Wael Al-Hassan was returning from work in the Syrian city of Harim when he heard the sound of a baby crying.
He was returning from work on December 10, 2023. He stopped momentarily, turned on his mobile phone flashlight to investigate, and spotted a baby girl, around one month old, wrapped in a white blanket, lying by the roadside.
Quechua farmer Felipa Noamesa, who lives in the southern Peruvian department of Cuzco, prepares a cream of fava bean soup for breakfast every morning with bread and vegetable soup with noodles. Her children are grown up, so her priority is that her five-year-old granddaughter does not suffer from anemia or malnutrition, two problems she frequently sees in her community.
Sri Lankan lawmaker Hector Appuhamy, in conversation with IPS ahead of a two-day conference aimed at educating and involving university students in mental health issues, said parliamentarians were concerned about gaps in the programmes and financing for youth mental health. They were looking beyond the country's health budget for support in ensuring that youth were able to access mental health facilities in a supportive environment.
Seema Mali is desperate. She has no defences against this changing climate’s brutal heat. Mali makes fresh flower garland the whole year, but her summer income has been plummeting by 30 percent over the last 8–10 years due to the extreme heat.
Maternity protection is a human right enshrined in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Income security for newborn mothers ensures their mental and physical wellbeing and contributes to the healthy development of their infants.
The specter of blackouts hovers over the Mexican city of La Paz, the capital of the state of Baja California Sur in Mexico's far northwestern corner, as summer approaches, due to increased electricity demand from air conditioning and insufficient capacity in the local grid.
Inclusive social protections for children would be a positive signifier of social development in a time where 1.4 billion children globally are denied them. A step towards realizing this has been taken through a new monitoring tool on current social protection and child poverty statistics.
"For a couple of years now we've been seeing the violence growing so fast," said José, who asked not to give his last name for fear of reprisals he may face in Monte Sinai, a low-income neighborhood in Ecuador's most populous city, Guayaquil.
Selyn, a women-led handloom business, offers flexible employment and valuable income opportunities to about 1,000 women artisans and persons from marginalized groups in rural Sri Lanka.
Selyn develops and exports high-value craft products in global markets.
The installation of photovoltaic panels to use solar energy to irrigate small farms is expanding quickly in Chile because it lowers costs and optimizes the use of scarce water resources.
Rural life in Latin America and the Caribbean continues to be marked by poverty and inequality compared to the towns and cities where the vast majority of the population lives. A new focus on rural life in the region could help reveal and address the challenges and neglect faced by people in the countryside.
If the fear of sharps makes a visit to the doctor dreadful, you need not dread it anymore.
A South Korean company's invention of an innovative micro-needle patch could make you look forward to your next doctor’s visit.
Increasing numbers of countries are experiencing a spreading demographic condition,
below replacement fertility, with many governments bemoaning the birthrate blues.
A woman medical graduate from the Hindu community is making waves, as she is the first minority woman to contest the Pakistan Parliamentary election for a general seat, and she does so in the face of deep-rooted religious traditions and wealthy political opponents.
Dr Saveera Parkash, a nominee of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) for the February 8 polls, is sure of her victory despite her religion.
As hunger and food insecurity deepen, Africa is confronting an unprecedented food crisis. Estimates show that nearly 282 million people on the continent, or 20 percent of the population, are undernourished. Numerous challenges across the African continent threaten the race to achieve food security; research and innovative strategies are urgently needed to transform current systems as they are inadequate to address the food crisis.
As the
signs of population aging are crystal clear and widely available, many countries are taking
steps to address the far-reaching effects of that momentous demographic trend. A notable exception is the United States, a country that seems neither ready nor willing to deal with the aging of its population.
It is do or die on the streets of Zimbabwe as homeless families battle for survival solely depending on begging. Such is the life of 69-year-old Gladys Mugabe, who lives with her disabled son in Harare Gardens, a well-known recreational park in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare.
Over the decades, Zimbabwe’s economy has underperformed. It started in 2000 with the departure of white commercial farmers, and the country has experienced subsequent periods of hyperinflation, which the International Monetary Fund estimated reached 172% in July last year.
Criminal justice systems in South Asia are failing women, despite stark statistics on the prevalence of violence. WHO estimates translate to one in every two women and girls in the region experiencing violence daily.
Crime and violence have long been a top-of-mind concern for households across Latin America and the Caribbean. The region accounts for nearly half of the world's intentional homicide victims, despite representing just over 8 percent of the global population, United Nations data show.
While the COP28 presidency celebrated an “historic deal” to transition away from fossil fuels, we must remind ourselves that the future wellbeing of human societies in a livable planet depends on more than that.
Lawmakers were reminded of the benefits of long-term planning and the benefits of evidence-based decision-making in policymaking while grappling with demographic trends, be they an aging population or one with significant growth in youth, like that of Uzbekistan.