COVID-19 Means Development Setbacks for Mongolia

Mongolia has recorded very few cases of COVID-19, less than 300 as on date, despite its more than 4,000 kilometre porous border with China. However, the country faces a major economic impact from the pandemic.

Fight Pandemic, Not Windmills of the Mind

With uneven progress in containing contagion, worsened by the breakdown in multilateral cooperation due to mounting US-China tensions, recovery from the Covid-19 recessions of the first half of 2020 is now expected to be more gradual than previously forecast. Pandemic response measures In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, many governments, especially of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) economies, have introduced massive fiscal and monetary packages for contagion containment, relief and recovery.

If UN is Working “Full Throttle” While Locked Down, Shouldn’t Most Staffers Work from Home –Permanently?

When the coronavirus pandemic delivered a mortal blow to the United States, grounding the country to a virtual standstill and throwing its economy into a deep recession, hundreds and thousands were forced to work “remotely” while offices remained shuttered, beginning late March.

Rohingya Women Take a Seat at the Table & Share Stories in a Growing Rights Movement

Rohingya women are coming together to feature their own work, plight and stories in mainstream conversations about their community — a space they say they’ve been left out of. “If we think of revolutions or liberty or think of any ways to liberate ourselves from the shackle of suffering and being dubbed as 'the most persecuted minority on earth', women have to be part of it,” Yasmin Ullah, president of the Rohingya Human Rights Network, told IPS.

Trump the Wannabe Dictator

I, like many of my fellow Americans, am extremely concerned about Trump’s dictatorial tendencies. Given his behavior – what he said and did over the past four years – he may well act on some of these tendencies, especially if he loses the election by a narrow margin.

It was Meant to Be a Ground-breaking Year for Gender Equality but COVID-19 Widened Inequalities

Sixteen-year-old Suhana Khan had just completed her grade 10 exams in March, when India imposed a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown. Since then, she has been spending her mornings and evenings doing household chores, from cooking and cleaning to fetching drinking water from the tube well. 

Trinidad Skilfully Handles COVID-19 but Falls Short with Wildlife

Most of  the countries in the Caribbean have done a great job of containing the COVID-19 pandemic, with a few notable exceptions, namely, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A University of Oxford study highlighted Trinidad and Tobago as being among the most successful. However, management of wildlife and illegal hunting in that country remains ineffective. 

Covid-19 Compounds Developing Country Debt Burdens

Covid-19 is expected to take a heavy human and economic toll on developing countries, not only because of contagion in the face of weak health systems, but also containment measures which have precipitated recessions, destroying and diminishing the livelihoods of many.

Research Provides the Bricks and Mortar for Our Food Systems to ‘Build Back Better’

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the structural weaknesses of today’s food systems, showing how quickly global networks of food production, trade and supply can waver under the impact of a single disease.

Inadequate Water & Sanitation Threatens Women’s & Girls’ Development in Senegal

With Tabaski (Eid al-Adha) around the corner, 11-year-old Fatoumata Binta from Terrou Mballing district in M'Bour, western Senegal, wakes up early and joins her brothers Iphrahima Tall and Ismaila to fetch water from a river several miles from home.

South China Sea Provocations & Meeting China Halfway

In the words of (ret.) Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Secretary of Defense Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, the Trump Administration has been dangerously “poking China in the eye.”

COVID-19 Impact Means Women and Girls Will Still Eat Last, Be Educated Last

Catherine Bertini, former executive director of the World Food Programme, began the IPS United Nations Bureau webinar “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Women and Girls” by reminiscing on a talk she gave in 1995 entitled “Women eat last”. She remarked that after 25 years, the phrase is still something that is relevant to the present day.

How Kenya’s Indigenous Ogiek are Using Modern Technology to Validate their Land Rights

The Ogiek community, indigenous peoples from Kenya’s Chepkitale National Reserve, are in the process of implementing a modern tool to inform and guide the conservation and management of the natural forest. The community has inhabited this area for many generations, long before Kenya was a republic. Through this process, they hope to get the government to formally recognise their customary tenure in line with the Community Land Act.

Tobacco Industry Factoid on Illicit Trade Leading Governments Astray

A factoid is unreliable information repeated so often that it becomes accepted as fact. One such factoid repeatedly echoed across the globe by the tobacco industry is that tobacco tax increases worsen cigarette smuggling.

Dead Rats Can Raise GDP, Economists Have Lowered It

GDP has been increasingly challenged on many grounds as a measure of economic and social progress. Clearly, GDP does not take account of other dimensions of wellbeing, natural resource depletion or environmental damage.

Are Women-led Startups Key to Sustainability in Senegal?

Growing up in the Senegalese capital of Dakar, Siny Samba (28) watched with fascination as her grandmother made snacks for her family, using the fresh fruit from their garden. She would often help her grandma make these snacks to feed the neighbourhood children.

Relevance of US Peace Corps in Post-COVID World

I have had 5-decade long and happy association with the Peace Corps since I was a 7th grade student in the hills of Nepal. My wonderful Peace Corps teachers were instrumental in helping transform my life. And the 4000+ Peace Corps Volunteers who have served in Nepal have contributed immensely to my country’s development.

World Poverty: We Have Come So Far… But So Much Further To Go

The United Nations’ first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is “No poverty,” the most important because almost half the world, 46%, lives on less than $5.50 a day according to the World Bank. But world attention has turned away from poverty. Why?

US, UK, Interpol Give Ghana Phone Hacking Tools, Raising Journalist Concerns on Safety & Confidentiality

In May 2019, senior members of Ghana’s law enforcement posed for photos with the U.S. ambassador to their country at a ceremony in the capital, Accra. Between them they held boxes and bags, gifts from the U.S. government to Ghana which, according to one of the recipients, contained Israeli phone hacking technology.

With Poverty & Hunger Skyrocketing, is a Global Economic Rescue Package the Answer?

The United Nations has been relentlessly pursuing a highly-ambitious blueprint for the sustainable future of humanity –harking back to the adoption of a new global economic agenda by the General Assembly back in 2015.

The SDGs, COVID-19 and the Global South: Insights from the Sustainable Development Report 2020

COVID-19 has claimed more than 550,000 lives and disrupted the entire world, sparing no region. As of July 2020, the number of daily new confirmed cases and deaths due to COVID-19 are growing rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially in Brazil and Mexico but also in many African countries as well as India. As highlighted in a recent article, these numbers are likely underestimated given the reduced testing capacity in many low and middle-income countries.