The use of technology in humanitarian aid planning is on the rise. Photo: Esther Gibbons (Flicker)

2011 is over, but the impact technology had on humanitarian aid planning last year could be just beginning to emerge.

Humanitarian issues demand immediate solutions. In 2011, a lot of solutions to crises placed heavy emphasis on technology. Here are three notable examples:

Disaster prone Bangladesh turned to GPS to provide early weather warnings to fishermen.

Airtel, a private mobile operator in Bangladesh will provide early weather warnings to fishermen using its global positioning system via cell phones in partnership with the Center for Global Change, the Campaign for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods and two international NGOs, according to IRIN.

More than half on Bangladesh’s population uses mobile phones. Early weather warnings could prove to be a life-saving tool. "75 percent of the country’s population lives in rural, disaster-prone areas, an ideal environment in which to exploit the potential of mobile phones to mitigate disasters," IRIN reported.

Technology has helped put Kibera on the map, literally.

Finding Kibera, a district of Nairobi, on a map before 2009 was not an easy task because it wasn’t on one. The location of schools, medical facilities, water points and other basic information was simply not available. As a result, The Map Kibera Project was created in order to provide this information. The goal: to train nine Kibera residents in using GPS devices to gather geographical information in a "citizen mapping" project.

Now this information is available on OpenStreetMap, a global map anyone can view and edit. Organizers plan to continue adding information on the map and eventually start mapping other communities.

Mobile phones have turned ordinary people into extraordinary philanthropists.

This past year, one of the worst famines in modern history struck the Horn of Africa. Humanitarian aid and donor government assistance poured in from all over the world. One campaign, "Kenyans for Kenya," set a goal to raise $5.28 million dollars in one month. Within 10 days, the goal was met and a bigger goal of $10.56 million set. By September 1, more than $7 million was collected, $1.6 million through private donations.
Contributions, most of them from Kenyan citizens and organizations, were made through a mobile phone money transfer service operated by telecom firm Safaricom. The money collected has been used to send money to affected areas through the Kenyan Red Cross Society, IRIN reports. This has been one of the most successful humanitarian fundraising campaigns Kenya has ever seen, and its efforts are ongoing.

These are only a few examples of how technology has positively impacted humanitarian responses to crises. Technology isn’t the answer to all the world’s problems, but it’s proving to be an effective tool.

Adapted from a report by Lisa Hoashi, Mercy Corps Senior Internal Communications Officer.

Mohammed Gawdat.

Creativity means doing something new. Innovation means doing something differently.

Our world of scarcity needs both.

That's the argument mounted last week in Cairo, at Mercy Corps' bi-annual Global Leadership Gathering, by Mohammed Gawdat, Google's Vice President for Emerging Markets. The set of principles Gawdat laid out matter as much to social entrepreneurs and innovators as to more traditional ones.

Gawdat reviewed four types of innovation:

Product innovation, when someone improves an existing product. For example, Apple's iPod is a product innovation over the MP3 players that came before it.

Process innovation, when an existing process is improved to be more efficient. Toyota innovated when it began to use "lean manufacturing" to make cars.

Service innovation. With stores that feel like "home," Starbucks focuses on selling an experience, rather than just a product, coffee.

Business model innovation. This type of innovation focuses on improving the way that a product is delivered. Amazon.com's online store, which virtually sells everything, fundamentally changed the way that consumers shop and make purchases.

Everyone is born creative, Gawdat said, and has the ability to innovate. "Surprisingly, all you can really do to innovation is block it," he said. "Leadership just has to know how to get out of the way."

Google's nine rules of innovation

1. Start with a clear, simple vision. Gawdat's example was Google's: "To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

2. Hire the best. Gawdat showed this clip from the movie Ratatouille, where a rat tries to prove that he knows enough about cooking to be accepted as a chef. "Just because he's a rat doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's doing," Gawdat said. The "best" employees are whoever are "the best at the mission," he said, regardless of who they are and what credentials they have.

3. Find ideas everywhere. When you come up against someone or an idea that you don't like or find odd, ask "Why?" You never know where it might lead you.

4. Share. "Sometimes the truth hurts," Gawdat acknowledged, "but it's important to share it." At Google, information is thought to be better shared than hidden. Projects in development are shared across the company, and anyone can comment on them.

5. Morph ideas, don't kill them. Don't make the mistake of letting an idea stop at step one: let it shift. Google developed three social networking platforms before arriving at Google+.

6. Speed matters. Fast is better than slow.

7. Data trumps hype. At Google, Gawdat said, "every claim is backed up by data." Solid data drives all decisions.

8. Users come first. (And second, and third, and fourth...) Focus on what the customer wants, and then put resources toward addressing that.

9. Give permission to innovate. At Google, employees are encouraged to use 20 percent of their work time on any project of their choosing that's approved by their manager. "If [a Google employee] says they want to use that time to make a better car, then that's O.K.," said Gawdat. "No one is allowed to say, 'That is not what we do.'"

In closing, Gawdat showed Apple's classic Think Different ad, which ends by saying that "the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

"At most organizations," said Gawdat, "it is the few crazy people that are the ones that drive it forward ... If people are passionate about something, then you should allow them to move forward."

Declaring Internet access a human right would dilute the rights that matter more, says Internet pioneer Vint Cerf. Photo: Veni Markovski (Wikimedia)

Get real: The Internet isn't a human right.

That's the message from a man often credited with inventing the Internet, Vint Cerf. Writing in The New York Times yesterday, Cerf, who now works for Google, argued that human rights are "things we as humans need in order to lead healthy, meaningful lives":

At one time if you didn’t have a horse it was hard to make a living. But the important right in that case was the right to make a living, not the right to a horse. Today, if I were granted a right to have a horse, I’m not sure where I would put it.

Today's Internet—publicly developed but privately owned and financed—is a key tool in toppling kleptocracies and enriching millions of poor farmers. So Cerf's position is provocative. But it's a reminder that those of us who believe in markets' power to help solve poverty shouldn't cling too tightly to any single "market-based solution."

That wouldn't be market-based at all.

57 million women give birth each year without the help of a trained professional. Photo: hugrakka(Flicker)

Bringing one life into the world shouldn't mean sacrificing another. While the developing world scrambles to secure funding for midwifery services, there's a cheap, short-term solution: birth kits.

The risk of death due to pregnancy or childbirth is 1 in 8,000 in developed countries, as opposed to 1 in 17 in developing countries, according to the organization Unite For Sight. Yearly, approximately 57 million women give birth in their home without the help of a trained professional, increasing the risk of complications.

Midwives are an essential player in lowering maternal deaths. "Midwives can save women's and newborns' lives if they are properly trained and equipped, and if a support network is available," writes the World Health Organization. Worldwide, the WHO estimates, there is a shortage of 350,000 midwives. But training 350,000 new midwives won't happen overnight. In the meantime, birth kits could fill the gap.

Birth kits provide the tools for a safer and sanitary delivery, including soap to wash hands, razors and ties for the umbilical cord, plastic sheets for a clean surface, and an instruction sheet.

The impact of birth kits can be life-saving but their success depends on acceptability within the community where it is introduced. At times, modifications might be needed such as redesigning the instruction sheet to use images instead of words, considering low literacy rates. PATH, an international organization which focuses on global health and well-being, has produced kits used in Bangladesh, Egypt and Nepal. Cutting the umbilical cord on a coin is considered good luck in Nepal. To adhere to traditional customs, PATH created a kit that includes a plastic rupee.

Another common problem: Cutting the umbilical cord with unsanitary, used razor blades. Disposable razor blades or an illustrated instruction sheet encouraging woman and midwives to sterilize reusable blades after every use could reduce this problem. The Janma clean delivery birthing kit by AYZH is making modifications to its current scalpel handle design to discourage reuse.

Though midwives are the ideal choice for safe births, families can't always afford their services. Government and non-profit programs that subsidize midwifery programs aren't economically sustainable in the long run. A model pursued by the Midwifery Association of Pakistan involves changing public perceptions of the midwife's role in health care, advocates for government-set standards for midwifery education, and lobbies for professional rights.

Until midwifery is economically viable and publicly understood, we need an affordable stop-gap solution to save lives. Maternal mortality will continue to rise if birth kits—and, eventually, midwifery services—aren’t accessible to the women who need them now.

Cafes in Tunisia have become a common hangout for unemployed college graduates, but now that educated youth may be able to get back to work. Photo: Flickr (clurross)

Sitting in cafes all over Tunisia are unemployed youth with college degrees and nothing better to do.

Tunisia's recent revolution left it with skyrocketing unemployment and an economic collapse. Libya, Tunisia’s neighbor, finds itself in a similarly precarious situation. Their crucial difference is that while Tunisia is relatively developed, Libya has no working infrastructure. And ironically, it is this lack of infrastructure that provides the solution to both countries' problems.

Following the wake of Tunisia’s President Ben Ali stepping down and the death of Libya’s Qaddafi, the nations’ new governments are hoping to set up more open ways of conducting business. Previously full of government corruption and theft, transparent business practices will allow both countries to allow the creation of companies that address the people’s interests rather than the government’s. Tunisia and Libya’s citizens are taking advantage of this change, and are already creating businesses aimed at building the desperately needed infrastructure in Libya that Qaddafi never developed. This will, in turn, relieve the strain on Tunisia’s hospitals and other infrastructure, which are currently working at double capacity. According to Tunisian economist Moncef Cheikhrouhou, the rebuilding of Libya could provide jobs for 250,000 Tunisians, all while developing lasting economic ties between the nations and creating the building blocks for Libya’s economy to sustain itself.

The new opportunities for growth and economic connection also have a broader appeal. In the post-Arab Spring Middle East, the example these two struggling countries provide sets the pace for a region full of economic growth potential.

Prior to the Arab Spring, the Middle East economy neglected to build privatized business connections within the region. Ben Ali aligned Tunisia with Europe and Qaddafi kept Libya isolated. When regional investment did occur, it was often corrupt. Libya and Tunisia are both poised to set the example for regional cooperation in an area where business connections are rare, and their timing couldn’t be better. Recent Citibank rankings have placed two other Middle Eastern countries—Egypt and Iraq—as nations with the greatest potential for growth in the next 40 years. Investment in these growing economies would benefit all involved. This closer connection with up-and-coming neighbor economies is particularly important as Tunisia’s long-standing ties to faltering economies like those of Italy and Greece seem to be deteriorating.

With a lot of work cut out for them in the months and years ahead, it looks like as many as a quarter of a million Tunisians could finally leave the cafes and get back to work. Jobs, opportunities, and examples for their Middle Eastern neighbors may follow.

Tunisia becomes the first country of the Arab Spring to hold a general election. Photo: Gwenaël Piaser (Flickr)

While the world's eyes are fixed on violence in Egypt and Libya, the Arab Spring’s most important step yet will depend not on blood shed, but on votes cast.

Tunisia becomes the first country of the Arab Spring to hold general elections on Oct. 23. Voters will elect 217 members to a general assembly charged with drafting the country’s constitution over the next year. The voting will take place in a system of proportional representation, with parties providing a list of their candidates.

At least half of all listed candidates will be women, per the election’s rules. Though for Tunisia, this is not so surprising. 'Tunisia is considered one of the most liberal Arab countries, with high levels of female participation in public and political life,' according to BBC News.

There are three major political parties vying for votes. The most widely supported is Ennahda, an Islamist party that was banned under Tunisia’s former president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The two other contending parties are both secular. Each party has said it'd be open to a power-sharing coalition, depending on the results of the election.

Tunisia’s economy is expected to see the highest growth rates out of any country affected by the Arab Spring, and that is due at least in part to peaceful politics. 'We expect activity to continue improving in the coming months particularly if the elections and the political transition thereafter take place in a smooth manner,' said Alia Moubayed, an economist at Barclays Capital who was quoted in Bloomberg Businessweek.

These elections represent the closest any of the Arab Spring countries have come to a full transition of power. As other countries continue to rise up against corrupt regimes, pay close attention on Sunday as 3.9 million Tunisians head to the polls. The fate of the Arab Spring may depend not on how revolutions are started and waged, but on whether they can culminate in new and stable regimes.

Ben Osborn is a 2011 graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

Men in traditional Maasai clothing using their mobile phones. Photo: Mark Kelley (Flickr)

Envy Jared Cohen. At 29, the man has advised two U.S. presidents, shaped relations between countries, and now leads his own think-tank at Google. But his take on technology suggests you could do this, too.

Cohen, at a recent Mercy Corps-sponsored talk in Portland, OR, wowed the audience with personal anecdotes about how technology is changing international affairs. Cohen has seen firsthand the effects of communications technology and understands the potential it holds for the world’s future.

Cohen, a security expert, spent much of his talk describing the effects of communications progress on modern states and their rule of law. He spoke of technological literacy in Iranian youth that was instrumental in coordinating the June, 2009 Green Revolution. He spoke of an unemployed Colombian activist who used social media to coordinate the anti-FARC demonstration, the largest protest against a terrorist group in history.

"The 21st century," Cohen said, "is a really terrible time to be a control freak." But that applies whether you're trying to control peaceful demonstrators in Cairo or violent drug cartels in Mexico. Government control is proving ever more elusive as groups find out just how empowering technology can be.

Jared Cohen.

He painted a picture of exponentially growing networks that are bringing people together from around the globe. This interconnectedness makes it difficult to control and contain groups that are finding ever more ways to use technology that is itself rapidly progressing. These groups tend to be made up of young people, as the empowering effect of these new forms of communication is most potent for those who understand how to use them.

Each of Cohen’s points seemed to return to a basic theme: technology is eroding the barriers to entry to all sorts of games, markets, and movements. And while technology is getting better, people, especially young people, are getting better at using it. Cohen argues that “those who don’t have information technology today will be the most active users tomorrow.” Ten years ago, 361 million people had access to the Internet. Today, that number has increased to 2.1 billion, with the fastest growth in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. “Pakistan, in the year 2000, had 300,000 mobile phones. By 2010, it had over 100 million. That's in a population of 165 million,” Cohen explained. Technological growth will have the biggest empowering effect on those who currently find themselves with the least power.

Cohen’s opinions on this topic have authority because of the life he's led and the movements he's witnessed. He’s travelled the world and met with leaders of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, democracies and autocracies. His own story is a case in point that technology is empowering those who know how to use it.

Technology, according to Cohen, is driving the changing tide of the times and youth tend to have an inherent advantage in understanding and deftly using these innovations. Cohen rode the wave of technology into the most exclusive circles in Washington. And he says we should all be using technology to find our own wave to ride.

Ben Osborn is a 2011 graduate of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. Read his other contributions to Global Envision.

An image of an endocervical gland taken during a pap smear. Simple vinegar turns out to be a lower-cost alternative to tests like this one. Photo:Ed Uthman(flicker)

A common household item can serve a double purpose: it gives flavor in your kitchen, and it saves your life.

A low-cost innovation—vinegar— can help detect cervical cancer and save thousands of lives in developing nations.

Developed by the John Hopkins medical school in the 1990’s and endorsed by the World Health Organization, vinegar is brushed on a woman’s cervix. The vinegar causes precancerous spots to turn white, reports The New York Times.

The spots can be instantly frozen off with a metal probe cooled by a tank of carbon dioxide.

In the traditional Western test for cervical cancer, a pap smear, a scraping of the cervix is taken and sent to a lab for testing. High-quality labs are scarce in many poor countries, and waiting for results can take weeks. Woman who live in rural areas are hard to reach. The vinegar procedure, known as VIA/cryo, only requires a nurse and a single visit to detect and kill the cancer.

Each year, more than 250,000 women die from cervical cancer, 85 percent of them in poor or middle-income countries.

Solutions to problems don’t always have to be high-tech. A little creativity and ingenuity can go a long way.

Over one billion people live on less than one dollar a day, according to the U.N. But what can you actually buy with a dollar?

It seems like something that would vary across countries. Luckily, the World Food Programme recently released a series of videos in which it seeks to answer that question. Country specialists in Nepal, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Guatemala, Somalia, Kenya, and the Philippines each went to their local markets with the equivalent of about one U.S. dollar and attempted to put together a meal. Watch as Reem Nada visits a market in Alexandria, Egypt.

The shorts are entertaining, but present a rather bleak reality. Almost all of the investigators come up short nutritionally. In Nepal, Deepesh Das Shresta leaves the market holding a few small bananas and a loaf of white bread. Meat is categorically too expensive, and staying within budget means many investigators can’t purchase all of the components necessary to create the meals that are considered cultural staples. It appears that those living on less than a dollar a day are also living far below their daily caloric and nutrient requirements.

Feeding oneself on less than a dollar is tricky business under the best of circumstances. Even worse, the recent volatility of the price of staple foods such as rice has jumped three times since 2008, says the New York Times — meaning that dollar must now be stretched even further.

The rest of the videos can be found on the World Food Programme website. The videos for Ethiopia, Kenya, and the Philippines are listed separately.

Margo Conner is a senior at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, majoring in international affairs. Read her other contributions to Global Envision.

Despite the economic growth in Gaza, many destroyed homes still haven't been rebuilt. Photo: RafahKid (flickr)

Despite the continued blockade on goods in Gaza, the area is experiencing its first period of economic growth since 2007, largely due to Egyptian policy changes.

New luxury hotels, a shopping mall, and dozens of schools are all signs of increased economic development and decreased dependence on Israeli goods since the blockade began four years ago, the New York Times reported in June. Jobs have been increasing and over 1,000 factories are up and running, according to Hamas. While the growth has put unemployment back below 25 percent and allowed the rebuilding of hundreds of homes, Gaza still struggles.

Electricity is inconsistent, leaving hospitals and schools vulnerable. In the last four years, the number of people living on less than $1.60 a day has tripled. Reliance on food aid remains extremely high and thousands of homes are not yet rebuilt. “For the vast majority in Gaza, things are not improving,” a Gazan medical student told the New York Times. “Most people in Gaza remain forgotten.”

Increased trade from Egypt has led to real improvements, but the blockade still inhibits development of meaningful infrastructure that improves lives long term.

With new border policies, humanitarian aid cargo may finally be allowed into Gaza. Photo: Peter Casier (flickr)

Derar Mohamed, our blogger from Gaza, writes on the economic and social issues facing the Middle East today.

Gaza is a 139-square-mile area of land, according to the CIA World Factbook, with a population density reaching one of the highest in the world—12,000 people per square mile. This big society's needs are growing constantly while all six Israeli borders and the seventh Egyptian border that link it to life have remained closed. However, toward the end of last May, the Egyptian authorities decided to re-open the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to partially ease the blockade that Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2006.

From an economic, social, and political point of view, the opening of the border will improve access to many essential needs for Gazan people. Gazans, including scholarship holders seeking higher education, contractors with jobs outside of Gaza and patients looking for better treatment options, would finally be able to fulfill their right of traveling freely to the outside world without feeling trapped just because of where they live.

Second, the opening would make it easier to bring the necessary raw construction materials that would allow for reconstruction from some serious understructure and infrastructure damages after the Israeli assault in 2009.

Finally, as the strip is mostly dependent on the “often-closed” Israeli borders to bring in decent goods and aid, Gazans have been forced to depend on smuggling goods through tunnels. This dangerous job has taken the lives of hundreds of Palestinians who suffer from unemployment. The opening of the crossing would partially solve this issue by increasing the amount and safety of commercial exchange being processed through the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Many political reactions followed the re-opening of the border. Nabil al Arabi, former Egyptian interim foreign minister and the new Arab League Secretary-General, has declared that closing the Rafah border under the Mubarak regime was "disgraceful," while Israel has described the re-opening of the border as a "national failure." I can still remember the humiliation I faced along with many other Palestinians on the border; I cannot imagine how giving people parts of their lost dignity and basic human rights back can be considered as a "national failure."

The hours I waited on the Palestinian side of the border cannot be easily wiped away from my memory. I made it through, though tens of ill people, businessmen and students were rejected.

While the border is officially opened again, it has been closed several times, according to a report done by Democracy Now. Egypt claims that there has been some necessary repair work; Palestinians claim that Egypt is being exposed to international pressures to withdraw its decision of re-opening the border.

As the border opens and closes, Palestinians in Gaza are looking forward to seeing and connecting with the outside world; to bring Gaza to the world, and to bring the world to Gaza.

This has been reposted from the Mercy Corps blog.

On March 1, I entered Libya from Egypt with the Mercy Corps emergency response team. The situation at the border was chaotic. Thousands of foreign migrant workers were trying to cross into Egypt to escape the violence in Libya. Many of them were stranded in the no-man’s land area between the two countries, waiting for transportation and permission to enter Egypt.

The customs house, the duty free shop — literally every building at the border — had become temporary shelter for the thousands of people who were stuck there. More were camped out on the sidewalks and parking lots. Most of them had only the belongings they could carry by hand and very little money or resources to cope. Fortunately, the majority of the people were Egyptians and so they did not have to travel too far to reach home and the Egyptian government was assisting their people in getting back there.

Since the unrest and violence began in Libya there is the refugee crisis as the migrant foreign workers try to flee the violence. More 170,000 people have fled from Libya — thousands are still stuck in the border of Tunisia without adequate financial resources, shelter or food.

The situation on the Tunisia border, where Mercy Corps has another emergency team deployed for this ongoing regional crisis, is much worse than on the Egyptian side. The people fleeing into Tunisia are also largely Egyptian, but they have to get transportation on planes or boats to get home. The numbers are massive and they are forced to wait several days for transport. There are also reports that, as they come through Libya, they being harassed by pro-Gaddafi forces and some have been forced to pay bribes and give away the few possessions they brought as bribes to pass.

The United States and other governments have sent planes and boats to help the people evacuate, and the border situation has improved in the last day — but thousands are still waiting.

There is also concern if there is an increase in airstrikes and violence in the west of Libya that more people will try to cross the borders to escape. If this happens, the crisis could spiral out of control.

The situation here in Libya is changing by the minute as the opposition advances from the East and then is beaten back by Gaddafi forces, and then advances again. Airstrikes are ongoing and we are preparing for the worst, but hoping for a quick end to this terrible violence.

Some of the thousands stuck at the Salloum border between Libya and Egypt. The situation on the Tunisian border is much worse. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

This has been reposted from The Mercy Corps Blog.

I wish that I were in Tahrir Square right now. After working in the Middle East for the past five years, I’d like to see and feel this historic moment myself. Our friend Nick Kristof of the New York Times is there. He reports that the usual hustle and bustle of traffic in the heart of Cairo has been replaced by throngs of exuberant protesters. The square, he says, “has lost its menace and suddenly become the most exhilarating place in the world.” While the street demonstrations across Egypt have drawn citizens from across generations, religions, political persuasions and socio-economic backgrounds, there is no doubt that much of the energy fueling recent events has been generated by the country’s burgeoning youth population.

Two-thirds of Egypt’s 80 million people are below the age of 30. According to Money Week Magazine, 90 percent of the country’s unemployed are youth. Egyptian youth are fed up — frustrated by the lack of job opportunities, disgusted by rampant corruption and poor governance, and tired of having no voice. It appears that they are now on their way to changing their leadership — President Hosni Mubarak is on TV as I write, pledging to step down from office. Young people with similar complaints brought down the government in Tunisia and kicked off protests in Yemen. Here in Jordan, where I am now, King Abdullah responded to young protesters today by dismissing the current government and offering up other reforms.

I am humbled by the determination and courage of young people in the Middle East who are finding their voice and peacefully but defiantly advocating for change. And I am continuously inspired by the youth I meet across the region who are working on a daily basis through our Global Citizen Corps program and other initiatives to address critical challenges in their communities. Young people in this region are not the leaders of the future — they are the leaders of now.

But while this may be an exhilarating moment for people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, the social and economic challenges facing the Middle East and its youth will not be solved quickly. Years of hard work lie ahead. Youth in the Middle East want the same thing that young people everywhere want: a sense of hope, opportunity, and a chance to be active, productive members of their communities and societies. Our job is to support them in achieving that vision. When the dust in the streets eventually settles, it is critical that governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations like Mercy Corps band together in support of youth in the Middle East, ensuring they have access to the tools and opportunities they need to build a dignified, peaceful, and productive life for themselves and their communities.

Swarms of protests have taken place in Egypt over the last several days. Photo: Al Jazeera English (flickr)

Twitter, Facebook, Myspace -- you name the social network and it's bursting with information about the demonstrations that have taken Egypt by storm in the past few days.

According to The Jerusalem Post, cell phone service and the internet have been cut in effort to make it difficult for protestors to organize. But Al Jazeera and other media organizations have been using twitter to provide live updates on the situation in Egypt, including President Hosni Mubarak's anxiously awaited public statement. Just a few moments ago, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced that he has ordered the existing government to step down with the promise that a new government will be installed tomorrow. At this point he has not said that he will step down.

This The New York Times backgrounder explains how protests in Egypt were inspired by neighboring Tunisia's overthrow of former President Ben Ali.

"The unrest in Egypt — fueled by frustrations over government corruption, economic stagnation and a decided lack of political freedom — came after weeks of turmoil across the Arab world that toppled one leader in Tunisia and encouraged protesters to overcome deep-rooted fears of their authoritarian leaders and take to the streets."

Much of the protesting has been fueled my Egypt's youth population which compromises more than 47 percent of the state's total population. Their concerns for the future and frustration with the job economy have helped propel the demonstrations.

For up to date coverage on Egypt, check out Al Jazerra's excellent live feed.