Poverty Alleviation and Community Development

Poverty Alleviation and Community Development

According to the UN, there is more to poverty other than the usual lack of income and resources to sustain our livelihoods. Poverty includes issues like hunger and malnutrition, social injustice, limited or no access to social amenities and services like healthcare and electricity, and lack of participation and limited participation and involvement in decision making. As a result, poverty alleviation has been discussed as the number one development agenda in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Vision 2030.

Since our company is built on the principles of UN SDGs, poverty alleviation and community development are key goals to defining the success and sustainable growth of our company. Operating outside the USA, we do pride ourselves in the creation of sustainable and resilient communities through contributing to poverty eradication, education and improved healthcare. Below we have indicated some of the aspects of development as well as our contribution to mitigation and alleviation of possible negative impacts;

Healthcare

Access to quality and sustainable healthcare and treatment is a major challenge, especially in poor developing countries. Due to lack of money, a lot of residents end up succumbing to their illnesses. The WHO indicated that the situation was made worse by Covid-19 which led to an increase in the number of people living under the poverty lines. Through working with special interest groups and governments, our company offers financial assistance to help in the acquisition of medical inputs, like medicine and machines. Financial and technical support is also crucial in boosting research and innovation thereby allowing for the development of cheap and efficient health care systems. This contributes to the reduction of disease prevalence by providing access to quality and affordable healthcare. Our company also offers logistical support through evacuation of casualties as well as offering to transport vital medical inputs to developing countries and poor marginalised communities.

Education

Education happens to be one of the major means of poverty eradication in developing countries and poor communities thereby guaranteeing the society a prosperous future. We pride ourselves in offering financial aid to government ministries and schools, to promote the provision and access to affordable and quality educational services. This includes the construction of classes, buying stationery, uniforms, and school feeding programmes. We offer educational scholarships and internships to well-performing students; the beneficiaries also get a chance at being hired by our company. Our company also involves itself in financing research and innovation through opening R&D subsections of the company. This will help empower the residents to take part in developing sustainable innovations.

Training and creation of awareness

Training and the creation of awareness are necessary for the successful development and growth of a sustainable community. Through training and educations, the community is not only be made aware of their role in sustainable development but will also equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge to enable them to develop solutions to issues like unemployment, poverty and environmental degradation. By partnering with community organisations and NGOs, our company helps organise workshops that are meant to educate and equip members of the public with skills necessary to contribute to sustainable development and also ensure that the individual can take care of their livelihoods.

Disaster Management

The impacts and effects of natural calamities like floods and earthquakes have different intensities in developing and developed countries. The intensity of calamities is more severe in poorer countries that cannot afford the resultant restoration and reconstruction costs. Our company takes part in the creation of awareness and training of residents of a region on safety and risk management systems and mechanisms as well as equipping them with safety equipment like boots and coveralls. We have also been open to working and partnering with communities and governments in the assessment of needs and possible risks as well as designing and implementation of sustainability programmes. To complement these, our company also offers logistical support in terms of evacuation and rescue services. In countries and areas hit by drought and food shortage, our company has been organising relief food and feeding programmes, especially in learning institutions.

Environmental Conservation

First and foremost, our company has embraced the principles of responsible supply chains and sustainable consumption and production to cut back on our overall carbon emissions. This is including the use of energy-efficient systems and appliances that also produce low carbon emissions not only in our offices but also in our transport fleet and operations. Using commercial flights for transporting goods instead of private means is not only cost-efficient to the company but also leads to the reduction of carbon emissions in our deliveries. Of course, we have to consider the fact that scope 2 emissions account for the majority of a logistics company carbon emissions. Community education on the importance and principles of environmental conservation has boosted the community’s ability to develop sustainable environments, from which they can reap social, environmental and economic benefits.

Soon, we are looking at possible partnership opportunities with organisations like the World-Wide Fund for Nature in the financing of wildlife conservation projects. We also want to partner with marine conservationists to help conserve endangered marine species and resources as well. Other financial interventions include paying emission taxes and issuing financial aid for environmental conservation projects.

Women, Youth and Marginalised Groups

Women, youth, the poor and people living with disabilities happen to be among the most ignored groups when it comes to the provision of social services, resources, and amenities. Through financing and organising workshops and training sections with these groups, our company has been able to change their views and mindset thereby giving them a voice and the confidence to speak and protect their interests. The company has also facilitated the creation of community-based organisations to support, train and empower these groups. The company has also been partnering with local and national government institutions in the creation of policies and also in ensuring that the rights and interests of these groups are protected. We have also initiated financially beneficial projects like the creation and selling of artefacts aimed at generating income and improving the living standards of the identified groups.

Local Economy and Employment

To ensure sustainable growth and development of the local economy of our operational bases, we ensure that we share our profit and proceeds from the businesses with local communities. We have managed to boost the growth in the local economy of our base of operations and other earmarked areas by; sourcing raw materials and other required items from the local area, providing job opportunities to locals, ensuring fair trade, financing infrastructure and service development, promotion of local enterprise, and attracting more investors and developers in our areas of operation more so, developing nations.

Our company ensures that it provides quality and well-paying jobs in a free and fair manner with most of our staff coming from the locality of the company branch. We employ both skilled and unskilled labour thereby educating and enabling former employees to seek and qualify for similar job posts in other firms and organisations. Our employees have an upper hand as they are also equipped with further skills and training on crucial issues like disaster and risk management and leadership programmes. This contributes to the accumulation of wealth by individuals thereby improving their living standards and society in general.

Conclusion

Our company has made significant steps at promoting and adopting sustainable development principles and strategies. Through contributing to community development we have been able to successfully deal with social challenges like poor access to transport and communication infrastructure, social injustices, environmental injustices, and issues cutting across disaster management. We have been contributing to the creation of sustainable, happy, healthy, rich and longer living communities, especially in poor developing countries.