Batara slum in a Dhaka suburb. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS
ROME, Nov 26 2020 (IPS) – The recent meeting of the G20 – scheduled to take place in Riyadh but held virtually due to the Coronavirus pandemic – has been an eloquent example of how the world is drifting, in a crisis of leadership.
It was, in a sense, a showcase. Everybody had to accept the view that the host of the meeting, the ailing King Salman of Saudi Arabia, was accompanied on TV screens by his apparent heir, Prince Mohamed bin Salman, who is clearly the mastermind of the brutal assassination, dismembering and disappearance of the body of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Only a united Africa can defeat COVID-19. Credit: WHO
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 5 2021 (IPS) – The ANTICOV COVID-19 clinical trial, aimed at identifying treatments that prevent mild cases from progressing to severe forms of the disease, is crucial to Africa, researchers say. The trial will investigate home-based treatments to help prevent local health systems from being overwhelmed.
Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, Senior Clinical Project Manager Medical Manager for DNDi, says that the studies target mild and moderate cases of COVID-19 and are important to Africa because lower-income countries remain under-represented in COVID-19 studies. The vast majority of COVID-19 clinic…
Martin Kropff, Director General, CIMMYT and Nteranya Sanginga, Director General, IITA
A woman farmer in Mozambique with DT maize harvest. Credit: CIMMYT
IBADAN and MEXICO CITY, Feb 17 2021 (IPS) – 17 February African smallholder farmers have no choice but to adapt to climate change: 2020 was the second hottest year on record, while prolonged droughts and explosive floods are directly threatening the livelihoods of millions. By the 2030s, lack of rainfall and rising temperatures could render 40 percent of Africa’s maize-growing area unsuitable for climate-vulnerable varieties grown by farmers, while maize remains the preferred and affordable staple …
The UN will be commemorating World Water Day on Monday March 22.
A woman in Madagascar walks for up to 14km a day to find clean water. Credit: UNICEF/Safidy Andrianantenain
LONDON, Mar 19 2021 (IPS) – For many, the last year will be remembered as the time our day-to-day lives screeched to a halt. As Covid-19 spread mercilessly across the world, wreaking havoc on health and livelihoods, world leaders, health experts and scientists grappled with how to protect populations and stem the tide of the virus.
It is right that attention has been focused on the immediate threat posed by the pandemic; the global death toll has surpassed 2.6 million people a…
The writer is a Palestinian living in Gaza and a policy officer for Oxfam.
Young Palestinians drive their boat along the coast near the Gaza Sea port, selling boat rides as a way to earn a living. Credit: Laila Barhoum/ Oxfam
GAZA, Apr 29 2021 (IPS) – We were able to keep the coronavirus at bay for five months in Gaza, the densely populated Palestinian strip of land surrounded by Israel that I call home. But the Coronavirus doesn’t respect walls or artificial borders. While preparations were made for the pandemic to inevitably breach a blockade so few Palestinians can, we waited for it to come for us. And it did.
In one of the most sealed off places in the…
Zoltán Kálmán Ambassador, Former Permanent Representative of Hungary to the UN Food and Agriculture Agencies in Rome
ROME, Jun 9 2021 (IPS) – In three cycles I spent all together more than 15 years in Rome, at the Permanent Representation of Hungary to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and between my last two assignments in Rome my responsibilities in Budapest included FAO related issues. This made it possible for me to witness the development of this organization under the leadership of four Directors-General. Edouard Saouma, Jacques Diouf, Jose Graziano da Silva and Qu Dongyu. This long association and “historic” view of FAO would definitely help me in fulfilling the role of the Independent Chairperson of the Council of FAO (ICC). As conventional wisdo…
ROME, Jul 26 2021 (IPS) – Back-to-back droughts followed by plagues of locusts have pushed over a million people in southern Madagascar to the brink of starvation in recent months. In the worst famine in half a century, villagers have sold their possessions and are eating the locusts, raw cactus fruits, and wild leaves to survive.
Barbara Wells
Instead of bringing relief, this year’s rains were accompanied by warm temperatures that created the ideal conditions for infestations of fall armyworm, which destroys mainly maize, one of the main food crops of sub-Saharan Africa.
Drought and famine are not strangers to southern Madagascar, and other areas of eastern Africa, b…
Jamaica is increasingly cited as a model of meaningful youth engagement. Here Environment and Climate Change Minister Pearnel Charles Jr plants trees with a young environmentalist. Credit: NDC Partnership
DOMINICA, Sep 21 2021 (IPS) – When the NDC Partnership, the alliance which helps governments to determine and achieve their climate goals, held its first-ever Global Youth Engagement Forum in July, several segments were underpinned by Jamaica’s model of engaging young people and sustaining youth interest in climate initiatives.
The Caribbean country, a co-chair of the , has committed to ensuring that , through representation on boards such as the Climate …
Girls’ sexual and reproductive rights activist Mía Calderón stands on San Martín Avenue in San Juan de Lurigancho, the most populous municipality of Peru’s capital. She complained that the pandemic once again highlighted the fact that sexual violence against girls comes mainly from someone close to home and that the g…
Afghan women leaders and human rights defenders speak to the press outside of the UN Security Council chambers on 21 October 2021. Pictured from left to right: Asila Wardak, Fawzia Koofi (speaking), Anisa Shaheed and Naheed Farid. Credit: UN Women/ Amanda Voisard
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14 2021 (IPS) – We are former UN officials with decades of combined experience supporting international civil society and governments to advance the rights of women and girls.
We came together to alert the United Nations and the international community to the urgency of preventing a human catastrophe in Afghanistan. Afghan women and men must not be condemned to yet another decade of re…