Delivering Quality Education in Small Island Developing States

With 147 million children around the world missing half of their in-person instruction over the last two years and around 24 million never returning to school, humanity is experiencing a deep learning crisis.

UN Censures 42 Nations for Retaliating Against Human Rights Activists & Journalists

The United Nations has singled out 42 countries (out of 193 member states) for condemnation-- virtually blacklisting them-- for retaliating against human rights activists and journalists

Addressing the Cow in the Room, Lowing for Nutrition and Livelihoods

Meat, milk, and eggs are bad for you, and livestock is bad for the environment. Growing negative narratives about cattle’s contribution to climate change are shrinking the growth of the strategic livestock sector on which the livelihoods of more than 1.3 billion people in the world depend.

Israel’s Democracy is in Peril

By all accounts Israel is considered a democratic country, but a close look at its domestic political combustion sadly reveals that Israel’s democracy is in tatters and is tearing at the seams. This is due to the political leaders’ dismal failure to summon their collective resourcefulness and energy to respond to the call of the hour

Small Farmers in Peru Combat ‘Machismo’ to Live Better Lives

"My father was very ‘machista’, he used to beat my mother... It was a very sad life," said Dionisio Ticuña, a resident of the rural community of Canincunca, on the outskirts of the town of Huaro, in the southern Peruvian highlands region of Cuzco more than 3,000 meters above sea level.

Pakistan’s Transgender Legislation in the Line of Fire

It has taken four years for some politicians to oppose a landmark law protecting the rights of transgender persons, saying it's against Islam and the country's constitution.

Africa is not a Country. It is a Continent.

“If all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, beautiful animals and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves”. This quote from the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is in the introduction to Dipo Faloyin's book 'Africa is not a country'. It summarizes Faloyin's book nicely.

Energy Transition: Is it Time for Africa to Talk Tough?

Thirty-year-old Difasi Amooti Kisembo is one of the demonstrators near the EU delegation offices in Kampala. He and a handful of others have traveled from Uganda’s oil and gas-rich Albertine region’s district to Uganda’s capital Kampala to express their displeasure with an EU Parliament’s resolution against the planned construction of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.

Successful Climate Solutions Require Investment in the Lives of Adolescent Girls

This year commemorates the 10th anniversary of the International Day of the Girl Child. While the last decade has seen greater attention on the positive development needs of girls, we must move beyond documenting the barriers that girls face to investing in and prioritizing girl-centered solutions to the critical development challenges of our world.

Women in Argentine Slum Confront Violence Together

The Padre Carlos Mugica neighborhood looks like another city within the Argentine capital, which most people usually see from up above as they drive past on the freeway but have never visited. It is a shantytown in the heart of Buenos Aires, of enormous vitality and where women are organizing to confront the various forms of violence that affect them.

Lives Hang in the Balance as Kenya’s ASAL Region Ravaged by Severe Prolonged Drought

The sight of children begging for water from motorists along the Garissa highway in the northeastern part of Kenya signals that all is not well. Unable to go to school on an empty stomach, drought-affected children wait for good Samaritans along the road, begging for water and food.

Journalists, Under Threat, Need Safe Refuge Through Special Emergency Visas

“This woman sitting next to me, Maria Ressa, is a Nobel laureate and a convicted criminal,” said barrister Amal Clooney, who co-leads the international legal team representing Ressa. The founder of news website Rappler, Ressa has been targeted with a barrage of legal charges intended to stop her journalism in the Philippines.

Uyghur Violations a Litmus Test for Global Governance & Rules-based International Order

This week is a momentous one for the world’s premier human rights body. At stake is a resolution to decide whether the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva can hold a debate on a recently released UN report.

UN Plans a New Mobility Scheme Where Staffers will be Forced to Work Overseas

The United Nations is planning to introduce a new “mobility policy” under which staffers based in New York and other Western capitals will be mandated to serve in overseas missions and field services in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, including the UN’s 12 peacekeeping operations.

Annexation of a State’s Territory is a Violation of the Charter & International Law, Warns UN Chief

The Kremlin has announced that a ceremony will take place Friday in Moscow that will launch a process of annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

UN’s High-Level Meeting of World Leaders Falls Short of Gender Empowerment

When the UN’s high-level meeting of world leaders concluded last week, the head count seemed lopsided: 190 speakers, including 76 Heads of State, 50 Heads of Government, 4 Vice-Presidents, 5 Deputy Prime Ministers, 48 Ministers and 7 Heads of Delegations—overwhelmingly male.

Nepal Government, UN Agency Seek Investors for Latest Cash Crop to Boom in Country’s East

Two and a half hours’ drive north from Kakarbhitta, Nepal’s eastern-most border crossing with giant neighbour India, lies the hilly hamlet of Salakpur where lives Kaushila Moktan, a famed farmer of large cardamom.

Hard Hit By Climate Change, Villagers Raise a Forest on Their Own

Some ten years ago, Sheemanto Chatri, a 39-year-old farmer hailing from India's northeastern state of Meghalaya, was reeling with distress. The unseasonal rainfall had washed away all the crops he had cultivated after year-long labor in his far-off hamlet.

Reasonable Left, Irresponsible Right: & the Future of Social Democracy

With no shortage of catastrophes in the past 15 years worldwide — the democratic left is stepping up to provide stability amid the storm. Throughout the history of mankind, there have been catastrophes. In modern times, there have also been media representations of catastrophe, including worked-up or even imagined catastrophes.

Aged Persons Haunted by Abuse in Zimbabwe

At his house in Mabvuku, a high-density suburb in Harare, the Zimbabwean capital, 86-year-old Tinago Murape claims his grandchildren starve him. Not only that, but Murape, who now walks with the support of a walking stick, said his three grandchildren – grown-up men with their wives and children living in his house, accuse him of bewitching them.

Women’s Financial Inclusion, Empowerment in Kenya

A two-year-old child cries hysterically as his mother attends to customers standing in front of her stall to buy vegetables on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The mother, 25-year-old Esther, who refuses to give her surname for fear her husband will know that she has spoken to strangers about family issues, sells spinach, onion, tomato, garlic, and green pepper at a street corner to supplement her husband’s “meager” construction wage. It has been four years since she started the business, and she says it is beginning to feel like an eternity.