poverty

July 29, 2011

Poor Indonesian families spend more on cigarettes

Via the Singapore Straits Times. While we are winning the war against smoking in the West, the tobacco companies have moved abroad. Poor households in Indonesia spend 19% of their income on staple foods, 11% on tobacco, 2% on education, and 3% on health care. See also “Losing out at home, Big Tobacco heads abroad,” in Global Post, November 2010.

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May 24, 2010

Case Study: Development Swarm in Kibera

http://bit.ly/9wcZyX – from Kenya, a development swarm “Inspired by Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Acumen Fund” – in Kibera. What do you think of this case study?

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May 14, 2010

India’s Vision 2030

http://bit.ly/9frmto – “Do or die” – many stats on the need for India to build infrastructure to keep pace with urbanization. Failure to do so could have catastrophic consequences.

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April 1, 2010

Afghanistan: poverty, corruption

A UN report says two-thirds of Afghans live in dire poverty despite $35 billion in aid since 2002.

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March 24, 2010

Slums in crisis

A new paper by the Humanitarian Futures Programme, Urban Catastrophes, explores how a lack of clean water and sanitation in burgeoning slums could trigger a complex series of humanitarian crises.

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March 22, 2010

Childbirth: a deadly task in some places

1 in 8 Afghan women die in childbirth: yet 80% of these deaths are preventable. Rural communities lack to most basic health facilities. Christian missions once built hospitals all over Africa and Asia. We need a simple, easily created health clinic. Yet even how to sustain this is a challenge. In MSNBC.

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March 22, 2010

Poverty tourism?

On the success of the film ‘Slumdog Millionaire,’ India tour agents are bringing more and more Westerners for sight-seeing rides through Mumbai’s stench-filled slums. In Christian Science Monitor.

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March 21, 2010

Declines in poverty

The United Nations reports 227 million people escaped a life in the slums over the past 10 years. In BBC News.

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