PARIS, May 18 2011 (IPS) – Ahead of this month s G8 summit in France, parliamentarians from 35 countries have issued a strong call for leaders of the world s major economies to focus on the role of women and girls in development.
We wish to draw the world s attention to two aspects of human rights that are the most neglected – the situation facing girls and adolescent women and the challenges posed by global population dynamics at present, said a resolution issued at the end of the Global Parliamentarians Summit held at France s National Assembly on Monday and Tuesday.
France s minister for Cooperation, Henri de Raincourt, told IPS that discussions of the issues affecting women and girls would form a real part of the G8 meeting.
France insists on this, he said. …
WASHINGTON, Jun 15 2011 (IPS) – The first-ever official meeting of Ministers of Agriculture from G20 countries, to be held in Paris Jun. 22-23, presents an extraordinary opportunity. Tasked with developing an action plan to address price volatility in food and agricultural markets and its impact on the poor, the ministers are uniquely positioned to not only tackle the immediate price volatility problems, but also to take on a more fundamental and long-term challenge extreme poverty and hunger.
As experts in agriculture, the ministers no doubt know what extensive research confirms: Investing in agriculture and rural development, with a focus on smallholder farmers, is the best bet for achieving global food security, alleviating poverty, and improving human wellbeing in developing co…
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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Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2011 (IPS) – As the 193-member General Assembly commemorates the first anniversary of its landmark resolution pronouncing water and sanitation to be a basic human right, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon triggered a political controversy last week when he implicitly declared that even human rights have a market price.
Let us be clear, he asserted, a right to water and sanitation does not mean that water should be free.
Rather, he said, it means that water and sanitation services should be affordable and available for all, and that member states must do everything in their power to make this happen.
But what if member states transfer their obligations to the private sector, known to extract a heavy price even from those who canno…
Christian Papesch interviews RONALD MCCALLUM, chair of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 9 2011 (IPS) – More than one billion people worldwide live with disabilities, some 15 percent of the world s population.
Ronald McCallum Credit: Christian Papesch/IPS
On Friday, the Fourth Session of the Conference of the States Parties to the (CRPD) wrapped up a three-day session at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Under the overall theme Enabling Development, Realizing the Rights of Persons with Disabilities over 500 delegates of g…
Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Oct 26 2011 (IPS) – Pakistan s population explosion is posing a greater danger than militancy and religious intolerance, says noted medical doctor and demographer Farid Midhet.
It is the burgeoning population that poses a serious threat to Pakistan s existence, Midhet told IPS. Imagine a Pakistan with a population of 300 million by 2030!
A week before the world prepares to welcome its seven billionth child, on Oct. 31, a jobless Raja Khan, father of two, succumbed to burn injuries sustained when he set himself ablaze in front of parliament house in Islamabad.
Khan who had travelled all the way to the national capital from a village near Naushero Feroz, Sindh province, to carry out an act of extreme desperation left behind a letter say…
Amanda Wilson
Davidica Ikai Grasiano Ayahu of the ITWAK Organisation addresses a working group on the specific medical needs of women in South Sudan. Credit: Shereen Hall, courtesy of the Institute for Inclusive Security
WASHINGTON, Dec 15 2011 (IPS) – As South Sudan maps out its economic future at the South Sudan International Engagement Conference (IEC) this week in Washington, women from the new country called on donors to invest in projects that ensure women benefit equally…
PESHAWAR, Feb 13 2012 (IPS) – The world’s two worst polio-affected countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, have exhausted themselves in failed attempts to wipe out the crippling ailment.
A new immunisation campaign against polio has been launched jointly by Pakistan and Afghanistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
Of the eight new polio cases record in 2012, seven are from Pakistan and one from Afghanistan.
In the…
Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Mar 16 2012 (IPS) – By winning an Oscar at this year s Academy awards, filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy has brought home the genius of Pakistan s women as well as the extreme violence they often suffer in a male-dominated society.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy. Credit: Bina Khan/IPS.
Chinoy s documentary Saving Face deals with the struggles of the victims of disfiguring acid attacks, both to win justice for themselves and to save others from one of the worst forms of violence against women.
Valerie Khan, who heads the Acid Survivor Foundation (ASF), told…
RIO DE JANEIRO, Apr 26 2012 (IPS) – The 380 families living in Piquiá de Baixo, a small town in the northeastern Brazilian state of Maranhão, are fed up with having to endure high levels of pollution from nearby steelworks in their water, air and soil.
Clouds of iron dust hang over Piquiá de Baixo. Credit: Courtesy of Piquiá de Baixo Residents Association
The town takes its name from the piquiá tree, a species highly valued for its wood, which has beco…