It has been nine months since the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the outbreak of COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, a
“public health emergency of international concern”. Since then, more than
44 million cases have been recorded and
over one million lives lost. Economic costs measure in trillions of dollars. Global recovery will take years.
Future pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases, warns a major new report on biodiversity and pandemics by 22 leading experts from around the world.
Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa commit resources to promote agricultural innovations. This is based on the assumption that rural livelihoods are mainly agricultural and that the innovations will increase agricultural production and household income.
Nine months into the pandemic, Europe remains one of the regions worst affected by COVID-19. Ten of the 20 countries with the
highest death count per million people are European. The other ten are in the Americas. This includes the US, which has the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths in the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic is threatening the food security and nutrition of millions of people around the world.
More than 820 million people were classified as chronically food insecure before the virus hit.
As the threat of a COVID-19 pandemic emerged earlier this year, many felt a
sense of apprehension about what would happen when it reached Africa. Concerns over the combination of overstretched and underfunded health systems and the existing load of infectious and non-infectious diseases often led to it being
talked about in apocalyptic terms.
The United Nations General Assembly adopted
Resolution 66/170 declaring October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child, to recognize girls’ rights and the unique challenges girls face around the world.
Can a state built upon the “
taking of another people’s lands, lives and power” ever really be just? Colonialism can’t be reversed, so at a simple level the answer is no.
As COVID-19 shapes and re-shapes the “new normal” in the Pacific, organic food and products will be a key to community adaptation and resiliency in the region’s economies and livelihoods, with the opportunity to advance a more inclusive gender and people centred approach.
This World Teachers’ Day, celebrated under the theme, “Teachers: Leading in crisis, reimagining the future”, the Global Partnership for Education, Education Cannot Wait, UNESCO and UNICEF are calling for the resumption of salary payments for around half of the Yemeni teachers and school-based staff (estimated 160,000) who have not received regular salary payments since 2016. With suspended salary payments and schools regularly coming under attack, many teachers have been forced to find alternative sources of income to provide for their families.
Lake Chad is an extremely shallow water body in the Sahel. It
was once the world’s sixth largest inland water body with an open water area of 25,000 km2 in the 1960s, it shrunk dramatically at the beginning of the 1970s and reduced to less than 2,000 km2 during the 1980s, decreasing by more than 90% its area. It is one of the largest lakes in Africa. It is an endorheic lake – meaning that it doesn’t drain towards the ocean.
CGIAR-IITA Deputy Director General, Partnerships for Delivery,
Kenton Dashiell, has encouraged Nigerians to take up sustainable and profitable opportunities in the country’s agriculture sector. He made this appeal during his keynote address at the National Conference on Agricultural Innovations for Food Security in the Post COVID-19 Era.
As the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC-UNESCO)
reported earlier this year, COVID-19 has caused massive disruptions to ocean observing systems around the globe, as research cruises, maintenance visits, and sensor deployments have been postponed or cancelled.
The question has never been whether women can lead as capably as men. Women have always led, and women will always lead, especially when the times are hard, and their communities are in need. The question that we need to ask is, why is women’s leadership invisible? Why is their potential and their power stifled?
On the eve of the United Nations Summit on Biodiversity, Dr. Anne Larigauderie calls on everyone to make ambitious commitments to protect
#biodiversity and
#nature.
Vietnam is the ninth country to submit its
updated NDC to the UNFCCC. The submission followed a comprehensive process over three years, under the guidance of Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc. Vietnam’s inclusive NDC review and updating process, which was coordinated by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), involved active participation by scientists, ministries, agencies, non-governmental organizations, research institutes, enterprises, international organizations, and development partners. MONRE also spearheaded a series of national, sub-national, sectoral, and thematic workshops to assess feasibility, content, and implementation measures.
Special Issue on the contributions of non-governmental organisations and civil society
to agricultural and rural development
- Involving local communities in setting the agricultural development agenda
- Ten years of opportunities to improve the lives of family farmers
- BRAC’s contributions to agricultural development
- Updated data sets for more efficient investment strategies for family farms
- Can food production keep up with population increase in Malawi?
- Northern civil society in agriculture in the South: a failure?
- A systems approach to unlock the potential of African agriculture
- Promoting biodiversity and livelihoods through community forest restoration
- Introducing the new Chair of TAA
- Alternative livelihoods in an opium-based agricultural economy
- News from NGO institutional members
Source: 'Agriculture for Development' journal
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s
death has generated an outpouring of grief around the globe. Part of this grief reflects her unparalleled status as a feminist icon and pioneer for women in the legal profession and beyond.
Education Cannot Wait (ECW) brought together an impressive, diverse line-up of world leaders, policymakers, youth, teachers, celebrities and global advocates to rally around the cause of education in emergencies and protracted crises during the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly under the inspiring theme “The Future of Education is Here for Those Left Furthest Behind.”
From the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Dedicated to Soni Prashad, 1929-2020, who spent her life looking for a better world.
US President Donald Trump and his ‘war council’ – led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – have
amplified their aggression against China. What began as a trade dispute in the 1990s has now escalated into the United States making an existential challenge against China.
Education Cannot Wait: As the UN agency mandated by the UN General Assembly to provide international protection and seek solutions for refugees, could you please elaborate on the overall importance of education for refugee children as a component of protection and solutions?