Kriti Sharma is a senior disability rights researcher and Shantha Rau Barriga is the disability rights director at Human Rights Watch.
Approximately 30 patients stay at Edwuma Wo Woho Herbal Centre, many with mental health conditions. At least half are shackled. Credit: Robin Hammond/Witness Change for Human Rights Watch.
Dec 16 2020 (IPS) – Long before the Covid-19 pandemic grounded much of the world, lockdown, confinement, violence, and isolation was the daily reality for hu…
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…
The following opinion piece is part of series to mark the upcoming International Women’s Day, March 8.
UN Women China Qinghai programme beneficiaries. Credit: UN Women
BEIJING, Mar 6 2021 (IPS) – Today is International Women’s Day (IWD), and the theme for this year’s celebration is Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world. We recognize the tremendous contribution and leadership demonstrated by women and girls around the world in shaping our recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and a more sustainable future.
A global review of the progress achieved towards commitments made at the Fourth World Conference on Women 25 years ago …
A health worker prepares to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to her colleague at a hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia.In a video message on May 24 to the World Health Assembly , the decision-making body of UN agency , UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned against the dangers of “”, a concern he has frequently expressed. “Sadly, unless we act now, we face a situation in which rich countries vaccinate the majority of their people and open their economies, while the virus continues to cause deep suffering by circling and mutating in the poorest countries,” he said. Credit: UNICEF/Ismail Taxta
NEW JERSEY, USA, May 28 2021 (IPS) – Despite claims by the industry and…
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Jul 6 2021 (IPS) – As rich countries have delayed contagion containment, including mass vaccination, in developing countries, much weaker fiscal efforts in the South have worsened the growing world pandemic .
Lessons from first wave
Despite limited fiscal resources and modest external support, government efforts also need to address unsustainability, inequality and other problems due to extant economic, social and environmental arrangements.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Early relief and recovery measures assumed that the pandemic would be short-lived and reversible. Hence, such measures were rarely sustained, let alone expanded in developing coun…
Vaccine access negotiations are at critical juncture. While many countries support the intellectual property rights waiver, including the European parliament the European Union does not. Credit: PAHO/Karen González
Melbourne, Australia , Aug 30 2021 (IPS) – A committee that has spent almost a year negotiating the terms of a temporary intellectual property waiver for Covid-19 medicines will reconvene in September after pausing for the European Summer.
As new variants spread rapidly around the world, the deadlock in the Committee has potentially further delayed access to vaccines and other medicines for billions of people in low- and middle-income countries.
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To fight economic inequality, female dependency on relationships and gender-based violence, female education is critical. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
Nov 30 2021 (IPS) – Despite the advances that have been made against HIV, the world has 37 million people living with HIV. And 680,000 people died from AIDS-related causes in . While the prevention of mother to child transmission, and provision of treatment as prevention, are , there are still . Over 1.5 m…
Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, has served as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination since 2001. He is part of Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative, which has organized the “Don’t forget leprosy” campaign.
Jan 28 2022 – Sasakawa Leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) Initiative is collaborating with 32 organizations from 13 countries to promote the message “Don’t forget leprosy” in the run-up to World Leprosy Day on January 30. The international campaign includes awareness-raising events and outreach to governments and is being publicized via newspapers, television, radio, and social media.
Based in Tokyo, Japan, Sasakawa…
A water point near a water tank providing clean water to school children in Demnat Khadeer district of Taiz governorate. Credit: Fayad Al-Derwish/Oxfam – 2022
IBB Governorate, Yemen, Mar 22 2022 (IPS) – As Yemen enters its 8th year of an escalating conflict, 21.7 million of my fellow Yemenis are forced to rely on humanitarian assistance to survive. The conflict has left a trail of devastation in its wake – the country is in economic freefall, and families face intensified violence, hunger, and disease.
As we also mark another World Water Day on March 22, within Women’s History Month, it is a time to reflect on the immense water and sanitation crisis that cont…
Reki Jimu (51) has lived with HIV for nearly two decades. Here he shows a container of antiretroviral drugs to HIV/AIDS support group members at Chitungwiza government hospital outside Harare, the Zimbabwean capital. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS.
CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe, Jul 29 2022 (IPS) – In 2001, when Reki Jimu was 30 years old, his wife died aged 27.
The now 51-year-old Jimu said the coupl…