SINGAPORE, Apr 16 2020 (IPS) – COVID-19 has disrupted supply chains that are essential to assure food security in the Asia Pacific region, yet countries overall seem to have managed, so far, to keep supermarkets stocked with food and feed those who can afford it.
The Asia Pacific region is home to over 60% of humanity and also contains sub-regions with among the highest frequencies of severe weather events and some of the most challenging environments for agriculture. As a region it is characterized by diverse food systems and a multiplex of supply chains. Under normal circumstances, food security is already threatened by a multitude of factors.
Paul S. Teng
The CO…
May 6 2020 – Denmark is Education Cannot Wait’s (ECW) third largest donor, with US$79.1 million in contributions to date. In this insightful interview with Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation, Rasmus Prehn, we explore the importance of girls’ education and gender equality, the humanitarian-development nexus, expanded engagement with the private sector, education in emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic and more. A former high school teacher, with a master’s degree in social science, Minister Prehn has been a member of Danish Parliament since 2005, and was named Minister for Development Cooperation on June 27, 2019. Minister Prehn is the former chairman of the Danish Re…
Rafiullah Wardak looks upon his newborn daughter Amina, recovering after being wounded by gunmen who stormed a maternity award in Kabul on May 19, 2020. Mr. Wardak’s wife, Nazeya, was among at least 24 people killed in the attack, including women, nurses, and newborns. Credit: Courtesy of the Rafiullah Wardak family published @csmonitor
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 26 2020 (IPS) – Consider this. 24 women, children and babies were murdered at a hospital in Kabul, the Afghan capital. Even by standards of a country as accustomed to bloodshed as Afghanistan, the May 12 attack on a .
That anyone could target women at their most vulnerable and infants in their first hours of l…
African leaders highlight the opportunity for a triple dividend: reduced risk, increased resilience and strengthened recovery.
ISTANBUL, Jul 7 2020 (IPS) – COVID-19 continues to race across the African continent. People are dying, and even more are being pushed into hunger and poverty, in many cases risking to overturn years of development gains.
The numbers are staggering. While the pandemic is only now taking root in Africa, there are at least 400,000 confirmed cases, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), the outbreak is accelerating across the continent.
Add to this the risks of hunger and poverty. Three out of four people on the continent …
Andrés Cañizález is a Venezuelan journalist and Ph.D. in Political Science
A teenage girl covers her face with her hands in front of a laptop computer, frightened by the news she reads about the pandemic. Photo: Dusko Miljanic/Unicef
CARACAS, Aug 6 2020 (IPS) – Every era brings its own buzzwords or catchphrases along with it. The term du jour is ‘pandemic’, namely ‘coronavirus’ and ‘COVID-19’; but alongside these words, speculation and forecasts over the post-pandemic world are flourishing. There is a proliferation of pieces and commentary on what our daily lives or the economy will be like once the epidemic is under control, that i…
BOGOTA, Colombia, Sep 30 2020 (IPS) – This week, Heads of State and Government from 64 countries announced one of the strongest pledges yet to reverse the loss of biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people by 2030. Advancing from powerful pledges to concrete policy and action, however, means that nature must be moved to the heart of global, national and local decision-making. It’s time for nature to be reintegrated into everything we do.
Ana María Hernández Salgar
The is an explicit declaration of a planetary emergency, driven by human actions that are degrading nature and our climate at rates and levels unprecedented in human history.
As…
GGGI has been working closely with the Provincial Government of Central Kalimantan supporting effective policymaking and planning to drive reduced deforestation and peatland degradation in the province, particularly in Utar Serapat which consists of 107,000 ha of peatlands. GGGI also supports Central Kalimantan in mobilizing public and private investment for sustainable and inclusive landscape-based projects designed to achieve low carbon development in the province.
Dec 17 2020 – In the wake of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, there are both challenges and opportunities in ensuring that COP26, a UN climate change summit, builds confidence in the Paris Agreement as an effec…
Delegates at a webinar discuss COVID-19 and its impact on older persons.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Jan 29 2021 (IPS) – Internationally COVID-19 extracted a heavy toll on older people – raising concerns in the Asia Pacific region where more than half of the world’s ageing population live.
“Rising inequalities have resulted in the increasing poverty, insufficient access to health and social protection services, which have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Bjorn Andersson, Regional Director of UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Asia Pacific said. He spoke at a webinar to discuss a recently released policy review undertaken on Vietnam, Australia, Thailand, and…
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.
NEW YORK, Mar 7 2021 (IPS) – Access to an inclusive quality education is a universal human right. When the inherent right to a good education is ignored or denied, the consequences are severe. For a girl in country of conflict or forced displacement, the impact is brutally multiplied.
Yasmine Sherif
Besides their already marginalized role in war-torn countries or as refugees, adolescent girls and girls are being disproportionately affected by the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before the pandemic broke in early 2020, some 39 million girls had thei…
NEW DELHI, India, May 31 2021 (IPS) – Four women, two motorbikes, 64 districts and a journey of a lifetime, this is the story of Dr. Sakia Haque from Bangladesh. In November 2016, Dr Haque co-founded “Travelettes of Bangladesh Bhromon Konya,” a women s only group, with the motto of “empowering women through travelling.” This platform is not just an ordinary online travel group, but it is a platform of connection, sisterhood and networking of almost 60,000 girls and women in Bangladesh that empowers them by teaching them to raise their voices and encourages them to step out of their comfort zones and to “go see the world”.
Dr. Sakia Haque
“I believe motorc…