Environment

Widespread Natural Disasters Threaten Development Goals

By Amina J. Mohammed
This year in the Caribbean and on the American mainland, hurricanes have left millions of people in need of assistance.

An Urgent Need to Transform World’s Energy Systems

By António Guterres
When we discuss global interconnection in relation to energy, we are at the centre of the two key words that express our global concerns - sustainability and inclusivity.

Women and Malnutrition in Africa

By Raghav Gaiha and Vani S. Kulkarni
Undernutrition is widespread and a key reason for poor child health in many developing countries. In Sub-Saharan Africa, around 40 percent of children under the age of five suffer from stunted growth, that is, severely reduced height-for-age relative to their growth potential. Stunting is a result of periods of undernutrition in early childhood, and it has been found to have a series of adverse long-term effects in those who survive childhood. It is negatively associated with mental development, human capital accumulation, adult health, and with economic productivity and income levels in adulthood.

Sustainable Water Management as a Lever for Green Growth in Ethiopia and the Region

By Peter Vos
Sustainable water supply is imperative for economic growth, but so often gets side-lined in the rush for development. The unanticipated consequence is a global economy that is increasingly stunted by water resource challenges, with worldwide predictions suggesting that global water demand will increase by approximately 75% more than global water supply in the next 30 years!

Impending Drought? There’s an App for That – Or Should Be

By Sam Otieno
Fostering and harnessing innovative technologies could significantly reduce the negative impacts from climate change, including drought, water scarcity and food insecurity in African countries.

The Roots of Exodus: Why Are People Compelled to Leave their Homes?

By Baher Kamal
Facts are facts, and one of them is that while everybody talks about the growing forced movement of people --be they migrants or refugees—decision-makers haven’t seriously acted on the root causes of why millions of humans are compelled to leave their homes.

Kashmir’s Farmland Plowed Under in Wave of Urbanization

By Umar Manzoor Shah
In central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, 40-year-old Javaid Ahmad Hurra remembers vividly how his small hamlet used to be lush and green when he was a child. It is now subtly turning into a concrete jungle, with cement structures dominating the scenery.

Cooking to Fight Climate Change

By Paloma Duran
What you eat doesn’t only affect your own health – it also affects our planet’s health. From deciding which food to buy, to how you store and prepare it, you are making decisions that have profound effect on your personal health, as well as the health of your environment.

Pollution or How the ‘Take-Make-Dispose’ Economic Model Does Kill

By Baher Kamal
The prevailing “Take-Make-Dispose” linear economic model consisting of voracious depletion of natural resources in both production and consumption patterns has proved to be one of the world’s main killers due to the huge pollution it causes for air, land and soil, marine and freshwater.

Deliberate Famine Should Be a War Crime, UN Expert Says

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
The deliberate starvation of civilians could amount to a war crime and should be prosecuted, said an independent UN human rights expert.

Latin America Heads to Climate Summit with Uneven Progress

By Emilio Godoy
Difficult to measure and unequal in their scope are the advances that the countries of Latin America will have to show, regarding their voluntary commitments to greenhouse gas emissions, during the climate summit to be hosted by Bonn, Germany in November.

Innovation for Climate-Smart Agriculture Key to Ending Hunger in Kenya

By Siddharth Chatterjee
Some parts of Kenya are reeling from the effects of probably the worst drought in the last 20 years. With nearly 3.4 million people food insecure, Kenya’s food security prognosis looks gloomy, with climate change and natural resource depletion set to pose even greater risks in the long term.

Cycles of Wealth in Brazil’s Amazon: Gold, Lumber, Cattle and Now, Energy

By Mario Osava
The burning down of the local forest, on Jun. 29, 1979, was the first step towards the creation of the city of Paranaita, in a municipality that is now trying to shed its reputation as a major deforester of Brazil’s Amazon rainforest and has named itself “the energy capital.”

World Campaign to Clean Torrents of Plastic Dumped in the Oceans

By Baher Kamal
With 30 countries from Kenya to Indonesia and from Canada to Brazil now involved in the world campaign to beat pollution by countering the torrents of plastic trash that are degrading oceans and endangering the life they sustain, the UN has strengthened its massive efforts to clean up the seas, which are the Earth’s main buffer against climate change.

Can Index Insurance Make African Farmers Climate-resilient?

By Wambi Michael
Index insurance is being promoted as a solution to protect climate affected smallholder farmers in Africa. This type of micro insurance is slowly gaining ground as a way of compensating farmers for lost crops and livestock due to climate change.

The Future for Financing Africa’s Renewable Energy

By Wambi Michael
Lack of energy access presents a formidable challenge to Africa and lack of access to financing has been singled out as the biggest reason why over 620 million people living on the continent are stuck in energy poverty.

To Eliminate Poverty, Better Understanding Needed

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
As the United Nations’ Second Decade for the Eradication of Poverty (2008-2017) comes to an end, more self-congratulation is likely. Claims of victory in the war against poverty will be backed by recently released poverty estimates from the World Bank, entrusted by the UN system to monitor poverty.

What Do You Really Eat When You Order a Steak, Fish or Chicken Filet?

By Baher Kamal
The world is running out of antibiotics to combat the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned while announcing the World Antibiotic Awareness Week on 13-19 November.

Argentina’s Biodiesel Plagued by Commercial and Environmental Challenges

By Daniel Gutman
The Argentine biodiesel industry, which in the last 10 years has become one of the most powerful in the world, has an uncertain future, faced with protectionist measures in the United States and Europe and doubts in the international scenario about the environmental impact of these fuels based on agricultural products.

New Villages Bloom in the Shadow of a Mountain’s Wrath

By Kafil Yamin
Repeated volcanic eruptions of Mount Sinabung since 2010 have displaced thousands of people, leaving villages around the mountain deserted, with volcanic ash, lava and mud covering the soil, trees and empty houses.

Driven to Extremes–How Poverty Fuels Extremism, and How to Help Africa’s Youth

By Siddharth Chatterjee
Poverty is a blight, and one that disproportionately affects sub-Saharan Africa. It is a vast and complex issue whose tentacles reach into many areas, including climate change, sustainable development and–crucially–global security. The link between poverty and violent extremism is compelling, and means that if we want to address extremism, we must fight inequality too.
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