Development & Aid

IFAD’s President Houngbo Calls for Investment in Climate-Smart Agriculture for Poverty-Free Future

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Implementing climate-smart agriculture is critical to reduce hunger and poverty, according to International Fund for Agricultural Development’s (IFAD) new president Gilbert Houngbo.

Men Who Commit Femicide Lose Rights Over Their Children in Argentina

By Daniel Gutman
In January 2008, Rosana Galliano was shot to death in Exaltación de la Cruz, a rural municipality 80 km from Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. Her ex-husband, José Arce, who was sentenced to life in prison, had hired hitmen to kill her.

Drought Pushes 1 in 3 Somalis to a Hunger Knife-Edge

By Baher Kamal
Another famine in former European colonies in Africa and another time in its Eastern region, with Ethiopia and Somalia among the major victims of drought and made-made climate disasters mainly caused by US and European multinational business.

Migrant Workers Pour Trillions into World Economy

By Roshni Majumdar
A new report by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) says the flow of money from migrants—commonly located in developed countries—to their families in lower income countries has doubled over the last decade.

The High Price of Desertification: 23 Hectares of Land a Minute

By Busani Bafana
Urban farmer Margaret Gauti Mpofu would do anything to protect the productivity of her land. Healthy soil means she is assured of harvest and enough food and income to look after her family.

Global Coalition Calls for Withdrawal of SDGs Progress Report

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
A report on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) fails to capture the the true picture of water challenges and the UN must withdraw it, said a global civil society coalition.

World Day to Combat Desertification

By IPS World Desk
Today’s world is facing an unprecedented level of human mobility and migration is high on the political agenda all over the world.

East Asian Miracle Myth Making

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Even before the term ‘Washington Consensus’ (WC) was popularized, it was already coming under great criticism despite the ‘counter-revolutions’ against ‘development economics’ and Keynesian economics associated with Thatcherism and Reaganomics. At the World Bank, the Japanese Executive Director argued that the WC menu of policy advice and conditionalities had resulted in the 1980s’ ‘lost decade’ in Latin America and Africa. In contrast, the East Asian region had seen rapid growth and industrialization.

Our Land. Our Home. Our Future

By Monique Barbut
We all have dreams. For most of us, those dreams are often quite simple. They are common to individuals and communities all around the world. People just want a place to settle down and to plan for a future where their families don’t just survive but thrive.  For far too many people in far too many places, such simple dreams are disappearing into thin air.  

Digitization Can Improve Financial Inclusion for Smallholder Farmers

By Mike Warmington
Mathew Khaemba, a smallholder farmer in western Kenya, remembers a time when his children were failing in school because they were too hungry to concentrate on their lessons.

New Alert: Refugee Numbers Outpace Resettlement Spots

By IPS World Desk
Against the backdrop of increasing refugee numbers around the globe, fuelled by crisis and insecurity, and an ever-widening gap in places to resettle them, the top United Nations official dealing with refugee issues has called on governments to “step up” and deliver places for refugees in line with the commitments they have made.

Mideast: Drought to Turn People into Eternal Migrants, Prey to Extremism?

By Baher Kamal
Worldwide, land degradation, severe droughts and advancing desertification are set to force populations to flee their homes and migrate. In the specific case of the Middle East and North of Africa (MENA), such an obliged choice implies the additional risk to turn peoples into easy prey to extremist, terrorist groups.

Genetic Engineering Lobbyist’s Trumpian Methods

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
To her credit, Dr Mahaletchumy has pioneered and promoted science journalism in Malaysia. This is indeed commendable in the face of the recent resurgence of obscurantism of various types, both traditional and modern.

Child Labor in the Arab Region Does Not Belong to the 21st Century

By Dr. Hanif Hassan Al Qassim
Today marks the 2017 World Day against Child Labor to reaffirm the goal to eliminate all forms of child labor. This year’s annual theme highlights a subject that is often neglected, namely the importance of addressing child labor in conflict areas and in disaster settings.

Overfed and Underfed: Global Food Extremes

By Joseph Chamie
Global food extremes of chronic undernourishment and obesity have brought about a bipolar world of hundreds of millions of underfed and overfed people. Of the world’s population of 7.5 billion the proportions suffering from chronic undernourishment and those afflicted by obesity are similar, approximately 11 percent or together about 1.6 billion people. However, as with most global averages, the levels of both chronic undernourishment and obesity vary enormously among regions and across and within countries.

Heavy Toll of Disrupted Farming, Higher Prices and Displaced Livelihoods

By IPS World Desk
Large agricultural harvests in some regions of the world are buoying global food supply conditions, but protracted fighting and unrest are increasing the ranks of the displaced and hungry elsewhere, according to a United Nations new report.

This Is the Nation of 170 Million Enslaved Children

By IPS World Desk
Globally over 1.5 billion people live in countries that are affected by conflict, violence and fragility. Meantime, around 200 million people are affected by disasters every year—a third of them are children. And a significant proportion of the 168 million children engaged in child labour live in areas affected by conflict and disaster. These are the facts. Up to you to reflect on the immediate future of humankind.

When Women Have Land Rights, the Tide Begins to Turn

By Manipadma Jena
In Meghalaya, India’s northeastern biodiversity hotspot, all three major tribes are matrilineal. Children take the mother’s family name, while daughters inherit the family lands.

Inside UAE’s Quest to Reducing Food Waste

By Rabiya Shabeeh
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is working on taking strides forward on climate change mitigation that are reflected by the establishment of the federal ministry of climate change, it's commitment to develop a national climate change plan, and its ratification to the Paris Agreement in 2015, which pledged not to just keep warming 'well below 2C', but also to 'pursue efforts' to limit warming to 1.5C by 2018.

More Plastic than Fish or How Politicians Help Ocean Destruction

By Baher Kamal
World’s oceans are dangerously exposed to at least three major threats: climate change; the sharp degradation of marine biodiversity, and politicians. These simply encourage the destruction of oceans by subsidising over-fishing and turning a blind eye on illegal captures. See what happens.

The “Shocking” Reality of Child Marriage in the U.S.

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
While stories of child marriage are commonly associated with the Global South, lesser known are the cases closer to home: in the United States.
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