Think Global: Sub Saharan Africa

 By Halie Schuster [ Tewodros Square, a busy roundabout in Ethiopia's capital city Addis Ababa]      The modern world is heavily tied with technology. In fact, it is hard to even imagine a world independent of technological outputs like cell phones, the internet, computers and other hardware and software technologies. Ethiopia too is taking advantage of these new technologies and is well on its to becoming one of the major tech hubs on the African continent. While the country’s agriculture and manufacturing sectors have previously driven the progressive transformation of Ethiopia’s economy, present Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, has his sights set on improving technology in the country.       Tech-led growth is an exciting prospect for Ethiopia. And Ethiopia has a substantial advantage in regard to its growing technology sector – a large number of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) educated graduates are beginning to enter the j...

By Halie Schuster Authors and journalist Nicholas Kristof detail the history, present state, and even specific accounts of gender equality and oppression in  Half the Sky . For example, they begin by telling the story of Meena Hasina. Meena is an Indian Muslim has been prostituted by a brothel controlled by the local sex trade for many years. She was kidnapped at the young age of nine and was kept at a rural house until she was old enough to attract clients. After being sent to the brothel, she experienced rape, violence, and drugging. Unfortunately, Meena’s story is not an uncommon one. Kristof makes the assertive claim that force prostitution, such as what Meena experienced, is essentially modern-day slavery. He writes that “it is not hyperbole to say that millions of women and girls are actually enslaved today” and that “the term that is usually used for this phenomenon is ‘sex trafficking’, a misnomer” (pg. 9). Although Kristof’s belief may initially controversial, his judgment...

  By Halie Schuster In her Ted Talk, Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks discusses the notion that individual identities and the way that people perceive the world are often influenced by the culture that they themselves are surrounded in, with little consideration of other cultures outside of their own which, in turns, impacts one’s assumptions and judgements of others. She beings her Ted Talk by providing examples from her own childhood and upbringing. When she was a young child, she mostly read books from the United States and Britain and assumed that all stories and books featured “white and blue-eyed” foreign characters. As she grew older and discovered African books, she realized that this was not the truth. Additionally, she also learned that these kinds of one-sided truths, or ‘stories’, were not just limited to novels and literature. She goes on to tell the story of Fide, her family’s live-in help who came from a nearby rural village. Adichie’s mother made her...

By Halie Schuster             Humanitarian aid, in the simplest terms, is assistance that is used to relieve suffering and save lives during emergencies. The underlining principal that international humanitarian aid organizations adhere to is the “golden rule” or “humanitarian imperative” being that “above all, our job is to save lives and alleviate suffering” ( Concern USA, 2020 ). However, not all humanitarians approach the subject with the same perspective. Linda Polman discusses two major humanitarian figures in her book  The Crisis Caravan : Henry Dunant and Florence Nightingale. These two have had a significant influence on the history of humanitarianism and while their associating philosophies may differ, it is important to recognize their impacts and their opinions.  [Red Cross Flad]             Notably, Henry Dunant founded Red Cross, an international organization dedicated to pr...

  Blog #4: Poverty in Ethiopia By Halie Schuster             The World Bank reports that “poverty rates are declining, and extreme poverty will soon be eradicated” (Hickel, 2014). The United Nations Millennium Campaign and governments of wealthy countries agree that western aid and the influence of free market capitalism have essentially resolved impoverishment and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. But this is simply just not true. Dr Jason Hickel writes in an article for  Aljazeera  that “poverty is not disappearing as quickly as they say – in fact, according to some measures, poverty has been getting significantly worse” ( Hickel, 2014 ). Ethiopia’s current circumstances revolving poverty mirror this same phenomenon. The World Bank reported in 2020 that “poverty decreased from 30 percent of the population in 2011 to 24 percent in 2016, the year of the most recent survey on household living standards” ( World Bank,...

  Blog #3: Ethiopia and the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 By Halie Schuster                     The financial crisis of 2007-2008 spurred from a catastrophe in the United States’ real estate market. The effects of this crisis rippled across the world and transformed into the Global Financial Crisis and subsequent Great Recession, crippling the world economy. Africa countries, and more specifically Ethiopia, were not immune and Ethiopian lives suffered because of it. However, the impact of the crisis on Ethiopia was primarily indirect.                       It’s important to note that Ethiopia’s economy was not completely integrated with the global financial system. Issac Paul explains in  The Global Financial Crisis: Origin, Contagion, and Impacts on Ethiopia ...

Post #2: Ethiopia – A Country Ravaged by the Politics of Ethno-Nationalism By Halie Schuster Nationalism has been a major point of contention in the world and in Ethiopia. The dictionary defines nationalism as an “identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations”. According to this definition,  for nationalism to exist, common interests and characteristics must exist as well.  However, Ethiopia is a multiethnic giant with “around 100 million people belonging to more than 80 ethnic groups and speaking many languages” ( Bieber, Goshu, 2019 ). As Zakaria points out in  The Post American World,  unifying divergent ideas and interests are a difficult task. “This raises the political conundrum,” Zakaria writes, “of how to achieve international objectives in a world of many actors, state, and nonstate” (pg. 39). This issue is seen on a smaller, albeit exemplary, scale in Ethiopia....

By Halie Schuster   [ People have their temperatures checked at the Zewditu Memorial Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. From cpj.org]   The effects of the  novel  coronavirus  pandemic  have  reached nearly every corner of the globe.  A crisis of this scale has dramatically changed  all  our lives , both  economically  and  soci etally .   A s nations around the world struggle to contain  COVID-19  and its impact, Ethiopia is no  different. The pandemic was first confirmed to have reached Ethiopia on March 13 th  and  despite being Africa’s second most populous country, the nation is struggling to recover.    Ethiopia seemingly had a slew of advantages at the outset of COVID-19. The country was benefitting from infrastructure investments, poverty redu ction, and had political plans in place for th eir  first democratic election  (UNCT, 2020) .  While other countries we...