Biodiversity Rich-Palau Launches Ambitious Marine Spatial Planning Initiative

Growing up in Palau in the western Pacific Ocean, Surangel Whipps Jr. played on the reefs and spearfished on an island teeming with birds, giant clams, fish, and turtles.

Energy Crisis in Cuba Calls for Greater Boost for Renewable Sources

Long lines of vehicles outside of gas stations reflect the acute shortage of diesel and gasoline in Cuba, which has had negative impacts on an economy that is highly dependent on fuel imports and has only a small proportion of renewable sources in its energy mix.

UNDP Good Growth Partnership: Smallholders Key to Reducing Indonesian Deforestation (Part 2)

Smallholder farmers are critical to the success of Indonesia’s efforts to address deforestation and climate change. Creating an understanding and supporting this group, internally and abroad, is a crucial objective for those working towards reducing deforestation and promoting good farming practices, especially as smallholders often work hand-to-mouth and are vulnerable to perpetuating unsustainable farming practices.

UNDP Good Growth Partnership: Getting All on Board to Meet Deforestation Targets (Part 1)

Indonesia finds itself in a delicate balancing act of uplifting people from poverty, managing climate change and biodiversity, and satisfying an increasingly demanding international market for sustainable farming practices—and at the pivot of this complexity is the management of its palm oil sector.

UNDP Assistance Helps Farmers to Meet New EU Deforestation Rules

In 2015, just over 30 cocoa farmers from Padre Abad in Ucayali, a province in the lush and ecologically diverse Peruvian Amazon, formed an alliance to tackle long-standing concerns such as soil quality, access to markets, fair prices for their produce and a growing number of illegal plantations. The result was the Colpa de Loros Cooperative, and from the start, the goal was to produce the finest quality, export-ready cocoa.

Biogas and Biomethane Will Fuel Development in Cuban Municipality

The first five biomethane-fuelled buses in the Cuban municipality of Martí will not only be a milestone in the country but will also represent a solution to the serious problem of transportation, while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and bolstering local development.

Chile’s Water Vulnerability Requires Watershed and Water Management

Good management of the 101 hydrographic basins which run from the Andes mountain range to the Pacific Ocean is key to solving the severe water crisis that threatens the people of Chile and their main productive activities.

From Recovery to Resilience: Volcanic Eruption in Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Two Years on

On the morning of 9th of April 2021, the La Soufrière Volcano on the main island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines erupted -filling the sky with ash and transforming the lives, livelihoods and landscape of this small Southern Caribbean nation.

Localizing SDGs Means Truly Empowering Citizens

The Future We Want was the groundbreaking outcome of the Rio+20 Summit, the summit, held in 2012, where the idea of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) was first conceptualized.

El Salvador Still Lacks Policies to Bolster Food Security

Sitting under the shade of a tree, Salvadoran farmer Martín Pineda looked desperate, and perhaps angry, as he said that governments of different stripes have come and gone in El Salvador while agriculture remains in the dumps.

We can Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals but it will take Courage & Urgent Transformations

The world is at a crossroads. This week, the United Nations Secretary-General, government ministers and senior leaders are gathered in New York at the ECOSOC Financing for Development Forum. (scheduled to take place April17-20).

Water is Life: How the UN in Samoa is Responding to the Triple Planetary Crisis

Water is life. No other definition captures quite so aptly what this essential element means for our lives, livelihoods and the natural environment.

India’s Bihar Leads Efforts to Strengthen Global Poverty Alleviation Through South-South Knowledge Exchange

Under the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society, Bihar’s government announced the development of a new Program for Immersion and Learning Exchange (ILE) to be headquartered in Patna.

Andean Indigenous Women’s Knowledge Combats Food Insecurity in Peru

Paulina Locumbe, a 42-year-old peasant farmer who lives in ​​the Andes highlands of southern Peru, learned as a child to harvest and dry crops, one of the ancestral practices with which she combats the food insecurity that affects millions in this Andean country.

Opposition in Mexico to Mega-Industrial Model

In March 2021, the community assembly of the municipality of San Blas Atempa, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, approved the sale of 360 hectares for the creation of an industrial park. But part of the community opposed the initiative due to irregularities, such as the falsification of signatures of supposed attendees, including those of people who had already died.

BRAC International Signs MoU with Rwanda to Empower People in Extreme Poverty

Last week, BRAC International signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Government of Rwanda under the Ministry of Local Government (MINALOC) to support efforts to empower people in extreme poverty to develop sustainable livelihoods and break the poverty trap long term. This is part of the Government’s broader efforts to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030.

Venezuela Makes Timid Headway in Solar Energy

The installation of solar panels in a remote village in ​​the Andes highlands in late February marked a second incursion by the Venezuelan government into the field of solar energy, previously uncharted territory in this country that for a century was a leading global oil producer.

Parliamentarians Pledge to Act on Grim Realities of Child Marriage, Gender-Based Violence

Child marriage, gender-based violence (GBV), sexuality education, religion, and tradition came under the spotlight during a conference, Arab and Asian Parliamentarians’ Meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments: Addressing Youth Empowerment and Gender-Based Violence, held in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Interwoven Global Crises Can Best be Solved Together

When global crises are interlinked, they overlap and compound each other. In such cases, the most effective solutions are those that work at the nexus of all these challenges.

World Leaders, Private Sector Urged to Establish an International Green Bank to Win Climate Change Battle

As the effects of climate change escalate and natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and droughts become more frequent and severe, threatening lives and livelihoods, humanity is losing the climate battle.

Race to Prosperity as Least Developed Countries Top Agenda at UN Conference

It is a race against time to form a new global partnership to secure a better future for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations by 2030 in line with the UN’s SDGs. All 46 countries classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are pressed for time in a bid to deliver critical development goals.