Avon has partnered with Feed the Children on its philanthropy efforts for 16 years, and is increasing its support now due to the COVID-19 crisis.The company has donated more than $2 million in personal care products this month.

Feed the Children works closely with community partners like schools, civic organizations and food banks to serve the most vulnerable populations and others who may be experiencing difficulty due to a job loss in this uncertain environment, Avon states. The organization has alerted Avon to the most pressing needs of the most affected communities, so it can send vital resources to help keep these families afloat.

Paul Yi, CEO, Avon, says, "Because of our longstanding relationship, it made sense to work with Feed the Children for their COVID-19 relief efforts. They work diligently to get our products to the people who need them most."

In the last six months, Avon donations totaled over $40 million worth of necessities, bringing relief to nearly a million families including 3.5 million women and girls in 48 states and the District of Columbia, many of whom have shared their stories of improved self-confidence and empowerment as a result of their Feed the Children x Avon deliveries.

More:
Avon Increases Support to Feed the Children Due To COVID-19 Crisis - Beauty Packaging Magazine

Personal Essay on Gymnastics and Fat-Shaming

"Fat girls don't flip fast," the gymnastics coach I had throughout elementary and early middle school told us as she explained how to get enough height in our tumbling passes. It's called "setting" before you connect a back handspring, front handspring, whip back, etc. into a flip, you have to reach your arms up by your ears so the flip goes high up in the air. If your arms are far apart, or as my coach warned, "fat," you won't get as much height. I never quite seemed to think about "fat girls" or my body the same after that.

I'll always remember the slight, sometimes overt, comments my coach, a former gymnast herself, made about our bodies at a time when puberty was top of mind. We were learning about it in the classroom, and some of us were already facing its wrath. At one practice, she jokingly (but not so jokingly) compared the size of all of our calf and glute muscles. Then, she told a few of the girls that if they weren't careful, they'd grow up to have big butts.

There were other instances where my coach specifically targeted one girl on our team whom she constantly pointed out as too "jiggly." She'd pinch the girl's stomach and make snide remarks about needing to speak with the girl's mother to find out what food was available at home. My coach would scold the girl for her "thick" thighs and demand she run extra rounds of stairs at the end of practice. The most distressing part? She'd always say these things through a smile, sometimes mitigating the severity of her words with a laugh.

Body-shaming by coaches and other authority figures and the resulting unhealthy relationship with body image is a common theme when you talk to gymnasts on the elite level, too. Five-time Olympic medalist Simone Biles, UCLA superstar Katelyn Ohashi, and former elite gymnast Mattie Larson have all spoken about body-shaming they endured in the sport. Biles mentions in her book, Courage to Soar, that she remembers falling during her floor routine at the 2013 US Secret Classic and overhearing another coach say, "You know why she crashed? Because she's too fat." Ohashi was shamed for her curves prior to her collegiate career and was called a "bird that couldn't fly." And Larson, who developed an eating disorder in her teens, explained to Vice News in a 2018 documentary that at the now-closed-down Karolyi Ranch in Texas, former national team coordinator Martha Karolyi would go around during training-camp meals and praise gymnasts for having small amounts of food on their plates.

The things you're told as a young gymnast, good or bad, stay with you. (One study published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology in 2006 concluded, based on surveys, that retired gymnasts "reported more eating disorders and negative views of their experiences than did the current gymnasts.") Even after switching gyms a number of times and no longer working with my original coach, I still felt her comments stick.

After over a decade in the sport, my life without gymnastics began freshman year of college. When I was a senior, I wrote a personal essay recalling how, when I first went away to school, I used to stare down warily at my hips and cup them in my hands as if to hold them in when they started to blossom. I also became near-obsessed with working out. I'd go to the campus gym for two hours per night, six days a week. Why? Well, the thought of losing the abs you could see through my leotard this "perfect" gymnast's body was terrifying. My roommate even shared her concerns when I'd come back to the dorms at 11 p.m. fresh off a long sweat session.

Though I never developed an eating disorder while competing in gymnastics or thereafter, I did show signs of disordered eating. There was a period of time when I punished myself for indulging in sweets by doing extra crunches on my bedroom floor. I was hyperaware of what my body looked like. These were all things I had to work through once I quit gymnastics. It took a few years, but I learned that rest days are important and so is enjoying the food you eat, exercise is not a punishment, and my body can still be beautiful and athletic without meeting standards set by a sport fixated on attaining perfection.

I heard similar sentiments when I spoke with Betsy McNally, a former gymnastics coach who also competed in the sport for over a decade through level 10 (level 10, for reference, is right below the elite level). Now she's a personal trainer and nutritionist who teaches gymnastics boot camps, called Betsy Bootcamps, across the country to instruct families, coaches, and gymnasts about the importance of proper nutrition for athletes and how to foster positive body image and a safe environment. She doesn't want things to escalate for them like it did for her.

At 14, McNally was told that she was "too heavy" to be good at gymnastics and that her weight was holding her back. She describes in her memoir, Binges & Balance Beams, that her coaches started displaying her and her teammates' weights on a chart at practice. She fell into a downward spiral of "not eating" and sprinkling fiber powders on her meals, so she'd stay fuller for longer. No one ever taught her which foods would give her energy and what would help her recover from workouts, she said. No one was there to talk about how to eat to promote a healthy lifestyle; instead, it was all about restriction. And the worst part, as it is for many gymnasts, were the lingering effects.

After gymnastics, McNally turned to bodybuilding competitions and modeling, becoming "obsessed" with her physique and looking fit. She struggled with the "vicious cycle" of restriction and binging in the bodybuilding world, and those comments from her gymnastics coach remained. Though McNally can't diagnose eating disorders or refer athletes at her boot camps to eating-disorder specialists that's out of her scope of practice she can educate them on the importance of nutrition that she's learned not only through her professional work but through her own experiences, too.

It's in the nature of gymnastics (and in the rules, for that matter) to strive for perfection, but I realize now that, as much as I love and appreciate those years as a gymnast, this fight for the elusive "perfect" led me to grip onto what I deemed to be my own imperfections. I can't sit here and pretend that the sport didn't shape me as a person in positive ways. I owe a lot to it my courage, my attention to detail, my splits but the body-shaming is not just exclusive to the elite level of gymnastics; it's on all levels, and it has longterm effects.

And it's not just in gymnastics. Take former professional runner Mary Cain's November 2019 op-ed video published on the New York Times website. In it, she details the ruthless and unhealthy atmosphere on the now-shut-down Nike Oregon Project team cultivated by her coaches and spearheaded by Alberto Salazar (note: Salazar was banned from the sport for four years due to a doping scandal). Cain was conditioned to shed pounds at a dangerous rate because it would make her "faster," and she, too, was weighed in front of her peers.

Cain is an advocate for more women coaches, and I agree that we need them. But my experience shows that women are not immune to falling prey to, and perpetuating, these negative cultural messages. We all need to work together to change the fundamental ways in which we educate and support young women in sports.

As McNally told me, "I really like to think that I'm part of a movement where we're changing, shifting completely, the whole result of the sport and focusing more on being positive and educating girls." But the real people struggling, she noted, are "people like me and you." We, as McNally explained, experience the residual effects later in life where it "manifests in eating disorders and people not loving themselves just because of a stupid comment."

McNally and I spent some time talking about how the focus on appearance and weight and lack of education on healthy habits and nutrition caused us to have missed opportunities in our gymnastics careers. "I really would have been good at the sport, but nobody ever taught me balance," she said. Still, she was able to use the struggles she faced for a purpose greater than her own. "I took a bad thing and I made it a good thing," she said, "and that's what makes us stronger and better people."

Hearing McNally say this made me feel seen. Self-love can be hard to come by. Gymnastics did teach me to be proud of my strength and to believe in that strength. My former coach's body-shaming can't take away that feeling of empowerment, but it wasn't until after those transitional years in college that I could abandon the microscopic lens I used to view my body through; that I could detach from this idea of what a "perfect" body should be.

For gymnasts or former gymnasts going through similar experiences, I have a message: It's OK to love the sport and, at the same time, acknowledge that there are deep-seated issues in how girls' bodies are judged. It's OK to thank the sport for what it's given you and recognize what it took from you. It's OK to grow into the person you now are and will become knowing that perfect isn't who you are. And that's exactly how it's supposed to be.

Here is the original post:
My Gymnastics Coach Used to Fat-Shame Girls, and It Shaped the Way I View My Body - POPSUGAR

Sheikh Hasina Prime Minister Old Sangsad Bhaban Tejagaon, Dhaka-1215 Bangladesh

Dear Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina,

As authorities around the world struggle to cope with the spread of COVID-19, it is crucial that States act to protect the most vulnerable, including refugee populations.

We, the 50 undersigned organizations, have welcomed the Bangladesh governments efforts to host the Rohingya refugees who were forced to flee atrocities perpetrated by the Myanmar Army. We also commend the Bangladesh Government for working closely with the humanitarian community on COVID-19 preparedness and response in Coxs Bazar District, including efforts to establish isolation and treatment facilities.

Now we write to urge you to lift ongoing mobile internet restrictions and halt the construction of barbed wire fencing around the Rohingya refugee camps in Coxs Bazar District. These measures threaten the safety and well-being of the refugees as well as Bangladesh host communities and aid workers, in light of the growing COVID-19 pandemic.

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads to Bangladesh, unrestricted access to information via mobile and internet communications is crucial for slowing the transmission of the disease and saving the lives of refugees, humanitarian workers, and the general population of Bangladesh. Lifting restrictions will not only enable community health workers to quickly share and receive the most reliable and up-to-date guidance during this evolving pandemic, but will also help in coordination with community leaders. We urge you to ensure refugees, local communities, and aid workers alike can freely access mobile and internet communications, in the interest of protecting human rights and public health.

Since September 2019, Bangladesh authorities have prevented Rohingya refugees from obtaining SIM Cards and directed telecommunications operators to restrict internet coverage in Rohingya refugee camps in Coxs Bazar District. According to Bangladeshs Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mahbub Alam Talukder in Coxs Bazar, authorities have confiscated more than 12,000 SIM Cards from refugees since September and refugees report that in some instances authorities have prohibited the use of mobile phones altogether.

These restrictions should be lifted in light of the governments recommendation to those experiencing COVID-19 symptoms to contact the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research, hotline. Without a phone or SIM Card, abiding by this instruction is impossible. Furthermore, without access to mobile and internet communications, aid workers and others will be forced to deliver critical health information in person, heightening their risk of exposure to COVID-19 and slowing the effectiveness of the response.

Access to information is an essential component of an effective public health response to a pandemic. On March 19, experts from the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe called on all governments to ensure immediate access to the fastest and broadest possible internet service in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that, [e]specially at a time of emergency, when access to information is of critical importance, broad restrictions on access to the internet cannot be justified on public order or national security grounds.

In addition to providing access to information, there is a critical need for the government to take extra precautions to ensure the safety and well-being of the refugees. On March 24, Commissioner Mahbub Alam Talukder told media that in response to the spread of COVID-19, All activities will be suspended in every camp. . . . However, emergency services with respect to food, health, and medicine will continue as usual. The Bangladesh government should ensure that protective measures, including provision of sufficient personal protective equipment, are available for the aid workers and volunteers providing these essential services in accordance with the Inter-Agency Standing Committees Interim Guidance on COVID-19 response operations in humanitarian settings.

During this time, the Government of Bangladesh should work in close collaboration with international humanitarian organizations and Rohingya-led groups to disseminate accurate and timely information on COVID-19 and mitigate the risk of the virus spreading into the camps and in adjacent host communities.

The government should further balance travel restrictions to ensure that additional humanitarian health workers can safely enter the country and camps without facing undue bureaucratic impediments.

We also write to share our concern regarding the construction of barbed-wire fencing around refugee camps. On September 26, 2019, Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal announced plans to construct barbed-wire fencing and guard towers around Rohingya refugee camps in Coxs Bazar District. Various statements by government officials have made it clear that the purpose of the fencing is not to protect the Rohingya, but rather to confine them. The Bangladesh Home Minister told journalists the reason for building the fencing was to ensure that the Rohingya do not leave the camp and join our community. Construction on the fencing began in November 2019.

This construction is motivated by concerns arising prior to the global outbreak of COVID-19, but now risks not only harming refugees but impeding the response to the pandemic. The Bangladesh governments construction of fencing to enclose the Rohingya refugee camps has created heightened distress, fear, and mistrust among Rohingya refugees, posing greater risks to public health and needless obstructions to humanitarian access as it will become harder for refugees to enter and exit the camp for services.

In constructing barbed-wire fencing to confine Rohingya refugees, Bangladesh risks mirroring the behavior of Myanmar authorities, who presently confine more than 125,000 Rohingya to more than 20 internment camps in five townships of Rakhine State. Instead, Bangladesh should ensure proper access to health care with ease of mobility. This is particularly crucial for those most vulnerable in the refugee camps, including those living with disabilities, older people, and children.

Rohingya refugees remain vulnerable as they depend on humanitarian assistance. It is critical to maintain humanitarian access to the camps at this time. It is equally important to prepare the Rohingya communitymen, women, and youthto be capacitated to support their community at this time. Rohingya community volunteers will be the first responders in this crisis and must be equipped with personal protective equipment and trained accordingly on health and hygiene promotion.

We urge you and your government to uphold the rights of Rohingya refugees to health, freedom of expression and access to information, and freedom of movement. We also call on the Bangladesh Government to ensure non-discrimination between refugees and citizens in accessing timely COVID-19 testing and treatment.

We strongly believe these protections will also benefit overall public health in Bangladesh.

We thank you for your attention to these issues, and we offer our assistance and support to protect the lives and well-being of all those within the territory of Bangladesh, including Rohingya refugees.

CC:

Minister of Disaster Management and Relief Enamur Rahman

Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mahbub Alam Talukder

Signatories:

1. ARTICLE 19

2. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights

3. Action Corps

4. Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN-Burma)

5. Amnesty International

6. Arakan Rohingya National Organisation

7. Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network

8. Association Rohingya Thailand

9. Beyond Borders Malaysia

10. British Rohingya Community UK

11. Burma Campaign UK

12. Burma Human Rights Network

13. Burma Task Force

14. Burmese Rohingya Association in Japan

15. Burmese Rohingya Community in Denmark

16. Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK

17. Canadian Burmese Rohingya Organization

18. Canadian Rohingya Development Initiative

19. Emgage Action

20. European Rohingya Council

21. FIDH International Federation for Human Rights

22. Fortify Rights

23. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect

24. Global Justice Center

25. Human Rights Watch

26. Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, Binghamton University

27. International Campaign for the Rohingya

28. International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School

29. Justice For All

30. Justice4Rohingya UK

31. Kaladan Press Network

32. Karen Womens Organization

33. Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability

34. People Empowerment Foundation

35. Pusat KOMAS, Malaysia

36. Queensland Rohingya Community

37. Refugees International

38. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights

39. Rohingya Action Ireland

40. Rohingya Association of Canada

41. Rohingya Global Youth Movement

42. Rohingya Human Rights Network

43. Rohingya Peace Network Thailand

44. Rohingya Refugee Network

45. Rohingya Today

46. Save Rohingya Worldwide

47. Society for Threatened Peoples Germany

48. U.S. Campaign for Burma

49. Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

50. WITNESS

Excerpt from:
Joint Letter: Re: Restrictions on Communication, Fencing, and COVID-19 in Cox's Bazar District Rohingya Refugee Camps - Bangladesh - ReliefWeb

Text Size: A- A+

As the world grapples with COVID-19, governments face a daunting challenge: limiting the adverse impact of a pandemic that has ground economic activity to a halt, affecting people at a scale rarely seen before. More than 50 countries, including the United States, have announced some form of cash transfer or social assistance to help tide over the immediate challenges faced by their citizens. While many of these efforts are one-off measures to mitigate the immediate impact, some may turn out to be more long-term depending on how widespread the economic and human cost of the pandemic turns out to be.

Delivering on these promises will require an enormous increase in the capacity of states to make payments to their citizens, or government-to-people (G2P) transfers, as they are widely known. Every government transfers money to people in some formpublic sector salaries, pensions, scholarships, grants and vouchers to the poor, and so onso there is existing capacity, including delivery mechanisms, to draw upon. But in most countries existing systems will not be adequate, either in volume or coverage, to help those affected make it through the economic disruption. The immediate challenge is how to make G2P transfers efficiently, equitably, and at scaleand how best to use technology to do so. And once the crisis is passed, the development challenge remains: How can digital technologies help accelerate global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and eliminate poverty?

Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have attempted to answer some of these questions in a three-year project at Center for Global Development (CGD), culminating in our newly launched Citizens and States report. It has taken us on a journey through three continentsAsia, Africa, and Latin Americato understand how digital technologies are shaping the future of governance.

Also read: Modi govt needs to open the JAM for public contributions. PM Care alone cant deliver

The potential of ID, mobiles, and payments to improve the capacity of governments to deliver more effective, inclusive, and accountable programmes is huge. This trinity has been termed JAM in India.

People in Indian villages receive food subsidies and pensions using the countrys biometric ID, Aadhaar. Community health workers in Bangladesh deliver maternal health services using their mobile phones. Agents in rural Kenya are at the frontlines of the mobile money revolution that is now a global phenomenon.

Governments are creating the infrastructure to harness the power of data to monitor the delivery of services and subsidies in real time, improving accountability of providers and voice of the citizens.

Developing countries are transforming their ability to deliver public services, subsidies, and transfers. Leveraging the almost-universal coverage of Aadhaar, bank accounts, and mobile phones, India now electronically transfers nearly $350 billion to over 800 million people every year. The just-passed US plan to give $1,200 to every citizenincluding in some cases by checkwill be far more logistically challenging for the US government than transferring the payment digitally, as India has been doing for government payments for the last seven years, and far more subject to errors and fraud. Many developing countries will similarly struggle to distribute payments, but others have built up robust systems that they can now leverage in a crisis.

Digital technologies are changing the lives of people in the developing world. With the spread of digital identification, access to financial accounts, and mobile phones, citizens increasingly demand the same convenience and responsiveness in dealing with their governments that they experience in their personal lives. In turn, governments around the world are moving rapidly to harness the power of technology to improve their ability to serve peoplein other words, increasing state capacity in an increasingly interconnected, digital world.

Also read: Govt funds start-up to produce device that reduces presence of coronavirus in closed space

Is a capable state a good state? The record suggests not necessarily. In developmental terms, state capacity can only be assessed relative to some specified objectives. For these, we can turn to the global development consensus, as embodied in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They represent an ambitious elevation of aspirations relative to the Millennium Development Goals, placing new emphasis on the nexus between the state and the individual.

In the current dynamic and evolving context, how can digital technologies play a positive role to achieve the ambitious objectives and targets embodied in the SDGs? What can we learn from the experiences of digital reform in developing countries? What can we say about the future trajectory of digital governancethe guiding principles, the harmonisation of policy design and technology, and the challenges going forward? Finally, how can technology both empower citizens and improve state capacity?

The SDGs recognise the importance of JAM; ID, mobile communications, and financial inclusion are intrinsic goals in themselves, in addition to being possible instruments to help achieve other goals and targets.

The objectives of SDGs should motivate governments to use digital technologiesespecially ID and paymentsto improve delivery of public services, subsidies, and transfers. Without an effective ID system, beneficiary lists are often replete with nonexistent individuals or ghosts, resulting in misuse of scarce public resources. Without increased access to financial accounts, it is difficult to pay beneficiaries electronically instead of in physical cash. Finally, without the capacity to gather feedback on the quality and timeliness of public services and payments, it is difficult to identify bottlenecks and improve the efficiency and accountability of service provision. Digital technologies, appropriately designed and implemented, can address these issues, improving the capacity of states to improve the efficiency and equity of delivery mechanisms over a broad range of public goods and services in developing countries.

Also read: After demonetisation and GST, slow response on corona is latest disaster of centralisation

Digital technology, including ID and payments and supported by mobiles (JAM), can enhance state capability to deliver a wide range of policies and programmes relating to multiple SDGs in the areas of sustainability, social protection, and governance. Improvements can include better accountability, service and user empowerment, greater equity, and sometimes fiscal savings. The latter can come mainly from three sources: lower transaction costs, eliminating ghost and duplicate beneficiaries (both within and across programmes), and reducing leakages in subsidies delivered through G2P and P2G payments as well as goods delivered through digitally controlled supply chains. Shifting from physical cash payments to financial transfers, for example, can ease the burden of managing cash on frontline service providers, such as teachers in the case of education supplements in Bangladesh.

Gains are not automatic, however. Technology is only a tool. Even as it opens up new opportunities, its impact will be shaped by institutional and economic conditions as well as the aim of the reforms.

Technology amplifies the power of data, and its impact on development depends on how this power is used. States can use data to improve service delivery, but they may not be benign users of data. The rapidly evolving tools available to governments also have the potential to leave marginalised groups behind, or to further isolate them. New checks and balances will be needed to ensure that digital technology serves the needs of all citizens.

JAM is a flexible platform, and it is being applied in different ways. The principles that follow are based on cases to date, but there is still a great deal to learn about the introduction of digitised service programmes.

Also read: 10 steps Modi govt should take to manage economic fall-out of coronavirus: SC Garg

Access

Universal access to well-functioning ID, connectivity, and financial inclusion has to be a first principle when considering moving citizengovernment interactions in this direction.

Accountability

The primary aim of reform should be to improve quality and inclusion, with fiscal savings a secondary objective, to be obtained from efficiency gains.

Digital approaches can open the door to new ways to approach targeting. Because they enable benefits to be provided accountably to well-identified recipients, governments can invoke soft targeting through moral suasion and other indicative approaches.

Incentives throughout the delivery chain are a critical counterpart to accountability and need to be factored into rollouts and reforms. If digital reforms eliminate avenues for diversion and corruption, margins for service providers will probably need to be increased to compensate for reduced opportunities to exercise their discretion.

It is essential to have effective policies and procedures in place to monitor technology failures and grievances and to resolve them, especially as reforms move important elements of delivery out of the hands of local officials and towards more remote systems and data.

Even programmes seen as good by the majority of beneficiaries and customers can increase the marginalisation of vulnerable groups. For this reason, there needs to be a special focus on such groups when assessing the impact of changes. This can include technological challengesfor example, to provide alternative options for authentication through an ID system.

Reforms can also involve transitional frictions such as reconciling data errors and inconsistencies as previously manual or scattered systems are integrated. These problems will be more serious for groups with less capacitythe poor, elderly, or womenwho are frequently the most dependent beneficiaries of public programmes.

Choice and Voice

Digital technology should empower citizens by increasing agency, expanding choice, and strengthening voice through better and more effective use of feedback systems.

Digitised delivery systems generate enormous quantities of data, much of it in real time, which can provide critical feedback to programmes and transition towards a system of real-time governance.

Because benefits are personalised and attached to the beneficiary, they can be made portable, subject to logistical constraints. The exercise of choice by users provides a second important real-time feedback signal to program administrators.

User responses can provide a third feedback loop, operating in almost real time. This can include star ratings of distributors and beneficiary surveys through robocalls as well as phone-based systems for filing complaints.

Although elements of the approach could be included in many programmes, not all jurisdictions will have the motivation and capability needed to operate a full real-time governance feedback system.

Ensuring the long-term political sustainability of real-time feedback systems is difficult, but transparency can help build citizen demand and buy-in. The results generated by feedback systems will need to be readily available and easily accessible to the public to establish it as a citizen expectation and a useful tool for civil society.

Cross-cutting goals: Gender equity and financial inclusion:

Even as digitising programmes can contribute to more effective service delivery, it can support womens empowerment and provide a stimulus to financial inclusion. These are useful steps towards the goal of changing gender norms, although this is a much longer-run proposition.

A growing body of evidence shows that women and other marginalised groups such as ethnic and linguistic minorities, as well as differently abled persons, face extra structural barriers to adopting the JAM components.

Surveys paint a broadly favourable picture in most cases but point to the need for attention to the constraints on women that limit their agency. This can dilute the gains from digitising programmes or even cause more difficulties.

The road from digital transfers to full use of financial accounts is long, but specific measures can help. By and large, very few of the women receiving transfers into bank or mobile money accounts are doing more than cashing them out. They are financially included, but more in a formal sense than in a real sense.

Also read: Pay safe, stay safe: Modi govt encourages digital payment amid coronavirus scare

There is a large unfinished agenda to extend JAM access and use. JAM cannot be used as a delivery platform for services unless it is widely accessible. While there has been spectacular growth in coverage, the cross-country picture is uneven, including in reaching the poor and vulnerable groups who are often the highest priority for service. Similarly, the wide gap between leading use cases and others indicates how much further there is to go in using JAM to reform citizenstate engagement. Addressing this challenge will require strategic approaches that build on natural synergies, especially since ID systems, mobile communications, and payment systems are multi-use platforms that can be applied to many programmes and services.

Governance will need to evolve as citizens increasingly adjust toas well as demanddigital first interactions with the state. There are still many questions around the longer-run implications of digitisation. While digitisation of government payments has been motivated largely by the objective of governments to improve the efficiency of public expenditure, we have yet to see its impact on revenue mobilisation, especially in developing countries. To what extent ubiquitous citizenstate digital payments (both G2P and P2G) would lead individuals to change their preferences for cash versus financial transactions is also an open question. The impact of digitisation is complexfor example, the trade-offs between greater transparency and accountability of transactions enabled by digital ID and payments on the one hand and the incentive to deliver better services by those who benefited from the previous system on the other. digitisation would entail significant realignment of incentives between the government, its intermediaries, and citizens.

More monitoring and research are needed as the use of JAM extends to more countries and programmes. While this report has sought to build on available evidence, this is still sparse. Few system reforms are adequately monitored, so provision for thisincluding client surveysshould be built into their design at the start. There is also a need to better understand how the shift towards digital mechanisms influences social and gender norms over the longer run.

Alan Gelb is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD);Anit Mukherjee is a policy fellow at the CGD; and Kyle Navis ispolicy analyst at CGD.

This article is an edited excerpt from the authors report Citizens and States: How Can Digital ID and Payments Improve State Capacity and Effectiveness?, released by the Center for Global Development. Read the full report here.

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50 nations promised cash to fight Covid. Few, like India and Bangladesh, are doing it right - ThePrint

If, as the evidence suggests, the Chinese virus is enormously dangerous to people with certain medical conditions and those over 70 years old, but a much smaller danger to those under 70, then shutting down the entire country indefinitely is probably a bad idea.

But even when the time is right -- by Easter, June or the fall -- there will be no one to stop the quarantine because the media will continue to hype every coronavirus death, as if these are the only deaths that count and the only deaths that were preventable.

What mayor, governor or president will be willing to take the blame for causing a coronavirus death?

Well get no BREAKING NEWS alerts for the regular flu deaths (so far this season, more than 23,000, compared to 533 from the coronavirus).

Nor for the more than 3,000 people who die every day of heart disease or cancer. No alerts for the hundreds who die each day from car accidents, illegal aliens and suicide.

Only coronavirus deaths are considered newsworthy.

Were told by the Quarantine Everybody crowd: Listen to the scientists! Unfortunately, most of the scientists they present to us are lawyers. (How did Robert Reich, Donna Shalala and Ron Klain become medical professionals?)

Also, the scientists disagree.

Just as, I assume, they did in 1976, when epidemiologists warned of another 1918 Spanish flu pandemic after a few young Army recruits died of swine flu at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Eight months later, the federal government launched a mandatory swine flu vaccination program.

About a quarter of the country was vaccinated before the program was abruptly shut down. No pandemic had materialized. The virus infected a few people, then vanished. But directly as a result of receiving the vaccine, dozens of Americans died and several hundred acquired Guillain-Barre syndrome.

The scientists also disagreed in the 1980s, when the media and government went into overdrive to scare us all about AIDS. (1985 Life magazine cover: NOW, NO ONE IS SAFE FROM AIDS.)

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop -- as revered by the media then as Anthony Fauci is today -- lied about the disease, insisting that [h]eterosexual persons are increasingly at risk.

Speaking of which, heres liberal sex symbol Fauci on AIDS back in 1983, when he was with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, but not yet its director: As the months go by, we see more and more groups. AIDS is creeping out of well-defined epidemiological confines. (It didnt.)

In 1987, Fauci warned that French kissing might transmit the AIDS virus, saying, Health officials have to presume that it is possible to transmit the virus by exchange of saliva in deep kissing. That presumption is made to be extra safe.

By 1992, after a decade-long epidemic with more than a million infections, the Centers for Disease Control could find only 2,391 cases of AIDS transmission by white heterosexuals -- and that included hemophiliacs and blood transfusion patients. (White because AIDS cases among Haitian and African immigrants had a variety of causes.)

But teenagers and sorority girls had to spend years being frightened of kissing lest they catch the AIDS virus, just as today theyre afraid of leaving their homes to avoid a virus that, in Italy, has killed no one under 30 years old and precious few under 50.

We have to be extra safe.

Both the No French Kissing rule and Quarantine Everybody rule are perfectly rational positions for an epidemiologist to take. Thats why we need to listen to people other than epidemiologists.

How about the doctors who keep pointing out that the coronavirus is mainly a problem for people over 70 and those with specific health problems?

See here: slate.com/technology/2020/03/coronavirus-mortality-rate-lower-than-we-think.html

Here: haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israeli-expert-trump-is-right-about-covid-19-who-is-wrong-1.8691031? v=CDBFACA5662E8174BA824BAD929EA12B

And here: wsj.com/amp/articles/is-the-coronavirus-as-deadly-as-they-say-11585088464

The president should listen to experts in other fields, too. A country is more than an economy, but its also more than a virus.

If we listened only to emergency room doctors, we might come away convinced that we have to completely ban cars, alcohol and gummy bears. (Dont ask.) While taking a torts class in law school, I was afraid to sit under a chandelier, order a flaming dessert or stand at a train stop.

Playwright Arthur Miller once told a story about a geologist who remarked that life was possible even in the vast American desert. All you needed was water, he said, and the largest reservoir on the globe was located right under the Rockies.

But how would he get it?

Simple -- drop a couple of atomic bombs.

But what about the fallout?

Oh, said the geologist, thats not my field.

Today, the epidemiologists are prepared to nuke the entire American economy to kill a virus. What about the jobs, the suicides, the heart attacks, the lost careers, the destruction of Americas wealth?

Oh, thats not my field.

Originally posted here:

Ann Coulter: How do we flatten the curve on panic? - Today's News-Herald

On Tuesday, the 24th, I find the world changed by an overnight snowfall. Theres a good six inches surrounding us, and the world is mysterious and still. Later, I take a walk alone through my neighborhood. I hear the sound of water rushing over rocks beneath the snow. It is a clear, hopeful sound.

That day, there are 42,164 confirmed cases in the United States; 471 Americans have died.

The president says its almost time to phase out the period of isolation. I give it two weeks, he says. By Easter, he says, we will be just raring to go.

If we do this, one scientist says, Covid would spread widely, rapidly, terribly, and could kill potentially millions in the year ahead. So theres that.

That evening, my daughter shaves the sides of her head. An undercut, she calls it. She doesnt ask me what I think about this, which is just as well. I remember how much my own mother hated my hair, which is fairly long. It makes you look like Ann Coulter, she told me, knowing how this would get under my skin. Are you happy with it? I ask my daughter. She says she is.

Several days later, she dyes the rest of it pink. She does not look like Ann Coulter.

I wake in the middle of the night, worried and neurotic. I have asthma, which gets triggered by stress. Now, lying there in the dark, I convince myself I am symptomatic and reach for my inhaler, gasping for breath. The puffer makes a soft hiss in the black room.

I do not have the coronavirus. But worrying about it is making me crazy.

In Little Dorrit, Mr. Meagles laments: I am like a sane man shut up in a mad house. I cant stand the suspicion of the thing. I came here as well as ever I was in my life; but to suspect me of the plague is to give me the plague. And I have had itand I have got it.

With a smile, his friend replies, You bear it very well, Mr. Meagles.

At weeks end, the Trump campaign is reported to be trying to stop airing of a video of the president calling the virus a hoax, saying its misleading.

The rest is here:

The Quarantinis Are Flowing and the Store Is Out of Milk Bones - The New York Times

The COVID-19 pandemic has celebrities, world leaders, and everyday people on indefinite lockdown. For the uber-wealthy, its an extended staycation in a mansion, luxury bunker or superyacht. But, whats a chateau got to do with the rest of us? For those in domiciles with fewer than 17 bathrooms, its been a somewhat more trying apocalypse. Fears of the disease, global economic depression, and food shortages haunt many nightmares.

Many celebs are handling the crisis about as well as a 2-year-old throwing a temper tantrum after missing a nap. Others exposed how little compassion they have for the less-well-off. A few tried their best to share uplifting messages in the form of tweets, but only exposed how out of touch they are. For every lovable John Krasinski, there is a heel like Elon Musk. While the rich and powerful may be relatively safe from the coronavirus, even 20-foot walls cant save them from their own worst enemies: themselves. From stupid politicians to misguided celebrities, this list is all Twitter donts and no dos.

Help Prevent the Spread of the Coronavirus

Visit the Centers for Disease Control at CDC.gov or the World Health Organization at Who.int for the latest information on the coronavirus and learn what you can do to stop the spread.

Follow Mandatory on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Here is the original post:

The 20 Worst Tweets From Stupid Politicians and Misguided Celebrities on Coronavirus - Mandatory

Elaina Plott is a young reporter from Alabama with skills beyond her years.

She now covers politics for The New York Times, after working for The Atlantic and other magazines. Often her work brings her back to the South, where she has written about everything from how our gun culture affected her in a personal way to how a Louisiana community was surprised to find out the reality of the coronavirus.

Plott threads the needle of writing about hard truths with compassion for everyone trying to sort them out.

Let's keep the conversation going. Who do you want to hear from next on the SouthBound podcast?

Submit your idea in the box below. You can also send a tweet to@tommytomlinsonor@wfae, and email me atttomlinson@wfae.org.

Show notes:

New episodes ofSouthBound come out every other Wednesday. Subscribe:

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SouthBound is a production of WFAE. Our host is Tommy Tomlinson. Our audience engagement manager is Joni Deutsch, and our main theme comes from Josh Turner.

Read this article:

SouthBound: Elaina Plott On Covering Politics, Writing With Compassion, And The Bullet In Her Arm - WFAE

|

Posted: Mar 25, 2020 7:35 PM

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

If, as the evidence suggests, the Chinese virus is enormously dangerous to people with certain medical conditions and those over 70 years old, but a much smaller danger to those under 70, then shutting down the entire country indefinitely is probably a bad idea.

But even when the time is right -- by Easter, June or the fall -- there will be no one to stop the quarantine because the media will continue to hype every coronavirus death, as if these are the only deaths that count and the only deaths that were preventable.

What mayor, governor or president will be willing to take the blame for causing a coronavirus death?

Well get no BREAKING NEWS alerts for the regular flu deaths (so far this season, more than 23,000, compared to 533 from the coronavirus).

Nor for the more than 3,000 people who die every day of heart disease or cancer. No alerts for the hundreds who die each day from car accidents, illegal aliens and suicide.

Only coronavirus deaths are considered newsworthy.

Were told by the Quarantine Everybody crowd: Listen to the scientists! Unfortunately, most of the scientists they present to us are lawyers. (How did Robert Reich, Donna Shalala and Ron Klain become medical professionals?)

Also, the scientists disagree.

Just as, I assume, they did in 1976, when epidemiologists warned of another 1918 Spanish flu pandemic after a few young Army recruits died of swine flu at Fort Dix in New Jersey. Eight months later, the federal government launched a mandatory swine flu vaccination program.

About a quarter of the country was vaccinated before the program was abruptly shut down. No pandemic had materialized. The virus infected a few people, then vanished. But directly as a result of receiving the vaccine, dozens of Americans died and several hundred acquired Guillain-Barre syndrome.

The scientists also disagreed in the 1980s, when the media and government went into overdrive to scare us all about AIDS. (1985 Life magazine cover: "NOW, NO ONE IS SAFE FROM AIDS.)

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop -- as revered by the media then as Anthony Fauci is today -- lied about the disease, insisting that [h]eterosexual persons are increasingly at risk.

Speaking of which, heres liberal Fauci on AIDS back in 1983, when he was with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, but not yet its director: "As the months go by, we see more and more groups. AIDS is creeping out of well-defined epidemiological confines. (It didnt.)

In 1987, Fauci warned that French kissing might transmit the AIDS virus, saying, Health officials have to presume that it is possible to transmit the virus by exchange of saliva in deep kissing. That presumption is made to be extra safe."

By 1992, after a decade-long epidemic with more than a million infections, the Centers for Disease Control could find only 2,391 cases of AIDS transmission by white heterosexuals -- and that included hemophiliacs and blood transfusion patients. (White because AIDS cases among Haitian and African immigrants had a variety of causes.)

But teenagers and sorority girls had to spend years being frightened of kissing lest they catch the AIDS virus, just as today theyre afraid of leaving their homes to avoid a virus that, in Italy, has killed no one under 30 years old and precious few under 50.

We have to be extra safe.

Both the No French Kissing rule and Quarantine Everybody rule are perfectly rational positions for an epidemiologist to take. Thats why we need to listen to people other than epidemiologists.

How about the doctors who keep pointing out that the coronavirus is mainly a problem for people over 70 and those with specific health problems? (See here, here, and here.)

The president should listen to experts in other fields, too. A country is more than an economy, but its also more than a virus.

If we listened only to emergency room doctors, we might come away convinced that we have to completely ban cars, alcohol and gummy bears. (Dont ask.) While taking a torts class in law school, I was afraid to sit under a chandelier, order a flaming dessert or stand at a train stop.

Playwright Arthur Miller once told a story about a geologist who remarked that life was possible even in the vast American desert. All you needed was water, he said, and the largest reservoir on the globe was located right under the Rockies.

But how would he get it?

Simple -- drop a couple of atomic bombs.

But what about the fallout?

"Oh," said the geologist, "that's not my field."

Today, the epidemiologists are prepared to nuke the entire American economy to kill a virus.

What about the jobs, the suicides, the heart attacks, the lost careers, the destruction of Americas wealth?

Oh, that's not my field.

Get The Hell Off The Beaches: Florida Governor Issues Statewide Stay-at-Home Order

Matt Vespa

Read more:

How Do We Flatten the Curve on Panic? - Townhall

Youve decided to finally start doing yogabut after Googling classes in your area, your head is spinning. Should you try Ashtanga or Iyengar? And whats the difference between hot yoga and Vinyasa? The array of options can be enough to scare newbies off the mat for good.

But heres why you shouldnt be scared: Like cross training, incorporating a variety of types of yoga into your regular practice can help keep you balanced, says Nikki Vilella, senior teacher at Kula Yoga Project and co-owner of Kula Williamsburg. Try a few different studios, teachers and styles. Then, stick with the one that resonates with you for a good amount of time and be dedicated to the practice, says Vilella. The first day you dont like a class shouldnt be a reason to bolt and try something new.

RELATED: The 11 Best Yoga Apps to Get Fit on the Cheap

Yoga isnt necessarily a one-size-fits-all practice, either. Different types of yoga might be best for different people. A 20-year-old and a 70-year-old probably dont need the same things, Vilella says. Someone who is hyper-mobile and flexible doesnt need the same thing as someone whos muscular and stiff.

So with all the choices out there, where do you start? Dont lose your ujjayi breath (thats yogi speak for calming inhales and exhales). Weve got your definitive list of classes that specialize in yoga for beginners plus tips for identifying the style you might like best.

Its all about the basics in these slower moving classes that require you to hold each pose for a few breaths. In many studios, hatha classes are considered a gentler form of yoga. However, the Sanskrit term hatha actually refers to any yoga that teaches physical postures. Its a practice of the body, a physical practice that balances these two energies. So, in reality, it is all hatha yoga, Vilella says.

Best for: Beginners. Because of its slower pace, hatha is a great class if youre just starting your yoga practice.

RELATED: Hatha Yoga: The Best Workout for Your Brain?

Photo: Asi Zeevi /The Woom Center Immersive Yoga

Get your flow on in this dynamic practice that links movement and breath together in a dance-like way. In most classes, you wont linger long in each pose and the pace can be quick, so be prepared for your heart rate to rise. Teachers will often pump music, matching the beats to the sequences of the poses.

Best for: HIIT lovers. Intense exercisers might enjoy Vinyasa because of its faster pace. Runners and endurance athletes are also drawn to Vinyasa class because of the continuous movement.

Photo courtesy of Emily Adams / Bend & Bloom Yoga

Here youll get nit-picky about precision and detail, as well as your bodys alignment in each pose. Props, from yoga blocks and blankets to straps or a ropes wall, will become your new best friend, helping you to work within a range of motion that is safe and effective. Unlike in Vinyasa, each posture is held for a period of time. If youre new to Iyengar, even if youve practiced other types of yoga, its good to start with a level one class to familiarize yourself with the technique.

Best for: Detail-oriented yogis. If you like to geek out about anatomy, movement and form, youll love Iyengar teachers share a wealth of information during class. Iyengar can also be practiced at any age and is great for those with injuries (though you should consult with a doctor first), Vilella notes.

RELATED: 5 Surprising Health Benefits of Yoga

If youre looking for a challenging yet orderly approach to yoga, try Ashtanga. Consisting of six series of specifically sequenced yoga poses, youll flow and breathe through each pose to build internal heat. The catch is that youll perform the same poses in the exact same order in each class. Some studios will have a teacher calling out the poses, while Mysore style classes (a subset of Ashtanga) require you to perform the series on your own. (But dont worry there will always be a teacher in the room to offer assistance if you need it.)

Best for: Type-A folks. If youre a perfectionist, youll like Ashtangas routine and strict guidelines.

START YOUR FREE TRIAL: Try Daily Burns Yoga Made Simple

All Bikram studios practice the same 90-minute sequence so youll know exactly what to do.

Prepare to sweat: Bikram consists of a specific series of 26 poses and two breathing exercises practiced in a room heated to approximately 105 degrees and 40 percent humidity. All Bikram studios practice the same 90-minute sequence so youll know exactly what to do once you unroll your mat. Remember, the vigorous practice combined with the heat can make the class feel strenuous. If youre new to Bikram, take it easy: Rest when you need to and be sure to hydrate beforehand.

Best for: People who gravitate toward a set routine. Those who are newer to yoga might like Bikram because of its predictable sequence.

RELATED: How to Get the Benefits of Hot Yoga Without Passing Out

Hot yoga is similar to Bikram in that its practiced in a heated room. But teachers arent constrained by the 26-pose Bikram sequence. While the heat will make you feel like you can move deeper into some poses compared to a non-heated class, it can be easy to overstretch, so dont push beyond your capacity.

Best for: Hardcore sweat lovers. If you love a tough workout that will leave you drenched, sign up for a beginner-friendly heated class.

Celebrity devotees including actor Russell Brand and author Gabrielle Bernstein have given Kundalini a cult-like following. Yet, this physically and mentally challenging practice looks very different from your typical yoga class. Youll perform kriyas repetitive physical exercises coupled with intense breath work while also chanting, singing and meditating. The goal? To break through your internal barriers, releasing the untapped energy residing within you and bringing you a higher level of self-awareness.

Best for: People looking for a spiritual practice. Those who are seeking something more than a workout may enjoy Kundalini due to its emphasis on the internal aspects of yoga, including breath work, meditation and spiritual energy.

RELATED: 7 Ways to Carve Out Time to Meditate

If you want to calm and balance your body and mind, this is where youll find your zen. The opposite of a faster moving practice like Ashtanga, Yin yoga poses are held for several minutes at a time. This meditative practice is designed to target your deeper connective tissues and fascia, restoring length and elasticity. Youll use props so your body can release into the posture instead of actively flexing or engaging the muscles. Like meditation, it may make you feel antsy at first, but stick with it for a few classes and its restorative powers might have you hooked.

Best for: People who need to stretch and unwind. Keep in mind, Yin yoga is not recommended for people who are super flexible (you might overdo it in some poses) or anyone who has a connective tissue disorder, Vilella says.

RELATED: 5 Yin Yoga Poses Every Runner Should Do

While it may feel like youre not doing much in a restorative yoga classthats the point. The mellow, slow-moving practice with longer holds gives your body a chance tap into your parasympathetic nervous system, allowing you to experience deeper relaxation. Youll also use a variety of props including blankets, bolsters and yoga blocks to fully support your body in each pose.

Best for: Everyone. In particular, Vilella says its a good yoga practice for anyone who has a hard time slowing down, who has experienced insomnia or who struggles with anxiety. Its also great for athletes on recovery days.

Ready to try yoga? Head to DailyBurn.com/YogaMadeSimple for a free 30-day trial.

Originally published August 2015. Updated September 2017.

Read More50 Resourcesto Step Up Your Yoga Game 8 Yoga Poses to Help Ease Lower Back PainAre You Doing These Yoga Poses All Wrong?

The rest is here:
Yoga for Beginners: Your Guide to 9 Most Popular Types of Yoga