'Unseen' News and Views
– When the United Nations was dominated by men, holding some of the highest positions in the staff hierarchy, women staffers were overwhelmingly administrative secretaries seen pounding on their Remington typewriters seated outside their bosses’ enclosed offices.
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While women have come a long way since the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action nearly 25 years ago, they still lag behind on virtually every Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Credit: UN Women, India
Members of the Kayapos ethnic group block the B3-163 highway as a protest against the scarce health resources assigned to them, against the Ferrogrão railroad, in Novo Progresso, Pará. August, 2020. | Photo: EFE
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.
The Guardians of the Forest, a group of indigenous Guajajara in the Brazilian state of Maranhão, struggle to defend their land from invaders and to guarantee their survival in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
16 September 2020 (openDemocracy)* — If we ask Olimpio Santos Guajajara when the Guardians of the Forest were founded, his answer would be very simple: in 1500, the year the Portuguese landed in Brazil with an armada under the command of Pedro Álvares Cabral.
– Concern about food loss and waste has become an increasingly important focus of attention when discussing ways to eliminate hunger which, according to the latest FAO report, already exceeds 690 million people.
Controlling the loss and waste of food is a crucial factor in reaching the goal of eradicating hunger in the world. Credit: FAO
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.
More than five years of war have “devastated the lives of tens of millions of Yemenis”, with experts estimating that up to one million may have been affected by COVID-19, the UN chief told the General Assembly on Thursday [17 September 2020]. *
UN Secretary-General António Guterres informed a High-level Ministerial meeting, that there were more than 2,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Yemen, and with war having “decimated the country’s health facilities”, the need for a negotiated political settlement to end the conflict is more urgent than ever.
(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.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 