Viewpoint by Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury *

The writer is the founder of The Global Movement for The Culture of Peace (GMCoP), former Under-Secretary-General and High Representative of the United Nations.

ALISO VIEJO, California, USA (IDN-INPS) – My life’s experience has taught me to value peace and equality as the essential components of our existence. They unleash the positive forces of good that are so needed for human progress. Peace is integral to human existence — in everything we do, in everything we say, and in every thought, we have, there is a place for peace. We should not isolate peace as something separate. It is important to realize that the absence of peace takes away the opportunities that we need to better ourselves, to prepare ourselves, to empower ourselves to face the challenges of our lives, individually and collectively.…

By Kizito Makoye

KILOSA, Tanzania (IDN) – Hidaya Juma looks gaunt and weary. Her sun-parched skin and tattered clothes tell it all. She is poor.

Juma, a 43-year-old single mother of four, who lives in Kisanga village, Kilosa district, in Tanzania’s eastern Morogoro region, lives in a mud-walled house that is prone to flooding.

Her 19-year-old daughter Zubeda shares a dusty bedroom with two siblings. Juma sleeps in the other room with two of her children, aged nine and six.…

Viewpoint by Carlos Correa

The following is statement by Dr. Carlos Correa, Executive Director of the South Centre at the High-Level Dialogue on Financing for Development at the United Nations headquarters in New York on 26 September 2019.

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – Four years after its adoption, Agenda 2030, “Transforming Our World,” the United Nations’ (UN) most recent and most ambitious development agenda, is off-track.…

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) – The war may be over in a place called Biafra – a region of states in the southern part of Nigeria – but it remains a flashpoint for ethnic tensions that simmer just below the surface.

This September, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), announced a meeting with world leaders at the United Nations to present the grievances of the Igbo community, including unfair treatment by successive governments.…

By Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN | NEW YORK (IDN) –  “Let’s Build a Culture of Peace,” exhorted Nobel Peace laureates in an urgent call to “all countries and organizations of the world, their leaders and citizens“, at the 17th World Summit in Mérida, the capital of the Mexican state of Yucatán.

“In the midst of the current challenges of war, fear, racism, intolerance, and populist nationalism, today more than ever it is necessary to promote a Culture of Peace that follows tolerance and respect for diversity as a fundamental principle of coexistence among human beings and nations,” they declared.…

By Victoria Burns and Lailah Said

MARRAKECH (IDN) – The practice of empowerment has the potential to be the key to reducing the negative impacts of alienation and inequality among women in rural regions of Morocco.

High Atlas Foundation trainer Ibtissam Niri facilitates an IMAGINE empowerment workshop among girls and women in the Agerzrane village.

“We do not speak in front of others because we are ignorant and uneducated.”…

By Kwame Buist

BERLIN (IDN) – In the last five years, momentum has been building against corruption in Latin America and the Caribbean. High-level politicians have been found guilty of corruption in Guatemala and Brazil, and a wave of legal action against the perpetrators of grand corruption has swept across the continent, including the Lava Jato – or “Operation Car Wash” – investigation in Brazil.…