Opinion: Education as a Cornerstone for Women’s Empowerment

Earlier this month, the Barack Obama administration announced a new initiative designed to improve girls’ education around the world. Dubbed “Let Girls Learn,” the programme builds on current progress made, such as ensuring girls are enrolled in primary school at the same rates as boys, and is looking to expand opportunities for girls to complete their education.

Hold the Rich Accountable in New U.N. Development Goals, Say NGOs

When the World Economic Forum (WEF) met last January in Switzerland, attended mostly by the rich and the super-rich, the London-based charity Oxfam unveiled a report with an alarming statistic: if current trends continue, the world’s richest one percent would own more than 50 percent of the world’s wealth by 2016.

Multi-Drug Resistance Adds to Tuberculosis Epidemic in Papua New Guinea

Rising multi-drug resistance in patients suffering from tuberculosis, a debilitating infectious lung disease which mainly impacts the developing world, has led to a public health emergency in the southwest Pacific Island state of Papua New Guinea, according to state officials.

Four Fast Facts to Debunk Myths About Rural Women

We are lucky to live in a country that has long since abandoned the image of the damsel in distress. Even Disney princesses now save themselves and send unsuitable “saviours” packing. But despite the great strides being made in gender equality, we are still failing rural women, particularly women farmers.

Opinion: Water and Sanitation in Nigeria – Playing the Numbers Game

In Nigeria, it’s all about the numbers. My nation recently became the largest economy in Africa by some distance, with a GDP of well over 500 billion dollars.

Palestinian Women Victims on Many Fronts

Israel’s siege of Gaza, aided and abetted by the Egyptians in the south, has aggravated the plight of Gazan women, and the Jewish state’s devastating military assault on the coastal territory over July and August 2014 exacerbated the situation.

‘Water Man of India’ Wins Stockholm Water Prize

A conservationist known as ‘The Water Man of India’ has been named Stockholm Water Prize Laureate for 2015.

Opinion: Sustainable Development Goals Could Be a Game-Changer for Water

Suppose money was being deposited and withdrawn from your bank account, but you didn’t know how much. And suppose you knew you had bills coming due, but you didn’t know when or what amount would be required to cover them.

Women in the Philippines at the Forefront of the Health Food Movement

When Tinay Alterado’s team from ARUGAAN, an organisation of women healthcare advocates, visited Eastern Visayas, a region of the Philippines devastated by Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, they noticed that the relief and rescue sites were flooded with donated milk formula, which nursing mothers were feeding to their babies in vast quantities.

UNDP Unveils Blueprint for Swift, Unified Crisis Response

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has announced a new 10-year global plan to support country efforts to reduce the risk of disasters that kill people and destroy livelihoods. The plan was unveiled at the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction which ended on Mar. 18.

Why Investors Should Think Twice before Investing in Coal in India – Part 2

In November last year, India’s power minister Piyush Goyal announced that he plans to double coal production in India by the end of this decade and, in an effort to enhance production, the Indian government has started a process of auctioning coal blocks.

World’s Richest One Percent Undermine Fight Against Economic Inequalities

The growing economic inequalities between rich and poor – and the lopsided concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the world’s one percent - are undermining international efforts to fight global poverty, environmental degradation and social injustice, according to a civil society alliance.

In Thrall to the Mall Crawl and Urban Sprawl

There's little argument about the basic facts: It's ugly (think strip malls and big box stores). It's not very convenient (hours spent behind the wheel to get to work). And it wreaks havoc on the natural environment (lost farmland and compromised watersheds).

Nobel Peace Laureate Calls for Global Human Compassion to Combat Child Slavery

Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi has called for globalised human compassion to combat the global and persistent problems of child labour and child slavery.

Middle Income Nations Home to Half the World’s Hungry

Nearly half of the world’s hungry, amounting to about 363 million people, live in some of the rising middle income countries, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Mexico, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).

Millions of Children Impacted by Ebola Outbreak

Nine million children live in areas affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, while thousands have lost parents to the virus, according to a new report from The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

Opinion: Rape in Conflict: Speaking Out for What’s Right

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama delivered an impassioned speech marking the 50th Anniversary of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama and the bloody attack on civil rights marchers by police.

Women Turn Drought into a Lesson on Sustainability

When a group of women in the remote village of Sadhuraks in Pakistan’s Thar Desert, some 800 km from the port city of Karachi, were asked if they would want to be born a woman in their next life, the answer from each was a resounding ‘no’.

Ebola, Women and Disaster Risk Reduction

UNFPA's Liberia representative Remi Sogunro talks to IPS News Agency, explaining the importance of Disaster Risk Reduction strategies to address epidemics such as Ebola and keep women's concerns on top. Sogunro was taking part in the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, from 14 to 18 March 2015.  

Opinion: Gender Equality, the Last Big Poverty Challenge

It is estimated that women account for two-thirds of the 1.4 billion people currently living in extreme poverty. They also make up 60 per cent of the world’s 572 million working poor.

Canada’s Waste Still Rotting in a Philippine Port

Filipino Catholic priest and activist Reverend Father Robert Reyes, dubbed by media as the “running priest”, joined a protest of environmental and public health activists last week by running along the streets of the Makati Business District, the Philippines’ financial capital, to urge the government to immediately re-export the 50 Canadian containers filled with hazardous wastes that have been in the Port of Manila for 600 days now.