Entrepreneurial resourcefulness is vital to disaster response and recovery
n 2010, a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti. By some estimates, more than 300,000 people died and thousands of buildings were destroyed. But these tragic numbers don’t tell the whole story. Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, was unprepared to deal with the crisis because of its weak infrastructure, faltering government and ineffective civic institutions. Research from Dean Shepherd, the Ray and Milann Siegfried Professor of Entrepreneurship at the University of Notre Dame has shown that the resourcefulness of Haitian entrepreneurs helped the country navigate this crisis — and sought to ensure it is better prepared for the next time disaster strikes.
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Greater transparency encourages more competitive bidding in low-income countries
Each year, more than $13 trillion in public procurement contracts are awarded worldwide. In low-income countries, these contracts make up a substantial portion of the economy. But research suggests domestic companies in some countries are reticent or unable to participate, which can make bidding less competitive and hamper the growth of the national economy and domestic businesses. In Uganda, many companies had trouble keeping track of the available public procurement opportunities, and even when they knew of them, they often refrained from bidding because of skepticism about the integrity of the procurement system. The researchers uncovered remedies for both problems.
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Conflict-free mineral designation hasn't eliminated conflict, it has shifted where it occurs
Violence has been a fact of life for decades in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A war that erupted in the late 1990s killed more than 5 million people, and although the war officially ended in 2003, the fighting never fully stopped. For years, armed factions have operated in the eastern DRC and many of them have tapped the region’s mineral wealth to help fund their activities. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act included a requirement that companies disclose whether their products use minerals whose proceeds are used to finance armed groups in the DRC. But more than a decade after it went into effect, it’s not clear whether the rule has improved the situation,
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Lack of clean water is an impediment to women's rights
Earth’s surface is mostly water, but only a small fraction of that water is fresh, and most of that fraction is locked away in alpine glaciers, polar ice caps and remote lakes. Less than .007 per cent of Earth’s water is both fresh and readily available.
But even then, it isn’t always safe or easy to actually obtain it. Some available water is polluted or contaminated with disease-causing pathogens. Other sources are far away and require time-consuming trips to obtain. Women are disproportionately impacted. They are more likely to be responsible for obtaining water, and the time spent fetching water is often time that girls would otherwise spend studying or in school. Women are also more likely to be responsible for household tasks like cooking, cleaning or laundry that can expose them to contaminated water and make them sick. Click here for full text |
Canadian politicians lack security clearance to review secret ops
Under cover of darkness, in a remote valley in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, Canada’s elite special operations soldiers prepared for a raid on a sleeping village. Their mission: to apprehend three men who have been identified as Taliban fighters.
How were they identified? By an informant? A dragnet of cell phone metadata acquired through an ally? By their choice to sport a specific model of Casio watch preferred by suicide bombers? The scenario is hypothetical, but Canadian politicians likely wouldn’t know the answers to that question, even if it were real. Operational secrecy is key to mission success, but in Canada, even the Parliamentarians tasked with overseeing Canada’s armed forces often lack crucial details about military operations and procurement. Click here for full text |
Will new leaders bring real change to Africa?
When tanks rolled through Harare in November 2017, Zimbabwe’s generals insisted it wasn’t a coup. But it sure looked like one. After 37 years in power, Robert Mugabe – once a revolutionary who liberated Zimbabwe from white minority rule – was ousted.
Then in February, South African President Jacob Zuma was forced from office. Did it herald a transformative moment in southern African politics? Maybe. With change, there is optimism, but it isn’t always warranted. In Africa, the removal of one dictator often hasn’t meant the end of tyranny, but its reiteration in another’s name. Click here for full text |
Improving food security in Peru
With clouds almost constantly overhead, Lima seems the unlikeliest of deserts.
The sun shines only 1,284 hours per year in the Peruvian capital. It’s greyer than Vancouver, but despite the cloud cover and tropical Pacific location, Lima has no rainy season. It receives just a few centimetres of rain each year, and with 10 million mouths to feed – many belonging to poor, rural migrants – food security is an urgent issue. Click here for full text |
Solar lamp program helps girls in refugee camps study
A lone silhouette materializes on a dusty horizon, the weight of a shattered life on his back.
Then a second. And a third . . . They’re striding desperately – inexorably – toward the Dadaab refugee camp, in northeastern Kenya. Among Earth’s most hopeless places, for decades it has offered at least some respite from war, famine and strife bedeviling east Africa. Click here for full text |
Refugee-led initiatives helped stop misinformation during pandemic
COVID-19 closed planet Earth, bringing an era of unprecedented international mobility to a sudden halt. Borders were shut, fleets of aircraft were parked, and entire cities stood still. Everyone was impacted, some more acutely than others.
“International humanitarian organizations are now faced with limited mobility. They can’t reach refugee populations because of shelter-in-place orders,” says James Milner. Click here for full text |