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…
Credit: Unsplash / Gabriel Benois
NEW YORK, Jun 4 2020 (IPS) – Maliha Masud (25), was promised an affluent life and opportunities for higher education. A bright student studying Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, she wanted to complete her studies and become someone her parents would be proud of. She was promised an opportunity to get her Master’s degree from a good university in the United States but, two years later, was left battered and wounded at the doorstep of a shelter.
Maliha was 20 years old when she married an immigrant living in the United States, who was completing his Master’s at a renowned university. A marriage arranged by …
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…
PENANG and KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 10 2021 (IPS) – To achieve , a country needs a healthcare system that provides equitable access to high quality health care requiring sustainable financing over the long term. Publicly provided healthcare should be on the basis of need, a citizen’s entitlement for all regardless of means.
Mary Suma Cardosa
Health inequalities growing
But recent decades have seen health care trending towards a two-tier system – a perceived higher quality private sector, and lower quality public services. One typical consequence is medical doctors, especially specialists, leaving public service for much more lucrative private practice.
This ‘b…