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Photo: Seventy-eight-year-old Maloncho Begum received a Disabled Friendly Latrine from GUK and UNICEF under the WASH & Child Protection-Emergency Flood Response Project. Noyon, her daughter, helps her to use the latrine facilities (Bangladesh, 2021). Credit: Bashir Ahmed Sujan.

Realising Safe Cities for Sanitation Workers in India

By Sameer Unhale, Dr Simi Mehta, Dr Arjun Kumar and Kushgara Khatri

NEW DELHI (IDN) — World Toilet Day is held every year on November 19. It has been an annual United Nations observance since 2013, which celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 3.6 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation.

It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: Water and Sanitation for All. SDG 6.2 is the world’s promise to ensure safe toilets for all by 2030. This year, the theme is "Let’s make the invisible visible."

: UN Bureau; UN INSIDER; 19 November 2022

Photo: Demonstrators protest against fuel price hikes and to demand that Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry step down, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on September 19, 2022. Courtesy of AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph

UN Military Intervention in Haiti Offers No Added Value but Added Chaos

Viewpoint by P.I. Gomes

The writer is the former Secretary-General of The Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS)

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad & Tobago (IDN) — Haiti’s history of horror and resolute self-determination is once again a subject of controversy and confusion in much of the world’s media.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 18 November 2022

Photo: In Harare, the Zimbabwean capital’s medium density suburb called Glaudina west of the city, where a thick forest used to exist about a decade ago, under construction, hordes of homes are emerging instead as trees have vanished. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo | IDN

Growing Urbanization Chewing Away Forests in Southern Africa

By Jeffrey Moyo

HARARE, Zimbabwe (IDN) — In Harare, the Zimbabwean capital’s medium-density suburb known as Glaudina, where a thick forest used to exist, homes under construction have emerged instead, with the trees vanishing.

North-West of Zimbabwe, just outside Lusaka, the Zambian capital, slums and shacks have also, over the decades, replaced the once flourishing forests.

: Jeffrey Moyo; SUSTAINABILITY; Forests, desertification, land degradation & biodiversity; 18 November 2022

Photo: Bahrain Dialogue Forum in session. Credit: Seikyo Shimbun.

Bahrain Dialogue Forum Urges Action for Peaceful Coexistence

By Katsuhiro Asagiri

Manama (IDN) — “Our world today is facing unprecedented challenges where conflicts are multiplying, and people whose identities are defined by religion, culture, or ethnicity continue to be besieged by hatred. Social and cultural divides are deepening; tribalism, ethnic violence, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, hate speech and ultra-nationalism are in full swing.” said Miguel Angel Moratinos, the High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC). He was addressing the opening session of the first Bahrain Dialogue Forum on November 3.

: Katsuhiro Asagiri; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 18 November 2022

Geopolitical Interests Dictate China's Global Aid Exports

By Kiel Institute for the World Economy

BERLIN | KIEL, Germany (IDN) — China has been exporting aid goods worth around USD 835 million annually since 2017. These material resources are distributed by China primarily according to geopolitical interests and increasingly to Asia and Africa. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 meant that China gained political ground worldwide with medical aid supplies—especially face masks and vaccines. Recently, grain shipments to Africa, in particular, have been on the rise.

: Europe Editor; THE WORLD; Economy and Finance; 17 November 2022

Photo: Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal, Secretary General for Foreign Affairs. (BMEIA). Credit: BMEIA/Grube

An Attack on Journalists is an Attack on Democracy, Emphasises a UN Conference

A Special Report by Aurora Weiss

VIENNA (IDN) — United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs (BMEIA) joined in early November to mark the 10th anniversary of the UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists at a high-level conference entitled "Safety of Journalists: Protecting media to protect democracy".

: Europe Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Peace & Justice; 17 November 2022

Photo: A civil society programme is strengthening the capacities of Palestinian civil society organisations. Source: German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Community-Driven Decentralization and Reconciliation in Palestine

By Yossef Ben-Meir

The writer Dr Yossef Ben-Meir is a sociologist and President of the High Atlas Foundation in Morocco.

MARRAKESCH (IDN) — A decentralized governance administration, whose procedures and functioning are defined from implementing a wide range of local development projects across a country, generates results that appeal to a broad spectrum of social scientists and activists.

People who seek sustainable growth often appreciate decentralization’s emphasis on subnational participation, cross-sectoral partnership, and local control.

: Africa & ME Editor; SUSTAINABILITY; Reduced Inequalities; 16 November 2022

The Climate Dispossessed are not Refugees

Viewpoint by Teall Crossen *

This article was issued by the Toda Peace Institute and is being republished with their permission.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (IDN) — Let’s be clear, people displaced by climate breakdown are not climate refugees under international law. They are not being forced from their countries because of persecution by their own government. Nor are they migrants. They are not leaving in search of work or education, or to be closer to family.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 16 November 2022

Photo: A Group of 'Women Cross Demilitarised Zone (DMZ)'

Building Security in the Korean Peninsula

Pursue Fresh Diplomatic Approaches Not Military-Nuclear Posturing

Viewpoint by Dr Rebecca Johnson

LONDON (IDN) — Nuclear fears have been increasing in North-East Asia in recent months. From early November, North Korea ratcheted up its usual sabre rattling with more direct threats, ‘tactical nuclear drills’, apparent preparations for more nuclear tests, and by firing around 25 different missiles towards South Korea and Japan.

: Opinion Editor; ARMAMENTS; Nuclear Weapons; 15 November 2022

The US Is Making a Mess of the Concept of Democracy

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — It should take a long time before America can again strut the world stage and lecture about the values of democracy, poking its finger in the eye of every authoritarian or dictatorial government it has the desire to show up. A former president, about to announce he will run for the presidency again, still uses every occasion to tell the world that the election of 2020 was illegally hijacked.