In the least developed countries across the world, balancing the number of newborn and the unfortunate number of infants who pass away remains a challenge. These regions often face the difficult challenge of high birth rates, which contribute to an explosive population growth that strains their already limited resources. However, reducing infant mortality proves to be a crucial challenge. Today, we will discuss the complex and pressing issue of finding a balance between birth rates and infant mortality in the least developed countries, seeking to highlight the societal, economic, and health implications of this delicate balance.
According to word bank data, the average global infant mortality rate for 2021 is 45 deaths per 1,000 live births. However, in least developed countries, the average infant mortality rate is generally much higher, at 73 deaths per 1,000 live births. For example, in Guinea, the average infant mortality is 134 deaths per 1,000 live births which is double the rate seen in the least developed countries. On the other hand, we can clearly observe the low average of infant mortality rate in developed countries. Taking the European Union as an example, the average rate is just 5 deaths per 1,000 live births.
The high average rate of infant mortality can be attributed to various factors, such as inadequate healthcare quality, poor maternal health, political instability, exemplified by South Sudan and limited access to clean water, particularly in certain African countries.
To address the high average rate of infant mortality associated with these highlighted factors, enhancing healthcare infrastructure and quality in affected regions is crucial. This can be achieved by investing in medical facilities, providing training for healthcare professionals, and ensuring the availability of essential medical supplies and equipment. Moreover, improving maternal health can be achieved through educational program and accessible prenatal care, which significantly contribute to reducing the infant mortality rates. Efforts should also be made to provide clean water access to communities, especially in some African countries, by implementing clean water initiatives and supporting infrastructure development. Finally, promoting stability and peace in regions like South Sudan can create a favorable environment for healthcare improvements and access to essential services.
Several countries have already taken steps to improve their healthcare systems, including investments in infrastructure, expanding vaccination coverage, and enhancing prenatal care and skilled birth attendance. For example, Lebanon achieved a significant 39% reduction in infant mortality over a decade by implementing improvements in their healthcare sector.
In conclusion, ensuring access to quality healthcare is a key strategy to reduce infant mortality rates. To accomplish this, it is essential to support the collaboration between the public and private sectors, as well as international organizations, to improve the healthcare systems. Furthermore, efforts should be directed towards training local healthcare workers, strengthening the supply chain, and facilitating access to clean water. To transform these recommendations into tangible and long-lasting solutions, a steady commitment is necessary, along with consistent support from developed countries.
We hear about climate change and how it is changing our planet on the news every day. According to CNN [1], a shocking new temperature record was seen just this week. The report claims that “It’s a record that will be broken again and again.” We must find a solution to address the broader climate changes around us.
The primary driver of climate change is the emission of CO2, which is mainly attributed to greenhouse gases.
By analyzing data from the World Bank in Figure 1, we can clearly observe a consistent yearly emissions increase. However, in 2020, there was a slight decrease due to the lockdown measures, which led to reduced CO2 emissions from closed factories and empty roads. It is important to note that as everything gradually returns to normal, CO2 emissions are predictably expected to increase once again.
Figure 1: CO2 Emissions Over the Years
Moreover, plotting the data on world map in Figure 2, we can identify the countries that contribute the most to CO2 emissions. Notably, countries with high income[2], including USA, China, and various European nations, bear significant responsibility for such emissions.
Figure 2: World Map of CO2 Emissions
However, by examining the annual CO2 emissions of higher-income[2] countries and comparing them to their electricity production from renewable sources, we can clearly see the positive impact of investing in renewable energy, as demonstrated in the interactive dashboard below. Since 2009, these countries have witnessed a decline in CO2 emissions, while medium-income countries have surpassed them. This evidence strongly supports the idea that investing in renewable energy is an effective means to reduce our carbon footprint.
Figure 3: Interactive Dashboard CO2 emissions VS Renewable Energy
To validate my assumption, I took Germany and United Kingdom as examples of high-income countries and thoroughly investigated available data spanning several years, as shown in Figure 4. It is clear that investing in renewable energy reduces CO2 emissions significantly.[4]
Figure 4: Decrease of CO2 Emissions in Germany and France due to Investments in Renewable Energy
In conclusion, embracing renewable energy solutions is an active way to reduce CO2 emissions. I believe that the world should unite, and high-income countries should assist others in investing in renewable energy, because the consequences of climate change is affecting all of us. By doing so, we can safeguard our planet and forge a healthier, more sustainable world for future generations.
References:
CNN, the planet saw its hottest day on record this week, https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/05/world/hottest-day-world-climate-el-nino-intl/index.html
World Bank country classifications by income level, https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/new-world-bank-country-classifications-income-level-2022-2023
BP Statistical Review of World Energy, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/elec-fossil-nuclear-renewables?tab=table&stackMode=absolute
Fatou is a 27-year-old housewife. At 15 years old, she decided to quit her education to get married to the love of her life, a man 8 years older than her, who had promised her a wealthy life in which she wouldn’t worry about a thing.
A few years into her marriage, her husband wasn’t doing well financially, and she found herself financially abused by him. All the promises went into vain and she was there begging for a penny to get the most basic goods she needed. Looking at herself, she found herself with no knowledge or skills to help her stand on her feet. With no education to support her, she felt like all the doors were shut, and her only salvation was her husband, who in turn belittled her for always being dependent on him, noting that it had been himself who stopped her from being an achiever.
This is not only the story of Fatou, but also that of millions of women living in disparity because they couldn’t be self-sufficient and independent. This story is yet another example of what the SDGs tackle, like Reduced Inequalities, among others as Quality Education and Gender Equality.
The contribution of women in the society decreases early marriage, and early marriage is linked to low education.
The graph shows the countries with the highest number of women who were first married by age of 15.
The top 3 countries with the highest number of women who were early married are Niger with 37.37% , Bangladesh with 32% and Chad with 29.25%.
Moreover, 76% of girls in Niger are married before their 18th birthday and 28% are married before the age of 15. Niger has the highest prevalence of child marriage in the world and the 13th highest absolute number of women married or in a union before the age of 18 globally – 745,000.
As a result, Awareness campaigns must be done to limit early marriage, and impose laws on marriage before 18.
In the time it has taken to read this article 39 girls under the age of 18 have been married
Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18
GameStop was heading towards bankruptcy, with hedge funds taking short positions in companies like GameStop, in which they borrow shares of the stock at a certain price under the expectation that its market value will be worth less when it’s time to actually pay for those borrowed shares. In other words, they are betting on the stock price dropping, however something unexpected happened, the Gamestop stocks surged being driven by retail investors — individuals who buy and sell stocks for their own gains, as opposed to professional investors working on Wall Street — on the subreddit r/WallStreetBets (WSB), a community 2.9 million-strong decided to buy up as much shares of stocks as a joke. That ended up reviving GameStop, incurring massive losses on the hedge funds, and shaking the stock market. This short squeeze – as it’s referred to – is not uncommon but it doesn’t tend to play out in this public or dramatic a manner leading this case to be the talk of every news outlet at the time.
This case perfectly encapsulated the volatility and unpredictability of the stock market, as well as how it can be influenced heavily by the everyday person. Such cases also emerged with Eli Lilly and their Twitter fiasco more recently.
As such we recommend the deployment of a brand followup division for social media from companies, as well as more rigorous bylaws implemented within social media platforms in order to control, contain, and possibly prevent such situations.
Team:
Omar El Khatib
Omar Zbibo
Abdallah Moucarri
Karim El Hajj
Bassel Abou Zahr
Our world today is much safer than it was 40 years ago. One powerful indicator to reflect societal living conditions is child mortality rates, given the many sensitive factors required for a newborn or a child to grow in health. Generalizing the matter to include the world as a whole would show us the constant decline in child mortality of 60% since 1960. This is due to improved healthcare services, nutrition, housing conditions, and education. Unfortunately, this improvement mostly reflects the rich more developed side of the world. Diving into the poorer side shows a different painful reality, a massive-scale tragedy that barely makes it to the headlines.
According to the World Health Organization, 2020 has recorded 5 million child deaths under the age of 5 with 2.4 million being of newborns, all due to preventable and treatable diseases and causes. This is unacceptable as a significant portion of these deaths are preventable.
A staggering reality to face is that children of underdeveloped poorest of countries have 10% risk of not surviving past the age of 5, while this rate drops to 1.2% in richer countries. (World economic forum). Moreover, for every 1000 live births, child mortality in low-income countries is nearly 6 times more than in upper-middle-income countries.
Analyzing the reasons behind child mortality shows 4 major factors:
Poor living conditions
Lack of healthcare services
Malnutrition
Poor healthcare consciousness
Preventing this tragedy requires access to simple and affordable interventions like adequate nutrition, safe supply of water, immunization and quality healthcare when needed. Hence, we need a sustainable solution that ensures the long-term resolution of the problem from its core.
Analyzing historical data of female literacy rate and its impact over time on decreasing birth rate and mortality rate of children under 5, we can conclude that enhancing female literacy might constituting an effective solution on the long term. It would contribute in:
Improving reproductive and healthcare decision making
Enhancing healthcare consciousness of parents to provide better quality care for their children
Increasing number of trained health experts
Reducing poverty, enhancing productivity, and contributing to economic growth
Better management of family size
Increasing chances of parents prioritizing child education for their children
On the long term, female education leading to smarter maternal decision-making can reduce up to 61% of infant and child deaths. Enhancing female education will help us achieve the United nation’s sustainable development goals:
SDG3 “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”
SDG3.2: “By 2030, end preventable deaths of newborns and children under 5 years of age, with all countries aiming to reduce neonatal mortality to at least as low as 12 per 1,000 live births and under-5 mortality to at least as low as 25 per 1,000 live births.”
Amal, an Egyptian 30-year-old girl, has been unemployed for the past three years. Her organization laid her off after being with them for 10 years because of the pandemic. Amal couldn’t continue her education because she had to help her family at a young age. Amal now spends all her time trying to get a job, but her efforts are not being paid off because of the country’s bad economic situation.
Amal’s case is very common in the world in general and in the Arab world specifically. To begin with, let’s define unemployment. Unemployment is the term for when a person who is actively looking for a job is unable to find work. The problem of unemployment lies in its consequences on the economy of the individual, society, and country. Some of the effects of unemployment on the individual, society, and economic levels:
Individual: Unemployment can also have a significant impact on a person’s physical health. Being unemployed is a highly stressful situation, so it may cause stress-related health issues such as headaches, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, back pain, and insomnia.
Society: Communities with high unemployment rates are more likely to have limited employment opportunities, low-quality housing, fewer available recreational activities, limited access to public transportation and public services, and underfunded schools.
Economy: When people are unemployed, they spend less money, which ultimately contributes to less contribution to the economy in relation to services or goods sold and produced.
The unemployment rate has been widely spread across the world. As the graph shows, the Arab region has the highest unemployment rate with 11.26% followed by the Latin American and the Caribbean region.
The impact of education level on unemployment:
The higher the level of education of a certain population, the lower the risk of unemployment. Research has shown that education has significantly increased re-employment success among the unemployed. Individuals with a low level of education have less chance of finding employment than those with a higher level. Such studies are proving the contradictory relationship between education and unemployment where the more a country supports the increase of education level the less the unemployment rate it has.
The graph above shows the unemployment rate with different academic levels among different selected countries. As shown, Brazil, a country from the Latin America region, has a higher unemployment rate with basic education, and intermediate education (9.41, 7.94 respectively) compared to advanced education (3.44). On the other hand, Japan has a low unemployment rate with three different education levels (3.51, 3.85 with respect to advanced and intermediate levels) compared to the other selected countries.
A way to decrease the unemployment rate:
Education can be a solution to unemployability in many regions of the world. A potential solution could be by adding more expenses on education to improve the level of skills of the citizen. This will lead to an enhancement in the market where new opportunities might be raised by educating people about entrepreneurship for example.
The graph shows the average expenditure on education across different countries. As shown, most countries with lower unemployment rates have higher expenditures on education. For example, Japan and Canada have a very low unemployment rate when it comes to advanced education, and they spend a good amount of money on their education sector as shown in the graph above. However, Brazil has a very high unemployment rate with basic and intermediate education, but it increases a lot with advanced education. Also, as the graph shows Brazil is spending a good amount of money on education.
To conclude, from analyzing a few indicators from the data, it is recommended that countries spend more money on their education systems. Aligning with the Sustainable development goal 4 – Quality education, this change can be done in a way that improves the skills of their citizens which will lead to the increase of their innovation to build new markets and follow up and produce new technologies that improve the country and create employment opportunities for the communities.
