ROME, 8 August 2018 (FAO)*– FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has urged countries to unite behind a campaign to promote indigenous women’s rights and encourage their participation in policy discussions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger.
The Violet chair initiative is a call to give indigenous women a seat at the table.
If the repeated dire warnings from the world’s climate scientists have not been enough, then the recent tragic events in Japan, Europe and California must convince us to finally admit we have a problem.
Facing up to the reality of climate change will be cold solace to those who have lost loved ones in a tragic few weeks of multiple extreme weather disasters, but we also acknowledge the urgency of action to protect our communities from further harm.
7 August 2018 (UNHCR)* – When indigenous community leader Eligio Tejerina’s youngest child fell sick with pneumonia, her condition was aggravated by severe shortages roiling their native Venezuela.
7 August 2018 – As conflicts and natural disasters have sharply deteriorated living conditions in the Horn of Africa and Yemen, more and more people have been crossing the Gulf of Aden in both directions, leading the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to appeal for $45 million to provide critical aid to 81,000 people over three years.
UNHCR/Mohammed Hamoud | An 8-year-old girl carrying her 2-year-old brother at a settlement for persons displaced by conflict in Yemen.
The agency’s Regional Migrant Response Plan (RMRP), launched on Monday [6 August 2018], is meant to cover movements in both directions between Yemen and Horn of Africa nations, Djibouti, Somalia and Ethiopia.
“The humanitarian needs in the region remain immense, which leave migrants and host communities in a vulnerable situation,” said Jeffrey Labovitz, IOM Regional Director for the region, including East Africa.
In the first of a series of articles to mark International Youth Day on 12 August, ILO focuses on an its funded project that has been supporting efforts to curb urban violence and restore peace in the coastal town of Diégo Suarez.
DIEGO-SUAREZ (ILO)* – Located in northern Madagascar, the town of Diégo-Suarez has many tourist assets, thanks to its extraordinary setting, its beaches and old colonial buildings that lend it a special charm. But a few years ago, the city was confronted by organized gangs known as foroches, or “wild ones,” who created conditions of insecurity and threatened to undermine the tourist industry.
Helping farmers helps peace – New FAO Framework to bolster focus on food security and food systems to help sustain peace
FAO helps displaced people in Syria raise chickens.
ROME, 7 August 2018 (FAO)* – Civil wars and conflicts have increased markedly in the past decade, leading to the recent reverse of a steady trend towards reducing hunger.
They take their heaviest toll on rural communities engaged in agriculture. Wheat output in Syria has fallen by 40 percent and processed-food output in Iraq suffered a double-digit decline.
It “guarantees a climate 4-5 Celsius (7-9 Fahrenheit) higher than pre-industrial times, and sea levels that are 10 to 60 meters (30-200 feet) high than today.”
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Climate change can sush earth to a permanent “Hothouse” state. Hurricane Harvey pictured from the International Space Station in this NASA handout photo | Photo: Reuters FILE | Source: teleSUR.
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7 August 2018 (teleSUR)* – A group of scientists has warned the world’s governments about the increasing threat of greenhouse gases and said if changes are not made the planet will enter a permanent “hothouse” state.
The Head of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), Filippo Grandi, on 7 August 2018urged government representatives and business leaders from the Asia-Pacific region to offer more support and protection for over 700,000 Rohingya refugees who have fled violence and discrimination in Myanmar’s Rakhine State over the past year.
UNICEF/Brian Sokol | Rohingya refugees endure a heavy rain in Balukhali camp in Cox’s Bazar District, Bangladesh, on 4 May 2018. UNCHR chief Filippo Grandi has appealed to regional Governments to offer more support to Bangladesh in addressing the ongoing refugee crisis.