Taking Stock of Two Decades of Trailblazing Protocol on Women’s Rights in Africa

It promised to be the most defining, groundbreaking, and transformative protocol on African women’s rights. Specific in its approach, broad in its reach, and unique in its all-encompassing nature, covering issues such as HIV/Aids, widow inheritance and property disinheritance in a most unprecedented manner.

SDG Data Insights: Beyond Our Assumptions

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are relevant to all countries, whether high, middle or low income. With increasing attention to the SDGs, countries are progressively turning to data as a source to assess and validate the progress that they have made towards achieving them.

Mining Revenues Undermined

The primary commodity price boom early this century has often been attributed to a commodity ‘super-cycle’, i.e., a price upsurge greater than what might be expected in ‘normal’ booms. This was largely due to some minerals as most agricultural commodity price increases were more modest.

Blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh: When Bread and Sanitary Pads Become Luxury Items

Tatev Azizyan, a 28-year-old journalist from Nagorno-Karabakh, says she has explained to her child that they both have to switch to “energy save mode” to survive.

Empowering Women in Assam: Livestock Farming Brings Economic Relief Post-COVID

Seema Devi is a 39-year-old woman hailing from India's northeastern state of Assam. She lives in a village called Milonpur, a small hamlet with no more than 1 000 inhabitants. While most men from the village, including Devi's husband, move to cities and towns in search of work, women are left behind to take care of the house and kids.

A Flawed GDP Bypasses Women’s Unpaid Care Work

Last week the IMF offered a cautious estimate of positive global economic growth for this year, warning ‘we are on track, but not out of the woods’. But with the IMF and governments continuing to use gross domestic product (GDP) as the dominant measure of economic progress, a more appropriate warning might be that ‘we’ are failing to see the wood for the trees.

G20: Cutting Food Loss and Waste is an Opportunity to Improve Food Security

With the ongoing global food crisis—triggered by the COVID pandemic, disasters, supply chain disruptions, and conflict in Ukraine—food security should be at the top of the G20 agenda when countries gather in India in September 2023.

France, Russia, ECOWAS in Battle for Soul of West Africa

On July 26 2023 a man named Colonel-Major Amadou Abdramane, flanked by soldiers with military fatigues, appeared on Niger's national television to announce the execution of a coup. It was the country’s fourth coup since it gained independence from France in 1960.

From Crisis to Resilience: We Need a New Recipe to Combat Hunger

The fragile state of global food systems has reached a crossroads. Recent headlines underscore the profound challenges we now confront.

Cambodia’s Election a Blatant Farce

The title shouldn’t fool you: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen is one of the world’s longest-ruling autocrats. A political survivor, this former military commander had been bolted to his chair since 1985, presiding over what he turned into a de facto one-party system – and now apparently a dynastic regime.

Zimbabwean Farmers Turn to Agroecology to Feed Their Families

When Nelson Mudzingwa arrived in the Shashe farming area in Mashava in Masvingo, about 294 kilometres from the capital Harare, in the early 2000s, the land was barren, with no hope that the soils could be suitable for farming.

Stubborn and Persistent: The Gender Pay Gap Refuses to Budge

Last week, there was uproar in Kenya when a report about one of the largest banks, Equity Bank, revealed a 52 percent gender pay gap between their female and male employees working in similar positions. This difference is neither okay nor acceptable. However, documenting the gap is laudable because that is the first step in trying to fix it.

Putin’s Many Paradoxes & Russia’s Weaponisation of Food

Russia’s special military or colonization operation in Ukraine continues to surprise. These surprises come from a decided absence of strategic thinking by Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.

“No” to Sex Education Fuels Early Pregnancies in Central America

Pregnancies among girls and adolescents continue unabated in Central America, where legislation to prevent them, when it exists, is a dead letter, and governments are influenced by conservative sectors opposed to sex education in schools.

Revisiting the Water-Energy Nexus for a Changing Climate

The Colorado river basin has recently been wracked by an extended drought which brought to the fore major concerns regarding hydroelectricity production. Up on the Colorado sits the iconic Hoover Dam, which transforms water into enough electricity to power 1.3 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California.

How Nigeria’s Legal System is Failing to Safeguard Widows’ Rights

In February this year, Chichi Okonkwo not only lost her husband but was stripped of everything they owned together. Her husband was severely injured in a car accident about a month earlier. Despite being rushed to a hospital in Enugu, where they resided, he succumbed to his injuries weeks later. To compound her grief, Okonkwo’s late husband's male siblings forcibly entered her home in the city a few hours after his passing, confiscating her husband’s land documents, car, money, clothes, and marriage certificate.

Press Freedom in Asia Under Siege

In Asia, freedom of the press continues to erode, especially in authoritarian regimes where journalists are often targeted in broad daylight.

Clock Is Ticking For Food Security In Africa, Says New IITA Head

“My key message is really simple,” says Dr Simeon Ehui, the newly-appointed Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), which works with partners across sub-Saharan Africa to tackle hunger, poverty and natural resource degradation.

Climate Change Is Making Us Sick, Says WHO Envoy

Climate change is making us sick. It has become urgent to build resilient health systems to secure humanity’s well-being, says the special envoy for climate change and health of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Women Shatter Gender Barriers in Uganda’s Fish Farming Industry

In a groundbreaking turn of events, women in Bugiri District, Eastern Uganda, have defied societal norms and broken into the traditionally male-dominated fish farming industry.

Government Health Financing for All, Not Insurance

To achieve universal health coverage, people need public healthcare systems providing fair access to decent health care. This should be an entitlement for all, regardless of means, requiring adequate, appropriate and sustainable financing over the long term.