Three boys in the Moqattam area look out over Cairo, the growing population of which is rapidly depleting already scarce water resources. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS.
CAIRO, Feb 6 2014 (IPS) – Heavy reliance on water intensive crops, a major upstream dam project for the Nile basin, and rising groundwater levels pushing at pharaoh-era monuments will be pressing issues for the next Egyptian president whether military or civilian.
As criticism continues over the military’s heavy-handedness to quell protests, little attention is being given to the late January announcement by Egypt’s minister of irrig…
WASHINGTON, Apr 7 2014 (IPS) – The world’s first hospital to be built and run in a developing country under a public-private partnership is taking up more than half of the health budget in Lesotho, according to new estimates, diverting resources from populations outside of the capital.
The unique funding arrangement for the Queen ‘Mamohato Memorial Hospital, which opened in 2011 in the capital city of Maseru, came about under a deal brokered by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector arm.“It’s very concerning that the deal was structured to give a 25 percent return to a private company – that’s a phenomenally high rate.” — Anna Marriott of Oxfam
Yet while the Washington-based IFC was negotiating on behalf of the Les…
WASHINGTON , May 20 2014 (IPS) – Delegates to this week’s annual meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva should agree on an ambitious agenda to sharply cut the rate of newborn deaths and stillbirths over the next two decades, according to maternal and infant health experts.
Reducing the rates of newborn deaths and stillbirths has lagged significantly behind the remarkable progress achieved in cutting mortality among children between the ages of one month and five years, according to a new study in the “Every Newborn” Series published by the British medical publication, ‘The Lancet”.
Thanks in major part to the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), reductions in mortality for children 1-59 months and maternal mortality have averaged 3.4 perc…
KIEV, Aug 17 2014 (IPS) – Doctors are warning of a worsening tuberculosis epidemic in Eastern Ukraine as the continuing conflict there begins to take a heavy toll on public health.
With thousands of people fleeing the region every day, medical supplies severely disrupted and those left behind under growing physical stress and increasingly unable to access medical services, conditions are ripe for a rise in new TB cases.
Dr Masoud Dara, Tuberculosis Programme Manager at the World Health Organisation (WHO) , told IPS: “The situation with TB was not good before the conflict, but we can say that the conflict has certainly made it worse.”Since the outbreak of hostilities and the Ukrainian military’s push to reclaim control of areas in Eastern Ukraine from pro-Russian se…
In this column, Carlos Correa, the South Centre’s special adviser on trade and intellectual property issues, argues that the global increase in number of patents does not indicate the strength of innovation but a weakening in the standards of what can be considered patentable. He calls for an intrinsically balanced system of protection of innovation that remains neutral in its effects on competition.
GENEVA, Sep 29 2014 (IPS) – The steady increase in patent applications and grants that is taking place in developed and some developing countries (notably in China) is sometimes hailed as evidence of the strength of global innovation and of the role of the patent system in encouraging it.
Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin is the Executive Director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 26 2014 (IPS) – The tragic deaths and injuries of women following sterilisation in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh have sparked global media coverage and public concern and outrage.
Now we must ensure that such a tragedy never occurs again.
Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin. Credit: UNFPA
The women underwent surgery went with the best intentions – hoping they were doing the right thing for themselves and their families.
Now their husbands, children and parents are left to live without them, reeling with …
José Graziano da Silva is Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
ROME, Mar 13 2015 (IPS) – Artificial meat. Indoor aquaculture. Vertical farms. Irrigation drones. Once the realm of science fiction, these things are now fact. Food production is going high tech – at least, in some places.
But the vast majority of the world s farmers still face that old and fundamental fact: their crops, their very livelihoods, depend on how Mother Nature treats them. Over 80 percent of world agriculture today remains dependent on the rains, just as it did 10,000 years ago.
…
Glyphosate spraying of illegal drug crops has caused environmental damage in Colombia’s rainforest. Credit: Public domain
BUENOS AIRES, Apr 28 2015 (IPS) – After the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared glyphosate a probable carcinogen, the campaign has intensified in Latin America to ban the herbicide, which is employed on a massive scale on transgenic crops.
In a Mar. 20 publication, the WHO s (IARC) reported that the world’s most widely used herbicide is probably carcinogenic to humans, a conclusion that was based on numerous studies.
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Tamira Gunzburg is Brussels Director of The ONE Campaign.
BRUSSELS, Jun 18 2015 (IPS) – My colleagues just got back from Munich, where we held a summit bringing together over 250 young volunteers from across Europe. These youngsters campaigned in the run-up to and at the doorstep of the G7 Summit in Schloss Elmau, as one of the key moments in a year brimming with opportunities to tackle extreme poverty.
It’s inspiring to work with these young activists their enthusiasm and creativity are humbling. But the other thing about young people is that they don’t let anyone pull the wool over their eyes. Euphemisms don’t stick; skirting the point doesn’t get you very far. They keep us on our toes and that is not a bad thing at all.
Martin Khor is the executive director of the South Center, based in Geneva.
GENEVA, Nov 16 2015 (IPS) – South-South cooperation is usually seen as a poor second fiddle to North-South aid in the world of development assistance. Indeed, developing countries’ policy makers themselves insist that South-South cooperation can only supplement but not replace North-South cooperation.
Martin Khor
However, this widespread view received a jolt recently when China announced it was setting up two new funds totalling a massive 5.1 billion dollars to assist other developing countries.
The pledges, made by Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to the Unit…