Tuesday, May 30, 2023
News and Views from the Global South
Poverty & SDGs
Cash Transfers, Poverty Alleviation Assists with Mental Health – Study
Poverty alleviation policies, especially cash transfers, will not only improve the poor condition of the beneficiaries but can also play a role in strengthening the psychological health of people as well as improve the mental health of those living in poverty in low- and middle-income countries (LMICS), including Africa, a new study has said.
Why Gender Transformative Leadership is Key to Ending TB– for Good
Despite being both curable and preventable, the TB pandemic is a global health crisis and a leading cause of death worldwide. COVID-19 brought into sharp focus how women bear the brunt of pandemics. In 2021, over three million women and girls fell ill with TB, resulting in 450,000 needless deaths.
BRAC International Signs MoU with Rwanda to Empower People in Extreme Poverty
Last week, BRAC International signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Rwanda under the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) to support efforts to empower people in extreme poverty to develop sustainable livelihoods and break the poverty trap long term. This is part of the Government’s broader efforts to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.
The ‘Vampiric’ Draining and Poisoning of Lifeblood: Water
Shockingly, the human suicidal war on Nature not only continues unabated but is also set to become even more virulent. Just to start with, please be reminded that groundwater accounts for 99% of all liquid freshwater on Earth, according to the 2022 UN World Water Development Report.
Venezuela Makes Timid Headway in Solar Energy
The installation of solar panels in a remote village in the Andes highlands in late February marked a second incursion by the Venezuelan government into the field of solar energy, previously uncharted territory in this country that for a century was a leading global oil producer.
Protecting and Managing the High Seas
On March 4 2023, the 193 members of the United Nations reached a major milestone. They agreed on a treaty to manage and protect the high seas– the marine areas that lie outside the 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of coastal states. The high seas are an essential part of the global ecosystem. They cover 50 percent of the Earth’s surface, produce half the oxygen we breathe, provide a home to 95 percent of the planet’s biosphere, are a critical sink for carbon dioxide, and help regulate the Earth’s temperature.
Championing Sustainability Despite Adversities in Asia & the Pacific
As we reach the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it is an opportune moment to reflect on the Asia-Pacific region’s progress and accelerate efforts to achieve our goals.
Bottled Water Masks World’s Failure to Supply Safe Water for All, Can Slow Sustainable Development: UN
The rapidly-growing bottled water industry can undermine progress towards a key sustainable development goal: safe water for all, says a new United Nations report.
Health – It’s Time for Women to Lead the Sector
Women health workers are more than two thirds of the health workforce and represent 90% of the world’s frontline health workers, yet hold less than a quarter of senior leadership roles - a situation which is unfair and a significant risk for global health security.
Terrorism & its Impacts on Water Access in the Sahel
Burkina Faso’s interim President Captain Ibrahim Traoré spoke late last year of the conflicts that are now blighting his country and much of his region. He described the situation in Burkina Faso as predictable given the endemic weaknesses in governance that he believes have led to the economic abandonment of many young people, particularly outside of urban areas.
Parliamentarians Pledge to Act on Grim Realities of Child Marriage, Gender-Based Violence
Child marriage, gender-based violence (GBV), sexuality education, religion, and tradition came under the spotlight during a conference, Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence, held in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Pandemic Accord Text Falls Short of Expectations
As countries recently gathered in Geneva for the fourth round of negotiations on the WHO proposed pandemic treaty or accord, close examination of the current text by civil society experts has revealed significant gaps.
Vanuatu Twin Cyclones Underscore the Pacific’s Vulnerability to Compounding Climate-Disaster Risks
Two destructive Category 4 tropical cyclones, Judy and Kevin, and an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude impacted over 80 per cent of the Vanuatu population from 1 to 3 March 2023. To address this emergency situation, the UN, along with Pacific member States have deployed personnel on the ground to coordinate humanitarian assistance and prepare post-disaster damage assessment.
Breaking Barriers: Why Free & Public Education Should be Every Woman’s Right
This month, government and civil society organization representatives gathered in New York for the United Nations’ 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to discuss technology as a tool to facilitate access to education for women and girls.
Breaking the Link between ‘Polycrisis’ and Poverty
This year marks the halfway point— eight years in and eight years out— of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to end poverty and reduce inequalities.
The Caribbean’s Role in the Transformation of Agri-Food Systems
The global food security crisis reveals an increase in the undernourishment prevalence, reaching higher than in 2015, when countries first agreed to eradicate hunger by 2030 as one of the SDG targets. In the Caribbean, between 2014 and 2021, hunger increased by 2.3 percentage points, affecting 16.4 percent of its population by 2021. Moreover, the Caribbean is a net importer of almost all the main food groups such as cereals, dairy products, fruits and vegetables (except the Dominican Republic), meat and vegetable oils.
International Women’s Day, 2023
Women and Girls: Innovation and Higher Education
In September 2020, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for women’s rights celebrated its 25th anniversary. It was, however, a bittersweet commemoration, mixing joy for the progress in gender equality achieved since 1995, and the stark realization about the multidimensional gaps awaiting tackling and the new divides brought by the social consequences of COVID-19.
International Women’s Day, 2023
Digital Inclusion is Vital for Strengthening Women’s Rights in Africa
The internet has a pivotal role to play in empowering women and girls across Africa, but preexisting forms of gender discrimination and marginalization are underpinning a widening digital gender divide.
International Women’s Day, 2023
The Power of Technology—& the Increased Exclusion, Inequalities & Gender Discrimination
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the tremendous power of technology and innovation has become clear to the world.
However, it has also increased exclusion, discrimination, and inequalities -- especially for women and girls.
International Women’s Day, 2023
Empower Her
On International Women’s Day, let us remind ourselves of the power of education. We have all benefited from an education that less than a century ago was not a given for a girl and which still remains a distant utopia for millions of young girls.
Why Do 800 Mothers a Day – 1 Every 2 Minutes– Die from Preventable Causes?
The answer is that there are alarming setbacks for maternal health care and, in many cases, even a total lack of maternity services, which threaten to further raise the number of these tragic preventable deaths one million or more a year by 2030.« Previous Page — Next Page »
Since 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been devised to promote strategies for countries to reach a globally unified standard for sustainable living and development. This standard of living must be accessible to all, which addresses the first SDG: No Poverty. As the global community stepped into the Decade of Action of the 2020s, UN member states are expected to deliver on their goals by 2030, and it is crucial to examine the measures taken to recognize and meet those goals. Eradicating poverty will require policy frameworks on the national and regional levels to ensure that by 2030 all have equal rights to access economic resources along with access to basic services.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it was estimated that 6 percent of the global population would still live in extreme poverty in 2030. The destabilizing impact of the pandemic could push over 70 million people into poverty, with developing countries most vulnerable. In its wake, the UN COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund were designed to support the communities most disproportionately vulnerable to the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic.
IPS provides comprehensive reporting on the current practices in ending poverty and the social, economic, and environmental factors that present challenges to this goal.
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Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
