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The writer is UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the 2021 UN Food Systems Summit

NEW YORK, Sep 23 2021 (IPS) – With the world still counting the social and economic costs of the Covid-19 pandemic, amid a fresh “” on the climate crisis, food may not seem like the most pressing threat to humanity.

Yet transforming entire food systems around the world offers the solution to the challenge many have not yet realised we are facing.

The existential threats that appear to be looming on the horizon are in fact already silently costing the world in poor health, environmental losses and stifled economic growth, a toll that could reach $16 trillion by 2050.

COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions meant that many informal sector traders lost their jobs. Not eligible for compensation, some have turned to sex work. Credit: Marko Phiri/IPS

Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE , Nov 4 2021 (IPS) – Thirty-six-year-old Thandiwe Mtshali* watched helplessly as her informal cross-border trading (ICBT) enterprise came to a grinding halt when the Zimbabwean authorities closed the border with South Africa as part of global efforts to stem the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus.

“That was last year, and I had no idea what to do next,” Mtshali told IPS.

Before the lockdown, she made up to four trips each month to Musina and Johannesbu…

NEW YORK, Dec 20 2021 – In 2021, COVID-19 continued to plague the world – a world already burdened by armed conflicts, climate-induced disasters and forced displacement. Communities, nations and people struggled to maintain normalcy in the midst of the abnormal. This was especially notable in the education sector – a sector that is the very foundation for achieving all human rights and all Sustainable Development Goals.

Yasmine Sherif

Countries affected by existing crises also suffered the absence of infrastructure and the omnipresence of extreme poverty, while conflicts raged all around. In 2021, with little, if any means, these countries had to rise to the occas…

Residents survey the damage after Cyclone Ana triggered winds and floods in Malawi. There has been a call following the latest flooding for climate-resilient approaches to WASH because damaged infrastructure, especially water infrastructure, has serious health consequences. Credit: Charles Mpaka/IPS

Blantyre, Malawi, Feb 22 2022 (IPS) – On the night of January 24, 2022, as Cyclone Ana-triggered rains incessantly rattled on the rusty roof of her house, amid intervals of gusty winds, a thud woke up Josephine Kumwanje from her sleep.

Her heart leapt as she thought thieves had broken into the house.

She summoned some courage, tiptoed to the door of her bedroom, and peered into t…

Students eat lunch in the cafeteria of the João Caffaro Municipal School in Itaboraí, in southeastern Brazil. Schoolchildren returned to eating vegetables and drinking natural fruit juices when the school canteens and the supply of family farming products to the National School Feeding …

Salvadoran fisherman Nicolás Ayala, 63, walks to his boat at the San Luis La Herradura pier, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador, to begin a 24-hour fishing stint offshore. He said that due to the lack of a breakwater at the mouth, where the sea meets the estuary, boa…

Credit: United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation

BANGKOK / BEIJING, Sep 12 2022 (IPS) – The world today faces a future that is in peril. Our challenges have become more complex and interconnected, as we see the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, an uneven economic recovery, a climate emergency, growing inequalities, and an increase in conflicts globally. This year also marks a grim milestone, with .

These events accompany increasing division in the community of nations which threatens to push the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) further out of reach for the Global South.

Adding to these crises, rising food and e…

Medical equipment supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP) arrives in Beijing.
Meanwhile, as COVID-19 infections surged in China, coronavirus experts gathered at the UN health agency in Geneva on January 3, to discuss next steps. Photo courtesy of Yingshi Zhang

BRUSSELS, Jan 4 2023 (IPS) – Three years after the coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Chinese government began in December to abruptly scrap its harsh containment policy known as zero-Covid.

This zero-Covid policy relied on strict lockdowns, use of a Covid tracking app, domestic travel restrictions, and quarantining those who test positive along with their close contacts. But the …

“If people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, these new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective” . Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

MADRID, Apr 11 2023 (IPS) – Research after research, world s scientists renew their loud alerts agai…