Most Rwandans now have access to basic health insurance. Photo: Paul Evans (Flickr)

Rwandan Sunny Ntayomba marveled when he met a U.S. student and learned that many Americans lack heath insurance. Rwanda, one of the world’s poorest countries, insures 92 percent of its population thanks to a new government program described by the New York Times.

Health insurance has bettered Rwandans’ prospects for economic development by providing a safety net against unexpected medical bills. This fallback is a small but important guarantee while Rwanda's poor climb up the economic ladder out of poverty.

This guarantee is more important than you might imagine, according to several World Bank surveys, which indicate that improving health could be a key catalyst for reducing poverty. In one study, Dying for Change, interviewees identified illness as the most common cause of poverty — even more important than losing their job. In another, interviewees reported that poor health and an inability to access medical care perpetuated their poverty.

The program makes insurance available for a mere $2 a year, reports the New York Times. While this price is still steep for the truly indigent, for most it’s a steal. The annual premium is less than it would cost to seek treatment for diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, malnutrition, or an infected cut.

The insurance plan covers these ailments but little else because the government has purposefully prioritized affordability. This strategy has worked well. Life expectancy has risen from 48 to 52 despite the country’s ongoing AIDS epidemic writes the Times. If only rich Rwandans could afford to join, it's likely this leap wouldn't have been possible.

This pioneering program is impressive as it serves the poor while improving their prospects of shaking off poverty. But the program’s success is far from certain as it relies on a sustained government commitment and inflows of foreign aid.

Still, in spite of the program's shaky prospects, this African nation deserves a nod for an accomplishment that has eluded much richer states.

More women than men work in food preparation, one of the job categories expected to grow most in the U.S over the next decade, according to the Atlantic. photo: Give2Tech (flickr)

Are women taking over the economy?

Recent statistics show women have come out ahead of men in the U.S. recession. The Newsweek article “Women Will Rule the World” even dubbed the economic crisis a “mancession” as men have accounted for two-thirds of the 11 million jobs lost thus far. Men’s unemployment rates have also climbed to 10 percent, compared to the rate for women which now hovers at 8 percent, wrote NPR.

The Atlantic article “The End of Men" explained that the U.S. economy is shifting away from male-dominated industries like manufacturing that rely on physical strength and less-skilled labor. Instead, there are more professions that emphasize social intelligence and communication skills, like teaching, nursing and service-based industries. The consequence? More jobs where women are equally or, some argue, more qualified than men.

The face of the economy is changing, suggests The Atlantic. For example, the number of women exceeded the number of men on U.S. payrolls this spring. Men have since regained the majority, reflecting seasonal employment dynamics that make men more likely to work in summer jobs like construction, explains Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times. These advancements and others could be more a product of women playing “catch-up” rather than “forging ahead” of men, Kristof argues.

The evidence, however, might suggest that women aren't just closing the gap.

Lately, women have dominated the roots of economic success – higher education. According to The Atlantic, women hold 60 percent of bachelors and masters degrees and are expected to lead the U.S. middle class in the future.

The importance of higher education is reinforced not only by the decline of industries that rely on less-skilled, manual labor in the U.S., but also by the results of the latest recession. Workers with higher levels of education were far less hard-hit by the downturn, with unemployment rates around half the national average, explained David Leonhardt in his New York Times blog.

Women are more present in the workforce than they were in the past and their potential to revive the economy may be crucial. The Atlantic revealed that women outnumber men in all but two of the 15 job types that are expected to grow most over the next decade. These range from nursing to food preparation. Newsweek, alongside others, has touted female entrepreneurship as the possible key to future economic growth and recovery. In the U.S. alone, female-led firms grew by 20 percent versus an overall firm average growth of 7 percent.

The potential for female entrepreneurship to affect growth may be especially true in the developing world, where female education levels, wage rates and health indicators have even more room for improvement. Newsweek explored statistics from the Women’s Learning Partnership, which claim that “for every year beyond fourth grade girls attend school, a country’s wages rise by 20 percent, and the child-mortality rate dips by 10 percent.”

What does this all mean for the U.S. economy? Overall, it seems less about women catching up or taking over and more about their ability to drive the economy. But women's increasing presence in higher education, the workforce and entrepreneurial ventures, both in the U.S. and around the world, arguably positions them at the forefront of economic growth.

Iraq's most lucrative export after oil - dates - has seen declining production since the American-led invasion began in 2003. Photo: Ikhlasul Amal (flickr)

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent violence has left the country struggling to survive. Now, Iraq’s economy is suffering even more due to declining production in one of its most thriving exports after oil: dates.

Dates are highly nutritious and a staple food in Iraq. Before the war, a typical palm tree was yielding 130 – 175 pounds of dates per year, compared to only 30 pounds of fruit last year, reports the New York Times. The country used to produce about 75 percent of the world’s dates at one point, but today Iraq has fallen behind many other Arab countries leading in date production.

The lack of “sufficient electricity, machinery and a drought” has severely damaged the agricultural industry, says Iraqi economist Ghazi al-Kenan. Prior to the U.S.-led invasion, there were more than 150 date processing factories. Today there are six.

Another factor contributing to the decline in date production is that the country's trade ministry — which is responsible for buying agricultural products for export from farmers — isn't purchasing dates at a high enough price to cover production costs for farmers, reports the New York Times.

But the decline in date production is causing more than just agricultural and economic problems for Iraq. Public health and the environment are also feeling the effects. Baghdad has experienced more sand storms, increased asthma cases and respiratory illnesses due to the shrinking of depleted farms and orchards surrounding the capital.

With the global economic downturn affecting oil prices, prospects for the date industry are looking grim. The Trade Ministry tells the New York Times that "it cannot afford to raise payments to farmers.”

A young girl walking on the outskirts of Kibera, the largest slum in Africa. Photo: subcomandanta (flickr)

More than $50 billion of foreign aid is given to African countries every year to address poverty on the continent. Although this may seem generous, and to some a solid strategy to treat Africa’s ailments, Dambisa Moyo — a Zambian economist with a background that includes Harvard, Oxford and Goldman Sachs — says just the opposite.

In her new book, Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa, Moyo claims that foreign aid has been "an unmitigated political, economic and humanitarian disaster.”

In a recent op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, Moyo writes that although she isn’t completely against humanitarian aid, she doesn’t believe "charity-based aid" can provide long-term sustainable development for Africa. Her biggest issue is with “government-to-government aid,” and funds from large monetary institutions like the World Bank. Moyo says the $60 trillion of this aid that's been given in the past 60 years is not working, evident from the fact that the number of Africans who live on less than $1 day has doubled in the last 20 years. And most foreign government aid, she argues, has been pocketed by corrupt politicians.

Trade, foreign investments and microfinance opportunities can provide a better future for Africans, Moyo said in an interview with the New York Times.

As expected, Dambisa Moyo’s claims have come under fire. In an interview with Newsweek, ONE Campaign co-founder Jamie Drummond says “Dead Aid” is “a poor polemic, with nothing new of substance, filled with anecdotal micro examples which ignore mountains of evidence." Madeleine Bunting from the Guardian calls Moyo’s claims “poorly argued” with “frequent pre-emptory glib conclusions.”

I wanted to get another perspective on Dambisa Moyo's assertions regarding the effects of foreign aid on Africa. So I asked Laura Miller — Program Officer for Central Africa at Mercy Corps — to respond to some of Moyo's claims based on her experience in the international-aid business, including stints in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.