Population

Parliamentarians Study Nexus of Youth, Refugees and Development

By Safa Khasawneh
Held for the first time in the Arab world, an annual meeting of Asian and Arab Parliamentarians examined how regional conflicts hinder the development of effective policies to achieve sustainable development, particularly as they generate large numbers of refugees, internally displaced persons and migrants.

Promoting Sustainable Population Growth, Key to Raising Human Rights Standards

By Dr. Hanif Hassan Al Qassim
The world population has witnessed a remarkable growth during the recent decades. In 1965, it stood at 3.3 billion people. In 2017 –52 years later-- the global population reached a staggering 7.5 billion people corresponding to more than a doubling of the Earth’s residents over the last half-century.

Mideast: Water Use Innovations ‘Crucial’ to Face Climate Change

By IPS World Desk
In the Near East and North Africa region, the per capita renewable water availability is around 600 cubic metres per person per year --only 10 per cent of the world average- and drops to just 100 cubic metres in some countries, the United Nations warned.

Is Religion the New Colonial Frontier in International Development?

By Azza Karam
A decade ago, it was difficult to get Western policy makers in governments to be interested in the role of religious organizations in human development. The secular mind-set was such that religion was perceived, at best, as a private affair. At worst, religion was deemed the cause of harmful social practices, an obstacle to the “sacred” nature of universal human rights, and/or the root cause of terrorism. In short, religion belonged in the ‘basket of deplorables’.

Top 300 Cooperatives Generate 2.5 Trillion Dollars in Annual Turnover

By IPS World Desk
The top 300 cooperatives alone generate 2.5 trillion dollars in annual turnover, more than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of France, according to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA).

Rural Poverty? Cooperatives!

By Johan Galtung
Humanity has had and has big projects. Mastery of nature is one, still going on. Middle range phenomena have been mastered, but not the micro level of viri–HIV is a current case–nor the macro level of climate–to the contrary, humanity is making it worse.

Global Devaluation of Work Drives Up Unemployment in Brazil

By Mario Osava
In addition to driving up the number of unemployed people to 14.2 million, the severe recession of the last two years led Brazil to join the global trend of flexibilisation of labour laws in order to further reduce labour costs.

“Black Soils” – Excessive Use of Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, Mercury…

By IPS World Desk
Soils are polluted due mostly to human activities that leave excess chemicals in soils used to grow food, the United Nations reports.

No Wall for Ethiopia, Rather an Open Door—Even for Its Enemy

By James Jeffrey
It’s one thing to read about the exodus of souls flowing out of Eritrea, it’s quite another to look into the tired eyes, surrounded by dust and grime, of a 14-year-old Eritrean girl who’s just arrived on the Ethiopian side of the shared border.

Asia-Pacific: Farming Rice and Fish Together to Reduce Poverty

By IPS World Desk
Rice is a major food commodity and staple food for many, and adding fish to flooded rice paddies has been a farming tradition practiced in a number of Asian countries for many centuries—even for more than 1000 years in some Chinese areas, the United Nations reports.

BRICS to Lead World’s Efforts to Eradicate Hunger, Poverty by 2030

By IPS World Desk
With the clock ticking toward the 2030 deadline for meeting the international goals to eradicate hunger and poverty, five of the world's most important emerging economies are well positioned to take a leading role in helping to achieve these objectives, according to the United Nations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Solar Tents Improve Nutrition in Highlands Villages in Bolivia

By Franz Chávez
In this remote highlands valley community in central Bolivia, a group of Quechua indigenous women have learned how to combat the intense frosts and the shortage of water in solar tents, and to use what they grow to prepare nutritious new meals for their families.

Latin America Lacks Clear Policies to Tackle Human Trafficking

By Daniela Pastrana
Each year, some three million undocumented immigrants enter the United States, half of them with the help of traffickers, as part of a nearly seven-billion- dollar business, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Large Landowners Jeopardise Indigenous Revival in Brazil

By Mario Osava
The attack with guns and machetes that left at least 10 Gamela indigenous people wounded, in the northeastern state of Maranhão, highlighted the growing threats against the resurgence and survival of native people in Brazil.

How to Produce More Food with Less Damage to Soil, Water, Forests

By IPS World Desk
Massive agriculture intensification is contributing to increased deforestation, water scarcity, soil depletion and the level of greenhouse gas emission, the United Nations warns.

Business Unusual: Valuing Water for a Sustainable Future

By Paula Fray
Valuing water is more than simply assigning costs to a scare resource - it is an essential step for transforming water governance to meet the needs of a prosperous future.

The ‘Water-Employment-Migration’ Explosive Nexus

By Baher Kamal
Water--everybody talks about it, warns against its growing scarcity, excessive waste, the impact of climate change, the frequent severe droughts and so on. Now, a global action network with over 3,000 partner organisations in 183 countries comes to unveil the dangerous nexus between water, employment and migration, in particular in the Mediterranean region.
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