Youth in Nigeria protested against the brutalities and extrajudicial killings by the rogue police unit known as SARS. The #EndSARS protests became a global movement as international corporations and celebrities offered their support.Photo by on
Jan 28 2021 (IPS) – As Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, reportedly of oxygen cylinders last week — with demand increasing fivefold in one of t…
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.
Agricultural biodiversity at the market in Western Bengal. Credit: Krishnasis Ghosh
ROME, Mar 6 2021 (IPS) – In times of crisis, policymakers have a tendency to prioritize economic recovery while leaving “social issues” like women’s empowerment on the backburner. During the COVID-19 pandemic, however, women’s leadership is as essential to full and meaningful recovery as it is to basic human rights. As the world mobilizes to design and build a post-COVID landscape, women’s rights, interests and priorities must not only be included in interna…
The writer is Executive Director of UNAIDS and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.
A woman is vaccinated against COVID-19 in the indigenous community of Concordia, Colombia. Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres repeated his call for the G20 to establish a Task Force “able to deal with the pharmaceutical companies and other key stakeholders”, which would address equitable vaccine distribution through the global initiative. Credit: WHO/Nadege Mazars
GENEVA, May 27 2021 (IPS) – In this time of intersecting crises – the Covid crisis, the HIV crisis, the inequality crisis, and more – progress on all these crises is being blocked by anothe…
In March 2021, the UN Human Rights Council was given a mandate to collect and preserve information and evidence of crimes related to Sri Lanka’s 27-year long civil war that ended in 2009. Meanwhile, Western nations taking a cue from the Human Rights Council’s highly critical resolution on Sri Lanka appear to be tightening the noose. Credit: UN Photo / Violaine Martin. 43rd session of the Human Rights Council.
LONDON, Jul 5 2021 (IPS) – For well over a century Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, has been known to the world as the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’ for its multifaceted attractions. That is until blurb writers ruined it all with hyperbolic epithets that obscured the…
Many families in the Solomon Islands and across the Pacific Islands region struggle to keep their children in school due to COVID-19 related economic hardship. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
CANBERRA, Australia , Aug 27 2021 (IPS) – Before the pandemic, many Pacific Island countries grappled with low numbers of students completing secondary education. Now experts in the region are concerned that the closure of schools to contain the spread of COVID-19, and the economic downturn, will lead to even more students dropping out of education early.
It s an issue that has consequences for the region s future development, given it…
It is essential to remember that femicide is actually a symptom of a much wider problem. It is patriarchal norms and gender inequality that are both the cause and consequence of gender-based violence in society.
Marx wrote ‘the tradition of all past generations weighs like an incubus upon the brain of the living.’ Yet there are many who wish to keep us chained to the past, including cultural relativists, feminists such as Germaine Greer and of course religious apologists. Ebru Asiltürk, spokeswoman for womens’ affairs for Turkey’s Islamic conservative Saadet Party, who opined recently that ‘…the treaty [Istanbul Convention to tackle violence again women and domestic abuse, as well as promoting gender equality – which Turkey was, ironically, the first country to …
Alice Cruz-UN, Special Rapporteur on eliminating discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members, told the youth that their participation was crucial to removing legal discrimination. Her young son Leo asked the global audience not to forget leprosy. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
Nairobi, Kenya, Jan 25 2022 (IPS) – Yohei Sasakawa said the youth have the power to change the world, and their participation in removing the stigma and myths about leprosy is crucial to the campaign to end the disease.
Sasakawa, the and Chairman of the Nippon Foundation, was speaking at a webinar held in the run-up to . He engaged youth from Africa, Asia, …
Dr Matshidiso Moeti is the World Health Organization Regional Director for Africa.
A Pakistani child receives a dose of the oral polio vaccine (OPV). Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS
BRAZZAVILLE, Mar 22 2022 (IPS) – In the outskirts of Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe, just beyond where paved roads transition to dirt, an undiagnosed polio infection paralysed a three-year-old girl. From one day to the next, the child’s life was changed forever.
Among Africa’s public health community, we had looked at our successes against wild poliovirus as a cause for optimism. In the 1…
It’s nice getting old, being young is far too horrible
Hjalmar Söderbergh
STOCKHOLM, Jul 28 2022 (IPS) – Many of us assume that an identification with a certain gender, race, nation or even age makes us particularly knowledgeable. When it comes to age, it is in most cultures of the world assumed that age and experience favour wisdom. I am not entirely sure about that, though I am convinced that as we grow older we tend to overestimate our own knowledge and importance. An arrogance that might burden and even marginalize the youth.
In several European cities you may nowadays come across store windows displaying various types of walkers, adjustable beds and o…
SYDNEY and DAKAR, Nov 1 2022 (IPS) – Developing countries have long been told to avoid borrowing from central banks (CBs) to finance government spending. Many have even legislated against CB financing of fiscal expenditure.
Central bank fiscal financing
Such laws are supposedly needed to curb inflation – below 5%, if not 2% – to accelerate growth. These arrangements have also constrained a potential CB developmental role and government ability to respond better to crises.
Anis Chowdhury
Improved monetary-fiscal policy coordination is also needed to achieve desired structural transformation, especially in decarbonizing economies. But too many develop…