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 21, 2014
By Katie Wollstein
The United States is the largest provider of food aid with approximately three billion people in 150 countries benefitting from USAID’s Food for Peace, the largest American food aid program. However, since the program’s establishment in 1954, little has changed in policies dictating how aid is delivered. The delivery system to countries in crisis is usually predicated by the Farm Bill: currently, food aid commodities are shipped from the U.S. on American vessels, which can add to costs of food aid and delivery time. This practice of shipping food purchased in the U.S. (as opposed to using vouchers or cash) can equate to losses as much as 30 cents on the dollar, according to a Bread for the World food aid fact sheet. Additionally, buying local food instead of shipping from the U.S. could bring relief to people eleven to fourteen weeks sooner. Continue Reading
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