Development & Aid

Can Agroecology Feed the World?

By Elena L. Pasquini
Producing food and ensuring nutrition security, protecting the environment and restoring biodiversity, building sustainable and fair food systems: That’s the promise of agroecology.

Budgeting for a Better Future, for Every Child

By Joanne Bosworth and Jennifer Asman
2020 has not turned out as planned. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact populations around the world, governments have been forced to take a fresh look at their spending and how to meet additional costs of pandemic response as they expect a fall in revenue. Budget information has become even more critical.

COMMENTARY: The Sinatra Doctrine Confronts a Global Consensus

By Peter Costantini
By late September, the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States had claimed 200,000 lives. That’s equivalent to a slightly higher toll than the 418,500 United States deaths in World War II, adjusted for relative population and duration. [See note below.]

Living with Drought: Lessons from Brazil’s Semiarid Region

By Mario Osava
No one died of hunger during the worst drought in Brazil's semiarid ecoregion, between 2011 and 2018, in sharp contrast to the past when scarce rainfall caused deaths, looting, a mass exodus to the South and bloody conflicts.

Capture of CO2 and Hydrogen as Part of Latin America’s Energy Future

By Emilio Godoy
While struggling to increase the generation and consumption of renewable energy, Latin America is beginning to see the rise of new technologies, such as the capture and storage of carbon and hydrogen from fossil fuels or wind and solar energy.

Child Protection: the Pandemic has Left the Most Vulnerable Children Invisible

By Shantha Sinha
A right is an entitlement and it has three basic principles, without which rights cannot be enjoyed. The first principle is that of universality: A right has to be enjoyed by all citizens, including all children. There cannot be a distinction between a Dalit or an Adivasi child and a child who is better endowed.

‘The Sahel – a Microcosm of Cascading Global Risks Converging in One Region’

By Samira Sadeque
The European Commission this week pledged $27.8 million in humanitarian support to the Sahel region as floods and the coronavirus pandemic exacerbate the stability in a region deeply in conflict. While the figure is less than 2 percent of the $2.4 billion that the United Nations has appealed for, Amnesty International researcher Ousmane Diallo told IPS that despite past donations from international development partners to Sahelian countries, the situation hasn’t improved over the years.

Mahatma’s Non-Violence: Essence of Culture of Peace for New Humanity

By Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury
I will begin by presenting to you excerpts from the message from UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the International Day of Non-Violence.

Bulawayo Water Crisis: When the Taps Run Dry and the City Runs out of Ideas

By Ignatius Banda
Dotted across the Zimbabwean city of Bulawayo, the water tanks installed in private residences is evidence that years of a water crisis, that has seen some suburbs here going for months without running water, has not spared anyone. The large plastic drums, locally called Jojo tanks after the company that manufacturers them, and which have a storage range of up to 10,000 litres, have assumed a class status of sorts in Bulawayo.

The Plight of Domestic Workers in Brazil

By Waldeli Melleiro and Christoph Heuser
The inclusivity of Brazilian society is put to the test as the coronavirus pandemic highlights a labour sector ripe with historical and structural inequality: domestic work.

Human Trafficking Survivor Harold D’Souza: “The Perpetrators are More Aggressive Than Ever”

By Anna Shen
The fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic continues: as more people around the world lose their livelihoods, human trafficking is on the rise. Support services for survivors have been shut, and past gains to combat it have been reversed. Funding has dried up.

Food Security Bursts Onto the Global Agenda

By Mario Lubetkin
The month of October 2020 will be recalled as one of the most important moments in raising awareness about world food security, whether in the global debate or in the search for possible concrete solutions.

A Long, Uneven and Uncertain Ascent

By Gita Gopinath
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread with over 1 million lives tragically lost so far. Living with the novel coronavirus has been a challenge like no other, but the world is adapting.

Enhanced Social Protection an Opportunity Asia Pacific Must Grasp

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana and Chihoko Asada Miyakawa
In the fight against COVID-19, success has so far been defined by responses in Asia and the Pacific. Many countries in our region have been hailed as reference points in containing the virus. Yet if the region is to build back better, the success of immediate responses should not distract from the weaknesses COVID-19 has laid bare. Too many people in our region are left to fend for themselves in times of need. This pandemic was no exception. Comprehensive social protection systems could right this wrong. Building these systems must be central to our long-term recovery strategy.

Education: Act Now, Don’t Wait for the Bill

By Stefania Giannini
School reopening doesn’t mean that education is back on course. For a start, schools remain closed in over 50 countries, affecting more than 800 million students. The poorest ones may never make it back to school, driven by poverty into child labour or early marriage. Distance learning has been out of reach for one third of the 1.6 billion students affected worldwide by school closures. They may disengage altogether if school closures continue.

Limited Liability: Profit Without Responsibility

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Limited liability protection for shareholders in joint stock companies was introduced to encourage investments in them. However, it has encouraged irresponsibility, causing much harm while generating profits without responsibility. Limited liability limits responsibility Columbia Law School’s Professor Katarina Pistor has extended her critique of the legal system to emphasize the implications of such limited liability. Limited liability encourages shareholders not to pay attention to the harm corporations they invest in may do.

Low-cost Technology can Have Life-changing Impacts for Rural Women

By Samira Sadeque
Access to technology which is relatively inexpensive to deploy can have a life-changing impact for rural women, social scientist Valentina Rotondi told IPS.

Why Food System Transformation Needs Water

By Dr. Mark Smith
The impact of Covid-19 on supply chains and food security has dealt a blow to the already faltering global development ambition of ending hunger.

NESFAS Partner Communities Celebrate World Food Day

By Damica M Mawlong
World Food Day, a day dedicated to tackle world hunger, is annually celebrated on October 16, 2020 globally. To commemorate this day, the North East Slow Food and Agrobiodiversity Society (NESFAS) along with its partner organisations — Society for Urban and Rural Empowerment (SURE) and North East Network (NEN), Nagaland — hosted several programmes across 27 communities in Meghalaya and Nagaland. It may be mentioned here that all government SOPs and measures were followed during the events.

Why a Zimbabwean Farming Project Failed: Lessons for Rural Innovation

Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa commit resources to promote agricultural innovations. This is based on the assumption that rural livelihoods are mainly agricultural and that the innovations will increase agricultural production and household income.

Q&A: Food Systems need to Mimic Nature

By Samira Sadeque
Despite the World Food Programme (WFP) being awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for its work in addressing global hunger, sustainable food systems expert Emile Frison believes a lot more needs to be done. This includes the rethinking of approaches to agricultural production, establishing deeper relationships between consumers and producers, and taking a wholistic approach towards socio-economic factors.
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