Despite Many Setbacks, The World Is Becoming Happier
August 30, 2022
Viewpoint by Jonathan Power
LUND, Sweden (IDN) — High moments aside, do we know what happiness is? Is the world becoming a happier place? Are we happier than our parents’ or grandparents’ generations? What could give us a little more happiness?
“Homo Sapiens has been around for about 8,000 generations, and for most of that time, life has been rather unpleasant. Most humans who have ever lived have done so under despotic regimes,” wrote Stephen Krasner in Foreign Affairs in March 2020. Life expectancy, he points out, didn’t begin to increase until 1850, just seven generations ago, and accelerated only after 1900. It is still accelerating.…
UN Can Model Innovative Ways to Engage Youth
August 28, 2022
Time for a National Forum or Assembly
By Simone Galimberti
The writer is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not-for-profit NGO in Nepal. He writes on volunteerism, social inclusion, youth development and regional integration as an engine to improve people’s lives.
KATHMANDU (IDN) — One of the pillars of Our Common Agenda, the UN Secretary-General’s global blueprint on delivering a better future based on cooperation and multilateralism, is a strong focus on inclusion, protection and participation.…
Coalition Calls for Securing Rights of Indigenous Peoples
August 11, 2022
Viewpoint by Galina Angarova (Buryat), Executive Director, Cultural Survival
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, USA (IDN) — On August 9, 2022, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous leaders will launch a new site—www.sirgecoalition.org—as part of the official public announcement of a new coalition to Secure Indigenous People’s Rights in a Green Economy (SIRGE Coalition).…
Millions of Lives in Peril in the Greater Horn of Africa
August 4, 2022
UN Health Agency Calls for USD 123.7 million Until December 2022
By Jaya Ramachandran
GENEVA | NAIROBI (IDN) — The UN health agency, World Health Organization (WHO), has launched a funding appeal for USD 123.7 million to carry out urgent life-saving work in the greater Horn of Africa. The region also faces an unprecedented food crisis.
More than 80 million people in the seven countries spanning the region—Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda—are estimated to be food insecure. Over 37.5 million people are classified as being in IPC phase 3, a stage of crisis where people have to sell their possessions in order to feed themselves and their families, and where malnutrition is rife.…
Study Supports Reparations in Climate-Damaged African Nations
August 2, 2022
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — The African continent of 1.2 billion people, which represents 17% of the world’s population, contributes less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions but suffers from extreme weather events, which scientists have warned will become more frequent due to climate change.
Researchers in a new study have now put an actual dollar figure on economic harm caused by the countries most responsible for the climate crisis. The ground-breaking data could serve as a starting point for legal action by Africans against the world’s wealthiest nations.…
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