health

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 16 2020 (IPS) – Announcing an independent evaluation of the global Covid-19 response on 9th July, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General asked why it has been “difficult for humans to unite and fight a common enemy that is killing people indiscriminately?”.

Anis Chowdhury

He warned: “The greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself. Rather, it is the lack of leadership and solidarity at the global and national levels… we cannot defeat this pandemic as a divided world”, highlighting inter-governmental conflicts over the pandemic and its containment.

Solidarity desperately needed
With more than 600…

Lawrence Surendra is a Chemical Engineer and Environmental Economist and a former staff member of UN-ESCAP and Council Member of Sustainability Platform Asia (TSP Asia)*

“I feel it coming, a series of disasters created through our diligent yet unconscious efforts.
If they’re big enough to wake up the world, but not enough to smash everything, I’d call
them learning experiences, the only ones able to overcome our inertia”.
 Denis de Rougemont, 1977

Credit: United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR)

BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 24 2020 (IPS) – The COVID 19 Pandemic continues relentlessly. Deaths approaching a mi…

Shudarson Subedi is past president of the National Federation of the Disabled, Nepal, an Australian Award Global Alumni member and Ashoka Fellow; and Simone Galimberti is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, , Inclusive Change Through Volunteering

The focus of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which falls on 3 December, is the link between the empowerment of people living with disability, and the , the UN’s blueprint for a better future for people and the planet. Credit: UN News

KATHMANDU, Nepal, Oct 15 2020 (IPS) – The lack of consistency and a patchy approach undermines the Government of Nepal’s credibility in fulfilling the rights of persons w…

Women in Nigeria collect food vouchers as part of a programme to support families struggling under the COVID-19 lockdown. Credit: WFP/Damilola Onafuwa

JOHANNESBURG, Nov 27 2020 (IPS) – As COVID-19 swept across the globe, one thing became clear: a well-functioning, well-resourced, agile and resilient health system can mean the difference between life and death.

For Africa, the economic costs of the health pandemic were high. The prescription was often worse than the illness as Africa’s poor found themselves without work, food and even access to health care as economies were locked down across the continent in a bid to contain the virus.

The World Bank that a…

STOCKHOLM / ROME, Jan 6 2021 (IPS) –  

Oh, Lord won t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends.
So, oh Lord, won t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.
 Janis Joplin, 1970

COVID-19 has made several of us aware of the frailty of our bodies, the certainty of death and how valuable health, companionship and compassion are. Such insights are not uncommon in poor societies where a person’s main and perhaps only asset is her/his body and what s/he is able to do with her/his hands. However, wealthy and privileged people are surrounded by, dependent on, and even integrated with an ever more sophisticated technology, which increasingly, for better or worse, is separat…

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

The US announcement revoking the previous administration’s terrorist designation of Yemen’s Houthi movement, formally known as Ansar Allah, will provide “profound relief” to millions in the country, who depend on international assistance and imports for their survival, the UN Spokesperson said on February 7, 2021. Credit: WFP/Reem Nada

NEW YORK, Feb 17 2021 (IPS) – The bombing continues unabated. The explosions are heard in the distance. A family with seven children is cowering in f…

The UN will be commemorating World Water Day on Monday March 22.

Credit: UNDP

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 19 2021 (IPS) – Water is integral to sustainable development, but we are well behind on the goals and targets that we have set ourselves.

By current estimates:
– Some 2.2 billion people – almost a third of the global population – continue to lack access to safely managed drinking water;
– 4.2 billion people – more than half of the planet’s population – live without safely managed sanitation;
– 2 billion people don’t have a decent toilet of their own;
– and 3 billion lack basic handwashing facilities – even in the midst of a…

Mario Lubetkin is Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)

Almost thirty countries are facing an imminent food crisis caused by COVID-19. Photo: Stefanie Glinski /FAO

ROME, May 1 2021 (IPS) – More than a year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, food and nutrition security continues to show its fragility.