Bridging the Gaps Between Climate Action & Biodiversity Preservation

With the climate negotiations getting more and more intense in the light of ensuring meaningful achievements in the upcoming COP- 26 summit in Edinburgh, an event that is key to move forward the pathway towards a net zero future started in Paris, this year World Environment Day on June 5 assumes an even more emblematic meaning.

Why Investing in Women Is Key to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

Last year, the Asia-Pacific region recorded its worst economic performance in decades. With the pandemic far from over, the region’s recovery is slow, fragile and highly uneven both across and within countries. As the region struggles to recover, how can countries rebuild their economies and revive their development?

2021: The Year that Matters for the Poorest People on the Planet

This year is being described as pivotal for climate change. That’s not only because we’re reaching a point of no return when it comes to the rise in global temperature, it’s because the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties – commonly known as COP26 – is due to take place in November in Glasgow.

Africa’s Forgotten Crisis

A few weeks ago, I traveled with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi to the Modale refugee site in the Nord-Ubangi province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). What we witnessed there was a profound humanitarian crisis that has left 4.7 million children and youth in need of urgent, life-saving, life-changing educational support.

It’s Time to Reimagine Our Relationship with Nature

Our natural earth is dying. It is on the brink of collapse. Due to human impacts the planet is losing species – its biodiversity – at a rate so alarming it’s said to be comparable to the 5th mass extinction 65 million years ago, bringing the era of the dinosaurs to an end. Just 15% of the world’s forests remain intact, and only 3% of the world’s oceans are free from human pressures.

– Why Experts are Saying It’s a ‘Make or Break’ Moment for Forests –

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks. The original article was published on April 28 2021

Are There Clinically Meaningful Differences Between anti-COVID-19 Vaccines?

Despite claims by the industry and some politicians, there are no clinically meaningful differences among the variety of vaccines approved under emergency use authorisation (EUA).

COVID-19 Widens Learning Gap For Girls In Rural Ghana

Seventeen-year-old Muniratu Adams, a form two student of the Jeyiri D/A Junior High School at Funsi in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region of Ghana, is fortunate to have returned to school this January after the long COVID-19 shutdown.

To Beat Covid, Beat HIV, & Beat Inequality, Find the Money

In this time of intersecting crises – the Covid crisis, the HIV crisis, the inequality crisis, and more – progress on all these crises is being blocked by another crisis: finance.

– Indonesia’s Climate Villages Where Communities Work Together to Mitigate Climate Change –

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks. The original article was published on April 7 2021

India’s Second COVID-19 Wave Shatters Livelihood Hopes of Poor Migrant Labourers

Last month, in the midst of New Delhi’s coronavirus lockdown, 37- year-old labourer Prakash Kumar wanted to return to his rural home in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh. But instead of travelling the usual few hours by bus, Kumar had to journey for three days.

Wards Without Water

Malawian healthcare workers are facing challenges from all sides. More than half of healthcare facilities in Malawi are without handwashing facilities, almost two thirds have no decent toilets and almost one fifth do not have clean water on site.

– A Growing Shift in the Narrative about Climate Action –

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks. The original article was published on February 25 2021

Q&A: Reflecting on Five Years of Educating Children in the Throes of Crises, Emergencies and Displacement

Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund that brings teaching and learning to children in emergencies and protracted crises, is observing five years of reaching boys and girls in some of the world’s hardest-hit conflict and disaster zones.

– The Global Insecurity of Climate Change –

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks. The original article was published on February 24 2021

– UN Blueprint that Could Urgently Solve Earth’s Triple Climate Emergencies –

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks. The original article was published on February 19 2021

– Successful Crop Innovation Is Mitigating Climate Crisis Impact in Africa –

On the occasion of World Environment Day, 5 June 2021, drawing from IPS’s bank of features and opinion editorials published this year, we are re-publishing one article a day, for the next two weeks. The original article was published on February 17 2021

When Battling Covid-19 Becomes a National Policy Disaster

We went to the Kanatte cemetery, Sri Lanka’s largest, where most of us, residents of the capital city, would end up sooner or later. But it was deserted, and so we had time for a leisurely chat with some of the helpful staff there, albeit after admiring some of the grave sites and remaining beautiful trees.

Large Corporations Cash in on COVID-19 Relief Funds

Poverty and income inequality are being deepened as COVID-19 relief funds are handed out to large corporations instead of social protection programmes in developing countries, groups involved in a new study of COVID-19 bailouts have said.

Women Leading Somalia’s Health System

Somalia is one of the most complex regions of the world, with threats and political instability, extreme weather conditions, movement of internally displaced people (IDPs), decades of conflict, poverty-related deprivation, poor health and communicable diseases that are killing people. There is a constant risk of gender violence making women, children and members of minority groups particularly vulnerable, and more so during displacement or while seeking work. Three decades of civil war and instability have weakened Somalia’s health system and contributed to it having some of the lowest health indicators in the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has added yet another strain on its tremendously fragile infrastructure presenting unexpected challenges and dilemmas.

Africa’s Worsening Climate: Here’s How the United States can Help Africa

Recently, I participated in a Congressional hearing on the “Effects of climate change in Africa”, before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and Internal Organizations, chaired by Congresswoman, Karen Bass.