ACCRA, Ghana, Apr 3 2024 (IPS)* – Developing countries are being blamed for having borrowed and spent irresponsibly. But they have only been doing what foreign powers and financial interests have urged them to do.
Ndongo Samba Sylla
Since the 2008 global financial crisis, developing nations have been told to borrow massively from private finance, even at exorbitant interest rates, to scale funding up ‘from billions to trillions’.
With progress towards sustainable development often in reverse, servicing external debt now blocks progress. Many governments have cut back spending in line with conditions or advice from powerful foreign economic agencies.
Current account tales Many still believe all national economies should have trade or current account surpluses with others – typically citing Germany’s and Japan’s post-war booms. But of course, not all countries can have surpluses simultaneously.
UNITED NATIONS, New York, 5 April 2024(UNFPA)* -–Everyone has the right to health; and for women and girls, one aspect of this fundamental promise is the right to safe motherhood.
Yet every two minutes, a woman or girl still dies due to pregnancy or childbirth, with the vast majority of these tragedies preventable.
A young mother in Madagascar has been describing how she was forced to make a 200km emergency journey on challenging rural roads to a specialist regional hospital after she experienced difficulties giving birth at home.
UN News/Daniel Dickinson | Young mothers recover in the maternity ward of the Androy Regional Referral Hospital.
“I thought I was going to lose my baby and die on the journey to hospital.”
The chilling words of Samueline Razafindravao, who had to make the harrowing hours-long trip to the nearest specialist hospital in Ambovombe town in the Androy region of southern Madagascar after it became clear she might lose her child if she did not seek urgent medical attention.
(OXFAM)* 3 April 2024 — People in northern Gaza have been forced to survive on an average of 245 calories a day – less than a can of fava beans – since January, as Israeli forces continue their military onslaught. Over 300,000 people are believed to still be trapped there, unable to leave.
(UN News)* — In April 1994, a sinister call was broadcast over radio stations across Rwanda, triggering the start of 100 days of genocide that left more than one million people dead. Henriette Mutegwaraba heard that call.
UN Photo/Loey Felipe | Henriette Mutegwaraba, survivor of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and founder of the Million Lives Genocide relief fund, addresses the commemoration of the International Day of Reflection on the 1994 Genocide.
“Every time I talk about it, I cry,” she told UN News, describing how propaganda spread messages of hate that sparked a deadly wave of unspeakable violence. She lost 60 family members and friends in the mass slaughter.
(UN News)* —With the largest hospital in Gaza largely destroyed and out of action, access to healthcare has now become “totally inadequate” following six months of brutal fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants, said the World Health Organization (WHO) on Saturday [].
UN News | Footage of destruction of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, following the end of the latest Israeli siege. The World Health Organization (WHO) reiterated that hospitals must be respected and protected; they must not be used as battlefields.
Displaced Palestinians preparing food to break the fastin the centre of Deir al-Balah, Middle Areas, Gaza Strip, April 2024 @ 2024 UNRWA Photo by Ashraf Amra
Following the 1948 War between Israel and Arab neighbors, UNRWA was established by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) on December 8th, 1949 to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees. The Agency began operations on May 1st, 1950.
(UN News)* — Some of Haiti’s gangs have bigger arsenals than the police as criminal groups are becoming “stronger, richer and more autonomous” by using arms trafficking to fuel their growth, according to UN experts.
UNODC | Firearms confiscated during border checks.
The consequences have plunged the Caribbean nation into an ongoing political and humanitarian crisis. Currently, there are “unprecedented levels of lawlessness”, UNODC’s regional representative Sylvie Bertrand told UN News.
(UN News)* — The destruction wrought across the Gaza Strip by Israel in the six months since the massacre of Israeli and other citizens by Hamas on 7 October 2023 makes for grim reading – over 33,000 people killed and, according to the World Bank, over one million Palestinians are without homes, close to 90 per cent of health facilities have been damaged or wrecked and schools have been destroyed or turned into shelters for the newly homeless.
UN News/Ziad Taleb | A residential block in the Al-Shaboura neighborhood in the city of Rafah, lies in ruins.
(UN News)* —Aid officials called on the Security Council on Friday [] to step in to stop the carnage in Gaza as the war enters its sixth month amid a man-made famine, Israel’s constant bombardment, targeted killings of aid workers and Palestinians civilians and “zero accountability” for the perpetrators.
Briefing the Council on the current situation on the ground, Ramesh Rajasingham, coordination director with UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, and Janti Soeripto of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Save the Children, outlined the latest impact of the devastation that has followed the Hamas-led terror attack on Israel last October, which left more than 1,200 people dead and more than 240 taken hostage.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 