Limiting Climate Change to 1.5 C is not Impossible, Says IPCC Chair

When governments set a target in December 2015 of limiting global warming to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels while pursuing efforts to hold it at 1.5ºC, they invited the IPCC to prepare a report to provide information on this Goal.

Q&A: How Political Will can Accelerate Green Growth in Africa

While the African Green Growth Forum 2018 was taking place for the first time ever in Kigali, Rwanda last week, IPS sat down with Okechukwu Daniel Ogbonnaya, the Acting Country Representative and Lead Advisor for the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) to talk about the new forum, working with Rwanda and green growth integration in Africa. GGGI organised the forum with the Government of Rwanda.

South Sudan Faces one of the World’s Worst Displacement Crises

South Sudan is facing one of the worst displacement crises in the world today. More than half of the population is food insecure and, if not for international humanitarian aid, the country would almost certainly have already faced famine.

Breaking Bread with Violence: Connecting the Dots Between Conflict & Hunger

Last week I met with Aamir, a 29-year-old Yemenite, living in Geneva since October 2018 and waiting for his application for asylum to be finalized.

Ignoring the Murder of a Journalist in the Name of National Interest

A foreign citizen – well-known journalist, author, university lecturer and regime critic – with residence in the US is abducted by a group of professionals employed by a foreign Government – depicted as a stout US ally – and subsequently tortured and killed. In spite of the case being thoroughly investigated by both the CIA and the FBI, which verified that a crime had been committed, the US Government did not take any steps to rebuke the rulers of the allied country.

Mobile Phones Exposed to Growing Cyber Threats

Mobile phones are helping millions of low-income customers to access financial services for the first time, but they are also exposing them to new cyber threats they could never have imagined.

Re-Defining Poverty in its Many Dimensions

Poverty has many dimensions beyond a lack of money. The need for a better understanding of the multiple ways people experience poverty is gaining momentum, as is the importance of measuring the often - overlapping deprivations people face. Understanding both is vital for better decision making.

Multilateralism Undermined by Globalization’s Discontents

On 24 October 1945, the world’s most inclusive multilateral institution, the United Nations, was born to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, ... reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, … establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom” (UN Charter: Preamble).

Asia-Pacific Takes Stock of Ambitious Development Targets

Ministers and senior policymakers across Asia and the Pacific are gathered in Bangkok this week to focus on population dynamics at a crucial time for the region. Their goal: to keep people and rights at the heart of the region’s push for sustainable development. They will be considering how successful we have been in balancing economic growth with social imperatives, underpinned by rights and choices for all as enshrined in the landmark Programme of Action stemming from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, or ICPD.

Promoting Gender Equality On Front Lines

Last week’s announcement by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) of £50m ($64.3m) to help end female genital mutilation (FGM) is great news. The biggest ever financial commitment by any donor, it could be a game changer for the African-led movement to end this abhorrent subjugation of women.

Sufi Shrines: Public-private Partnership to Improve Food Security and Nutrition

The new government in Pakistan has now been in office for over 100 days and has started work on its reform and socio-economic agenda. There is a growing realization that being in government is far more difficult than it first appeared, and that in order to move forward there is an urgent need to build national and international partnerships.

Why I Became a Disaster Expert

Thirty years ago, a powerful earthquake ripped through my home country of Armenia, leaving 25,000 dead, 500,000 homeless and annihilating an estimated 40 percent of the national economy.

Gender Inequality is Stunting Economic Progress

‘Do not let us off the hook; keep our feet to the fire’. These were the words of the UN Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres when he promised to personally lead the global body towards greater gender equality.

Global, Inclusive Partnerships Essential for the Future Sustainability of our Oceans and Seas

Throughout history, oceans, seas, lakes and rivers have provided life and livelihoods to people around the world. Today, they are a multi-trillion-dollar global economy supporting hundreds of millions of people and helping drive economic growth in all corners of the world.

Culture, Migration and the Rise of Nationalism

The recent rise of nationalism in some western countries has been fuelled by an anti-immigration campaign based on the assumed negative influences migrants may have on the host country’s “culture”. Nationalists seem to conceive culture as a static concept. However, culture is not invariable, it develops and changes over time and as most things created by humans, it is also connected with power. Generally, when people define themselves as “cultured” they assert themselves as superior to others.

Violence Against Women, a Cause and Consequence of Inequality

The lack of women’s empowerment is a critical form of inequality. And while there are many barriers to empowerment, violence against women and girls (VAW) is both a cause and a consequence of gender inequality.

The Start of an Important Global Conversation on the Blue Economy

This November, Canada, along with Kenya and Japan, is proud to host the world’s first global conference focused on the world’s ocean economy: the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

Q&A: How to Transition One of the Fastest-Growing Economies in the World to a Green Growth Model

Driven by garment exports, tourism and construction, Cambodia has sustained an average growth rate of 7.7 percent between 1995 to 2017, making this Southeast Asian nation the sixth fastest-growing economy in the world.

Women Must be at the Heart of Africa’s Blue Economy

The blue economy has quite rightly been described as the ‘New Frontier of the African Renaissance’. Its potential for a continent on which almost two thirds of its states have a coastline, whose trade is 90 percent sea-borne and whose lakes constitute the largest proportion of surface freshwater in the world, is enormous.

Inequality undermines democracy

Economic inequality – involving both income and wealth concentration – has risen in nearly all world regions since the 1980s. Gross economic inequalities moderated for much of the 20th century, especially after World War Two until the 1970s, but has now reached levels never before seen in human history.

The Blue Economy for the Blue Planet

We live on a “blue planet” where water covers around 75 percent of the Earth’s surface. Without water we would simply not survive as a species. As we strive to find pathways to and take action for inclusive sustainable development, we must ensure that our ocean, our seas, rivers, lakes, waterways and wetlands, together with their invaluable biodiversity, are preserved, sustainably used and integrated into development programming.