Remittances now account for an important portion of GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean and support millions of families, so the drop in this source of income is shaking the economies of many countries and deepening poverty in the region. CREDIT: World Bank

CARACAS, May 18 2020 (IPS) – Remittances that support millions of households in Latin America and the Caribbean have plunged as family members lose jobs and income in th…

AMSTERDAM/ROME, Jun 8 2020 (IPS) – As the COVID-19 virus spread rapidly around the globe, so did various theories about what caused the pandemic. According to the standard scientific theory, the virus originated in bats; crossed over to humans, probably via another intermediate host; and then spread rapidly across the globe.

While the mainstream scientific theory sufficed for some, a large number of people saw the pandemic as the work of cold-hearted militar…

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Tapan Mishra is the UN Resident Coordinator in Mongolia.

Child in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Credit: UNICEF/UN0316934/Pasqualli

ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia, Jul 28 2020 (IPS) – Mongolia has recorded very few cases of COVID-19, less than 300 as on date, despite its more than 4,000 kilometre porous border with China. However, the country faces a major economic impact from the pandemic.

The general picture of the situation in Mongolia is very positive. The Government of Mongolia closed all educational institutions including kindergartens, schools and universities at the beginning of the year.

It also introduced strict measures on social distancing, such as a ban…

My personal pandemic panic

Sep 2 2020 – Having reported on SARS, Ebola, Bird Flu (H5N1) outbreaks, as well as writing about efforts to combat HIV, I was horrified by what was going on in Wuhan, China last Jan mainly because of how fast this new SARS-CoV-2 virus spread. By early Feb it seemed likely there’d be a global pandemic and by the end of Feb I started to freak out as the pandemic took hold. I’ve never been to Wuhan or China nor seen anyone who had; and I hadn’t travelled any where recently. It was nearly impossible for me to have encountered the virus but that didn’t keep me from getting sick with fear and dread knowing that a goddamn microscopic parasite was…

Protesters hold up their placards in front of the Lagos State House. Credit: TobiJamesCandids/Wikimedia Commons.

ABUJA, Oct 28 2020 (IPS) – On October 20, 2020, young Nigerians who were protesting against police brutality were shot by men in Nigerian military uniforms. Unarmed, peaceful citizens were  at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos, southwest Nigeria.

The Governor of Lagos state, Jide Sanwo-Olu earlier in the day had announced a 24-hour cur…

KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, Dec 8 2020 (IPS) – Fiscal and monetary measures needed to fight the economic downturn, largely due to COVID-19 policy responses, require more government accountability and discipline to minimise abuse. Such measures should ensure relief for the vulnerable, prevent recessions from becoming depressions, and restore progress.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

They should help the most helpless, especially in the informal sector and casual employment. Efforts should also seek to accelerate structural transformation towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Progress was already , e.g., on mitigating global warming.

Unconventional measures
The pandem…

The first two COVID-19 vaccines authorised in Europe and the United States – made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna – aren’t well-suited to lower-income countries. Availability is also a problem, since most of these vaccines have been purchased by high-income countries. Credit: United Nations.

Jan 20 2021 (IPS) – COVID-19 vaccination programmes are gathering pace in…

Social development helps narrowing down the disparities between urban and rural areas; and gaps amongst different regions. Credit: UNESCO

BEIJING, Mar 1 2021 (IPS) – Back in the 1990s, the discovery of antiretrovirals offered a ray of hope to save people’s lives from the HIV epidemic. Over this decade, people living with HIV benefited from the scientific advances and began to have longer, healthier and more productive lives. However, almost all the beneficiaries were from rich countries in the global north. As a result, about nine million people died by the year 2000 due to the inequality in accessing these life-saving medicines.

It is a hard lesson …

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 30 2021 (IPS) – COVID-19 has set back the uneven progress of recent decades, directly causing more than two million deaths. The slowdown, due to the pandemic and policy responses, has pushed hundreds of millions more into poverty, hunger and worse, also deepening many inequalities.

Anis Chowdhury

Development setbacks
The outlook for developing countries is grim, with . Compared to pre-pandemic trends, the expected 8.1% loss by end-2021 will be much worse than advanced countries dropping 4.7%.

COVID-19 has further set back progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As progress was largely ‘not on track’ eve…