Haiti and the failed promise of US aid

One-pill-a-day generic AIDS drugs for poor countries are hard to make because each ingredient is patented by a different pharmaceutical company. The Patent Pool provides a way for companies to donate their intellectual property safely.

American humanitarian aid and programs by the United Nations have proved beneficial to equip Middle Eastern refugees with resources for self-settlement outside of camps. The self-settlement model has empowered refugees to become more productive members of society when they return home.

Since 2003, the Dublin Protocol has stopped migrants from traveling through Europe to auspicious countries before claiming asylum. However, many migrants travel by sea—which is more perilous and has led to high rates of death. Germany is the first country European country to break from the Dublin Protocol by letting in Syrian refugees.

Refugee camps typically look like a prison with squalid conditions and barbed wire tops. By contrast, the Kilis refugee camp in Turkey is orderly, secure, and clean; has schools for children; has grocery stores, and is powered with electricity. The camp is not run by the United Nations, but rather it is Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency that oversees every detail and pours billions of dollars into maintaining it every year.

America is the world’s main supplier of food aid to impoverished countries; however, food aid has the problems of long-distance transportation, the cost of the transportation and storage, and the navigation through dangerous zones. Different programs around the world are experimenting with alternative forms of aid, including vouchers and cash for work.

The United States can outsource certain kinds of "microwork," such as accurately digitizing large swaths of information, to developing countries without taking jobs from Americans ― if it’s done carefully, and ethically, as some organizations are working to do. As the author Robert Wright has argued, we no longer live in a zero-sum world, where one person’s, or one country’s gain, must be another’s loss.

World Concern, a Seattle-based Christian humanitarian group, provides people around the world with vouchers they can use in select markets, rather than the traditional emergency food aid of rice and other grains. In Dhobley, Somalia, the solution of vouchers quickens the process of receiving the food and contributes to the local economy.

Two columns on microconsignment, a new variation on microcredit that helps poor people living in developing countries - particularly women in rural villages - start small social businesses without taking on debt or requiring previous business skills. The organization, Soluciones Comunitarias, partners with a non-profit and a university student program to manage the supply chain and other components of the business necessary to support the social entrepreneurs in successful micro-ventures.

The Green Revolution in Asia and Latin America never spread to Africa, due to the continent's varied climate, degraded soil and lack of infrastructure. Now, scientists look to develop a high grossing wheat seed to bring a new green revolution to Africa. The seeds are extremely promising, but there are still some challenges to getting farmers to implement the seeds.

Different programs in various nations are training ordinary people and creating community groups to effectively satisfy the mental health needs of their communities. In many of these regions, "treatment gaps" – where there are little to no mental health treatment plans or resources – exist, but this new informal infrastructure helps to fill that.