DRC’s First Peaceful Transition of Power Was At Expense of Women

When Felix Tshisekedi, the 55 year old son of the former opposition leader, won the recent presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo, it should have felt like a new dawn for many of us living here.

International Aid Feeds Hope and Fuels Confrontation in Venezuela

The international food and medical aid awaiting entry into Venezuela from neighboring Colombia, Brazil and Curacao is at the crux of the struggle for power between President Nicolás Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó, recognised as "legitimate president" by 50 governments.

‘Today, We Declare Our Love to Our Forests and Ecosystems’

High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) nations ended a major conference in Suriname on Thursday, with the Krutu of Paramaribo Joint Declaration on HFLD Climate Finance Mobilisation.

Q&A: What of the Carbon Neutral Countries?

As High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) nations meet in Suriname at a major conference, it is obvious that the decision made by these countries to preserve their forests has been a difficult but good one.

The Hidden Economic Costs of Displacement

While the impacts of displacement on wellbeing are well-known, one group has pointed to the equally burdensome economic costs for those displaced as well as host communities.

Q&A: We Are Helping the World Mitigate Climate Change, Now it’s Time to Help Us

The Caribbean nation of Suriname may be one of the most forested countries in the world, with some 93 percent of the country’s surface area being covered in forests, but it is also the most threatened as it struggles with the impacts of climate change.

Our Forests Provide the World With Oxygen But We Need More Climate Change Finance – HFLD Countries

Suriname, the most forested country in the world, is this week hosting a major international conference on climate financing for High Forest Cover and Low Deforestation (HFLD) countries.

Are Sustainable Development Goals Reaching Indigenous Peoples?

Life and death for whole communities hang in the balance of achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that include eliminating poverty, conserving forests, and addressing climate change in a resolution adopted unanimously by the United Nations in 2015.

Billions of Swedish Krona Supported the Struggle against Apartheid

Between 1982 and 1988 Birgitta Karlström Dorph was on a secret mission in South Africa. "Why didn't they stop us? Probably they were not aware of the scope of the operation. The money was transferred through so many different channels. We were clever, " Karlström Dorph says. 

A Truly Global Effort is Needed to Eradicate FGM by 2030

According to official data on the global prevalence of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) released by UNICEF there are 200 million women and girls in the world who have been cut. Shocking though this statistic is, it seriously underestimates the nature and scale of the problem.

People Power Will Bring Change — Not Davos

They said they cared about climate change but they flew in on private jets in record numbers. They said they cared about inequality but laughed off the idea of higher taxes for the rich. They spoke about democracy and human rights but they dined with a far-right populist. If there was ever any doubt about Davos representing the epitome of duplicity, then 2019 has firmly laid that to rest.

Billions of Dollars Available for Reducing and Reversing Land Degradation

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has debunked the notion that there is no funding available for countries to prevent, reduce or reverse land degradation.

Ending Poverty is Possible, but it Means Facing up to Inequality – Within & Between Countries

World leaders have committed to ending poverty everywhere for all people by 2030. Achieving this aim means facing up to the need for dramatic declines in inequalities – in income, in opportunity, in exposure to risk, across gender, between countries and within countries – over the next decade.

COP24: Sum and Substance of Climate Diplomacy

As I was attending the 24th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—to create a rulebook to operationalise the Paris Agreement—in Katowice, Poland, it dawned on me, like never before, that the negotiations were taking place in a make-believe world.

Strangers in the Land: A Congolese Murder Case

I thought about this song by Paul Simon while I in 2011 spent a few weeks in Kinshasa. I was a foreign man in a strange world, surrounded by sights and sounds, completely dependent on my new-found Congolese friends. When our taxi got stuck in a traffic jam and we had to walk to our destination I was stopped by a group of heavily armed youngsters, lead by a man who claimed to be a policeman, charging me with an exaggerated high fine for taking photos within a restricted area.

Davos, Inequality & the Climate Emergency

Four of the top five most impactful threats in this year’s World Economic Forum´s Global Risks report are related to climate change. The report warns that we are “sleepwalking to disaster” . But that is not true. The disaster is already here, it´s not something we are still walking towards. Climate change is no future threat, it´s a current one. We have entered a new phase, one in which the impacts are coming faster, with greater intensity.

Acts of Terror Will Not Undermine Our Resolve

On 15 January 2019, terror struck Nairobi's 14 Riverside Drive. Kenya is in mourning following a senseless act on innocent and defenseless civilians by individuals preoccupied with contemptible and misplaced ideology; who hope to intimidate others through violent acts of terror. Like in their other past attempts, they have failed, and Kenya remains unbowed.

We Are All DukDukDiya: Humming Bird with One Drop of Water at a Time

There is a Quechan fable about a hummingbird named Dukdukdiya. During a fierce forest fire, while all other animals stood in stunned fear, Dukdukdiya alone took action by repeatedly carrying a single drop of water in her beak to the flames. When asked why she bothered with such paltry efforts, she replied that she was simply doing everything in her power to stop the fire.

Climate Change: Complex Challenges for Agriculture

The unusually hot summer of 2018 showed that climate change affects a central part of our lives: agriculture. The severe drought in Liechtenstein led to large losses in the hay harvest.

Global Warming: Severe Consequences for Africa

Record global greenhouse gas emissions are putting the world on a path toward unacceptable warming, with serious implications for development prospects in Africa. “Limiting warming to 1.5° C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics, but doing so would require unprecedented changes,” said Jim Skea, cochair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group III.

Veterans of the Global Financial Crisis Pass their Wisdom on to the Next Generation

It happened again and again in a career punctuated by upheavals: the peso crisis of 1994, the Asian crisis of 1997, and finally, the big one—the global financial crisis of 2008.