Children residing at a Protection of Civilians (POC) site run by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) perform at a special cultural event in Juba March 27, 2015. Credit: UN Photo/JC McIlwaine

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 20 2015 (IPS) – The rising death toll of civilians, specifically women and children, in ongoing military conflicts is generating strong messages of condemnation from international institutions and human rights organisations – with the United Na…

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Dec 15 2015 (IPS) – Successive poor harvests have diminished Ndodana Makhalima s household food stocks and the family’s nutrition status.

A subsistence farmer in Lupane, about 110 kilometres north of Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, 56 year-old Makhalima has learnt to live with hunger on his door step.

Farmers will have limited access to climate smart agricultural knowledge and skills as cash strapped Zimbabwe cuts technical assistance from agricu…

Table tennis players train at Majd Sports. Majd Sports is a recreational centre catering for people with disabilities in Ramallah, occupied West Bank. Credit: Silvia Boarini/IPS

RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Apr 28 2016 (IPS) – Despite formally adopting progressive laws, such as Law Number 4, and ratifying the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disability, Palestinian authorities still struggle to get beyond rhetoric when it comes to supporting the 7 to 11 per cent of the population that is affected by disability.

As the ongoing Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza continues to block the development of the quasi-Palestinian state, the a…

is the Regional Director of the South East Asia Region of WHO.

NEW YORK, Jun 7 2016 (IPS) – Thailand has provided the world with an important milestone towards the global goal of ending pediatric AIDS. This week, the World Health Organization is formally declaring that Thailand has officially eliminated new HIV infections among children.

Whereas in 2000 an estimated 1000 children in Thailand were newly infected with HIV, in 2015 just – 85 children were infected with the disease. This very low level of new infection among children is comparable to the results achieved in North America and Western Europe, where mother-to-child HIV transmission is extremely rare.

Last year, Cuba became the first country to be officially acknowledged as having eliminated mother-to-c…

Two Mexican teenage girls at their school. Investing in education for teenage girls in Latin America is regarded as the way forward for them to become future drivers of sustainable develpment in their societies. Credit: UNFPA LAC

CARACAS, Jul 11 2016 (IPS) – Latin America’s teenage girls are a crucial force for change and for promoting sustainable development, if the region invests in their rights and the correction of unequal opportunities, acc…

Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge, gives the keynote address during a special event held to mark World Autism Awareness Day. Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 2 2017 (IPS) – Guardianship laws meant to protect people with autism actually deprive them of their basic rights and autonomy, according to experts on a UN panel.

When people with autism turn 18, their parents or other caregivers are encouraged to legally become their guardians. However, as Zoe Gross an autism self-advocate says the practice deprives people with autism of the ability to influence their own lives.

Gross was on…

Joseph Chamie is an independent consulting demographer and a former director of the United Nations Population Division.

The international community of nations has made commitments to eliminate hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition by 2030 and also to promote and protect health through nutritious diet, healthy eating and increased physical activity. Credit: IPS

NEW YORK, Jun 12 2017 (IPS) – Global …

Shahndah Rani. Credit: Shahiduzzaman

Banaripara (Barisal), Sep 4 2017 (IPS) – She was born in the early 1950’s to an ultra-poor family in Kundihar, a remote village of Banaripara of Barisal division in Bangladesh. She was a beautiful baby and her father named her ‘Shahndah Rani’ which means ‘Queen of Evenings’. But in reality her life was far from that of a queen.

Born into acute poverty, there were days when she went without any food. Rani s parents could not afford any schooling and gave her away in marriage at age 16 to relieve some of the pressures on them. She was married off to Monoranjan Dhar, who despite being poor himself, cared for Rani.

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Women village councilors in Penakota, a village in southeast India, go out into a field to relieve themselves, as there are no toilets in their workplace. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2017 (IPS) – What would life be like without access to a toilet? What if our waste was not properly disposed of?

For those in the developed world, such questions are hard to fathom, but for 2.3 billion people around the world it’s a reality. Without access to a toilet many are forced to defecate in the open, significantly increasing the changes of spreading diseases.

The sixth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG’…

This article is part of a series of stories and op-eds launched by IPS on the occasion of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8.

Displaced women at the Simba Mosala Site in Kikwit, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Credit: Badylon Kawanda Bakiman/IPS

KIKWIT, DR Congo, Mar 4 2018 (IPS) – The numbers are hard to fathom. Nearly two million people driven from their homes in 2017 alone. The worst cholera epidemic of the past 15 years, with over 55,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths. Countless others killed, maimed or sexually assaulted.