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…

A girl reads a story book with lessons on life skills at an ELA club in Uganda. Credit: Uganda/BRAC

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 22 2023 (IPS) – BRAC’s Empowerment and Livelihood Program (ELA) has benefitted tens of thousands of girls, and its recently released report shows an organization willing to adapt to the circumstances to continue to ensure adolescent girls and young women receive meaningful sexual and reproductive health rights support.

The report titled Adolescent Empowerment at a scale: Successes and challenges of an evidence-based approach to young women’s progra…

On the airwaves – DJ Ulu, Mama Nessa and Mama Trina (left to right).

TONGA, Aug 8 2022 – Tonga was still picking up the pieces after the Hunga volcanic eruption and tsunami waves when the pandemic reached its shores.

The volcano’s ashfall had damaged roads, polluted water and destroyed crops. The tsunami waves battered homes and strewn debris inland. The telecommunications services connecting people to their families were just coming back online as news of the first COVID-19 cases broke.

A lockdown was swiftly announced to curb an uncontrolled spread of the virus. Though a critical public health intervention, it was an additional blow to the island n…

Mangroves in Tai O, Hong Kong. Coastal wetland protection and restoration is an example of the kind of multifunctional solution that is needed to address multiple global crises together. Credit: Chunyip Wong / iStock

BONN, Mar 2 2023 (IPS) – When global crises are interlinked, they overlap and compound each other. In such cases, the most effective solutions are those that work at the nexus of all these challenges.

In September, almost every Government on Earth will gather at the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York to take stock at the halfway mark of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of what has been achieved and what remains to be done.

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Credit: World Bank

BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 8 2023 (IPS) – As the world commemorates the 75th anniversary of the , ( on Human Rights Day December 10), we turn the spotlight on a glaring contradiction the world is experiencing from a harmful industry. Despite causing 8 million annual deaths and a myriad of diseases, the tobacco industry has enjoyed six decades of the legal right to manufacture and sell its harmful products.

This travesty to human rights remains unaddressed with no admission of liability, compensation for victims, or withdrawal of the product.

Instead, the tobacco industry has thwarted and undermined government efforts to protect public …

Apr 10 2020 – The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has announced it is “launching initiatives” to support cultural industries and cultural heritage, sectors hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID-19 has put many intangible cultural heritage practices, including rituals and ceremonies, on hold, impacting communities everywhere,” the organization stated April 9. “It has also cost many jobs, and across the globe, artists … are now unable to make ends meet.”

UNESCO s Director-General Audrey Azoulay. Credit: UNESCO/Calix

Governments ordered the lockdown of museums, theatres, cinemas and other cultural inst…

The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.

LONDON, Mar 5 2021 (IPS) – Among the greatest gifts with which I have been blessed were parents who instilled in me a deep-rooted sense of identity, and the unequivocal belief that there was no difference between what a boy and a girl could achieve.

This assurance sustained me while growing up, as the tenth child out of twelve wonderful siblings, and through the numerous times when it was suggested by others that I would never succeed, simply because I was black, poor and female.

Patricia Scotland

When I set out on my career in law, a mere 3% of the profes…

Credit: World Food Programme WFP

TORONTO, Canada, Jun 3 2021 (IPS) – This week*, the (CFS) is expected to endorse recommendations on agroecological and other innovative approaches for sustainable food systems, after an intense period of negotiation involving governments, UN agencies and institutions, Indigenous People’s organizations, civil society, and the private sector.

As they do so, they must also take a stance against the creeping co-option and “greenwashing” of agroecology and uphold the social and political foundations of agroecology. It is these inherent characteristics that are so crucial for the deep structural transformation of global food systems that w…

BANGKOK, Thailand, Dec 20 2021 (IPS) – Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are trying their best to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly rolling out vaccination programmes and putting in place public health interventions to reduce its impact. At the end of November, there were 262 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and 5.2 million deaths globally. About 60 per cent of all COVID-19 cases and half of all COVID-19 related deaths were in Asia and the Pacific. About 7.8 billion vaccines have been administered globally, and vaccine supply is generally improving.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

However, the pandemic has exacerbated inequities between and within …