Development & Aid

Indigenous Peoples in Mexico Defend Their Right to Water

By Emilio Godoy
In the San Lorenzo Huitzizilapan Otomí indigenous community, in the state of Mexico –adjacent to the country’s capital–, access to water has been based on collective work.

Afghanistan: Efforts To Prevent a Food Crisis Before Everything Becomes More Serious

By Mario Lubetkin
The traumatic events that occurred in recent weeks in Afghanistan have once again placed this Asian country at the center of the world’s attention with high-impact coverage and analysis in the media.

If Women Farmers were Politicians, the World Would be Fed, says Danielle Nierenberg

By Busani Bafana
Women, key contributors to agriculture production, are missing at the decision table, with alarming consequences, says Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg in an exclusive interview with IPS.

Right to Food: Can Millets Improve Nutrition Outcomes in Chattisgarh, India?

Chhattisgarh was one of the first few states in the country to universalise the public distribution system (PDS) and provide ‘Right to Food’ to its people. In order to ensure access to quality foodgrains for its vulnerable population, the state introduced the Food Security Act in 2012. The state has been providing support—35 kg of rice at INR 1 and INR 2 per kg; 1 kg of iodised salt and 1 kg refined oil at no cost; 2 kg of grams at INR 5 per kg—to each eligible family (as defined in the act).

Barilla Foundation Report Highlights Need for Food Companies to Align with Sustainable Development Goals

By Alison Kentish
In the backdrop of rising hunger, half of the world’s population living on unhealthy diets, a third of agricultural produce lost to postharvest events, and waste, poverty in farming communities, a pandemic that laid bare the vulnerability of food systems to external shocks and unsustainable food production, the Barilla Foundation for Food and Nutrition has published a report which introduces guidelines for the private sector to fulfil its role in transforming global food systems.

COVID-19 Recovery Requires Justice Beyond Rhetoric

By Jens Martens
Policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic crisis have exacerbated rather than reduced global inequalities. On the one hand, the net wealth of billionaires has risen to record levels since the outbreak of the pandemic (increasing by more than US$ 5 trillion to US$ 13.1 trillion from 2020 to 2021), on the other hand, the number of people living in extreme poverty has also increased massively (by approx. 100 million to 732 million in 2020).

Even as IUCN Congress Closes, Conservation Debate Hots Up

By Manipadma Jena
One of the most hotly debated issues at the recently concluded IUCN Congress in Marseilles was about designating 30 percent of the planet's land and water surface as protected areas by 2030.

We Stay and Deliver until the Light Shines

By Yasmine Sherif
Kabul 1990. I land in the capital of Afghanistan for my very first mission with the United Nations. Controlled by the government, Kabul was surrounded by the Mujahedeen. As a young female professional, living and working across the country, I felt protected by the Afghans, whether walking in the bustling cities or meeting with the Mujahedeen in the rural countryside. Afghanistan had already been at war for over ten years and we all worked with the hope that the fighting would come to an end soon.

The Covid-19 Youth Employment Crisis in Asia & the Pacific

By Simone Galimberti
A pre-pandemic report published by the International Labor Organization, ILO, the Global Employment Trends for Youth 2020, offered a sober analysis on the job market prospects for youth.

Southeast Asian Farmers Adapt, Insure against Growing Climate Risks

By Marty Logan
As incidents of drought and extreme rainfall increase, farmers in Southeast Asia are partnering with experts to develop targeted weather forecasts to work around the threats and, when adaptation becomes too costly, buy specially designed insurance to protect their livelihoods.

Food Systems Summit’s Scientistic Threat

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Timely interventions by civil society, including concerned scientists, have prevented many likely abuses of next week’s UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). The Secretary General (UNSG) must now prevent UN endorsement of what remains of its prime movers’ corporate agenda.

Raise Retirement Ages

By Joseph Chamie
Raise retirement ages! That’s the simple, clear and unavoidable message that economics and demographics are sending to governments around the world.

CommonSensing Project Builds Climate Resilience for Small Island Nations

By Neena Bhandari
The UK Space Agency’s International Partnership Programme (IPP) CommonSensing is led by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) through the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), which is working with selected partners including the Commonwealth Secretariat, to improve resilience to the effects of climate change in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

ECW Interviews Dubai Cares Ceo H.E. Dr. Tariq Al Gurg

H.E. Dr. Tariq Al Gurg was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Cares in 2009 and as Vice-Chairman in July 2021. Al Gurg has been a primary driver behind the organization’s success. He has enabled Dubai Cares to contribute to the evidence-base in education, leverage funding and invest in strategic relationships and programs that support the global education agenda. His focus has been to develop Dubai Cares as a recognized best-case practitioner and a global leader in education program design and innovation that is grounded in a philosophy of continuous monitoring and evaluation and rigorous research.

South-South & Triangular Cooperation to Help Achieve UN’s Development Goals

By Adel Abdellatif
The 2021 high-level commemoration of the United Nations Day for South-South Cooperation, organized ahead of the opening of the seventy-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly, provided an opportunity to discuss Southern solidarity in support of a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable future while effectively responding to the global COVID-19 crisis across the global South.

Latin America’s Central Banks Push Climate Crisis to the Back Burner

By Emilio Godoy
Despite the impact that their policies have with regard to the climate emergency, Latin America's central banks continue to avoid applying guidelines in measures that affect the operation of credit institutions, which distances them from compliance with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Caribbean Under Threat: Report Reveals Enormous Challenges for the Region

By Zadie Neufville
Less than halfway into the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Season, Jamaica and its Caribbean neighbours were already tallying the costs of infrastructural damage and crop losses from the passage of three tropical storms - Elsa, Grace and Ida. And after a record-breaking 2020 season, the region is on tenterhooks as the season peaks.

A Tale of Two Internationally Trained Medical Doctors in Canada

By Sania Farooqui
Wagma Saad, is an Internationally Trained Medical Doctor (ITMD) from Kabul Medical University, Afghanistan, currently living in Canada with her family. Saad graduated in 2016, an education that didn’t come easily to her. With numerous restrictions, blocks and challenges placed at every step, fighting numerous social and political battles, she chased her passion for science and medicine, and after seven years at medical school, she finally got to call herself a doctor.

Afghanistan’s Girls Need our Unwavering Support in Education

By Yasmine Sherif
The Taliban takeover of government in Kabul is just days old, and the eyes of Afghans and the world are cautiously watching and hopeful to see them stand by their word and ensure that girls’ education be promoted and protected.

In a Watershed Year for Climate Change, the Commonwealth Secretary-General calls for Urgent, Decisive and Sustained Climate Action

By Alison Kentish
This November, five years after signing the Paris Agreement and pledging to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, with a further target of below 1.5 degrees Celsius, world leaders will meet in Glasgow, UK amid COVID-19 pandemic shocks, rising hunger and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that warns of more extreme temperature, droughts, forest fires and ice sheet loss due to human activity.

A Regional Agreement for Healthy Eco-Systems in Latin America & the Caribbean

By Claudia Ituarte-Lima
In August 31st 2021, five Nations including Costa Rica - the country where the Escazú Agreement was adopted - announced publicly working towards a proposal for UN Human Rights Council to recognize globally the right to a clean, safe, healthy and sustainable environment at its 48th session in September.
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