Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD) continued their crucial role of supporting parliamentarians in promoting population and development agenda during the COVID-19 pandemic by organizing online and hybrid events. The organizations this year celebrate their 40th anniversary. Credit: APDA
Johannesburg, South Africa, Dec 1 2021 (IPS) – COVID-19 highlighted significant gaps in the world’s ability to deal with pandemics, and it’s crucial these are addressed to mitigate the impacts of future global health problems, Masato Kanda, Japan’s Vice Minister of Finance for International Affai…
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 1 2022 (IPS) – Inflation hawks are winning the day. The latest ‘beggar thyself’ race to raise interest rates has begun. This ostensibly responds to the spectre of runaway inflation, supposedly retarding economic growth and progress, and thus threatening central bank ‘credibility’.
Anis Chowdhury
Inflation fetish
The ‘one size fits all’ policy of raising interest rates to contain inflation is being touted again, the world over. This will surely kill national efforts to revive economies reeling from COVID-19 pandemic slowdowns.
Central banks in many emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) – such as , an…
At a hand pump in Village Mata Devi, Rajasthan, India. Credit: UNICEF/Panjwan
DAKAR, Senegal, Mar 24 2022 (IPS) – At the World Water Forum this week (March 21-26), the international community will raise awareness of the worldwide who lack access to clean water and sanitation. Among them are millions of women and girls, who walk hundreds of miles each year to find water for their families and are blocked from education and economic empowerment also due to poor sanitation services.
For years, we’ve talked about the costs to women and girls if we don’t solve water, sanitation and hygiene issues. But what of the costs to our communities if we fail to act?
Toda…
The 24th International AIDS Conference is taking place in Montreal, July 29 to August 2.
A man is tested for HIV at a health centre in Odienné, Côte d’Ivoire. Credit: UNICEF/Frank Dejongh
MONTREAL, Aug 2 2022 (IPS) – This week, the global HIV response community is to address the crisis of stalling progress that is putting .
Delegates here are clear on two things: first, the world is not on track to end AIDS, second, the world can still get on track and end AIDS as a public health crisis by 2030, but only if leaders are bold. This includes removing laws which are perpetuating the pandemic.
Punitive and criminalizing approaches to law have been cat…
Colosseum at the Prayer with the Pope and the representatives of the workd’s religions. Credit: Elena L. Pasquini
ROME, Nov 7 2022 (IPS) – Arms are raised, stretched out towards the sky, holding white cards with the word peace written in different languages. A girl, a refugee from Syria, reads the Rome’s Appeal for peace : With firm conviction, we say: no more war! Let s stop all conflicts […] Let dialogue be resumed to nullify the threat of nuclear weapons.” Pope Francis singed it in front of the people gathered at the Colosseum, holding the word “peace” in their hands, as representatives of the world’s religions did as well. Shortly before, members o…
Emina Cerimovic is a senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Shahd, a 12-year-old girl with a hearing disability, stands in front of a window facing her father, in the house her family live in, Azaz, Aleppo, Syria. Credit: Human Rights Watch.
NEW YORK, Feb 28 2023 (IPS) – A few days ago, I saw a shared to Twitter of Sham, a young Syrian girl rescued from under the rubble in northwest Syria, sitting upright in her hospital bed, According to the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer humanitarian group also known as the White Helmets, Sham will lose both her legs because of injuries from the quake.
Looking at her photo, I couldn’…
Credit: United Nations
KATHMANDU, Nepal, Aug 10 2022 (IPS) – The upcoming summit on Education, part of the UN Secretary General’s ambitious agenda, can truly bring accountability and participation to the inevitably new ways education will be imparted in the future.
With scorching temperatures, uncontrolled flames and floods devastating our planet, millions of people are realizing that we are all going to pay a high price for climate inaction.
The current climate crisis is furthering compounding the other emergency that is still affecting all of us, a public health crisis fully exposed by the Covid pandemic.
Amid this gloomy scenario, the internat…
A man and a woman in front of the Beirut Port, Lebanon, following the blast. Courtesy: UN Women Arab States/Dar Al Mussawir
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 29 2021 (IPS) – Lebanon must “shield and preserve” the skills, knowledge, and experience of its people in order to move forward with its development, according to Christophe Abi-Nassif, the Lebanon programme director for the Middle East Institute (MEI).
“Shielding and preserving whatever is left of Lebanon s human capital should be the main policy-making concern at the moment,” Abi-N…