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Saturday, April 20, 2024
News and Views from the Global South
Inequality
Jamaican Gov’t Sees IMF Successes but No Benefits for the Poor
For Jamaicans like Roxan Brown, the Caribbean nation's International Monetary Fund (IMF) successes don’t mean a thing. Seven consecutive tests have been passed but still, the mother of two can’t find work and relies instead on the kindness of friends and family.Corporate Tax Dodging Cheats Africa Out of 6 Billion Dollars, Says Oxfam
G7-based companies and investors cheated Africa out of an estimated six billion dollars in a year through just one form of tax dodging, according to a new Oxfam report ‘Money talks: Africa at the G7’, released Jun. 2.
Australia’s ‘Stolen Generations’ Not a Closed Chapter
Every year since 1998, Australia has marked ‘National Sorry Day’ on May 26, a day to remember the tens of thousands of indigenous children who, between the 1890s and 1970s, were forcibly removed from their communities by government authorities and placed into the care of white families or institutions to be assimilated into settler society.
Latin America’s Relative Success in Fighting Hunger
The Latin American and Caribbean region is the first in the world to reach the two global targets for reducing hunger. Nevertheless, more than 34 million people still go hungry.
The U.N. at 70: Drugs and Crime are Challenges for Sustainable Development
With terrorism, migrant smuggling and trafficking in cultural property some of the world's most daunting challenges, "the magnitude of the problems we face is such that it is sometimes hard to imagine how any effort can be enough to confront them. But to quote Nelson Mandela, 'It always seems impossible until it is done'. We must keep working together, until it is done."
Opinion: Finance Like a Cancer Grows
It is astonishing that every week we see action being taken in various part of the world against the financial sector, without any noticeable reaction of public opinion.
Slum-Dwelling Still a Continental Trend in Africa
Nompumelelo Tshabalala, 41, emerges from her dwarf ‘shack’ made up of rusty metal sheets and falls short of bumping into this reporter as she bends down to avoid knocking her head against the top part of her makeshift door frame.
Latin America Must Address Its Caregiving Crisis
As in the rest of the world, the care of children, the elderly and the disabled in Latin America has traditionally fallen to women, who add it to their numerous domestic and workplace tasks. A debate is now emerging in the region on the public policies that governments should adopt to give them a hand, while also helping their countries grow.
Opinion: Clean Energy Access, a Major Sustainable Development Goal
The Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) Forum will take place May 18-21 in New York. Success in achieving sustainable development and tackling climate change challenges requires investment in clean energy solutions.
Police Killings Challenge U.S. “Exceptionalism”
Since being roundly chastised last fall by the U.N. Committee Against Torture for excessive use of force by its law enforcement agencies, the United States hasn't exactly managed to repair its international reputation.
Sri Lanka’s Development Goals Fall Short on Gender Equality
When Rosy Senanayake, Sri Lanka’s minister of state for child affairs, addressed the U.N. Commission on Population and Development (CPD) in New York last month, she articulated both the successes and shortcomings of gender equality in a country which prided itself electing the world’s first female head of government: Mrs. Sirimavo Bandaranaike in July 1960.
Urban Slums a Death Trap for Poor Children
It’s called the urban survival gap – fuelled by the growing inequality between rich and poor in both developing and developed countries – and it literally determines whether millions of infants will live or die before their fifth birthday.
Draconian Ban on Abortion in El Salvador Targeted by Global Campaign
International and local human rights groups are carrying out an intense global campaign to get El Salvador to modify its draconian law that criminalises abortion and provides for prison terms for women.
In Nicaragua Marriage Is Only for ‘Him’ and ‘Her’
A new Family Code that went into effect in Nicaragua this month represents an overall improvement in terms of the rights of Nicaraguans. However, it has one major gap: it fails to recognise same-sex marriage, and as a result it closes the doors to adoption by gay couples.
Opinion: Progress of the World’s Women 2015-2016: Transforming Economies, Realising Rights
Our world is out of balance. It is both wealthier and more unequal today than at any time since the Second World War.
New Anti-Terrorism Law Batters Cameroonians Seeking Secession
Cameroon’s government under President Paul Biya is bearing down on a separatist movement fighting for the rights of a minority English-language region, using as its weapon a sweeping new anti-terrorism law introduced at the end of last year.Swelling Ethiopian Migration Casts Doubt on its Economic Miracle
The 28 Ethiopian migrants of Christian faith murdered by the Islamic State (IS) on Apr. 19 in Libya had planned to cross the Mediterranean Sea in search of work in Europe.
Opinion: The World Has Reached Peak Plutocracy
Parents in despair because they can’t pay the fees at the privatised neighbourhood school…
Water Politics Polarised in Mexico
Laura Romero has piped water in her home for only a few hours a day, and at least once a week she is cut off completely. Like the rest of the residents in her neighbourhood in the north of the Mexican capital, she has to store water in containers like drums or jerrycans.
Economic Slowdown Threatens Progress Towards Equality in Latin America
Predictions of a sharp slowdown in Latin America’s economic growth this year make it even more necessary for the region’s leaders to make commitments to boost prosperity with equality during the Seventh Summit of the Americas, currently taking place in the Panamanian capital.
781 Million People Can’t Read this Story
If you are reading this article, consider yourself one of the lucky ones; lucky enough to have received an education, or to be secure in the knowledge that your child will receive one. Lucky enough to be literate in a world where – more often than not – the ability to read and write can mean the difference between a decent life and abject poverty.« Previous Page — Next Page »
As the international community takes stock of the progress over a decade and a half of Millennium Development Goals, rising inequality is the black cloud that hovers over achievements worth celebrating, when the world debates a development agenda beyond 2015. While inequality between countries has declined, many nations have seen a rise in the rift between rich and poor within their borders. Not infrequently, inequality is compounded by a lack of sound governance that allows for corruption, tax evasion and illicit money flows. A handful of countries, however, have managed to combine growth with a historic decline in inequality. IPS tracks the achievements of development, while closely examining obstacles to equal growth and forces driving progressive change.
This page includes independent IPS news coverage supported by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to put the issue of inequality higher up the news agenda during the run-up to the 2015 MDG deadline and the process to forge a new development consensus
