In Zimbabwe, four out of 10 sexually active girls aged 15-19 reported taking an HIV test in the last 12 months. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 11 2016 (IPS) – Calls for low and middle income countries to contribute an additional 6.1 billion dollars to the global HIV response by 2020 could see some vulnerable groups left behind, said HIV activists meeting at the United Nations last week.

A report , the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, calls for low and middle income countries to increase their funding for the global HIV response by 6.1 billion by 2020, versus only an additional 2.8 billion requested from wealthy countries.

…

A cigarette vendor in Manila sells a pack of 20 sticks for less than a dollar. / Credit:Kara Santos/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, May 31 2016 (IPS) – This year for World No Tobacco Day on May 31 the World Health Organization has recommended that countries adopt plain packaging as a way to reduce tobacco use, however so far mostly only rich countries have been able to afford to implement the changes.

Around the world, a number of effective interventions are being used to reduce tobacco use, including taxation, age restrictions, smoke-free public spaces, marketing bans, and counter marketing, and plain packaging where Australia has led the way.

The plain pa…

World must urgently increase action and ambition to cut another 25 per cent off 2030 emissions. Credit: UNEP

ROME, Nov 4 2016 (IPS) – On the eve of the entry into force of the Paris Agreement today Nov. 4, the United Nations sounded new climate alarm, urging the world to ‘dramatically’ step up its efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by some 25 per cent more.

The (), in its 2016, warned that the world must urgently act to cut a further 25 per cent from predicted 2030 emissions to meet the stronger, and safer, target of 1.5 degrees Celsius” global temperature rise.

“The world is still heading for temperature rise of 2.9 to 3.4 this century, even …

This story is part of IPS coverage of World Water Day, observed on March 22.

Clean water is still a pipe dream for more than 300 million Africans. Credit: Busani Bafana/IPS

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Mar 21 2017 (IPS) – Though key to good health and economic wellbeing, water and sanitation remain less of a development priority in Africa, where high costs and poor policy implementation constrain getting clean water and flush toilets to millions.

A signatory to several agreements committing to water security, Africa simply cannot afford the infrastructure to bring water to…

Stephen O’Brien is UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs & Emergency Relief Coordinator

UNITED NATIONS, May 31 2017 (IPS) – The cruel conflict in Syria continues to tear families apart, inflicts brutal suffering on the innocent, and leaves them pleading for protection and justice. I readily acknowledge that there have been reports of a significant drop in violence in some areas of the country, but such steps forward continue to be counter-weighted by the reality of a conflict that continues to devastate the civilian population.

Stephen O’Brien

Just last week, 30 children and women were gravely injured in a heinous attack …

Born stateless, this baby acquired nationality in 2008 in Bangladesh. Credit: UNHCR/G.M.B. Akash

ROME, Nov 10 2017 (IPS) – Here’s another ‘unseen’ stark reality—that of millions of people around the world who are deprived of their identity, living without nationality. Their total number is by definition unknown and their only ‘sin” is that they belong to an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority in the country where they have often lived for generations.

These millions of human beings are victims of continued discrimination, exclusion and persecution, states a UN refugee agency’s new report, calling for “immediate action” to secure equal nati…

Protesters gather outside the Lahore Press Club in the capital of Pakistan’s Punjab province, to demand justice for victims of sexual violence. Credit: Irfan Ahmed / IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 15 2018 (IPS) – Persistent and pervasive gender-based discrimination is undermining sustainable development and preventing communities and countries from reaching their full potential, said a UN agency.

In a new first-of-its-kind report, UN Women examines the progress in realizing the globally adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through a gender lens.

Though SDG 5 specifically highlights the need to achieve gender equality, the report points to…

View from the world’s tallest building, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Credit: Ravin Vimesh

ROME, May 14 2018 (IPS) –  
 
The end of the oil age
In the early 1970’s the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was an impoverished desert, with little access to food, water and well-paying jobs. Today, this country looks nothing like it was fifty years ago. Thanks to oil, the UAE has completely transformed and now is one of the most developed economies in the Middle East, if not the world: its per capita GDP is equal to those of highly developed European nations ($68,000 2017 est.).

Wealth in the UAE, as in other Gulf coun…

Vladimir Bozovic is Advisor of Government of the Republic of Serbia

Child labourers rescued in Delhi waiting to be sent back to their villages. Credit: Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

BELGRADE, Serbia, Dec 18 2018 (IPS) – Entire human history is one great struggle for freedom. To many, slavery is a synonym for something in the past, for transatlantic slave trade, but, unfortunately, slavery still exists in many different forms.

Records show that over twenty seven million men, women and children still live today in conditions that characterized social form of the slave ownership. They are trapped in forced labor and debt bondage, in domicile work and forced marria…

Saima W. Hossain, a licensed school psychologist, is the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Autism in the South East Asia Region, Chair of the National Advisory Committee on Autism and NDDs in Bangladesh, and Chairperson of Shuchona Foundation

WHO-SEARO Goodwill Ambassador for ASD Saima Wazed Hossain with the Honorable Prime Minister of Bhutan during a ‘Special Session’ featuring self-advocates. Credit: Rohit Vohra, APF

DHAKA, Mar 28 2019 (IPS) – The Kingdom of Bhutan is a landlocked c…