Global Community Celebrates Medical Innovations and Milestones Since Defining Leprosy Discovery 150 Years Ago

The 1873 discovery of Mycobacterium leprae, the causative agent of leprosy by Norwegian doctor Gerhard Armauer Hansen, remains one of the greatest paradigm shifts in medical history, a true revolution.

Innovative Approach to Sustainable Development Policy and Investment for Public, Private Sectors

Oil palm has brought significant benefits and prosperity to Liberia. The export of crude palm oil is a major source of foreign exchange earnings for the government. The palm oil crop covers more than 1 million hectares, hundreds of thousands are employed in the palm oil sector, and at least 21 percent of the farming households produce palm oil.

Human Rights Defenders in Exile Safety Imperiled by Host Countries’ Declining Civil Rights

While leaving one’s country and becoming a refugee is a last resort, it is a decision that many, like Steve Kitsa, have had to make. As conflict becomes increasingly protracted in many African countries, many others will take this step.

Making the Impossible Possible, Chronicles of an Ambassador’s Lifelong Frontline Battle to End Leprosy

In 1974, Yohei Sasakawa accompanied his father to a leprosy hospital he had funded. He saw leprosy patients inside the hospital still and expressionless. The smell of leprosy filled the air, the smell of pus from open sores.

Kenya’s Hits and Misses on Journey to Eliminating Plastic Waste

Plastic bags were a part and parcel of life in Kenya. More than 100 million plastic bags were used annually in Kenyan supermarkets alone, with at least 24 million plastic bags discarded every month. Kenya was choking under the weight of plastic bags.

Transforming Food Systems through Conscious, Mindful Practices

Deep in the Egyptian desert, the SEKEM community celebrates its first wheat crop – grown to alleviate shortages and price increases caused by the war in Ukraine, and the latest crop in a 46-year history of regenerative development, which has effectively made the desert bloom. On another continent, a consumer who buys acai collected and produced by the Yawanawá in Brazil helps protect 200,000 acres of land.

Khartoum is Falling – the Global Community Must Move Fast to Protect Children in their Darkest Moments

As unprecedentedly fierce armed battles play out on the streets of Khartoum, more than 600 people are dead, thousands injured, and over 1 million displaced.

Drone Journalism Holds Great Potential to Improve Safety of Journalists in Africa’s Volatile Situations

In a departure from the past, where journalists in Kenya have freely covered anti-government protests unharmed, a series of events that unfolded in March 2023 have heightened fears of the re-emergence of brutal physical attacks on journalists. According to the Media Council of Kenya, in a span of two weeks, more than 25 journalists were harassed, arrested and held in police cells, physically attacked, expensive equipment destroyed and footage deleted during the opposition-led demonstrations.

Holistic Education Support in Colombia Extended to Counter Snowballing Learning Crisis

The largest external displacement crisis in Latin America’s recent history is unfolding as countries open their borders to an influx of refugees from Venezuela following unprecedented political turmoil, socio-economic instability, and a humanitarian crisis.

CIVICUS Report Exposes a Civil Society Under Attack

As conflict and crises escalate to create human emergencies that have displaced over 100 million people worldwide, civil society’s vital role of advocating for victims and monitoring human rights cannot be over-emphasised.

Climate Resilient Indigenous Crops Underutilised even as Climate Change Threatens to Cripple Food Systems

Elizabeth Njoroge recounts her poverty-stricken upbringing in Ting’ang’a village in the Central part of Kenya, growing up on a diet heavy on Amaranth and pumpkin.

BRAC International Signs MoU with Rwanda to Empower People in Extreme Poverty

Last week, BRAC International signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Rwanda under the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) to support efforts to empower people in extreme poverty to develop sustainable livelihoods and break the poverty trap long term. This is part of the Government’s broader efforts to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

Solar Powered Freezer Improving Immunization Coverage in Hard-to-Reach Rural Villages

Up until 2019, nurses in three health facilities located in the semi-arid south-eastern Kenya region of Makueni County struggled to bring critical health services closer to a hard-to-reach population scattered across three remote, far-flung villages.

International Women’s Day, 2023
First Ever Women Council of Elders Making In-roads in North Eastern Kenya

Low literacy levels, a high prevalence of outlawed Female Genital Mutilation, early marriages, forced marriages, low contraceptive usage, multiple births, as well as high maternal, infant and child deaths, define the life of a woman in Kenya’s vast North Eastern region.

Climate Crisis is a Child Crisis and Climate-Resilient Children, Teachers and Schools Must Become Top International Agenda

From southern Ethiopia to northern Kenya and Somalia, the most severe drought in the last 40 years is unfolding. It is simply too hot to go to school on an empty stomach, and close to 3 million children are out of school, with an additional 4 million at risk of dropping out entirely across the Horn of Africa.

ECW High-Level Financing Conference Raises More than 826 Million USD to Keep Crisis-Impacted Children in School

As an unparalleled, unprecedented global education crisis unfolds, an estimated 222 million crisis-impacted children are desperate to learn. As barriers to accessing education increase, darkness beckons, and education is their last hope.

World Leaders, Private Sector Urged to Establish an International Green Bank to Win Climate Change Battle

As the effects of climate change escalate and natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and droughts become more frequent and severe, threatening lives and livelihoods, humanity is losing the climate battle.

Race to Prosperity as Least Developed Countries Top Agenda at UN Conference

It is a race against time to form a new global partnership to secure a better future for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations by 2030 in line with the UN’s SDGs. All 46 countries classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are pressed for time in a bid to deliver critical development goals.

Global Leaders Urge Participation in High-Level Financing Conference to Fund Education for 222 Million Crisis-Impacted Children

The world is in the throng of a monumental, damaging, and unprecedented global education crisis. Wars, protracted conflict, extreme climate changes, hunger, COVID-19, and economic uncertainties are pushing children out of the education system.

No More Impunity for Journalists’ Murders — CPJ

The new year brought bad news for press freedom on the African continent with the brutal murder of one journalist and the suspicious death of another.

Pope, Sasakawa in Global Appeal for a Leprosy Free World

In the four years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of leprosy or Hansen’s disease, seemed to be losing steam. Between 2016 and early 2020, new case numbers remained more or less constant.