By Swagato Ganguly

Bill Gates believes India is winning the fight against poverty. In an interview with Swagato Ganguly, Gates, co-chair and trustee, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, explained points from his annual newsetter, including why the eternal poverty of poor nations is a ‘harmful’ myth, how there’ll be almost no poor countries by 2035 — and huge milestones for India:

How do you see poverty reduction in India?

The proportion of poor in India fluctuated widely in the past, but overall the trend is downward. The government and its partners across sectors have done a great job with a number of programmes aimed at alleviating poverty and its impacts, including subsidising food and other necessities, increased access to loans, improving agricultural techniques and price supports, and promoting education and skill development. Continue Reading

By S. Harpal Singh

When it comes into being, it appears the Telangana State will have to accord a top priority to the land issues, going by the opinions of respondents of a study currently being conducted by the Landesa, an international NGO working in the field.

The necessity to give importance to land reforms stems from the surprising finding that there is a lack of knowledge on the laws or procedures pertaining to the issue not only within the communities at large but even among the Revenue officials. Continue Reading

By Deborah DiSanzo

One expert explains that, to face the future, the health care industry must do more than simply update the hospitals of the present.

To envision and build tomorrow’s hospital, one thing is clear: We’ll only get so far by re-engineering the hospital of the present. The hospital of the future will not be a hospital at all. Instead, it will be an inventive health delivery network that will require all of us — industry, clinicians, caregivers, families, and patients — to coordinate efforts in new ways, so we work together more efficiently to serve more people, with better outcomes at lower costs and higher quality standards. We must break with traditional models and norms and challenge ourselves about how and where care is offered. We need to cooperate through arrangements like private-public-government partnerships that make powerful and meaningful associations among all people, technology, services, situations and costs involved in health delivery. Continue Reading

By Jamie Joseph

Philanthropy is now on the scale the likes of which the world has never seen.

Community/Politics: Helping the most vulnerable through philanthropic efforts has become incredibly advanced in the last decade, with the tools of technology, the power or human connection, systems and collaboration proving that the smartest person in the room is the collective.

Two prime examples of strategic philanthropy, with a focus on alleviating the suffering of the poorest, are the world’s wealthiest private foundation with an endowment of nearly US$40 billion, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the foundation that recently celebrated its centennial year, started by one of the founding fathers of philanthropy, Rockefeller.

Both foundations have successfully broken down the barriers between the private and the social sector, filling niches governments could not or would not address. Both have played a leading role in addressing international health concerns, infectious disease control and eradication, and both foundations have dealt with a healthy dose of controversy. Continue Reading

By Anna Kramer

Oxfam invited typhoon survivors to share their self-portraits. The results aren’t what you’d expect.

Be honest: raise your hand if you haven’t taken a selfie sometime in the past year.

Hand still down? Okay, that’s what I thought.

Hey, there’s no shame in it. From world leaders to astronauts to reclusive electronic musicians, we’ve increasingly made selfies part of our shared global vocabulary. (I confess I’ve taken one or two of them myself.) Whether you find it narcissistic or empowering, a selfie is an affirmation of identity, presence, and connectedness: an avatar of yourself in a given moment, shared with the world. Unlike a portrait taken by someone else, it’s an autonomous statement, a way of saying “I’m here.”

That’s why I was so intrigued by a series of recent photos from the Philippines. Oxfam’s team invited people living in Tacloban, one of the areas hit hardest by Typhoon Haiyan, to take selfies and share the messages they’d like to send to the global community. Continue Reading

By Simon Walker

TWO years ago, North Lambton resident Gloria Buttsworth had a visit from her friend, Lois Ford, who runs a children’s home, Tender Trust, in Kitgum in far-northern Uganda.

The two got talking about the girls in the home and in particular their hygiene needs.

The sad fact is that most cannot afford sanitary products, and this deficiency creates a vicious cycle of impoverishment.

“When the girls have their period, they simply don’t go to school,” Gloria explained.

“They then get behind and then stop going to school altogether.”

“And then, if they don’t go to school, they are considered eligible for marriage and so they get pregnant.”

The question occurred to Gloria: “What can I do?”

Continue Reading

The Sierra Leone Book Trust (SALBOT) donated thousands of copies of books to the Sierra Leone Library Board at a ceremony held at the Library Room, Rokel Street on Wednesday 5^th February, 2014.

In his remarks, the Acting Executive Director of (SALBOT), Dr. Alphaous T. Koroma, emphasized that books are a ladder of the progress of human beings as education is a key to development and contributes to the President’s “Agenda for Prosperity”.  He informed all that the over 6,000 books cover History, Mathematics, Literature, Computer Sciences, Philosophy, Politics and several subjects relevant to schools and tertiary institutions.

Dr. Alphaous T. Koroma said that SALBOT has been distributing books to the Sierra Leone Library Board and other institutions of learning for more than twelve years.  He said since the inception of the book trust in 2002, they have embarked in several book donation projects and thanked its partners the Saber Foundation, Book for Africa, CODE in Canada, School for Salone, Books without Borders, and Book for Africa. Continue Reading

By Doree Armstrong

The University of Washington this year tied for second among large universities – schools with more than 15,000 undergraduates – in the number of Peace Corps volunteers, with 85 undergraduate alumni currently serving around the world.

The UW also tied for second in the number of graduate alumni volunteers, with 20.

Elsewhere in the state, Western Washington University in Bellingham ranked first for medium-sized schools with 65 undergraduate alumni volunteers. Gonzaga University in Spokane ranked first for small-sized schools with 22.

“Coming from UW, Peace Corps was never a ‘crazy idea’ because there are so many alumni who join Peace Corps, either right after graduation or later in life,” said UW alumna Molly McDonald, an English education volunteer in Moldova. “I felt that the culture at UW, especially in the Jackson School of International Studies, prepared and encouraged me to take what I had learned and use it to explore the world.” Continue Reading

The U.S. Fund for UNICEF announced today that its Bridge Fund has received a first-of-its-kind commitment from Mariner Investment Group, the global asset manager, to donate five percent of the management fee it generates from its management of two newly launched impact investment vehicles. The UNICEF Bridge Fund is an innovative financial tool designed to expedite lifesaving supplies to children in places affected by natural disasters and humanitarian crises such as the Philippines.

Mariner Investment Group will join other individuals, foundations, and corporate investors who together have contributed $19 million in grants and loans to-date to the UNICEF Bridge Fund. Current institutional investors include founding investor Prudential Financial, Athena Capital Advisors, Imprint Capital, and Embrey Family Foundation. Investors fund net worth grants, below-market-rate loans, and program-related investments, creating a pool of cash that enables UNICEF to deliver essential goods to children in need as quickly as possible.

Created by the U.S. Fund for UNICEF in 2011, the Bridge Fund provides UNICEF with a flexible mechanism to reduce or eliminate gaps between the moment a critical need for supplies is identified and when funding becomes available. This rapidly available funding can also help secure better pricing for materials and reduce shipping costs, freeing up more money to spend on vital commodities. Continue Reading

By Jeremy Barnicle

Editor’s note: Jeremy Barnicle is chief development and communications officer at aid organization Mercy Corps. He has just visited Lebanon, where he met with a number of Syrian refugee families. Follow @JeremyBarnicle on Twitter. The views expressed in this commentary are solely his.

Beirut, Lebanon (CNN) — Syria needs lots of things right now. One of them is George Clooney.

Let me explain. As the Geneva II talks this week made clear, there is no end in sight for the bloody three-year war in Syria. In the meantime, more than 100,000 people have been killed, the country is destroyed, and millions of Syrians have fled their homes, half of them children.

This is the defining war and humanitarian crisis of this decade, which was underscored by my visit to Syrian refugees here this week. Continue Reading