Blog
Contributor Guidelines
Submitting guest blogs is open to Global Washington’s members of the Atlas level and above. We value a diversity of opinions on a broad range of subjects of interest to the global health and development community.
Blog article submissions should be 500-1500 words. Photos, graphs, videos, and other art that supports the main themes are strongly encouraged.
You may not be the best writer, and that’s okay. We can help you shape and edit your contribution. The most important thing is that it furthers an important conversation in your field, and that it is relatively jargon-free. Anyone without a background in global development should still be able to engage with your ideas.
If you include statistics or reference current research, please hyperlink your sources in the text, wherever possible.
Have an idea of what you’d like to write about? Let’s continue the conversation! Email comms@globalWA.org and put “Blog Idea” in the subject line.
Posted on January 15, 2014
By Holly Koch
Nicholas Kristof recently “sat down” with a panel of experts in the field of modern-day slavery for a Google Hangout to discuss the future of the cause. Contributors to the conversation included: Nicholas Kristof (New York Times op-ed columnist, Co-Founder of Half the Sky Movement); Rachel Lloyd (Executive Director of GEMS, author of Girls Like Us); Susan Bissell (Head of Child Protection at UNICEF); Gary Haugen (Founder of International Justice Mission, author of The Locust Effect); and David Batstone (President & Co-Founder of Not for Sale, author of Not for Sale).
Continue Reading
Posted on January 6, 2014
By Katie Wollstein
Nine out of ten people living in rural regions of Africa do not have access to modern energy, according to the UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. Out of 1.3 billion people who do not have access to electricity, more than half live in a Least Developed Country (LDC) and 95 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa or developing areas of Asia. At the fourth UN Conference on LDCs held in 2011, the Istanbul Programme of Action for the decade 2011- 2020 recognized that access and efficient distribution of affordable, reliable, and renewable energy and related technologies are keys to accelerating growth, improving livelihoods, and advancing sustainable development in LDCs (view the full report here). Continue Reading
Posted on December 26, 2013
By Katie Wollstein
The 2013 Least Developed Countries Report was released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on November 20, an annual, comprehensive summary of socio-economic data and analysis on the world’s most impoverished countries. According to the Committee for Development Policy, a subsidiary body of the UN Economic and Social Council, Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are identified using criteria including gross national income per capita, human assets index, economic vulnerability index, and population size (i.e., countries with populations exceeding 75 million are not eligible). In 2011, the CDP defined LCDs as, “Low-income countries suffering from the most severe structural impediments to sustainable development.” For a detailed description of the CDP process for identifying LDCs, see the Handbook on the Least Developed Country Category. Continue Reading