Setting The Stage

What I learned: The lesson begins by describing and discussing the amount of countries that lack a sufficient education for the bulk of their people. It talks about how those countries are possibly attempting to improve the amount of people that are educated, however. Countries who have more years of schooling are richer. Acquiring an education in itself isn't what is valuable. What's valuable is not that education causes growth, its that growth causes education. A "supply-driven" education is then discussed. It is a pro that if one is educated and can figure out technology, then there is a spillover effect and it will spread. A con is that supply-driven educations allow for growth in factors like capital, labor, and human capital. In turn these sound good, but the statistical evidence reveals that the results from the supply-driven education are honestly not that important. ONE country is then focused on in attempt to fully determine if there is a benefit from education. It's determined that in order for education to be a successful factor in LDC's, everything must be done properly. You can't just build a bunch of schools. Many more aspects must be brought into it, discussed, resolved, etc. The teachers, the location, the infrastructure, the successful incentives to assure that the schools will be attended, so much more are crucial factors in implementing educational systems in lesser developed and poverty ridden nations.

How it relates: This can slightly relate to the paper that I wrote about Sudan for the World Food Prize, but not as heavily. Education was not a large focus within my paper, because my topic was government and food security. Education is a very limited and rare factor within Sudan. So many other things are also in shambles within the country (government, health care, malnutrition, etc.) that with what was discussed in this lesson, that it would take such careful planning to get right, I think education in order to be effective would be less of a worry. Unless the education came in forms of educating farmers, or educating about health care and ways to improve the quality of life, formal education such as primary and secondary school I wouldn't see as being that necessary at this point.

Low-Hanging Fruit

What I learned: This section starts by introducing the general topic of health. It talks about health in third world countries and how it is obviously so poor, and increasingly poor. It talks about efforts to improve that health and why it doesn't get to who it needs to get to and help improve health. It came down to effectiveness, cost, and accessibility. Geography, latitude, and disease play large roles as well. (Tropic conditions are more likely to have higher rates of malaria because it's where the mosquitos thrive the best) Economic instability plays a large role as well. Malaria is very expensive to treat at such a large scale. (Low GDP leading to Malaria vs. Malaria leading to low GDP) The economic status of a country plays a large role in what advancements are able to be made. The next section talks about the relationship between malaria and income. The cause and effect relationship between the two. Because of poor economy, the malaria can't be treated or even slowed down. Because of malaria, the economy has a hard time with organization and spending money effectively (or even generating profit).The next section closely examines the effect that disease can have on ones income throughout their life. One who is riddled with (say malaria) at a young age statistically has a lower income throughout their entire life. Preventive care is then discussed. Preventive care is very expensive. It's then discussed why there's such a low demand for retaliation to these harsh diseases. One is that people maybe don't care about their health or the health of their children. The second reason is obviously economic. The third reason is lack of education or trust in their local health care agencies. It talks about whether to attempt changes (small or large scale) now or in the future. It talks of many pros and cons that come with each. No real solution is brought up.

How it relates: Of course, this is also very much relatable to Sudan and the topic that I wrote about in my World Food Prize paper. Firstly, this lesson briefly mentioned government, and the role that it plays. It was discussed that it seems as if health care should be an issue that is dealt with and handled with complete control by the government of a country, right? Wrong, of course. It is so often the case that the government in suffering countries is either so corrupt, uneducated, or unwilling, that no health care is successfully available. Sudan is no exception. Though she used the example of India, Sudan is very similar in the corruption and high rates of spending make health care an issue that isn't given any attention although it is one of the biggest problems facing that country and the world. Also, of course, the discussion of low economic status, geography, lack of direct citizen attention on health care, etc. all play huge roles in effecting the health status of the people in Sudan as well. That was clearly shown through my research.

Delivering Healthcare

Reflection/What I learned: The video begins with interviews with various Indian people explaining the unfortunate things that have happened to them, people who have died of many diseases, giving birth, and more. It discusses the extremely ineffective ways that the ill are dealt with. In many cases, the sick aren't even aware of what disease they carry. "Blind faith" is discussed. It is the belief that diseases are the doing of demons or evil spirits (or something like that) and that religious practice can cure them. It causes people to believe they don't need treatment. It's highly common. The discussion then moves to the fact that many of the citizens don't know whether doctors are trained professionals or not. The fact of the matter is that they aren't, in fact, many doctors or medical "professionals" are fairly undertrained, uneducated, and have very little knowledge/experience about their job. 41% of doctors have no medical degree and 17% have not graduated high school. These "doctors" try to do a wide range of things to patients, (administering shots, drips, etc.) that are not only ineffective but may even cause more harm. The problem for the poor becomes that they get to the hospitals to have themselves treated, but they're too poor to afford all of the tests that they administer at the hospitals. When surveyors visited government subcenters, they were closed 56% of the time. Therefore the government subcenters are a very unreliable source of help. Very little people use them because of this (also money). As the video concludes, all of the reasons listed above are large contributors to the very poor health care system in India. 

How it relates: This specific video doesn't relate back to my paper about Sudan as much as the others have, simply because it is a video directly about health care in the country of India. However, some of the things that occur in the video can possibly be related to the situation in Sudan that I wrote about in my WFP paper. Within India, there are multiple causes of the terrible health care system. Though health care wasn't the topic of my paper, government was. Government (if it's powerful enough) is able to create and regulate implementations such as health care. If a Sudanese federal (or multiple local) government(s) we able to do this, it could create longer life spans for Sudanese people, and healthier individuals altogether. If longer life spans were acquired, then farming would be able to occur longer throughout lives, and more food would be produced. If people's health was overall just better, they could most likely farm with a lot greater efficiency and generate higher yields. Therefore, more food!

The Hidden Traps

Reflection/What I learned: This section begins with "the puzzle of nutrition". This speaks of a true phenomenon where the poor, who obviously have less money, are beginning to spend less of it on food. The reasoning behind the decline in calorie intake among the poor is that their need for calorie intake has gone down because they are ill. They have fewer children, they're doing less physical work, so they just eat less because of a declining need for their physical strength. It is then decided on that there are hidden traps all over, because of undernourishment, not getting enough of the vital nutrients for the body, etc. A discussion is then taken up about WHY don't people just buy higher calorie foods? The answers that are contemplated are: they eat what they're familiar with and don't change their diet frequently, food is unavailable or offered at higher prices, carb heavy food is cheaper and more filling, and they're uninformed of all the benefits that a healthy diet would provide them with. Children then become the discussion topic. Children are extremely important because they are still developing, and growing, and a humongous factor in determining their health status for right now and for years to come is their nutrition. A poorer person who is going to have to invest less into the nutrition of their child is going to have a much smaller lifetime earning from that child. "Deworming" is something that effects one fourth of the worlds population of children. In an experiment done in Kenya, when a group of children were dewormed at a young age (resulting in them being much more nutritionally stable/healthy) their lives became increasingly better and they earned more money over their lifetime. The role of nutrition in the womb is then discussed and how it is almost as important as nutrition in the childhood.

How it applies: This can be applied to the World Food Prize paper that I wrote about Sudan in almost the same way the previous ones can. These "hidden traps" due to poor, undernourished children have to have existed in Sudan in the areas that I conducted my research on and wrote about. Once again, evidence that I found surrounding their diets, how often they eat, etc. all suggests that they were stuck in these hidden poverty traps. The nutrition that they are forced to have because they don't have any other options would absolutely lead to undernourishment and a lack of being provided with vital nutrients that assist them in growing into strong, intellectually stable and advancing individuals.

Is There a Nutrition-Based Poverty Trap?

Reflection/What I learned: Initially, the discussion topic is undernourishment. The discussion goes on about the "1 billion hungry people in the world estimate" and that number may be based on what BMI or calorie intake is considered to be "undernourished". The discussion then moves to the increase in food price. When the food prices increase on a global scale, it directly effects the people who need the food the most. The rich and middle class can most likely still afford the food, but the poor who struggle to get it in the first place, are now going to have an even more difficult time doing so. The increase in food prices therefore makes the poor poorer, trapping them even further. Creating a nutrition-based poverty trap. The S-shape is then brought back into this, and further explained.
"So if we write it in math, it's like there is income, nutrition is equal tofunction g of income today, because you get your wages, and then you eatsome good meal.And then income tomorrow is a function f of nutrition.That means that income tomorrow is f of g of income today.So this is what makes this S-shape."

The relationship of the S-shape graph then becomes income generated today AND food consumed today.

The "Engel curve" is then discussed. The Engel curve refers to this phenomenon, which is the share of food increase less than proportionally as you become richer. 
Specifics are then discussed about the actual numbers of money spent on food, "luxury foods" (which to me seemed strangely unrelated), "giffen goods", government food subsidies and how it relates and possibly contributes to a nutritional poverty trap, and further examples of how nutrition itself (in a place like India) will contribute to a nutrition-based poverty trap.

How it relates: The "Is there a nutrition-based poverty trap?" section is relatable to the paper I developed in the WFP in multiple ways. Firstly, there could without a doubt be these "nutrition-based poverty traps"occurring in Sudan, and the average income and diets of the average Sudanese person seems to suggest it. These poverty traps could be one more thing or reason why Sudan is suffering on such a large scale, why they have been suffering for so long, and why (no matter how many millions of dollars are given to them) they still are unable to emerge from extreme poverty. It is a possibility that if poverty traps were examined in Sudan and the solutions of poverty traps (if they exist, we haven't learned yet) were implemented in Sudan, this could potentially have a positive effect.

Learning what works: The role of experiments

Reflection/What I learned: This lessons spoke about the subsidization of bed nets in Africa. Its purposed served to explain the function of experiments in determining what will work and what will not work in deciding something (potentially economically demanding) in a third world country. In this example, providing bed nets to African people to prevent the spread of malaria was the case study. It ends up that experiments serve to gather significant and telling data that will lead to a more informed and successful decision when it comes to purchasing something for a country in need.

How it relates: This relates to the World Food Prize paper that I wrote about Sudan because within Sudan there are a huge amount of things that need to be fixed. I wasn't aware of experiments that have taken place in Sudan, and I didn't particularly look into them because I was not aware of their potential importance. However, if any experiments were done on the topic of Sudanese Government or Food Security that most likely would have been very helpful in determining the BEST possible solution for the crisis that I wrote about in my paper. 

What is a Poverty Trap?

Reflection/What I learned: This lesson went into depth into explaining the concept of a "poverty trap". A poverty trap is initially a sequence of unintentional, unable to be helped, unfortunate events stemming from being poor. It is somewhat a mechanism that creates an economically unstable lifestyle that they can  never escape. The professor uses the example of someone that she met in Indonesia that was actually engaged in the phenomenon of a "poverty trap". This person lost their job because of budget cuts in the company that they were employed in. Because of this, the person's son had to drop out of school and begin to work. The dropping out of school/lack of education is going to make it difficult to obtain a higher wage earning job, and the person has now become more psychologically "down" so to speak and is not planning on searching for another job. They are then unable to save large sums of money because of their economic struggle, and a multitude of other factors make it difficult or impossible for them to climb out of their "poor" lifestyle. A poverty trap can be displayed on an "S" shaped graph.
Explained best by the powerpoint in the class:
–  For poor people, income grow slowly, so slowly that income tomorrow is below income today: the poor become poorer (up to a point)

–  At some point, the rate of growth of income start increasing: income yesterday becomes larger than income today: the middle class and the somewhat rich continue to be rich. 

How this relates: This is easily relatable to the World Food Prize paper that I wrote because though the example the professor gave was of an Indonesian man, this is without a doubt present in Sudan as well. A family member loses their job, they can't fund hardly anything else, the entire situation spirals downwards, and there is no way out. It is extremely unfortunate but sadly it is quite common.