Goal 3 - SDGs for All

Photo: Girls from the Safeguard Young People programme in Malawi, which provides sexual and reproductive health information, helps young people access health services, and offers leadership training. Credit: UNFPA Malawi/Hope Ngwira.

Why Spending 30 Dollars a Year on Each Adolescent Is Essential

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) - Less than 30 dollars spent per person per year can work wonders for adolescent health and education, finds a new study commissioned by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

The report has been published in The Lancet on the eve of the World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington D.C. from April 21 to April 23, 2017, where finance and development leaders from 188 countries were slated to discuss the critical need to invest in adolescents.

The Lancet is an independent, international general medical journal purported to make science widely available so that medicine can serve, and transform society, and positively impact the lives of people. (P04) ARABIC | HINDI | SPANISH | SWAHILI | TURKISH ｜JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 3; 20 April 2017

Sport as a Tool for Achieving SDGs

By Desmond Brown

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (IDN) – Investing in sport can help reduce spiralling health costs and promote education, social cohesion and gender equality, says a new guidebook published by The Commonwealth.

The recommendations of the guidebook, titled ‘Enhancing the Contribution of Sport to the Sustainable Development Goals’, are important to the Caribbean, where chronic and communicable diseases are devastating to individuals and community, threatening the quality of life and becoming an increasingly negative factor in the region’s development.

Guyana, for example, spends on average 4.6 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare every year, equivalent to 200 dollars per capita. (P03) JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 3; 15 April 2017

Photo: A UNFPA-supported health centre 400 kilometers southwest of Uganda’s capital Kampala, includes a ward where women in their final stages of pregnancy can remain comfortably and avoid arduous travel once labour begins. Photo: UNFPA/Omar Gharzeddine

U.S. Reasoning Behind Cutting Funds to UNFPA Challenged

By J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – Voicing "deep regret" at the United States decision to cut financial support to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appealed to donors to increase their support for the UN Population Agency to allow it to continue its critical work.

Strongly criticising the U.S. decision, Catholics for Choice said the announcement of the decision in the same week as the 50th session of the Commission on Population and Development (Aprll 3-7) is "a deliberate slap in the face of women as the UN considers the importance of family planning for sustainable development." (P01) GERMAN | JAPANESE TEXT VERSION PDF | SPANISH

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 3; 04 April 2017

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

'Lifestyle Diseases' Pose Grave Challenges To Africa

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.

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 3; 30 January 2017

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

More Indigenous Doctors Aim To Close Australia’s Health Gap

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

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 3; 27 December 2016

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

Lesotho King Appointed UN Special Ambassador for Nutrition

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.

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 2; 03 December 2016

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

Nepal Youths Make Sexual Health Services More Accessible

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

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 3; 24 November 2016

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

Fight Against HIV/AIDS Brings Hope to Lesotho

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.

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 3; 08 September 2016

Global Health Situation Needs Multiple Actions

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.

: IDN-INPS Editor; Goal 3; 12 June 2016

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

UN Excludes 22 NGOs But Vows to End AIDS Epidemic by 2030

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.