A World Going Hungry

Andrea Lunt

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 23 2011 (IPS) – In an era of mass consumption in the West, the developing world is entering its second major hunger crisis in three years, with new figures from the World Bank showing food price hikes have forced 44 million people into economic hardship since last June.
More than one billion people, a sixth of the world s population, now face chronic hunger and the situation is likely to worsen this year, with experts such as David Nabarro, coordinator of the U.N. Secretary-General s High- Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis, warning food prices are on an upward trend .

Somewhere in the region of two billion households are earning less than two dollars per day and spending somewhere around three quarters of their income…

ARGENTINA: The Long Adios to Psychiatric Hospitals

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Mar 17 2011 (IPS) – Argentina has begun the process of closing down psychiatric hospitals and integrating mentally ill people into the community, like its South American neighbours Brazil and Chile.
Human rights organisations, mental health professionals and patients relatives pushed for a new mental health act, which was finally unanimously approved by the Argentine Congress in late November.

The law is in line with the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Argentina in 2008. But all the parties involved admit that enforcing it will be a slow process.

The law is simply a milestone along the way; implementing it will take time, national director of mental health Yago d…

JAPAN: Quake’s Aftermath Weighs Heavily on Women

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Apr 15 2011 (IPS) – Since the horrific Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated her coastal town of Minato, in Ishinomaki city, Masami Endo s three-year-old daughter has been crying and clinging to her every night.
My daughter, Sakura, has never cried in fear of darkness till this disaster. She is completely different to the rather cheerful but also kind of stoic child she was before, Endo, a single mother, told IPS.

Endo is very worried about her child. The two of watched the tsunami swarm into their town and through the first floor of their house, destroying the structure badly. Ishinomaki is located in Miyagi- prefecture, about 330 kilometres north of Tokyo.

The story of Sakura is just one example of the thousands of tales o…

Parliamentarians Ask G8 to Focus on Women

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. …

OP-ED: G20 Ministers of Agriculture Must Focus on Smallholder Farmers

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…

NAMIBIA: Investing in the Health of Farm Workers

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

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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Water as Basic Human Right Has a Market Price, Says U.N. Chief

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…

Q&A: “People With Disabilities Want Work”

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

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…

POPULATION: Youth Bulge Adds to Pakistan’s Woes

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…

SOUTH SUDAN: Women Aim to Protect Their Rights in a Young State

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

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…