See the full infographic on GOOD.IS.

Arab youth know what caused the uprisings a year ago. What they want to know is how their day-to-day lives will improve once the fanfare of elections subsides. This infographic, created by GOOD and Column Five, gives a snapshot of what's important to Arab youth 15 months since the uprisings:

A year and a half after the Arab Spring uprisings began in Tunisia and spread through neighboring countries, a new survey finds that young people's major concerns have shifted. The "Arab Youth Survey 2012" shows people between 18 and 24 in the Arab regions are generally more worried about earning a living wage and owning homes than about living in a democratic country.

Africa's emerging markets are the fastest growing in the world. Photo: Jeff Attaway (Flickr)

Africa now holds an unfamiliar title: Continent with the fastest growing economy in the world.

An article this week in The Atlantic, “The Next Asia is Africa,” provides telling evidence for the economic emergence of the continent:

• Africa will have the fastest growing economy of any continent over the next five years.


• Seven of the world’s 10 fastest growing economies are in Africa.


• By 2030, most African countries will have lower-middle and middle-class majorities.


• Consumer spending in Africa is estimated to triple from $680 billion in 2008 to $2.2 trillion in 2030.


• Africa has more middle-class consumers than India despite having a lower population.


• Enrollment in secondary schools increased by 48 percent between 2000 and 2008 and higher education increased by 80 percent.

The author, Howard French, argues that while few people outside of the boardroom seem to be taking note of this development, big companies are leading the way:

In March, a South African court approved Walmart's $2.4 billion takeover of Massmart, one of that country's largest retailers. IBM has opened offices in more than 20 African countries. In 2009, AES, one of America's biggest private suppliers of electricity, became majority owner and operator of the national grid in Cameroon. In Ghana, a large American data processing company called ACS now employs over 1,800 people. And around the continent, Google is investing in web infrastructure and is launching search pages in a growing number of African languages.

The entire article can be read here.

The litmus test for these fast-growing economies, however, will not be the number of large firms that invest, but whether this investment will include the continent's poorest in its growth.

Small-scale farmers in Afghanistan benifit from a joint financing program administered by USAID and Development Associates International. Photo: UK Department for International Development (flickr)

Small-scale farmers in Afghanistan, considered "high-risk" borrowers, are finally getting the credit they need to buy good seeds and equipment, but not from traditional banks.

NextBillion reports on how an innovative direct loan program cuts out banks and puts the power of credit in the hands of agricultural organizations while sticking to culturally-appropriate rules. The Agricultural Credit Enhancement (ACE) program, funded by USAID and implemented by Development Associates International (DAI) is changing financing and credit for Afghan farmers, showing that they're a risk worth taking.

ACE staff...hit upon a novel idea: forgo traditional lending institutions altogether and create a new lending system, based within agricultural organizations and agribusinesses, such as farmer associations and cooperatives, manufacturers of agricultural machinery, and export firms.

Aiming to make the [Agriculture Development Fund] fully Shariah-compliant, ACE has established separate bank accounts, an accounting, portfolio management and reporting system, customized loan contracts, and a Shariah Advisory Board, while also training staff in Islamic finance practices.

After almost two years, the Agriculture Development Fund has lent $37 million to 13,000 farmers in 25 provinces of Afghanistan. Through prudent lending practices and strong borrower relationships, it has also maintained an incredible 100 percent on-time repayment rate.

Read more about how this novel program is helping Afghanistan’s farmers here.

Social services provided by aid agencies at refugee camps just outside the Myanmar border should not be ended too swiftly, or returning populations won't be ready to access new opportunities that may await them. Photo: Jacqueline M. Koch for Mercy Corps

Reforms and investment are opening new doors and promising growth for Myanmar. But what’s exciting for some Burmese and the West brings a downside for many refugees.

The country, also known as Burma, has made headlines recently for its rapid political reforms and promotion of economic opportunity. These days in Yangon, “foreign businessmen in well-tailored suits are driven down potholed streets and past crumbling colonial buildings to meet potential partners...[and] hotel owners, whose businesses suffered during [recent] years are raising prices for what few rooms they have available,” reported the New York Times last month. But as the West eases longtime sanctions against Myanmar and begins to invest, the changes could further shut out an already suffering group: refugees from the country’s six decades of internal strife.

Large numbers of Burmese continue to live outside their country in refugee camps. Most hope to return and find work in their homeland someday. But if they lose access to education and other social services now, they also lose the chance to gain from market access down the road.

Last month, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was easing restrictions on financial transactions of private groups involved with development and humanitarian assistance work in what has become Southeast Asia’s poorest country, according to the Huffington Post. The relaxed restrictions come as a response to civilian elections in the military-dominated country, which brought parliamentary seats to the opposition party of long-time human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi. Other western countries quickly followed suit, as the European Union and Japan also loosened sanctions, according to The Development Newswire.

But amid growing foreign investment and glimpses of promising market-based growth, rapid internal changes also bring challenges for the refugee population.

Close to 150,000 refugees who fled conflict currently live in tent camps on the Thai side of the Thai-Myanmar border. Most are from the Karen state, a region ensnared in turmoil for decades. Unable or afraid to return home, and not permitted to work in Thailand, they depend on international aid for survival and livelihood. But between global economic pressures on aid groups and the exploding need for aid within Myanmar, outside support to border camps is drying up fast.

“Before, we were in a very difficult position, but at least we had the food that we needed," Saw Eh So, a refugee living on the border, told The Christian Science Monitor. "Now we have to find ways to find the food ourselves."

Social service money is running low, too. The Karen Refugee Committee - Education Entity, which oversees education in the camps, reports that it has lost much of its funding. While cuts in aid began before the easing of sanctions and are heavily influenced by global economic and political pressures, rapid changes in Myanmar’s relations with the West are expediting the process.

Many NGO workers on the border are “concerned that the funding is being withdrawn too quickly, without proper withdrawal plans, and before the refugees are ready to go back,” according to the Christian Science Monitor. But some see exciting new opportunities within Myanmar and believe that refugees will quickly seek to return home as reforms continue.

The return of Burmese refugees to their homeland is clearly desirable. But it won’t happen overnight, and refugees need to return to a safe and stable home with promise of economic opportunity. Market growth is slower than one election, and the home region of most refugees is still far from being a peaceful land of economic promise.

Saw La Plan, a Karen leader in Umpiem refugee camp, says he's not going back yet, because his home state has a long way to go despite broader reforms in the country. “There is still fighting, no development, and landmines everywhere," he told the Christian Science Monitor. "We have to stay here.”

But when refugees do eventually return, they’ll need education and skills to compete in the growing market-based economy that has the West so excited about Myanmar.

European Union officials respond to the easing of sanctions against Myanmar in this video from Agence France Presse.

One-third of all food produced for human consumption never makes it to the table. Photo: SSTUDIO Samuel Bietenholz (Flickr).

The next great agricultural innovation might come from years of scientific research in agricultural yields, or it could be something as simple as a $2 bag to protect cowpeas from weevils.

Worldwide, 1.3 billion tons, or one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted post-harvest every year. But researchers spend almost nothing on solving this. A 2009 study by the University of California-Davis found that 95 percent of all agricultural research dollars are spent on production, leaving only five percent for the post-production phase.

Fortunately, some solutions to curb post-harvest losses are surprisingly simple. A bag designed by Purdue University to seal off cowpeas from the weevil parasite sell for $2 and are expected to reach sales of over 1.7 million across Western Africa this year. Before the bags, cowpea farmers lost up to 50 percent of their annual harvest to the infestations. Now, uninfested cowpeas are selling for 20 percent more and increasing annual incomes by $150.

The Purdue cowpea bag is a great innovation for a specific problem. But pests such as weevils are not the only problem. Some farmers prematurely harvest their crops due to an immediate need for food or cash.

A lack of infrastructure hurts developing areas, too. Without refrigeration (both in storage and in transport) or other preservation techniques, many farmers sell the majority of their crops immediately after harvest. For farmers, this means unstable income; for food buyers, it means price hikes of 20 to 30 percent in non-harvest months.

Investment in technology that reduces post-harvest losses might be cheaper and better for the planet than more production research. The World Bank claims "it is likely that promoting food security through post-harvest losses reduction can be more cost effective and environmentally sustainable than a corresponding increase in production, especially in the current era of high food prices. Assuming only a 1 percent reduction in post-harvest losses, annual gains of $40 million are possible, with producers as the key beneficiary."

These problems are not exclusive to the developing world. When one-third of the food is produced and not eaten, one-third of the the water, carbon emissions, fertilizer, labor, production and transportation costs are all used in vain. Decreasing post-harvest losses will vastly increase the effectiveness and sustainability of global agriculture.

RELATED: A simple solution makes a big impact for Ethiopia's farming families

When social entrepreneurs feel pressure to run inefficient businesses just so they can label themselves "nonprofit," the system is broken.

That's the dilemma faced by Saba Gul. Her startup Bliss gives Pakistani girls a monetary incentive to attend school, training them in handbag stitching and marketing their products.

In the video above and coverage by Co.Exist, Gul explains her indecision over what sort of company to incorporate:

My biggest reason for wanting to be a nonprofit was people's perception of the organization. … At the end of the day, my goal is to create impact. And I can't create impact if we don't have revenue. And I don't think there's a better way to sell your products than to build a really efficient business, which is really hard as a nonprofit.

To operate efficiently, Gul says, Bliss must get big—"scale to a million people," she says. And unless she can sell equity in her organization to investors, that'll be very hard.

Over the last few decades, the nonprofit industry and its fans persuaded much of the public that nonprofit status is proof of good intentions—and, even worse, that for-profit status is proof of bad intentions.

For nonprofits, this has turned out to be a very successful marketing campaign. But Gul's story shows how badly the world needs to smash it.

Related content: Flexible-purpose corporations stretch the meaning of charity

A new mapping tool ties climate change to humanitarian issues including conflict and displacement in countries like Somalia. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

The U.S. military is targeting an unorthodox foe in the battle for political stability in Africa: climate change.

That’s the goal of a new $7.6 million joint military project with the University of Texas, focused on developing a new mapping tool to show where “vulnerability to climate change and violent conflicts intersect throughout the African continent,” according to Scientific American.

The Climate Change and African Political Stability Project (CCAPS) compiles data on civil unrest and other violent conflicts in Africa dating back to 1996. The program also “visualizes multiple dimensions of climate vulnerability and risks in a single map,” Fast.Co.Exist reports, and overlays this with data about conflicts and ongoing climate-related aid initiatives.

The result, project managers hope, will be a tool that shows how climate change causes droughts and food insecurity, which in turn can drive violent local and regional clashes over limited and dwindling resources.

The mapping tool is “a starting point for a conversation … about how we prioritize resources" Joshua Busby, project researcher and assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, told Scientific American.

Climate change impacts can slow economic growth and damage livelihoods. Clearly violent conflict does as well.

Knowing how and where these intersect can help governments and international agencies best allocate limited resources to head off and alleviate impending disasters.

"It is not enough to say ‘Ethiopia is vulnerable’ without explaining which parts of Ethiopia are particularly vulnerable and why," states CCAPS’ research document. “Decision-makers need research that is evidence-based and detail-oriented to help them target aid in the most effective way possible.”

A look at the document’s ‘composite vulnerability’ maps (composed of both climate-related and socio-political indicators) show particularly high risk in troubled countries such as Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. But even within each of these, risks vary by location, and a micro-scale understanding is essential for appropriate responses.

The military might not be on the verge of winning the war against climate change. But it’s hopeful that weapons like CCAPS will aid in the battle against its ugliest side-effects.

RELATED CONTENT: “How climate change puts the heat on governments”
“Seeking prosperity? More often than ever, there’s a map for that”

Failure to adapt to global climate change led to unrest across the Arab World. Photo: Saleem-Homsi (Flickr)

Incompetent, unjust governance by some of the Middle East’s worst despots brewed a recipe for disaster before the Arab Spring, but it took climate change to turn up the heat.

Here's how local droughts, forced migrations and international trade disruptions, all quietly driven by global warming, finally helped topple the Arab world's tyrants.

Drought and Resiliency

The Middle East holds 12 of the world's 15 most water-scarce countries, Thomas Friedman wrote last week in "The Other Arab Spring." In Syria, for example, almost two-thirds of the country's land was affected by one of the worst droughts in its history over the last six years. Nearly 75 percent of the Syrians most dependent on agriculture suffered “total crop failure,” meaning 800,000 people lost their entire livelihood. Another 1.3 million were affected when herders in Northeast Syria lost around 85 percent of their livestock.

To be on the right side of history in regards to the Arab Spring, Friedman argues, one of the best things the United States can do is "to invest in climate-adaptive infrastructure and improvements in water management — to make these countries more resilient in an age of disruptive climate change."

Western governments and aid organizations, in collaboration with local governments, can boost resiliency by:

• Investing in improved irrigation technology and programs to implement it.


• Using advances in mapping techniques to develop early warning systems and drought contingency plans.


• Encouraging sustainable livestock practices in drought prone areas.


• Investing in drought-resistant crops such as cassava.

Crop Failure and Smart Urbanization Policies

When agriculture fails, mass exodus begins. In January, an estimated 200,000 rural Syrian families moved to urban areas when the Halaby pepper crop failed, putting even more strain on cities already struggling to provide for existing citizens.

In an article titled “An Agricultural Peace Dividend,” Root Capital CEO William Foote explains the necessity of agriculture in post-conflict areas: “Because the majority of people in many post-conflict countries are agriculturalists and because the industrial base takes longer and requires more capital and infrastructure to rebuild, agriculture is the only sector that can rapidly absorb large amounts of labor and rebuild household economies.”

To curb the effects of mass urbanization and strengthen rural farming economies, local governments should:

• Invest in agricultural advancements to help farmers who remain on their land become more efficient.


• Improve urban infrastructure--particularly in urban slums--to accommodate the inevitable influx of migrant farmers.


• Develop incentives for companies to create jobs in rural areas--especially for women--to supplement income from agricultural yields or replace it in their absence.

Price Spikes and Protectionism

“Extreme weather throughout the globe” added to the Middle East's chaos, note Sarah Johnstone and Jeffrey Mazo in report titled “Global Warming and the Arab Spring. Canada, the second-largest wheat exporter, lost a quarter of its 2010 harvest due to irregular rainfall. Russia, China, Ukraine and Kazakhstan suffered 2010 droughts that greatly diminished their crops. Brush fires reduced Russia’s wheat harvest to 60 million tons, down from 97 million in 2009. Because of this, Russia banned wheat, barley, rye and maize exports.

For the powers that be (or, rather, were) this set the stage for disaster. In the last six months of 2010, Egypt--Russia’s largest wheat consumer--received only 1.6 tons of Russian wheat compared to 2.8 tons received over that same period in 2009. By February 2011, the Egyptian government was overthrown.

In order to smooth global price spikes and avoid disruptive protectionism, the public and private sector should:

• Increase international pressure on rulers who ignore the mounting effects of climate change in the most afflicted countries.


• Create international drought contingency plans.


• Invest in agricultural technology that weans rural areas from reliance on volatile fossil fuels.

While the citizens of these countries endured decades of poor governance, six months of drought was the tipping point. If global climate change was one of myriad sources of the Arab world's turmoil, slowing it just might be a solution.

RELATED: How to Make Population Growth Work for Africa

The UK's Independent recently named the world's best places to be a woman—and the world's worst. Afghanistan had the unfortunate position of last place for the world's most dangerous place to be female.

In the mountainous southern province of Helmand, where opium is king, Mercy Corps has opened a vocational training center to give women—and men—opportunities to build skills and gain employment. Less than a year after opening the center, more than 900 women have enrolled to learn English, computers, sewing, embroidery and calligraphy.

Though the security situation remains volatile, unlocking the potential of women in Helmand can bring more prosperity to thousands of families, boosting local economies to provide a buffer against violence.

View the full Guatemala photo essay. By Jamie Grant for Mercy Corps.

As battles over land rights increase and intensify, development stalls.

Land has become a four-letter fighting word for communities worldwide. Like many civil conflicts, land-use disputes can be boiled down to the consequences of inequitable policies, widening socioeconomic gaps, and resource competition.

Today, about 1.4 million people live in extreme poverty. Seventy-five percent live in rural areas, where land equals livelihood, but access and rights are weak. Since land and property rights underpin economic development, resolving these conflicts is crucial.

After checking out land conflicts around the world, a few themes stand out:

1) Get everyone involved. For everyone to agree on a solution, everyone must help find it. Parties need to communicate directly with each other for this to happen.
2) Markets, markets, markets. Once negotiations take place and land is parcelled out, landowners need the tools to increase their agricultural productivity. With all of the extra crops they grow, they also need help accessing local markets to sell them.
3) Talk about it publicly. Without awareness through political advocacy, unjust land conflicts remain in the shadows. Public promotion of fair and workable land registration sheds light on them, helping to end inequitable practices.

How do these themes play out around the world? Let’s take a look at Guatemala, Uganda, and Indonesia.

Guatemala land resolutions, jaded no more

In the Alta Verapaz region of northern Guatemala, a 36-year civil war has centered on land: simply put, it’s unclear who owns it.

In Alta Verapaz, roughly 90 percent of the population is indigenous – often of Maya descent – and over 85 percent are rural. Of these, a whopping 63 percent live in poverty. Many have either been denied land ownership or forcibly removed from tribal lands. At one point, over 65 percent of Guatemala’s arable land was controlled by just 2.5 percent of the country’s population – ruling elites or businesses.

Currently, there are about 1,450 declared land conflicts in Guatemala and most involve the indigenous communities of Alta Verapaz. Not only has this affected the livelihoods of those dependent on agriculture, but it has prompted violent uprisings and constrained economic development.

Here’s what’s being done: In 2003, Mercy Corps partnered with the Association of Lawyers for Legal Development (JADE) to provide integrated land conflict resolution services. Their methodology combines three important tools: conflict mediation, institutional capacity building, and advocacy.

What exactly does this do? It brings landowners and indigenous workers together to work out their own solution; it helps newly landed communities organize a profitable farming system; and it promotes advocacy for land reform at various government levels.

As of 2009, seven mediation centers were opened, 100 community representatives were trained in conflict mediation, and 28 workshops were held on the topic of conflict resolution. Mercy Corps provided technical support by using GPS to help identify property boundaries, while JADE helped residents navigate the land tenure process, ensuring all had proper legal documentation.

The results have been encouraging. Since November, 2010, Mercy Corps’ project has resolved over 305 land conflicts, benefiting more than 14,582 indigenous farming families, and establishing 493 parcels of land.

An important component of the Mercy Corps program is the promotion of economic development. The program doesn’t just stop at land mediation but provides agricultural education and assistance with direct market access. The program also stipulates that new owners use a percentage of their new land earnings as a means of payment, prompting income generation through increased output. No longer are they relying on subsistence farming or cash crops but a larger, diverse agriculture yield.

Subsequent research by Mercy Corps shows that 98 percent of the participants experienced at least a 15 percent increase in economic output, some over 100 percent.

PHOTO SLIDESHOW: View Mercy Corps' photo essay about land rights in Guatemala

Old Practices Clash with New Laws in Uganda
In Uganda, similar land-use conflicts occur. Over 80 percent of Uganda’s land is unregistered private property; the owners need no legal documentation, most boundaries are locally recognized and given the full protection of state law.

However, a combination of increased population density, land scarcity, and a 1998 act put into place that legalizes a market for land acquisition has caused intense competition, land grabbing, encroachment, and inequitable appropriations by elites.

The Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) is currently providing conflict mediation in the Northern and Eastern regions of the country, where the greatest conflicts have arisen.

Judy Adoko, LEMU’s program director, explained that when new freehold land laws were imposed, they didn’t consider, and thus don’t work, with the customary tenure system already in place. She stated that “this created a middle ground of confusion.” Local clan systems serve as authority figures in the community and only recognized customary law. Residents who filed court claims in the city for newly subdivided land were simply ignored.

Since 2003, LEMU has researched land rights, public policy, and created a grassroots organization to address these land-use disputes. Similar to Mercy Corps' program in Guatemala, LEMU brings local farmers, government officials, and community leaders together to work out solutions. They facilitate the creation of policies and laws that ensure fair access to land and promote poverty eradication.

Post-conflict areas, such as Acholiland in the north, are especially vulnerable and could greatly benefit from similar mediation processes. Establishing the land rights of returning displaced populations, like those affected by the decades-long civil war, presents a crucial opportunity to reintegrate communities and improve overall economic health when most critical.

Advocacy in Indonesia
In Indonesia, land battles have reached a boiling point. The last few months have seen escalating violence between local residents, the government, and private companies – all due to land seizures.

A few bad policies have created licensing overlaps that favor resource extraction companies over local farming communities. A mining or plantation company may receive a government okay to work on an area of land, but it ignores customary land rights that have been in place for generations.

Locals experience a loss of income-generating land, increased pollution, and fatal conflicts due to heavy-handed security forces. In January, activists staged protests to push for a bill that would establish and regulate a new integrated system.

Next Steps
As land becomes a scarce commodity, it plays an increasingly important role in development.

Guatemala shows us that facilitated negotiations allow locals to create their own land-use solutions. Beyond a handshake, helping farmers increase their yields and access local markets is key to sustaining land mediation solutions.

Uganda proves that if you don’t involve the right people at the beginning, you can’t come to a resolution. Simply imposing Western institutional systems on customary land only perpetuates conflict. Thus, creating institutions that can effectively enforce new property laws, in tandem with participatory development, will boost success.

In Indonesia, political advocacy takes the spotlight. Exposing inequitable policies can garner international media attention, resulting in a platform for institutional change.

By combining these tools, we can begin to break the cycle of conflict stemmed from land disputes.

While it's easy to see land disputes as an isolated local issue, they can add up to a huge challenge for a country's economy. Smart national policies can make it much easier to fix these piece by piece and subsequently resolve broader issues.

Combining conflict resolution with market assistance can alleviate land conflicts. Photo: Meredith Rendall Photography (Flickr)

Visit Joni Kabana's Mercy Corps photo gallery.

In Ethiopia, Mercy Corps is empowering two generations of women at once by paying mothers to keep their daughters in school.

Through the innovative program, Ethiopian mothers receive loans in order to pursue entrepreneurial activities and expand their small enterprises. But the loans are dependent on the mothers keeping their daughters in school.

The approach uses the idea of conditional aid, which refers to financial assistance that's dependent on specific actions or commitments by the recipients. In this case, the program emphasizes the role lifelong education and skill-building plays in creating income and opportunity. By adding in a skills training program for the mothers, the opportunity to join savings and loans groups to learn how to manage their money, and additional perks, like school supplies and fuel-efficient stoves for the families, the incentive program provides benefits now and long into the future.

Here's a photo gallery of what the results look like so far, and here's what the numbers look like:

• 150 girls received scholarships for secondary education and additional vocational training to increase their opportunities to qualify for jobs
• 100+ mothers and female caretakers received loans for income-generating activities as long as their girls stay in school
• 150 women have engaged in small enterprise projects based on the loans and skills training
• 200 women have taken part in savings and loans groups to learn how to manage their finances
• Girls in school help to educate their illiterate mothers during school breaks
• Girls who previously had to work long hours to earn money for their families now have more free time to attend classes since their mothers supplement family income with business-improving loans

The loan program asks families for a trade-off, but as these two generations of women embrace new opportunities, the tradeoffs are now paying off.

Check out MercyCorps’ pictures from Ethiopia in the photo essay “An Education for Ethiopia’s Young Women."

Educated youth in Tunisia want employment that utilizes their skills and passion. Photo: Joy Portella/Mercy Corps.

"Can Tunisia become the Silicon Valley of the Arab World?" Columnist David Rohde explores this question in The Atlantic:

Tunisia's revolution and its aftermath show how rapid technological change has altered economic, diplomatic and political dynamics worldwide. But outdated American notions of power - particularly in Congress - are preventing the United States from keeping pace. A decades-long American practice of spending vastly more on military efforts than civilian ones is handicapping a vital attempt here to create a democratic, free-market country that is a model for the Arab world.

The United States' strongest weapons against Islamic militancy are not CIA operatives, drones or infantry battalions. They are the modern, new high-tech office buildings that Hewlett-Packard, Fidelity, SunGard, Microsoft and Cisco have opened here in recent years. In the wake of the revolution, Tunisians dream of their country becoming a hub for cloud, big-data and open-government computing in the region.

Tunisians say they do not want handouts, loans or traditional aid. They want investment, exchange and a chance to be part of the world economy. So far, Washington's antiquated focus on military might has let them down.

David Rohde is a columnist for Reuters, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and a former reporter for The New York Times. Read the full article in The Atlantic.

Since formal banks and wire transfer companies (like the one above) don't exist in Somalia, they rely on hawalas to transfer funds. Photo: Emily Webber (flickr)

Though they send more than $100 million home each year, the United States' largest population of Somali immigrants can no longer send a dime.

Around 70 percent of Somali-Americans, about 19,000 of whom have settled in the Minneapolis area, rely on remittances to support their families, states Said Sheik-Abdi, program manager for the American Refugee Committee. Money directed to friends and family in Somalia often covers food, education, and business expenses; this has been especially important during the ongoing drought and famine in the Horn of Africa.

Franklin Bank, part of the Sunrise Community Banks network, was the last institution offering hawala services to Somali residents in the Twin Cities. The hawala system, a global money service business, substitutes for wire and banking services where none exist but operates without formal record-keeping. The anonymous service could be used to send money to terrorists, which banks and the U.S. government fear.

Here’s the challenge: since Somalia’s banking system dissolved after two decades of civil war, hawalas have been the only option for U.S. Somalis to send money home.

But in December 2011, the gradual tightening of anti-terror banking laws prompted Sunrise Community Banks to stop all money transfers to Somalia in an effort to curb potential funding of terrorist groups such as al-Shabaab and al-Qaeda.

There has to be a better way. It’s counterproductive to stop all flows of money over the potential acts of a few, especially for an already unstable economy.

While some local Somalis stage protests, others are trying to work with state officials. Hassan Warsame is one of the latter. A financial consultant and member of the Association for Somali American Nationals, Warsame recently stated that not only is this a bad way to fight terrorism but it’s a humanitarian issue. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, Somalis in the U.S. sent over $100 million home last year. Minnesota-based Somalis are currently left with no recourse.

Inaction on this issue will only do more harm by keeping Somalia in thrall to the poverty and chaos that breed terrorism. Terrorists can use this to fuel propaganda abroad, while refugee communities in the U.S. are left feeling powerless.

Fostering dialogue between government officials, banks, and Somali organizations is the first step. Whether it’s through a revised remittance system or official guidelines for banks using hawala, collaboration will be key in finding a long-term solution.

Why Nations Fail asks, "Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine?" Image: Crystal Davis World Resources Inst. (Flickr

Poverty isn’t random or predetermined—it’s man-made.

That’s Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s answer to a simple, ancient question: why are some countries rich while others are poor? Why do some people live in poverty while others prosper?

In their new polemic, Why Nations Fail, Acemoglu and Robinson explore the growing gap between rich and poor countries and what the root causes of poverty mean for aid efforts. It’s not culture, weather, geography, or ignorance, they say: poverty is created by man-made economic and political institutions.

Why Nations Fail is the newest book to tackle the question of global inequality—after Sachs’ the End of Poverty, Easterly’s the White Man’s Burden, and Banerjee and Duflo’s Poor Economics.

In a review of the book, Paul Collier for the Guardian praises its accessibility: "not just readable but engrossing.” Adam Davidson for the New York Times says Acemoglu “is about as hot as economists get.”

While you ponder whether to go for the deep dive and read the book, check out what these intellectual heavyweights have to say on the issue of inequality through the following interviews and articles:

In the Huffington Post, Acemoglu and Robinson speak to the problem of inequality in the U.S.:

Economic inequality will lead to greater political inequality, and those who are further empowered politically will use this to gain a greater economic advantage by stacking the cards in their favor and increasing economic inequality yet further -- a quintessential vicious circle. And we may be in the midst of it...Whatever we may think of the views, rhetoric, and tactics of OWS [Occupy Wall Street], not only does it deserve our respect for putting the question of inequality on the agenda, but also for actually standing up for political equality.

Acemoglu talks about what growing inequality means for society in an interview with book review site Browser. According to Acemoglu, prosperity rests on political foundations—not on culture, weather or geography, as some scholars argue:

We are conditioned to think of factors such as culture and geography as so determining because we see them as immutable. They’re there and therefore they must be important. How could it not be important that Mexico City is so much warmer than New York? How could it not be important that some people are Muslim and others are Christian? But actually none of it is really as obvious as it appears.

And he talks about how inequality affects economic markets:

I do believe in markets. I passionately believe in the importance of property rights and private property. I think they are absolute sine qua nons for prosperity. But I also believe that these things are very political and the politics shouldn’t be one-sided.

International economist and director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs weighs in:

If every village had wireless connectivity, and it had computers in the schools, in the clinics, in the community centers, in the farmer cooperatives; if community health workers and agriculture workers were carrying their cell phones, interconnected with the computers, there'd be no such thing as economic isolation anymore.

I don't think we're doing yet everything that can be done to use the power of wireless broadband and all that it will bring. But I see it before my eyes, in just the last few years, making a decisive difference. And now in every village where I go, someone's got a cell phone, somebody can make an emergency call, someone can find out the price on the market, someone can start a business empowered by the fact that they can reach a customer or a supplier, someone can drive a taxi or a truck for that reason as well. Everything is changing.