Health

COVID-19 Teaches Us to Better Manage Global Systemic Risks

By Liu Zhenmin
Millions of lives lost. Trillions of dollars in economic damage. Over 120 million more people pushed into extreme poverty. The human and economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic is almost unimaginable – a once-in-a-century catastrophe.

New Report Calls for Improved Eating Habits in a World of Extremes

By Ignatius Banda
With the two extremes of global hunger and obesity on the increase, a new report suggests a radical reset for food and nutrition to ensure the long-term sustainability of livelihoods and the environment.

Barilla Foundation Brings Health and Climate Together in New Double Pyramid

By Alison Kentish
Following an extensive scientific review, the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Foundation (BCFN) is preparing to launch a new food systems model which incorporates nutrition and climate.

Overcoming COVID-19: World Leaders Must Finance a More Equal World to Beat Pandemics

By Winnie Byanyima
Leaders at this year’s World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings (April 5-11) will determine how best to recover from one of the biggest crises the institutions have faced since their founding in 1944—COVID-19’s impact and its economic aftermath.

Helping Youth Agribusiness Keep Pace with Fast Growing Africa

By Nteranya Sanginga, Aline Mugisho and Seyi Makinde
From small towns to big cities, sub-Saharan Africa has the fastest urban growth rate in the world. The continent’s population is expected to double by 2050 with the youth representing 60% of the overall population. The UN Department of Global Communication, for example, projects that for the next 15 years urban growth is set to double for several African cities: Dar es Salaam will reach over 13 million inhabitants and Kampala will exceed seven million.

A Post-COVID-19 Recovery will not be Possible if Water, Sanitation & Hygiene are not High on the Agenda

By Helen Hamilton
This World Health Day, G20 finance ministers will meet in Rome, Italy, to discuss how they will build back from the pandemic. The global economy is and concerted effort, coordination and imagination is needed to enable not only a worldwide recovery but also to ensure that the world’s poorest people are not left behind.

On World Health Day, a Call for Equity, Justice & the End of Paternalism

By Joyce Banda and Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins*
The past year has forced many of us to address difficult truths about how we treat and take care of each other — among them is a reckoning with racism and injustice.

Women and Girls to the Front

By Siddharth Chatterjee and Ali Obaid Al Dhaheri
Women hold up half the sky. Some years ago, Sarah al-Amiri, a young Emirati engineer, had a fixed gaze beyond the sky and towards our galaxy. “Space was a sector that we never dared to dream growing up,” she noted.

Getting to Better than Normal in a Post-COVID-19 World

By Cecilia Russell
Girls in Asia don't want to go back to normal – they want to go "back to better than normal", says Zara Rapoport, a delegate during an online seminar on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gender.

IMF, World Bank Must Support Developing Countries’ Recovery

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to take an unprecedented human and economic toll, wiping away years of modest and uneven progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Developing countries now need much more support as progress towards the SDGs was ‘not on track’ even before the pandemic.

Three Ways the US Can Promote Equity in Ending the COVID-19 Pandemic Globally

By Ifeanyi Nsofor
As richer western nations continue hoarding COVID-19 vaccines to the detriment of poorer nations, there is some light on the horizon. On April 15, 2021, the U.S. will join the Global Vaccine Alliance (GAVI) and co-host the launch of the Investment Opportunity for COVAX Advance Market Commitment.

Pandemic Accentuates Need for Caribbean Countries to Improve Food and Nutrition Security

By Kate Chappell
Last year, Jaxine Scott was off work as a caregiver at a primary school as a result of the pandemic. One day, she noticed a green shoot emerging from some garlic in her fridge. She decided to plant it, and to her surprise, it thrived. “I thought ‘It looks like I have a green thumb, let me plant something else,’” Scott says. She now has a backyard garden, including cucumber, pumpkin, melon, callaloo, cantaloupe, pak choy and tomatoes. “It makes me feel good,” she says. “I can help my family members and neighbours. It has saved me money. I’m not going to stop, I’m going to continue,” she says.

UN Leadership Necessary for Fairer Tax Cooperation

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Illicit financial flows (IFFs) hurt all countries, both developed and developing. But poor countries suffer relatively more, accounting for nearly half the loss of world tax revenue. IFFs refer to cross-border movements of money and other financial assets obtained illegally at source, e.g., by corruption, smuggling, tax evasion, etc. This often involves trade mis-invoicing and transnational corporations’ (TNCs) transfer pricing via ‘creative’ accounting or book-keeping.

World Autism Awareness Day – 2 April 2021

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a complex condition that remains misunderstood. The effects of ASD and the severity of symptoms vary so much between individuals.

Fitness, Fundraising and Friendship for Prostate Cancer

By Syed Neaz Ahmad FRSA
Over the Pandemic months, most activities - social, cultural, economic & philanthropic have been hit hard. The worst-hit has been patients suffering from serious diseases. Most have shied away from visiting their doctors and referral fell by 52,000 due to Covid-19. However, as they say, life goes on, and in this case, death goes on too.

Covid19 a Wake-up Call to Address Development Fault Lines in Asia and the Pacific

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
The world is emerging from the biggest social and economic shock in living memory, but it will be a long time before the deep scars of the COVID-19 pandemic on human well-being fully heal. In the Asia-Pacific region, where 60 per cent of the world lives, the pandemic revealed chronic development fault lines through its excessively harmful impact on the most vulnerable. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) estimates that 89 million more people in the region have been pushed back into extreme poverty at the $1.90 per day threshold, erasing years of development gains. The economic and educational shutdowns are likely to have severely harmed human capital formation and productivity, exacerbating poverty and inequality.

Identities

By Jan Lundius
 
I was born in the winter in 1990 in a country not my own i was born with my father’s eyes maybe i stole them he doesn’t look like that anymore i was born in seven countries i was born carved up by borders i was born with a graveyard of languages for teeth i was born to be a darkness in an american boy´s bed ...
Safia Elhillo

IMF, World Bank Must Urgently Help Finance Developing Countries

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
COVID-19 has set back the uneven progress of recent decades, directly causing more than two million deaths. The slowdown, due to the pandemic and policy responses, has pushed hundreds of millions more into poverty, hunger and worse, also deepening many inequalities.

Arab Region Counts Cost of Devastating COVID-19 Pandemic

By Cecilia Russell
More than eight million people moved onto the poverty line in the Arab region, a conference of Arab and Asian parliamentarians heard. The hybrid conference, held simultaneously in Beirut, Lebanon, and via video conferencing to delegates in Asia and the Arab region, was a follow up on earlier discussions on the regions' ICPD25 Commitments.

Maquila Female Workers in Their Own Words: Fighting COVID and Labor Abuse

By Saul Escobar Toledo
A compilation of testimonies collected by Blanca Velázquez Díaz and published by the Ebert Foundation (available at: http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/mexiko/17328.pdf) offers an account of the harsh reality by which some workers of the maquila industry in the Mexican state of Morelos have gone through over these last twelve months. Their words reflect, undoubtedly, similar experiences of millions of workers in different parts of the country.

„We will overcome it“: Experiences of the impact of COVID-19 in Suva, Fiji

This short video explores the experiences of COVID-19 in Fiji's capital, Suva, by University students. The participants reflect on the impact of the virus in the Pacific nation, where themes such as the emotional implications of COVID as well as its effects on the economy, food security, resilience and more are discussed.
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