Collins Mtika
GEZAMGOMO, Malawi , Nov 23 2010 (IPS) – Cecilia Tomoka s birthing centre stood unused for three years before the 2009 earthquake flattened it. Now she s rebuilding the house and her practice as Malawi s government lifts a ban on traditional birth attendants.
Tomoka lives in Gezamgomo village, about a kilometre outside Malawi s third largest city, Mzuzu. She started assisting with births in 1989, after her grandmother renowned for communing with the spirits told her it was her calling.
United Nations agencies project Malawi s maternal mortality rate is presently 510 deaths per 100,000 live births; down from the 2005 estimate of over 1,100 per 100,000. In 2007, traditional birth attendants were banned in an effort to push more women to give birth with qu…
Servaas van den Bosch
WINDHOEK, Jun 29 2011 (IPS) – In one of the most sparsely populated countries on the planet, people travel up to 200 kilometres in the simmering heat to see a nurse or get basic medication.
Registered nurse George du Plessis takes a patient s blood pressure in the mobile clinic. Credit: Servaas van den Bosch/IPS
But a new public-private partnership sporting mobile clinics is about to change this.
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MBUJI MAYI, DR Congo, Sep 5 2012 (IPS) – Despite the desperate lack of access to water for domestic use in Mwene Ditu, in the central Democratic Republic of Congo, Dieudonné Ilunga spent a good part of July blocking up residents wells.
They ve dug them in old cemeteries, in newly-demarcated lots, next to toilets, said Ilunga, head of the Water Resources Research Department in the city, the second largest in DRC s Kasaï-Orientale province.
Just ten percent of Mwene Ditu s 600,000 residents are connected to the water supply network – and even for these lucky few, water flows through the taps only on Monday and Friday.
Vianney Muadi, a mother of two in the city s Musadi neighbourhood, said she stores as much water as possible when it runs. Sometimes, we go whol…
Hong Joo Hahm is Deputy Executive Secretary and Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 1 2018 (IPS) – Asia and the Pacific needs more women entrepreneurs. Women’s economic empowerment and gender equality depend on it, as does the inclusive economic growth needed to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This drives a new initiative by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, generously supported by Global Affairs Canada, focused on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance in our region.
Hong Joo Hahm
Establishing a business c…
Credit: Bigstock.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 5 2019 (IPS) – European and North American countries will take a major stride in cleaning up the atmosphere next Monday, 7 October, through the implementation of an amended legally binding treaty to limit the amount of emissions polluting the air.
With 18 countries and the European Union now having the amended treaty, from a total of 51 who have signed, including many of the countries which are part of the UN Economic Commission for Europe , the official entry into force marks an important step to curb pollutants closely-linked to climate change, ecosystem degeneration, and potentially life-threatening human health.
PRESS RELEASE
Jun 8 2020 – The Commonwealth Secretary-General is urging governments to ensure their countries’ post-COVID economic recoveries are environmentally sustainable and safe for the ocean.
Forty-seven of the Commonwealth’s 54 member countries have a coastline while 25 are either small island developing states or ‘big ocean states’ relying heavily on the ocean for food and income.
On World Oceans Day (8 June), Secretary-General Patricia Scotland calls on countries to reform development strategies in a way that supports vibrant and sustainable blue and green economies.
Patricia Scotland
She said: “The ocean is …