Author Archives: farideldaoushy

Appropriate Education – An Oasis in a Vast Desert

Seeking education to give wings to your dreams is not an easy task, although imperative. Most often, if not always, coaching and support are needed along the way. Here is an example of a young girl from India who succeeded already in here early days to overcome many traditional barriers and difficulties. From where did she get all the motivation in the most hostile, poor and less privileged rural regions in the heart of India, is indeed an interesting story, worth knowing the start, its path routes and somewhat the end.

Give Wings To Your Dream – By Shibani, Wise We, tells the story of this girl (http://wisewe.com/give-wings-to-your-dream-by-shibani/). India is one of the nations that realized the potential of education for the transformation of the country. It has already stepped in the 21st century where modernization, globalization and urbanization are at the peak. Certainly, India has crossed many diificulties to reach where it is today but many are yet to be shorted out. Among them eradicating poverty and unemployment, however illiteracy is supreme.

ICT Challenges and Threats in New Era of Knowledge And Sustainability

The world was surprised with the fast and considerable damage of the recent tsunami-earthquakes that took place in past decade or so in Asia, e.g. In Thailand and Japan, more at (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsunami_earthquake). Such events trigger tsunami actions with very much magitudes of larger than the normal earthquakes.

All of us are overwhelmed by the enormous power of socialmedia what regards the speed and magnitude by which knowledge is transferred and disseminated. However, it remains to go in depth both vertically and horizontally to understand the ongoing transformation that is taking place globally as a consequence of two new and imperative strategic changes “ICT” and sustainability.

Why socialmedia is revotionalizing the world and gaining more and more attention among the world population especially the younger ones? how can it be used to maximize its benefits on individual and collective levels? what are the modern threats associated with overconsumption or random use of socialmedia? how can we improve the quality of knowledge that keeps generated by socialmedia and what are the impacts of socialmedia and ICT-technology on traditional education at all levels? how can copywrite protection be improved with the accelerating production on the web? how can search engines do better jobs on the web? how can false materials, hate and bullying be controlled and balanced with the freedom of speech and democracy?
Future generation especially in the developing countries will be struggling to balance the old and traditional values with the progressive and new changes.

Food Challenges – Production Contra Consumption Is A Hard Equation

In a world with increasing over-population food production requires (mainly) either hardworking man-power “hand-made” or well-coordinated automation “processed food” both of these can have advantages and disadvantages. In any case the wheel of production to provide fairly high-quality food would not go any faster especially with shrinking economy, declining natural resources and increasing competition on whatever is left as well as the pile-up of our common pollution and waste remains.

What is the solution?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6qqsvf77ebtbb08/2014-11-02%2022.57.04.jpg?dl=0

Stay Tuned – How Socialmedia Is Shaping Africa

Socialmedia is moving deep in many African contexts with similar trends as those that changed Europe and the U.S. in the sixties (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960s): the Vietnam War; the Beatles, music changes in the United States and around the world; John F. Kennedy assassination in 1963; Martin Luther King Jr. “I Have a Dream”; China’s Mao Zedong puts the Great Leap Forward plan; a human being sets foot on the Moon. At least, let us hope for a new modern future to revert Africa to more sustainable continent to save its natural beauty and biodiversity as well as to bring welfare for its people.

Follow Socialmedia network and stay tuned (http://artradarjournal.com/2015/02/27/african-photography-via-instagram-4-accounts-to-follow/ Also, the Instagram @afurakah “Afu-Ra-Kah” is one of the origin names of the motherland. All humans come from Africa.

Africa Today – Is Best Described By Its People

Get updated by the most modern approaches for achieving sustainability. Socialmedia can be a tool, visit and learn more at:

http://artradarjournal.com/2015/02/27/african-photography-via-instagram-4-accounts-to-follow/

The Road for African Sustainability – African Life Style & Culture

Connecting people is an essential part for achieving sustainable socio-economic developments anywhere around the world. Understanding life style and cultural heritage is crucial for overcoming the socio-economic barriers hindering friction in the society and has enormous positive impacts on safety, security and stability.

Afurakah “Afu-Ra-Kah” is one of the origin names of the motherland. All humans come from Africa. @afurakah is an Instagram site for art, music, fashion, food, sports and tech. “sustain-earth.com” find it relevant for promoting the implemetation of Applied Sustainability in Africa.

Why Sustain-Earth.Com – Water Resources Management in Africa

Sustain-earth.com discusses and debates how to bring about successful social-economic developments around the world with focus on protecting and preserving our common natural resources on planet earth.

Sustain-earth.com is a trans-sectorial and trans-disciplinary platform for promoting and implementing “Applied Sustainability” in all sectors and on all levels with focus on Water, Energy and Natural Resources. It involves inter-active instruments for strengthening “Business-to-Business” and “Career-Development-Plans” in particular for young professionals and graduates.

http://travelencyclopedias.blogspot.se/2011/08/enchanting-eight-highest-waterfalls-of.html?m=1

Is Poverty A Natural Phenomena?

As the world focus is directed towards the core reasons of poverty and possible solutions, a legitimate question comes to the surface of our discussion table: is poverty a natural phenomena? Here are some clues on possible answers:

Living in High Tech Without Education Is Like Being Blind and Driving A Car

WWI and WWII transformed Europe and the U.S. to high-tech societies and since that time the world accelerated steadily and gradually in a global track of developments. The emergence of modern societies became more and more dependent on knowledge and technology with clear divergence into two tracks with growing gaps between them. These tracks generated what is currently known as the developed and developing countries with enormous and huge imparities on all levels and scales.

It is a misconception that poverty is the lack of economy to feed population, it is rather a symptom of poor societies and the real proble is under-nutrition in knowledge which is the only instrument for development, technology and sustainable developments.

The root of poverty is the absence of knowledge and all of us know the value of education especially higher education, e.g. undergraduate university education, where specific and practical merits of relevance to the market and life quality are given. Research which typically starts on graduate and post-graduate levels, is a universal instrument for extending higher education in whatever is needed for turning the unknowns to knowns and thereby extending and inlarging the market and improving life quality and life standards on all levels and scales. History shows that modern welfare societies with diversified markets, high living-quality and living-standards, enjoy high quality of education, innovation and technology where people can define, formulate and practice their knowledge to serve and get served with high-quality and high-standard in focus.

The core problems in the world is the ever accelerating competition between the developed countries to further secure and improve their economies which continuously generate larger and larger gaps between the developed and developing countries. The huge rates of poverty in the developing countries is further enhanced by enormous outflow of people from the developing countries to fill technology and market gaps in the developed countries, either permanently or occasionally/temporary. Furthermore, the interactions and dynamics between higher education systems in the developed and developing countries do not involve synergies to promote coupling of science and technology to society, market and population needs in the developing countries. Such interactions and dynamics are merely designed for the conditional promotion of science and technology in the developed countries. Careful examination of promotion systems in higher education sectors around the world, for example, shows that education and research in science and technology in the developing countries do not generate the necessary labor to solve local and regional needs. On the contrary higher-education- promotion systems in the developing countries are counterproductive on many levels with severe negative and destructive impacts for the national and regional socio-economic developments.

Much of the focus in the developing countries is on low-quality children education which indeed is not enough to eradice poverty even with best economic aid-resources from UN, international foreign aid-organizations and foundations, e.g. Bill Gates. These organizations follow the same inherited pattern and policies “business as usual” that are conducted again and again by the failing higher education systems around the world.

If change is going to happen in eradicating poverty we need first to modernize our education systems. We can not afford having the majority of the world population being blind-consumers of world natural resources. Let us start-with providing future generation better chances and possibilities for a future which will never look the same as today (http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/education; http://saveourschoolsnz.com/tag/child-poverty/).

Science for Evidence-Based Policy-Making In International Developments

I’m a PhD student in political science at UC Berkeley. I study social protection programs in sub-Saharan Africa. I’m also interested in evidence-based policymaking in international development follow us to see what is going on (http://rachelstrohm.com/2011/06/02/technicolor-congo-mines/).

World Politics – The Rich and Powerful Are devided Over Poverty!

The SDGs are facing severe global criticism – According to Kishan Khoday, The UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals aim to save the world without transforming it. The UN SDGs are hated by many around the world with fears that global poverty is much more complicated and comprehensive than we ever imagined. A matter that devided the world more than unifying it to face poverty and to offer real and solid hopes for the billions of poor people. Loosers are of course the poor with risks that more and more poor will sink deeper and deeper in larger and larger irreversable poverty traps (https://undp.unteamworks.org/node/503968), see also the link (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/global-poverty-climate-change-sdgs/?utm_campaign=shareaholic&utm_medium=email_this&utm_source=email).

Gates Foundation, also, rallies the troops to attack UN development goals, Desmond-Hellman gave an overview of the foundation’s “global priorities” within health such as polio eradication, agricultural reform, child and maternal health, better access to financial services for the poor and other programs (http://www.humanosphere.org/world-politics/2015/05/gates-foundation-rallies-the-troops-to-attack-un-development-goals/.

However, Amina Mohammed, a Nigerian who worked on gender and education targets within the MDG framework and is now the UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon’s adviser on the SDGs tell that “These are complex and difficult problems we are trying to solve”. It’s fine for many to wish the root problems of poverty and inequity could be solved with nice, simple and targeted interventions, Mohammed said. But that is the fantasy position, she said. “The MDGs addressed symptoms, not root causes,” Mohammed said. The SDGs are complex and politically unpalatable to many, she added, precisely because they seek to fix some of the more difficult, politically charged causes of poverty and inequity. “Yes, this is a political agenda,” acknowledged Mohammed, adding that there are many out there who seem to either have “no appetite” for addressing the political causes of inequity or are downright opposed to the SDGs because they represent a threat to the established order and power structure.

If the rich and powerful are divided over how to solve poverty and who is responsible for what and why; who would then help the poor? Would we stand watching the pile-up of poverty to grow and grow and wait for further delay and delay of the poverty peak, i.e. until the twenty second century!

How Green Is Green – Why Green Cities Without Green Villages?

Most of the focus in the ongoing global urbanization process is devoted to Green Cities (http://globalgreencities.com) as if rural areas aren’t existing on our maps or are excluded from the UN programs for “Sustainable Development Plans”. Urbanization without policies for improving rural areas is just like curing a person by advising him/her to go using one leg, would this be possible?

Global urban-slum statistics are alarming (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slum) and even still expanding. The slum situation in Africa is catastrophic and irreversible and if it would continue with the existing speed the whole Africa would collapse on all levels and scales.

Threats of Urbanization In Africa – Living In Mobile-Phone Culture Without A Toilet

Policy-makers in Europe and the U.S. have addressed major concerns about the failure of integration of immigrants brought into their labor-markets after the rapid industrial and technology transfer post WWII, e.g. for more information visit the following websites (http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/e-library/documents/policies/legal-migration/general/docs/final_report_on_using_eu_indicators_of_immigrant_integration_june_2013_en.pdf) and (http://m.immigrationpolicy.org/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.immigrationpolicy.org%2Fissues%2Fcitizenship&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.se%2F#2887).

With these experiences in mind and the fact that Europe and the U.S. passed through a wide-scale of urbanization and modernization especially after WWII, we can already expect similar negative consequences and impacts in the developing countries because of the ongoing fast urbanization, in particular Africa. With the exception that the negative consequences and impacts in Europe and the U.S. were/are relatively very much smaller than the observed trends and the expected future changes in the developing countries. Currently, there is already gradual and intensive internal migration due to the enormous urbanization process that is taking place in many developing countries around the world. This process is certainly resulting from the severe failure of integration of rural and urban regions and the core reason for the expansion of poor communities around major/mega cities. This indeed, has two major future impacts: (1) gradual degradation of the basic public and private infra-structures of newly urbanized regions; and (2) shortage of the relatively experienced local and native labor in rural regions on many levels in general and collapse of the agriculture, in particular, with associated negative impacts on food and agro-industries.

This is a very ignored issue in Africa though many severe impacts are already observed in big and mega cities in Africa, e.g. Cairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Bamako……

IMMIgration Or INTEgration That Is The Question – Living in A Car Culture Without A License

IMMIgration is an integral part of human experience and always existed throughout human history. In a dynamic world of continuous changes and unlimited needs for successful globalization IMMIgration would always exist. However, the motivations, dynamics and mechanisms are never the same. In this context, there are many critical questions that need to be answered not only at individual levels but also on the larger socio-economic landscape.

Shortly after WW-II immigration was very popular, and people and countries around the world benefited from the unlimited needs and diverse market possibilities that existed at that time. However, the current global situation what regards IMMIgration and INTEgtation is very much different than what it used to be after WW-II. Why the INTEgration of IMMIgarnts did not take a sustainable path, as it was wished, is among most important global political and socio-economic issues (http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/e-library/documents/policies/legal-migration/general/docs/final_report_on_using_eu_indicators_of_immigrant_integration_june_2013_en.pdf).

Full integration of immigrants in the U.S. is still an issue and most immigrants want to be Americans and fully participate in social and civic life. We can expect naturalization and integration programs to be an important part of comprehensive immigration reform. Immigrant integration has benefits for everyone because it enables immigrants to realize their full potential, contribute more in economy and develop deeper community ties. While the United States encourages legal permanent residents to become citizens, there is no national strategy for facilitating integration with sufficient infrastructures to smooth transition from immigrant to citizen. Failure to address this problem in the context of comprehensive immigration reform could lead to endless delays for the millions who currently seek services from USCIS and the millions more who will become part of the applicant pool following legalization.

Another important issue is the internal migration in many countries due the enormous urbanization process that is currently taking place around the world. This process is certainly resulting from the severe failure of integration of rural and urban regions and the core reason for the expansion of poor communities around major/mega cities. This indeed, has two major impacts: (1) gradual degradation of the basic public and private infra-structures of urbanized regions; and (2) shortage of labor in rural regions on many levels in general and collapse of the agriculture, in particular, with associated negative impacts on food and agro-industries.

http://m.immigrationpolicy.org/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.immigrationpolicy.org%2Fissues%2Fcitizenship&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.se%2F#2887

Why Career Development Plans Are Imperative In Our Dynamic And Fast Developing World?

Many of us, if not all, are in daily struggle to join, contribute and be effective part of the society, the market and the world in general. This takes place on several levels, e.g. individual, family, community, society and even on country-levels, regionally and also globally. We are not isolated and we do exist in a very dynamic and rapidly changing world.

This doesn’t necessarily mean to be rich, having power and/or being a leader. It includes everyone where expertise and experiences (hard merits) in suitable and appropriate combinations with personal character (soft merits) are necessary to maximize the added-value at any-time (short-term to long-term) and anywhere (locally to globally).

Career Development Plans “CDP” are tightly and continuously needed in all stages of our lives, i.e. from early childhood until very late in our aging process. Without appropriate and suitable “CDP” anyone of us is likely to loose track of being part of the society, community and the market in general (http://www.job-search-mentoring.com/career-development-planning.html) and to remain effectively integrated with rest of the world and the ongoing globalization process.

Unfortunately, “CDP” can be hindered with obstacles that can otherwise have positive feedback, strong and dynamic motivation on the track of developments. If “obstacles”, e.g. from handicaps, friends, society, cultures, markets, environments and politics are being treated as “challenges” much can be gained. This is strongly dependent on how “CDP” can be shaped, structured and implemented. In reality “CDP” only exist in organized effective forms at high-quality universities and high-schools (http://about.unimelb.edu.au/careers/development/toolkit/career-plan/map) and to very limited extent in pre-university and higher education levels. This indeed, cause severe limitations for many young people to plan their future and navigate in the society and the market. However, there are exceptions, at the early stages of individuals there are enormous impacts and contributions from innovative environments, communities, societies and families that have the know-how and the knowledge for coaching, mentoring and fostering the younger and unexperienced new-comers. This, however, is highly lacking in developing countries and requires focused and dedicated management strategies.

Instagram + Pinterest + YouTube + Blog = Effective Marketing

Currently the most effective social media instruments for marketing on the web are Instagram (https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instagram), Pinterest, YouTube and Blogs. It seems that suitable and innovative combinations of these along with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can provide powerful and interesting integrated marketing approaches. Instagram and Pinterest provide informative visual information with compact texts while their combinations with YouTube and Blogs give audio and text-supported details for detailed description of complex social, socio-economic, designs, technical and engineering solutions. Other social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn can give supplementary links and connections with professionals and the public in general on different levels. It is interesting to explore how social media instruments interact with each other and how they can be effectively combined for coupling science and technology to society, market and population needs (Http://Instagram.com/farideldaoushy/).

The Dream of Fresh Food – Water is the Solution, If it isn’t the Problem.

A question that can be formulated in simple words; how to end hunger and poverty? But the answer for billions of people around the world can be very difficult especially when it comes to practicality and real daily life. Fresh food is becoming more and more difficult to afford and not so often easy to get with high quality, so is seems to be luxury rather than a necessity. There are increasing trends around the world to plant own fresh food and all you need is WATER, the magic compound that do the difficult job to produce fresh food of any sort. This is of course in combination with light and whatever it is needed to enrich the food with minerals and vitamins.

Day after day, messages and photos or videos on the internet confirm that people are able to produce their own fresh food, even in the small space and far above the ground, e.g. a balcony on the 15th floor in a city. Most of these “novice farmers or gardeners” proudly announce successes of their first experiments thanks to “lessons learned” and “exchange of information on the web”.

Here are some examples. However, for communities, villages and large populations in the developing countries with little access to information and knowledge as well as poor management of water resources simple solutions become complicated issues.

https://desertification.wordpress.com/category/gardening-horticulture/kitchen-garden/page/2/

UN 70th Anniversary – New Global Sustainable Development Goals

TRANSFORMING OUR WORLD:
THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Heads of State and Government and High Representatives, meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York from 25-27 September 2015 as the Organization celebrates its seventieth anniversary, have decided on new global Sustainable Development Goals “SDG”. A historic decision on a comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred set of universal and transformative Goals and targets. This involves the full implementation of this Agenda by 2030 and achieving sustainable development in its three dimensions – economic, social and environmental – in a balanced and integrated manner. We resolve, between now and 2030, to end poverty and hunger everywhere; to combat inequalities within and among countries; to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies; to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and to ensure the lasting protection of the planet and its natural resources (https://www.dropbox.com/s/8r7bcetmxik1iha/transforming%20our%20world.pdf?dl=0).

The countdown has begun to September’s summit on sustainable development goals, with national governments discussing the 17 “SDG” goals that could transform the world by 2030. (http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jan/19/sustainable-development-goals-united-nations).

Africa and Mediterranean Are World Next Growth Fronteirs

Although the enormous challenges facing Africa it is in rapid transition and represents a real opportunity for patient and responsible investors. From an empty continent that faced numerous conflicts, sanitary crises and strong poverty, Africa is moving towards an accelerated growth that will create a middle class of more than 250 million people. Africa represents vast opportunities for private investors but also important challenges in terms of political and social stability and respect of the environment. Even though risks in operating on the continent remain high, returns may be even higher. Africa is expected to follow in the footsteps of Asia, which two decades ago was facing the same challenges but managed to grow and develop thanks to the newly found macroeconomic stability, dynamic demography and diverse growth drivers present on the continent.
Indeed more and more countries in Africa show greater political stability, policy continuity and improved governance that are prerequisites for attracting the long-term investments to generate sustainable economic development. These investments will move from the historical commodities and natural resources sectors to the sectors that will benefit from the booming emerging middle class market and reinforce the internal growth of the continent.
The strength of these macroeconomic and demographic changes in Africa will definitely make the continent a region of sustainable high growth over the next decades and the world’s next growth frontiers (more information on this subject (http://www.amethisfinance.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Africa-the-worlds-next-growth-frontier.pdf).
Here are 9 mega-trends that are likely to be shaping instruments for the future of Africa (https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/05/9-mega-trends-shaping-the-future-of-africa/).

Quality of Certified Food – How Good Is Good?

We leaned in our daily life experiences that “no fire without smoke”. Indeed, many of us started to lose confidence in food quality and have observed on many occasions disappointing situations. That doesn’t come without reasons or surprises as we are already familiar about many environmental abuses on several levels. In additions to this, violations of rules and quality guide-lines are existing worldwide as economic terms in production and services have sometimes higher priorities than quality standards.

Here are some few examples why our food quality can be questioned. I personally have experienced number of violations even in best shops in Europe (in this case very few) where bread and cheese can be suspected for exposure to rat droppings, see for example (http://www.raising-happy-chickens.com/rat-droppings.html).

In developing countries sanitation and poor water quality can pose additional threats in food production as the risk of exposure of food to insets and certain dwelling animals, e.g. rats, can be high.

Here are some warnings about existing problems in processed food even through legally accepted quality guide-lines (http://youtu.be/T75ULFUgEPk).