Category Archives: Global development

‘Fighting for life’: Bangladesh shrimp farmers destitute in wake of cyclone

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Natural disaster compounded by the collapse of a lucrative export during the pandemic has thrust people into poverty

This time last year the west coast of Bangladesh was a thriving place for shrimp farmers. It was a decent enough living and there was a healthy export market.

Majnu Sardar, who lives in Koyra upazila (administrative region) in Khulna district, used to earn enough to feed, clothe and educate his family of six. Now they are living in a small mud hut, with a canopy of leaves as a roof, on the banks of the Kapotaksha River after Cyclone Amphan buried his house and land in May.

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Protests swell in Myanmar one week after military coup

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Water cannon used on demonstrators in the capital as marches take place in cities and towns across the country

Massive crowds of anti-coup protesters have marched in towns and cities across Myanmar on the third day of street demonstrations against a coup a week ago in which the army detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

From the Himalayan town of Putao to cities on the shore of the Andaman Sea, demonstrators came out in the biggest numbers so far since the coup.

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‘It feels like a placebo’: Mexico’s vaccine program sees disastrous launch

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Pace for vaccinations has slowed as government website to register crashes repeatedly and Covid death toll is third highest

Rodolfo spent hour after aggravating hour trying to register his elderly mother for a Covid-19 vaccination through a Mexican government website, only for the system to crash repeatedly.

“I spent three days fighting with the website,” he said. “My mom would have been unable to do it without me.”

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More deaths, worse care? Inquiry opens into NHS maternity ‘systemic racism’

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Childbirth rights group supports examination into disproportionate health outcomes

An urgent inquiry to investigate how alleged systemic racism in the NHS manifests itself in maternity care will be launched on Tuesday with support from the UK charity Birthrights.

The inquiry will apply a human- rights lens to examine how claimed racial injustice – from explicit racism to bias – is leading to poorer health outcomes in maternity care for ethnic minority groups.

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How Covid could be the ‘long overdue’ shake-up needed by the aid sector

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Analysis: as need outstrips funding, experts are making the case for overhauling ‘old-fashioned’ donor-recipient narratives

This year one in every 33 people across the world will need humanitarian assistance. That is a rise of 40% from last year, according to the UN. More than half of the countries requiring aid to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic are already in protracted crises, coping with conflict or natural disasters.

Even before Covid-19 threw decades of progress on extreme poverty, healthcare and education into reverse, aid budgets were heading in the wrong direction. In 2020, the UN had just 48% of its $38.5bn (£28bn) in funding appeals met, compared with 63% of $29bn sought in 2019.

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Four chicken heads a dollar: how one Harare grandmother scratches a living in lockdown

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Staying home means starvation for many Zimbabweans, and those forced to work face police raids and dwindling custom

Pammula Chiunya, 68, is sitting under an open-sided shed outside a makeshift beer hall in Hopley settlement, six miles (10km) west of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. She is not happy.

Chiunya serves roasted chicken heads in a twist of old newspaper to a visibly drunk man, then settles to wait for someone else to emerge from the shebeen, which is crammed with animated revellers dancing to loud music. Customers are elusive, even with her prices: four heads for a dollar.

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‘I have to do this to survive’: a night with Jakarta’s silvermen

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Indonesian men, women and children are risking their health wearing metallic paint to earn money as the economic impact of coronavirus worsens

It was 8pm on one of the busiest intersections in western Jakarta. Three men in metallic paint from head to toe stood on the footpath. Each was holding a silver can.

Alfan, 25, was one. When the light turned red, he walked in silence, barefoot, and stood in front of the stopped traffic. He bowed deeply for a few seconds and then struck a pose like a statue: standing straight, he raised his right hand to his temple and gave a salute in silence for about a minute without blinking.

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African nations fear more Covid deaths before vaccination begins

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Campaigners call for vaccines to be prioritised to frontline health workers and people at highest risk

Communities across Africa are reeling as a second wave of Covid infections recedes, leaving thousands dead amid fears of further surges before mass vaccination campaigns can begin to make a difference.

Few countries in Africa will start immunising even frontline health workers until much later this year, prompting accusations that large orders by wealthy nations are costing the lives of medical staff in poorer parts of the world.

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Class cancelled: how Covid school closures blocked routes out of poverty

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Oxford University project reveals devastating impact on prospects for world’s poorest students, especially girls

In the coffee-farming communities of the Peruvian Amazon, the classroom is a route out of poverty. Gabriela was studying civil engineering in a city an hour and a half from home when the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

The 18-year-old, who is one of thousands of young people tracked since 2002 as part of the Young Lives project led by the University of Oxford, has been forced to postpone her education, in a country where 16% of 19-year-olds have dropped out of education because of the crisis.

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‘Back empty-handed’: Bangladeshis cut off from jobs abroad face rising poverty

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Whole communities supported by overseas work are at risk of extreme poverty after the pandemic forced thousands home

When the pandemic forced Firoza Begum back to Bangladesh after six months trapped in her employer’s house without pay, her husband was so angry she had returned empty-handed that he would not let her move back in to the family home.

All her savings after 14 years working in the Middle East had been spent escaping her abusive employer.

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Myanmar coup: army blocks Facebook access as civil disobedience grows

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Instagram and WhatsApp – owned by Facebook and used to organise protests – also restricted as UN secretary general condemns coup

Myanmar’s army has ordered internet service providers to block access to Facebook as it attempts to stamp out signs of dissent, days after it ousted the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Facebook, one of the most popular means of communication in Myanmar, has been used to coordinate a civil disobedience campaign that saw health workers at dozens of hospitals walk out of their jobs on Wednesday to protest against the army’s actions. It has also been used to share plans for evening protests, where residents have taken to their balconies to bang pots and pans, a symbolic act to drive away evil.

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Canada takes Covid vaccines from Covax scheme despite side deals

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Country has already set up direct deals but is entitled to receive jabs from programme for poorer countries

Canada is set to receive a significant haul of vaccines over the next months through a platform designed to maximise supply to poor countries, according to a new forecast, despite reserving the most doses-per-person in the world through direct deals with pharmaceutical companies.

Chile and New Zealand, which have also made controversial side deals to secure their own vaccine supplies, will also receive above-average numbers of doses, according to the interim allocation schedule released by Covax on Wednesday.

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Colombia’s ex-guerrillas: isolated, abandoned and living in fear

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A tumbledown camp is home to many former Farc rebels four years after peace accords while hundreds more have been killed

Daniela Márquez, 30, bears the scars of Colombia’s long civil war on her body. Until three years ago, she was a medic with what was then South America’s most powerful guerrilla army: the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

Five years ago, while her commanders were suing for peace, an airstrike killed seven of her comrades and hurled pieces of shrapnel into her arms, legs and back.

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Aung San Suu Kyi could face two years in jail over ‘illegal’ walkie-talkies

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Ousted Myanmar leader facing prison as civil disobedience campaign against military coup grows

Myanmar police have charged ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi with possession of illegally imported walkie-talkies, which could result in a two-year prison sentence, as a civil disobedience campaign grew against the military’s coup.

A document from a police station in the capital, Naypyitaw, said military officers who searched Aung San Suu Kyi’s residence had found handheld radios that were imported illegally and used without permission by her bodyguards. The charges, confirmed by members of her party, appear to carry a maximum prison sentence of two years.

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#Demlootchallenge: Zimbabwean activists sing to protest corruption

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Journalist Hopewell Chin’ono’s song denouncing “looting” in Mnangagwa’s regime has inspired a host of follow up versions

Zimbabwean journalist Hopewell Chin’ono has taken his fight against corruption to the ears of thousands around the world via reggae with a new song entitled “Dem Loot”.

The reporter, who has been arrested three times in six months for his work challenging the current government, released a short video on Twitter singing against what he says is an endemic rot in Zimbabwe – and it has sparked a flurry of follow up versions under the hashtag #demlootchallenge.

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Decades of progress on extreme poverty now in reverse due to Covid

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Analysis: The pandemic, combined with the climate crisis and crippling debt burdens, has led to an ‘unprecedented increase’ in poverty, experts warn

Two decades of progress in the reduction of extreme poverty, the elimination of which is one of the sustainable development goals, have been pushed into a sharp reverse by a combination of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the growing climate emergency and increasing debt.

With the World Bank warning of a “truly unprecedented increase” in levels of poverty this year, and renewing calls for debt forgiveness, experts are warning of a growing crisis in multiple areas from education to employment, likely to be felt for years to come.

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‘Savage’ cuts to UK aid put children’s lives at risk, says Gordon Brown

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Former prime minister says chancellor is paying bills for Covid ‘off the backs of the poor’

The former prime minister Gordon Brown has launched a scathing attack on the unprecedented cuts to UK aid, saying they put at risk tens of thousands of children’s lives while millions more face losing an education.

Writing in the Guardian, Brown said the planned cuts of 30% – £5bn – which come into force at the end of next month meant that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was “paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad”.

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Rishi Sunak is paying Covid bills off the backs of the poor. It shames our country | Gordon Brown

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A savage reversal of aid is happening at the very moment people need our help most. MPs must join together to stop it


Nothing shames our country more than Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, paying the bills for Covid off the backs of the poor – at home and abroad.

He has recently been pushed off his plan to cut £20 a week from the already low universal credit paid to 6 million of Britain’s poorest families.

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Myanmar coup: civil disobedience campaign begins amid calls for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release

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National League for Democracy urges military to acknowledge 2020 election result

The party of Aung San Suu Kyi has called for her immediate release and for Myanmar’s 2020 election results to be acknowledged by the military, which took power in a coup on Monday.

The country’s elected leader, who was among dozens of political figures picked up by the army, reportedly remains under house arrest.

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The nights of pots and pans are back, on Myanmar’s fearful streets

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Activists are urging a traditional show of solidarity amid wary anger over the military’s coup

In Myanmar, if you want to drive evil from your home, you bang pots and pans. Yangon’s streets were filled with the din of clashing metal in 2007, when monks called for an end to military rule, and before that, in 1988 when the former president Sein Lwin, or the “butcher of Rangoon”, ordered troops to shoot pro-democracy protesters. On Tuesday night, pots and pans were back again.

Evil has returned, they say; Gen Min Aung Hlaing has led a military coup against the democratically elected government and its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, whose immense popularity within the country helped her National League for Democracy (NLD) win a landslide victory in 2020. The military’s electoral proxy secured fewer than 7% of available seats, leading it, and the military, to claim widespread electoral “fraud” without evidence.

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