Jennie Lyn Reyes is the author of the 2020 Asian Tobacco Industry Interference Index and the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager of SEATCA.

BANGKOK, Thailand, Nov 20 2020 (IPS) – While the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated public health to a top priority in every country in the world, it has left many poorly resourced governments receptive to any and all aid that can provide immediate assistance to help their people.

The pandemic pandemonium has provided unprecedented opportunities for the tobacco industry to boost its corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities to get closer to health and senior government officials.

Using charity to gain access to senior officia…

Women’s empowerment is a crucial aim of the social networking site Fuzia. Credit: Fuzia

NEW YORK, Jan 4 2021 (IPS) – A cherished snapshot of a happy mother and a smiling grandmother is universally associated with a good childhood. In the movies, TV, or media, a broken or depressed mother’s face is hardly seen. But the reality is somewhat different. The measures communities and society take to ensure that women and girls are protected and supported are often questioned.

Shraddha Varma, co-founder, and director of social networking site Fuzia believes in enhancing women’s lives.

“Women empowerment is incomplete without key aspects like health, well…

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is Director-General of the World Health Organization*

A health worker at a local health centre in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, prepares a vaccine injection. The dispatch of millions of COVID-19 vaccines to Africa started in February. Credit: UNICEF/Sibylle Desjardins

GENEVA, Feb 11 2021 (IPS) – WHO and UNICEF have a long, deep and very special relationship. Neither of us could do what we do without the other.

UNICEF’s success is WHO’s success, and we are proud to be your partner on so many issues: Ebola, polio, maternal health, nutrition, infection prevention and control, primary health care – the list is lo…

The upcoming Samoan election is a unique opportunity to encourage diversity in politics

APIA, Samoa, Mar 12 2021 (IPS) – This year it will be 128 years since the right of women to vote was first recognized, with New Zealand becoming the first nation to allow the participation of women in its general election in 1893.

From the suffragettes to today’s feminists, both men and women have fought to increase women’s political participation and representation. It has been a slow, sometimes bitter and occasionally even dangerous struggle. Yet global progress remains slow and uneven – as it does in Samoa. As we approach the 2021 General Election on 9 April, it is important to remember that women’s full and effective participation in all areas of life drives progress for ev…

Two decades of investments in malaria so far have saved a staggering 7.6 million lives and prevented 1.5 billion malaria cases. But progress plateaued by the end of 2019 with political will and funding declining. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

Apr 23 2021 (IPS) – The occasion of World Malaria Day amidst a global pandemic warrants an examination of the intersection between our decades long battle against the world’s oldest …

The following article is part of a series to commemorate World Environment Day June 5

BONN, Jun 4 2021 (IPS) – You want to breathe fresh air and have access to clean water? I guess you do, just like all of us. As populations in the so-called developed countries, we love to go for holidays in places where on high mountains you get to breathe deeply and enjoy the fresh air, where the oceans or lakes are clean and refreshing. And how do we arrive there? Mostly by airplanes or cars, polluting the air whilst travelling to the desired destinations, causing harm to people and the planet. Interestingly, many people today, calculate their flight’s CO2 footprint and pay a certain amount of money to invest in renewable energy projects, in order to feel better about their travelling and to rec…

Chiring Tamang holds the family’s new baby while his wife Priya looks on. She delivered the girl at home in their village in Nepal’s Sindhupalchowk district in February 2021. Credit: Marty Logan / IPS

Kathmandu, Nepal, Jul 21 2021 (IPS) – One year after Nepal’s Ministry of Health (MoH) appealed to international organisations in the country to urgently supply a drug used to stop excessive bleeding after childbirth, a UN agency has delivered $1 million worth of contraceptives to prevent another shortage.

The 1.6 million cycles of oral contraceptive pills and 776,000 units of injectable contraceptives and syringes will prevent roughly 75 000 unintended pregnancies, …

Women produce more than 50 percent of the food in the world but are disadvantaged when it comes to access to resources such as land and financial services. Credit: Busani Bafana, IPS

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, Sep 17 2021 (IPS) – Women, key contributors to agriculture production, are missing at the decision table, with alarming consequences, says Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg in an exclusive interview with IPS.

Giving women a seat at the policymaking table could accelerate Sustainable Developmen…

Ras Bongo Wisely Tafari (far right) holds on to the CARICOM’s symbol of the reparatory justice movement, the reparations baton, in Castries, Saint Lucia. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

DOMINICA, Oct 18 2021 (IPS) – The Rastafarian organizations in the Caribbean are determined that the issue of slavery reparations will emerge from the eclipse of COVID-19.

As the world deals with the impacts of efforts to contain the virus’ spread and regional governments tackle vaccine hesitancy and a wave of misinformation, issues not directly related to COVID-19 have had to be temporarily shelved.

However, members of the Caribbean Rastafari Organization are determined …

Displaced, Dec 7 2021 (IPS) – Over the past two years, the global refugee response has been tested. The world is being rocked by the greatest pandemic in over a century, while waves of refugees have fled from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Belarus, and Tigray. So, where do we go from here? Next week, the international community will convene to take stock of the successes and shortcomings of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), a unique multilateral mechanism built to ensure the protection of one of the most vulnerable populations. This marquee Compact is up for review, but unlike other review processes, the participation of the people whose lives are shaped by the decisions to be made in the review process will be marginal. Unfortunately, only 1 in 50 of the invited attendees at the High-Level…