View of the Samtskhe-Javakheti Region. Photo: Justin Cruanes

My cab driver was yelling something that sounded like "khows, khows!" I hadn't the faintest idea what he was talking about until I saw the spotted figures in the distance and realized he was saying "cows."

I had asked the driver what people in the area do for a living. "Livestock agriculture," he said. We chatted a bit in what little words we had in common as I made my way to visit some Mercy Corps programs in the Samtskhe-Javakheti Region.

Sapara Monastery. Photo: Justin Cruanes

In Georgia, cows are something worth shouting about. Particularly in the Samtskhe-Javakheti Region, where agriculture is the main economic activity. However, 67 percent of the population lives in poverty and farmers struggle due to ethnic discrimination, small production capabilities, low quality goods and an inability to participate in market activities. Having 20 cows on hand makes little difference when you have no place to properly refrigerate the milk they produce. Furthermore, if farmers can’t store milk, they can’t age cheese, and fresh cheese is of much lower value than if let to age a bit.

The Mercy Corps programs train community leaders and small-scale livestock producers in improving business practices, animal care, food safety, hygiene and budgeting. Instead of supplying farmers with short-term solutions (such as handing them cattle and equipment), the projects are working to permanently improve weaker parts of the production chain — greasing the production chain without becoming a part of it. The programs are doing this through several means: improving accessibility and transport of goods, increasing the transparency of the market and creating an environment where these measures can eventually sustain themselves.

Sapara Barn. Photo: Justin Cruanes

My first order of business was to check out the Sapara Monastery, where the Mercy Corps is working with local community leaders to improve the capacity of the monks' barn. At the moment, the barn can only hold about five to seven cattle. The program is helping to double their barn’s capacity, enough to accommodate 12 to 14 cattle.

Most of the milk produced in the region is used to make cheese, but the farmers have been without a means to store it. Instead, they sell directly to the market for a low price. Mercy Corps has helped renovate a former Soviet cheese storage facility for local use. This new facility lets farmers allow their cheese to mature so it can be sold later for increased profits.

Tractor shop. Photo: Justin Cruanes

Afterwards, we made our way to the town’s tractor supplier, where the program has set up links between farmers and the shop. We arrived just in time to witness the purchase of a tractor by a local farmer. The program supplies farmers with about 30 percent of the funds needed to purchase tractors.

Eventually we made our way to the office, where Mercy Corps Program Director for Georgia, Davidson Highfill, highlighted the program's work to improve "market visibility" by feeding databases of price statistics to farmers.

The Mercy Corps programs in the Samtskhe-Javakheti Region are working from several different angles to improve the livelihood of many small-scale farmers. From the construction of milk storage facilities to access to important market information, these programs are supplying the means for long term improvements for the farming community and it's "khows."

Last May, about 40 teens showed up at Mercy Corps' India office in Assam to stage a sit-in. They had hired a truck to take them from their homes surrounding the Maud Tea Estate to Mercy Corps' Assam office...not an easy drive.

The Assam office had just chosen to shut down its six coaching centers for youth due to a funding shortage. The coaching centers had been so successful that the team chose to reallocated funds towards scholarships for the students who had already completed the coaching program. But the students weren't having it.

Rosy Choudhury, Director of Programs for Mercy Corps' East and North East India Programs, laughed as she recalled the situation. "They said 'we're not leaving this office until you open back up the centers!'"

You see, about half of these kids don't have anyone at home who can help them with their studies. Many of their parents are illiterate. The children help with the parents with purchasing items at the market — or signing forms at the bank. But despite the challenges, these kids have big dreams of a future beyond the tea estates.

According to Mercy Corps' David Ekka, who manages the youth coaching program, the schools in Assam have a 1:200 teacher-to-student ratio. Grade one classes average about 70 students, and they just grow from there. One grade 9 student said his classes at school have 131 students.

It's hard for kids to get the help they need in order to pass grade 10. In response to the tough educational situation, Mercy Corps and TAZO Tea's CHAI Program implemented the coaching program where students would come get special help on certain subjects from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m., five days a week — before heading off to school.

Today only one center is operational, but it's clear what a difference it's making. All you need to see is the hands of the 9th graders pledging to pass grade 10 with little or no support at home — or the class full of of grade 10 students professing their intentions to graduate school and give back to their communities.

Check out this video to meet the future doctors, engineers, policemen, teachers — and one social worker — of Assam.

This has been reposted from the Mercy Corps blog.

For many years under an oppressive regime, Afghan women were unable to leave their houses — they could only dream of starting businesses. Thousands of women had ideas, but no opportunity and certainly no assets to realize them.

But today, that's changed: women are now a vibrant and vital force in Afghanistan's economy. Mercy Corps pitched in to make that happen through Ariana Financial Services, a microfinance organization we founded in 2002. Ariana provides loans and other financial support to entrepreneurs. It currently has more than 7,500 clients, most of whom are women.

And those women are making a difference not only for themselves and their families, but their communities as well. They're filling markets with their products, creating jobs and training other women to succeed. These women are proof that, when given the chance, they can turn a little funding into a lot of good, as well as a lifetime career.

Freelance photographer Julie Denesha recently put together this video that includes her interview with Ariana's Executive Director, Storai Sadat, about how her organization has helped bring about this remarkable transformation.

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.

This has been reposted from the Mercy Corps blog.

On my first day in Zimbabwe, I went to visit some farm families in the town of Murejwa. People are poor there, and Mercy Corps is working with them to find ways to boost their incomes.

In this video, I'm with Fred and Beauty Jokonya, who live and farm on a half-acre on the outskirts of town. The star of this show, however, is a piece of basic technology: the treadle pump. As you'll see, this pump has made the farm and its owners a lot more productive.

I mention in the video that Fred and Beauty are looking after many of their grandchildren. What I don't mention in the video but want to note here is that the kids are AIDS orphans. In recent years, about 20 percent of Zimbabwe's adults have been struggling with HIV/AIDS and as a result there is a whole generation of kids being raised by their grandparents.

Rajan taught his father how to write his name and is now teaching his mother and older sister to do the same. Photo: Leah Hazard/Mercy Corps

Ninety-eight. That's the number of kids in Rajan Tiru's class. He's in class nine — the equivalent of ninth grade in the U.S. Next year he'll be in class 10 and will need to pass a big exam so he can continue his studies.

Rajan lives on the Maud Tea Estate in Assam, India. Both of his parents are permanent workers on the tea estate and can't afford to send Rajan or his siblings to private school, where they might have a chance at a better education.

I'm visiting a coaching center on the Maud Tea Estate. Here and elsewhere in Assam, Mercy Corps is lending money to help people start or expand a business, tutoring high-school students and providing literacy classes for women. Much of this work is supported by Portland-based Tazo Tea, our partner in helping improve life on tea estates in India.

The idea behind the coaching centers is to give students an opportunity to get the help they need to understand their schoolwork and ask the questions they don't get to ask in class. The classes are divided by grade level and are capped at 25 students, so that students get the opportunity for one-on-one help that they can't get at school.

I ask the class nine group if they have someone at home that can help them with their homework. Only about half the students raise their hands. The literacy rate among women in tea communities in this area is about 30 percent, and just a little better for men. For most of those that raise their hands, the only literate person in their family is a father or a brother. And because literate mothers are more likely to help their children with schoolwork than literate fathers, this means they're not getting a lot of help with their studies.

I try a different question and ask if any of them have applied the skills they've learned in school to help out their family or someone in their community. Everyone's hand shoots up. Some of them help their family with the finances, or help their mothers by going to the market. Others help their families by reading letters or important documents for their parents, or by helping their younger siblings with their homework.

Rajan is called on again and talks for a long time. When he is finished, the class breaks into a round of applause and my colleague David Ekka gets a chance to translate for me. Rajan's father finished only one year of school, so Rajan helps him by writing out a shopping list for his father to take with him to the store. He taught his father how to write his name so he doesn't have to use his thumbprint in place of a written signature. Now he's working on doing the same for his mother and older sister.

He continues, "I'm not a fast learner. If I could learn more I would teach my brothers and sisters and my community.... I will definitely help my community learn after I have finished my studies." I don't doubt this.

Several of these students will be the first in their family to finish class nine. And when I ask how many of them are going to make it to class 10, they all smile and raise their hands. They recognize how lucky they are to know how to read and write, and to get this far in their education.

Nomadic herders tending to their flock. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

All Mongolian winters are bitterly cold, but for the most extreme, the Mongols have a special word: a "dzud," which loosely translates as "crisis."

The dzud that hit Mongolia this winter was the worst in recent memory. Snow fell and fell until it blocked doorways. Many were forced to exit their homes through holes in their roofs.

The toll of this bitterly cold weather, however, was far more than just roof damage. More than 8 million cows, sheep, goats, camels and other livestock died — a staggering loss in a country where three quarters of the population earn their living from herding.

One reason this year's dzud was so devastating was that the animals were already weak, explains Oidov Vaanchig, who works for Mercy Corps in Mongolia. Scarce food during the summer made it difficult for herders to feed their goats and sheep. So, when winter struck, their animals didn't have enough body fat to survive.

Grazing livestock never used to be this difficult. But today there are too many animals, says Oidov, and the land is overburdened. As goats roam, their sharp hooves tear the tender top crust of the soil, exposing the fertile layers below. On the windy steppe, the soil blows away and the grassland slowly turns to dessert. Stopping this kind of damage to the environment is the best way to prevent future dzuds, said Oidov.

If herders can increase their earnings from the animals they have, they won't need to raise more to make ends meet. So Mercy Corps puts on workshops that teach skills like pasture management, assessing agricultural risks and understanding household economics. The topics also include ways to prevent desertification, such as fencing in fields so that roaming animals can't overgraze, or planting trees and vegetable crops to prevent soil erosion.

Mercy Corps also helps herders pursue other livelihoods by teaching people how to sew, process wool, and make blocks for construction. The idea is not to sideline herding, which Mercy Corps recognizes as an important part of Mongolia's culture. Rather, the economic diversification reduces the impact on the land, and provides herders with a measure of protection against future dzuds and other challenges Mother Nature may throw their way.

"Only by investing in rural communities," says Oidov, "will we be able turn future disasters into a minimal and surmountable problem."

View of impromptu tent city in the middle of Haiti's capital. Photo: United Nations Development Programme (flickr)

Haiti has just received another powerful blow. A powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti's capital on Tuesday, devastating a country that has seen more than its share of disasters both man-made and natural over the last few years. The news reports trickling in paint a bleak picture of almost unimaginable ruin.

I was privileged to witness some amazing progress in this tiny country that has long carried the dubious distinction of being the poorest nation in the western hemisphere during my annual and semi-annual trips to the island nation since the election of a new president in 2006. Paved roads and bridges had begun to appear across raging rivers that kept villages isolated. In the small community of 40,000 where most of my work took me, Engineers Without Borders drilled and installed seven clean water wells that dramatically lowered the infant mortality death rate. In a community that had once had just one Cuban-trained health worker who functioned without medicine or equipment, a small staff of doctors and nurses began to provide health care. A fragile sliver of hope had begun to take root.

This earthquake has devastated a country that does not have the resources to recover on its own. Mercy Corps’s has dispatched a response team to rush critical supplies and other urgent assistance to survivors. More staffers will arrive in the coming days.

As more aid workers arrive, they will face huge challenges. Haiti's international airport has just one runway and no taxiways, so airplanes that land there have to do a U-turn at the end of the runway and taxi back to a parking space. I can imagine that right now, that one runway and the airspace around Port au Prince is busier than a Los Angeles freeway. On the ground, the Mercy Corps team may find that accommodations are sparse or non-existent. Reports indicate that even major buildings in the capital city have been heavily damaged or destroyed. Security will also be an issue. The United Nations peacekeeping forces have provided the most reliable security in the country, but they themselves have been devastated by the death and injury of key personnel. Food and safe drinking water were never abundant, but now they will be even scarcer. Over the coming weeks and months Haitians will face tremendous obstacles to recovery.

Thankfully, the professionals at Mercy Corps have seen all of this before. They have a long history of helping earthquake survivors in other countries: Peru, China, Pakistan, and Indonesia. I have no doubts about their capacity to provide the best possible support in this situation. Several people have asked how they could best help with Mercy Corps’s effort. Really, the best way anyone could help is to make a cash donation to the Mercy Corps Haiti Earthquake Fund. As a matter of policy Mercy Corps does not use volunteers or donated materials like clothing from the general public in their relief efforts.

With a combination of generous donations and Mercy Corps' tremendous professional resources we can help Haiti survive this devastating body blow and replant the small seeds of hope that I saw grow there over the past few years.

In the spirit of the season, we're challenging our readers to make a small (or large) gift to our parent organization, Mercy Corps. Mercy Corps shares Global Envision's belief in the power of global markets to alleviate poverty and employs a market-driven approach to their economic development programs around the world. We've set a symbolic goal of $575 — that's the number of posts we've published on Global Envision since the launch of the blog in April of 2008.

In that time we've written hundreds posts highlighting the economic tie-in on topics ranging from mobile banking to child brides in Yemen. We offered extensive coverage of the global economic crisis and followed how innovation in design is lowering the prices for things like drip irrigation systems, refrigerators and heart surgery in India. We've explained why big business may actually be an ally to the environment.

Please take us up on our challenge and pitch in a few bucks. Thank you for your readership, your comments and your support.

Happy holidays,

Chelsea Wieber

A Mercy Corps small business loan helped Najeeba expand her successful baby cradle business in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Over the past decade, Mercy Corps’ microfinance services have lent more than $1.5 billion, reaching more than one million people. Twelve Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) founded and supported by Mercy Corps operate all over the world, with 270,000 active clients — 65 percent of them are women. To better serve those excluded from formal financial services, Mercy Corps is working with these MFIs to develop and offer savings, remittances, and micro-insurance services as well.

I recently sat down with Zhanna Zhakupova and Jim Anderson who were in town for a microfinance conference hosted by Mercy Corps, to find out more about Mercy Corps microfinance programs and how the global economic crisis is impacting microfinance loans. Zhanna is the Executive Director of the Asian Credit Fund (ACF), headquartered in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Jim is Mercy Corps’ Financial Services Manager and works from UlaanBaatar, the capital city of Mongolia. Together, they have experience working in countries as diverse as Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Japan, Bosnia, Poland and Afghanistan.

Haley Dillan: Jim, tell me a little bit about Mercy Corps’ use of Microfinance.

Jim Anderson: Microfinance is an integral part of what we’re [Mercy Corps] doing as an agency. Mercy Corps works with a group of well-established MFIs to complement other programming. All these MFIs provide loans to individuals and small businesses, and in Mongolia and Indonesia our MFI affiliates also offer deposits. Many support agriculture and offer consumer loans for purposes like tuition payments and health care costs. A micro-loan can range from $65 to a Guatemalan woman raising chickens or piglets, to $7,000 for a Kazakh businessperson.

Microfinance is a great tool because, when managed correctly, it is sustainable. Projects can be established and continue on a sustainable basis: they don’t require ongoing injections of donor money. As the NGO, you create the legacy, and then it often continues independantly.

Haley: Why are the majority of loans extended to women?

Jim: Typically, women are the more common borrowers. From a broad source of statistics, women are more reliable borrowers. They invest their business profits to support the family — educating, feeding, housing, and providing health care for their children. As of this June, Kompanion in Kyrgyzstan had over 91,000 clients, of whom 98 percent were women. What’s the percentage for Asian Credit Fund, Zhanna?

Zhanna Zhakupova: About 93 percent of ACF loans are to women.

Jim: Yes, and the XacBank in Mongolia has over 63,000 clients, and women comprise about 55 percent of that. However, in certain countries, it’s not always clear that just because the borrower is a woman, she’s the one in charge of the money. In Afghanistan, for example, a female borrower may just give the loan money to her husband, and it’s hard to track that.

Zhanna: Also, men are less interested in small loans. When they think about business, they think about “big.” And after the global economic crisis, group lending has grown significantly, and women dominate group lending. Men are more reluctant to join groups.

Haley: What other impacts has the global economic crisis had on microfinance? Have you changed your lending criteria? Has it affected the ability for applicants to repay their loans?

Zhanna: As I mentioned, our portfolio has shifted towards group lending since 2008. So, yes, the global economic crisis definitely caused a shift in our lending. In Kazakhstan, the crisis has been quite severe. The GDP growth was averaging about 8 percent annually since 2000, from oil and mineral resources. A pretty strong middle class had emerged, especially in the two largest cities Almaty and Astana. The economic crisis really affected this middle class; the crisis led to a sharp decline in real estate and that hit a lot of people. It seemed like everyone had loans that were secured by real estate… and when the real estate bubble burst, MFI loans were under water.

The banks stopped lending, because real estate was the key piece of collateral for most people, and it has continued to fall in value. No one had sufficient assets to meet tougher bank requirements, and so couldn’t qualify for loans after the global economic crisis. Lenders accumulated loan repayments, but refused to relend that money, sitting on it instead of pumping it back into the economy. No liquidity — no lending — no economic development — falling living standards.

In the rural areas, lending was completely frozen. When I recently visited rural areas served by ACF, every village asked us to open a branch. Small loans were in big demand but no one was lending. Now, Asian Credit Fund has about $1 million dollars in group loans, with the average loan size at around $500 per person.

Haley: What's the difference between non-profit and for-profit microlending? Does Mercy Corps work with for-profit lenders?

Jim: Actually, microlending is for-profit in most areas of the world, particularly Latin America and Central Asia. Non-profit lenders are more often located in places like India and Bangladesh. So most of Mercy Corps' microfinance work is with for-profit MFIs, many of which source funding from for-profit socially responsible investors (SRIs).

If these SRI lenders were to calculate the true risk of the loans they’re extending to MFIs, the interest rate would be so unmanageably high — possibly 60 or 70 percent in places like Tajikistan or Afghanistan. But the individuals who invest with SRIs are willing to forgo a certain amount of return because they want to encourage social improvements by lending to developing countries. As a result, SRIs can lend to MFIs at affordable interest rates.

In order to help MFIs attract capital to expand and serve more clients, Mercy Corps utilizes various sources of investment, including equity and debt, typically with SRIs.

Haley: Is there an idea or sentiment that you are taking away from the conference?

Jim: At the conference participants included a diverse group of organizations, culturally, geographically and in terms of business models, yet we all face similar challenges and issues, and it’s great that we have an opportunity to come together and talk about that.

Zhanna: Yes, everyone was talking about development, and long-term goals.

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.

Displaced Swat Valley citizens await food and water in a refugee camp. Photo: bbcworldservice (Flickr)

As the Pakistani Army continues to defend the Swat Valley against Taliban insurgents, some of the millions of displaced residents are beginning to return home.

NPR's Julie McCarthy and Junaid Kahn report mixed feelings from those interviewed at the sweltering Jalozai camp. Some are excited to leave, looking forward to returning home with family and friends. The sister of Shaukat Ali, to modest to give her real name, is among those elated to settle back in Swat. She has "not spent a single contented day... Life here is nothing but helplessness."

But the majority of refugees aren't quite as elated to leave the relative security of the camp for the chaotic welcome they could to receive upon returning to their villages, reports the BBC. Earlier today I spoke with Holden Basch, Mercy Corps' Emergency Response leader in Pakistan, who reported that that in Buner, a district in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, police officers and government officials aren't back to work yet.

Others aren't leaving until they receive their $300 check, a government stipend promised to all camp residents. Akhtar Muhammad is among those waiting for the money. He told NPR reporters that "If the government hasn't given us the resources here where the situation is normal, how can I expect them to give it to us in the middle of that confusion back home?"

The future of these refugees is still unknown — the Taliban that are reportedly still in hiding in the Swat are unhappy with the families who fled the area. According to the BBC, security outside of the central city of Mingora is uncertain, with potential for guerrilla attacks by the Taliban. But for some, home is preferable to cramped quarters, extreme heat, and limited food at the refugee camp, and so those who are ready board buses for an uncertain home in Swat Valley.

A Mercy Corps beneficiaries show off their garden in Niger. Photo: Jeremy Barnicle/Mercy Corps

Last week the UN announced that the number of people suffering from hunger now totals one billion worldwide.

Not too surprisingly, a BBC article points out that the vast majority of the world's hungry live in developing countries. Only 15 million are in the developed world. In contrast, 265 million live in sub-Saharan Africa and more than two times as many — 642 million to be exact — live in the Asia-Pacific region.

Since the economic crisis hit, there are about 100 million more people that are hungry. The UN attributes this rise in world hunger to unemployment and low wages. This is turn hurts people's ability to buy and grow food.

Jacques Diouf, the director general of the UNFAO, focused on agricultural investment as one of the solutions to help developing countries address hunger issues. Diouf is quoted by the BBC as saying, "Investment in agriculture must be increased because for the majority of poor countries a healthy agricultural sector is essential to overcome poverty and hunger and is a pre-requisite for overall economic growth."

At a time when need has never been greater, Mercy Corps has been able to expand our capacity to address hunger in the communities where we work.

By the summer of 2008, the price of rice had increased five times from the average price in 2005. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

The following post is from One Table, a Mercy Corps campaign to fight world hunger by investing in the world's women.

Today almost a billion people worldwide are unable to buy or grow enough food to avoid malnutrition. That's 120 million more than were hungry in 2006.

What happened? Basically, the world saw dramatic spikes in food prices. But there were many underlying causes of what's known as the global food crisis:

• Drought and other climate-related problems that resulted in smaller harvests
• Changing diets — rise of the middle class in India and China and an increased demand for food, especially meat, which requires large amounts of grain to raise
• Diversion of crops from food production to the production of biofuels
• High fuel prices during 2008 — if it costs more to transport food, prices go up
• Declining investments in agricultural productivity — total agriculture development aid to poor countries plunged from $8 billion in 1984 to $3.4 billion in 2004. At the same time, the developing world's cities have been ballooning with people who do not grow any of their food
• Export bans and restrictions last year in several major grain-producing countries like China as governments sought to lower food prices for their own citizens, with the result of reducing the global supply on hand.

While food prices have come down from their highs of 2008, they remain substantially above historic levels. Many economists feel this trend, which most severely affects those who can least afford it, is likely to continue for some time.

The economic, health and societal costs of the global food crisis have been severe. One of the first things Mercy Corps did to figure out how and where to direct our efforts was to survey the communities where we work. We discovered that within communities Mercy Corps serves, roughly 70 percent of income is spent on food, and 80 percent of the population had been affected by rising food prices over the past year. The survey also confirmed something we already suspected: that families were coping with higher prices by eating fewer meals, selling off household belongings, going into debt and removing children from school so that they can work.

In addition to being a record year for food prices, it's also been a record year for our food security team, allowing Mercy Corps to aggressively respond to this crisis. We now have 17 programs in 13 countries designed specifically to respond to this on-going problem. Through support from donors including USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gap Foundation, the Hunger Site, and private individuals, our Food Crisis Response employs a strategy designed to ensure that the groundwork for increased prosperity in the future is laid — even while addressing the immediate problem of accessing sufficient food.

Food distributions, much of which are specifically targeted to improve child nutrition, are taking place in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe. Meanwhile, in the Central African Republic, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Nepal, Niger, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Uganda and again Zimbabwe, Mercy Corps is helping hungry households to access food by providing employment opportunities, agricultural training and inputs (such as seeds and tools), and helping people establish and grow small businesses.

Combined, these programs are reaching almost 1.5 million individuals who have been directly impacted by higher food prices. Overall, Mercy Corps’ Crisis Response will lead to a sustainable increase in income for these people, leading in turn to greater food security over the long-term.