Almost half the population of Niger faces food insecurity, while in Chad two million people face a food shortage. 200,000 children in Niger need treatment for malnutrition. Drought and locusts have eroded the livelihoods of villagers in both Niger and Chad, leaving them unable to pay for food. Women are now foraging in anthills for seeds and gleaning the sides of roads for fallen grain.
A broken arm couldn't keep soccer phenom Didier Drgoba from the pitch in Cote D'Ivoire's opening match against Portugal. His injury also could also not keep him from teaming up with French football legend Zinadine Zidane in this Millennium Development Goals promo for the UN Development program.
The New York Times reminded us today that while the oil spill in the Gulf is an acute shock to Americans, oil spills have become a way of life in the Niger delta. The area has “has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless.” Much of the Niger delta is dead as a result.
In a speech delivered at the 21st Annual Energy Efficiency Forum, held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C, Tim Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, exhorted policy-makers and legislators to tackle the question of clean energy with great urgency. Mr. Wirth's remarks addressed this year's Forum theme, "Energy Efficiency: Innovative Approaches, Proven Solutions." He spoke of the necessity to address the U.S.'s clean energy needs with pragmatism: “my belief is that we have one more chance at this now. And that chance is enormously important,” said Wirth.
A new microbicide study has begun in South Africa, testing a vaginal ring that releases microbicides to protect women from HIV infection. The ring is replaced once a month and requires no special effort on the part of the user or her partner. I heard Zeda Rosenberg, head of the International Partnership for Microbicides, talk about this ring at the Women Deliver conference. This is the 15th product tested by the partnership, and it’s the one that Dr.
I thought folks might be interested in another one of my talk radio day interviews at the UN. I sat down with Moae Doraid, deputy executive director of UNIFEM. We talk about the role of UNIFEM in the constellation of UN programs and agencies advocating for women and about a new effort underway at the UN to bring all of these gender and women-focused agencies under the same management structure.
Ahead of World Refugee Day on June 20th, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) released its 2009 Global Trends report, which reviews statistics concerning "persons of concern" to the UNHCR: refugees, Internally Displaced People (IDPs), returnees, asylum-seekers and stateless persons.
We’re heading into the fifth day of ethnic violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan, and it just keeps getting worse. There are said to be as many as 100,000 ethnic Uzbek refugees fleeing Kyrgyzstan for the Uzbek border. Uzbekistan’s border guards are alternating between helping them cross and sending them back. The city of Osh is in flames in many areas, and the remaining ethnic Uzbeks are starting to use the word genocide to describe their situation. The global media is starting to call this a war.