State Intervention Necessary to Overcome Covid-19 Threats

It is now clear that most East Asian government responses to novel coronavirus or Covid-19 outbreaks have been effective. In Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, the number infected have remained relatively low despite their proximity and vulnerability, while containment in China and South Korea has been impressive.

Use Stimulus Packages for Longer Term Progress

The coronavirus pandemic seems to have finally forced governments around the world to ditch their obsession (at least for the moment) with delivering budget surplus. As stock markets tumble, stimulus measures, worth billions of dollars, are announced to boost investor confidence and consumer spending to keep economies running.

I Am Generation Equality: Storytelling for Equality

When you flip through grade one Bangla school textbooks there is very little written about the progress women have made in Bangladesh since the Beijing Conference for Women in 1995.

Rural Poverty and Disability in Ethiopia

With about 109 million people, Ethiopia is the second most populous nation in Africa after Nigeria, and the fastest growing economy in the region. However, it is also one of the poorest, with a per capita income of $790.

Rural Poverty, Employment and Disability

About 15% of the world's population lives with some form of disability, of whom 2-4% experience significant difficulties in functioning. Disability is part of the human condition, and almost everyone will be temporarily or permanently impaired at some point in life, and those who survive into old age will experience increasing difficulties in functioning. Here the focus is on empirical validation of whether disabilities are associated with economic hardships through loss of employment and consequently impoverishment in rural India. The motivation stems from continuing neglect of health in the budgetary allocations –including the allocations for 2020-21.

Brazil: Low on FSI but Much to Offer the South

Brazil is one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of coffee, sugar, beef, soya, cotton, and ethanol but due to its environmental and water footprint it ranks low on sustainability. Brazilian agriculture’s contribution to the loss of rainforest is a case in point – the Amazon lost as much as 3,465 square miles of forest due to fires last year – triggering widespread international outrage over the lax environment policies that allowed all of this to happen. Its large commercial cattle herd is also a source of greenhouse gas emissions. Brazil’s challenge is to make its model of agricultural development more environment-friendly.

An Ambitious Year for Climate Action Is a Big Year for Women’s Empowerment

This year, the Paris Agreement’s effectiveness as a global response to the climate crisis is being tested as governments are preparing to submit more ambitious national targets for mitigation and adaptation.

On 8th March – and All the Other Days: Each for Equal

Development efforts over the past two decades have seen millions of people freed from poverty and hunger, and inequalities reduced worldwide. This is an undoubted achievement, but is no reason for complacency. The fact is that inequality between men and women, between boys and girls, remains not only a social justice concern, but one of the impediments on development in countries across Africa and beyond. Addressing such inequalities is a duty for all of us, and one which is at the heart of the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day on 8th March: Each for Equal.

Slavery Modernises, Adapts to Stay Alive in Brazil

"Slave labour is not declining; it has taken on new forms and is growing; it expanded to new sectors where it did not previously exist," said Ivanete da Silva Sousa, an activist in the fight against modern-day slavery in northern Brazil.

Many Milestones but Painfully Slow Progress Towards Gender Equality

The narrative surrounding women’s rights in 2020 carries much hope and possibility. A new decade is ushering in important anniversaries and milestones: 25 years since the Beijing Platform for Action, 110 years since the birth of International Women's Day and the 10-year countdown to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Personal Conviction Versus Fandom: The Case of Mitt Romney

The great American impeachment show has ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. The dirt was washed away from President Trump, the perfect Teflon Guy. Maybe his invulnerability comes from the fact that he appears to be more of a brand than a real person, adapted to a frame of mind that increasingly dominates social media – cheap entertainment, shallowness, vulgarity, invectives, and catchy phrases without support in well-founded facts. Trump is all and nothing, a shape shifting trickster pretending to be the role model for voiceless masses.

Climate-Smart Agriculture means More Time for Eswatini Women Farmers

Aside from the seven hours Mantfombi Msibi (63) would spend daily during the Eswatini farming season planting, applying herbicides and weeding her 1.2-hectare maize field, she would also spend E1 750 ($125) on tractor services. It was a huge cost of both time and money. But this season, Msibi will be benefiting from climate-smart farming technology that has opened up a new world of farming to her, saving her time in the process. 

Tackling Climate Change and Preserving the Water Body: A Bangladeshi Perspective

For any riverine country, the state of the water body around big cities and conditions of major rivers hold a leadership position in the overall climate effects and how the water body is protected and preserved impacts the entire economy and living standards of that country. Bangladesh is renowned for the geomorphic features that include massive rivers flowing throughout the country. Within the border of Bangladesh lie the bottom reaches of the Himalayan Range water sources that flow into the Bay of Bengal totaling the number of rivers by a count of 700. The length of river bodies is about 24,140 km. There are predominantly four major river systems: the Brahmaputra-Jamuna, the Ganges-Padma, the Surma-Meghna, and the Chittagong Region river system. The Brahmaputra is the 22nd longest (2,850 km) and the Ganges is the 30th longest (2,510 km) river in the world. (1) The river system works as a backbone for agriculture, communication, drinking water source, energy source, fishing and as the principal arteries of commercial transportation in Bangladesh. During the annual monsoon period between June and October, the rivers flow about 140,000 cubic meters per second and during the dry period, the numbers come down to 7000 cubic meters per second.

Why Trade in Services Matters for Development and Inclusiveness in Africa

The rise of the services economy around the world represents a profound transformation that offers significant opportunities for countries' sustainable development strategies.

Coming Down the Davos Mountain with a Gender Lens

In a recent report by World Economic Forum (WEF) shows women suffer a “triple whammy” in the workplace. Without drastic action, gender parity will take more than a lifetime to achieve. This is the challenge that Katja Iversen, President and CEO of Women Deliver is staring down.

Could Africa’s Marketplace Platforms Help Upskill a Generation for the Digital Age?

By 2030, sub-Saharan Africa will be home to more than a quarter of the world’s population under 25. Between 15 and 20 million young people will enter the African workforce each year, joining the ranks of the millions of currently under- and unemployed people searching for better livelihoods.

Women & Girls Up Front — the Humanitarian Response in Democratic Republic of Congo

Eleven-year-old “Anne” went to a health facility with her mother in the conflict-affected province of Ituri, in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. At first, she could barely tell her story.

Digital Civil Registration Can Reduce the Number of ‘Invisible’ People and Bring Kenya Closer to the SDGs

A recent opinion piece in the New York Times titled, “Kenya’s New Digital IDs May Exclude Millions of Minorities” raises an issue that the UN is passionate about: that the pursuit of sustainable development should leave no one behind.

Multilateralism Versus Regionalism: Which Path Should African Countries Pursue to Expand Trade and Investment Opportunities?

Increasingly, the ability of multilateralism to address contemporary global issues such as climate change and international trade is being questioned. In the case of international trade, WTO Members have thus far not been able to conclude the Doha Round, which was launched in November 2001. The Round was supposed to have been concluded on 1 January 2005, but it has been beset by persistent differences among the WTO Members. Whereas most developing countries believe that the Round is still active and have called for the fulfilment of all Doha mandates, several developed countries are of the view that the Round has run its full course and overtaken by developments in the global economy. They note that three out of the ten top economies in the world are developing countries – Brazil, China and India – and that several developing economies are also competitive in certain sectors of the global economy and that by granting significant flexibilities in the negotiations to these competitive developing economies, the Round's mandates are no longer valid and that differentiation among developing countries should be part of the broader on-going discussion on WTO reform.

Am I Abused or Am I a Failure to Adjust? – A Migrant’s Story

Every year hundreds of immigrants leave their homes and trail to a land of dream and hope where they aspire to find peace, happiness and sometimes a little bit of safety compared to what they leave behind.

Blue Innovation in the Commonwealth

With 95 per cent of the ocean still unexplored by humans, we are only just beginning to understand its profound influence on life on earth, including its effect on global climate and ecosystems.