Innovate to Save Lives

I recently went to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a city hospital. One of my students at BRACUniversity suffered a serious brain injury while travelling in a tempo that overturned. The boy eventually succumbed to his fatal injury. Deep within, I felt a sense of loss not only on account of the student and his family, but also for the university, as well as for the nation which lost a fine human asset. Three things occurred to me as I made my pensive way back home.

Social Unravelling

Recently I asked a colleague, who has been living in Pakistan for a couple of decades but had spent the early part of his life in the West initially studying and then working there, if he missed being abroad and regretted his decision to move back to Pakistan.

Funding Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities in Developing Countries

About half of the world’s 65 million school-age children with disabilities in developing countries are reportedly out of school, according to a new report regarding inclusive education funding for children with disabilities.

Freedom of the Press Faces Judicial Harassment in Brazil

The same justice that exists to ensure rights can become a tool to violate them and restrict freedom of the press, as seen with the recent wave of lawsuits against journalists and the media in Brazil.

Privatization the Problem, Rarely the Solution

Privatization has been one of the pillars of the counter-revolution against development economics and government activism from the 1980s. Many developing countries were forced to accept privatization as a condition for support from the World Bank while many other countries have embraced privatization, often on the pretext of fiscal and debt constraints.

The New Urban Agenda: What Our Cities Can Be

The future is urban and nowhere is that more true than in Bangladesh. If current rates of urbanisation continue, the country's urban population will double by 2035. Around the Bay of Bengal, a mega city would join Dhaka to Chittagong, creating one of the world's largest conglomerations. Whether that process produces a congested toxic unlivable mess of concrete and steel, or whether it becomes a thriving, connected, wonderful city to live in, is almost entirely down to the political and policy choices we make.

Freedom for National Good

Several international rights organisations have jointly issued a global civic charter for the defence of four basic freedoms — the rights to freedom of expression, information, assembly and association — and Pakistan is among the countries for which the campaign is especially relevant.

Changing Climate Threatens World’s Smallholder Farmers

Farmers are already experiencing the effects of climate change but can also help to fight it, according to a new report released by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Water Bodies Central to Urban Flood Planning

“The rain was our nemesis as well as our saviour,” says Kanniappan, recalling the first week of December 2015 when Chennai was flooded.

U.N. Urban Summit Gives Rise to a Mixture of Optimism and Criticism

Experts and activists greeted with a mixture of hope and skepticism the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), which opened Monday Oct. 17 in the capital of Ecuador, and which seeks to produce a new urban agenda for cities and their inhabitants.

Reimagining South Asia in 2030

The future of South Asia, as a community does not look too promising in the wake of the postponement of the SAARC summit. As a person who has been engaged over 40 years in civil society initiatives to recreate a South Asian community, I have witnessed a number of such fluctuations in the fortunes of the SAARC process.

Big Powers Set to Grab High Level UN Posts

When Antonio Guterres, the former Prime Minister of Portugal, takes office as the new UN Secretary General on January 1, his top management team is likely to be dominated by nominees from the five big powers, namely the US, Britain, France, China and Russia (P5).

Q&A: Land Degradation Could Force 135 Million to Migrate in Next 30 Years

One of the critical challenges facing the world today is that emerging migration patterns are increasingly rooted in the depletion of natural resources.

Fighting Food Insecurity and Undernutrition in Urban Slums

As anyone trying to negotiate afternoon traffic in Dhaka can attest only too well, Bangladesh's cities are growing quickly and wildly. If the current trend continues, the number of urban residents will be more than double over the next 25 years, and there will be more people living in cities than in villages by 2040.

Is This Counter-terrorism in a Far Deadlier Garb?

A draft policy and legal framework aimed at a new law on counter-terrorism to replace Sri Lanka’s Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) may well be a classic case of the cure being far worse than the disease.

From City 50/50 to Planet 50/50 – How to Step it Up for Gender Equality and Sustainable Development

Urban development ministers, mayors from all over the world, city planners, architects and municipal authorities, civil society and private sector will meet in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, for Habitat III, the Third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (17-20 October, 2016), to adopt the New Urban Agenda as well as to strategize and agree on its implementation.

We Can Eliminate Hunger and Poverty Quickly with Greater Commitment

Why do people go hungry? Mainly because they do not have the means to get enough food, whether by producing it themselves or by purchasing it. There is more than enough food to feed the world. All those who currently go hungry can be adequately fed with about two percent of current food production, much more of which is wasted or lost. The main problem is one of distribution or access, rather than production or availability.

Pan-African Parliament Seeks Larger Role in Food Security, Policy

The Pan African Parliament (PAP) concluded its session in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh Monday with initiatives on PAP’s identity, counter-terrorism challenges in the continent and joint development plans, particularly the question of food security.

Indigenous Land Rights Bring Economic, not just Environmental Benefits

Secure indigenous land rights not only bring environmental benefits, they can also foster economic development, according to a new report released by the World Resources Institute.

Eradicating Poverty – a Lofty Ideal or Achievable Goal?

The first Sustainable Development Goal calls for us to end poverty in all its forms everywhere by 2030. The goal and the deadline are ambitious - and they need to be. We do not have the luxury of time.

Private Interests Valued over Human Lives in Flint, Michigan

When the water in Flint, Michigan was found to be corroding cars at a General Motors’ (GM) factory, government officials agreed to change the factory's water source, yet the same water source continued to poison the residents of Flint for another year.