Malgorzata Stawecka interviews BABATUNDE OSOTIMEHIN, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund
Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund. Credit: Malgorzata Stawecka/IPS
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 2012 (IPS) – With the global population on track to reach a staggering nine billion people by 2050, according to U.N. figures, a stronger action plan is needed to address the challenges of ending poverty, ensuring a well-functioning health system and access to education, as well as guaranteeing social inclusion for all.
The demographics of the world is a tapestry, it is not just about growth, but there are other issues…
WASHINGTON, Mar 7 2013 (IPS) – Since the 2008 financial crisis, and most recently with the broad federal spending cuts beginning Mar. 1, experts have warned that an austerity-minded political system could bring about dramatic changes in the U.S. foreign aid model.
A significant part of this conversation has focused on shifting away from a government-led approach and instead strengthening the role of the private sector in development assistance. But critics are focusing attention on the potential pitfalls of such a redesign.
“The idea that there is a lack of public resources, so we need to be leveraging private money, ignores some of the options to increase public funds,” Janet Redman, director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network at the Institute for Policy …
Nearly 18 percent of the Cuban population is over 60, most of them women. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS
HAVANA, Apr 29 2013 (IPS) – Paediatrician Grisel Navarro says she is a different kind of retiree, because she still practises her profession, goes out and about and refuses to be at the beck and call of her family s and everyone else s needs, something that diminishes quality of life for many Cuban women when they retire from work.
Navarro retired five months ago and now has a part-time job at the Ángel Arturo Aballí Hospital in Havana. I m still working at what I like, but at a gentler pace, this 62-year-old member of a generation of women who have by far excelled th…
Contraceptives on sale at a store in Sanaa, but there are not enough buyers. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS.
SANAA, Jun 25 2013 (IPS) – Yemen’s population is increasing at a rapid rate, straining the country’s dwindling natural resources and setting up its youth for a grim future, with few jobs and scant means to get by.
Visiting a family planning clinic in downtown Sanaa, Layla waits for a routine birth control checkup. She believes she was 14 when she got married and pregnant, but is not sure.
From the rural town of Beni Matar, south of the capital, Layla, now 20, and her three children are like four-fifths of Yemen’s mostly rural population, la…
This story is part two of a three-part series on the challenges faced by people living with disabilities in a world where intense storms and other natural disasters are expected to become the “new normal”.
A fisherman and other Gulf Coast residents at a community meeting in New Orleans in 2010. Experts say that trauma related to the record-breaking BP oil spill in the region could last for decades. Credit: Erika Blumenfeld/IPS
NEW YORK, Aug 15 2013 (IPS) – Although Hurricane Sandy made her final sweep through the Northeastern United States nearly 10 months ago, for many people the stress caused by the storm lingers.
(See and of the series)
In Lo…
School children in Elelo village are among many vulnerable to Trachoma. Credit: Catherine Wilson/IPS.
HONIARA, Solomon Islands, Oct 29 2013 (IPS) – For generations, eye diseases have taken their toll on Pacific Island peoples. Now the first nationwide survey in the Solomon Islands of Trachoma, which can lead to irreversible blindness by early adulthood, is revealing the silent penetration of this disease in widely dispersed Melanesian rural island communities.
“Even though I am a health worker, I didn’t realise that Trachoma was such a problem in the country,” Oliver Sokana, national Trachoma coordinator at th…
An infant in intensive care at the Holy Family Hospital in New Delhi. Indian hospitals prefer traditional DPT vaccines. Credit: Holy Family Hospital.
NEW DELHI, Feb 8 2014 (IPS) – A spate of sudden infant deaths following vaccination in India has prompted leading paediatricians to call for stronger regulatory mechanisms to evaluate new vaccines for safety and efficacy before their acceptance into the national immunisation programme.
According to data obtained from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, over the last one year 54 babies are recorded to have died soon after receiving the newly introduced “pentavalent” vaccine that is designed to prevent …
This is the second in a three-part series on youth and AIDS in Africa
Many HIV positive teenagers struggle to disclose their status to their sexual partners. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS
KAMPALA, Apr 8 2014 (IPS) – Silence is golden, it is said. But not for Constance Nansamba* from Uganda, who paid a dear price for keeping silent about being HIV positive and pregnant at age 18.
“I was terrified. I ran away from my brother’s home. I could not follow the PMTCT [prevention of mother-to-child transmission] guidelines, so the baby is HIV positive,” she told IPS.“There are few designated adolescent-friendly outpatient health care facilities, while in-patien…
MOSCOW, May 21 2014 (IPS) – International bodies and local campaign groups have repeatedly criticised Russia for not doing anywhere near enough in terms of providing prevention services or access to medical treatment for HIV/AIDS sufferers. The fourth Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) HIV/AIDS Conference, which finished in Moscow last week, has not put a stop to that criticism.
Boycotted by many domestic and international organisations working with HIV/AIDS sufferers and those most at risk of contracting the disease, the conference – and the Russian authorities’ overall approach to HIV/AIDS – was accused of blatant hypocrisy.
The critics said that the hosting of the event in Russia, which has one of the world’s highest HIV/AIDS incidence rates, is a slap in…
This is the third story in a three-part series on HIV and contraception in Africa
Contraception is a smart choice but HIV positive women have to jump through the hooks to get it. Credit: Amy Fallon/IPS
KAMPALA, Aug 18 2014 (IPS) – Barbara Kemigisa used to call herself an “HIV/AIDS campaigner”. These days she would rather be known as an “HIV/AIDS family planning campaigner”.
“We need to reduce unplanned pregnancies and the HIV infection rate in our country,” Kemigisa told IPS during Uganda’s first national family planning conference on July 28. “It’s about dual protection.”
Raped by two uncles from an early age, Kemigisa later bec…