"I'm more optimistic than before" about the goal of ending hunger included in the 2030 agenda for Latin America and the Caribbean, said FAO regional representative Mario Lubetkin in an interview with IPS.
Stories of growing vulnerability make regular headlines across all Asian and Pacific small island developing States (SIDS). With tens of thousands of people displaced every year due to climate and disaster-related events, there are continued concerns about the costs of climate-related hazards.
It is a new dawn as Africa’s high fashion industry enters an era defined and driven by young African fashion designers. As they take to the global stage, the young creatives are showcasing the continent in all its majesty through unique weaving techniques and patterns that combine their rich African heritage with contemporary styles.
Older women and women with disabilities experience abuse that is unique to their demographics, yet they are underrepresented in national and global databases, according to findings shared by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Nine years ago, farmer Sultan Ahmed Bhatti gave up tilling the soil and using most fertilizers and pesticides on his farm in Doober Bhattian, Pakistan.
His brothers at first derided him. But soon, his first experiment with growing wheat on raised beds was a runaway success. “We produced more wheat than what we grew on ploughed, flat land,” he said.
If there is a place where the interlinkages and dependencies between the effects of climate warming and biodiversity loss are clearly at display, it’s Nepal. There is clear
evidence on the impact of climate change on the country’s ecosystem considering the fact that Nepal is an important biodiversity hotspot.
The people of Patqapara Village, a hamlet in India's West Bengal State, were until recently reeling under absolute distress due to water scarcity. The lack of irrigation facilities in this far-flung and inaccessible hamlet had resulted in a steady decline in agricultural activities.
With a population of around 7,000, as per government estimates, the village primarily depends on agriculture for its livelihood. However, in recent years, drastic changes in weather patterns, including unseasonal rainfall, delayed monsoons, and soaring temperatures above normal levels, led to the drying up of irrigation canals and wells in the village. This left the local population in chaos, as their cultivable fields were bereft of any irrigation facilities.
At last the UN Security Council has
passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. While stopping short of demanding a permanent end to the violence, it goes further than the world’s peak peace and security body had so far managed since the start of the current brutal phase of conflict in October. But the time it’s taken to get to this point signals an ongoing failure of global institutions to uphold human rights.
Wael Al-Hassan was returning from work in the Syrian city of Harim when he heard the sound of a baby crying.
He was returning from work on December 10, 2023. He stopped momentarily, turned on his mobile phone flashlight to investigate, and spotted a baby girl, around one month old, wrapped in a white blanket, lying by the roadside.
Sri Lankan lawmaker Hector Appuhamy, in conversation with IPS ahead of a two-day conference aimed at educating and involving university students in mental health issues, said parliamentarians were concerned about gaps in the programmes and financing for youth mental health. They were looking beyond the country's health budget for support in ensuring that youth were able to access mental health facilities in a supportive environment.
This year’s UNDP Global Human Development Report (HDR) marks a dramatic shift away from the cautious optimism espoused in the HDR just four years ago: despite reaching a new high, the Global Human Development Index now evolves meaningfully below the 2019 trend – threatening to make global development losses permanent.
At the half-way point of the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “
are in deep trouble.” The need to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals has never been more urgent as only approximately 12% of targets are currently on track.
“Planet” is equally at risk as “people”.
In the developing world, land rights for women remain tenuous in the agricultural sector. But if women farmers are recognized as landowners in their own right, it can lead to greater economic empowerment and be a positive step towards eradicating poverty.
This formed part of the wider discussions that are being hosted during the 68
th session of the Commission for the Status of Women (CSW68) in New York. The leading theme of CSW68 and its side events is the effort to accelerate gender equality by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions.
In Chile, as in the rest of Latin America, the task of caring for people with disabilities, the elderly and children falls to women who, as a result, do not have access to paid jobs or time for themselves.
For the past eight years, Chiso has collected waste as part of Accra’s informal waste management sector. Since arriving in Ghana from Nigeria, he has earned enough to allow him and his family to survive, but saving money has been nearly impossible.
Picture yourself as an early-career ocean researcher. You have the opportunity to be at sea in addition to learning on campus. Through cutting-edge technology and immersive facilities, you experience the most realistic ocean exploration scenarios, including braving extreme cold and harsh environments. That’s the experience at the Launch, a 'living lab' at the Marine Institute of Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the east coast of Canada. It’s an experience meant to prepare you for the real-world complexities of the type of ocean research needed to tackle urgent global issues like climate change.
Seema Mali is desperate. She has no defences against this changing climate’s brutal heat. Mali makes fresh flower garland the whole year, but her summer income has been plummeting by 30 percent over the last 8–10 years due to the extreme heat.
Honeybees quickly react with a sharp and loud buzz sound as beekeeper Tanyaradzwa Kanangira opens one of the wooden horizontal Kenyan top bar hives near a stream in a thick forest in Chimanimani, 412 kilometres from Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare.
The 26-year-old puffs some smoke, a safety measure, as he holds and inspects a honeycomb built from hexagons by the honey bees.
The Maung family is rebuilding their lives in a foreign land. A freshly painted signboard with a play on the word
Revolution declares their small restaurant is open for business, and breakfast features traditional Myanmar
mohinga—rice noodles and fish soup.
With 20 percent of the global population and vast untapped natural resources, not forgetting its human capital, it is time Africa had its rightful seat at the global table, the United Nations Under Secretary and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Claver Gatete, has called.
Nearly two kilometers into the Indian Ocean from the Mwazaro beach coastline in Lunga Lunga Sub-County, Kwale County, women can be spotted seated in the shallow ocean waters or tying strings to erected poles parallel to the waves. It is a captivating sight to see rows of seaweed farms in the Indian Ocean.