A household participating in BRAC’s Graduation approach in Rangpur, Bangladesh. Credit: BRAC (2021)
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Feb 14 2022 (IPS) – With consistent, robust economic growth, countries across Asia have made monumental strides in eradicating extreme poverty over the past 30 years. In Bangladesh, for example, the population dropped from 43% in 1991 to in 2019. Similarly in Cambodia, poverty incidence fell from to .
In these countries, economic growth has enabled governments to develop new social protection programs, expand existing ones, and make substantial investments in human capital, leading to a more equitable distribution of wealth and enabling .
However, e…
Supported by the European Journalism Centre*
Viraj from India, in a squat where he has been living for three months near Velika Kladusa, Bosnia. He hopes to join family in Italy. February 2022. Credit: Chiara Luxardo
Bihać, Bosnia, Apr 19 2022 (IPS) – Responding to several shouts Viraj emerges from the ruins of his shelter in northwest Bosnia. He is originally from India but is now squatting near Bihać in what remains of a house abandoned since the 1990s Balkans war.
“I was in the bathroom,” says Viraj although there is no such facility. The building doesn’t even have windows, just gaps exposed to a freezing wind. Collapsing walls are patched wit…
On 24 February 2022 in Afghanistan, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell listens to a girl reading from a textbook at a UNICEF-supported community-based school in Kandahar’s Dand district. Credit: UNICEF/Omid Fazel
Jun 7 2022 –
became UNICEF’s eighth Executive Director on 1 February 2022.
Ms. Russell brings to the role decades of experience in developing innovative policy that empowers underserved communities around the world, including high-impact programmes that protect women and girls, including in humanitarian crises. She has extensive experience building, elevating and managing diverse workforces and mobilizing resources and political sup…
Sizable differences in the levels of children dying persist especially between more developed and less developed regions. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS
PORTLAND, USA, Sep 5 2022 (IPS) – The chances of a child dying before reaching age five years have dropped substantially worldwide during the recent past. However, a significant divide remains among countries as well as within regio…
A community health worker spreads the message of screening for cervical cancer along with HIV. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
Nairobi, Dec 6 2022 (IPS) – Damaris Anyango* was recently discharged from Kenyatta National Hospital, battling the twin challenge of cervical cancer and HIV. She is 50 years old and was diagnosed with HIV nearly ten years ago.
Despite the heightened risk of…
On Mar. 22, 2023, dozens of people watched a live b…
A medical officer preparing to give a COVID-19 vaccine in Somalia in May 2021. Credit: Mokhtar Mohamed/AMISOM
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 8 2022 (IPS) – With the outbreak of Monkeypox in non-endemic countries leading to a scramble for vaccines, global health advocates are again calling for equity to be prioritized in the international response.
Equity was a top concern during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic emergency health response. The World Health Organization (WHO) helped spearhead several in an attempt to reduce disparities between nation…
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jul 8 2024 (IPS) – For some time, most multilateral financial institutions have urged developing countries to borrow commercially, but not from China. Now, borrowers are stuck in debt traps with little prospect of escape.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
More debt, less growth since 2008
The last decade and a half has seen protracted worldwide stagnation, with some economies and people faring much worse than others.
The 2008 global financial crisis and Great Recession have recently been worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic, US Federal Reserve Bank-led interest rate hikes and escalating geopolitical economic warfare.
Following Reagan-inspired tax …
Inge Kaul is Senior Fellow, Hertie School, Berlin and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Center for Global Governance, Washington DC. She can be contacted at .
BERLIN, Germany, Apr 3 2020 (IPS) – My recent study on “The G20@10: Time to shift gears” 1 shows that, during the past decade, the main joint, collective action of the G20 has been to issue communiqués and other types of statements.
As a group, G20 Leaders have expressed concern about all kinds of challenges, recommitted themselves to goals already agreed in other multilateral meetings or –even repeatedly – stated in earlier G20 communiqués.
They have also lauded other entities for actions they have taken or aske…
Credit: Samuel Otieno/UNHCR
IBADAN, NIGERIA, Apr 21 2020 (IPS) – Since the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic late last year in Wuhan, China, the global community has witnessed unprecedented to curtail, contain and control the disease. Many have proven to be . But others required critical context consideration.
For instance, the risks threatening the livelihoods of millions of people who are dependent on the informal market for their survival. Another example is the fact that the security measures being imposed are extracting a from ordinary citizens.
The situation is a learning curve for all countries.
The at national level have inc…