Wednesday, September 22, 2021
News and Views from the Global South
Parliamentarians working to meet SDG's
Call to Action as Thousands Breathe New Life to the Cairo Promise at ICPD 25 Summit in Nairobi This Week
Every day 830 women die while giving life. At least 33,000 girls are forced into child marriage with 11,000 girls undergoing female genital mutilation. These are some of the cruel realities young women face every day. However, there is renewed hope that delegates expected to attend the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Nairobi this week will re-energise and breathe new life to the Cairo Promise.
The Nairobi Summit Is about the Future of Humanity and Human Prosperity
As we count down the remaining days to the opening of the Nairobi Summit or the International Conference for Population and Development(ICPD), I am confounded by how much humanity has managed to simultaneously empower more women than at any other time in history, while at the same time failing to see that ‘women’s issues’ are actually ‘everyone’s issues’.
Abortion Remains an Unresolved Issue: ICPD25 Meeting next Month
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.
Asian & Arab Parliamentarians to Move Forward on Reproductive Health & Gender Empowerment
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.
“The African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Population and Development: Creating Positive Impacts for ICPD+25 and SDGs”
The Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) organized the “African and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting on Population and Development for ICPD+25” on August 5 - 6, 2019, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to serve as a platform to gather the opinions and set of proposed actions of parliamentarians in the Asia and Africa regions.
To Uplift a Woman is to Uplift a Village
Khadija Zuberi, 23, from Ruaha Mbuyuni village in Tanzania’s central highlands, is a single mother to her four-year-old son, Hashim.
The Fight to End Violence Against Women in the Asia-Pacific Region
Parliamentarians met in Laos last week to discuss violence against women and girls. The meeting was organized by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and hosted by the National Assembly of Laos.
Partnering for Youth in Central Asia
Young people around the world are facing increasingly insurmountable, persistent barriers as they try to achieve their full potential and secure a prosperous future. However, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific have already begun working to ensure that no one is left behind.
Parliamentarians Promote Youth Investment in Kazakhstan
Parliamentarians from 36 countries met this weekend in Astana, Kazakhstan, to discuss the future of youth in Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific region. The gathering called “International Conference on Investing on Youth: Leaving No One Behind” took place on the Oct. 19 to 20, and the goal was to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), set by the United Nations, with regards to youth.
El Salvador Forges Ahead in Fight Against Hunger
In the last 15 years, El Salvador has managed to reduce the proportion of hungry people living in extreme poverty by four percentage points. But they still represent 12.4 percent of the population, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). 
Searching for Nutrition in South Africa’s Food Maze
Every Tuesday, there is something unusually exciting at no 7 Cwango Crescent, The Business Place, in Philippi, near Cape Town. Here, dozens of chemically free green vegetable crate loads are visible. So are the unlabelled rows of empty packets. It’s the packing day.
Global Hunger and Undernutrition Could End by 2025
The United Nations aims to help eliminate hunger and undernutrition – described as two of “greatest scourges” facing humankind -- by the year 2030.
Bewildering Biodiversity – A Success Story of Food Security for Indigenous Peoples in India
The 2013 National Food Security Act of the Government of India seeks, according to its preamble, to “provide for food and nutritional security by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people”.
Despite rapid economic growth and gains in reducing poverty, India has with among the highest levels of hunger and malnutrition in the world.
Latin American Legislators Find New Paths to Fight Hunger
With eight specific commitments aimed at pushing through laws and policies on food security and sovereignty, family farming and school feeding programmes, legislators from 17 countries closed the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Latin America to Push for Food Security Laws as a Bloc
Lawmakers in the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean decided at a regional meeting to work as a bloc for the passage of laws on food security – an area in which countries in the region have show uneven progress.
Preserving Mangroves Provides Protection and Food Security
At the dawn of Indian Independence, Government of India’s commitment to food security – in addition to the impact of the Bengal Famine – was haunted by corruption, hoarding and mismanagement, resulting in ongoing food insecurity among the indigenous people in Tamilnadu and Orissa that lasted for more than five decades,
Latin American Legislators, a Battering Ram in the Fight Against Hunger
Lawmakers in Latin America are joining forces to strengthen institutional frameworks that sustain the fight against hunger in a region that, despite being dubbed “the next global breadbasket”, still has more than 34 million undernourished people.
School Meals Bolster Family Farming in Brazil
“That law should have existed since the end of slavery, which threw slaves into the street without offering them adequate conditions for working and producing, turning them into semi-slaves,” said Brazilian farmer Idevan Correa.
Parliamentary Forum to Set New Goals Against Hunger
Undertaking the challenge of pushing for new legislation to guarantee food security in their countries, legislators from Latin America and the Caribbean, together with guest lawmakers from Africa and Asia, will hold the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger Nov. 15-17.
Native Women Green the Outskirts of the City, Feed Their Families
The hands of women who have migrated from rural areas carefully tend to their ecological vegetable gardens in the yards of their humble homes on the outskirts of Sucre, the official capital of Bolivia, in an effort to improve their families’ diets and incomes.
Bolivia’s School Meals All About Good Habits and Eating Local
A successful school meals programme that serves breakfast and lunch with Andean flavours to 140,000 students in La Paz gave rise to a new law aimed at promoting healthy diets based on local traditions and products in Bolivia’s schools, while combating malnutrition and bolstering food sovereignty.« Previous Page
Parliamentarians Adressing Population and Development Issues to Meet the SDGs
IPS Inter Press Service actively supports parliamentarians as they represent cultures and values of respective countries and constitute a link between governments and its citizens in democratic countries. Given the nature of population issues, parliamentarians have an important role to play in finding solutions for them that are essential for achieving sustainable development. Compulsion is strictly out of the question in the handling of population matters, and any measures to tackle a particular population issue must be undertaken by individuals voluntarily with their full understanding.
The Asian Population and Development Association APDA has been supporting the work of different nations’ parliamentarians on the issues of population and development. In the more than three decades since APDA was founded, it has held Asian Parliamentarians’ Meetings on Population and Development (APDA Meetings) throughout Asia with the aim of developing solutions for population and development issues on that continent, which accounts for 60% of the world’s population. APDA has provided support to platforms that aim to spur understanding and exchanges between parliamentarians from Japan and Asian nations in relation to population and development issues. In addition, APDA is currently focusing its work on inter-regional cooperation, particularly between the African, Arab and Asian regions, while cooperating with other regions.
The world is increasingly changing and interconnected and poses important challenges to global issues of energy, food, human security, poverty, and the environment. The world population is still on the rise and is projected to reach 9 billion by 2050 and surpass 10 billion by 2100. The population of Africa, with the fastest growth rate in the world, was one billion in 2011 but is expected to more than triple to 3.6 billion in 2100. On the other hand, developed countries are concerned about the issues of rapidly aging populations and fewer children.
From one end of the spectrum to the other, population issues are becoming more and more diverse, posing a range of economic and social challenges. In dealing with the increasing burdens these demographic conditions bring to our societies, a sustainable approach to how we live in dignity and in harmony with the Earth’s carrying capacity is needed, and finding solutions to stabilize populations is a vital step in this endeavor.
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