Speaking Out on Sexism and Violence Through Hip-Hop

Young women are beginning to find their voices around issues such as sexism and violence, including through hip-hop, an art-form which has a long tradition of fighting oppression.

Terrorism’s Decreasing Numbers

Numbers, like words, tell stories. In recent years, the stories told by the numbers of Pakistan have mostly been sad ones that have largely to do with death. Collectively, they enumerate deaths from disease, deaths in childbirth, deaths at the hands of loved ones and the country’s security/state apparatus. Meanwhile, the numbers of deaths from terrorist attacks have been responsible for the state of the most bereft. We have, over the years, counted dead children, dead mothers, dead fathers, dead governors and dead prime ministers. People have died at terror’s hands while shopping, while taking their children to school, while praying and in hospitals while already dying.

The Less Talked about Abuse of Children

The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), UK defines child abuse as any action that causes significant harm to a child, be it physical, sexual, or emotional. These terms bring to mind cases of molestation and rape, or torture caused by outsiders. Seldom do we think of the harsh behaviour inflicted by family members and teachers, whereas these are the things children are least able to revolt against.

G77 Partners UNIDO in Advancing Industrialization of Developing World

The Vienna-based UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), which commemorates its 50th anniversary this year, has continued to play a leading role in the industrialization of developing nations and economies in transition, since the UN agency’s creation in 1966.

Students Under Siege as Schools Burn in India’s Troubled Kashmir

In the fading light of a November afternoon, 12-year-old Mariya Sareer bends over a textbook, trying to read as much as she can before it gets dark. It's been nearly five months since the seventh grader from Shurat, a village 70 kms south of Srinagar city, last went to school, thanks to a raging political conflict.

Nations Lose Bid to Block UN LGBTI Expert

Following a contentious and close vote, a UN General Assembly (UNGA) committee reaffirmed the right of a newly appointed UN expert addressing violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity to continue his work.

How Do You Make a Region Visible?

“One challenge we are facing is that we are invisible as a region, and the feminist movement is invisible, both inside and outside the region.” Natalia Karbowska, Board Chair of Ukrainian Women’s Fund said at a session on Eastern and South-East Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia: Getting (back) on global feminist map during the recent AWID Forum held in Bahia, Brazil from the 8^th-11^th September, 2016.

Kenya’s Youth Unemployment Challenge Presents Opportunities

Consider this paradox. Every year 1 million young people join the job market in Kenya, yet Kenya has the largest number of jobless youth in East Africa. As the government puts in place measures for addressing the issue of high youth unemployment and poverty, The private sector needs to join forces to sustainably grow its business and markets. Businesses and the societies that they operate in are symbiotic and it is now an established maxim that business cannot succeed in societies that fail.

Children of the ‘Others’, Sons of Minor Gods

In December 1946, “faced with the reality of millions of children suffering daily deprivation in Europe after World War II,” the General Assembly of the United Nations created the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), to mount urgent relief programmes.

Coal Mine Threatens Ecological Paradise in Chile’s Patagonia Region

An open-pit coal mine in the southern island of Riesco, a paradise of biological diversity in Chile’s southern Patagonia wilderness region, is a reflection of the weakness of the country’s environmental laws, which are criticised by local residents, activists, scientists and lawmakers.

Is Donald Trump Bad for the Environment?

Donald Trump's presidency is going to be a game-changer for the world. The impacts that it will have on major world issues such as terrorism, racism and global finance have been extensively discussed in the public sphere. Trump has claimed that he will make America “great again” by applying the same principles that have made him a business tycoon. Many of Trump's supporters believe that his methods will make all Americans richer and more successful like Trump himself. However, environmentalists are not impressed by this rhetoric. Businessmen are generally known to only think in terms of profit and loss. From this perspective, the environment can be degraded as long as it is profitable to do so. The US needs a responsible leader who will make the planet more sustainable by taking into account the needs of future generations; however, their new President is just another powerful businessman who could not care less about the environment.

Is This a Matter of Degree Between the Bad and the Infinitely Worse?

Whatever possessed an undoubtedly bewitched Government to deputize a senior intelligence official, alleged to have held command responsibility when detainees were severely and systematically tortured, to represent the State before the United Nations Committee against Torture (UNCAT)? One would be hard pressed to find a greater irony than this, per se.

Climate Finance for Farmers Key to Avert One Billion Hungry

With climate change posing growing threats to smallholder farmers, experts working around the issues of agriculture and food security say it is more critical than ever to implement locally appropriate solutions to help them adapt to changing rainfall patterns.

This is No Way to Honour Kenya’s Contribution to Peace in South Sudan

The dismissal of Lt-Gen Johnson Mogoa Kimani Ondieki as commander of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) comes off as a knee-jerk reaction that fails to address structural limitations of the UN peacekeeping operations. Even more worrying for Kenya is that the action practically eviscerates the country’s unrivaled contribution to peace and stability in Sudan.

Climate: Strong Commitment and New Global Action on Water Scarcity

“No country, irrespective of its size or strength, is immune from the impacts of climate change, and no country can afford to tackle the climate challenge alone.”

Battle of the Desert (II): A ‘Great Green Wall for Africa’

Desertification, land degradation, drought, climate change, food insecurity, poverty, loss of biodiversity, forced migration and conflicts, are some of the key challenges facing Africa—a giant continent home to 1,2 billion people living in 54 countries.

Rural Job Creation Holds the Key to Development and Food-Security Goals

Harvesting the benefits of core agricultural research, which often bears on improved crop varieties and plant diseases, increasingly depends on the social and economic conditions into which its seeds are sown. It is a sign of the times that Kanayo F. Nwanze, the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development who started off as a cassava entomologist when ITTA posted him to Congo in the 1970s, was recently hailed for his efforts to create African billionaires.

New Fund Aims to Help Build Resilience to Climate Change

The world has been too slow in responding to climate events such as El Niño and La Niña, and those who are the “least responsible are the ones suffering most”, Mary Robinson, the special envoy on El Niño and Climate, told IPS at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Marrakech (COP22).

Battle of the Desert (I): To Fight or to Flee?

To fight or to flee? These are the stark choices Maria, a single mother from the Bangalala midlands of Tanzania, faces repeatedly. “After the rains failed for a few years, some neighbours claimed our trees were drawing too much water from the ground. We cut them down. Our harvests fell. My mother closed her stall at the local market. That is when my father and I moved from the midlands to the Ruvu Mferejini river valley.”

Coal Entrenches Poverty, Drives Climate Change: Report

Coal power does more to harm the world’s poor than to help them, even before the devastating impacts of climate change are taken into account, according to a recent report published by 12 international development organisations.

Reaping the Whirlwind

The targets may be different but the perpetrators of the two deadly attacks carried out in Balochistan in the space of one month are the same. The responsibility of the carnage at the shrine in Khuzdar as well as the slaughter of police cadets in Quetta have been claimed by the militant Islamic State group and its affiliates.