Women and girls in the Asia-Pacific region were adversely impacted due to COVID-19 pandemic responses – with marginalized women and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) and gender-based violence (GBV) services profoundly affected.
Even as COVID-19 brought Africa’s already fragile health care and economic systems to the brink, wealthy states colluded with corporate giants to dupe people with empty slogans and false promises of a fair recovery from the ongoing health pandemic, a newly released report by Amnesty International report finds.
The COVID-19 pandemic reversed several development gains on the continent, and Africa’s leaders are convinced stronger cooperation in boosting investment in green growth will help Africa meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
On a visit to Indonesia’s Papua Province, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination Yohei Sasakawa had dinner with a man forced from his village and living alone because he was affected by leprosy.
2022 marks the second anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while an end to the pandemic is in sight, it is far from over and the consequences will be felt for decades to come. At the same time, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is becoming increasingly distant. The region must use the 17 Sustainable Development Goals as a roadmap to a fairer recovery.
Countries on the African continent have a pattern of a six-month break before a new COVID-19 spike happens, researchers at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change have said in a newly released report.
The COVID-19 pandemic did not hit everyone equally and employment has shown a clear gender-differentiated impact. Two years after the start of the pandemic, it is more difficult for women than men to recover their jobs, and this is clearly reflected in Latin America.
2022 is a decisive year for all of us as recovery prospects remain highly uncertain.
Global human development has witnessed a decline for the first time since the measurement began in 1990. As UNDP’s new
Special Report on Human Security also reveals, 6 in 7 people worldwide are plagued by feelings of insecurity.
A crucial two-day meeting of Parliamentarians from the Asian, Arab and African regions will put human-rights-based legislative frameworks under the spotlight as the regions work to implement the ICPD Programme of Action.
Parliamentarians' leadership in a post-COVID-19 recovery is crucial to achieving the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) agenda. The involvement of lawmakers in ensuring a more equal, just, and sustainable society will come under the spotlight during a two-day inter-regional meeting organized by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Forum of Arab Parliamentarians on Population and Development (FAPPD,) and supported by UNFPA ASRO in early March 2022.
COVID-19 has exposed major long-term economic vulnerabilities. This malaise – including declining productivity growth – can be traced to the greater influence of finance in the real economy.
Conflict, forced displacement, climate change and COVID-19 are disrupting the education of millions of crisis-affected children and adolescents around the world.
With consistent, robust economic growth, countries across Asia have made monumental strides in eradicating extreme poverty over the past 30 years. In Bangladesh, for example, the population
living in extreme poverty dropped from 43% in 1991 to
10.5% in 2019. Similarly in Cambodia, poverty incidence fell from
53% in 2004 to
below 10% by 2016.
In 2021, Global South countries came out on the short end of vaccine supply deals. In 2022, they are building capacity to produce vaccines themselves.
Suwaiba Hassan published an engrossing story. She used digital apps that are giving literacy a boost.
The global consensus about an international treaty on pandemic prevention is certainly a milestone towards the creation of a global health security framework.
In 2010 and the following years, there was attention to the fact that much of global poverty had shifted to middle-income countries (for example
here,
here, and
here).
The Covid-19 pandemic affected countries and people globally, at the same time exacerbated vulnerabilities such as modern-day slavery. There are over
40.3 million people estimated to be in modern-day slavery, and certain population groups, sectors and geographies such as children, migrant workers, women and girls that were already vulnerable, became more vulnerable to recruitment and exploitation during the pandemic. The
United Nations has called the pandemic more than a health crisis, “it is an economic crisis, a humanitarian crisis, and a human rights crisis.”
Calls, even screams, to fight inflation above all else are getting shriller. Thankfully, even
The Economist (5 Feb. 2022) reminds all,
Fighting inflation could put the world in a slump.
No inflation consensus
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva
doubts the world faces a runaway inflation threat. She urges policymakers to carefully calibrate fiscal and monetary policies, with more “specificity”, as not ‘one size fits all’.
Safeguarding food security has long been a critical priority for the Chinese central government. President Xi’s latest comments and meetings demonstrate continued concerns at the top about
China’s food security. Ahead of the 20th National Congress this year and the release of the No 1 policy document, there are already several hints regarding what the Chinese central authorities could prioritise in terms of food security for this year and beyond. Other factors, including the potential influences of gene-edited plants, commercialisation of genetically modified (GM) crops, and of a Russia-Ukraine conflict should also be considered.
The year 2021 began with several new vaccines showing efficacy in randomized trials, but despite 26 authorised Covid-19 vaccines globally, and at least another 200 in development (The Lancet, 2021), the first few weeks of year 2022 brought a sense of uncertainty.