UNITED NATIONS, Jul 24 2014 (IPS) – As successive Human Development Reports have shown, most people in most countries are doing better in human development. Globalisation, advances in technology and higher incomes all hold promise for longer, healthier, more secure lives.
But there is also a widespread sense of precariousness in the world today. Improvements in living standards can quickly be undermined by a natural disaster or economic slump. Political threats, community tensions, crime and environmental damage all contribute to individual and community vulnerability.
The 2014 Report, on vulnerability and resilience, shows that human development progress is slowing down and is increasingly precarious. Globalisation, for instance, which has brought benefits to many, has …
As one of the Ebola epicentres, the district of Kailahun, in eastern Sierra Leone bordering Guinea, was put under quarantine at the beginning of August. Credit: ©EC/ECHO/Cyprien Fabre
WASHINGTON, Sep 8 2014 (IPS) – The U.S. military over the weekend formally began to support the international response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
Advocates of the move, including prominent voices in global health, are lauding the Pentagon’s particularly robust logistical capacities, which nearly all observers say are desperately needed as the epidemic expands at an increasing rate.On Monday, the United Nations warned of an “exponential increase” in cases in coming weeks.
Some 60 major U.S. food retailers have already pledged not to sell GE salmon. Credit: Kevin Galens/cc by 2.0
WASHINGTON, Oct 29 2014 (IPS) – Officials in Panama have fined the local facility of a U.S. biotechnology company for a series of permitting and regulatory failures around a pioneering attempt to create genetically modified salmon.
The experiments are being carried out by researchers for AquaBounty Technologies, which currently has an application with the U.S. government to sell genetically modified (GM) salmon filets in this country. If regulators approve that application, AquaBounty’s salmon would be the first genetically modified meat sold for human consumpti…
Children are bearing the brunt of the drought in Tharparkar, often the first to fall victim to diarrhoea and pneumonia brought on by malnutrition. Credit: Irfan Ahmed/IPS
MITHI, Pakistan, Jan 3 2015 (IPS) – The main entrance to the Civil Hospital in Mithi, headquarters of the Tharparkar district in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province, is blocked by a couple of men clad in traditional dress and turbans. They are trying to console a woman who is sobbing so heavily she has to gasp for breath.
She lost her two-year-old son just moments ago and these men, both relations of hers, were the ones to carry the child into the hospital where doctors tried – and failed –…
The recent epidemic of chikungunya in the Caribbean has been attributed in part to indiscriminate dumping of household garbage, as in this street in Curepe, Trinidad, thus providing breeding ground for mosquitoes that thrive under hot and wet conditions. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS
TRINIDAD, Feb 20 2015 (IPS) – Jenny had gone to bed feeling well, but an hour into her sleep she suddenly awoke with a “stiff, cramping pain” behind one knee. Within the next hour the pains had multiplied and both knees began to lock, followed by stiffened fingers and pains in her chest, along with a fever.
Jenny Gittens, 61, described her experience with chikungunya over the next tw…
Dr. Kirsten Stoebenau is a Gender and Population Specialist at the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW).
Girls who report that their domestic chores interfere with their schooling are three times more likely to drop out. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
WASHINGTON, Mar 25 2015 (IPS) – Earlier this month, the Barack Obama administration announced a new initiative designed to improve girls’ education around the world. Dubbed “Let Girls Learn,” the programme builds on current progress made, such as ensuring girls…
Esmee Russell is International Campaigns Coordinator, End Water Poverty
A young Sudanese boy carries water home for his family in a plastic container. Credit: UN Photo/Tim McKulka
LONDON, May 22 2015 (IPS) – In September, the United Nations will agree on new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will set development priorities for the next 15 years. The draft goals that have been developed are ambitious – they seek to end poverty and ensure no one is left behind.
Until now, civil society has been engaged in discussions over goals and targets; th…
Malaria has dreadful health consequences for HIV positive pregnant women and their babies. Sleeping under a net and taking antimalarial pills help HIV positive pregnant women have healthier babies. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS
UNITED NATIONS/ADDIS ABABA, Jul 13 2015 (IPS) – Although malaria is both preventable and curable, it still killed an estimated 584,000 people in 2013, the majority of them African children.
According to the…
A hearing in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to follow up on compliance with its ruling that Costa Rica’s ban on in vitro fertilisation violates a number of rights. Credit: Inter-American Court of Human Rights
SAN JOSE, Sep 15 2015 (IPS) – After banning in vitro fertilisation for 15 years and failing to comply with an Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruling for nearly three years, Costa Rica will finally once again allow the procedure for cou…
Ms Mette Knudsen is Denmark’s Ambassador to Kenya. Follow her on twitter: . Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative to Kenya. Follow him on twitter:
Ms Margaret Kenyatta, the First Lady of Kenya visits a maternal health facility in Mandera County on 06 November 2015. Dr Babatunde Osotimehin the Executive Director of UNFPA looks on. Credit: @UNFPAKen
Mandera County, Kenya, Jan 18 2016 (IPS) – On Friday, 06 November 2015, we had the honor of meeting the First Lady of Kenya Ms Margaret Kenyatta, a tireless advocate for “every woman and every child”, during the launch of the Beyond Zero campaign in Mandera County, North-East…