Electrification of Transport: A Challenge for Urbanised Latin America | Inter Press Service

Electrification of Transport: A Challenge for Urbanised Latin America | Inter Press Service

With Poverty & Hunger Skyrocketing, is a Global Economic Rescue Package the Answer? Thalif Deen The United Nations has been relentlessly pursuing a highly-ambitious blueprint for the sustainable future of humanity –harking back to the adoption of a new global economic agenda by the General Assembly back in 2015. And then came COVID-19. The world body is now in danger of losing one of ... MORE > >

IPS Webinar: Gender Equality Crucial in 'Building Back Better' Post-COVID-19 Miriam Gathigah While men are more likely to die from COVID-19, women are facing the full blow of the socio-economic fallout from the ongoing pandemic as well as seeing a reversal in equality gains made over the last two decades, says an all-women panel of international thought leaders, who met virtually during a ... MORE > >

Fog Traps Save Chilean Farming Community from Severe Drought Orlando Milesi "The harvested water has helped us at critical times and the fog nets have also brought us visibility. Today we produce beer here and many tourists come," says Daniel Rojas, president of the Peña Blanca Agricultural Community in Chile. Located in the south of the Coquimbo region, 300 km north of ... MORE > >

Q&A: Understanding COVID-19's Impact on Food Security and Nutrition Samira Sadeque While it is too early to assess the full impact of the global COVID-19 lockdowns, at least 83 million to 132 million more people may go hungry this year -- 690 million people were classified as hungry in 2019 -- as the pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities and inadequacies of global food ... MORE > >

How Senegal is Providing Reproductive Health Services to those Who can Least Afford it Neena Bhandari Pregnant with her second child, 30-year-old Ndiabou Niang was enduring pelvic pain, but couldn’t afford to access prenatal care in Diabe Salla, a village on the outskirts of the small town of Thilogne in north-east Senegal. Her husband was unemployed and her earnings of under CFAF 10,000 (17 USD) ... MORE > >

Can Private Finance Really Serve Humanity? Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury The recent explosion of private finance has nursed the hope, dream or illusion that it can be mobilized for the public good, e.g., to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, associated with Agenda 2030. However, such hopes ignore how changes in financial investing have deeply transformed ... MORE > >

Electrification of Transport: A Challenge for Urbanised Latin America Mario Osava Electric transport, still limited in Latin America despite its urban benefits, could expand during the post-pandemic economic recovery, says Adalberto Maluf, president of the Brazilian Association of Electric Vehicles (ABVE). If there are major investments in the necessary reactivation of the ... MORE > >

Providing an Education in Favour of Senegal's Girls Mantoe Phakathi When Fatima* became pregnant in the middle of the school year and dropped out, she was disowned by her parents. Hers is a story that could have ended as another statistic of dropout rates among female learners in Senegal. But Fatoumata Fall, a member of the Siggil Jiguen Network, an NGO that ... MORE > >

Q&A: How Kazakhstan’s Transgender and Lesbian Women are Being Impacted by COVID-19 Samira Sadeque The coronavirus lockdown in Kazakhstan, and the resultant limited public oversight and limited publication engagement, has paved the way for the government to propose amendments to the country's laws around gender that could see the exclusion of the rights of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, ... MORE > >

Lebanese Financial Crisis Validates Importance of Abolishing ‘Kafala’ Eliane Eid They were promised the world but ended up in a Lebanese household. This is the story of many domestic workers in Lebanon. With a 70-year-old sponsor system still in place, domestic workers are tied to their employers with little or no basic rights. The ‘Kafala’ system is the major problem behind ... MORE > >

The Return Joaquín Roy "As we were saying yesterday." When, after an abnormal interruption of the school calendar, as happened recently with the extension of spring break (which does not coincide with "Easter"), I return to teach a class surprising my students with this phrase: "as we were saying yesterday. " The ... MORE > >