Has Kosovo's first year of independence truly been "totally successful," as Prime Minister Hasim Thaci asserts?

Nearly half of all Kosovars live in poverty, and there are only enough jobs for one out every two people.

Kosovo's economy is heavily dependent on remittances from abroad and foreign aid, two income sources expected to decline given the global financial crisis. And the foreign investment promised by the government has yet to materialize.

There remains untapped potential in the mining industry. Geologists recently discovered vast amounts of high-quality lignite coal (up to 15 billion tons) and considerable nickel, lead, zinc and bauxite deposits, and traces of gold.

But you have to wonder who would want to invest in any industry in a country ranked in the top fifth of the world’s most corrupt countries by Transparency International. Then there's the the threat of the mob. The UN mission in Kosovo estimates organized crime to account for some 15-20 percent of Kosovo's economy.

"For 10 years we linked every problem to status," said Shpend Ahmeti, director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Pristina, referring to Kosovo's struggle to separate from Serbia. "We thought independence was going to simplify things. It has not. Independence has removed a mental block among Kosovars. Now, in every poll, the priority is not status, but jobs. We've moved from survival, to development and prosperity as a great need we don't yet have."

Food banks are having trouble meeting growing demand. Photo: Steve Rhode (flickr)

Many people visiting their local food bank these days have never been there before, according to a recent story in the New York Times.

Once a crutch for the most needy, food pantries have responded to the deepening recession by opening their doors to what Rosemary Gilmartin, who runs the Interfaith Food Pantry here, described as “the next layer of people."

A 30-percent increase in demand for food bank services has even affected some of the most affluent counties. Kathleen DiChiara, of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey calls that "the canary in the coal mine."

The Department of Agriculture estimates that 36.2 million people already struggled to avoid hunger before the economic crisis. Every one of the 180 food banks included in a recent survey reported an increase of demand, and 72 percent of them weren't able to meet their community's needs.

Private companies and the U.S. government are trying to fill the void. PBS reported that Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo donated a combined $3.7 million to food banks across the country late last year. The newly passed stimulus package includes $19.9 billion for food stamp-related programs.

On his recent trip to Elkhard, Indiana, President Obama spoke about the current strains on local food banks:

Slum life might not be a dead-end for kids in Dharavi, India. Photo: lecercle (flickr)

Even before it cashed in on eight Oscars, Slumdog Millionaire had sparked a global conversation around the film's depiction of slum life in India.

Critics say Slumdog's dramatized images of destitution, squalor and prostitution send a distorted message to audiences. It also overlooks the resilience of India’s hardworking slum-dwellers, Gautaman Bhaskaran writes in the Japan Times:

Is this not what the developed West wants to see of India: its underbelly of crime, corruption and poverty that appears all black, dark and depressing, with little gray or goodness?

Meanwhile, economist Howard Husock draws a more hopeful message from the film: that slum life is not, in all cases, inescapable.

By finding a hero who rises from shacks and degradation, the film reflects a surprising new consensus that even as slums proliferate around the world at a greater scale than ever before, they could, with the right mix of policies, be the launching pads for upward mobility rather than dead-ends.

Over the last half-century, slums around the world have been transformed from temporary settlements into thriving urban centers, Husock writes in Forbes. In Mumbai’s Dharavi slum (where Slumdog was shot), small businesses are multiplying at a staggering rate.

But residents in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, are less concerned about entrepreneurship and infrastructure than they are about a redevelopment project that would demolish their community. A plan to convert shanties into upscale apartments and office towers would uproot Dharavi residents from homes where they’ve lived for years — in some cases, for generations.

"This city has always been about diversity of habitats," urban planner and activist Rahul Srivastava told India’s Economic Times. "We have low-rises and high-rises, villages and slums. Why can't we make slums acceptable living spaces?"