Active Citizens

Climate Change Compounds Humanitarian Crises in Global South

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
As the Global South works to overcome a history of weak institutions, armed conflict and poverty-driven forced exodus, key causes of its humanitarian crises, developing countries now have to also fight to keep global warming from compounding their problems.

A Latin American Humanitarian Emergency Invisible to the World

By Daniela Pastrana
“This is a humanitarian crisis,” said Bertha Zúñiga Cáceres, referring to the generalised violence in Mexico and in Honduras and other countries of Central America, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and is a product of transnational crime, but is invisible to the international community.

Justice for Berta Caceres Incomplete Without Land Rights: UN Rapporteur

By Lyndal Rowlands
The murder of Honduran Indigenous woman Berta Caceres is only too familiar to Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Deadly Algal Bloom Triggers Social Uprising in Southern Chile

By Orlando Milesi and Marianela Jarroud
A ban on harvesting shellfish in Chiloé due to a severe red tide outbreak sparked a social uprising that has partially isolated thousands of local residents of the southern Chilean archipelago and revived criticism of an export model that condemns small-scale fishing communities to poverty and marginalisation.

Why Peacebuilding is Part of the Sustainable Development Agenda

By Patrick Keuleers
We tend not to worry when things are going well. If people can take care of their daily business and send their kids to school without fear of violence, resolve disputes through a functioning justice system when the need arises, express their views both in private discussions and in public processes, feel they can truly contribute to decisions that affect their lives, and know effective institutions are in place to deliver basic services to their families and communities without interruption or the need for bribes, chances are they will be broadly content with the way their society is managed.

Mexico Needs to Improve Control of Toxic Chemicals

By Emilio Godoy
A recent explosion at a petrochemical plant in southeast Mexico highlighted the need to strengthen monitoring of hazardous substances, step up inspections of factories and update regulations in this country.

Is the System Broke or Broken?

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Though the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit may seem timely, a debate ensues on an important question: is the world humanitarian system broke or broken?

The Family Garden Going Out of Style in Cuban Countryside

By Ivet González
In the past, all rural homes in Cuba had gardens for putting fresh vegetables on the dinner table. The local term for these gardens is “conuco”, a word with indigenous roots that is still used in several Caribbean nations.

Grilled for a Retweet: Press Freedom in Kenya

By Miriam Gathigah
In early January, Judith Akolo, a journalist with the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, found herself in unfamiliar territory when she was summoned and grilled by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations for retweeting a Twitter message.

Black Colombian Activists Continue Our Struggle For Rights

By Charo Rojas
While Colombia’s peace talks continue in Havana, Cuba, back home in the region of North Cauca, Black Colombians have found their cries for access to their ancestral lands met with tear-gas and rubber bullets.

Media Freedom in Africa Remains Under Attack

By Zubair Sayed
Imagine a world without the media, where we have no verified information about what’s going on around us. Where everything is hearsay and gossip, where there are no trusted sources of information. It would be hard to operate in a world like that: to make decisions about what to do about the things that affect our lives.

West Papuans Turn to Africa for Support in Freedom Bid

By Catherine Wilson
For more than half a century, the indigenous people of West Papua, located on the western side of the island of New Guinea, who are related to the Melanesians of the southwest Pacific Islands, have waged a resistance to governance by Indonesia and a relentless campaign for self-determination.

“Together, Civil Society Has Power”

By Constanza Vieira
When Tamara Adrián, a Venezuelan transgender opposition legislator, spoke at a panel on inclusion during the last session of the International Civil Society Week held in Bogotá, 12 Latin American women stood up and stormed out of the room.

Why we need to stand united against governments cracking down on dissent

By Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
Last month, after receiving threats for opposing a hydroelectric project, Berta Caceres, a Honduran indigenous and environmental rights campaigner, was murdered. A former winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize for her opposition to one of Central America’s biggest hydropower projects, Berta was shot dead in her own home.

Playing Ping Pong with Disability

By Silvia Boarini
Despite formally adopting progressive laws, such as Law Number 4, and ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability, Palestinian authorities still struggle to get beyond rhetoric when it comes to supporting the 7 to 11 per cent of the population that is affected by disability.

Musicians Champion LGBT Rights

By Lydia Matata
In a recently released music video by a Kenyan artist, a young gay and lesbian couple hold hands on separate dates at a park in Nairobi. The progress of their love from kisses to more graphic bedroom scenes are threaded with past images of anti-gay headlines and protests mainly from Uganda and Kenya.

Abortion Saga: Morality vs Choice

By Charity Chimungu Phiri
Malawi considers itself ‘a god fearing nation’ so much that any act ‘out of the ordinary’ is said to be either satanic, a sin or demonic. Even a drink or a walk could be satanic in the country if you are not careful!

Organised Civil Society Increasingly Hemmed In by Global Elites

By Constanza Vieira
Collusion, according to the dictionary, means “secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.” That is what the world’s political and economic elites engage in, according to Danny Sriskandarajah, secretary general of the international civil society alliance CIVICUS.

Harvesting Rainwater to Weather Drought in Northeast Argentina

By Fabiana Frayssinet
In a semiarid region in the northeast Argentine province of Chaco, small farmers have adopted a simple technique to ensure a steady water supply during times of drought: they harvest the rain and store it in tanks, as part of a climate change adaptation project.

Ecosystem Conservation Gives Hope to a Vulnerable Community

By Stella Paul
42 year-old Saraswati Subedi still remembers the night she almost died in a flash flood. “I heard the cries of my neighbours and ran out of the room with my two children. There was water all around and I thought we were going to die, so I started to pray,” says the mother of the three in Karki Tahara – a village by the river Harpan Khola in Nepal’s Kaski district.

Female Engineers Defy the Odds

By Kizito Makoye
Nearly every aspect of modern life is a result of the work done by engineers; from running water to the internet, sky-scrapers to smartphone apps that people use for dating. Sadly, in Tanzania this profession attracts only a few women due to prevalent attitudes that it is a man’s job.
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