Esther Duflo speaking at Pop!Tech in 2009. Photo: kk + (flickr)

Ever wonder why some development projects succeed while others fail?

Esther Duflo and her colleagues at MIT’s Poverty Action Lab are working on the answer. Duflo is one of the newest recipients of the MacArthur Genius Grant because of her commitment to investigating what causes poverty to persist in some developing countries and what works to alleviate it.

She does this by setting up controlled field experiments in some of the poorest countries in Africa and South Asia. These experiments set out to prove how social and economic forces fuel the cycle of poverty in these areas. They also test how effective foreign aid projects are at lifting people out of poverty.

Duflo conducts her experiments using a method that mimics how drug companies conduct randomized medical trials. One group participates in a development project while the other does not. The differences between them are then measured to see if the project worked, and exactly how well.

Some of Duflo’s best known work is on HIV prevention in Kenya. Her research shows it’s more effective to teach girls specific ways to reduce their risk — like avoiding sexual relations with older men — than teaching basic medical facts about HIV and emphasizing abstinence as the best method of prevention. As she explains in her recent article for VoxEU.org, girls who were given risk-reduction information now use condoms more often, stay in school longer, and become pregnant less often.

“Economics is about the best way to allocate resources, and finding out what works is important to understanding how to allocate these resources,” Duflo told Philanthropy Action. Too few development strategies are vigorously tested. Proving what works can help.

(For more information on the Poverty Action Lab, check out Sarah Standish’s post "Researching Better Ways to End Poverty.")

A child in Mexico City earns his wage cleaning windshields. Photo: Beto (Kuh) (Flickr)

So far, more than 4 million Mexican families have benefited from a government program aimed at combating some of the country’s toughest problems: poverty, illiteracy and poor health.

Oportunidades, which began in 2002, takes the innovative approach of paying these families to go to school, eat well and stay healthy. Eight years later, the concept is gaining international momentum.

The program is based on a “conditional-cash” idea, whereby eligible adults are given money for achieving specific goals, including regular medical checkups, taking classes on healthier eating habits, and making sure their children are enrolled in school.

Santiago Levy, a social economist and one of the men credited with implementing the “conditional-cash” approach in Mexico, recently spoke about Oportunitidades with PBS. Levy said that he wanted to focus on lasting ways to bring people out of poverty.

These families were trapped in … some kind of an intergenerational mechanism, by which parents were poor, children were poor, and the next generation were also poor. The kids were so poor, they had to be picking coffee in the fields, and they couldn't go to school ... [Through Oportunidades,] what you are saying is, your kid will be equally valuable to you if he's in the school, as opposed if he is in the street begging for money.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Oportunidades is its rigorous evaluation process. The program uses an outside firm to review every aspect of its impact, and so far the results have been convincing. In some affected regions, school enrollment is up 20 percent for girls and 10 percent for boys, according to a World Bank report.

The unique evaluation process has also offered Oportunidades a certain degree of credibility and international recognition. PBS reports that more than 30 counties — many in South America and Southeast Asia — are developing their own "conditional cash" programs.

Egyptian women typically work at home or in agriculture. Photo: DruhScoff (flickr)

An increase in the number of working women in Cairo is giving rise to a new niche within the local security industry: female bodyguards, or "lady guards."

In this part of the world, the mixing of single men and women is highly discouraged. So, according to the Christian Science Monitor, Egypt's leading security company has created a new division of "lady guards" to help these wealthy women feel more comfortable while being guarded.

The Falcon Group, as the Egypt-based security company is known, is pioneering a new model of protection that both signals and supports the rising status of women here. Falcon’s female-guard unit, the first of its kind for women clients, is creating an empowering new career for its employees while capitalizing on the demands of an increasingly conservative society.

These newly trained lady guards say they feel empowered by their work. Amine, a twenty year old "lady guard", tells the Jakarta Globe that "her work has given her a sense of power and status in a country where women often fall victim to male discrimination or harassment."

"We take buses, cars, motorcycles until the road stops, then we walk..." Photo: FullyFunctnlPhil (flickr)

In India, members of the Dalit caste, also known as untouchables, often work as cobblers, roadsweepers, janitors, or worse. They have been discriminated against for centuries and enjoy little to no rights. And all too often, the women are illiterate and have to ask their husbands or brothers for permission to work or go to school.

But, in the Northern state of Uttar Pradesh, a small newspaper is giving Dalit women a unique opportunity to voice their concerns. Recently, the LA Times profiled Khabar Lahariya, or News Waves, a newspaper run entirely by Dalit women. Every two weeks, they print 4,000 copies of a new issue, which is estimated to reach up to 40,000 people in and around Uttar Pradesh. The paper is supported by Nirantar, a New Delhi-based NGO that works with issues of gender, education, and development.

These women are remarkable. They're involved in every aspect of the paper — from writing articles and selling ad space, to delivering papers to remote villages. "We take buses, cars, motorcycles until the road stops, then we walk," said one staffer.

They've developed a knack for shining light on local injustices, the LA Times explains, and often get the scoop on what's happening in the community from other villagers.

The paper's recent stories included alleged bribery at health clinics, a bureaucrat reported to be siphoning off money meant for widows and a piece on the brother of a powerful politician who built a house, blocking water that had gone to Dalit farmers nearby and destroying their livelihood.

The paper has received a lot of positive feedback from the surrounding communities. Residents used to complain that Dalits' issues were underrepresented in mainstream media. One shop owner tells the LA Times how much he values Khabar Lahariya as a news source:

Other papers aren't printed in our language and don't write about local news we're most interested in... This really feels like our own. I just wish it were more than eight pages so I'd have more to read.

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.

It's hard enough to keep a business afloat these days, much less develop a hit product for one of the largest department store chains in the U.S. But that's exactly what the women of Rwanda are doing with a basket weaving business whose end product is sold in Macy's, reports CBS news.

It certainly isn't your average African aid project. When Terry J. Lundgren, Chairman and CEO of Macy's, first heard about the project from American founder Willa Shalit, he expected to see a charity. What he got instead was a proposal.

"I was prepared to make a donation," he said. "And [Shalit] said, 'no no. We don't want a donation, we want a business.'"

It's precisely this business aspect that makes the project sustainable. Last year, the women sold 40,000 baskets in the U.S., and their income is double the Rwandan national average. (View a photo essay about the weaving process here).

You can learn more about these inspiring women in this video:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Cell phones are touching the lives of Tajikistani women in many ways. Photo: Kate B Dixon (flickr)

Technology, migrant labor, and patriarchy: three world systems that bring benefits to some have become a tragic combination for the Tajik women whose husbands are divorcing them remotely via text message, reports Radio Free Europe.

Tajikistan's struggling economy means that as many as one in seven Tajiks works abroad, often spending most of the year away. The country is also heavily dependent on the remittances that constitute half of its GDP. If migrant men decide to divorce their wives back home, some do so via cell phone by texting the word "talaaq," Arabic for "divorce." In Sunni Islam, saying the word three times is a recognized way for men to end their marriages.

Migrant Tajiks are largely beyond the reach of their country's laws. Neither text messages nor "talaaq" are legal methods of divorce there (unlike in other countries like Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, where courts have sanctioned the combination), but courts can't enforce this or other divorce proceedings — like alimony payments — on an absent husband.

These Tajik women are often left without homes or means of support when their marriages end. Respite may only come when they are fully integrated into the legal system — to match their immersion in the technology that has already deeply touched their lives.

Adolescent girls in developing countries miss up to 50 days of school each year because their families can't afford to buy them sanitary pads.

Fortunately, a start-up called Sustainable Health Enterprises (or the cleverly abbreviated SHE) is working to reverse this trend by helping Rwandan women start their own low-cost sanitary pad businesses. SHE is helping girls stay in school and increasing their potential earning power in the process. One additional year of primary school for a girl means a 10-20 percent increase in her future wages, according to a Council on Foreign Relations study.

This short, eye-catching video explains why SHE is doing the work that it does... The music's great, too.

A new, low-cost water filtration system will make it easier for poor Indians to access clean drinking water. Photo: Jackol (flickr)

Here's some conventional marketing wisdom: People who live on less than $2 per day simply aren't a worthwhile target demographic.

But recently, some Indian companies are challenging such ossified thinking with innovative products designed to fit the needs of India's poor, reports The Wall Street Journal:

Such inventions represent a fundamental shift in the global order of innovation. Until recently, the West served rich consumers and then let its products and technology filter down to poorer countries. Now, with the developed world mired in a slump and the developing world still growing quickly, companies are focusing on how to innovate, and profit, by going straight to the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

As the Wall Street Journal explains, Indian companies started to change the way they looked at impoverished consumers after they snapped up low-priced cell phones. Then companies began to design products that they hoped would find a similarly huge demand. Soon, Tata Motors released the Nano car, a small $2000 vehicle that made car ownership a possibility for a whole new slice of Indians since it sold for less than half the price of the next-cheapest car on the Indian market. Tata plans to export a more luxurious version of the Nano to Europe — providing an example of how the goods designed for local markets could increase global competition between Indian and Western companies.

There are several other examples of products redesigned with the poor in mind. Cheap battery-powered refrigerators are a huge help to families without electricity in their homes. The solar-powered cell phone base station won third place in The Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards earlier this year. And the introduction of mobile banking is revolutionizing banking and money transfers in rural areas via cell phones in many poor countries.

It's a newer way of thinking about poverty, and one driven by bottom-line concerns: How can firms sell the poor what they need now, rather than waiting until they have the money to buy what others already have?

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.

September's winning comment was sent in by Alok Amatya of Portland, Oregon. Alok commented on our post Indian Girls Throw Punches at Poverty, and mentions how boxing is opening new avenues for and instilling self-confidence in Muslim women in India. For being chosen as this month's winner, Alok will get $25 to donate to the cause of his choice through Global Giving.

The WSJ article about Muslim girls from India taking up boxing was a very well written one. It puts in perspective the kind of social conservativeness that Muslim women like Ms Fatma have to battle to achieve self-actualization through a sport like boxing that her neighbors deem fit for boys only.

Traditional gender barriers prevent women like Ms Fatma from challenging the male social supremacy that reserves positions of any power or prestige for men, thus leaving for women only domestic chores and odd jobs like sewing, and lowering the female self esteem.

A sport like boxing is a compromise really—by pursuing it, the Muslim women does not challenge the economic supremacy of the male in the family, i.e. the father or the husband. Yet the value of the self-confidence inspired in women by being good at a complex sport—and at that, one presumed by their society to be fit exclusively for males—is immense.

It is very heartening to read about the fathers of women like Ms Fatma and Ms Shabnam standing up against social pressure for the sake of their daughters’ emotional and social well-being. Perhaps such fathers have understood that only feeding and clothing their daughters does not making them complete human beings. Also heartening to read is that women from these societies who excel at sports can not only take part in tournaments at various levels, but are also invited to join the police force or the railway because of their talent. Such a segway into other occupations traditionally reserved for men might inspire a wider social change, that would finally benefit both women and men.

Keep writing in and share your though-provoking comments for a chance to win $25 towards the well-deserving charity of your choice!

* Lest anyone think $25 is not a lot, consider these figures from our affiliate Mercy Corps: $25 delivers clean, safe drinking water to 50 people in one of eastern Congo's sprawling displacement camps. $25 provides seeds to farmers in cyclone-devastated areas of Myanmar to plant five acres of rice. $25 gives traumatized children in Darfur 12 weeks of activities and psychological care to help them heal.

The Indus River has the potential to provide hydroelectric power to millions - who will hold power over that power is what's causing a logjam. Photo: Michael Foley (flickr)

India and Pakistan have both vowed to build hydroelectric dams along an upper branch of the Indus river, only 70 kilometers apart from each other. Two new hydroelectric power sources would seem like good news for these energy-hungry economies, but there's a catch. According to the terms of the 1960 Indus Water Treaty between the two countries, there's only space for one hydroelectric plant in this part of the long-disputed Jammu and Kashmir valley —
and that's the plant that's completed first.

As the race heats up — India has forecast completion for 2016, and Pakistan one year later — Pakistan hopes to edge past India's projected finish line by hiring on Chinese companies to speed up progress.

So what else is at stake in this standoff? Experts, on the condition of anonymity, recently told The Rising Kashmir Daily Newspaper that Pakistan is reaching out to China to give them an edge over India and compensate for their geographical disadvantage, saying,

Pakistan, being the lower riparian state, faces geographical disadvantage. It fears that India's Kishenganga project will have a devastating effect on its hydro-power plans, besides adversely affecting 1,33,209 hectares of agricultural land in Pakistan administered Kashmir. To stem these fears it has signed up with Chinese companies to complete the project and secure priority rights for the river.

A recent Ground Report article regarding SAAMA News correspondent Ibrahim Malick’s report that at least 20 different UN bodies concur that India and Pakistan are the two likeliest combatants for any near-future water war further illuminates what's at stake in the ongoing Indo-Pak water disputes. Ground Report is quick to point out that these two countries are both nuclear-armed, making the situation, and the potential global consequences, all the more serious.

Telltale precursors to this potential water war are already abundant on both sides of the border, including the unambiguous recommendation by the Pakistani Urdu press for war as a solution to the problem. India, in a more circuitous approach, is enforcing "punishment through water"on Pakistan for their lack of action regarding the recent terrorism attacks in India. Clearly, the prospect for a quick, effective resolution is grim.

As Indus water commissioners from India and Pakistan continue to meet in hopes of resolving issues relating to water resources and hydroelectric power generation in the region, the true losers in the South Asian water wars may end up being the forgotten residents of the very valleys the Indus River and its tributaries flow through.

According to The Bombay News,"electricity remains a distant dream for the residents of the Gurez valley of Jammu and Kashmir despite ample water resources existing in the region." Even though the Kishenganga hydroelectric plant is being built in the Gurez valley, the power from the plant will be transmitted to other, more populous and politically influential Indian states such as Himchal Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh.

Shazia Tabasum, a student and Gurez valley resident, told The Bombay News, "[t]here is so much water here. The government has to take steps to put an end to the power crisis. The electricity is supplied through diesel generators. As long as diesel is there we get electricity, but if the diesel goes out of stock, we live in dark and have to wait for fifteen days to one month for the next stock to reach our place."

Unless the Indian government responds to pleas like these from local residents, they'll have to continue getting by with two to three hours of diesel-generated electricity a day. And by the looks of it, the government has its hands full making the power available in the first place.

Women in SHGs spoke about bright futures for their daughters and want to work towards increasing the educational opportunities that are available to them in their village of Karauli. Photo: Carmina Rinker

I recently returned from a study and service-leaning trip in India. While was there I traveled with a small group of Portland State University students and faculty, visiting several grassroots NGOs working with women's microfinance groups in Maharashtra. In this part of the world, Self Help Groups (SHGs) go beyond lending, they also are tackling issues like domestic violence, health care and politics.

Sitting in matching blue Saris with gold trim, about ten women are seated inside a small room passing chai and biscuits to their foreign guests. They discuss their business ventures, their children, and ask our small group of American students questions about our lives in the United States. One mother is beaming with pride as she coaches her small daughter to recite a poem, "Airplane, Airplane" in perfect English.

With the growing popularity of Kiva.org and the heightened awareness of the Grameen bank, many of us Westerners are just now discovering the impact of microfinance programs as a tool of poverty alleviation and women's empowerment. But for hundreds of women in the village of Karauli in Maharashtra, India, this is old news. Women here have been active in Self Help Groups (SHGs) for close to a decade or more, and in this time their participation has extended far beyond the collective savings, loans, that are the most basic elements of microfinance schemes. Self Help Groups are groups of women who come together to save money collectively, and from their collective savings they can take individual loans in order to make repairs on their house, buy goods for their microenterprises, send their children to school, or for whatever purpose they need it for. In addition the SHGs act as a social support network through which the women can come together to address individual and broader social issues such as domestic violence, women's health, and sanitation issues in their communities. SHGs differ from Joint Liability Groups (as used by the Grameen Bank), in that they usually have about 10-20 members whose loans come directly from the group's own savings instead of from a bank or Microfinance Institution. In order to mobilize more credit for larger loans, groups of SHGs often come together to form a Federation.

While visiting two of thirty or so SHGs that are active in Karauli, a village with a population of around 7,000, women spoke about taking out loans to send their children to the university in the nearby city of Pune, large entrepreneurial ventures such as opening a hotel, and accumulating a collective group savings of Rs 8.5 lakhs (equivalent to about 17,000 US dollars). Yet beyond the financial benefit that these women enjoy through their participation in the SHGs (as well as the pride and confidence that goes along with it), the women also spoke about other changes that extend beyond their individual and family levels, and to their greater communities. This ranges from launching village clean-ups to rid their communities of litter, participating in village politics (panchayats). The women who have adopted the blue sari uniform to wear to their monthly meetings organized a 100 Woman March to the Office of the Minister of Irrigation of Maharastra to raise their concerns over water availability and sanitation. This group has been together for over eight years, and during that time every women in the room — about half of their 20 members — has served a term as SHG leader. They explain that before joining the SHG they had little to no interaction and involvement in public spaces, yet with the leadership skills they have now developed as well as the mutual trust and social capital that has been built through the group, they now feel less inhibited to be active in the public domain.

These SHGs have been organized and facilitated by the NGO Chaitanya, based in the nearby town of Rajgurunagar. Chaitanya came into existence in 1993, and began by incorporating microfinance programs using SHGs in rural areas. Today they have expanded to include many other programs that address issues of livelihood and agriculture, legal needs, education, and health of the rural poor.

Boxing is opening new doors for some Muslim girls from India. Photo: flickr(slack12)

An article in Friday's Wall Street Journal looks at how boxing is giving Muslim girls in India an alternative to their "practically scripted" life.

For many of these girls, the Wall Street Journal says life goes like this: "they stay home, help their mothers, and get married so they aren't a burden to their families anymore."

Sabihal Hussain, a women's studies professor at a New Delhi university explains how boxing is opening up new doors for the girls.

They find (boxing) as a way of coming out from conservativeness. They have very limited role — poor Muslim women — in the public sphere. So thes women, these boxers, they find a way to come out and this is an outlet for them to fight poverty.

The boxers train hard and those that are good enough to compete internationally, fight for cash prizes. But for many girls, boxing can be a gateway into a job with the the police or land them a college scholarship for a spot on the university sports team.