Population

Solar Energy Transforms Villages in Argentina’s Puna Highlands

By Daniel Gutman
"On moonless nights it was very difficult to walk around this town," says Celia Vilte, a teacher from San Francisco, a highlands village of just 54 people in the extreme northwest of Argentina whose centre is not a town square but 40 solar panels, which provide one hundred percent of its electricity.

Private Finance and Agenda 2030: Way Off-Track

By Manuel F. Montes
Four years ago, UN member states proclaimed their ambitions for development in a document named “Transforming Our World”, also known as Agenda 2030. Today, according to several assessments including of the UN’s inter-agency task force on financing for development (FfD) transformation has fallen off-track. It has received too little money, political commitment and action to change the workings of the global economy. Agenda 2030 spells out the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needed to ‘transform our world’.

Agro-tech Offers Answers for African Farmers at Iowa Meet

By James Reinl
Experts vaunted new strains of seeds, drone aircraft and other technological breakthroughs as solutions-in-the-making for farmers in Africa, where hunger, drought and food price hikes are continent-wide problems.

Huge moment for Ethiopia as Abiy Ahmed wins Nobel Peace prize

By James Jeffrey
Ethiopia found itself in the global spotlight for all the right reasons after Abiy Ahmed, its young, dynamic prime minister was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

For Some in Kashmir Marriage Equates to Sexual Slavery

By Umar Manzoor Shah
Haseena Akhtar was only 13 when an agent told her parents that they could earn a good amount of money by letting her marry a Kashmiri man. The man was, however, three times older than Akhtar, the agent said.

Abortion Remains an Unresolved Issue: ICPD25 Meeting next Month

By Osamu Kusumoto
Currently, the topic of abortion as human rights leaves the world bustling. When the state of Alabama1 in the United States enacted a very strict ban on abortion, it shocked the world. This prompted so-called conservative movements, led by female business owners, to make a full-scale advertisement in the New York Times claiming abortion is a human right2 ; hence the global debate between pro-life and pro-choice.

The Most Important Meeting You’ve Never Heard Of — & the Grand Challenge on Inequality

By Ben Phillips
Last month 195 world leaders once again met in New York for big speeches and grand events. But on inequality, when all is said and done, more has been said than done.

Global Climate Change Investment Heavily Tilted Towards Mitigation and Low on Adaptation

By Stella Paul
Good news: the graph depicting climate investments has been steadily increasing. Climbing from the 2012 figure of $360 billion in climate investments across the world to close to $600 billion currently.

Hollywood and Business Luminaries Spotlight World’s ‘Stateless’ Woes

By James Reinl
Movie star Cate Blanchett and businessman Richard Branson spoke up this week for the millions of people around the world who cannot get passports and other papers because they lack an official nationality.

Afghan War Deadly for Children Despite Peace Process: UN

By James Reinl
The United Nations has warned that the past four years were among the deadliest for children in Afghanistan since the United States-led invasion of 2001, with nearly 13,000 youngsters killed and injured in that period.

Can We Feed the World and Ensure No One Goes Hungry?

Enough food is produced today to feed everyone on the planet, but hunger is on the rise in some parts of the world, and some 821 million people are considered to be “chronically undernourished”. What steps are being taken to ensure that everyone, worldwide, receives sufficient food?

Human Trafficking – It Came Disguised as the Opportunity of a Lifetime

By Miriam Gathigah
Six years ago Mary Njambi* received news of a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity far away from her poverty-stricken village situated in the heart of Kiambu County, Central Kenya. She was 20 years old, a single mother and out of work.

Salvaging the SDGs: New Thinking to Spur Action Takes Shape

By Barbara Crossette
For the first time since a new development agenda was adopted in 2015 to make the world a better place for everyone, government leaders assembled at the United Nations in late September to take stock of progress. The verdict of this summit was not good.

No to Ageism, Yes to Intergenerational Equality

By Srinivas Tata and Eduardo Klien
As we are celebrating the International Day of Older Persons today, we recognize that population ageing is a human success story, a story of longer and often healthier lives of the world’s people. The many faces of older persons that we see in Asia and in the Pacific, and, indeed, all over the world, attest to this fact. Still, however, ageing is considered a threat. There is talk about the “burden of ageing”, exploding healthcare costs, and concerns about plummeting economic growth due to the shrinking labour force. In many cities of Asia-Pacific, we see advertisement for “anti-ageing cosmetics” and surgeries. The current ideal is that we must be young, dynamic and without wrinkles or grey hair, especially older women.

10,000 People a Day Must be Freed to End Slavery by 2030

"Six years after initiating my term as Special Rapporteur, it is sobering to say that the way to freedom from slavery remains long in spite of the legal abolition of slavery worldwide," said UN expert on contemporary forms of slavery, Urmila Bhoola.

Climate Emergency: A Humanitarian Call to Action


By Avril Benoit
We saw this coming. As humanitarians, our risk assessments in different parts of the world have always factored in the potential for extreme weather events and the spread of vector-borne diseases, of drought, desertification, and mass displacement. Emergency first responders like us work up scenarios for interventions and gain experience each time we put our planning to the test in real crises.

‘I Want my Kids to Know What a Rhino and Turtle Are’ – #ClimateStrike Kids Say

By Crystal Orderson
From Nigeria, to Kenya to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to South Africa, thousands of African climate campaigners have taken to the streets joining millions around the world for the global Climate Strike ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit 2019, which starts in New York next week.

As Climate Crisis Worsens & Poverty Rises, UN Appears Off-Track on Development Agenda

By Thalif Deen
The two key goals in the UN’s development agenda are the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2030. But most of the world’s developing nations, currently fighting a losing battle against rising poverty and hunger –and suffering from the devastating impact of climate change-- are likely to miss the deadline for most of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to the latest report by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

How a Bangladesh Non Profit for Leprosy Made its Members Completely Self-Sufficient

By Stella Paul
The 20th International Leprosy Congress just wrapped up in Manila, Philippines last week. Alongside policy makers, diplomats, medical researchers, doctors, donors and academics, several Hansen's disease-affected people’s organisations also participated in the 3-day congress that was co-sponsored by The Nippon Foundation (TNF) and Sasakawa Health Foundation (SHF).

Asian & Arab Parliamentarians to Move Forward on Reproductive Health & Gender Empowerment

By Razeena Raheem
Over the years, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has worked in tandem with legislators and parliamentarians to help implement the historic Programme of Action (PoA) adopted unanimously by over 20,000 UN delegates at a landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo back in 1994.

AfDB ‘s Solar Project Aims at Making Africa a Renewable Power House

By Razeena Raheem
When UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres launched the International Solar Alliance last October, he applauded the goal of mobilizing about $1 trillion dollars towards the deployment of some 1,000 gigawatts of solar energy by 2030.
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