Take Charge of Your Food: Your Health is Your Business

The minimum we expect from the government is to differentiate between right and wrong. But when it comes to regulating our food, it’s like asking for too much. Our latest investigation vouches for this. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE)’s pollution monitoring laboratory tested 65 samples of processed food for presence of genetically modified (GM) ingredients.

How Ghana’s Rapid Population Growth Could Become an Emergency and Outpace Both Food Production and Economic Growth

Paul Ayormah and his fellow farmers make their way home after hours spent manually weeding a friend’s one-acre maize farm in Ghana’s Eastern Region.“Tomorrow it will be the turn of my maize farm,” he tells IPS.

A Detained Migrant, Nurse and Humanitarian: IOM Staff takes Inspiration from a Migrant he meets in Libyan Detention Centre

It has been two years since I started working with IOM and I would not even call it ‘work’. These have been two of the best years of my life – building great experiences and relationships with colleagues and migrants from many different cultures and backgrounds.

Music: Nigeria’s New Cultural Export

It is a cold evening in Antwerp, Belgium’s second-largest city, famous for diamonds, beer, art and high-end fashion. Inside a small restaurant, a mix of the latest American pop and rap—clearly enjoyed by diners—is playing on a radio. Nigerians Olalekan Adetiran and Adaobi Okereke, enjoying a kebab dinner, are startled when the radio begins playing the unmistakable “Ma Lo”—a catchy, midtempo and bass-laden song by popular Nigerian artistes Tiwa Savage and Wizkid.

Joint Action Needed to Reform our Food System

While participating in this year’s High-level Political Forum (HLPF), one thing became crystal clear to me. Come 2030, we will not have healthy and affordable food if we continue with business as usual. But no one institution can single handedly change the course of our food system. The key to ensuring a sustainable food system is involving a diverse group of actors – from smallholder farmers to government – to generate ideas for change, together.

Stopping Ebola in its Tracks with Point of Entry Screening

The mighty Congo River both connects Kinshasa with Equateur Province where an Ebola epidemic began in May 2018 and separates the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from Congo-Brazzaville, hidden in the haze on the other bank.

Palestinian Children, the True Victims of the Conflict

Over 500 to 700 West Bank children were arrested and prosecuted each year by Israeli military forces. And Palestinian child rights organisation, Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), says that between 2012 and 2017 the organisation represented more than 700 children, some 72 percent of whom endured violence after their arrest.

Mediterranean Migrant Arrivals Reach 61,517 in 2018; Deaths Reach 1,524

IOM, the UN Migration Agency, reports that 61,517 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2018 through 12 August. This compares with 118,436 arrivals across the region through the same period last year, and 265,640 in 2016.

Demonizing State-Owned Enterprises

Historically, the private sector has been unable or unwilling to affordably provide needed services. Hence, meeting such needs could not be left to the market or private interests. Thus, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) emerged, often under colonial rule, due to such ‘market failure’ as the private sector could not meet the needs of colonial capitalist expansion.

Let Food Be Thy Medicine

When faced with a crisis, our natural reaction is to deal with its immediate threats. Ateka* came to the make-shift clinic with profuse diarrhoea: they diagnosed cholera. The urgent concern in the midst of that humanitarian crisis was to treat the infection and send her home as quickly as possible. But she came back to the treatment centre a few days later – not for cholera, but because she was suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Doctors had saved her life but not restored her health. And there were others too, who like Ateka eventually succumbed to severe malnutrition.  

When Salt Water Intrusion is Not Just a Threat But a Reality for Guyanese Farmers

Mikesh Ram would watch his rice crops begin to rot during the dry season in Guyana, because salt water from the nearby Atlantic Ocean was displacing freshwater from the Mahaica River he and other farmers used to flood their rice paddies.

Scientists Warn of the Imminent Depletion of Groundwater in Chile’s Atacama Desert

Eighteen national science prize-winners in Chile have called for a halt to the over-extraction of water in the four regions over which the Atacama Desert spreads in the north of the country, a problem that threatens the future of 1.5 million people.

Which Way Now for Zimbabwe as Constitutional Court Receives Petition Against Election Results?

Many in Zimbabwe are questioning whether the country can break with its horrid past or embrace a new future after a watershed election that saw Emmerson Mnangagwa win the presidential race by a narrow margin and the opposition lodge a formal petition challenging the results in the Constitutional Court.

Children and Women with Disabilities, More Likely to Face Discrimination

Children with disabilities are up to four times more likely to experience violence, with girls being the most at risk, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

Campaigns Promote Women’s Participation in Latin America

An alternative network in Brazil promotes women's participation in elected offices with media support. This campaign, like others in Latin America, seeks to reverse a political landscape where, despite being a majority of the population, women hold an average of just 29.8 percent of legislative posts.

IOM Voluntary Humanitarian Returns Continue in Libya as Number of Detained Migrants Soars

Between January and July 2018, IOM, the UN Migration Agency, safely returned 10,950 stranded migrants from Libya through its Voluntary Humanitarian Return (VHR) Programme as the number of detainees in the country rose alarmingly. The majority of the migrants, 9,636, returned home to countries in Central and West Africa on IOM charter flights. A group of 325 people returned to East Africa and the Horn of Africa, and the remainder to North Africa and Asia.

How the Lack of Affordable Vegetables is Creating a Billion-Dollar Obesity Epidemic in South Africa

Every Sunday afternoon, Thembi Majola* cooks a meal of chicken and rice for her mother and herself in their home in Alexandra, an informal settlement adjacent to South Africa’s wealthy economic hub, Sandton.

2017 Global Findex: Behind the Numbers on Bangladesh

On the face of it, the 2017 Global Findex shows that Bangladesh has made great strides toward financial inclusion since the previous Findex was released in 2014.

Undertaking One of the Largest Solar Water Initiatives in Yemen

Yemen has one of the lowest supplies of freshwater per capita in the world. The effects of a growing population and limited water resources have been exacerbated a great deal by climate change and the escalating conflict.

New Agreement with China: Opportunity to Save Mozambique’s Forests

Mozambique’s forests are disappearing at an alarming rate, with most of the destruction caused by excessive logging, corruption and weak laws.