Credit: SHE Investments Cambodia
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 7 2021 (IPS) – We are living through a decisive moment. The COVID-19 pandemic’s devasting impact is reaching every corner of the world. As we look back at this period, we will see history divided into a pre-COVID and a post-COVID world.
And a defining feature of the post-COVID world will be the digital transformation that has permeated every aspect of our lives. Chief Technology Officers can say that the pandemic has done their job for them, accelerating the digitalization of economies and societies at an unimaginable pace.
The digital transformation has gone hand in hand with the rise …
Yasmine Sherif, Director of Education Cannot Wait
Yasmine Sherif
NEW YORK, Jun 16 2021 (IPS) – The climate crisis is amplifying the effects of instability and violence in the world’s poorest countries. Nowhere is this more visible than in Africa’s Central Sahel region, where increasing temperature, floods, droughts and other climate change-induced disasters are triggering conflicts, displacement, and pushing girls and boys into the shadows.
The Africa Region Climate Week Virtual Thematic Sessions are taking place this week and soon world leaders will come together for Africa Climate Week, in the lead up to this year’s climate talks in the UK, they…
A Somali resident sells meat at a market in Hudur, where food shortages continue to cause suffering. Meanwhile, between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 – some 161 million more than for 2019 – the UN Secretary-General said July 12; “new, tragic data”, which indicates the world is “tremendously off track” to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals () by 2030. Credit: UN Photo/Tobin Jones
BRUSSELS, Belgium / JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Jul 30 2021 (IPS) – A short answer to this question is yes, but it is obvious and predictable failure was visible for some time. This debate started before 2015, the year in which the Sustainable Develop…
Combines harvesting durum wheat in Enchant, Alberta, Canada. GPS-programmed, they are already driverless except for going around corners, August 2021. Credit: Trevor Page
OTTAWA, Canada, Sep 23 2021 (IPS) – Current food systems are no longer fit for the 21st century. Inequitable distribution, poor nutritional habits, and climate change are three issues breaking down our global food systems today, forcing us to look for solutions to transform them. Food aid – very much part of our global food systems – needs to be responsive to the challenges that lie ahead.
The World Bank estimates that the global food system is worth roughly $8 trillion – about one tenth of the …
Female Genital Mutilation is a ‘violent act’ that, among other dramatic consequences, causes infection, disease, childbirth complications and death. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS
MADRID, Nov 5 2021 (IPS) – While male circumcision is spread mainly among Muslim and other religious communities, and it is apparently accepted by some medical spheres, more than 200 million girls have already fallen prey to a dangerous, abhorrent practice, which is carried out in the name of social and …
BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 20 2021 (IPS) – Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are trying their best to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly rolling out vaccination programmes and putting in place public health interventions to reduce its impact. At the end of November, there were 262 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 5.2 million deaths globally. About 60 per cent of all COVID-19 cases and half of all COVID-19 related deaths were in Asia and the Pacific. About 7.8 billion vaccines have been administered globally, and vaccine supply is generally improving.
Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana
However, the pandemic has exacerbated inequities between and within …
Due to demographic pressures of growing elderly populations and the relative decline of workers paying taxes, governments are increasingly facing the need to adjust budgetary expenditures. Credit: K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS
PORTLAND, USA, Feb 23 2022 (IPS) – With the unprecedented of populations worldwide, countries are struggling with the critical questions of who should be for caring for the old and what should be the extent of care provided to women and men in old age.
Many believe that the government should be responsible for covering the costs and providing care, support and assistance to the old. In contrast, others, in particular social conservativ…
Asian Americans affected by anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes have provided support to each other. Left to right from top: Dr Boyung Lee, Dr Russell Jeung, Cynthia Choi, and Dr Bryant Lin. Credit: Myleen Hollero
California, Apr 28 2022 (IPS) – Dr Boyung Lee, a widow and the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Iliff School of Theology, would use a short break in her working day to walk around her neighborhood. The fresh air helped her deal with her grief and work-related stress.
In May 2020, however, this small but significant daily ritual ended abruptly.
Lee was walking when she noticed a dirty white truck but did not think much…
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 20 2022 (IPS) – The 164-member World Trade Organization (WTO) has implicitly rubber-stamped a widely-condemned policy of “vaccine apartheid” which has discriminated the world’s poorer nations, mostly in Africa and Asia, depriving them of any wide-ranging intellectual property rights.
As Max Lawson, Co-Chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance and Head of Inequality Policy at Oxfam, said at the conclusion of the WTO’s ministerial meeting last week: “The conduct of rich countries at the WTO has been utterly shameful”.
“The European Union (EU) has blocked anything that resembles a meaningful intellectual property waiver. The UK and Switze…
Efforts to reinforce and leverage the infrastructure built to end AIDS can optimize the health impact and sustainability of the response to COVID-19. Zimbabwe, November 2019. Credit: UNAIDS/Cynthia Matonhodzes
GENEVA, Sep 15 2022 (IPS) – Next week, taking place alongside the UN General Assembly, President Biden hosts a financing summit in New York of such importance that it will determine if millions of people live, will shape the world around us for years to come and will set the future direction of global health. At least $18 billion is needed to fund the work of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
A successful replenishment of the Global F…