Women’s role in society

I agree with the writer Kang’ara that African women today have been disempowered through the economic system of the modern world. In the past African women were “proud landowners and producers” but today they do not have a say in their economic lives. They have been reduced to consumers of products rather than producers. Even though the products they produced in the past were basic and often rudimentary, it met the needs of their families and their communities. Cottage industries thrived in these traditional communities and goods were exchanged through barter trade. When you look at e-bay for instance, it is nothing but a virtual market where people barter products they have in exchange for the goods they need, only that it is done in a little bit more sophisticated way.

We need to carefully study the traditional system of family and community sustenance and especially the traditional economic systems that acted as mechanisms for the exchange of goods and services and see what lessons we can glean from our forefathers. The lessons learned can then be applied to our modern African context and figure out how the system of today can incorporate those tried and true traditional ways. Presently, development aid has almost completely failed in Africa because it is based on a faulty system. We need less aid and more trade and opportunities to create goods and services and exchange these in the world market. We need to redesign our financial systems so that money received is well protected.

“Women were once leaders in the business of survival but today are forced to sit on the sidelines while others make decisions for them” We need to empower women once again to be welcome to the decision making table where they will have a voice and say in policy making. Today, the United States has a woman as the Speaker of the house making it a historic moment because she is the first woman to hold this position. She is in a powerful policy making position and under her watch a lot of key legislations and policy will undoubtedly be passed making her a powerful person.

We must use science and technology to further enhance the lives of women in Africa in the years to come. Once a lot of the drudgery of their daily tasks is removed from under them, it will free them to become more productive and better contributors to society’s development.

Women have an inbuilt capacity for compassion and empathy and this can be a powerful leadership tool especially in troubled times. Africa leadership for instance today ignores the role that women can play conflict resolution and peace initiatives. Exemplary leaders like Oprah Winfrey, Wangari Maathai, Rosa Parks, mother Teresa, and Eleanor Roosevelt have used their power, position and platforms to highlight critical community issues that needed or need to be addressed. These issues range from environmental protection, civil rights, social justice, poverty, and social wellbeing for all.

What is the effect of global capitalism today especially pertaining to women of Africa? What famine eradication policies are in place today and how do they take into account the long term needs of communities? What is African leadership doing about these issues? What are the voices of women who have to live through starvation and deprivation? What can they teach us about their situation? What are the nations’ of Africa long term planning for food stocks?

Women must be at the center of creation of opportunities of enhancing food production capacity and creating markets for goods produced. They need to be at the forefront in the investment initiatives in rural areas and key players in the ownership and control of means of production. Famine is not right in the eyes of women and their empowerment to fight this ill is long overdue.

Does the United States still depend too heavily on oil?

How does use of fossil fuels impact the environment and the general quality of life of Americans? What is the global impact of the unrelenting use of oil? What policy initiatives has the US government undertaken to address the pressing issue of the impact of energy use on the environment? What other policy initiatives has the government considered in order to lessen the dependence on oil? The paper reviewed below attempts to address some of those issues.

Cooper, Mary (2000) contends that indeed the United States depends too much on oil. Because of this heavy reliance on oil usage, environmental quality in the United States has been seriously compromised. She gives a comprehensive summary of different problems and solutions to America’s dependence on oil. She notes that even though the USA has strong energy policies, America’s insatiable thirst for oil and other fossil fuels continues to rise, this in spite of the recent gas shortages and growing concerns about global warming and other environment problems.

Cooper notes that America faces major vulnerabilities because of it transportation system that is “97 percent dependent on petroleum”. She observes that even though the oil crises of the 1970’s and early 1980’s forced motorists to line up for gas and also forced auto makers to make more energy efficient cars, today America has become more dependent on foreign oil than ever before and the types of vehicles being driven today ( e.g., sport-utility vehicles) consume vast amounts of gas.

She points out that some of the environmental impacts of burning fossil fuels include smog and acid rain. Compounds that get emitted into the environment as a result of burning of these fuels include nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxides, and volatile organic compounds.

Although measures and legislation has been put in place to help maintain air-quality standards as was the case of the 1970 Clean Air Act and other subsequent legislation leading to greatly reduced forms of air pollution, many cities today still continue to be covered in a thick blanket of smog.

Cooper notes that though the political will is there to maintain the strict air-quality standards in many states, governors of some states have been “dodging the politically unpopular steps of properly enforcing auto-emission standards at home”

Another major problem mentioned in the article is the threat of the build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere caused by burning fossil fuels. Cooper points that scientist have determined that excessive emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing the warming of the earth’s atmosphere. Because of this danger, Cooper points out that the United States and 37 other countries signed the Kyoto Protocol with all the countries committing to reducing their 1990 greenhouse gas emission levels by 5-8 percent by 2008. Former President Bill Clinton strongly supported this initiative but in the recent years the Bush administration has not enthusiastically embraced the initiative.

Other initiatives that have been contemplated include the increased use of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuel. Although there are strong proponents for this initiative, many still oppose it by stating that it is not any cleaner than fossil fuels and that the dangers of radiation from nuclear waste are too critical to ignore.

Developed nations like France and Belgium have strongly adopted the use of nuclear power for generating electric power and on a worldwide scale, nuclear energy “accounts for 6.3 percent of the world’s energy production”. In the United States, nuclear power accounts for one-fifth of its electricity. Such statistics indicate that nuclear power is certainly a viable option and that the increase in its usage is inevitable.

Implications for governance values

The US government cannot continue acting in an isolationist manner in regards to environmental policy. It needs to reexamine its stand on the Kyoto protocol on global warming by realizing that it needs to work together and collaborate with other nations to fight the effects of global warming. The government should stop being beholden to large corporate interests that do not want to be challenged in how they consume vast amounts of energy with little regard to the environment.

The government must also tighten its regulatory standards through the EPA. Those who violate the EPA standards should pay high penalties thus acting as a deterrent. Although these tenets go against the governing values of limited government, it nevertheless important for the government to strongly enforce its standards and to be a watchdog by providing oversight over legislation passed.

Congress needs to work hard at passing stronger legislation to protect the environment without necessarily hampering the ability of today’s industries from functioning. They also need to work at securing funding for research into energy efficient practices that can lead to a declining need for oil. Further research needs to be done in the field of biofuels. Citizens need to be involved in finding solutions to the energy dependence that the country faces. It might be a surprise that people come with creative and innovative ideas on how to cut on foreign oil dependency.


REFERENCE

Cooper, M. H. (2000, March 3). Energy and the environment. CQ Researcher, 10, 161-184.

The globalization of the labor market for health-care professionals

In recent years, we find that the migration of people from one country to another has become a contentious issue. This is especially so for the migration of million of people from the developing nations to the developed nations. In the United States today, there is a raging debate about the issue of illegal immigrants who are within the country’s borders and what the government ought to do to stem the tide of many more who are willing to do anything to get into the country. Europe too is facing a similar problem with the European citizens calling for tighter measures to keep out immigrants who the citizens claim come to take their jobs and take advantage of their social systems. However, with the current trend in globalization and the relative freedom of movement of people, goods and services it seems this is an increasingly loosing battle. People often move from one country to another in search for jobs and a better standard of living and if jobs or opportunities are plentiful in one region of the world, people will move there.

The article under review analyzes the subject of the globalization of the labor market focusing on health-care professionals. Unlike other kinds of labor markets, the health care labor market and the emigration of health care professionals has been to a large extent endorsed by many developed nations thus leading to high rate of migration of health care professionals from developing nations to developed nations. Clark, F.P., Clark, A. D., & Stewart, B.J., (2006) in their article contend that though this kind of emigration has always taken place, in recent years this phenomenon has accelerated significantly. Although migration of health care professionals also takes place between poor nations and between wealthy nations, a larger number of professionals are moving from poor nations to rich nations.

This kind of movement has been criticized heavily in recent years because of the effects it has particularly on poor nations. The authors note that many poor nations are loosing critically needed nurses, doctors, physicians, and other health-care practitioners. The loss of these workers has made the situation desperate for many poor nations who as a result cannot adequately meet the health care needs of their people. The authors point out that the under funding and the dysfunctional nature of the health-care systems of many poor nations leads to major flows of labor to wealth nations. Thus, global labor market is disproportionately tilted towards nations that are affluent and that provide the kinds of compensations and opportunities that are a big draw to highly trained professionals.

The authors highlight the problem of the shortage of health-care workers in both developing nations and developed nations. In the case of developed nations, the imbalance is occasioned by a greater demand of health care workers whereas supply is not keeping up. A rising ageing population who have a significantly higher need of health care is met with fewer workers joining the health care profession. Another cause for the shortage is the soaring malpractice insurance rates that have driven away many physicians. In developing nations the shortage of health care workers is mainly caused by lack of resources to train or retrain health care workers and also poor working conditions for those who are already working in the health care field.

The authors note that major migration is among English speaking countries. In the year 2001-2002 there were over 7,000 Philipino nurses who migrated to the United Kingdom while there were over 2,000 nurses who came from South Africa. Australia contributed over 1,000 nurses while from India came over 900 nurses.

As has been noted above, there are costs and benefits to the migration of health-care workers from one country to another. The benefits often accrue to the individuals and to the receiving nations who are able to fill in needed workers where there are critical shortages. However what has been the case is that the costs have often been greater for developing nations who lose valuable human resources that they sorely need. In addition resources that are used to train these departing professionals are often taken away from other critically needed services within the country including education, infrastructure development and social service provision. In the United States, the hiring of foreign workers has centered on the effects it has on labor practices and working conditions for local workers. Issues here include the potential erosion of employment conditions and depressed wages.

Given the high costs that developing nations face when there workers migrate to wealthier nations, there has be an international call to deal with this issue that many have a called a moral and ethical issue of our time. One of the suggestions that has been floated is for developing nations to require the health-care professionals who are planning to emigrate to make a “repayment” commitment in form of a required period of public service especially for those health care workers whose training was publicly funded. Developing nations have also been urged by the world community to increase their investment in the health care sector particularly by working at improving the working conditions of health care workers and also providing better compensation as an incentive to stay within their own countries.

However, on the whole it is an agreed fact that something ought to be done to address the overall issue of negative migration of health care workers from developing nations to developed nations. On a global scale, many solutions have been proposed including passing regulation limiting the number of health care professional who can emigrate to wealthy nations. This solution has however met with resistance because it infringes on the rights of individuals to make their personal choices as to where to live and work. In addition market advocates contend that the current labor movement is a result of the market forces at work that lead people to move where the need and demand for their services is.

Developed nations like the United States and the United Kingdom have been urged to help developing nations to improve their overall social, physical and economic infrastructures as a means to stem the outflow of workers. This particularly important because historically developed nations have faced an unfair terms of trade in the world market with the consequences being devastating for these nations. In addition United States and other developed nations have been urged to support a global fund that would fund the training of health-care workers in developing nations negatively impacted by migration.

These and many other strategies will hopefully address some of the critical issues surrounding the global market of health care professionals.


REFERENCE

Clark, P.F., Clark, D.A., & Stewart, J. B. (2006). The globalization of the labor market
for health-care professionals. International Labour Review, 145(2) 37-64