Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 9 2006 (IPS) – If the world s growing water crisis remains unresolved depriving clean water to more than one billion of the world s six billion people it will jeopardise the U.N. s longstanding battle to reduce global poverty, hunger and disease by its targeted date of 2015, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) warned Thursday.
If the world s growing water crisis remains unresolved depriving clean water to more than one billion of the world s six billion people it will jeopardise the U.N. s longstanding battle to reduce global poverty, hunger and disease by its targeted date of 2015, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) warned Thursday.
For some, the global water crisis is about absolute shortages of physical supply, says UNDP Admini…
Lloyd Mutungamiri
MASERU, May 4 2009 (IPS) – The Lesotho government battling against the challenges presented by an ever-growing population of orphans whose parents have succumbed to the AIDS pandemic has embarked on an ambitious programme aimed at alleviating the suffering of these vulnerable children, in partnership with the European Union and UNICEF.
For the next year, 1200 households in three districts of Mafeteng, Maseru and Qacha s Nek will receive a quarterly cash grant of 38 dollars in the pilot phase of this programme. The grants are expected to be extended to similar households in other districts of the country by the end of 2011, with the main objective being to keep these children in school by catering for their school fees, uniforms, health care and other basic n…
Mon Mon Myat
RANGOON, Feb 24 2010 (IPS) – When Aye Aye (not her real name) leaves her youngest son at home each night, she tells him that she has to work selling snacks. But what Aye actually sells is sex so that her 12-year-old son, a Grade 7 student, can finish his education.
Every night I work with the intention of giving my son some money the next morning before he goes to school, said Aye, 51. She has three other older children, all of whom are married.
Her 38-year-old friend Pan Phyu, also a sex worker, has a greater burden. After her husband died, she takes care of three children apart from her mother and uncle.
But Aye and Phyu s source of income is fast declining, because it is no longer that easy to get clients at their age. Many younger women are i…
Naimul Haq*
DHAKA, Dec 31 2010 (IPS) – Poverty remains one of the problems of Bangladesh, but it has made, and continues to make, key progress when it comes to preventing deaths among its children.
Every child counts in immunisation, officials say. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS
In fact, Bangladesh has become quite a success in lowering its child mortality rate that it is now among the few nations that are poised to reduce this rate by two-thirds, which is the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG). And that, say experts, is due…
The usually busy UN Avenue in Nairobi, Kenya where traffic is bumper to bumper on the best of days, is almost empty as people stay at home to avoid spreading the coronavirus. Credit: UN Kenya/Newton Kanhema
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 14 2020 (IPS) – We live in a different world to the one we inhabited six short months ago.
With more than 4 million people infected and over 280,000 dead globally by mid May 2020, Covid-19 has ruthlessly exposed the vulnerability of a globalised world to pandemic disease. People are slowly coming to terms with the frightening and heartbreaking death toll, and we are still not out of the danger.
The Greek philosopher Herophilus said, “W…