Two health care workers clean their feet in a bucket of water containing bleach after they leave an Ebola isolation facility during an Ebola simulation at Biankouma Hospital in Côte d’Ivoire. Credit: Marc-André Boisvert/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 2015 (IPS) – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressing delegates in a run-up to an international Ebola recovery conference, said last month that “all of the investments, all of the sacrifices and all of th…
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 1 2015 (IPS) – An outbreak of dengue fever in Yemen’s most populated governorate has prompted urgent calls from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for a “humanitarian corridor” to facilitate the flow of medicines to over three million civilians trapped in the war-torn area.
Taiz, located on the country’s southern tip, has been on the frontline of fighting between Houthi rebels and a Saudi Arabia-backed coalition of Arab states supporting fighters loyal to deposed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi since March 2015.
Three of Taiz’s major hospitals have either been destroyed or are inaccessible, leaving 3.2 million people – many of them sick or injured – without access to basic healthcare.
An estimated 832 people in the governorate…
Nteranya Sanginga is the Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture
IBADAN, Nigeria, Jan 5 2016 (IPS) – 2016 is the International Year of Pulses, and we at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture are proud to be organizing what promises to be the landmark event, the Joint World Cowpea and Pan-African Grain Legume Research Conference.
Nteranya Sanginga, Director General of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). Courtesy of IITA
The March event in Zambia should draw experts from a…
Families displaced from their homes in Pakistan’s troubled northern regions returning home. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
UNITED NATIONS, May 4 2016 (IPS) – Though the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit may seem timely, a debate ensues on an important question: is the world humanitarian system broke or broken?
The first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, which takes place in Istanbul on May 23-24, was convened by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to address the pressing needs of today’s humanitarian problems.
“We believe this is a once in a generation opportunity to address the problems, the suffering of millions of people around the …
Jun 10 2016 – The Pakistan Economic Survey 2015-16 reminds us of our ticking population bomb.
We are told that today the country`s population stands at 195.4 million 3.7m more than it was the previous year. We have regressed.
The population growth rate stands at 1.89pc in 2016. It dropped to 1.49pc in 1960-2003.
Yet few express serious concern about the threat we face from our rapidly growing numbers that are undermining our national economy and destroying our social structures.
Many myths have been propagated to camouflage the official apathy vis-à-vis the population sector. Thus, it is said that there is population resistance to family planning on religious grounds. Another myth goes that people are ignorant of birth control and prefer large families.<…
Jul 15 2016 – Do a girl born in a poor household in rural Balochistan and a boy born in a rich household in Karachi have the same or even a similar set of opportunities in life? Are their chances of acquiring an education similar? Do they have access to comparable healthcare services and facilities? Do they have equal opportunities for access to physical infrastructure and the freedom of movement and association?
Faisal Bari
The girl from the poor household in rural Balochistan has a significant probability of not surviving infancy. If she does, it is unlikely she will go to school. The chances of her making it to matriculation are almost negligible. She will be maln…
A child receives an oral polio vaccine in Peshawar, Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 30 2016 (IPS) – Childhood immunisation is one of the safest and most cost-effective health interventions available, yet many of the world s most vulnerable children continue to miss out.
A World Health Organisation report entitled was released last week. While the report is mostly good news, immunisation rates are up and many countries have eradicated diseases entirely, a large population of children remain unimmunised.
To better reach these children the authors also looked at another metric: disease as a marker of inequality. Or, in th…
The United States is withdrawing all of its funding from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) after claiming without evidence that the agency supports coercive abortions in China. UNFPA, which does not provide support for abortions anywhere, says that U.S. funds actually helped it to prevent some 295,000 unsafe abortions in 2016 by supporting voluntary family planning. IPS takes a look at one of the other ways the UNFPA is working to reduce abortions, by addressing gender-biased sex selection.
Credit: Curt Carnemark / World Bank. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 7 2017 (IPS) – When Bimla Chandrasekharan saw that women who gave birth to baby girls were being …
is the UN Resident Coordinator to Kenya.
Right to health as enshrined in the Constitution of Kenya 2010 and; contribution to economic development as envisioned in Vision 2030. Credit: JACARANDA HEALTH
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 19 2017 (IPS) – Every year, one million Kenyans are by healthcare-related expenditures. Poverty predisposes them to disease and slows all aspects of growth in the economy.
Poor health hobbles economic growth. Noble Laureate in Economics Robert Fogel noted in 1993 that better diets, clothing, housing and quality healthcare all play an important role in generat…
New arrivals struggle to find space in the already-overcrowded Kutupalong camp, which saw over 16,000 new arrivals within a week of the outbreak of violence in Myanmar on 25 August 2017. Credit: UNHCR/Vivian Tan
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 9 2017 (IPS) – A dramatic increase in the number of refugees fleeing Myanmar is placing a huge strain on already very limited resources in Bangladesh, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said.
In the last two weeks alone, an estimated 270,000 Rohingya refugees had sought safety in Bangladesh amid escalating violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
“The situation is very grave,” said UNCHR Bangladesh’s spokesperson Joseph Tr…