The world needs to produce an estimated 60 percent more food by 2050 to ensure global food security, and it must do so while conserving and enhancing the natural resource base. Water is a major input in the provision of food – from production in the field through all the steps in the value chain.*
Water is also required to meet personal and household needs, for energy and industrial production, and to maintain important water-dependent ecosystems and ecosystem services.
With demand and competition for water on the rise, however, the planet’s water resources are under increasing stress due to climate change, poor management and pollution.
Forests cover one third of the Earth’s land mass, performing vital functions around the world. Around 1.6 billion people – including more than 2,000 indigenous cultures – depend on forests for their livelihoods, medicines, fuel, food and shelter.*
A student carries her seedling to where it will be planted. Hundreds of students took part in planting trees in one of Haiti’s last forests – the Pine Forest. Located nearly 4 hr drive from Port au Prince, the once great forest has been depleted to make room for farm land and to make charcoal for fuel. Photo MINUSTAH/Logan Abassi
Forests are the most biologically-diverse ecosystems on land, home to more than 80% of the terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects.
Yet despite all of these priceless ecological, economic, social and health benefits, global deforestation continues at an alarming rate – 13 million hectares of forest are destroyed annually.
When countries of the Global South forged an historic technical cooperation deal among themselves 40 years ago, digital technology was a thing of the future, but developing nations have come a long way since then.*
Laura Quinones/UN News | Jorge Chediek, Envoy of the Secretary General on South-South Cooperation, and the President of Uruguay, Tabaré Vásquez (centre), launching the report on ‘South-South Cooperation in the Digital World.’
China, for example, has managed to send an exploration vehicle to the dark side of the Moon, while India has a satellite orbiting Mars.
Safe water and access to proper sanitation are essential to eradicate poverty, build peaceful societies and ensure that no one is left behind on the path towards sustainable development, according to the 2019 UN World Water Development Report, launched on Tuesday [19 March 2019] in Geneva.*
UN Environment/ Hannah McNeish | Before a UN Environment-supported rainwater harvesting project was set up at Kingani secondary school in the coastal town of Bagamoyo, the drinking water used to be so salty that students would complain of headaches, stomach aches and ulcers.
The full scale of the devastation caused by Tropical Cyclone Idai in south-west Africa is becoming clearer, the UN said on Tuesday [19 March 2019], warning that the emergency “is getting bigger by the hour”.
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WFP/Deborah Nguyen | Food distribution in Beira, Mozambique. At this school turned into a shelter, 70 families received food from WFP. Most of them had to leave their homes because they were damaged by the cyclone.
Five days after the storm made landfall in Mozambique, causing widespread damage and flooding, at least 1,000 people are feared dead there alone.
March 16, 2018 — Twenty-three-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli bulldozer that was preparing to demolish a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip in 2003.
Corrie has since become an icon of global solidarity with the people of Palestine. | Photo from Middle East Monitor
Corrie has since become an icon of global solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Born on 10 April 1979 in Olympia, Washington, Corrie dedicated her life to defending Palestinian rights. In 2003, she went to the Gaza Strip as a member of the International Solidarity Movement.
Do you know anyone who genuinely loves their job, greeting each new work day with focused energy and joyful anticipation? Do you know others who dread going to work, can’t wait for the weekend and cringe at the sound of the alarm clock on Monday morning?
Marilyn Langlois
What is it that makes work enjoyable and rewarding for some, while for others it is a torment? And why are so many people unemployed or underemployed, living under the constant stress of not knowing how they will manage from day to day?
Ten key components to job satisfaction include:
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You like what you do.
Your work is fairly compensated, acknowledged and appreciated by others.
You have some say in shaping the parameters of your work either directly on the job or via union participation.
18 March 2019 (Norwegian Refugee Council)* — Three years after the EU-Turkey statement, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) calls for European countries to take their share of responsibility for handling refugees, and not leave it to overstretched Turkey and Greece.
Refugees arriving to Lesvos in Greece before the EU-Turkey statement. Photo: Tiril Skarstein/NRC“Three years after the EU-Turkey statement was agreed, Europe is neither providing sufficient support to refugees in Syria’s neighbouring countries, nor giving people necessary protection within its borders,” said Edouard Rodier, Director of NRC Europe.
18 March 2019 (Wall Street International)* — In commenting on the new status of Chinese President Xi as president for life, President Trump quipped: “And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll give that a shot someday.” (March 3, 2018). What Trump may have considered to be a joke could instead prove to be a lapsus révélateur. It is not absolutely certain that Trump was joking about becoming president for life.
18 March 2019 — This week in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, over one thousand people, including high level government delegations and representatives from the private sector and civil society, will gather for the Second High-level United Nations Conference on South-South Cooperation, or BAPA+40.*
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 