Foreign
Aid
"Today, few would write
off Africa—or developing nations on any continent—as hopeless. Instead, the
health of the developing world has been very much a story of hope. Since 2000,
new malaria infections have halved in sub-Saharan Africa. Child mortality and
AIDS deaths have fallen precipitously. Between the 1870s and the 1970s, famines killed about a million people per year around the
world. Since 1980, that number has gone down to an average of about 75,000
annually. (Indeed, in 2011 even The Economist took note, publishing a new cover story titled “Africa
Rising.”)
In a new report from their foundation, Bill and Melinda
Gates write that it’s this type of progress that could be reversed if funding for global health is cut—including by
the U.S. government.
President Trump’s budget proposal, released in
May, recommended slashing global health funding by 26 percent
and humanitarian funding by 44 percent, or $4.2 billion. It eliminated global family planning. The proposal
will likely be watered down by Congress this fall, but global-health advocates
are nonetheless worried that even minor cuts could have massive, and tragic,
effects.ould be reversed if
funding for global health is cut—including by the U.S. government."
Productivity,
Commuting
"In America, the average commute is 26.4 minutes, up 21% from
1980, while commuters in London and Manchester spend about 85 minutes a day getting to and from work.
The rising cost of living
in major cities like New York, London and Beijing has forced many people out
into the suburbs and surrounding areas, giving them little choice but to
commute long distances to the office each day. In Beijing the average commute is about an hour.
Rather than staring at our
phones, we could use that time to upgrade our skills, start new companies,
learn new languages and more."
Economic
Development, Appalachia
"The Appalachian region has long faced daunting
challenges of poverty and geographic isolation. Today, despite state and
federal anti-poverty efforts dating back to the Johnson and Kennedy
administrations, many of the region’s residents continue to be vulnerable to
the effects of persistent economic deprivation. In recent decades, declines in
coal production and traditional manufacturing, once the region’s backbone
industries, have contributed to stubbornly high levels of unemployment and
poverty—with serious ripple effects on people’s health and well-being. Because
a larger share of Appalachia’s population lives in rural communities—over 40
percent, compared to 20 percent for the nation as a whole—the region has been
particularly hard hit by problems, from opioid abuse to low educational
attainment and youth out-migration, that are affecting rural areas across the
United States.
Appalachia confronts these challenges with
unique strengths and resources. As coal production has declined and other
traditional manufacturing jobs have left the region, natural gas development
has grown, and major auto plants and other state-of-the-art manufacturing
facilities have moved in. Community and family bonds are strong, as is the
region’s tradition of hard work and self-reliance. And Appalachia abounds with
examples of success as well as hardship: communities that are successfully
re-inventing themselves and attracting new business investment; programs that
are achieving promising results; and individual citizens and local leaders who,
despite formidable obstacles and limited resources, are making a difference.
Now as in the past, Appalachia commands attention as a region that is both
disproportionately affected by the negative consequences of recent social and
economic disruptions, and uniquely positioned to demonstrate how these
consequences might be addressed more creatively and effectively going forward.
The task force gathered leading regional and
national experts to explore critical issues in four areas: education and
workforce, entrepreneurship and job creation, energy and infrastructure, and
rural health."
Infrastructure,
Climate Change, Environment
"The challenge in
prompting change — broadening the classic definition of “infrastructure,” and
investing in initiatives aimed at adapting to a turbulent planet — is
heightened by partisan divisions over climate policy and development.
Of course, there’s
also the question of money. The country’s infrastructure is ailing already. A
national civil engineering group has surveyed the nation’s bridges, roads,
dams, transit systems and more and awarded a string of D
or D+ grades since 1998. The
same group has estimated that the country will be several trillion dollars
short of what’s needed to harden and rebuild and modernize our infrastructure
over the next decade.
For fresh or
underappreciated ideas, ProPublica reached out to a handful of engineers,
economists and policy analysts focused on reducing risk on a fast-changing
planet."
Women, Politics
(From December 2016)
Amy Klobuchar is my #1 pick too.
"Here is a New
Year's resolution for Democratic women in politics: be at least as brazen as
Republican men are in deciding whether to run for President. It's not just that
Donald Trump had no record of public service and a long list of what might be
considered disqualifying attributes and actions. Ben Carson had no experience
in elected office, and other candidates had very little. Marco Rubio was
greeted as the future of the Party when he decided to run just two-thirds of
the way through his first term. That was only two years’ more experience in the
Senate than Ted Cruz, one of the final contenders, had. In 2017, there will be
a dozen Democratic female senators with more experience. And why limit it to
the Senate, or to any particular level of elective office? Women, in all
professions, tend to feel that they need to make their résumés perfect before
putting themselves forward. Maybe they should stop thinking that way, at least
in American politics, where insiderness does not seem to be particularly valued
at the moment. Here's another test to think of before asking whether a woman is
enough of a national figure to jump into the Presidential race: How well known
was the state senator Barack Obama in 2004?"
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