Because of its invaluable contribution to a more sustainable world, the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, which are a set of 17 ambitious goals covering a variety of domains with goals to be achieved by 2030, incorporated “Life Below Water” as SDG 14. This goal comprises 10 targets and 10 indicators, which are the metrics used to identify our progress as a world on this goal’s targets. One main target, which will be the focus of this blog post primarily due to the fast deterioration observed by ecologists and marine scientists around the world, is target 14.5.
According to the United Nations’ official definitions for each of the SDGs, target 14.5 is defined as “By 2020, conserve at least 10 percent of coastal and marine areas, consistent with national and international law and based on the best available scientific information”. To measure the success of this target, indicator 14.5.1 has been generated as “coverage of protected areas in relation to marine areas”. Unlike other indicators, this one is set to be achieved by 2020 instead of 2030 due to its pressing matter and the degree at which the world is at risk of losing or permanently damaging this resource.
While efforts to meet the requirement were seen in some countries, the world is not only still far from reaching the set goal but also overdue on it’s promised goal.
The most important statistic for measuring population health is life expectancy. Life expectancy captures mortality across the whole life course, making it more comprehensive than the restricted measure of newborn and child mortality, which concentrates only on mortality at a young age. It provides information on the typical death age for a population.
Since the Age of Enlightenment, life expectancy has rapidly grown. Life expectancy began to rise in the early industrialized nations in the 19th century, but it remained low in the rest of the world. As a result, there was a huge disparity in the distribution of health throughout the world. Good health in the wealthy nations and continuously poor health in the developing nations. This worldwide inequality has declined during the last few decades. The nations with the highest life expectancy in 1800 are the only ones in the world with a lower life expectancy today. Many nations that were formerly afflicted by poor health are quickly catching up.
The world map below shows the life expectancy of the year 2000.
African nations have been struggling with health related issues for quite some time. One of them is that, when compared to other continents, such as Europe Africa has the nations with the lowest life expectancies. Why is that? Does government health expenditure play a big role disaster?
Government health expenditure plays an important role in guaranteeing people’s livelihood and in improving the quality of human capital, and it also plays an important role in affecting economic development.
In order to characterize the specific trend of government health spending affecting life expectancy in Africa, the dashboard below chart shows the expenditure in healthy sectors by the government, from years 2000 to 2018, of the top 3 countries (in terms of life expectancy) and the bottom 3 in comparison as shown in the map.
We clearly see that countries with high government expenditure have a higher life expectancy.
Even though African nations still have a low life expectancy in comparison to other countries, significant improvement has been made since the early 2000s as life expectancy within African nations has seen an increase of at least 10 years.This shows a positive relationship between government health expenditure and life expectancy.
What we can do to further help and develop Africa is to create a funded project by the UN or the WHO to help create more hospitals in the region that would be specialized in treating and aiding people with diseases.
2018-2019 have been of the worst years for the Iranian people where Iran has witnessed compounded crises such as inflation, brain drain, poverty, unemployment, and inequality.
As a result, I have exploited the World Bank’s World Development Indicatorsand I have identified several indicators to measure the impact of the economic crisis in Iran between in 2018. For instance, Items that cost 5000 Rial in 2017 cost almost more than 250000 in 2018.
I will also try to discuss two potential measures that could mitigate its severe economic crisis.
The following graphs reflect the severity of the Iranian collapse. These graphs plotted in the dashboard were based on the UN World Indicators dataset.
What happened in Iran was against the SDG 8.1.1 to Sustain per capita economic growth in accordance with national circumstances and, in particular, at least 7 per cent gross domestic product growth per annum in the least developed countries and SDG 8.6 By 2020, substantially reduce the proportion of youth not in employment, education or training
External shocks, including sanctions and commodity price volatility, caused a long ecumenic stagnation. I will shed light on indicators that shows the Iranian economy collapse, starting with the Gross Domestic Product GDP per capita in US dollars used to assess the economic prosperity over time, before and after the crisis.
Also, the large contraction in oil exports placed significant pressure on government finances and drove inflation to over 40 %for four consecutive years. Weaker global demand and competitions discounted oil exports to China are expected to moderate Iran’s oil sector expansion. Domestic demand will also be affected by the negative impact of high inflation on consumption and investments
Sustained high inflation led to a substantial reduction in households’ purchasing power. The economic crisis has hit Iran’s youth particularly hard, especially those from lower economic backgrounds because the country’s rigid formal labor market preserves jobs for older workers. At the same time, job creation was insufficient to absorb the large pool of young and educated entrants to the labor market.
While relatively diversified for an oil exporting country, economic activity and government revenues still rely on oil revenues and have, therefore, been volatile.
I would recommend investing in the internal consumer market growth:
After the sanction, Iran was obliged to increase its imports due to the hardness of getting raw material for production and consumption especially for merchandizing and consumer goods. Thus, we recommend that Iran invest in its internal development of consumer good market.
To support this solution,
It has great supply of Petroleum, natural gas, and coal and oil for facilitating the trade and production
rapid changes to meet the increasing domestic demand for authentic, high-quality imported goods, including electronics, telecom products and parts, clothing..
Already high-end brands and middle-income brands are coming to invest
Iran is a substantial market of 80 million consumers with a growing and well-educated middle class
Because of the country’s unique geographical and strategic location, Iran is also the entry-point to other upcoming regional markets in the Middle East and Central Asia with equally high demands for foreign investments and trade.
The consumer goods market in Iran has also long thrived off the internal distribution networks
Tehran is a key transport hub, with several terminals set up around the capital connecting it to most major cities.
A good time for international companies to manufacture consumer goods in Iran for export across the region, which is helped by the fact that full foreign company ownership is permitted in Iranian law.
MGI’s 2016 Iran report predicted that the fast-moving consumer goods sector alone would create an additional 850,000 jobs by 2035
Although the ratio of maternal death is observed and recorded to be decreasing in the Sub-Saharan region, the ratio is still above the world ratio. Maternal death in this region is recorded to be at a rate of 533 death per 100,000 births, compared to world median being 208. The below visualization shows the difference in maternal death ratio between the Sub-Saharan Africa region and the word median from 2000 to 2017
What is the cause?
Being a poorunderdeveloped region, the Sub-Saharan Africa has several underlying problems and factors that affect the maternal death. I will base the focus of this blog on twoof the main pillars that negatively influence mortality.
Poor education
High fertility rates
Low School Enrollment Rates
Education is a basic right that each and every child must have.
Countries in the Sub-Saharan region have very low education standards compared to developed countries. Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania are some of the countries in this region who have very little school enrollment rates. Secondary school enrolment rates don’t exceed 40% on average in this region, posing a great threat on future generations and on the overall economy state.
How does education affect mortality? Education and enrollment rates have been proved to be negativelycorrelated with fertility rates. The low education levels in the Sub-Saharan region explain the High fertility rates that in turn, influence the mortality rates.
High Fertility Rates
Many factors make this region have high fertility rates that increase the risks of maternal deaths at birth and the death of their babies. Culture, religion, lack of knowledge, and low contraceptive prevalence are the main causes for the high rates that should be decreased in order to protect and aid women in Africa.
The following visualization shows the fertility rates along with the school enrollment rates (secondary level) throughout the years in all countries
What can be done?
Improving the education system could be a first step in solving and decreasing maternal deaths in the Sub-Saharan region. Increasing the school enrollment rates and making education accessiblefor all children, would allow the economy to improve as literacy rates would increase, decreasing fertility rates, and finally decreasing maternal deaths.
The United Nations have launched sustainable development goals in order to tackle and solve the problems that countries are facing. Their 4th goal targets the education system in underdeveloped countries #SDG4 such as the African region. The United Nations plans by the end of 2030 to succeeded in giving children the access to free education systems, by increasing primary and secondary enrollment rates.
Climate change is the biggest threat to our planet. It is both the easiest and the most challenging issue we have ever faced. The easiest because we know what we must do. The hardest because our current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil fuels, thereby destroying ecosystems to create everlasting economic growth.
Although there are still some countries like Africa doesn’t have total access to electricity.
Over the years, electricity consumption has increased tremendously.
So did the usage of renewable resources has also increased, but not enough compared to non-renewable resources.
It has been 10 years since top voice influencers and climate justice activists, United States presidents, and tech enthusiast CEOs were trying to fight climate change. It is known that the key to tackling the climate change crisis is to end our reliance on non-renewable energy. So, what if we try to use renewable energy for electricity? Can this reduce climate change? Can it avoid using CO2 Emissions, fuel, oil, and gas? We studied and visualized data of countries that used renewable energy and how it affected their environmental pollution compared to others that used non-renewable energy like fuel, oil, and gas. We found that developed countries that were using renewable energy had less ecological pollution by 70% approximately than countries that weren’t using renewable energy.
This descriptive statistical measure demonstrates the huge success of the use of renewable sources of energy to reduce pollution and diminish climate change. Remember there is no planet B. We live in one mother earth; we must protect it.
It is proven that the use of renewable sources of energy decreases the amount of pollution which reduces climate change and, because of this we recommend that the countries should make use of their hydropower, ocean power, wind, and solar energy for electricity and minimize the use of non-renewable energy.
“Am I worthless? Will I be able to get a job? What to do next?
How frequently do we hear those words in our daily lives?
One of the most painful situations is losing a job. Unemployment is a significant problem that impacts a person’s mental health, society, and the economy.
According to the survey results, Lebanon’s unemployment rate increased from 11.4% in 2018-2019 to 29.6% in January 2022, indicating that almost one-third of the active labor force was unemployed in January 2022.
After analyzing the data provided by the World Development Index, it turns out that unemployed Lebanese have advanced education since it is at the top of the list for unemployment among countries with advanced education and not one of the top unemployed countries with basic Education.
However, the most difficult achievement is fighting unemployment. I recommend funding emerging ideas and small businesses through innovative fundraising campaigns promoting self-employment. The article “VALUATION OF CROWDFUNDING: BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS” explains the innovative and relatively new idea of crowdfunding, which links investors and business owners. Gaining a deeper understanding of crowdfunding could be useful for entrepreneurs choosing a way to raise capital and investors seeking different investment opportunities that would increase employment in Lebanon.
