Stories written by Marty Logan
Marty Logan is a Kathmandu-based journalist and creator of the podcast Nepal Now. During most of his career, working in Canada and Asia, he has focused on issues of development, global health and human rights, including Indigenous peoples’ affairs. He has been writing and editing for IPS since 2001 and has also worked as a journalist with the Canadian Press and Reuters news agencies, and as a freelancer for outlets including The Globe and Mail, Nepali Times, The New Humanitarian and The British Medical Journal.

Voices from the World Social Forum 2024 – PODCAST

After interviewing a member of the Nepal organizing committee ahead of opening day, I was excited about covering my first ever World Social Forum (WSF). He suggested that at least 30,000 and as many as 50,000 activists from over 90 countries would attend the three-day event.

Forced Migration Grows, Justice Withers, Say Activists at World Social Forum

As involuntary migration rises around the world, partly in response to the impacts of climate change, justice for those leaving their homes and families to earn a living is largely missing, said activists meeting at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Kathmandu on Sunday.

World Social Forum Activists Unravel Roots of Israel’s Occupation of Gaza

Romi Ghimire has a busy life running a non-profit organization dedicated to Nepal’s rural people, but she also feels driven to do something about Gaza. “There are a lot of issues happening in the world, but right now the genocide in Gaza is the most urgent one,” she said inside the Palestine tent at the World Social Forum (WSF) in Kathmandu on Saturday.

World Social Forum Insists: Another World is Possible!

These are the worst of times, but they can become the best of times, said speaker Dr. Walden Bello, seeking to inspire thousands of progressives who gathered for the World Social Forum (WSF) in Kathmandu on Thursday with the planet under clouds of armed conflict and assaults on democracy.

Climate Change Is Amplifying Households’ Food Insecurity, Putting More Pressure on Women’s Mental Health

Studies have long shown that some women’s lower status in Nepali households could mean that they eat last and less and as a result lack nutrition. Experts are now looking into how this could affect their mental health, and if the growing impacts of climate change might amplify the process.

Humanitarian Cash Not Accelerating Aid Delivery in Nepal’s Earthquake Response

Delivering humanitarian assistance in the form of cash sounds great: recipients get to choose exactly how to spend their money and aid organizations can respond faster and better track their giving.

NCDs Are Killing the Caribbean – PODCAST

If I asked you to name the world’s most deadly diseases I’m guessing that you might say HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, cholera, maybe even COVID-19. In fact, those have all been major killers throughout human history – and some like TB continue to be so, especially in low-income countries.

Is Solutions Journalism the Answer To Cynicism About the Media? – PODCAST

If you’re like me, you’ve probably heard a lot of negative talk about the media in recent years. Much of it has focused on the integrity of the so-called mainstream or legacy media that has dominated the information landscape in recent decades, or longer. These attacks, which sometimes actually degenerate into physical assaults, call into question how honestly or fairly these outlets portray the world, including in politics and global issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

‘The International Community Must Act on Afghanistan’ – PODCAST

“If you were waiting for a couple of years to see how the Taliban would perform, we now have a pretty good idea. We can see that they have moved, step by step, back towards how they ran the country in their first period in power,” says UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, in this episode.

Nepal Poised To Start HPV Vaccination To Prevent Cervical Cancer, Awaiting GAVI

As Dipak Subedi was organizing a vaccination programme against the human papillomavirus (HPV) in the city of Bharatpur in Chitwan district of southern Nepal he was getting phone calls from neighbouring districts asking if he had extra doses available — people were willing to travel for hours to get their girls vaccinated against HPV, which causes cervical cancer, the deadliest form of cancer for women in Nepal.

EXPLAINER — Maternal Mortality: Why Has Progress In Saving Women’s Lives Stalled?

A new report reveals that from 2000 to 2015, the global maternal mortality ratio (MMR) fell by 33%, and by more than 50% in 58 countries that had the highest rates of women dying during pregnancy or up to 42 days after delivery. But from 2016 to 2020, maternal mortality barely changed. In 2020, roughly 287,000 women globally died from a maternal cause, which is almost 800 maternal deaths daily, and about one every two minutes.

How The Ass Used Satire To Poke Fun at Nepal’s Leaders – PODCAST

Welcome to Strive, a podcast of IPS News, where we chat with new voices about fresh ideas to create a more just and sustainable world. My name is Marty Logan. We’ve all made asses of ourselves at one time or another. But today’s guest actually made a career out of it — not of messing up but of being The Ass, the author of a satirical column that ran on the back page of the Nepali Times newspaper for more than two decades.

Countries Hiding Responses Sent to UN Experts Over Allegations of Human Rights Abuses

Human rights defenders are alarmed at what appears to be a new process permitting countries to keep confidential their responses to UN experts about allegations of human rights abuses.

Measuring Human Rights – PODCAST

Welcome to Strive podcast, where we chat with new voices about fresh ideas to create a more just and sustainable world. My name is Marty Logan.

How Development Banks Put Communities at Risk – PODCAST

A 2021 World Bank-financed project in Uganda was supposed to help communities to sustainably manage local areas and to cope with the impacts of Covid-19. But at one site, the Toro Semliki Wildlife Reserve, the funding emboldened the Uganda Wildlife Authority. A government body, and the project’s implementing agency, the UWA has long prevented indigenous communities from reclaiming their land near the wildlife reserve.

What Makes a Human Rights Success? PODCAST

The largest ever settlement in Canadian legal history, 40 billion Canadian dollars, occurred in 2022, but it didn’t come from a court – it followed a decision by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. In 2016 the Tribunal affirmed a complaint that the Government of Canada’s child welfare system discriminated against First Nations children. (First Nations are one of three groups of Indigenous people in Canada).

Canada Lags in Providing for Children, Especially Marginalized Kids

Canada and its major cities consistently appear in Top 10 lists of best places in the world to live. But delve into figures about children’s lives in the northern nation known for ice hockey heroics and you see a different picture.

Indigenous Peoples Must Continue To Challenge Human Rights Violations: PODCAST

Today we are starting a new series focused on human rights. For people working to create a more sustainable and just world – as we are – a human rights based approach makes sense as it starts from the premise that only by recognizing and protecting the dignity inherent in all people can we attain those goals.

More Students on the Move in an Increasingly Complex World: Podcast

This is our third episode on the ongoing movements of people around the world. You can listen to the previous ones, the first about climate migrants and the second on remittances, on any podcast app.

School Feeding Is Now the World’s Largest Social Safety Net

When Canada and Nepal are used in the same sentence it’s usually because the former is supporting development efforts in the latter. Not when it comes to feeding children at school.

Migrant Workers’ Remittances Fund Development-Make It Easier for Them: Podcast

I hope you had a chance to listen to our last episode, Environmental disasters creating more migrants within countries. We talked about the rising number of people who are forced out of their homes because of climate or environmental disasters. Nearly 30 million men, women and children in 149 countries were displaced in 2020, temporarily or for good and the signs are, that those numbers will only grow.

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