Several Pacific Island states are struggling to provide their far-flung populations with access to fresh water. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS
LOTOFAGA VILLAGE, Samoa, Sep 1 2014 (IPS) – Pacific Island states are surrounded by the largest ocean in the world, but inadequate fresh water sources, poor infrastructure and climate change are leaving some communities without enough water to meet basic needs.
Laisene Nafatali lives in Lotofaga village, home to 5,000 people on the south coast of Upolu, the main island of Samoa, a Polynesian island state located northeast of Fiji in the central South Pacific region.
Like many on the island, she is dependen…
German aircraft arrives in Ghana to help deliver U.N. supplies for emergency Ebola response. Credit: UN Photo/UNMEER
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 2014 (IPS) – The widespread outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, which has resulted in over 4,500 deaths so far, is also threatening to trigger a food crisis in the three countries already plagued by poverty and hunger.
Dr. Shenggen Fen, director-general of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), told IPS the crisis is expected to be confined mostly to the countries directly affected by the spreading disease: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Asked whether the food shortages will also rea…
Men navigate with difficulty around an idea of masculinity that leads them to ignore their own health needs regarding HIV. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS
NAIROBI, Dec 12 2014 (IPS) – Mention gender inequality in AIDS and the fact that more women than men live with HIV pops up. But another, rarely spoken about gendered difference is proving lethal to men with HIV.
Research reveals that, across Africa, men have lower rates of HIV testing, enrollment on antiretroviral treatment, adherence, viral load suppression and survival, than women.Fast Facts
• In Zambia, 63 % of adults starting ART are women.
• In Uganda and Tanzania, women left HIV care 12% less…
Dr. Bjørn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, directs the Copenhagen Consensus Center, ranking the smartest solutions to the world’s biggest problems by cost-benefit.
Worker on a farm in Felicity, Chaguanas, Trinidad, harvesting sweet potatoes. Climate change has brought drastic changes in the weather of this twin-island Caribbean nation. Credit: Jewel Fraser/IPS
COPENHAGEN, Feb 13 2015 (IPS) – Right now, the United Nations is negotiating one of the world’s potentially most powerful policy documents. It can influence trillions of dollars, pull hundreds of millions out of poverty and hunger, reduce violence and improve education �…
A conservationist known as ‘The Water Man of India’ has been named Stockholm Water Prize Laureate for 2015.
Rajendra Singh, from the state of Rajasthan, has been a leading voice for water security, management and conservation in India for decades.
Singh is currently Chairman of environmental advocacy group Tarun Bharat Sangh, which helps local communities in India take back control of their natural resources, as well as pushing for sustainable development.
“Through the Indian wisdom of rainwater harvesting, we have made helpless, abandoned, destitute and impoverished villages prosperous and healthy again,” Singh said.
Torgny Holmgren, Executive Director of the Stockholm International Water Institute, called Singh “a beacon of hope,” warning …
A grandmother with her daughter – a young mother – and other members of their family in Mbya Guaraní Iboty Ocara, an indigenous village in the province of Misiones in the northwest of Argentina. Indigenous people are among the most vulnerable groups in Latin America in terms of maternal mortality. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS
BUENOS AIRES, May…
Two health care workers clean their feet in a bucket of water containing bleach after they leave an Ebola isolation facility during an Ebola simulation at Biankouma Hospital in Côte d’Ivoire. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2015 (IPS) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressing delegates in a run-up to an international Ebola recovery conference, said last month that “all of the investments, all of the sacrifices and all of th…
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 1 2015 (IPS) – An outbreak of dengue fever in Yemen’s most populated governorate has prompted urgent calls from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for a “humanitarian corridor” to facilitate the flow of medicines to over three million civilians trapped in the war-torn area.
Taiz, located on the country’s southern tip, has been on the frontline of fighting between Houthi rebels and a Saudi Arabia-backed coalition of Arab states supporting fighters loyal to deposed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi since March 2015.
Three of Taiz’s major hospitals have either been destroyed or are inaccessible, leaving 3.2 million people – many of them sick or injured – without access to basic healthcare.
An estimated 832 people in the governorate…
Nteranya Sanginga is the Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
IBADAN, Nigeria, Jan 5 2016 (IPS) – 2016 is the International Year of Pulses, and we at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture are proud to be organizing what promises to be the landmark event, the Joint World Cowpea and Pan-African Grain Legume Research Conference.
Nteranya Sanginga, Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Courtesy of IITA
The March event in Zambia should draw experts from a…
Families displaced from their homes in Pakistan’s troubled northern regions returning home. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 2016 (IPS) – Though the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit may seem timely, a debate ensues on an important question: is the world humanitarian system broke or broken?
The first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, which takes place in Istanbul on May 23-24, was convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to address the pressing needs of today’s humanitarian problems.
“We believe this is a once in a generation opportunity to address the problems, the suffering of millions of people around the …