'Unseen' News and Views
– About 40 kilometres out of Uganda’s capital, Kampala, in the Mpigi area, you can find an entire village hill with houses that have plastic bottles walls and car tyre rooftops.
Afaf Qaddouh has taken advantage of an FAO project in Lebanon designed to make land more productive and improve land management practices. ©FAO/Ralph Azar
18 September 2020 (FAO)* — Afaf Qaddouh had assisted her father in working their land in Zawtar El Sharkiyeh in the South of Lebanon ever since she was a little girl. When he passed away, it became hers. She didn’t know then how important this land would become to her.
Nairobi, 17 September 2020 (UN Environment)* – The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and adidas Runtastic are again teaming up with Internet of Elephants and other conservation organizations to challenge runners to outrun iconic endangered individual wild animals in a bid to rally support for biodiversity protection worldwide.
Closing the coverage gap, worsened by COVID-19, will require additional sources of financing says a new ILO study.
GENEVA, 17 September 2020 (ILO)* – To guarantee at least basic income security and access to essential health care for all in 2020 alone, developing countries should invest approximately US$1.2 trillion – on average 3.8 per cent of their GDP – says a new ILO policy brief.
(UN News)* — The global hunger crisis caused by conflict – and now compounded by COVID-19 – is moving into a dangerous phase, the head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Thursday [18 September 2020], stressing that without resources, a wave of famine could sweep the globe, overwhelming nations already weakened by years of instability.
“This fight…is far, far, far from over,” said WFP Executive Director David Beasley, briefing the Security Council during a virtual debate on conflict-induced hunger.
A Nobel Peace Laureate faces his greatest test
15 September 2020 (Wall Street International)* — Eight months ago a worthy winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Prime minister Abiy Ahmed, returned home to Addis Ababa; home to a country that has seen economic growth between 8 and 11 percent for several years, and where four Ethiopians made their way out of poverty every day; home to a people who have seen child mortality reduced by two thirds since 2000, and where access to clean drinking water has doubled in the same time period; a country reported to be opening up political space by the Nobel laureate.
On 14 September, the US National Hurricane Center issued advisories on five tropical cyclones over the Atlantic basin (Paulette, Rene, Sally, Teddy and Vicky). This ties the record for the most number of tropical cyclones in that basin at one time, last set in September 1971.
UNEP/ Will Baxter
A decade may sound like a long time. But scientists say that these next ten years will count most in the fight to avert climate change and the loss of millions of species. Here are ten actions in the strategy of the UN Decade that can build a #GenerationRestoration.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 