GAZA, Gaza City. Queuing in hope of fuel. Credit: Mohammed Omer / IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 2018 (IPS) – UN agencies have sounded the alarm on the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza, pointing to the devastating repercussions of the ongoing fuel shortages.
UN agencies have appealed for donor support as emergency fuel for critical facilities in Gaza are due to run out in 10 days.
In a meeting, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that Gaza is a “constant humanitarian emergency.”
“Gaza remains squeezed by crippling closures…two million Palestinians are struggling everyday with crumbling infrastructure, an electricity crisis, a l…
Dr. Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI). Credit: Diana Mendoza/IPS
MANILA, May 14 2018 (IPS) – IPS caught up with Dr. Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), at the end of the flagship side event of the GGGI during the 51st Annual Meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila on May 4, 2018, which featured the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its potential to create sustainable infrastructure and promote green growth pathways.
In this brief chat with IPS correspondent Diana Mendoza, Dr. Rijsberman noted the success of just a few countries wit…
Community health worker Urmila Kasdekar performs a health check on a new born baby in Berdaball village of western India. In India, for example, where it is thought that as many as 120,000 babies alone die every year from sepsis caused by antimicrobial-resistant infections, doctors say two of the key factors behind rising AMR are pharmacies selling antibiotics without a prescription and poor infection control in overcrowded healthcare facilities. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS
BRUSSELS, Dec 4 2018 (IPS) – European Union officials and global health bodies have called for help for poorer countries as growing resistance to antibiotics threatens to become a ‘global health tragedy’ and …
Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki pushing hard for UHC in Kenya. Credit: MOH Kenya
NAIROBI, Kenya, Mar 27 2019 (IPS) – Consider this. One million Kenyans fall into poverty every year due to catastrophic out of pocket health expenditures.
For the almost four in every five Kenyans who lack access to medical insurance, the fear that they are just an accident or serious illness away from destitution.
Ill health is easily the most destructive wrecking-ball to any country’s plans for sustainable development, which validates President Uhuru Kenyatta’s to deliver Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2022, as part of his Big Four development agenda.
The number of…
Africa Renewal*
Students holding vegetables from the school garden.
Aug 30 2019 (IPS) – Namugongo is a lush, forested community in central Uganda where tall trees are home to colourful birds and noisy monkeys.
The community has a tragic place in history: on 3 June 1886, 22 Ugandan Christian converts were publicly executed, on the orders of King Mwanga II of the Buganda Kingdom, in an attempt to ward off the influence of colonial powers with whom the Christians were associated.
The converts were elevated to sainthood by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Ugandans today see those converts as martyrs. They commemorate every 3 June, Martyrs Day, with weeklong celebratio…
Farhana Haque Rahman is Senior Vice President of IPS Inter Press Service; a journalist and communications expert, she is a former senior official of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
The glaciers of the Andes Mountains are threatened by global warming. Credit: Julieta Sokolowicz/IPS
ROME, Dec 16 2019 (IPS) – By any measure this has been a devastating year: fires across the Amazon, the Arctic and beyond; floods and drought in Africa; rising temperatures, carbon emissions and sea levels; accelerating loss of species, and mass forced migrations of people.
As seen thro…
A polio vaccinator administers the oral polio vaccine to a child in Pakistan. The country remains one of three in the world where polio is yet to be eradicated. Credit: Zofeen T. Ebrahim/IPS
KARACHI, Pakistan, Mar 11 2020 (IPS) – Dr. Rana Muhammad Safdar, the coordinator for Pakistan’s National Emergency Operations Centre for Polio Eradication, has sleepless nights thinking about what needs to be done for his country to eradicate polio.
Not only me but the entire team is having sleepless nights thinking how best and how quickly we can reach the finish line, he told IPS. It s always painful to hear a child getting paralysed for life from a vaccine-preventable diseas…
Credit: Education Cannot Wait
Mar 31 2020 – Armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change induced disasters and protracted crises have disrupted the education of 75 million children and youth globally. And that number is growing in an unprecedented way with the spread of COVID-19. Education has been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic with and 184 country-wide school closures, impacting 87.6% of the world’s total enrolled learners. Drop-out rates across the globe are likely to rise as a result of this massive disruption to education access.
While other critical needs such as health, water and sanitation are being responded to, edu…
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…