Peace Beyond Borders

Question A

In his article  Muslims in Europe: A Short Introduction, Justin Vaisse discusses myths about Muslims and how’s these effect larger society.

Myth 1 says that “being Muslim constitutes a fixed identity, sufficient to fully characterize a person.”

Vaisse says that people wrongly associate Islam above all other social Identities a person has (social class, gender, etc.).  If a group of Muslims protested about human rights, they would be labeled Muslim protestors and not human rights protesters: Even if the protest had nothing to do with Islam and had everything to do with human rights. The first myth strips Muslims of their human identity.

Myth 2 says, “Muslims in Europe are, in one way or another, inherently foreign, the equivalent of visiting of Middle-Easterners who are alien to the ‘native’ culture.”

This is a myth, Vaisse says, because EU countries have had roots in Islam since the eighth century.

Myth 3 says “Muslims in Europe form a ‘distinct, cohesive, and bitter group.”

The reality of it is, Vaisse says, is that there are specific distinctions of origin between Muslims. Egyptian Muslims have different beliefs than Saudi Arabian Muslims.  There is also further separation between Muslims when it comes to socioeconomic class, political views, ethnicity, etc.

Myth 4 says “Muslims are demographically gaining on the ‘native’ population.”

This myth reinforces the others in the belief that Muslims are one group. One wouldn’t say that Catholics are one group because they are from a mix of countries and backgrounds. So, why would we think differently for Muslims? This is the essence of Vaisse’s argument.

 

Question B

It is hard as a Westerner myself to fully understand the rational between combining religion and politics as a society. However, to the contrary, societies have always been that way. We might have ‘religious freedom’ in the Constitution of the United States, but we still have many laws intertwined with Christianity. In my opinion, I believe abortion is a prime example of integrating religion into law. In the United states, it is important that we don’t cater laws to one specific religion, because that excludes everyone else.

 

With that being said, I would say it is essential that Islam is not confused with politics.  The Roman Catholic church has had heavy political power for centuries. Who is to say that Islam cannot?

The problem with this is that people associate Islam with bad politics: 9/11 and suicide bombers. This, in turn, creates discrimination against Muslims. It is important to make the distinction between Islam and the suicide bombers because not all Muslims are birthed out of terrorist groups. It is the generalization people make of Islam that causes discrimination. General remarks such as “all Muslims are terrorists” and “all Muslim women are oppressed” is the political speech that needs to stop.

 

I think most of the political discrimination Muslims face is birthed out of fear (see Islamophobia video above). It is the notion of “you are different from me; therefore, your way of thinking is wrong because I don’t agree with it.” And I think that is an important point to make: just because you don’t agree with someone’s views doesn’t mean you should be discriminatory against them and make laws that exclude them.

Question C

An example of a conflict between education and social rift in Europe is the ban on headscarves in schools in France. The headscarf ban was implemented in 2004 and one can be fined up to 150 euros if they violate this and wear a headscarf. This discrimination has further isolated the Muslim community.

Ramadan is a month-long period where Muslims focus on fasting, prayer, and introspection. Additionally, during this time Muslims are supposed to be more devout during this time; which includes wearing a headscarf. Because they are not legally able to, this creates conflict between the political and religious tension in France.

Ramadan suggests adjusting to the French rules for the month because Muslims are specifically directed during this time to not use fighting words or foul language. In the face of Ramadan, Muslims have had to adjust to not wearing headscarves and facing discrimination in the French community. In the face of France, Muslims continue to be isolated in the educational system and social rift continues.

Part A

1.

In the book Poor Economics by Banerjee, there are two very different perspectives on the effectiveness of aid in Africa. William Easterly did not believe aid was an effective practice because the initial problem is corruption and aid has led researchers to lower their ambitions.  This is an institutionalist view and that good policy making is not essential, but rather it is the sorting out of political processes. According to the book, only 13 percent of funds for schools actually reached the schools in Uganda. This is the type of corruption Easterly says is useless for aid because the money doesn’t go where it needs to anyway.

On the other hand, however, Jeffery Sachs says that governmental corruption leads to poverty traps. Poverty causes corruption and he says aid should be directed towards specific goals: Such as malaria control, food productions, safe drinking water, and sanitation. He says that by raising the living standards, civil society will become more empowered and therefore less likely to become corrupt.

In my opinion, I think Sachs argument is too optimistic because I think a corrupt government is human nature. The U.S. government structure works because it is built against the natural greed humans have. I think humans in general often make decisions that benefit them the most; therefore a government will always have corruption in it.  I think aid should go towards specific programs because it is most likely to have less temptation of greed. I don’t believe that we should not have aid at all, but we have to make sure that the money is going to the right hands.

 

2.

There is a lot of grey area when it comes to opinions and taking sides. However, in a New York Times article about  global poverty and expert Angus Deaton’s new book “The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality”. Deaton sides with both Sachs and Easterly in this argument, and makes a strong suggestion that foreign aid fails to erase poverty. Additionally, Deaton agrees with Sachs that government corruption plays a ginormous role in why aid fails.

I like Deaton’s argument because it provides a different perspective from the two extremes of Easterly and Sachs. Deaton claims that aid is a battle between two governments and when the donor governments provide aid, it has a slim chance of being used correctly by the receiving governments. He says that it is not a matter of lack of resources, but a matter of how we use them. If we use the aid for direct projects, Deaton says, aid will be more effective.

(source: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/business/a-surprising-case-against-foreign-aid.html)

 

Part B

I believe Banerjee and Duflo, the authors of Poor Economics, address the issues of extreme poverty sufficiently because they back the issues up with research. At the beginning, they talk about the issues of the poverty trap and by the end they explain the effect of aid and micro funding. I personally like this book because of its structure: it explains what is the problem and ends with how do we fix it.

The policy measures that have seemed to work concerning both SDG goals one and two are written clearly in this book. I think perhaps the clearest method Banerjee and Duflo have presented is the policy of information. They have presented research from opposing sides on each side in every chapter: This makes it a very objective book and leaves the reader with needing to make a choice on what they believe.

The needs addressed in this book are clear: those living in extreme poverty need our help. But the book does not tell us how to specifically help them. I think the information is sufficient and it provides the reader with knowledge but it is not sufficient in a way that it leaves the reader knowing exactly what to do. I think what would help with this book is giving bullet points to the reader on how to take action; ones that would support both sides. But also because the issues addressed in this book are developing and current ones, it is becoming increasingly unclear on what we should do as a society at large.

Question 1

In their book Poor Economics, Banerjee and Duflo explain the arguments for and against Micro-credits. Micro-credits are defined as credits, savings, and insurance opportunities that are targeted at low-income people.

In the argument supporting micro-credits as beneficial, the authors give the example of Mohammad Yunus, the founder of the micro-finance organization Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. The bank gave the poor the opportunity to become entrepreneurs. The key word here is opportunity because many of the poor have the ability, just like any other human being, to become a successful entrepreneur. However, one of the main ingredients the poor are missing when it comes to success is opportunity.

The micro-finance organizations provide the ingredients to opportunity by providing cattle for farmers or providing literacy classes. From these tiny investments, the poor are able to end up with more business assets and more money. In my opinion, this would coincide with the poverty trap argument and that microfinance organizations are helping these people out of the “trap”.

On the opposing side of micro-credits, however, are two issues: the problems that many of the businesses operated by the poor are tiny and that they do not make that much money. The overall issue from this is that microfinancing might not be sustainable.  For example, the small business might look successful when it is in a small village, but it looks unsuccessful when every small village in a 5-mile radius has an identical business.

This thought leads to discouragement and only a short-run benefit. The truth is that the poor only own small businesses and it would be nearly impossible to see a mass exit of poverty from microfinancing.

Question 2

The micro credits in Malawi are mainly reserved for women. It is all about access in Malawi, and the microcredits give access to the country’s bank for the poor. The organization has satellite destinations in remote villages throughout the country so that access to loan repayment is made easy.

I think directing majority of the microcredits towards women is a great idea. In every single country in the world, women have less opportunity than men. This is true especially with impoverished communities. I think women raise and empower the next generation, they do not get nearly as much credit as they deserve. I think giving opportunity to the most vulnerable populations can be really beneficial. It is all about giving people a chance.

(source: http://www.thp.org/our-work/where-we-work/africa/malawi/microfinance-economic-activity-malawi/)

Question 3

Many of the microcredits are being used to fight hunger in Malawi. They are being invested in irrigation projects so that when the droughts come, there will not be a famine to come with it. Additionally, other projects using micro-financing are ones involving

livestock and petty trade.

(Source: http://www.thp.org/our-work/where-we-work/africa/malawi/microfinance-economic-activity-malawi/)

 

Question 4

Although countries like China and India have made tremendous progress in recent years, it is shocking to me how many countries are falling far behind the 1^st SDG goal of  ending extreme global poverty. The severely off track countries (SOTC) are mainly found in sub-Saharan Africa. I think the reason for them falling so far behind is because the countries are not getting the help they need.

In these SOTC countries, neither the top-down nor the bottom-up methods are working. What I mean by this is that the government bureaucracies are weak and corrupt (top-down) and most of the countries’ market systems run off of private markets (bottom-up). Therefore, those who want to help cannot do it by the same way western societies do: either changing the government bureaucracies or stimulating the market.

(source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2018/02/13/the-road-to-ending-poverty-runs-through-31-severely-off-track-countries/)

This, in my opinion, is where the problem lays. I think developed countries want to help, but don’t know how and developing countries want help, but struggle in figuring out how to use the help. In the SOTC countries, there needs to be a way to help that caters to the individual needs of each village/country. Otherwise, I think trying to go from the bottom-up or the top-down will lead to the SOTC countries to keep falling father and farther behind.

Question 5

According to the World Bank, digital technology is being used in Africa to transform Africa’s food system. Digital technology entails anything that uses the internet or code, so, for example, it would be telephones, computers, machines,etc.

Digital technology is helping with agriculture in three ways

1. Helping farmer’s access to capital: They can now rent equipment by using their phones
2. It opens a new ecommerce platform: it allows the smaller players in agriculture to become integrated with the larger scale farmers.
3. It helps with food sustainability: Digital technology helps with providing information on land, soils and other resources so that they will be able to treat the land appropriately.

With hunger being a major issue in Africa, digital technology is making strides that could not be made before.

(Source:  http://blogs.worldbank.org/ic4d/how-can-digital-technology-help-transform-africa-s-food-system)

 

 

 

Part 1

a.

One Malawian Cheetah that I found Is William Kamkwamba. He was born in a small village in Malawi and he was forced to quit school at age 14 because he wasn’t able to afford it. That, however, did not stop Kamkwamba and he had a vision to bring electricity and water to his small village. In Malawi, only 2 percent of citizens have electricity.

Since he did not have the resources to go to school, Kamkwamba took his education to the local library and educated himself through spending hours and hours reading textbooks. The turning point in Kamkwamba’s life was when he found a book on how to make electricity through windmills and how to pump water from them. From there, he scavenged metals and other materials for the windmill in the village’s trash.

 

After completing his makeshift windmill, locals immediately lined up to charge their mobile phones. Because of his drive and ambition, Kamkwamba is now a trademark for human potential. He is part of the “Cheetah” generation and represents the group as a young person who is changing the continent.

The use of electricity in Malawi will now help more citizens become connected through the internet and will bring potential to advance technology in Malawi. Additionally, the ability to now pump water into the village will work as a mechanism against hunger. The water will prevent droughts and therefore starve off deadly droughts.

(Text Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8257153.stm)

 

b.

According to chapter six in Radelet’s book Emerging Africa, there are three key developments in the shift to a healthy democratic government:

1. There is a clear shift away from the politics of the individual Big Man toward the institutionalization of power and adherence to basic rules of the game.
2. There have been substantial improvements in the extent to which civil liberties and political rights are honored and enforced.
3. There has been significant growth in a range of civil society groups, non-governmental organizations, “watchdog groups” , and other voices aimed at monitoring government actions and accountability.

As far as a definition of democracy, there is no universally accepted definition. However, there are universally accepted indices in which democracies are ranked. The most popular indices are the Freedom in the World index, which focuses on political and civil liberties, and the Polity TV index, which focuses on less judgement and more on the characteristics of political authority.

In Freedom of the World Index, my country, Malawi, is ranked partly free. It has a score of 64 out of 100 and is partially free because of the Cashgate corruption scandal in 2015. Because of this, many international donors cut off funds. The corrupt president is still in power because of a slow prosecution process.  (source:https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016)

In the Polity IV index, Malawi ranks as a democracy with a rating of 6. This is on the lower end of the democracy rating and is close to being to an open Anocracy, which is rated 1 to 5 . However, Malawi is one of the countries doing the best in Africa and is one of the few that is an official democracy. So in Africa’s terms, Malawi Is doing well. The only rank above Malawi would be a Full Democracy, which is a rating of 10 and is seen mostly in western countries. (Source:http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm)

 

Part 2

According to chapter three of Poor Economics by Banerjee and Duflo, effective health investments are those that may be forced upon people at first, but in the end benefit a population at large.

If we look at the U.S., for example, a child cannot enter the public school system without first receiving vaccinations. This is a required practice in the United States and it benefits the whole population because it prevents children from getting potentially deadly diseases.  This in turn prevents children from missing school. Another health investment the U.S. has made is insurance companies rewarding customers for going to the gym. Because , otherwise, they probably wouldn’t go.

In Africa, where there are no regulations for vaccines or rewards for doing something good for your health, Banerjee and Duflo suggest that we should put regulations like these in place.  The authors call it the “low hanging fruit”, the easy and preventable measures that can be taken to improve public health. Things such as rewarding mothers for vaccinating their children and providing deworming medication in school lunches would help reduce school absences and child mortality in Africa.

These are effective health investments.

 

Part 1

a.

The “cheetah’ and the “hippo” generations in Africa are essentially the clash of Ideals; the battle between those who want justice and those who control it.

The “Cheetahs” are the younger generations of Africans who are pushing for change. They are progressive and want a democracy and social equality. They push against the hippos and push for rapid change.

The “hippos” are those who currently hold power in Africa: They are the ruling elites and they are the ones who benefit from the status quo. They want to keep Africa the way it is and push against the motives of the “cheetahs”.

For one to see the differences, it is as clear as day. Many of the “hippos” view a democracy and civil society as the way it is now because they are the ones benefiting from it. The “Cheetahs” see today’s governmental systems as oppressive and as only benefiting the rich few. For these reasons, the “Cheetahs” want change and the “hippos” do not.

b.

In Steve Radelets “Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries are Leading the Way”, he explains that, due to the introduction of technology in Africa, there are greater economic opportunities, more jobs, greater financial networking, and increasing transparency and accountability. Technology is improving the African economy in every aspect: agriculture, manufacturing, immigration, banking, and tourism.

Perhaps the even more beneficial part of the introduction of technology in Africa is that is sustainable:

“They (technologies) clearly were not major contributing factors to the economic and political turnaround that swept across the emerging African countries in the early and mid-1990s. But they have had a huge impact in sustaining the progress in recent years. Most important, they are critical for continuing to expand economic opportunities, information flows, and political accountability in the future,” Radelet said.

Challenges still lay ahead, however, because the cost of coverage is still high. The cost of Internet is 20 to 40 times higher in Africa than it is in the United States. However, Radelet explains there are projects being done; such as installing undersea cables on the east coast of Africa. Therefore, if these projects are completed and the cost of coverage is lowered to a sustainable amount, I believe it has the change to make a long-term impact.

Part 2

In the book “Poor Economics”, the authors Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo describe a poverty trap as “Poor countries that are poor because they are got, infertile, malaria-infested, often landlocked; this makes it hard for them to be productive without an initial large investment to help them deal with these endemic problems. But they cannot pay for the investments precisely because they are poor- they are in what economists call a ‘Poverty Trap’”.

There is a huge debate about whether poverty traps exist or not, but it originally roots from the problem that a free market does not serve the poor. Since a free market economy does not give the opportunity to those who didn’t have it in the first place, there will be no way for them to rise above poverty and those “trapped” will fall further and further behind.

Some experts say that if there were tiny investments made each year by the poor citizens  towards, for example, agriculture, it would lead to a larger investment and continue to eventually lead the farmer out of poverty. However, other experts who believe there is a poverty trap believe that maybe if there was an investment of, for example, fertilizer, to improve the yield of a farmer’s crop, the fertilizer might only be sold in bulk. If that is so, there would be no opportunity for an initial small investment and therefore there would exist a poverty trap.

On a smaller scale, I was given Malawi as my country to analyze for this blog post. The poverty traps in my given country are poverty, AIDs, and hunger.

On the World Bank’s site, in regard to the first goal of SDG, there seems to be little data. However, as recorded in 2010, the poverty headcount ratio was at 50.7. Meaning that 50.7 percent of the population is living in poverty.

Human Capital in Malawi still needs work: It has the “same portion of the total population in elementary school as it did in 1911.”, according to the World Bank.  On top of that, there are not efficient school supplies to educate Malawi students, as the average Malawi student has half the level of reading skills as a student in North America. One of the main causes of this divide is due to the constant health issues that lead to low attendance; over half of the students report having Malaria, one in four with Bilharzia and one in ten with hookworm. Because of this, a Malawi student’s chance of reaching secondary school is three out of one-hundred. (Source:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/210611468773058337/The-evaluation-of-human-capital-in-Malawi)