Children on their way to school in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi. Credit: Save the Children

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 2015 (IPS) – It’s called the urban survival gap – fuelled by the growing inequality between rich and poor in both developing and developed countries – and it literally determines whether millions of infants will live or die before their fifth birthday.

Save the Children’s annual report on the ranks 179 countries and concludes that that for babies born in the big city, it s the survival of the richest.

Speaking from the launch at U.N. Headquarters, Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children, said that for the first time in history, more families are moving into citi…

Disability and poverty are interrelated, due to discrimination and lower education and employment levels. Credit: Bigstock

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 25 2015 (IPS) – Participation, political and economic empowerment, inclusion, accessible technology and infrastructure as well as indicators for meaningful implementation are among the key issues persons with disabilities want to see reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In light of the ongoing negotiations on the post-2015 development framework, people with disabilities are calling upon governments to put an end to exclusion and discrimination by making persons with disabilities and their rights more visible in the SDGs.“We can no longer afford the cost of exclusion.” — Catalina D…

This little boy, an Afghan refugee, eats a piece of candy outside his family’s makeshift tent. Credit: DVIDSHUB/CC-BY-2.0

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 18 2015 (IPS) – As the number of civilians impacted by the intensifying conflict in Afghanistan rises along with the fighting, humanitarian agencies are struggling to meet the needs of the wounded, hungry and displaced.

The first half of 2015 has seen “record high levels” of civilian casualties, the United Nations relief agency said Tuesday, with civilian deaths touching 1,592 and total non-combatant casualties standing at over 4,900 a one-percent increase compared to the number of casualties in the same period in 2014.

Fresh fighting in the provinces of Helmand, Kunduz, Faryab and Nangarhar are indicative of the geographic spread of the conflict, while tensions and sporadic clashes all across th…

Hundreds of Cubans gathered outside the Ecuadorean embassy in Havana in an infrequent public display of discontent, protesting Quito’s decision to require that Cubans visiting Ecuador obtain a visa. Many held up the airplane tickets they had already bought, asking to be given visas or to be reimbursed for the money they had spent. Credit: Jorge Luis Baños/IPS

HAVANA, Dec 10 2015 (IPS) – The crisis that has broken out at several border crossings in Latin America as a result of thousands of Cubans attempting to reac…

Apr 22 2016 – Whichever way you parse the data we have it shows that poverty headcount in Pakistan over the last decade and a half to two decades has decreased substantially. Initially, it was thought the data was not good enough, that it had been manipulated and so on, but even after multiple rounds of national surveys, the same trends are evident. And though the actual percentage of the poor may vary with the method one uses, the trend of falling poverty remains invariant. There must be something to this trend.

Poverty headcount, by the old line, has reduced to below 10pc in recent surveys. It is common practice, when poverty headcount goes below 10pc odd, to rebase the poverty line so that it gives some meaningful numbers. Social policy, if it has to work with less than 10pc odd of the population, is not as effective and/or useful. When all sorts of analyses confirmed that Pakistan`s poverty headcount had indeed gone below 10pc, the ministries of finance and planning, wit…

is the UNFPA Representative to Kenya and the United Nations Resident Coordinator ad interim.

“An MSF assisted cholera treatment center in Mandera, Kenya”. June 03, 2016 – Photo credit : @unfpaken

Mandera County, Kenya, Jun 5 2016 (IPS) – Mandera’s double whammy, the concurrent outbreaks of cholera and chikungunya, is bringing to the fore the need for accelerated epidemic preparedness and prevention systems.

is an acute diarrhoeal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated.

virus is most often spread to people by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. These are the same mosquitoes that transmit dengue, yellow fever and zika virus. Its symptoms include high fever, joint pain, rash and headache. There is no vaccine to prevent or medicine to treat chikungunya virus infection.

The twin epidemics have hit the expansive north-eas…

Nearly half the children in drought-stricken South Madagascar are malnourished. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

AMBOVOMBE, Madagascar, Jul 8 2016 (IPS) – Voahevetse Fotetse can easily pass for a three-year-old even though he is six and a pupil at Ankilimafaitsy Primary School in Ambovombe district, Androy region, one of the most severely affected by the ongoing drought in the South of Madagascar.

“Fotetse is just like many of the pupils here who, due to chronic malnutrition, are much too small for their age, they are too short and too thin,” explains Seraphine Sasara, the school’s director.

The school has a total population of 348 72 boys and 276 girls and they range from three to 15 years. Fewer boys stay in school as they spend most of the…

This article is part of a series of stories and op-eds issued by IPS on the occasion of this year’s World Autism Awareness Day

BLANTYRE, Malawi, Mar 29 2017 (IPS) – When building a house, it’s critical to lay a strong foundation. The same applies to education, with studies showing that children who attend early learning centers perform better in school than those who do not.

In Malawi, a 2003 national survey found that only 18.8 percent of school-age children with disabilities were attending class. More than twice as many of the same age group without disabilities (41.1 percent) attended school. This was mainly attributed to the lack of a disability-friendly environment.”Since many children come from poor families, parents are often faced with the dilemma of choosing which child to send to secondary school, bearing in mind that the one with difficulties needs special care.” –teacher Miriam Chimtengo

More parents are now sending their young ones to such…

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 8 2017 (IPS) – While stories of child marriage are commonly associated with the Global South, lesser known are the cases closer to home: in the United States.

Across the world, child marriage has persisted and the United States is no exception. Across all 50 states in the North American nation, marriage before the age of 18 has remained legal.

“These are old laws that were just never changed because people didn’t realize this was happening,” said Fraidy Reiss, the Executive Director of Unchained at Last, an organization fighting to end child marriage in the U.S.

Based on available data, Unchained at Last that over quarter of a million children were married in the U.S. between 2000 and 2010. Data shows girls as young as 12 years old married in states like Alaska, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

The Tahirih Justice Center, which helps protect women and girls from gender-based violence, that Texas has the second highest rates …