poor. A large number of people in the West African country remain unable to obtain water safe for consumption. Particularly in rural areas, the population suffers from health complications due to a lack of access to clean drinking water sources and sanitation. The national government, as well as numerous international actors, are working to improve the…
ABUJA, Nigeria — In 2012, Connected Development (CODE) launched its initiative Follow the Money to fight corruption in Nigeria by tracking government and foreign aid spending in rural communities. The grassroots organization collects information from their network of citizens and publicizes its findings in order to advance transparency and accountability. Corruption has encumbered the West African country for decades. In the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of 2016, measuring how much corruption in the public sector is perceived by the public, Nigeria was ranked 136 of 176 countries. Corruption affects Nigerian society in various ways. The amount of money invested in…