Informally, a global issue is any issue that adversely affects the global community and environment, possibly in a catastrophic way. Including but not limited to: environmental issues, political crisis, social issues and economic crisis. Solutions to global issues often require cooperation among nations.
Certain global issues cannot be solved by on-the-ground, grassroots style projects. These include the safe use of nuclear technology, the upholding of international law and peace, assisting with the decolonization of nations and ensuring the effective running of democracies.
These are the activities that organizations like the UN oversee as a regulatory institution. However, there are a number of policy-level issues, which you can help us work on indirectly.
The first is human rights, the inalienable rights of all peoples around the world. We partner with organizations to teach young students about their rights. In our women’s empowerment projects around the world, we also help women learn more about their own rights.
The next is population growth. In our teaching and women’s empowerment projects we support both girls and women in their educational development. It has been shown that by increasing women’s education, population growth decreases. In this way, we indirectly contribute to stabilizing the global population.
Climate change is another issue that can most effectively be solved through policy change as most fossil fuel emissions are produced by factories and cars. However, we work on educating many local communities about the importance of protecting the local environment. These communities might at later stage be compelled to select their leaders based on their effective environmental policies.
If you are passionate about advocating policy change, be warned that, while it is rewarding, it can also be a slow, drawn-out process. Bringing multiple stakeholders with diverse interests together to agree on a common goal can be difficult and it would be wise to try working on a few smaller-scale projects before attempting to take on more overarching problems.
