Some Useful Reasources About Poverty and International Development

So on my training weekend we were given some really useful resources about international development and poverty. I'm putting these here so you can get an overview of some of the thing the ICSVSO programme aim to address, give insight into the causes and effects of poverty and  also to provide reliable sources for statistics.

http://www.gapminder.org/
Gapminder is a website which provides statistics presented in an interactive graph which charts the statistics of a countries  life expectancy and GDP (gross domestic product) from 1800 to 2013. All countries are included on the interactive graph. It is an interactive platform where you can also look at a countries CO2 emissions, gender equality in education, country fertility, child mortality and much more.

http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview.html: The Millenium Goals

In efforts of international development the UN came up with the Millenium Goals. These 8 goals focus on improving international development and eradicating the causes of poverty and it's effects. This is a great tool to have a brief overview of the areas which need addressing in International Development. Furthermore the ICS VSO programme integrates these goals into it's own structure and management.

http://www.happyplanetindex.org/about/

The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is an index which ranks countries on 'how many long happy lives they produce per unit of environmental input' This tool is great because it takes into account 'well being' and happiness as well as you're hard facts and figures regarding economy and GDP etc. It makes you realise that essentially the aim of international development is to improve the lives of individual people. Often while we are working towards changing external factors the end result is about having people live happy and fulfilling lives. The only thing I would comment about this index is we shouldn't develop problematic narratives such as 'They are poor but happy' or the romantic notion their is 'nobility in suffering poverty'; which some people might interpret looking at the countries which score highest in the HPI. The 'happiness' in the index is based on a ranking of 1 to 10 rating the worst and best possible life and individuals place themselves on this ranking. Individual rankings are therefore subject to a whole host of external factors and social attitudes which will differ individually and from country to country.

http://www.who.int/en/ World Health Organisation
The WHO website is great for statistics on global health statistics and breaking health news.