By Santo D. Banerjee

NEW YORK | ROME (IDN) – While clock is ticking to reboot agriculture as secondary growing season is .already underway, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has started distribution of much-needed seeds and tools in cyclone-ravaged Mozambique.

Nearly three weeks after the Tropical Cyclone Idai, which was one of the worst long-lived storms on record, that caused catastrophic damage in Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi, farmers in Mozambique have started to receive much-needed agricultural inputs.…

By Rita Joshi

BERLIN (IDN) – A new report has called on Germany and the European Union to convene a United Nations summit on ‘Digitalization and Sustainability’ in 2020 – 30 years after the UN Conference on Environment and Development, widely known as the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

The central theme of the summit should be reaching agreement on the necessary fundamental steps to be taken to achieve digitally supported sustainable development and to avoid the risks involved in digital change, say the authors of the  report entitled ‘Towards our Common Digital Future’, presented by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) to Federal Minister of Education and Research Anja Karliczek and Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze on April 11, 2019.…

By Krishan Dutta

PARIS (IDN) – “Donor countries are not living up to their 2015 pledge to ramp up development finance and this bodes badly for us being able to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals,” OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría has cautioned.

The warning of the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) comes at a time when, according to preliminary data collected by the OECD, official development assistance (ODA) from 30 member countries of the club of rich nations fell 2.7 percent in 2018 from 2017. The worst affected by the declining share were the neediest countries.…

By Sharon Birch-Jeffrey*

NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – To experience a taste of African culture deep inside the Big Apple, visitors – including many Senegalese – turn to Le Petit Senegal (Little Senegal), a West African neighborhood in West Harlem, New York.

African grocery shops, fabric stores, hair braiding parlors and regional restaurants sit shoulder to shoulder along the streets. The Sandaga Market of Little Senegal showcases a strong blend of African cultures, customs and languages, symbolizing efforts by African immigrants to project and protect their cultural identities.…