G20’s legitimacy depends on treatment of world’s poorest, UNDP chief says
Sao Paulo, Brazil Reuters The legitimacy of the Group of 20 economic powers depends on its impact on the world’s poorest people, not just controlling inflation, the head of the United Nations Development Programme said on Tuesday. Finance ministers from the G20 are meeting in Brazil this week with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva […]
One-tenth of India’s population escaped poverty in five years – government report
New Delhi, IndiaReuters Nearly 135 million people, around 10 per cent of India’s population, escaped poverty in the five years to March, 2021, a government report found on Monday. Residents walk in an alley in Dharavi, one of Asia’s largest slums, in Mumbai, on 12th March, 2015. PICTURE: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui/File photo Rural areas saw the […]
UN agency calls for debt pause option as poverty rates rise
Geneva, SwitzerlandReuters A United Nations agency urged global finance ministers to give poor countries debt repayment breaks, estimating the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent surge in inflation and borrowing costs had pushed an extra 165 million people into poverty. The UN Development Programme said the jump meant more than 20 per cent of the world’s population – around […]
Gender biases not improved over past decade, UN says
Reuters Gender inequality has remained stagnant for a decade, according to research by the United Nations released on Monday, as cultural biases and pressures continue to hinder women’s empowerment and leave the world unlikely to meet the UN’s goal of gender parity by 2030. Despite a surge in women’s rights groups and social movements like Time’s Up and […]
Six killed after latest earthquake shakes Turkey-Syria border
Antakya, Turkey Reuters Six people were killed in the latest earthquake to strike the border region of Turkey and Syria, authorities said on Tuesday, two weeks after a massive quake killed more than 47,000 people and damaged or destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes. Monday’s quake, which struck just as the rescue work from the […]
Serious debt crisis unfolding across developing countries – UNDP
London Reuters The United Nations’ Development Programme joined on Tuesday the chorus of institutions and charities warning that a serious debt crisis is now taking hold in the poorest parts of the world. In a new report, the UNDP estimated that 54 countries, accounting for more than half of the world’s poorest people, now needed […]
Postcards: Egypt erects sand barriers as rising sea swallows the Nile Delta
MENNA A FAROUK, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on hopes low-cost sand dykes can help hold back the Mediterranean Sea and protect the homes and incomes of people in Egypt’s breadbasket…
North-east Nigeria insurgency has killed almost 350,000 – UN
Abuja, NigeriaReuters North-east Nigeria’s conflict with Islamist insurgencies had killed nearly 350,000 people as of the end of 2020, the United Nations Development Programme said on Thursday. The toll, given by the UN agency in a new study on the war and its impact on livelihoods, is 10 times higher than previous estimates of about […]
Half of Myanmar’s population risks falling into poverty by 2022: UNDP
Reuters The dual impacts of the pandemic and Myanmar’s political crisis triggered by a military coup could result in nearly half the population, or as many as 25 million people, dropping into poverty by 2022, the United Nations Development Programme warns. In a report released on Friday, UNDP said the effect of the crises could […]
Code red: UN calls for urgent shift to planet-friendly development
Barcelona, Spain Thomson Reuters Foundation Under huge pressure from COVID-19, climate change and natural destruction, warning lights for the planet and societies are “flashing red” – and now is the time to choose a safer, fairer path for human development, the United Nations said on Tuesday. “We are at an unprecedented moment in the history […]