OP-ED: Europe’s Commitment to Africa’s Children is Still Needed

As African and European leaders meet in Brussels this week under the theme of “Investing in People, Prosperity and Peace", it is clear Africa’s greatest natural resource, its children, must be centre stage. 

IPCC Climate Report Warns of “Growing Adaptation Deficit”

The latest update of the world’s scientific consensus on climate change finds not only that impacts are already being felt on every continent, but also that adaptation investments are dangerously lagging.

Somali Diaspora Not Ready to Buy One-Way Tickets Home Yet

On a Friday afternoon men wearing kamis — long white traditional robes — climb the steps to Somcity Travel, a small family business and travel agency in Kisenyi slum, in Uganda’s capital, Kampala. The agency boasts that they “fly all over the world” but to one destination in particular — Somalia.

Q&A: “Bolivia Marked the Start of a Major Indigenous Awakening”

He describes himself as someone who was drawn to Marxism as a result of his commiseration with the plight of indigenous people in his country, and he is considered one of the most influential Latin American thinkers of the 21st century.

Organic Farmers Fight the Elements in Brazil

Brazilian farmer Isabel Michi’s day starts before dawn, when she goes out to the organic garden on her small five-hectare farm that she runs with help from her husband and occasionally their children.

Fighting Now Brings Disease

For just that moment, the refugees in Yarmouk camp in Damascus made news. After months of facing starvation and death in the shadows of the Syrian civil war came packets of food and aid in January - with cameras in tow.

Sahel Food Crisis Overshadowed by Regional Conflict

Still not enough is being done to improve the food emergency in Africa’s Sahel Region as conflict and instability continue to exacerbate any response towards aiding a region where one in eight people suffer from food insecurity.

20 Years On – Rwanda Uses Genocide Reconciliation to Boost Economic Growth

It’s almost 20 years now since Sylidio Gashirabake, a Hutu, was a perpetrator in Rwanda’s genocide. It’s also almost 20 years since his neighbour, Augustin Kabogo, a Tutsi, lost his sister and family in the violence. But today, both men work side-by-side in their joint business venture in Kirehe district in southeastern Rwanda.

In Venezuela, a Popular Uprising, or Class Warfare?

This much is known: at least 33 people are dead and 461 have been wounded. The rest – questions of who, why and what next for Venezuela – has largely been a matter of speculation.

Ugandans Fight for the Right to Access Their Own Medical Records

Dressed in a white dress with black polka dots and pink and red carnations, white knee-high socks and matching patent shoes, Babirye recently celebrated her second birthday. 

Côte d’Ivoire’s Middle Class – Growing or Disappearing?

“I’m middle class. Definitively,” Sonia Anoh, a young and independent 30-year-old Ivorian tells IPS. Anoh has a master’s degree, earns 1,470 dollars a month working in marketing, lives alone, owns a car and is now shopping for a home. 

A Call for Universal Access to Safe, Legal Abortion

Lawmakers and civil society leaders from over 30 countries are calling for universal access to safe, legal abortion.

Ethiopia’s Textile Manufacturers Benefit from Global Interest

The sign for Salem’s directs you off a busy road in Addis Ababa, down a side street to a compound where multiple pairs of feet move up and down working treadles, and wooden shuttles flit back and forth, as Ethiopian sheumanoch — weavers — ply their trade.

A Honduran Paradise that Doesn’t Want to Anger the Sea Again

At the mouth of the Aguán river on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, a Garífuna community living in a natural paradise that was devastated 15 years ago by Hurricane Mitch has set an example of adaptation to climate change.

Despite Risks, Cuban Fisher Families Don’t Want to Leave the Sea

The road to Guanímar, a fishing village on the southern coast of Cuba, is as narrow as the future of its 252 inhabitants, who don’t want to abandon the area despite its vulnerability to hurricanes, storm surges and flooding.

Zimbabwe’s Growing Electronic Waste Becomes a Real Danger

Electronic waste in Zimbabwe is becoming “an emerging environmental crisis that is by and large unheralded,” according to Steady Kangata, the education and publicity manager of the government-run Environmental Management Agency (EMA).

Women Seek Stand-Alone Goal for Gender in Post-2015 Agenda

The 45-member U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) concluded its annual 10-day session Saturday with several key pronouncements, including on reproductive health, women's rights, sexual violence, female genital mutilation (FGM) and the role of women in implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Zimbabwe Traverses a Rugged Political Terrain

Leroy Muzamani from Zimbabwe’s low income suburb, Highfield, sits with his chin resting on his hands.

Beyond the Millennium Development Goals

The United Nations’ Post-2015 Development Agenda should not simply extend the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), or reformulate the goals, but focus instead on global systemic reforms and secure an accommodating international environment for sustainable development.

Port Development Brings Progress to Brazil – At a Price

“We are victims of progress,”complained Osmar Santos Coelho, known as Santico. His fishing community has disappeared, displaced to make way for a port complex on São Marcos bay, to the west of São Luis, the capital of the state of Maranhão in Brazil’s northeast.

World Bank Clears Congo’s Controversial Dam Project

The World Bank Thursday approved a 73.1-million-dollar grant in support of a controversial giant dam project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).