Israel's ban on the import of building materials means that very little reconstruction has taken place since the 22-day Israeli offensive at the beginning of the year. Photo: Linda Mason for Mercy Corps

For the past several years, Gaza has suffered from a humanitarian crisis that waxes and wanes in severity, but never entirely disappears. This tiny patch of land on the Mediterranean Sea has one of the highest population densities in the world with over 4,000 people per square kilometer. On top of that, it suffers from a crushing poverty rate and high unemployment numbers that mean that 85 percent of the population is dependent on humanitarian aid.

The humanitarian situation is the result of an Israeli-imposed blockade that severely limits the flow of goods and people in and out. It's a part of what Palestinians see as a collective punishment for the actions of the Hamas-led government that took control there in June 2007. Hamas has also held an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in captivity since June 2006.

Gaza's crisis intensified at the end of last December when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a 22-day military offensive whose stated aim was to destroy Hamas's ability to launch rockets into southern Israel, and which resulted in the deaths of 13 Israelis and more than 1,300 Palestinians. A recent, controversial United Nations report assessing the war has accused both Hamas and Israel of war crimes.

Since the end of the offensive in January 2009, Israel has allowed some goods into Gaza — such as cooking oil and basic foodstuffs — but not lifted the blockade, so the crisis' underlying causes have not been alleviated. Mercy Corps' work in Gaza focuses on providing immediate humanitarian aid, helping alleviate unemployment through cash-for-work programs, and helping traumatized Gazans deal with their psychological scars.

Isdud al Najjar, Program Director for Mercy Corps in Gaza, recently spoke with me about the situation there.

Sarah Standish: Tell us about Mercy Corps' work in Gaza. What is your role?

Isdud al Najjar: Mercy Corps has worked in Gaza since September 2005. I was the first person hired there and I've been a program manager there since February 2006. We started with small scale emergency programs there in addition to the 'Why Not?' program [connecting youth in the U.S. and Gaza], and our programs have grown a lot since that time. We now have a huge Cash-for-Work program, where we provide short-term job opportunities for vulnerable male and female households as well as for new graduates.

We also have psychosocial programs focused on helping children deal with the trauma and stress they experience, as well as humanitarian and emergency assistance programs that respond to the harsh circumstances in which Palestinians are living.

Finally, we have new youth program called Global Citizen Corps, through which we're trying to promote the full participation of boys and girls in different aspects of life in order to create a shared vision of the future.

Sarah: The Israeli siege is the main cause of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but it's also caused a lot of subsidiary issues like environmental degradation, unemployment, a lack of higher education opportunities, failing businesses, scarce food supplies, and more. What do you think is the worst side-effect of the siege?

Isdud: The biggest problem the siege has caused is the rampant unemployment — about half the population is unemployed — which has had a huge impact on all aspects of life — sometimes in ways that will leave a mark on people long into the future. (The New York Times examined this issue in a recent article.)

Not only has unemployment lead to higher poverty rates, it's also associated with increases in domestic violence, which can have a negative psychological impact on children and their performance in school and at work. It's also related to a rise in school drop-out rates because some parents force their children to leave the education system in order to sell small items in the street. Additionally, we're seeing women and children out on the streets begging, which is a desperate last resort because it's considered so shameful — especially since Gaza is small and dense, and many people know each other. Some also try to marry their daughters off earlier in order to relieve themselves of that financial burden. When resources are scarce, parents always give priority to their male children, so in this kind of crisis it's women and children who pay the highest price.

Sarah: Can you tell us about the under-ground tunnels between Gaza and Egypt that are used to smuggle in goods prohibited under the Israeli blockade?

Isdud: There must be at least one thousand tunnels between Gaza and Rafah [in Egypt]. These tunnels have relieved the local market somewhat, and have definitely improved the economic situation of those who run them, but the prices of the goods smuggled through them are so high that they don't alleviate the average person's situation very much. The tunnels are a Hamas business. (Global Envision also wrote about the tunnels last winter.)

Sarah: Israel destroyed much of Gaza's infrastructure during the Dec-Jan offensive. Are rebuilding efforts under-way? Are homes being rebuilt?

Isdud: The offensive damaged or destroyed schools, water treatment facilities, public buildings, and houses, but very little has been restored because of the severe shortage of building materials. Israel doesn't allow any building materials into Gaza. There's a little bit of construction material coming through the tunnels, but it's so heavy that smugglers don't like to bring much through, and it's also too expensive for the majority of Palestinians to afford.

The lack of reconstruction means that many families are either living in buildings that are in poor condition, or staying with their relatives. As a result, there's even more overcrowding in existing buildings, and families have been split up — parents often have to send a few children to live with one set of relatives, a few others to live with another set.

Gazans follow the news closely, hoping to hear good news about their situation. In particular, they want to know what will happen with the kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit. People think that everything bad that happened to Gaza recently was revenge for the kidnapping, and they hope that if an agreement is reached on his release, the siege will be lifted.

Sarah: How has the blockade affected daily life and Mercy Corps' programs in Gaza?

Isdud: The siege has caused severe poverty and deprivation: 80 percent of Gazans now live under the poverty line, and 70 percent live in a state of deep poverty, which means that they're unable to cover the cost of their basic needs like food, health care, and electricity. Mercy Corps provides some food assistance and non-food items like water tanks, as well as medical supplies for people with disabilities. It's difficult to determine who should receive this aid since the number of people in severe need of this assistance has increased dramatically. For example, we receive thousands of applications for our cash-for-work program, but we can only help 6000-8000 people. The challenge for us is how to successfully target the poorest of the poor.

For a period, there were also severe electricity shortages [after Israel began cutting Gaza's power supply in retaliation for Hamas's rocket attacks in October 2007] that affected Mercy Corps' ability to run its programs smoothly. Sometimes, we experienced up to ten hours of power outages at a time. We have a cash-for-work program employing women who sew school uniforms, but they couldn't use their sewing machines without power, so jobs that should have been finished in twenty days sometimes took up to a month and a half. We also employed women to bake pastries that were provided as snacks to pre-schoolers, but the same thing happened: They were unable to run their electric ovens when the electricity was cut off, just as our psychosocial programs were negatively affected when there wasn't enough light in the rooms we were using to see by. Even worse, the electricity outages also meant that buildings would run out of clean water. Luckily, Mercy Corps has a generator at our office, but it didn't always have enough power to compensate for the cuts.

There was also a period in Gaza in which there was hardly any fuel. Taxis were idle, and their drivers sat at home. People were cooking over wood fires for lack of gas. Luckily, fuel is now usually able to pass into Gaza normally, so the energy situation has improved a little.

However, the siege has also caused a severe materials scarcity that hasn't abated, so we've had to be creative and re-plan some Mercy Corps programs according to what's available to us. We had planned to help reconstruct the offices of some local NGOs and rebuild a public park, but this turned out to be impossible because of the lack of building materials. Instead, we had to focus on programs that rely more on the availability of labor than materials. For instance, we employ people to help fishermen maintain their nets, and we've started a cash-for-work program that pays unemployed laborers to work on farms; that way, the program provides some people with employment, as well as helping the farmer by providing him with free labor that keeps the farmer from pulling his children out of school to do this work.

Sarah: Tell us more about Mercy Corps' psycho-social programs.

Isdud: Our programs are designed to help children who've been negatively affected by the stress of daily life and the traumatic experiences they've undergone. The program targets moderately traumatized children along with their parents and teachers, and we deliver psycho-social guided sessions using different techniques based on professional manuals, like the CABAC [Children Affected by Armed Conflict] manual, designed to help children living in conflict zones. We try to take a comprehensive approach by giving different workshops to the teachers and parents of the kids, mainly on how to deal with depressed and traumatized children, and we tell them about the importance of providing down time for their children and encouraging them to play. The program also offers some remedial classes for children whose school performance has been affected by their psychological problems. This program has been a great help to many of the Gazan children who are suffering from this overwhelming situation.

Add banking to the growing list of things your cell phone can do.

A September special report in the Economist took a look at the expanding use of mobile banking in Africa and explained how it could play a large part in improving personal financial stability in the region. In essence, here's how it works:

You take your cash to a mobile banking agent and tell the agent that you want to send money to a friend or family member. They credit your mobile banking account. Once the funds are available, you transfer money by sending a text message to whomever you want. The recipient then goes to his or her local agent to access the transferred money. People can even pay utilities or pay for cab rides with the service.

There is a strong correlation between the increase in a developing nation's cell phone use and it's rise in GDP, notes the World Bank. Mobile money offers similar effects on the individual level. A study by researchers at the University of Edinburgh found that users of the Kenyan mobile money service M-PESA have seen a 5 to 30 percent increase in their incomes since the service began in 2007.

One reason for this is the increased convenience that M-PESA offers. Like many men in Kenya, Nairobi resident David Omuchilili used to have to take time off from work and pay for travel costs to deliver money to his family, whose village is nearly 200 miles away. With M-PESA, he is now able to avoid the traveling and can be more available for work, as he explains to Business Week.

Mobile money transfers also offers a safer, more reliable way to send cash. Citizens without the means for traveling no longer have to take the risk of giving an envelope full of cash to a middleman — like a bus driver — and telling him where to deliver it. In the aftermath of the 2008 Kenyan election, M-Pesa was used to send money to those trapped by the rampant violence.

One thing is for certain. As mobile banking continues to grow in popularity and scale, users will find opportunities for better financial stability.

A street dentist in India. Photo: Christian Luna (flickr)

Would you want an unlicensed dentist working on your teeth?

You might if, like many of India’s poor, you lacked the money to see a professional. By your willingness to pay for these services, you’d also be creating a kind of employment for someone who could never find work in a traditional medical office.

Workers like these amateur dentists are part of India's informal sector, made up of the small-business employees like cleaners, agricultural workers, and hawkers of street goods who work for cash without a contract or benefits. Although India is best-known for its high-tech economy, the Indian government estimates that more than 93 percent of Indian workers are informally employed.

The informal sector didn't benefit much from India's tech boom, but its extra-stretchy quality actually makes India's economy stronger, says businessman Semil Shah. Why? For starters, he explains, the informal economy "provides markets for goods and services that may not have been otherwise traded." Others also see the the informal economy as a safety net for workers, since it gives more work possibilities to those who've lost jobs in the formal sector. Because of this, the informal sector may help sustain India through the global economic crisis, reports CNN.

However, maintaining a large informal economy isn't the long-term answer for India's poor, many researchers say. Life in the informal sector is harsh, since employment is often uncertain and poorly-paid. Moreover, working conditions aren't always good and competition can be stiff, especially when workers from the formal sector flood back in. Without a safety net of their own, informal workers hit the ground hard when they fall.

Despite all the drawbacks, many out-of-work Indians would probably agree that the uncertainty of informal work trumps the certainty of no work at all.

Iraq's Marsh Arabs have coexisted with the wetlands' unique ecosystem for 6,000 years. Photo: Dr. Michael Izady, Ph.D. (flickr)

Southern Iraq is home to one of the largest wetlands in the world, where the tributaries of the Tigris and Euphrates meet. But a three-year drought in the Middle East, along with dams and water projects in neighboring countries, has left southern Iraq with a serious water shortage, reports the BBC.

For 6,000 years these wetlands have been home to people called Marsh Arabs. They made their huts out of the marsh reeds, ate fish they caught in the waters, and sold the milk and cheese they made from water buffalo milk, explains the LA Times. (A beautiful slide show of Iraq's marshlands and the Marsh Arabs accompanies the The LA Times article.) But now these wetlands are roughly 30 percent of their former size, says the BBC, and they are continuing to shrink.

The marsh's dropping water levels have devastated the wealth of the region and the livelihoods of the Marsh Arabs. Jassim Asadi, of the nonprofit conservation group Nature Iraq, tells the LA Times the marshes used to supply two-thirds of the fish consumed in Iraq. Now people buy bottled water and frozen fish imported from Iran. “It is an economic disaster,” Asadi says.

Though the drought is "the most immediate cause" threatening the wetlands and their inhabitants, regional water politics cannot be ignored, the BBC says. The Tigris and Euphrates flow through multiple countries, and the rivers are the main water source in the area. A BBC video helps break down the situation:

About 70 percent of Iraq's waters originates outside the country, in Turkey, Syria, and Iran... These countries already have ambitious damn and irrigation projects, limiting how much is left for Iraq. And yet more damns are planned — further reducing the flow into the marshes.

Some scholars and politicians remain hopeful that diplomacy and cooperation amongst the different Middle Eastern countries will allow for more equitable water management. But as things stand now, there is no immediate fix on the horizon.

Plasmodium falciparum (malaria) parasite taking over red blood cells. Photo: Eric Fortin (Flickr)

A team of engineers at the University of California at Berkeley are pushing the limits of cell phone technology with the development of their newly minted Cellscope.

The device is a six-inch microscope that attaches to a cell phone’s digital camera lens to take high resolution microscopic images of blood and sputum samples. The Cellscope's compact size and durability makes it ideal for use in the field, nearly eliminating the health worker's need for expensive tabletop microscopes.

The Cellscope team, led by Principal Investigator Dan Fletcher, has been able to reliably identify pathogens from two of the most prominent diseases in the underdeveloped world — malaria and tuberculosis. Combined, the World Health Organization estimates that the two diseases kill 2.7 million people each year, although both are treatable if caught early. (The vast majority of malaria and tuberculosis cases are found in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia respectively.) The Cellscope offers healthcare workers in remote areas a valuable diagnostic tool, aiding in reliable early detection of these two diseases.

Right now the Cellscope is still being tested in the field. But the UC Berkeley team hopes that in time, data captured by the Cellscope will be uploaded to a central database, allowing medical workers to track the spread of diseases more efficiently than ever before.

A man delivers his goods through a flooded street in Mumbai, India. Photo: Hussain_Quantum (flickr)

It should be no surprise that armed conflicts force millions of people from their homes each year. In fact, 4.6 million people were displaced by conflict and war in 2008. But I was shocked to learn that the number of people displaced by climate change is four-times greater than those displaced by conflict. That's about 20 million people — roughly the population of Australia — that have been forced to relocate because of natural disasters like flooding, earthquakes and storms.

This figure comes from a joint study by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and is the first large-scale look at how climate change is effecting human populations. It provides data on exactly how carbon emissions have affected human lives, and it offers a somewhat harsh glimpse into what will happen if the situation is left unchecked.

Immigrants arriving in the U.S. in the middle of a recession are finding it very difficult to find a job. Photo: [ d i e g o ] (flickr)

I came across the story of Tul Bahadur Tiwari, a Bhutanese refugee from Nepal, on National Radio Project. Tul is looking for work after moving with his family to Oakland, California this year. But unemployment is at 11.7 percent in his county and the competition for decent jobs is tough.

Immigrants like Tul have an added disadvantage because often their years of schooling and even college diplomas aren't recognized in the U.S. Damanta Kharel, another Bhutanese immigrant interviewed by National Radio Project, was a graduate student in Nepal. In Oakland, she needs to take her high school exams all over again, before she can find a better position than her part-time job at a Mexican restaurant.

Despite such challenges, Bhutanese immigrants are considered very competitive because they're highly educated. Most of them, like Tul and Damanta, can already read and write in English when they arrive. And that's a great asset, according Don Clement, a staffer for the International Rescue Commission. He tells the National Radio Project that being literate is crucial for landing a decent job.

September's winning comment was sent in by Alok Amatya of Portland, Oregon. Alok commented on our post Indian Girls Throw Punches at Poverty, and mentions how boxing is opening new avenues for and instilling self-confidence in Muslim women in India. For being chosen as this month's winner, Alok will get $25 to donate to the cause of his choice through Global Giving.

The WSJ article about Muslim girls from India taking up boxing was a very well written one. It puts in perspective the kind of social conservativeness that Muslim women like Ms Fatma have to battle to achieve self-actualization through a sport like boxing that her neighbors deem fit for boys only.

Traditional gender barriers prevent women like Ms Fatma from challenging the male social supremacy that reserves positions of any power or prestige for men, thus leaving for women only domestic chores and odd jobs like sewing, and lowering the female self esteem.

A sport like boxing is a compromise really—by pursuing it, the Muslim women does not challenge the economic supremacy of the male in the family, i.e. the father or the husband. Yet the value of the self-confidence inspired in women by being good at a complex sport—and at that, one presumed by their society to be fit exclusively for males—is immense.

It is very heartening to read about the fathers of women like Ms Fatma and Ms Shabnam standing up against social pressure for the sake of their daughters’ emotional and social well-being. Perhaps such fathers have understood that only feeding and clothing their daughters does not making them complete human beings. Also heartening to read is that women from these societies who excel at sports can not only take part in tournaments at various levels, but are also invited to join the police force or the railway because of their talent. Such a segway into other occupations traditionally reserved for men might inspire a wider social change, that would finally benefit both women and men.

Keep writing in and share your though-provoking comments for a chance to win $25 towards the well-deserving charity of your choice!

* Lest anyone think $25 is not a lot, consider these figures from our affiliate Mercy Corps: $25 delivers clean, safe drinking water to 50 people in one of eastern Congo's sprawling displacement camps. $25 provides seeds to farmers in cyclone-devastated areas of Myanmar to plant five acres of rice. $25 gives traumatized children in Darfur 12 weeks of activities and psychological care to help them heal.

The Indus River has the potential to provide hydroelectric power to millions - who will hold power over that power is what's causing a logjam. Photo: Michael Foley (flickr)

India and Pakistan have both vowed to build hydroelectric dams along an upper branch of the Indus river, only 70 kilometers apart from each other. Two new hydroelectric power sources would seem like good news for these energy-hungry economies, but there's a catch. According to the terms of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty between the two countries, there's only space for one hydroelectric plant in this part of the long-disputed Jammu and Kashmir valley —
and that's the plant that's completed first.

As the race heats up — India has forecast completion for 2016, and Pakistan one year later — Pakistan hopes to edge past India's projected finish line by hiring on Chinese companies to speed up progress.

So what else is at stake in this standoff? Experts, on the condition of anonymity, recently told The Rising Kashmir Daily Newspaper that Pakistan is reaching out to China to give them an edge over India and compensate for their geographical disadvantage, saying,

Pakistan, being the lower riparian state, faces geographical disadvantage. It fears that India's Kishenganga project will have a devastating effect on its hydro-power plans, besides adversely affecting 1,33,209 hectares of agricultural land in Pakistan administered Kashmir. To stem these fears it has signed up with Chinese companies to complete the project and secure priority rights for the river.

A recent Ground Report article regarding SAAMA News correspondent Ibrahim Malick’s report that at least 20 different UN bodies concur that India and Pakistan are the two likeliest combatants for any near-future water war further illuminates what's at stake in the ongoing Indo-Pak water disputes. Ground Report is quick to point out that these two countries are both nuclear-armed, making the situation, and the potential global consequences, all the more serious.

Telltale precursors to this potential water war are already abundant on both sides of the border, including the unambiguous recommendation by the Pakistani Urdu press for war as a solution to the problem. India, in a more circuitous approach, is enforcing "punishment through water"on Pakistan for their lack of action regarding the recent terrorism attacks in India. Clearly, the prospect for a quick, effective resolution is grim.

As Indus water commissioners from India and Pakistan continue to meet in hopes of resolving issues relating to water resources and hydroelectric power generation in the region, the true losers in the South Asian water wars may end up being the forgotten residents of the very valleys the Indus River and its tributaries flow through.

According to The Bombay News,"electricity remains a distant dream for the residents of the Gurez valley of Jammu and Kashmir despite ample water resources existing in the region." Even though the Kishenganga hydroelectric plant is being built in the Gurez valley, the power from the plant will be transmitted to other, more populous and politically influential Indian states such as Himchal Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh.

Shazia Tabasum, a student and Gurez valley resident, told The Bombay News, "[t]here is so much water here. The government has to take steps to put an end to the power crisis. The electricity is supplied through diesel generators. As long as diesel is there we get electricity, but if the diesel goes out of stock, we live in dark and have to wait for fifteen days to one month for the next stock to reach our place."

Unless the Indian government responds to pleas like these from local residents, they'll have to continue getting by with two to three hours of diesel-generated electricity a day. And by the looks of it, the government has its hands full making the power available in the first place.