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.

Rohingya refugee women in Jammu, India. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

JAMMU, India, Mar 6 2018 (IPS) – In the semi-lit makeshift tent covered with strips of cardboard, five women sit in a huddle. As their young children, covered in specks of mud and soot, move around noisily, the women try to hush them down. Hollow-eyed and visibly malnourished, all the women also appear afraid.

Aged 19-30, they have two things in common: one, they are Rohingya refugees from Myanma…

Silvia Alonso is a scientist-epidemiologist at the International Livestock Research Institute

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Jun 1 2018 (IPS) – As the world becomes increasingly aware of the growing demands being made of our planet, more and more of us are making lifestyle choices to reduce our negative environmental impact and carbon footprint.

Understandably, this has led to calls for changes to our diets, including reducing the amount of livestock-derived foods, such as meat, milk and eggs, we consume.

However, a new, extensive review of research published (JUNE1) has found that these foods can make an important difference to nutritional well-being in the first 1,…

A demonstrator in Buenos Aires wears a T-shirt with the slogan “my body, my rights,” one of the slogans of the so-called green tide – the colour adopted by the movement for the legalisation of abortion, which is beginning to spread to other Latin American countries. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

BUENOS AIRES, Aug 23 2018 (IPS) – The Argentine Senate s rejection of a bill to legalise abortion…

SYDNEY & KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 22 2019 (IPS) – Despite all the , and substantial opposition from community groups, public-private partnerships (PPPs) are still being promoted to deliver sustainable development.

Public-private hospital partnerships are supposed to ensure that the private sector will offer much needed efficiency in healthcare provision.

Anis Chowdhury

However, any government considering healthcare PPPs should be aware of the Australian experience, especially after what has happened with the Northern Beaches Hospital, a PPP between the New South Wales government and Healthscope.

The A$600m facility was officially opened with much fanfa…

STOCKHOLM / ROME, Apr 29 2019 (IPS) – Just before nine o´clock in the morning of April 21st, Christians in Sri Lanka were in their churches peacefully celebrating Easter Sunday, while tourists were waking up in their hotel rooms. Suddenly explosions blasted three churches and three hotels. Among the ruins lay hundreds of wounded people, as well as 253 corpses of men, women and children. They had been killed and maimed because some fellow human beings believed they acted in God´s name and out of promises of an unproven, heavenly bliss if they killed themselves after obliterating people they did not know; sowing death, lifelong suffering and sorrow.

How can anyone be capa…

The 20th International Leprosy Congress (ILC) is being held Sept. 10 to 13 in Manila, Philippines. The conference is hosted every three years and was last held in China in 2016. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

MANILA, Sep 12 2019 (IPS) – Rachna Kumari of Munger in Eastern India’s Bi…

ICPD25 Youth delegates: Michele Simon (left) and Botho Mahlunge. Credit: Joyce Chimbi / IPS

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 14 2019 (IPS) – Every day in developing countries it is estimated that 20,000 girls under the age of 18 give birth. This amounts to 7.3 million births a year.

Complications from pregnancy and childbirth are still the leading cause of death among adolescent girls, according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) statistics.

Let us be heard

Born long after the Cairo Promise, the 18-year-old Michelle Simon and the 19-year-old Botho Mahlunge both youth repr…

Dr. Ifeanyi Nsofor is a medical doctor, the CEO of EpiAFRIC, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Nigeria Health Watch

Colorized scanning electron micrograph of MERS virus particles (yellow) both budding and attached to the surface of infected VERO E6 cells (blue). Credit: NIAID

ABUJA, Jan 21 2020 (IPS) – The   which began in Wuhan, China, and causes a pneumonia-like illness is rag…

BERLIN and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 19 2020 (IPS) – It is now clear that most East Asian government responses to novel coronavirus or Covid-19 outbreaks have been effective. In Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, the number infected have remained relatively low despite their proximity and vulnerability, while containment in China and South Korea has been impressive.

Vladimir Popov

Some other countries hit by the Covid-19 pandemic are trying to replicate East Asian policy responses, not only in public health, but also in handling economic contraction. More than two decades after the 1997-1998 Asian financial crises, some media are praising East Asia again.

Struc…

AMSTERDAM/ROME, Apr 6 2020 (IPS) – What is likely to be the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on developing economies?  we looked at possible short term disruptions and discussed actions by the private sector and Governments.

These included mobilizing available public resources to augment what private citizens are doing to help the poor and vulnerable; working on some of the national macro-economic levers to sustain businesses; and discussing with international creditors about cancelling or rescheduling repayments, of some…