Zimbabwe’s Unsung Living HIV/AIDS Hero Spreads Message of Hope

In 2001, when Reki Jimu was 30 years old, his wife died aged 27. The now 51-year-old Jimu said the couple’s two sons died prematurely. Both were underweight and frail, although the couple had been previously blessed with a baby girl, Faith Jimu, who is now a 29-year-old mother of three.

Not a World for Young People

Many of us assume that an identification with a certain gender, race, nation or even age makes us particularly knowledgeable. When it comes to age, it is in most cultures of the world assumed that age and experience favour wisdom. I am not entirely sure about that, though I am convinced that as we grow older we tend to overestimate our own knowledge and importance. An arrogance that might burden and even marginalize the youth.

Rising Sea Levels, Drought, Hurricanes and Deforestation Threaten Latin America and the Caribbean

The highest deforestation rates since 2009. The third most active hurricane season on record. Extreme rainfall, floods, and landslides displaced tens of thousands of people. Rising sea levels. Glaciers in Peru lost more than half their size. Add the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic to the mix, and 2021 was a challenging year for Latin America and the Caribbean.

An Integrated Regional Response for the Sahel Crisis

The current Ukraine-Russia conflict is dominating the global media to the point of overshadowing longer protracted crisis that no longer make headlines, but are still rife. Such is the case with the on-going Sahel crisis, one of the world's most neglected ones, where acute poverty, the dramatic effects of climate change and rising armed conflicts have become the norm for more than a decade. A situation further exacerbated by the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.

Abortion in Canada—Legal for Decades But Hindered by Stigma

Toronto resident Miranda Knight describes her abortion experience as relatively simple. After finding out she was pregnant on a Wednesday in 2017, she booked an appointment at an available clinic and got one for the following Monday. She had the procedure that day and left the clinic by noon.

Reject CPTPP, Stay out of New Cold War

Joining or ratifying dubious trade deals is supposed to offer miraculous solutions to recent lacklustre economic progress. Such naïve advocacy is misleading at best, and downright irresponsible, even reckless, at worst. TPP ‘pivot to Asia’ US President Barack Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia’ after his 2012 re-election sought to check China’s sustained economic growth and technological progress. Its economic centrepiece was the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Webinar: Lessons in Development from the Global South: 50 Years of BRAC

 
This virtual event was hosted by BRAC, the Permanent Mission of Bangladesh to the UN, and the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the UN on the sidelines of the 2022 UN High Level Political Forum.

Achieving the SDGs in Extraordinary Times

The start of the “Decade of Action” to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has also marked the start of an unprecedented period of overlapping crises.

News Fatigue, Anti-Vax and Wars

During the beginning of the pandemic, people wanted to learn more about COVID-19. Enclosed in their homes they watched with fear and fascination how the pandemic swept over the world, while comparing numbers of affected people and the death-toll in different countries. Watching COVID’s rampage became a kind of horror show. However, already after a few months with death-tolls rising and isolation not being over anytime soon, psychological fatigue set in. Judging from media coverage it now appears as if the pandemic finally is over, which is far from being the case.

What Future for a World of 8 Billion?

What does a young girl from Juba, in South Sudan, an 8-year-old boy living in the slums of Mumbai, in India, a young mother from the south of Lima, in Peru, and an 83-year-old man enjoying retirement in the suburbs of Stockholm, in Sweden, have in common?

India & China Continue to Lead –as World Population Projected to Reach 8.0 Billion

India and China, two Asian nuclear powers who are also longstanding rivals embroiled in the geo-politics of the Indian Ocean region, have remained two of the world’s most populous nations accounting for over a billion people each. But as the world’s population reaches the 8.0 billion mark, come November, India is projected to surpass China.

A World of 8 Billion, Yes, But (II): The Unseen, Untold Story of the 50%

While women and girls have been so far enjoying some of their due rights in Western high-income countries, the overwhelming majority of teenagers and adult women in the impoverished regions of the current world’s population of 8 billions continue to suffer all kinds of inequalities.

Differently-Abled Farmers Integrate Digital Technology, Aim To Set Example For Others

Hidden in Pathumthaini province just outside of Bangkok, 0.24 hectares of land adjacent to Seangsan temple has been turned into an urban vegetable farm managed by members of the Association of the Physically handicapped of Pathumthani.

Rights Groups Question ‘Pregnancy Register’ for Polish Women

Women’s rights groups fear a new legal provision in Poland requiring doctors to collect records on all pregnancies could create what they have described as a ‘pregnancy register’ to monitor whether women are having abortions.

Animals are Core to Pandemic Prevention – We Must Strengthen Their Defences

The ongoing discussions at the World Health Organization (WHO) around a new, landmark ‘pandemic prevention treaty’ shows that the world is starting to act on the lessons it learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Androids in Human Populations

It is time for countries, especially those with slow growing and ageing human populations, to welcome androids, i.e., humanoid robots with human-like appearance and behavior, including speech, sight, hearing, mobility, and artificial intelligence.

Reimagining Ageing: Older Persons as Agents of Development

Older persons are highly visible across Asia and the Pacific: they work in agricultural fields producing our food supplies, peddle their wares as street vendors, drive tuk-tuks and buses, exercise in our parks, lead some of the region’s most successful companies and form an integral part of our families.

Roe Overturned: What You Need to Know about the US Supreme Court Abortion Decision

After half a century, Americans’ constitutional right to get an abortion has been overturned by the Supreme Court. The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – handed down on June 24, 2022 – has far-reaching consequences. The Conversation asked Nicole Huberfeld and Linda C. McClain, health law and constitutional law experts at Boston University, to explain what just happened, and what happens next.

Urgent Need to Enact Proposed Law to Secure Sexual and Reproductive Health in East Africa Countries

The Ministry of Health in Kenya recently reported that about 700 teenage girls got pregnant daily over a two-month period, in this year alone. What is more is that during this period, 98 adolescent girls between the ages of 10 and 19 contracted HIV every week in this time period

‘When it Comes to Gender Equality, Our Best is Not Good Enough’: says Dr Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted lives all over the world. According to this report, gender is emerging as a significant factor in the social, economic and health effects of Covid-19. Women have been hit much harder socially and economically than men. The greatest and most persistent gender gap was seen in employment and uncompensated labour, with 26% of women reporting loss of work compared with 20% of men globally in September 2021.

Stronger Healthcare Systems Critical for Africa’s Socioeconomic Transformation

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems globally have battled to deal with the repercussions unleashed by the disease. From the outset, Africa was considered particularly vulnerable due to several factors: limited healthcare provision in some areas, high prevalence of HIV and TB in a number of countries, and limited fiscal room to respond to the pandemic’s financial impacts.