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Reporting the underreported about the plan of action for People, Planet and Prosperity, and efforts to make the promise of the SDGs a reality.
A project of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate Group with IDN as the Flagship Agency in partnership with Soka Gakkai International in consultative status with ECOSOC.


SGI Soka Gakkai International

 

Photo: A Virgin Active gym in Soweto, Johannesburg South Africa. Credit: Africa Renewal | AMO | Robert Tshabalala

By Zipporah Musau*

NEW YORK (IDN | Africa Renewal) - Anxiety grips Jennifer Nakazi as her phone beeps for the third time since she arrived at a busy bank lobby in downtown New York. She’s going to wire money to her family in Uganda. Her brother is calling with the latest update on their critically ill mother.

After battling diabetes for almost a decade now, the 63-year-old matriarch has just been hospitalized after her blood sugar level hit a record high. Her blood pressure also shot up, raising fears she could also be hypertensive.

“I hope we don’t lose our mother. It is not even two years since our father succumbed to diabetes. It’s a difficult time for us,” Ms. Nakazi tells Africa Renewal. She finally returns her brother’s call after wiring some $700. Their mother’s condition has stabilized and they are all relieved, but they know the struggle is far from over.

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Photo: Vinka Barunga. Credit: University of Western Australia.

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY (IDN) - Vinka Barunga was born in the Worrara tribe of the Mowanjum Aboriginal community in the remote town of Derby in Western Australia. As a child, she witnessed disease and suicide amongst her people, which made her resolve to one day become a doctor and help break this cycle of suffering. She is one of six, the largest cohort of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) students, to graduate in Medicine/Surgery from the University of Western Australia this year.

Australia has fewer than 300 Aboriginal doctors, but things are gradually changing. Vinka is determined to be the first full time doctor in the town of her birth, situated around 2,400 kilometres north of the state capital Perth in the Kimberley region. It is the gateway to the state’s resource rich north, surrounded by mudflats on three sides, with two distinct seasons. (P38) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN TEXT VERSION PDF

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Photo: FAO DG José Graziano da Silva presenting Lesotho King designation as Special Ambassador. ©FAO/Giuseppe Carotenuto.

By Ronald Joshua

ROME (IDN) - King Letsie III of Lesotho has been appointed as Special Ambassador of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for Nutrition. The Organization’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, made the announcement at the high-level International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems for Healthy Diets and Improved Nutrition  December 1-2, 21016.

The Symposium was held to explore country-level challenges and successes in the nutritional reshaping of food production, processing, marketing and retail systems. Malnutrition – including obesity and micronutrient deficiencies – blights the lives of billions of individuals and can trap generations in a vicious cycle of poverty.

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Photo: Youths of Rocket and Space group in Kathmandu brainstorm on how to make their presentations on Sexual and Reproductive Rights more effective. Credit: Stella Paul | IDN-INPS

By Stella Paul

KATHMANDU (IDN) – 21-year old Pabitra Bhattarai is a shy young woman with a soft voice and a ready smile. But, ask her about sexual health services and the shyness vanishes in an instant as she speaks passionately of how youths of her country must have rights to such services.

“Our country runs on the shoulders of young people. So, we can’t risk having a country full of young people with HIV. We must have full access to sexual and reproductive health services (SRHR),” she says, suddenly sounding far more mature than her age. (P35) HINDI | INDONESIAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | KOREAN TEXT VERSION PDF | TAGALOG | THAI | URDU

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Photo: Mampiti Mohapi. Credit: Sechaba Mokhethi | IDN-INPS

By Sechaba Mokhethi

QACHA’S NEK, Lesotho (IDN) – Mampiti Mohapi, a local chief of very remote Ha Nkoko village, travels ten kilometres every month to receive her antiretroviral therapy (ART) medication to counter human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

She was diagnosed with HIV in 2006 at the age of 62 but was not started on ART treatment immediately because at the time such treatment was not administered to people unless they had a CD4 count of 500 or less, which was not her case.

A CD4 count reports the number of cells in a cubic millimetre of blood, and a normal CD4 count ranges from 500 to 1,500 cells per cubic millimetre.

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Photo courtesy UN

Analysis by Martin Khor *

GENEVA (IDN | SOUTHNEWS) - The global health situation is facing many critical challenges, and multiple actions must be taken urgently to prevent crises from boiling over. This is the impression one gets from this year’s World Health Assembly held in Geneva on from May 23 to 28.

The WHA is the world’s prime public health event. This year 3,500 delegates from 194 countries took part, including Health Ministers of most countries. The one-week session provided a snapshot of the major medical problems and the actions being taken or proposed to deal with them.

In her opening speech, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan gave an overview of what went right and what is missing on the global health front.

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Photo: A view of the UN General Assembly Hall during the High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS. UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

Analysis by J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Though 22 gay and transgender rights groups were excluded at the behest of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting resolved to put an end to the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

The three-day meeting that concluded at the UN headquarters in New York on June 10 adopted what is being touted as a “progressive, new and actionable Political Declaration” that “includes a set of specific, time-bound targets and actions that must be achieved by 2020 if the world is to get on the Fast-Track and end the AIDS epidemic by 2030 within the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals”.

At the start of the High-Level Meeting, UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental human rights organization, called on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and General Assembly President Mogens Lykketoft to “name and shame” the countries responsible for excluding of 22 gay and transgender rights groups.

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Image credit: Don Stalons - phil.cdc.gov

Viewpoint by Martin Khor *

Antibiotics – also called antibacterials – revolutionized medicine in the 20th century. Their effectiveness and easy access led to overuse, especially in livestock raising, prompting bacteria to develop resistance. This has led to widespread problems with antimicrobial and antibiotic resistance, so much as to prompt the World Health Organization to classify antimicrobial resistance as a "serious threat [that] is no longer a prediction for the future, it is happening right now in every region of the world and has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country". - Editor

GENEVA (IDN | SOUTHNEWS) - Antibiotic resistance – a process by which antibiotics no longer work because bacteria have become resistant to them – has climbed up the global agenda because of growing awareness of the immense threat this poses to human health and survival.

However, there is still not enough action to tackle this crisis. Health Ministers meeting at the World Health Assembly in Geneva May 23-28, 2016 have an opportunity to review the extent to which a Global Action Plan adopted in 2015 has been implemented.

In the background is the recent disturbing news of the discovery by scientists of a gene, MCR-1, which creates resistance to colistin, a powerful antibiotic used as a last resort to treat infections when other medicines do not work.

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Image credit: The World Counts

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) - A Brazilian social scientist and a Polish organization have bagged the 2016 United Nations Population Award. Established by the UN General Assembly in 1981, the award recognizes outstanding achievement in the fields of population and health.

Dr Carmen Barroso, a Brazilian social scientist has won the award for her long commitment to population causes. The ‘Childbirth in Dignity Foundation’, a Polish organization is being honoured for promoting improved quality of care for Polish mothers and new-borns.

The award is scheduled to be presented at the United Nations on June 23.

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