This week, April 24-30, is World Immunization Week. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the theme for this year to be “Closing the Immunization Gap – Immunization for All Throughout Life”, underlining the achievement made in immunization coverage to date, while ensuring global vaccination is met by 2020. Although vaccines save over 2 million children
Venezuela’s economic crisis is not new news. Food and drug shortages as well as other basic daily goods have become part of reality for the Venezuelan population. The crisis, however, is not contained or limited to consumer goods. The country is out of electricity. Guri hydroelectric dam, which provides 75 percent of Venezuela’s electricity,
Despite being the continent where coffee originated, Africa’s coffee industry has suffered many blows over the past few decades. Instability in certain countries has drastically decreased coffee production in volatile regions, overproduction has led to nutrient depleted soil ., and a drastic increase of coffee producers entering the market worldwide has significantly lowered the price
International NGOs are increasingly feeling pressure from a changing international system. Recurring economic recessions in the developed countries, the rise of the private sector as a serious development actor, technological revolutions, and a steady build-up of infrastructure in the global south have transformed the structure within which INGOs work. In addition to this, the
While headlines focus on the US presidential race, terrorism, the refugee crisis and wars across the Middle East, several countries in Southern and Eastern Africa have been experiencing their worst drought in over fifty-years, largely due to weather patterns resulting from last year’s El Niño. Many are experiencing extreme conditions of food scarcity as a
Entrepreneurship has always been argued to be one of the best options for developing countries to boost their development programs and to pursue higher growth and an easier path to an advanced economy. Anzisha Prize, which is sponsored by the MasterCard Foundation and African Leadership Academy, has been created to attract and motivate young
African countries, like most other developing countries, face challenges in their healthcare systems. The major issue in healthcare management falls into the management of public-private sectors and the problem of pricing. Last month, South African Health Minister, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, criticized the healthcare system for being in a “sick situation” by “over-servicing of
Although the technology has been around for over a decade, crowdsourced mapping has been readily utilized on a larger scale for disaster response and in international relief since the Haitian earthquake in 2010. In collaboration with other technologies like drone photography and satellite imaging, cartographers and agencies are able to gather information at unprecedented
In recent years there has been a rising gold rush in Latin America, conducted and managed mostly by criminal organizations in resource-rich countries such as Colombia and Peru. These activities by no means are solely limited to illicit extraction of national treasures in Latin American countries. They also have been usually accompanied by labor
