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Thursday, August 13, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Indigenous Rights
CSW 59 Wraps up as Delegates Look Towards 2016
The Commission on the Status of Women, one of the biggest events on the calendar for United Nations headquarters in New York City, is over for another year.
Why Investors Should Think Twice before Investing in Coal in India – Part 2
In November last year, India’s power minister Piyush Goyal announced that he plans to double coal production in India by the end of this decade and, in an effort to enhance production, the Indian government has started a process of auctioning coal blocks.
Banana Workers’ Strike Highlights Abuses by Corporations in Costa Rica
A strike that has brought activity to a halt since January on three major banana plantations on Costa Rica’s southern Caribbean coast, along the border with Panama, has highlighted the abuses in a sector in the hands of transnational corporations and has forced the governments of both countries to intervene.
Why Investors Should Think Twice before Investing in Coal in India – Part 1
India’s Government under Narendra Modi is in overdrive mode to please businesses and investments in the country. The much aggrandised ‘Make in India’ campaign launched in September 2014 is a clarion call for spurring investments into manufacturing and services in India and all eyes have turned to the power sector which is expected to undergo dramatic shifts.
Indonesia’s Palm Oil Industry in Need of a Makeover
Over the past three decades, 50 percent of the 544,150 square kilometres that comprise Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, has been taken over by the palm oil industry.
Feeding a Warmer, Riskier World
Artificial meat. Indoor aquaculture. Vertical farms. Irrigation drones. Once the realm of science fiction, these things are now fact. Food production is going high tech – at least, in some places.
Newly Recognised Indigenous Rights a Dead Letter?
Nearly three years after the rights of El Salvador’s indigenous people were recognised in the constitution, there are still no public policies and laws to translate that historic achievement into reality.
Can Indigenous and Wildlife Conservationists Work Together?
Indigenous and wildlife conservationists have common goals and common adversaries, but seem to be struggling to find common ground in the fight for sustainable forests.
Opinion: Bridging the Gap – How the SDG Fund is Paving the Way for a Post-2015 Agenda
The countdown has begun to September’s Summit on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with world leaders discussing the 17 goals and 169 targets proposed by the United Nations Open Working Group.
Indigenous Storytelling in the Limelight
In recent years, the Berlin International Film Festival, known as the Berlinale, has established a European hub for indigenous voices across a number of platforms, including its NATIVe – A Journey into Indigenous Cinema series and Storytelling-Slams in which indigenous storytelling artists share their stories before opening the floor to contributions from the audience.
Analysis: Economic Growth Is Not Enough
Recent new data show a worrying picture of Latin America and the Caribbean. Income poverty reduction has stagnated and the number of poor has risen — for the first time in a decade — according to recent figures from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Indigenous Food Systems Should Be on the Development Menu
Overcoming hunger and malnutrition in the 21st century no longer means simply increasing the quantity of available food but also the quality.
Negev Bedouin Resist Israeli Demolitions “To Show We Exist”
Lehavim Junction in the northern Negev in Israel has been the backdrop to protests against home demolitions in Bedouin localities for the past four and half years.
Indigenous Peoples – Architects of the Post-2015 Development Agenda
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children” – an ancient Indian saying that encapsulates the essence of sustainability as seen by the world’s indigenous people.
Keeping Food Security on the Table at U.N. Climate Talks
Food security has become a key issue of the U.N. climate negotiations this week in Geneva as a number of countries and observers raised concerns that recent advances in Lima are in jeopardy.
Getting Bang for the Buck on New Development Goals
Right now, the United Nations is negotiating one of the world’s potentially most powerful policy documents. It can influence trillions of dollars, pull hundreds of millions out of poverty and hunger, reduce violence and improve education — essentially make the world a better place. But much depends on this being done well.
People’s Tribunal Hopes Verdict on Mining Abuses Gains Traction
A recent case study on Canadian mining abuses in Latin America has woven one more thread of justice into the tapestry of international law.
Missing Students Case Also Highlights Racism in Mexico
The mother tongue of Celso García, a 51-year-old indigenous Mexican, is Mixteca. As a boy, García, the father of one of the 43 students forcibly disappeared four months ago, had to learn Spanish to make his way in mainstream society in this country where most people are of mixed-race heritage.
Marginalised Groups Struggle to Access Healthcare in Conflict-Torn East Ukraine
With international organisations warning that East Ukraine is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe as its health system collapses, marginalised groups are among those facing the greatest struggle to access even basic health care in the war-torn region.
Aboriginal Businesses Stimulate Positive Change in Australia
Roy Roger Gibson, an indigenous Kuku Yalanji elder, would watch thousands of tourists and vehicles trampling his pristine land while working on the sugarcane fields in Far North Queensland. His people were suffering and their culture was being eroded. The native wildlife was disappearing. He dreamt of turning this around.
OPINION: A New Era of Hemispheric Cooperation Is Possible
Two decades after the first Summit of the Americas, a lot has changed in the continent and it has been for the good. Today, a renewed hemispheric dialogue without exclusions is possible.« Previous Page — Next Page »
The planet's roughly 350 million indigenous peoples took notable steps on the international stage in the last decade. They got the world's governments to agree to create a body to represent them at the United Nations, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and to appoint a special rapporteur responsible for their human rights. In 2007 a Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples was approved by the UN. Yet the living conditions of most "tribal", "aboriginal", "native" or "first" peoples remain precarious. IPS, with its network of contributors at the UN and linked to indigenous communities worldwide, is committed to tracking the world community's efforts to do justice to the rights and aspirations of these peoples, with a special current focus on Latin America's 40 million rural indigenous peoples.
The Week with IPS
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Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
Tracking global progress towards a sustainable world
