Author: Madeline Distasio

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — Although we often think of equal education as being symptomatic of access to basic human rights, evidence suggests that access to education actually fosters equality. If schooling is used as a tool against injustice, education and women’s rights become indelibly tied to create a strong line of defense against oppression. According to UNICEF’s 2013 report on girls’ education, approximately 31 million girls of primary school age were not in school that year, as compared to 27 million boys. Seventeen million of those girls were never expected to enroll. Even if they did enroll, many female students were…

SEATTLE — In September, the U.N. held a summit to address the growing migrant crisis. Over the course of the meeting, world leaders from the Member States discussed core issues exacerbating the problem. One of those issues was xenophobia. Xenophobic rhetoric contributes to global distrust of refugees. Fear and distrust then keep millions of people fleeing persecution from finding safety abroad. Although the U.N.’s global efforts are powerful and important, localization could be the key to overcoming xenophobia. The Summit The goal of the U.N. Summit on Refugees and Migrants was to create a sense of harmony among the Member…

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Building on the Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act, Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) has presented a new foreign aid bill on the Senate floor. The bill, S.3210, was introduced on July 14, 2016. It proposes the adoption of a tier system to evaluate corruption in countries that receive aid from the United States. The hope is that implementation of this new foreign aid bill, currently called the Combating Global Corruption and Ensuring Accountability Act, will help the State Department, USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) better assess corruption in recipient nations. A key objective of the…

SEATTLE — Since the release of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the world’s collective gaze has fallen on global education. Creating equal access to quality education for children worldwide is of the utmost importance, and particular attention has been paid to African nations in recent years. One such nation is Burkina Faso. In the West African country with a total population of 18,727,766, approximately 49.7 percent are men and 50.3 percent are women. Among them, 45.8 percent are under the age of 18. The state of education in Burkina Faso is a point of national and international contention since…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Representatives from national libraries around the world convened at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) World Library and Information Congress in Columbus, Ohio, on August 5, 2016. The gathering focused on outlining the ways in which library programs are implementing Sustainable Development Goals put forth by the U.N. as part of its 2030 Agenda. According to IFLA, the relationship between libraries and Sustainable Development Goals stems from the unique position libraries hold in the information sector. Because public libraries afford people in both developed and developing nations access to vital information, they often serve…

SEATTLE — The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) predicts that sub-Saharan Africa will be home to 90 percent of all children living in poverty and 43 percent of all impoverished people worldwide by 2030. As stated in its report, “The emerging face of residual world poverty is the face of an African child.” That being said, ODI’s new study puts forth solutions to what could become a developmental crisis. In order to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, the world’s collective gaze must fall on poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the World Bank, the distribution of extremely impoverished…

SEATTLE — In recent years, distribution of funds from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) has fallen under scrutiny for sending money to wealthier nations while largely neglecting the world’s poor. After taking a closer look at the OPIC spending report, Jared Kalow and Ben Leo of the Center for Global Development (CGD) noticed alarming investment patterns between 2002 and 2014. Upon release of OPIC’s 2015 report, however, the pair discovered that investment in low-income nations rose significantly last year. The trend is both necessary and encouraging. This increase in funding to low-income and lower-middle-income countries comes after a period…

ACCRA, Ghana — As part of an ongoing initiative between USAID, Malnutrition Matters and the Savanna Agricultural Research Institute (SARI), soy milk provisions distributed to struggling Ghanaian communities are filling nutrition gaps. With the introduction of SoyCow machines, one small bean can keep children in school and turn everyday people into entrepreneurs. The Problem of Malnutrition In a nation where approximately one-third of all child deaths can be attributed to lack of nourishment, malnutrition in Ghana has reached critical mass. Matters of food insecurity and chronic malnutrition are made all the more pressing by the fact that 36.5 percent of…

ASMARA, Eritrea — Due to the involvement of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), education in Eritrea is improving. The GPE’s work with Eritrea has led to marked improvement in enrollment, retention and teacher training that will continue into 2017. Education in Eritrea has struggled in recent years. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), gross enrollment for boys and girls of primary school age in Eritrea decreased steadily between 2005 and 2013, with the most severe drop occurring between 2009 and 2010. The number of children out of school rose from 257,797 in 2006 to 405,054 in 2013. For reference,…