Ghosts Of War Give Way to Development in Sri Lanka

It is an oasis from the scorching heat outside. The three-storey, centrally air-conditioned Cargills Square, a major mall in Sri Lanka’s northern Jaffna town, is the latest hangout spot in the former warzone, where everyone from teenagers to families to off-duty military officers converge.

An Interview with Guyanese President David Granger

Guyana's new president, David Granger, sits down with IPS correspondent Desmond Brown to talk about how his country is preparing for climate change – and hoping to avert the worst before it happens.

Views from the Caribbean ahead of COP21, the December 2015 Climate Change Summit in Paris – Building Resilience to Disaster: Mitigation

Despite being a relatively small source of greenhouse gas emissions, the Caribbean region has been taking steps to introduce renewable energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal, which also reduce its dependence on expensive oil imports.

Views from the Caribbean ahead of COP21, the December 2015 Climate Change Summit in Paris – Building Resilience to Disaster: Adaptation

From constructing barriers against rising sea levels to rehabilitating mangroves and providing agrometeorology services, the Caribbean isn’t waiting for a new international agreement on climate change to start implementing adaptation measures. But funding to roll out such projects on the necessary scale remains a key issue, and many communities remain desperately vulnerable to storms and flooding.

From Residents to Rangers: Local Communities Take Lead on Mangrove Conservation in Sri Lanka

Weekends and public holidays are deadly for one of Sri Lanka’s most delicate ecosystems – that is when the island’s 8,815 hectares of mangroves come under threat.

India Confronts Water Woes as it Transitions from MDGs to SDGs

As the United Nations closes its chapter on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and charts a new plan of action under the framework of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), India – a country of 1.2 billion people – is confronting its resource challenges.

Rights Abuses Still Rampant in Bangladesh’s Garment Sector

Some say they were beaten with iron bars. Others confess their families have been threatened with death. One pregnant woman was assaulted with metal curtain rods.

India’s Four Million Sex Workers Demand Equal Labour Rights

Although forced prostitution and trafficking of women remains a huge challenge in India, health experts, policy-makers and legal advocates say that most of the country’s estimated four million commercial sex workers join the trade of their own free will.

Zimbabwean Women Weave Their Own, Beautiful Future

Seventy-seven-year-old Grace Ngwenya has an eye for detail. You will never catch her squinting as she effortlessly weaves ilala palm fronds into beautiful baskets.

Lessons from an Indian Tribe on How to Manage the Food-Forest Nexus

Scattered across 240 sq km on the remote Niyamgiri hill range in the eastern Indian state of Odisha, an ancient tribal group known as the Dongria Kondh have earned themselves a reputation as trailblazers.

Migrants Between Scylla and Charybdis

Two Somali migrants who survived crossing the Mediterranean and reached the Italian island of Sicily describe their ordeal and hopes for the future, while local opinion is divided over the issue of immigration.

Farmers Fight Real Estate Developers for Kenya’s Most Prized Asset: Land

Vegetables grown in the lush soil of this quiet agricultural community in central Kenya’s fertile wetlands not only feed the farmers who tend the crops, but also make their way into the marketplaces of Nairobi, the country’s capital, some 150 km south.

In India, a Broken Systems Leaves a Broken People Powerless

As India paid glowing tributes to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, the architect of its constitution and a champion of the downtrodden, on his 124^nd birth anniversary last month, public attention also swivelled to the glaring social and economic discrimination that plagues the lives of lower-caste or ‘casteless’ communities – who comprise over 16 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion people.

Grenadian Fishermen on the Front Lines of a Rising Sea

Grenada and its tourism-dependent Caribbean neighbours are thought to be among the globe's most vulnerable countries to the myriad impacts of climate change, especially coastal flooding due to natural disasters and storm surges.

Clean Cookstoves Could Change the Lives of Millions in Nepal

When 26-year-old Laxmi married into the Archaya household in Chhaimale village, Pharping, south of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, she didn’t think she would be spending half the day in the kitchen inhaling smoke from the stove.

Urban agriculture sprouts in favelas, Fabíola Ortiz reports

Video report “Urban agriculture sprouts in favelas” plus full contribution by IPS journalist Fabíola Ortiz. You don’t need to live in the country side to grow vegetables. It is possible to maintain an organic farming based on ‘agricology’, in the favelas or shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro a pioneering initiative is now underway. Ms. Maria Helena joined the first course of organic urban agriculture.

“My Number Was Six”

Outwardly, Feras Fayyad is stoic in face of the immense turmoil both he and his country are going through. All of 30 years old, Fayyad, who runs Sout Raya, a radio station in Turkey, exudes calm. His voice is almost soothing.

“Sustainability Equals Conservation Plus Energy Efficiency”

IPS Correspondent Desmond Brown interviews Richard Huber, chief of the Sustainable Communities, Hazard Risk, and Climate Change Section of the Department of Sustainable Development of the Organisation of American States (OAS), who works to foster resilient, more sustainable cities – reducing, for example, consumption of water and energy – while simultaneously improving the quality of life and the participation of the community.

A Chinese NGO Promotes People-to-People Cooperation in Northeast Asia.

IPS Editor in Chief Ramesh Jaura talked to Professor Huang Haoming, Vice Chairman & Executive Director of China Association for NGO Cooperation (CANGO), about interaction for people-to-people cooperation in Northeast Asia​ in Sendai, Japan, during the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) from 14 to 18 March 2015.

UNDP Assistant Administrator Izumi Nakamitsu Explains What the Crisis Response Unit Does

IPS Editor in Chief Ramesh Jaura talked to UNDP Assistant Administrator Izumi Nakamitsu, Director of the Crisis Response Unit in Sendai, Japan, at the World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) on 17 March 2015, to learn what the Unit is tasked with, the challenges the U.N. Development Programme is facing and its role in disaster risk reduction. The conference concluded 18 March 2015 declaring the participants' determination "to enhance efforts to strengthen disaster risk reduction to reduce disaster losses of lives and assets worldwide".

Unseen and Unheard: Afghan Baloch People Speak Up

Balochistan, divided by the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is a vast swathe of land the size of France. It boasts enormous deposits of gas, gold and copper, untapped sources of oil and uranium, as well as a thousand kilometres of coastline near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz. Despite the wealth under their sandals, the Baloch people inhabit the most underdeveloped regions of their respective countries; Afghanistan is no exception.