NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 27 2019 (IPS) – Graduate students of the London School of Economics and Political Science gathered at Kenya’s coast in September 2018, where the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Dr Mukhisa Kituyi told them: “With your international credibility, it is easier and tempting to leave and take out of the continent the little intellectual resource that could solve problems their countries face.”
Verah Vashti Okeyo
He was persuading them to come back home, to Africa, to ‘save the modern state from collapse’. Many PhD holders with African descent have taken Dr Kituyi’s message to heart, and returned…
Chairman of the Nippon Foundation and Sasakawa Health Foundation in Japan Yohey Sasakawa speaking at the Conference of Organizations of Persons Affected by Leprosy in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Credit: Rafiqul Islam / IPS
DHAKA, Bangladesh, Dec 12 2019 (IPS) – Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, Yohei Sasakawa, has assured Bangladesh of continuing support for the Zero Leprosy Initiative announced by the country s Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, aimed at eliminating leprosy by 2030.
Sasakawa was speaking at the opening of the first ever meeting of organizations working on leprosy in Bangladesh.
The government has already announced the Zero Leprosy Initiative that …
Ignacio López-Goñi is microbiologist and works in University of Navarra (Spain).
Colorised scanning electron micrograph of MERS virus particles (yellow) both budding and attached to the surface of infected VERO E6 cells (blue). Credit: NIAID
Mar 7 2020 (IPS) – Regardless of whether we classify the new coronavirus as a pandemic, it is a serious issue. In less than two months, it has spread over several continents. Pandemic means sustained and continuous transmission of the disease, simultaneously in more than three different geographical regions. Pandemic does not refer to the lethality of a virus but to its transmissibility and geographical extension.
We c…
is Fellow at Institute for Human Development (IHD) and Co-Founder & Visiting Senior Fellow at , New Delhi; is CEO & Editorial Director, IMPRI; and is Director, IMPRI.
Migrant workers have thronged there in tens of thousands with their families after having lost their jobs after the nationwide lockdown was announced by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 24 March 2020. These workers are desperate to reach their hometowns and villages. All orders of social distancing are unheeded since their basic needs of food, water, clothing and shelter are not being met.
Anand Vihar Bus Terminal, New Delhi, March 28, 2020. Credit: IMPRI
ROME, Apr 15 2020 – For millions of children around the world, the COVID-19 outbreak means not getting the most important, if not the only, meal of the day.
‘We estimated that around [out of 380 million] do not have access to those meals … Of those children, about half of them are in low and lower-middle-income countries’, Carmen Burbano, director of the ’s School Feeding division, told Degrees of Latitude.
The most affected are the poorest, those kids already struggling because of war, , and poverty, being refugees or internally displaced. Of great concern, there are countries, especially in the Horn of Africa, that have been impacted already…
TOKYO, May 5 2020 (IPS) – The new coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to wreak havoc across the world, as the number of infections and deaths rapidly rise. It has the potential to infect anybody regardless of age or gender. There are grave concerns that the economic fallout from COVID-19 may be comparable to that of the Great Depression. According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there are 2,064,668 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 137,124 deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19). In Japan as of noon April 15, there were 8,100 cases of COVID-19 , 119 deaths, and 901 patients discharged from hospitals.
Osamu Kusumoto
Responding to cases showing acut…
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 7 2020 (IPS) – In his early February annual , US President Donald Trump typically hailed his own policies for increasing wages and jobs to achieve record low US unemployment. Directly appealing to labour for a second term, Trump claimed exclusive credit for the US “blue-collar boom”.
Anis Chowdhury
‘Blue-collar boom’
During his previous two State of the Union speeches, Trump also directly appealed to blue-collar Americans who put him in the White House in November 2016. As Trump claims manufacturing workers have been the main beneficiaries of his economic policies, including his trade and other policies, this seemed likely…
Tijjani Muhammad-Bande is President of the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly and Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations.
H.E. Mr. Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, President of the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, visits a school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 10 February 2020. Credit: Geremew Tigabu/UN OPGA
NEW YORK, Aug 4 2020 (IPS) – The United Nations came into existence at a time of great despair, when the penholders of its founding document dared to imagine a better world, one that would be defined by peace and equality. Visionary world leaders chose hope over cynicism, empathy over indifference and partnersh…
STOCKHOLM, CAMBRIDGE (US), Sep 23 2020 (IPS) – As COVID-19 threatens farming communities across Africa already struggling with climate change, the continent is at a crossroads. Will its people and their governments continue trying to replicate industrial farming models promoted by developed countries? Or will they move boldly into the uncertain future, embracing ecological agriculture?
Million Belay
It is time to choose. Africa is projected to overtake South Asia by 2030 as the region with the greatest number of hungry people. An alarming 250 million people in Africa now suffer from “undernourishment,” the U.N. term for chronic hunger. If policies do not change…
A group of children being instructed by a teacher in an inner-city community. She has painted blackboards on walls to continue her lessons in the pandemic after schools were closed. Credit: Kate Chappell
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Dec 16 2020 (IPS) – In Jamaica, school playgrounds are deserted, filled only with phantom shrieks of delight. Blackboards remain devoid of arithmetic and uniforms hang wrinkle-free in closets. When the first case of Covid hit Jamaican shores in early March, the government closed primary and secondary schools and over 500,000 children transitioned to remote learning. The majority of schools have yet to resume face-to-face classes since the March 1…