The Game Plan

Chris Dadok

Period 2

Tompkins

World Lit Honors

The Game Plan

Al Shabab, literally meaning “The Youth” in Arabic, emerged as a radical youth wing of Somalia’s now dysfunctional Islamist Courts. The Islamic Court was a large militant organization that controlled large swaths of Somalia, constantly fighting the government for control of the country. In late 2006 the Islamic Court was driven out of the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu and soon after it splintered into different factions with slightly different goals. Of the many factions that have came from the Islamic Courts, Al Shabab is one of Africa’s most voracious problems. This group has been made infamous by its rampant killing sprees in Somalia as well as in neighboring countries such as Kenya. As Somalia threatens to fall to these militant groups, countries such as Kenya and the United States have become intertwined their foreign policy in order to prevent a rebuttal in their own countries.

Over the years, Al Shabab has grown in strength as well as audacity, daring to venture into neighboring countries such as Kenya to kidnap and attack villages. Though in recent years the group has lost ground to the coalition of multiple countries that is determined to eradicate them. The African Union, known as the AU, is slowly pushing Al Shabab out of key towns and cities. Losing the capital Mogadishu in 2011 as well as the vital port of Kismayo has begun to put immense strain on Al Shabab. The National Terrorism guide added “As of 2013, however, pressure from AMISOM and Ethiopian forces had largely degraded al-Shabaab’s control, especially in Mogadishu but also in other key regions of the country, and conflict among senior leaders has exacerbated fractures within the group.”  The coalition has slowly began to realize that by working in unison with each other they are able to outmatch the militants, who are unaccustomed to fighting full scale wars.

Al Shabab is slowly disintegrating due to the American presence in the region. By using drones, the U.S has managed to identify and  eliminate top Al Shabab leaders. Political analysts believe that the group will slowly separate as their leaders continue to get eliminated. The CIA Director John Brennan commented “The unmanned systems are now widely seen as the US’s weapon of choice in its war on terror, as they can “strike their targets with astonishing precision”. As their resources are slowly being shut off, it is only a matter of time when Al Shabab will lose its grip on Somalia, due to the utter onslaught of the U.S as well as the AU.

With the United States influence continuing to grow in the area, other countries are stepping up to the challenge to increase their security to repel Al Shabab.. Due to the growing amount of terror attacks in Kenya, Kenya plans to increase border security with new barbed wire fences and walls that will hinder Al Shabaab's movements onto Kenyan land. The Guardian reported “Kenya is going to build a wall. Not just any wall, but a “separation barrier”, to employ the euphemism coined by Israel to describe the towering, snaking structure that now separates it from Palestine’s West Bank.” This step up in security was in direct response to the atrocities such as the Westgate Mall attack, which claimed the lives of sixty seven civilians. Kenya is rapidly alcimating to the climate around them in order to close of their porous border with Somalia.

Due to the conflict the Al Shabab is causing and resulting in the interference of other nations, Somalia has the potential to transform into a war zone. Help from foreign countries such as the United States, as well as neighboring countries will help control Al Shabaab's aggression to the utmost extent. Countries around the world are beginning to act preemptively instead of waiting to the problem to travel to them. This evolving strategy has begun to stamp out groups such as Al Shabab, but only time will tell if their game plan will be able to stick.

Bibliography:

1. "National Counterterrorism Center | Groups." National Counterterrorism Center | Groups. National Geographic, 5 Feb. 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
2. Allison, Simon. "Kenya To Build Wall On Somalia Border." The Guardian. The Guardian, 7 Oct. 2014. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
3. Smith, David. "CFR Backrounders." Council on Foreign Relations. Council on Foreign Relations, 21 Jan. 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2015.
4. "Iran Tracker." Al Shabaab Leadership Profiles. AE, 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.
5. "Al-Shabaab (militant Group)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.
6. Mutiga, Murithi. "Al Shabab's Internal Split." New York Times 1 Oct. 2014. Global Issues In Context. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

Deeply Rooted

What was the point of abolishing apartheid 21 years ago if it is still around today? In South Africa, remnants of legalized racial separation still exist. Race and class have a heavy correlation with each other. The attitudes of the people continue to reflect the nature of apartheid, and the legal system has not made drastic enough changes to allow for equality. South Africa has formed a system that it can not let go of, and it is now seeking for a path of unification for the people who inhabit the country.

Many places experiences this deeply rooted dilemma of apartheid and racial segregation. During a personal experience at a university in Cape Town, Colleen Roberts explains the subconscious racial division she saw on campus as a student. She was asked about her family, her race, her appearance, even her hair, and many times was asked for proof through documents of her heritage (Roberts). Isabella Soifer viewed similar societal divisions formed by race. In Cape Town she noticed that poverty was highly populated by those with darker skin. On the other side of the street there were larger, nicer, cleaner homes where the white people lived, superior to those with tin roofs. Soon, natives would be relocated for the construction of new modern homes (Soifer). Such simple separations like class and social group are influenced by the race of an individual.

After 300 years of apartheid, the routine of segregating two groups of people has hardly been reversed (SAPA). Although officially apartheid ended in 1994, there are still laws that allow racism to take place, but these laws that remain are gradually being abolished. Highly unbalanced, 5% of the population consists of whites while the other 95% of the population is everyone else, and a system of oppression with a dynamic like this is should not and will no longer be tolerated by the government (South Africa).

The Separation Act of 1950 prohibited native Africans and Afrikaaners/Europeans to dwell in the same areas. Power structure and living environments still revolve around laws like these. When the Hewitt’s, a white family living in a gated community, decided it was time to leave and move to a township, full of black people, their neighbors were appalled (Eddo-Lodge). Even after the abolition of apartheid, there remains a tension amongst the people of South Africa caused by racism.

Such a substantial and highly impactful issue concerning a vast majority of people should and cannot be ignored. The government is finally taking control of the situation, but who knows how soon there will be enough change to end racism where it thrives best.

Works Cited

Eddo-Lodge, Reni. "South Africa’s Air Is Still Thick with Remnants of Apartheid." Gulf News. N.p., 6 Sept. 2013. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.

Roberts, Colleen. "Facing the Remnants of Apartheid." Facing the Remnants of Apartheid. Georgetown University, 21 Feb. 2014. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.

SAPA. "Remnants of Apartheid Still Exist - Minister." News24. N.p., 09 Apr. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Soifer, Isabelle. "The Physical Remnants of Apartheid in South African Cities." RiceSTANDARD. World, 20 Sept. 2012. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.

"South Africa to Remove Remnants of Apartheid Laws." Gale Global Issues In Context. Xinhua 

News Agency, 7 Mar. 2008. Web. 9 Mar. 2015. Xinhua News Agency 7 Mar. 2008. Global Issues In 

Context. Web. 9 Mar. 2015.

Uganda Discriminates

Uganda Discriminates  

California brings bright sun and sandy beaches to visit on the occasional weekend outing, but on the other side of the world, some people do not have the option to go out and enjoy themselves. In fact they fear to step beyond their doorstep if they even have one. From day to day people in Uganda who are suspected of homosexuality or identify as homosexual fear being sent to prison or tortured. On February 24, 2014, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act which allows any citizen to take physical action against a human being suspected of being homosexual (Stephenson). In the past months, newspapers have been working with the police to “out” people so that they may be arrested. Over 10 thousand people are being taken into custody and more nations are looking to copy their legislation.

Despite the act condemning people without their consent, many newspapers in Uganda publish articles of offenders with no repercussions. Currently five major newspapers publish these articles showing pictures and locations of people who are suspected to be homosexual. With each article published, the police search for the individual and arrest them. Once taken into custody, they are questioned and often subject to torture until they confess to their crime (Mills). The Ugandan government however denies to acknowledge the support from media and continues to persecute their citizens daily.

Due to this persecution, approximately 20 thousand people have lost their jobs that they have previously owned and are forced to live in slums (Hogan). Here they have no running water and share ten by ten foot rooms with more than a dozen people. “We come in each day greeted by the stench from roommates and every neighbor” says Nebando who has lived in a slum for two years (Epitsen). The basics of life are denied to Uganda’s LGBTQ citizens forcing them to lead subpar lives.

After Uganda placed the Anti-Homosexuality Act into law, the lives of thousand have been pared to a febile existence. The media publishes daily articles “outing” their fellow citizens, and the police interrogate them.  This, however, raises a question for all countries: Who do we consider one of our own?

Works Cited

Stephenson, John. "Uganda Planning New Anti-gay Law." BBC News. BBC, 10 Nov. 2014.  

Web. 9 Mar. 2015.

The World's Worst Place to Be Gay. By Scott Mills. Perf. Scott Mills. BBC Three, 2015. Web.

7 Mar. 2015.

Hogan, Caelainn. "Uganda Gays Face New Wave of Fear Under Anti-Gay Bill."The Daily

Beast. Newsweek/Daily Beast, 2 Feb. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

Epitsen, Helen. "Murder in Uganda by Helen Epstein." Murder in Uganda by Helen Epstein.

New York Time Review of Books, 14 Apr. 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

The Few, The Dead; Neglected Tropical Diseases

Josef Orner

Ms. Tompkins

World Lit. H

11 March 2015

The Few, The Dead

Graph of average life per disease (Hotez)

Humanity appears to be heading towards the peak of its existence. We have created supercomputers capable of calculating the number water atoms in a thumb, and prosthetic limbs that can wired into the nervous systems. But as the human race appears to moving forward, are there not things holding us back? Neglected Tropical Diseases, NTDs, have steps been seen as just this thing, but sadly, not many have been taken towards fighting these diseases. 

Neglected tropical diseases are a category of diseases that are only found in tropical climates and due to their geography, they are only found in isolated areas. The World Health Organization or WHO has stated that they are currently focussing on 14 neglected tropical diseases: Buruli ulcer, Leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, Leprosy,Epidemic diarrhoeal diseases, Lymphatic filariasis, Dengue/dengue haemorrhagic fever, Onchocerciasis, Dracunculiasis (Guinea-worm disease), Schistosomiasis, Endemic Treponematoses (yaws, pinta, endemic syphilis…), Soli-transmitted helminthiasis, Trachoma, Human African trypanosomiasis (WHO). The list of disease may seem daunting, so is there anything being done to fight them?

Currently, very little is being done in fighting these diseases. For all of the new drugs created every day, less than 1% of the over one thousand new drugs registered during 1975-1999 have been to treat these diseases when over 100 million people over the world suffer from them (Kolodziejski). Over 70% of the countries that report citizens contracting a NTD are low income or low middle class countries. So if these diseases are found in low income countries, there must be external help from other countries?

While these disease are problem to the lower class, they aren’t seen as a problem for upper class countries. While the US and Europe have put millions of dollars into fighting these diseases, less than 0.001 percent of the US 60-70 billion dollars went towards developing new and urgently needed treatments for tropical diseases (Hotez). At the same time Europe has been working towards to developing vaccines for these diseases that will be inexpensive, but with the intention of also working towards profits.

Although efforts have been taken to fight these disease, the progress has not been enough to create significant change. As mankind progresses on, whether we support each other during this progress or leave each other behind will become very clear.

Works Cited

Hotez, Peter Jacob Kumaresan, M.B., B.S., Dr.P.H., Sonia Ehrlich Sachs, M.D., Jeffrey D. Sachs, Ph.D., and Lorenzo Savioli, M.D. J., MD, David H. Molyneux, Ph D, and Alan Fenwick, Ph D. "Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases — NEJM." New England Journal of Medicine. The New England Journal of Medecine, 6 Sept. 2007. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. 

Hotez, Peter, Sofia Raff, Alan Fenwick, Frank Richards, Jr., and David H. Molyneux. "Recent Progress in Integrated Neglected Tropical Disease Control." Trends in Parasitology. Trends in Parasitology, n.d. Web. 

J, Hotez T. "Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases: The Neglected Tropical Diseases and Their Impact on Global Health and Development. - CAB Direct." Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases: The Neglected Tropical Diseases and Their Impact on Global Health and Development. - CAB Direct. CabDirect, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. 

Kolodziejski, Christoph, Dr., and Silvia Birck VolkswagenStiftung. "Background." Neglected Tropical Diseases:. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. 

Simarro, Pere P., Giuliano Cecchi, Massimo Paone, José R. Franco, Abdoulaye Diarra, José A. Ruiz, Eric M. Fèvre, Fabrice Courtin, Raffaele C. Mattioli, and Jean G. Jannin. "The Atlas of Human African Trypanosomiasis: A Contribution to Global Mapping of Neglected Tropical Diseases." International Journal of Health Geographics 9.1 (2010): 57. BiomedCentral. Web. 

"Trypanosomiasis, Human African (sleeping Sickness)." WHO. WHO Media Publisher, Mar. 2014. Web. 06 Mar. 2015. 

The Scramble for Africa; Gone but not Forgotten

Simon Patmore-Zarcone

World Literature Honors

Elizabeth Tompkins

2/13/15

The Scramble for Africa; Gone but not Forgotten

The colonization of Africa by European powers during the 19th and 20th centuries has had a lasting effects on African geopolitics. One effect of European Imperialism is the numerous civil wars that have plagued Africa since countries began to gain independence. These civil wars are caused by poorly drawn borders that the European colonizers made up. These borders do not reflect ethnic groups, which leads to ethnic tensions within the states. One example of ethnic groups not being reflected by borders is Sudan. As you can see from the map above, most of northern Sudan is Arab whereas in South Sudan there are many different ethnic groups which are loosely based on tribal regions (Maps). The fact that the north is mostly Arab has created a conflict of interest between the north and the south. There have been many civil wars in Sudan, which, according to Weekly News Publications, “[were] caused by religious and territory disputes between Muslims in the north and Christians and Animists in the south” (Hecht). According to the BBC, the most recent conflict has lasted for “14-month[s]” and “has displaced more than a million people and killed tens of thousands” (S Sudan). The lack of respect for different ethnic groups in Sudan by European colonizers has created an eternal civil war.

In addition to poorly drawn borders, European imperialism has influenced Africa by oppressing its native peoples. One particularly harsh and lasting system of oppression is in South Africa with the apartheid system. To the left, a graph from the SAIRR Institute for Futures Research illustrates the income disparities based on race in South Africa. As you can see, blacks and mixed race South Africans earn the least, with whites earning the most. Despite the apartheid system being abolished in 1994, the white wages have gone up far more in comparison to black wages, showing that even though the government’s oppression is over, black South Africans have little or no chance at upward mobility. According to the United Nations Development Programme, South Africa had a GINI of 63.1% in 2013, this means that South Africa has a very large gap between the rich and the poor, or very poor wealth distribution. The same UNDP statistic measured South Africa 118th out of 187 in wealth distribution. While these statistics do not account for race, it is evident that most of the rich South Africans are white and most of the poor South Africans are black. European Imperialism during the 19th and 20th Centuries scarred the sleeping giant that was Africa, leaving it with many lasting issues.

Works Cited

Hecht, Katie. ""On the Run: Winning Entry Tells How a Sudanese Boy Escaped from His Country during a Civil War."" Weekly Reader. Scholastic, 9 May 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

"Human Development Reports." Income Gini Coefficient. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

"Letter: War in Sudan." Independent [London, England] 26 Apr. 1999: 2. Global Issues In Context. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

"Maps Help Understand Regional Differences During Sudan Referendum." South Sudan Info. Wordpress.com, 10 Jan. 2011. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

"S Sudan Talks Failure 'unacceptable'" BBC News. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

"South Africa." Economic Update: Fiscal Policy and Redistribution in an Unequal Society. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

Verjee, Aly. "Two nations, two messes." Globe & Mail [Toronto, Canada] 6 July 2011: A15. Global Issues In Context. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

Is the misrepresentation of an Entire Continent Worth International Aid?

Africa the Homogenous Country (Continent)

A common phrase we hear from caretakers around the United States. is “eat your vegetables, there’s hungry kids in Africa”, or “Now, you behave or I’ll send you to Africa”. What is truly puzzling about these idioms is why, despite most adults knowing that hunger is not only an issue in Africa, why parents are never saying, “eat your vegetables, little Timmy down the block is not getting enough to eat”. Why is Africa a place where you would send a child to punish them? This self projection of ourselves onto a pedestal is due to the misportrayal of Africa is western media, the idea that the only thing an entire continent is dictated by is crippling poverty, hunger and disease. This false representation has been coined in the advertisement industry as “poverty porn”. (Roennigk) The effects that it has have been evident in both the U.S and Africa.

To begin with, poverty porn empowers the wrong person. While empathy is a poignant human emotion, it leads to donations out of pity, not activism. These advertisements don’t properly inform the viewer of the true cause or effect of the issue on the African population. If a problem is to truly be solved, the donations need to be long term, from a true belief in the cause and fight against the issue. For example, a CNN informative article about fistula, a devastating condition that affects women in Africa, attracted more than half a million views, which raise awareness of the disease.(Meikle) When people are given the opportunity to learn and truly know  know how devastating what they are donating to can really be, they are more likely to tell their friends about it, bringing in more money long term. This use of only pathos adverts also affect the Africans that they are trying to help, It essentially teaches them that they are unable to bring themselves out of a problem; that they must wait for the white man to come and help them. This results in a spread of low self confidence among Africans, the belief that international aid is the only way they will ever rise above some of the issues of their continent. (Roennigk)  While the original goal of these pathos advertisements was to raise money for those who needed it, many say that poverty porn has spiraled into something completely different within itself. With it being such a large market now, many companies are now competing to see who can find the “saddest” picture. The belief is that the sadder, the story the more money the organizations will bring in. This leads to unhealthy competition between organizations, trying to find the worst of a continent has shown not to be the most effective aid strategy. Best put by reporter Glendora Meikle, “With each drab answer to my prying questions, I was scanning the room for other girls with better sob stories”. (Miekle) This cherry picking for the worst conditions just result for even worse misrepresentation of the people of Africa. If a country were to only air advertisement showing the worst conditions of any continent, it would a horrible misportrayal of said continent. So why do we continue to allow organizations to inaccurately portray an entire continent?

One of the most common arguments for poverty porn is that the ends justify the means. Studies have shown that when organizations use advertisements with sad children, they make about 50% more money. (Ahern) Furthermore, the professionals who are hired specifically to raise more money for the charity strongly believe that: “Empathy is a pre-condition to giving, so if you can stimulate an empathetic response in someone, then you're more likely to get a gift”. (Steesing) Obviously, the more money an organization makes, the more money will go to charity. The real question is, does the money trump the negative sociological effects of telling only one of the many stories of an incredibly diverse continent? We are already seeing the adverse effects of this kind of pity advertising in both parties, the advertisers and the advertised. Unfortunately, whether or not we will see these misrepresentations in our daily life beyond threatening misbehaving children with a trip to Africa will completely depend on just how far people will go for money.

To aid or not to aid

Studying aid’s effectiveness yields surprising conclusions

In 2010, a devastating earthquake struck the island nation of Haiti, south of Cuba, and international organizations rushed in to give aid. Among other groups, the United Nations sent a force of UN peacekeepers to rebuild the country, but along with their aid, they also brought Cholera, causing an ongoing outbreak that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of cases and over 8,000 deaths (Archibold). Haiti is not Africa, but it is a reminder that aid, while often highly beneficial, can also go very wrong. New research suggests that basic changes in how aid is distributed and targeted could significantly improve its effectiveness. Understanding how to best make use of foreign aid is key to Africa’s development and the elimination of extreme poverty across the continent.

Frequently, aid organizations avoid working with governments, fearing that aid dollars would be lost to corruption or fraud. However, this can often be counterproductive. In an article in Foreign Affairs, Paul Farmer finds that aid programs that work with governments are less likely to lose money to fraud, not more(Farmer). In addition, working with institutions and not around them means solutions are far more likely to be sustainable, instead of unraveling once organizations withdraw their support. Yet aid organizations, either unaware of or unconvinced by this analysis, tend to stay away from collaborating with public institutions. This is the mistake many countries made in Haiti: international organizations bypassed the government, which meant that when peacekeepers unwittingly introduced Cholera, the country lacked functioning sanitation infrastructure that could limit the spread of the water-borne disease, leading to a vicious outbreak (Archibold).

Typically, organizations give in-kind donations of goods such as cattle or services such as job training, instead of simply giving the needy cash, yet tudies suggest that counterintuitively, direct cash donations are the most effective interventions. One reason is the overhead: the well-known charity Heifer International is widely known for giving cattle to needy families, a seemingly smart and targeted intervention. Yet Heifer’s own bookkeeping tells a different story: to donate a single $300 cow, it accrues overhead costs of $3000, money which cannot be used to help other families (Blattman). Furthermore, individuals know their needs better than organizations, and studies find that those given cash spend it effectively. When a program in Uganda began giving cash to individuals instead of job training, they paid for and took far fewer training classes, while growing their incomes by over 40 percent in five years, far more than most vocational programs’ success rates (Blattman). The perception that Western donors know best severely hampers development by denying poor families the agency to determine and meet their own vital needs.

It’s impossible to overstate how important aid is to diplomacy, development and growth, yet aid organizations have undercut the effectiveness of their own aid through failure to establish and follow best practices. As they become aware of their mistakes, the organizations are rapidly improving in effectiveness and transforming the aid sector as we know it.

Works Cited

Archibold, Randal C., and Somini Sengupta. "U.N. Struggles to Stem Haiti Cholera Epidemic." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Apr. 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. This article is a NY Times article about the ongoing cholera problem in Haiti. As the Times, this source is credible, though it perhaps might be better if it was more recent. This source ends up being used for my introduction, as an illustration of how aid could go wrong.

Blattman, Christopher, and Paul Niehaus. "Show Them the Money." Foreign Affairs. N.p., May 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. This article discusses in detail the research on direct cash transfers as a form of payment and finds they have promise. This article was key because it became one of my two main points, along with the one about institutions.

Farmer, Paul. "Rethinking Foreign Aid." Foreign Affairs. N.p., 12 Dec. 2013. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. This article discusses in-depth various techniques for foreign aid and their effectiveness. Its point about the need to work with instutions became my first main point, and is thus key to the article. I believe this source is credible because Foreign Affairs is a respected magazine.

Killer of People and Money

Talia Gloster

Ms. Tompkins

World Literature Honors

March 13th, 2015

Killer of People and Money

“Ebola -At least something in Africa will eat tonight.” Jokes and satire relating to Ebola such as this one and countless of others are extremely prominent on the internet, and were even more so when the outbreak originally occurred. Yet, how could Americans possibly be laughing at this terrifyingly dangerous disease?  This is because the US has not experienced Ebola to the extent that Africa has. Whereas there have only been a mere two deaths caused by Ebola in America, Ebola has not only affected Africa in killing thousands of its people, but it has also left significant effects on the economy; not all are as fortunate as the United to States to have the money to contain this virus.

While Ebola was still prominent, analysis was made on what the long and short terms effects of Ebola might look like for the African economies it thrived in. The short term impact of how much money would most likely be spent on controlling and curing the disease in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone was a total of 359 million. The countries’ already fragile economies were unable to handle this. “Inflation and food prices were initially contained but began to rise in response to shortages, panic buying, and speculation.” (The World Bank, 2014) This was one of the largest reasons that “a fear of association with others [came about] and labor force participation [was reduced], places of employment [were closed], transportation [became disrupted], and [why] some government and private decision-makers [chose] to close certain areas”: fear.  (The World Bank, 2014)

But of course the people of Africa were fearful; Ebola had no known cure and killed thousands of people. In certain affected areas of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, there were “501-4,000” cases. (CDC, 2015) Of those infected, 25 to 90 percent have a 50 percent chance of getting killed by Ebola. Ebola spreads horrifyingly fast, destroying everything in its wake. Kumbah Fayiah, as an example, just became the head of a family of 21 once her husband contracted and died from Ebola after attending the burial of a family member with the virus (Sy, Amandou, and Amy Copely, 2014.) A total of 9,951 deaths have been reportedly caused by this viral disease, as of March 7th, 2015.

It is clear to see that Ebola is not a topic which can be seen in a humorous light, but that it should be seen for what it is: and that is a horrible disease which has affected not only the lives of those in Africa, but also the economy of Africa.

Works Cited

2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa - Outbreak Distribution Map. Digital image. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 02 Mar. 2015. Web. 07 Mar. 2015.

"News." Ebola: Economic Impact Already Serious; Could Be "Catastrophic" Without Swift Response. The World Bank, 2015. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

Sy, Amandou, and Amy Copely. "Understanding the Economic Effects of the 2014 Ebola Outbreak in West Africa." The Brookings Institution. N.p., 01 Oct. 2014. Web. 05 Mar. 2015.

Andrea Africa Issue

Andrea Rodriguez

Ms. Tompkins

WLH 1

March 13, 2015

Teenage Dream: Africa’s Youth and the Job Hunt

A license. A car. A job. These are the desires of a sixteen year-old teenager in the US. It’s easy to acquire these things, however, it is not so for other countries, mainly jobs. For example, in Africa, the youth struggle greatly to find a job. In South Africa, almost half of the unemployed population is made up of young citizens (SABC), earning a position as one of the highest rates in the world (IndexMundi). This affects the economy, families, and society, but what are the causes of youth unemployment in Africa?

Education is one major factor for this issue. According to The Guardian news, “Levels of education in Africa are comparatively low creating a considerable skills gap among youth at working age” (Amare). Many young African citizens are not able to get a job because they are not eligible for it, meaning that they do not have the required education to meet the standards of the job. The majority, 50%, of the youth population is illiterate (AEO), and this is a significant skill needed to be obtained for any job in any part of the world. Without a basic education, a young individual is not able to get a job as easily as one who has the experience and networks.

A second factor is that the programs designed to reach out to aid youth unemployment are uncoordinated. An article by Brookings on Sub-Saharan Africa youth unemployment states that in Nigeria, “[The policies] are administered by a multitude of government agencies and actors that are often unaware of each other’s work” (Routman and McArthur). Despite the fact that there are programs out there to help the cause, the workers in the program are not adequately meeting the needs of their own program in order for the youth to tackle their issue. Consequently, the young citizens are not getting much out through these programs.

While there are more causes to this problem, the results are also many. Without a strong generation of youth employees, can Africa move forward as well?

Bibliography

Amare, Tighisiti. "Africa's High Youth Unemployment." Theguardian.com. The Guardian, 11 July 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fglobal-development-professionals-network%2F2014%2Fjul%2F11%2Fafrica-youth-unemployment-population-growth>.

"Country Comparison Unemployment, Youth Ages 15-24." Unemployment, Youth Ages 15-24. Index Mundi, 1 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Mar. 2015. <http://www.indexmundi.com/g/r.aspx?v=2229>.

Oosthuizen, Morné, and Aalia Cassim. "The State of Youth Unemployment in South Africa." The Brookings Institution. Brookings, 15 Aug. 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2015. <http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2014/08/15-youth-unemployment-south-africa-oosthuizen>.

SABC. "Youth Unemployment Soars: Stats SA." Http://www.sabc.co.za/news. SABC, 5 June 201. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sabc.co.za%2Fnews%2Fa%2F64e44a004442321b82c88651e2c8725a%2FYouth-unemployment-soars%3A-Stats-SA-20140506>.

Brandon Routman, and John McArthur. "Youth Unemployment in Sub-Saharan Africa: Varying Solutions to Complex Challenges." The Brookings Institution. Brookings, 12 Aug. 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/africa-in-focus/posts/2014/08/12-youth-unemployment-africa-mcarthur>.