Egyptian women protesters behind bars. Credit: VOA News
CAIRO, Egypt, Oct 27 2021 (IPS) – The fate of Egyptian women and girls delicately hangs in the balance as the country continues to have one of the worst records in the world for gender equality. With oppression often state-sanctioned, Egyptian women face a daily struggle against sexual harassment and other violations of their basic human rights, including .
Today, and , have come together with , and several prominent voices from the region and beyond, to demand that the Egyptian government takes immediate steps to fix this situation.
It needs to take clear action to enhance the rights of wome…
Visitors at booth for Beyond Expo. Credit: TechNode
BEIJING, Dec 14 2021 (IPS) –
A landscape of shared global challenges
The COVID-19 pandemic has moved us farther away from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Data shows that the pandemic has pushed a further 124 million people into extreme poverty. Global poverty is now expected to be at 7% by 2030 – only marginally below the level in 2015. And with the global temperature increase already at 1.2 degrees, we are on the verge of the abyss. UN Secretary-General António Guterres is deeply concerned about the impact of the pandemic on the SDGs. But there is hope. .
The SDGs can only be ach…
A deeper dive into the life of ECW Director Yasmine Sherif, the UN’s billion-dollar woman.
NEW YORK, Feb 14 2022 – Conflict, forced displacement, climate change and COVID-19 are disrupting the education of millions of crisis-affected children and adolescents around the world.
Yasmine Sherif is the Director of (ECW), the ’s global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. When she and ECW partners from around the world operationalized the Fund in 2017, an estimated 75 million conflict-affected children were out of school. Today, that number has risen to 128 million more than the total population of Japan.
Just a few short years later, under …
Credit: United Nations
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 20 2022 (IPS) – As a global pandemic, COVID-19 and its continued impacts are unprecedented. Yet many of the challenges that emerged in public health responses to COVID-19 not only had precedence, but were predictable.
As the international community observes (April 24-30), it is a critical moment to reflect on what lessons have, and have not, been learned, and how we can accelerate progress towards vaccine equity.
The theme of the 2022 World Immunization Week is “Long Life for All”, a framing which underscores the benefits for every individual of access to and uptake of vaccinations. However, this obscu…
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, standing with Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, at the 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2022. Sasakawa was honored at the Global Health Leaders Awards.
Nairobi, Jun 7 2022 (IPS) – When Yohei Sasakawa visited a remote village in Cameroon, he found 23 people living t…
SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 6 2022 (IPS) – As rich countries raise interest rates in double-edged efforts to address inflation, developing countries are struggling to cope with slowdowns, inflation, higher interest rates and other costs, plus growing debt distress.
Rich countries’ interest rate hikes have triggered capital outflows, currency depreciations and higher debt servicing costs. Developing country woes have been worsened by commodity price volatility, trade disruptions and less foreign exchange earnings.
Anis Chowdhury
Rising debt risks
were already in, or at high risk of debt distress, even before the Ukraine crisis. Debt service burdens i…
A laboratory technician works at a health and science centre in Bangkok, Thailand. It is a WHO Collaborating Centre for research and training on viral zoonoses. Credit: WHO/P. Phutpheng
Universal Health Coverage Day on 12 December is the annual rallying point for the growing movement for health for all. It marks the anniversary of the United Nations’ historic and unanimous endorsement of universal health coverage in 2012.
WASHINGTON DC/ CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA/ GENEVA, Dec 19 2022 (IPS) – Health services don’t deliver themselves. It is the nurse who triages in the emergency department, the midwife who delivers babies and cares for mother…
The cumulative needs of injured patients from the war have created a medical crisis. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS
ADDIS ABABA, Mar 30 2023 (IPS) – There are about globally who cannot access surgery. In Ethiopia, for every 5,000 needed surgeries per 100,000 people, the country’s health system Yet, this is Africa’s second largest population, with over 120 million people.
The statistics are worrying. This is further exacerbated by a recently ended two-year war in the northern part of the country that devastated among others, the health sector. There is however an opportunity to build back better as the government institutes post-war reconstruction. This is possible th…
Salvadoran fisherman Nicolás Ayala, 63, walks to his boat at the San Luis La Herradura pier, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador, to begin a 24-hour fishing stint offshore. He said that due to the lack of a breakwater at the mouth, where the sea meets the estuary, boa…
“If people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, these new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective” . Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS
MADRID, Apr 11 2023 (IPS) – Research after research, world s scientists renew their loud alerts agai…