Category: Poverty

By UN News UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — Ukraine is being “decimated before the eyes of the world” with Russia’s military offensive against civilians “reaching terrifying proportions”, said the UN chief on March 14, warning that a resulting meltdown of the global economy is provoking a hunger crisis that is hitting the poorest, hardest. Secretary-General António […]

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — A massive new complex housing Amazon’s proposed South African headquarters along with a hotel and other businesses continues to face stiff opposition from indigenous Khoisan, environmental and community groups despite city officials already approving of construction of the nine-story construction. Opponents say the project will […]

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — Nature conservancies, with the stated goal of protecting wilderness and endangered wildlife, have enabled the removal of tribal peoples from their ancestral homelands in Africa to allow superior “western” models of conservation to prevail, according to the activist group Survival International. Under the western model, […]

By Rodney Reynolds NEW YORK (IDN) — A group of over 100 millionaires and billionaires from nine countries published an open letter January 19 to government and business leaders, calling for permanent annual wealth taxes on the very richest to help reduce extreme inequality and raise revenue for sustained, long-term increases in public services like […]

By Radwan Jakeem NEW YORK (IDN) — A new United Nations report shows that the rapid spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant has halted a rapid recovery, countering signs of solid growth at the end of 2021. The report titled, 2022 World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) by the UN Department of Economic and Social […]

By Caroline Mwanga NEW YORK (IDN) — A historic agreement defines the common values and principles needed to ensure the healthy development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). All the member states of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) have signed the agreement. The importance of the agreement signed on November 23 is underlined by […]

By Johann Ivanov* ACCRA (IDN) — Africa is facing a severe employment crisis. But if nothing is done to find a solution, it could get much worse in the not-too-distant future, as World Bank projections from 2017 show: By 2035, Africa’s working age population will expand by 450 million. At the same time, however, only […]

By Radwan Jakeem NEW YORK (IDN) — Forty years of war, recurrent natural disasters, chronic poverty, drought and the COVID-19 pandemic have devastated the people of Afghanistan. The recent upheaval has only exacerbated needs and further complicated an extremely challenging operational context, notes the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in its […]

By Nena Palagi PUERTO PRINCESA, Palawan, Philippines (IDN) — It is a feat unimaginable by any modern standard. Six young people from this remote island of Palawan, in the Philippines, have taken on the goliaths of land ownership, and won. They got over 40,000 hectares of land legally declared as protected habitat with the direct […]

By Anna Alboth The writer is Anna Alboth is Media Programmes Coordinator, Minority Rights Group International, Warsaw. WARSAW (IDN) — For an organisation established on the back of a humanitarian disaster that shocked the world, the lack of discussion at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly about events unfolding on the Polish-Belarusian border […]