Latin America Faces Uphill Energy Transition

Latin America is facing challenges in energy efficiency, transportation and power generation to move towards a low carbon economy and thus accelerate that transition, which is essential to cut emissions in order to reduce global warming before it reaches a critical level.

African Youth Demand a Seat at the Table

A new wave is sweeping across Africa. Elections on the continent are increasingly yielding younger leadership than ever before. From presidents to ministers and governors, senators to members of parliament, Africa’s young people are demanding a seat at the political table.

After More Than a Decade, Rights of Indigenous Peoples Not Fully Realized

First, I want to talk about how we got here. It was nearly 100 years ago, when indigenous peoples first asserted their rights, on the international stage. But, they did not see much progress. At least until 1982 - when the first Working Group on Indigenous Populations was established.

A Child of War Dedicates Herself to Peace

“I was so angry, I felt like I wanted to blow up the whole world, but I didn’t. I decided I wouldn’t be pushed to become evil. I would choose peace.” Dalia Al-Najjar has crammed a great deal into her short life. At 22, the Palestinian refugee has already lived through three wars and has spent every spare moment between siege and ceasefire studying, volunteering, working, blogging, on the daily struggle to live in Gaza – and planning how to change the future.

Tunneling Through the Andes to Connect Argentina and Chile

Visionaries imagined it more than 80 years ago, as a way to strengthen the integration between Argentina and Chile. Today it is considered a regional need to boost trade flows between the two oceans. Work on a binational tunnel, a giant engineering project in the Andes, is about to begin.

Is There Data Privacy & Protection to Poor Customers?

Research increasingly demonstrates that poor customers, just like other customers, value their privacy and care deeply about the protection of their personal data. But what do providers think about obtaining, using, storing and sharing personally identifiable information?

New Platform Will Support Youth Projects on Water and Climate

Young people around the globe with good ideas on how to deal with water and climate challenges now have a platform to show their projects to the world and attract funding and other contributions to realise their dreams.

Working Together Is Key to Meeting Water Targets by 2030

Mutual collaboration and coordination among the various stakeholders are tools to accelerate the actions necessary to meet the 6th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in the 2030 Agenda, which states the need to ensure access to clean water and sanitation for all.

We Must Take Care of Nature, Because Without Rain There Is No Fresh Water

Confidence in large rivers and giant aquifers plummeted in many parts of the world, in the face of the expansion of water crises after intense and prolonged droughts in the last decade.

Latin American Indigenous People Fight New Plunder of Their Resources

Indigenous communities in Latin America, who have suffered the plunder of their natural resources since colonial times, are reliving that phenomenon again as mega infrastructure are jeopardising their habitat and their very survival.

Deported Salvadorans in Times of Trump

Carrying a red plastic bag containing an old pair of shoes and a few other belongings, David Antonio Pérez arrives to El Salvador, deported from the United States.

How Can the Large-Scale Poaching in the South Atlantic Be Stopped?

The capture of a Spanish vessel illegally fishing in the so-called Argentine Sea made headlines, once again, although it is not news that hundreds of boats regularly pillage the South Atlantic, taking advantage of the lack of regulations and controls.

Forest Communities Join Forces to Fight Land Degradation in Mexico

Forest communities play a fundamental role in Mexico in combating land degradation, but they need more support to that end.

Women Lead the Fight for Housing in Brazil

"Here we empower women and we do not tolerate domestic violence, which we treat as our own, not as an intra-family, issue," says Lurdinha Lopes, a leader of the squatting movement in Brazil.

#MeToo & Security Council Resolution 1325

I am one of millions of women who posted #MeToo on social media. The call to post was like a flash of light that brought back vivid memories of cat calls, male colleagues making passes, lewd jokes, men rubbing their bodies against mine in packed buses and trains and a man in an act of public sexual self-gratification on the subway.

Rural Women’s Empowerment — the Road to Gender Equality & Sustainable Development

When we celebrate the International Women’s Day (IWD) this year we shine the brightest light on the vast majority of women - especially in developing countries that live and work in rural areas and whose empowerment is about bringing the farthest left behind to the forefront of being the prime beneficiaries and drivers of sustainable development, peace and security, human rights and humanitarian action.

Ensuring Equality & Inclusion Essential to Weed Out Roots of Extremism

In the next seven days two of the biggest events that drive the women’s equality agenda will energize all well-meaning people of the world. The first on 8 March the International Women’s Day will assert renewed energy for women’s activism for peace, rights and development.

Everyone Stands to Gain When More Women take Top Positions in Businesses

Women’s role in the workplace is at the heart the International Women’s Day commemoration. Even though it first celebrated a demonstration by women workers in New York in 1857, it was the killing of nearly 150 young women workers in a sweatshop, engulfed by a massive fire in just 20 minutes, which marked the modern celebration of International Women’s Day, in New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on 25 March 1911.

In Latin America “Me Too” Doesn’t Always Mean the Same Thing

From the Argentine slogan "Ni una menos" (Not one [woman] less)" to Colombia’s “Now is not the time to remain silent”, activism against gender violence has grown in Latin America since 2015, with campaigns that have social and cultural differences from the "MeToo" movement that emerged later, in 2017, in the United States.

When Environmental Crises Hit Homes, Women Suffer the Most

When Mandelena became a mother, she was only 16. During the prolonged dry season in Gwor County, South Sudan, her community saw crops failing and cattle dying. Children stopped going to school because of hunger and women and girls had to walk up to five hours every day to collect water.

Rural Women Are Essential to the Struggle Against Hunger

Adelaida Marca, an Aymaran indigenous woman who produces premium oregano in Socoroma, in the foothills of the Andes in the far north of Chile, embodies the recovery of heirloom seeds, and is a representative of a workforce that supports thousands of people and of a future marked by greater gender equality.