Elwyn Grainger-Jones is the Executive Director of the CGIAR System Organization.

MONTPELLIER, France, Jul 22 2020 (IPS) – The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the structural weaknesses of today’s food systems, showing how quickly global networks of food production, trade and supply under the impact of a single disease.

By compromising access to safe, nutritious food through enforced restrictions on distribution and labour resulting in shortages and price rises, the coronavirus outbreak has shaken the foundations of global wellbeing, with repercussions for health, livelihoods, and equality.

Elwyn Grainger-Jones

But while such an interconnected system,…

Credit: Barinedum AGARA/IOM Lagos

LAGOS, Aug 26 2020 (IPS) – ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is a common and seemingly harmless saying. But what happens when commonly eaten foods like pepper, garlic and ginger are wrongfully said to prevent COVID-19? What can we do to fight harmful misinformation?

During the first two weeks of the lockdown in Lagos, Nigeria, a lot of people were afraid of contracting the virus. They wore gloves, face masks and practised physical distancing as instructed by the World Health Organization (WHO).

For some, the conspiracy theories being peddled on social media and among neighbourhood discussions are the reasons for th…

BANGKOK, Thailand, Oct 20 2020 (IPS) – In the fight against COVID-19, success has so far been defined by responses in Asia and the Pacific. Many countries in our region have been hailed as reference points in containing the virus. Yet if the region is to build back better, the success of immediate responses should not distract from the weaknesses COVID-19 has laid bare. Too many people in our region are left to fend for themselves in times of need. This pandemic was no exception. Comprehensive social protection systems could right this wrong. Building these systems must be central to our long-term recovery strategy.

Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

Illness or u…

Credit: Whitehouse.Gov

OXFORD, Dec 1 2020 (IPS) – Covid-19 is on track to be the deadliest and one of the most catastrophic epidemics since the 1918-1919 flu pandemic, which infected about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population at the time. The number of deaths was estimated somewhere between 17 and 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million worldwide.

The first observations of illness and mortality were documented in December 1917 at Camp Greene, North Carolina. To maintain morale, World War I censors minimized reports of casualties, .

The Covid-19 pandemic will also have widespread and long-lasting political, economic, and social …

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jan 12 2021 (IPS) – The incoming Biden administration is under tremendous pressure to demonstrate better US economic management. Trade negotiations normally take years to conclude, if at all. Unsurprisingly, lobbyists are already urging the next US administration to quickly embrace and deliver a new version of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Trump legacy
Repackaging and reselling a TPP avatar will not be easy. Well before Trump’s election, even the official mid-2016 doubted Peterson Institute of International Economics (PIIE) of significant for all.

Unsurprisingly, most major US presidential – even Hillary…

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 23 2021 (IPS) – The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is adversely impacting most developing countries disproportionately, especially the United Nations’ least developed countries (LDCs) and the World Bank’s low-income countries (LICs).

Years of implementing neoliberal policy conditionalities and advice have made most developing countries much more vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic by undermining their health systems and fiscal capacities to respond adequately.

Anis Chowdhury

Less taxes
Four decades of ‘neoliberal’ policy influence has resulted in a ‘’ to cut direct taxes, particularly , ostensibly to promote investmen…

At a critical juncture on the road to the UN Food Systems Summit, three UN rights experts warn that it will fail to be a ‘people’s summit’ unless it is urgently rethought.

NEW YORK, Mar 22 2021 (IPS) – Global food systems have been failing most people for a long time, and the COVID-19 pandemic has made a critical situation even worse. 265 million people are threatened by famine, up 50% on last year; 700 million suffer from chronic hunger; and 2 billion more from malnutrition, with obesity and associated diet-related diseases increasing in all world regions.

Michael Fakhri

Everyone agrees that we need urgent solutions and action. The convening of this year’s UN F…

Credit: Twitter @Dr_Aqsa_Shaikh

NEW DELHI, India, May 7 2021 (IPS) – When Dr Aqsa Sheikh Tweeted and asked if she was the only transgender person to head a vaccination centre, it seemed extraordinary that in a country with 1.3 billion people, that this could be true.

“Can I lay claim to be the only #Transgender person to head a #Covid #Vaccination Centre in India? Will be very happy to have company of other Trans Folks in this spot,” she wrote on March 3, 2021.

India had turned countless hospitals into COVID-19 vaccination centres – and Sheikh was, and still is, the only transwoman heading one.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Dr Aqsa Sheikh is a p…

ROME, Jun 14 2021 (IPS) – Italy, as other countries, has been struggling to balance the health and economic challenges posed by COVID-19. Controlling the spread of the virus implied restrictions on economic activity, on school and college attendance, and on personal movement. It also had to deal with the economic and social implications of a fall of almost 10% in GDP. This has been hard for a country which, even before the pandemic, was one of the slowest growing economies in Europe, with unemployment, especially among young people in the South of the country, at alarming levels.

Daud Khan

So far the Government main response to the economic crisis has been to try to spend it…

LETHBRIDGE, Canada, Jul 29 2021 (IPS) – From an international humanitarian perspective, the first half of 2021 has been disappointing. We’re no further ahead in ending the conflict in Syria and Yemen. From the fledgling democracy that it had become, Myanmar has descended into what most of its people had hoped was a bygone era of military rule. And in Ethiopia, where its Prime Minister, Ably Ahmed, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, armed conflict in Tigray is preventing the 2020 winners of the very same prize, the World Food Programme, from delivering the food needed to stop at least 350,000 Ethiopians from starving to death.

Trevor Page

These are not the only co…