For Heavily Indebted Small Islands, Resilience-Building is the Best Antidote

In December 2020, Fiji was pounded by Pacific Cyclone Yasa, the years’ second category 5 storm which destroyed hundreds of buildings and caused about $1.4 billion in damage to health facilities, homes, schools, agriculture and infrastructure.

Facing their Failure to meet 2020 Biodiversity Targets, World Leaders Pledge Action & Funds

French President Emmanuel Macron convened the 4th edition of the One Planet Summit for Biodiversity with a concession – that after a decade, the world has failed to take the action needed to stem global biodiversity loss. The Jan. 10 event, hosted virtually by France, the United Nations and the World Bank, focused on four areas for urgent action; protecting land and maritime species, promoting agroecology, mobilising finance for biodiversity and protecting tropical forests, species and human health.

‘We Might Have a Covid-21 or Covid-22 Coming Our Way’

Cristián Samper is working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, an organization that concerns itself with the health of wildlife all over the globe. And he warned --even before the Covid-19 pandemic – about the dangers of a viral pandemic.

Indigenous Leaders want Traditional Knowledge to be Centrepiece of New Global Biodiversity Framework

The picturesque Mahuat River in Dominica is one of 8 communities that make up the Kalinago Territory – a 3,700-acre area on the Caribbean island’s east coast that is home to the Kalinago people, the largest indigenous group in the Eastern Caribbean. It is where 19-year-old Whitney Melinard calls home. Melinard is among a rising group of Dominica’s Kalinago youth, using their voices and platforms to speak out on issues affecting their people.

A Pakistani Farmer is Using Technology to Stop Agricultural Exploitation

Anas Shaikh is a Pakistani farmer on a mission to bring solutions to the many difficulties small and medium-scale farmer’s face in making a sustainable living.

Reclaim Your Rights: Defend Indigenous People’s Lands

Rights are earned through hard-fought struggles. And for Indigenous Peoples (IP), its fulfillment comes from the collective and continuous defense of ancestral land and territory, and assertion of their ways of life and the right to self-determination.

Can Conservation and Development Be Balanced in Sri Lanka?

The Sri Lankan government recently cancelled three circulars that protected 700,000 hectares of forests, labelled Other State Forests (OSFs), which are not classified as protected areas but account for five percent of the island nation’s remaining 16.5 percent of forest cover.

Celebrating Vanuatu’s Path to Sustainable Development

The Pacific Island Developing State of Vanuatu has emerged as one of the region’s great success stories. Vanuatu has joined the ranks of Samoa and the Maldives as one of only six countries to graduate from being a least developed country, since the category was introduced by the United Nations in 1971.

Can Agricultural Apps Bring Indonesia’s Farmers Back to the Fields?

When his friends prodded him to use an agricultural app in July, rice farmer Mustafa reluctantly downloaded RiTx Bertani into his smart phone. Four months later, he feels happy to have given the technology a try.

How the Rich Get Richer

Wealth begets wealth. This simple concept of privilege has added to growing discontent with inequality that has escalated under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Q&A: Next Decade Sufficient Time for a Food Revolution

In March, after the World Health Organisation first declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the World Food Programme (WFP) of the United Nations activated a global corporate emergency mechanism for the first time. It had already written to all donor countries asking for $1.9 billion in front-loaded funding, and had begun emergency procurement. Its priority was to sustain life-saving assistance first.

Sustainable Measures Help Farmers Script a Positive Story Amid COVID-19 Uncertainty

As India continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic and a growing number of deaths, farmers here have been fighting a battle of their own against volatile pricing, uncertain demand and lack of access to the market. But in the midst of all this uncertainty, one farming couple in a village near Hyderabad are working towards a food-secure future for themselves using eco-friendly farming techniques.

Eswatini makes Progress on NDCs thanks to Crucial Partnership Support

Barry de Maine, the director of Green Cross Pharmacy, lost about $ 7,675 worth of stock when The Mall, the largest shopping centre in Mbabane, was flooded back in 2003. But when the flash floods hit again this year, he had already installed a flange to stop water from coming in. “This is the best I could do under the circumstances,” De Maine told IPS, adding: “Otherwise since we started experiencing floods at The Mall (17 years ago) nothing has been done.”

Our Development Priorities Have Shifted to the Immediate Task of Saving Lives & Livelihoods.

We have come to the point in the agenda where we must take a ‘deep-dive’ in reviewing the lessons learnt so far in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to chart a way for the future. But the future, by its very definition, must be relative. Flexibility and change will define policy making and the scope of action needed for development.

WFP – ‘Focus on Starvation, Destabilisation and Migration to Avert a COVID-19 Global Food Crisis’

Food security has become a priority in the Caribbean as COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions have hit the tourism-dependent region hard.

Global Summit of Development Banks Fails to Learn from Destructive Past

This week, 450 public development banks from around the world met for the Finance in Common Summit at the Paris Peace Forum. They gathered to discuss how they can direct their combined investments of over USD 2 trillion - 10% of total investments in the world - “to support the transformation or the global economy” and “build new forms of prosperity that take care of people and the planet.”

Q&A: How Desert Dust Storms Supply Vital Nutrients to the Oceans

When sand and dust storms (SDS) rage in the Sahara Desert, more than 10,000 km away in the Caribbean Sea the very same storms have a range of effects on the 1,360 species of shorefish that populate the waters there.

From Paraguay to Italy: Development at All Costs

I am speaking with Gladys and Raúl about civic space in Paraguay, when Raúl suddenly tells me about the fires. Thick smoke has reached the capital Asunción where he is based. In October, Paraguay became Dante’s Inferno.

UN Takes Preventive Measures Following 5,660 Lab-Confirmed COVID-19 Cases System-Wide

As we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic response, I would like to assure you once again that the health and safety of personnel and delegates continues to be our number one priority.

Driving Climate Change from the Top in the Dominican Republic

When President Luis Abinader arrived at his inauguration in an electrically driven car as a symbolic gesture of his Government’s intentions to make sustainable development one of its main objectives – he signalled the start of addressing climate change commitments in the country.