Health

Finance Covid-19 Relief and Recovery, Not Debt Buybacks

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
In July, the UN Secretary-General warned that a “series of countries in insolvency might trigger a global depression”. Earlier, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had called for a US$2.5 trillion coronavirus crisis package for developing countries.

Reaching Remote Women Through Inclusive Technology

By Fairuz Ahmed
The coronavirus pandemic has impacted the way people value working from home, career building, and their overall approach to utilising downtime. It has blurred out the lines between hobby, casual reading, and how time is spent away from work.

Q&A: Why are Stillbirths still Societal Taboo?

By Samira Sadeque
Societal taboo and a lack of understanding about stillbirth  can cause the issue to be neglected among health practitioners, according to Dr. Danzhen You, a senior adviser on Data and Analytics at the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

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.

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.]

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.

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.

What Developing Countries Can Teach Us About How To Respond To a Pandemic

Nine months into the pandemic, Europe remains one of the regions worst affected by COVID-19. Ten of the 20 countries with the highest death count per million people are European. The other ten are in the Americas. This includes the US, which has the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths in the world.

Is the IMF Encouraging World Financial Leaders to Walk Blindly Towards More Austerity?

By Isabel Ortiz and Richard Jolly
This week the world’s Ministers of Finance and Central Bank Governors meet virtually at the 2020 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and decide on the fate of the world. This year’s gathering is particularly important, given that the world is confronting an unprecedented crisis. Governments are struggling to finance emergency care and urgent socioeconomic support to cope with the COVID19 pandemic.

High Tech, Low Labour?

By KJ Ong
In the glitzy Dolby Theater in Hollywood Heights, with stars dressed in hundred thousand-dollar garbs, Parasite—a film about inequality, class tension and the fault lines of capitalism—won big. I couldn’t help but recall South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s earlier 2013 film, Snowpiercer.

Disregarding Rights of Persons with Disabilities

By Shudarson Subedi and Simone Galimberti
The lack of consistency and a patchy approach undermines the Government of Nepal’s credibility in fulfilling the rights of persons with disabilities. One step forward and several steps back.

Train Faith Leaders to Tackle Africa’s Mental Health Needs

By Chiwoza Bandawe
The world is actually in the throes of two pandemics. The first is COVID-19. The second is the wave of stress and anxiety, depression and substance use it has unleashed around the world. Most mental health disorders are treatable.

The Urban Poor are Fighting Back Against COVID-19

By Mbaye Mbeguere
For those who live in slums and informal settlements, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront their greatest vulnerabilities. But they are fighting back; organising, and coming up with creative ways to protect their communities.

COVID’s Impact in Real Time: Finding Balance Amid the Crisis

By Francesco Grigoli and Damiano Sandri
One enduring lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic is that any lasting economic recovery will depend on resolving the health crisis.

Gendering Agriculture so Women Take the Lead in Feeding Africa

By Rhoda Tumusiime and Steven Cole
Africa’s hopes of feeding a population projected to double by 2050 amidst a worsening climate crisis rest on huge investments in agriculture, including creating the conditions so that women can empower themselves and lead efforts to transform the continent’s farming landscape.

COVID-19: Examining Theories for Africa’s Low Death Rates

As the threat of a COVID-19 pandemic emerged earlier this year, many felt a sense of apprehension about what would happen when it reached Africa. Concerns over the combination of overstretched and underfunded health systems and the existing load of infectious and non-infectious diseases often led to it being talked about in apocalyptic terms.

Scaling Up SDG4 in Crises

By Yasmine Sherif
Out of global crises spring opportunities for change. In crisis, change is not an option. It is a necessity. And, as Plato famously noted: “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Education Cannot Wait (ECW) is an invention that sprang out of crisis and was borne of necessity.

Does COVID-19 Imply an End to the Epoch of Science?

By Daud Khan and Leila Yasmine Khan
Around the 16th century there was a radical shift in the way humans perceived nature.  New thinking in physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics heralded a deeper understanding of the world around us.  Between the 17th and 18th century this new thinking had resulted in spate of technological inventions such as the steam engine, railways, electricity and the telephone.

With Armed Groups on the Rise, Youth Engagement is More Important than Ever

By Siobhan O’Neil and Kato Van Broeckhoven
As governments worldwide struggle to contain COVID-19, recent reports suggesting armed groups like Islamic State are resurging offer a sobering account of the many challenges that the global community now faces.

Forging Resilient Regional Supply Chains and Connectivity

By Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
Participation in global and regional supply chains has been one of the most reliable economic growth strategies, especially for developing countries in Asia and the Pacific. Smooth and efficient connectivity in both trade and transport has been indispensable to the region’s pursuit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
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