Wassim, Nathalie, and Imad; three individuals who were pushed out of work by the deteriorating economic conditions in Lebanon. Tens of thousands of people like them have been suffering daily for the past 3 years living from paycheck to paycheck up until they were forced out of it (work). Lebanon has witnessed what no other country has. Unemployment rates doubled in only a decade, COVID-19 took out thousands, and inflation bankrupted hundreds of businesses.
According to Okun, a very low or negative growth in GDP leads to a rise in unemployment. By observing this visual, we can see how unemployment skyrocketed while GDP growth took a deep dive. Comparing the years 2008 and 2009, GDP growth increased 10.23 percentage points while unemployment rates decreased by 6.35 percentage points. We can conclude an inverse correlation between GDP growth and unemployment. Another observation is that between years 2020 and 2021, GDP growth increased by almost 15 percentage points. Despite this growth, unemployment remains significantly high at 14.49 percentage points. Importantly, this project is action-oriented in that it shows the nexus between unemployment and GDP growth #SDG8, which are intrinsic to an economy, from more “policy-driven” factors that can be addressed, improved or mitigated.
Here, a question rises? What is the cause for the disproportionality between GDP growth and unemployment rates? There are 3 possible causes for its inverse relation:
• The decrease of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) which reached 3.98 percentage points in 2019 due to the lack of security and political tension
• Another possible cause is the low diversification in economic sectors due to scarcity of resources. Looking at this visual, we can see the focus of employment shift mainly to the service industry which witnessed an increase by 65.10 percentage points while the agricultural and industrial sectors are left behind increasing by under 30 percentage points in 2019.
• The third and final possible cause is the over-dependence on food and fuel imports. Lebanon possesses the second highest food and energy imports in 2019.
What should be done?
Drawing upon decades of empirical literature on drivers and predictors of lack of growth, this project proves Okun’s law using visualizations for the case of Lebanon. According to International Labor Organization (ILO), not just growth, but quality of growth is the key anchor in the SDGs 2030 agenda. Sustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs that stimulate the economy while not harming the environment.
1. Creating greater opportunities for women and men to secure decent employment and income. Closing the employment gap is at the heart of the decent work agenda, this can be through promoting voluntary private initiatives and corporate social responsibility.
2. Instating policies to enhance knowledge, skills and employability for men and women since gender remains a source of labor market inequalities and inadequately utilized human resources. Women continue to be employed in a narrower range of occupations than men and to be concentrated in lower-paid, insecure, and unprotected jobs.
3. Promoting employment through reconstruction and employment-intensive investment.
4. Increasing access to financial services to manage incomes, accumulate assets and make productive investments.
Findings and Recommendations
A shift in economic thinking and planning towards economic structural transformation is necessary for the Arab region to develop on SDG 8 (ESCWA, 2021). The post-pandemic SDG agenda must leverage the lessons learnt to reinforce national social safety nets and employment policies. This strengthens economic resilience and allows developing countries to absorb shocks. A continued lack of decent job opportunities, insufficient investments, and under-consumption slows down economic growth. The average growth rate GDP is increasing after the pandemic; however, it still did not reach pre-pandemic levels of growth and developing countries such as Lebanon are moving farther from the 7% growth rate set for 2030. Therefore, as labor productivity decreases driven by low productivity and unemployment rate rises, standards of living decreases and overall economic growth decreases.
Governments must join forces and formulate policies to promote better job opportunities through active labor market programs, corresponding to important SDGs: Economic Growth and Decent Work, as well as Partnerships to Achieve the Goals.
Sustainable economic growth will require societies to create the conditions that allow people to have quality jobs that stimulate the economy while not harming the environment. Job opportunities and decent working conditions are also required for the whole working age population. There needs to be increased access to financial services to manage incomes, accumulate assets and make productive investments. Increased commitments to trade, banking and agriculture infrastructure will also help increase productivity and reduce unemployment levels in the world’s most vulnerable regions.#SDG8 #SDG16
Global warming is a critical problem facing our planet today causing us natural disasters, diseases and deaths in the present and potential destruction of the planet in the future.
Problem Evidence:
Indicators show global warming is intensifying
After studying different parameters, we can clearly see that everything that causes global warming is in an upward trend and just increasing with time. Toxic gases such as CO2, greenhouse gases and other hazardous materials are increasing in intensity.
This results in complicating the global warming issue more and more with no serious actions taken into consideration.
Looking for solutions:
Working on reducing global warming’s main causes
After studying the different industries that produce the main polluting gases, we could then point our fingers at what industry causes the most damage to our planet.
Therefore, after dissecting the problem we could start taking actions focusing on the most harmful industries.
Solution Details:
Setting regulations on main causes
Using the data infront of us we could say that liquid fuel which is mainly used in energy sectors is the greatest cause of CO2 emissions, followed by emissions from electricity and heat production.
Knowing that we should definitely start investing more in green energy instead of liquid fuel consumption and also setting new regulations to organize these sectors.
Solution Validation:
Decreasing pollution as a result
Taking such actions will result in decreasing the harm caused by these gases and chemicals.
Controlling the industries is thus attained and will have a great impact for the future of the planet.
Recommendations:
Better future for the planet!
True colour satellite image of the Earth showing Asia, half in shadow, with cloud coverage, and the sun. This image in orthographic projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Globe Showing Asia, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
As a result of the set regulations and switch to more sustainable energy our planet would witness less diseases and pollution in the near future. Also the planet would be preserved for the long run.
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.
