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 October 10, 2013
By Landesa
GlobalWA member, Landesa, fully refreshed a new resource on land and natural resource rights in Africa: Focus on Land in Africa (FOLA). FOLA is an educational resource for development practitioners and policy makers that explores how land and natural resource rights affect, and are effected by, development in Africa. Through raising awareness of these issues, FOLA aims to elevate land and natural resource rights as an urgent priority for development in Africa. The following highlights specific examples of what elevating these rights can mean for people living in rural Africa.
In Rivercress County, Liberia, women are planting life trees—rubber and plantain—that will bring needed income and add value to their farms (Ali Kaba, Talking Land). Just one year ago, such investments seemed impossible. But in the interim, the Liberian government developed a land policy that promises to grant secure land rights to rural people, and, today, change is underway. Continue Reading
Posted on October 8, 2013
Tim Hanstad, Landesa’s President and CEO, recently had a blog post entitled, “What We Can Learn from the Last Case of Polio” published in the Huffington Post on women and girls, land, and the interconnectedness of the global development sector.
To hear more about this topic, register to attend the GlobalWA screening of the film Girl Rising at Intiman Theater on the 17th of November. A Landesa representative will be seated on the panel after the film to answer questions and explore how land rights can help to positively affect women and girls in the developing world.
Posted on October 8, 2013
By Mark Olmstead
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been highlighting the national news recently when the government shutdown over whether or not to fund it with the continuing resolution stalled in Congress. In honor of the upcoming International Day of the Girl this October 11th; GlobalWA would like to highlight many benefits that the Affordable Care Act provides to women in the United States.
In the past, insurance companies reserved the ability to raise premiums on women based on gender or a pre-existing condition. More than half of women report delaying care for treatable medical conditions because of balancing finances of paying for treatment and normal cost of living expenses. Under the ACA women can no longer be denied coverage, and places a cap on what insurance companies can charge women out of pocket, thus taking the burden off women on affording medical treatment. If an insurance company does increase premiums they are required to submit justification as to why premiums have raised allowing consumer’s access to changes in their coverage. Continue Reading
