Humanitarian Emergencies

Refugees Recount Harrowing Escape from Besieged Ukraine

By Ed Holt
“I never, ever, believed that anything like this could happen,” says Valia*. “Not for a second.”

Ukraine Incursion, World Stagflation

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Finger pointing in the blame game over Russia’s Ukraine incursion obscures the damage it is doing on many fronts. Meanwhile, billions struggle to cope with worsening living standards, exacerbated by the pandemic and more. Losing sight in the fog of war US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken insists, “the Russian people will suffer the consequences of their leaders’ choices”. Western leaders and media seem to believe their unprecedented “crushing sanctions” will have a “chilling effect” on Russia.

Africa Needs to Move Quickly on COVID Vaccines to Build Long-term Resilience

By Samira Sadeque
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.

‘Brutal’ Discrimination Adds Trauma to Roma as they Flee War-torn Ukraine

By Ed Holt
Roma refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine are facing discrimination on both sides of the country’s borders at the end of often harrowing journeys across the country, rights groups have claimed.

International Women’s Day, 2022
How Bangladesh Became a Test Case for Women’s Empowerment

By Claudia Sadoff
The increased empowerment of rural women in Bangladesh over the past 10 years has been no accident. A decade ago, not even one in four rural women could be said to be “empowered” across five key metrics, a figure that surprised even those working on the ground with the country’s poorest. By 2015, this had risen to more than two in five, or 41 per cent, with continued gains in recent years.

International Women’s Day, 2022
To Overcome Africa’s Development Crisis, Invest in Strengthening Girls’ Power

By Caroline Ngonze
It was on a visit to Lesotho that I first heard the derogatory term Mmutla – nocturnal hare. It is a word used in some southern districts to insult adolescent girls who have been forced into sexual exploitation and transactional sexual relations for survival.

International Women’s Day, 2022
Celebrating the Transformative Impact of Women as Non-Formal Educators

By Erum Mariam
Women around the world play crucial roles in education as formal educators, school staff members, and parents of students. But women are also transforming education as non-formal educators in ways that can be scaled to improve education broadly. As we celebrate International Women’s Day (March 8), it’s important that this transformative role is recognized.

A Tale of Two Refugee Crises

By Rachael Reilly and Michael Flynn
Russia’s brutal and devastating invasion of Ukraine has triggered the largest and fastest refugee movement in Europe since World War II. After only a single week, more than one million people had already fled the country.

International Women’s Day, 2022
To be Just, the Energy Transition Must Include & Empower Women

By Lucia Cortina
Access to clean energy improves women’s lives in a myriad of ways. It supports access to education and quality healthcare, opens new economic opportunities, and reduces unpaid domestic labour and gender-based violence. Yet too often, the sector as a whole – from industry to policymaking – still fails to include women as energy users, decision-makers and agents of change of the energy transition.

International Women’s Day, 2022
Sexual Violence Laws are Failing Adolescents

By Jacqui Hunt
At Equality Now, we have been on a years-long journey to track and analyze sexual violence laws and their implementation around the world. This work was born after working with survivors of sexual violence for over two decades and observing that women and girls reported similar barriers to justice regardless of where they were from.

Targeting Only Russian Oligarchs, a Historic Mistake

By Matti Kohonen
The war in Ukraine has highlighted Russian kleptocrats funnelling billions of dollars out of the country and investing them in London and other major global financial centres, prompting political leaders in Europe and USA to crack down on this shady money. Russian oligarchs are believed to hold as much as $1 trillion in wealth abroad, often hidden in offshore companies whose true ownership is hard to determine.

Education Cannot Wait Interviews German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Svenja Schulze


 
ECW: Germany recently announced €200 million (US$228.3 million), in new, additional funding for Education Cannot Wait (ECW). What inspired Germany to make such a game-changing investment in ECW by prioritizing multi-year funding for education in emergencies?

International Women’s Day, 2022
Women Demanding Justice & Peace in the Streets of Myanmar

By May Sabe Phyu
This will be the second International Women’s Day since the brutal coup erupted in Myanmar – and women remain fiercely in the lead in demanding justice and peace in the streets and behind closed doors.

International Women’s Day, 2022
Collective Solutions to Improve Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights in Climate Action

By Ayomide Oluseye and Gabriela Fernando
The devastating effects of climate change continue to disproportionately affect women and girls in the poorest regions, who have contributed the least to global warming.

Gender Lens Crucial to Leaving No One Behind (Part 2)

By IPS Correspondent
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.

6 in 7 People Worldwide Experience ‘High Levels of Insecurity’ – Why?

By Baher Kamal
Safety and security are at the base of the ‘hierarchy of needs’ pyramid, second in importance only to life’s absolute necessities—air, water, food and shelter, warns a new report.

Gender Lens Crucial to Leaving No One Behind (Part 1)

By IPS Correspondent
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.

Children with Disabilities are Not Problems to Solve, but Potential to Nurture, says Nujeen Mustafa

By Joyce Chimbi
Struggling with stigma and discrimination in an unaccommodating environment, Nujeen Mustafa knows all too well the difficulties children with disabilities face in emergency and protracted crises.

The Fierce Urgency of Now is Required to Include Crisis-Affected Children with Disabilities in Education – ECW’s Yasmine Sherif says

By Joyce Chimbi
Unable to walk, see or hear, and without assistance, the multiple barriers between 240 million children with disabilities and the education system mean nearly half are likely never to have attended school.

Dream. Dare. Do.

Conflict, forced displacement, climate change and COVID-19 are disrupting the education of millions of crisis-affected children and adolescents around the world.

Responding to New Threats to Poverty Eradication in Asia

By Imran Matin and Stephanie Levy
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.
Next Page »