Cristina Fan is Coordinator, World Development Foundation
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, USA, Sep 9 2019 (IPS) – The United Nations held its first major international conference in one of America’s mountain states, bringing scores of civil society organizations (CSOs) to discuss ways on making “cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable by 2030.”
The annual UN Civil Society Conference, which had been meeting mostly in New York, site of the UN world headquarters, and in some foreign capitals, was hosted by Salt Lake City’s Mayor’s office August 26-28 under the title “Building Inclusive and sustainable cities and communit…
Gender equality and women empowerment at the heart of ICPD25. Credit: Joyce Chimbi / IPS
NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 11 2019 (IPS) – Every day 830 women die while giving life. At least 33,000 girls are forced into child marriage with 11,000 girls undergoing female genital mutilation. These are some of the cruel realities young women face every day. However, there is renewed hope that delegates expected to attend the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Nairobi this week will re-energise and breathe new life to the Cairo Promise.
“The Summit is a call to action to accelerate progress towards the world we imagined in 1994,” Arthur Er…
Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
Protesters demonstrate against direction taken by climate change talks. Credit: Ana Libisch/IPS
ROME, Jan 6 2020 (IPS) – Let’s face what lies ahead with open eyes: 2020 is going to be a very tough year for the world, and developing countries in particular. The infant decade has already begun with the harbingers of climate disaster as thousands fled to beaches in Australia from raging bush fire…
This playground just outside the Slovak capital, Bratislava, has been sealed off to stop people spreading the virus. Similar measures are in place in cities and towns across Europe, which is now the epicentre of the virus’s spread. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS
BRASTISLAVA , Mar 16 2020 (IPS) – Governments in wealthy, first world countries must not ignore the plight of poorer nations battling the coronavirus or the disease will not be brought under control, global development experts have said.
As African nations slowly report growing numbers of cases, and more and more infections are registered in countries with endemic poverty on other continents, there are growing fears that…
A United Nations report states that the fact that women make up 70 percent of the global health workforce puts them at greater risk of infection.
This is a dated photo of Catherine a nurse at Jinja referral hospital,in Uganda. Credit: Lyndal Rowlands/IPS.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 3 2020 (IPS) – As the number of coronavirus cases continues to grow, concerns are simultaneously growing about the current and long-term effects this will have on certain demographics specifically, women, the youth, migrant workers, and many employees around the world.
This week, the United Nations launched a report “” that detailed how these communities are affected dispropo…
Winnie Byanyima* is the Executive Director of UNAIDS
Kansiime and her daughters arrive at the Mbarara Hospital. The three family members all live with HIV and go to the clinic regularly to collect their medication. “When I go to hospital, I am surrounded by other women who have come for treatment. We are there for the same reason,” Kansiime says. “This has helped me overcome stigma and given me strength.” Credit: UNICEF/UNI211907/Schermbrucker
GENEVA, Apr 2 2020 (IPS) – The multi-layered crisis of the Coronavirus epidemic has been a dramatic shock to everyone. But, to communities affected by HIV and AIDS, the crisis has not only brought a further shock to …
STOCKHOLM / ROME, Apr 20 2020 (IPS) – Epidemic diseases are not random events that afflict societies capriciously and without warning, on the contrary, every society produces its own specific vulnerabilities. To study them is to understand the importance of a society s structure, its standard of living, and its political priorities. […] Epidemics are a mirror, they show who we really are: Our ethics, beliefs, and socio-economic relationships.
Frank Snowden 1
After contagion, the symptoms of the Ebola Virus become evident between two days and three weeks – vomiting, diarrhoea and rash as victims begin to bleed both internally and externally, an average of 50…
This is an opportunity for civil society to highlight the plight of migrant labourers that existed even before the pandemic.. Picture courtesy: Anand Sinha
RAJASMAND, RAJASTHAN, India, May 8 2020 (IPS) – The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shown us something that most of us haven’t seen in our lifetimes: Large numbers of people unable to have two meals a day.
The tragedy is that the government has enough and more foodgrains to feed people during th…
Credit: Bigstock
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, May 31 2020 (IPS) – Tobacco use kills more than people each year. Most adult smokers start smoking before the . This implies that if one can get through adolescence without , the likelihood of being a smoker in adulthood is greatly reduced.
Preventing young people from becoming addicted to tobacco and related products is therefore key to a smoke-free future.
With the advent of novel tobacco products and the tobacco industry falsely marketing them as less harmful than their combustible counter…
CANBERRA, Australia, Jun 12 2020 (IPS) – Prior to the onset of the coronavirus crisis South Asian women participated only sparingly in the labor market. Even though South Asia was and still has the potential to become one of the fastest growing regions in the world (post COVID19) female labor force participation rates were low at 23.6% compared to 80% for men (World Bank figures).
Raghbendra Jha
The principal reasons for low female labor participation rates are (i) relatively low literacy rates for women as compared to men1 although the gap between the two is falling and both rates are rising; (ii) gender norms that view household work as women’s work and work outside…