Trachoma is the most common infectious cause of blindness in the world. Kenya aims to eliminate the disease in four years, helped by teams who traverse desert and bushland to reach scattered communities
Continue reading...Category Archives: Global development
‘Yellow bindis’ mean high-risk: India’s new health map for women and children
Pioneering Rajasthan initiative helps health workers reach families in greatest need first, increasing identification of malnutrition and issues in pregnancy
It’s 10am and time for the first home visit of the day. After consulting a colour-coded map on the wall of the village centre, the three female health workers make their way through the winding lanes of a remote village in Jhalawar district, Rajasthan, where the rice has been harvested and garlic is being planted, to the home of Nirmala.
The yellow bindi (dot) on the map indicates that Nirmala and her children are highly likely to become malnourished without the proper care, which means the family is a priority for health services.
Continue reading...Ethiopia detains 13 Canadians accused of improperly practising medicine
Canadian Humanitarian members deny distributing expired medication or acting without approval
Authorities in Ethiopia have detained 13 Canadian healthcare workers and volunteers, alleging the group were improperly practising medicine in the country.
Canadian Humanitarian, a non-profit organisation based in the province of Alberta, confirmed the detentions but denied allegations it had distributed expired medication or was offering medical services without prior approval.
Continue reading...Anti-slavery tsar calls for councils to take on child trafficking cases
Expert calls for Home Office to lose powers but councils say they are struggling to cope
The UK’s independent anti-slavery commissioner has called for decision-making on child trafficking cases to be taken away from the Home Office.
Sara Thornton told the Independent that local authorities should take over the powers because they are better placed to provide subsequent support for the child.
Continue reading...Faulty condoms leave charity facing court case in Uganda
Two men sue over alleged HIV and gonorrhoea infections that they claim were caused by defective contraceptives
Two Ugandan men have taken court action against an international charity for distributing faulty condoms which, they claim, led to one of them contracting HIV and the other gonorrhoea.
In a lawsuit, Joseph Kintu and Sulaiman Balinya say they bought Life Guard condoms from stores supplied by the Marie Stopes organisation in Uganda in October last year.
Continue reading...Trafficked children among 230 people rescued in Niger raid
Police discover trafficked minors coerced into exploitative work and men from Ghana who were recruited online and enslaved
Children as young as 10 were among more than 230 people rescued last month during a series of raids combating trafficking and forced labour in Niger.
Operation Sarraounia uncovered 46 children who had been sexually abused or forced to beg and hundreds of Ghanaian men who had been recruited online and then enslaved in the capital, Niamey, said Interpol, which provided assistance.
Continue reading...Zimbabwe’s president appeals for help to end country’s ‘financial isolation’
Emmerson Mnangagwa makes passionate plea for support as he targets upper middle-income status by 2030
The president of Zimbabwe has appealed for help in pulling his debt-ridden country out of “financial isolation”.
Emmerson Mnangagwa made his passionate call for international funding after he failed to secure new loans from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, African Development Bank and the Paris Club due to outstanding foreign debts of $8bn (£6.2bn).
Continue reading...Malawi legalises cannabis amid hopes of fresh economic growth
Law change hailed by supporters as chance for country to benefit from rising global demand for medicinal cannabis products
Malawi has passed a bill decriminalising cannabis for medicinal and industrial purposes, almost five years after a motion to legalise industrial hemp was adopted.
The country follows in the footsteps of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Lesotho, neighbouring south-east African states that have legalised medicinal cannabis, as well as South Africa, where medicinal and recreational use was decriminalised in 2018.
“Today is a very glorious day for me personally and, I think, for the entire nation,” said Boniface Kadzamira, the former MP who tabled the topic in 2015, following the successful passage of the bill on Thursday.
The economic potential of the fast-growing global medicinal and industrial cannabis industry has been the main driver of the law change in Malawi. In 2019, the World Bank said Malawi “remains one of the poorest countries in the world despite making significant economic and structural reforms to sustain economic growth”. The national poverty rate was more than 50% in 2016.
While Malawi is famous internationally for its recreational cannabis strain “Malawi Gold”, the bill to legalise medicinal and industrial production faced huge opposition from social and religious conservatives in the country.
“It is my strong view that cannabis will in the long run replace tobacco to become our major cash crop – that will contribute hugely to the GDP,” said Kadzamira, who explained that the industry will create employment opportunities in the farming and industrial sectors.
Agriculture offers employment to nearly 80% of Malawi’s population. Tobacco is the country’s major export, and the global decline in its use has impacted the economy. Malawi’s tobacco industry is also marred by exploitation, as international companies such as British American Tobacco have sought cheap labour – including child labour – and low tariffs on raw tobacco for export.
World Bank’s $500m pandemic scheme accused of ‘waiting for people to die’
Bonds designed to provide fast funding for poor countries branded ‘obscene’ because of complex payout criteria
A flagship $500m World Bank scheme to help the poorest countries deal with a health emergency is “too little too late” for the coronavirus outbreak, say health experts.
The first pandemic emergency financing (PEF) bonds were launched in 2017 by Jim Yong Kim, the bank’s president at the time, after the Ebola outbreak in west Africa. Designed to potentially “save millions of lives and entire economies” by speedily funnelling money to nations facing pandemics.
Continue reading...Amazon people turn to water tanks after environmental disaster
Scheme provides clean water and helps foster trust between indigenous groups
Romelia Mendúa was handing out plantain drinks served in aluminium bowls. Guests were seated in a hammock and on the bare wooden floor. Beyond the window was the lush vegetation of Ecuador’s north-eastern Amazon.
Chocula, as the drink is called, is made by mashing plantains into water, and is a common refreshment in the Amazon. But the water in Mendúa’s chocula was no ordinary water. It came through a tap in her kitchen connected to two tanks outside collecting and filtering rainfall.
Continue reading...‘He just wanted dignity’: the tragedy that captured the mood of a nation
The death of a struggling street vendor whose stock was confiscated by officials has sent shock waves through Jordan and sparked comparisons with the origins of the Arab spring
Anas al-Jamra carried more burdens than he could bear. As the eldest of 16 children, the fruit and vegetable vendor was the main provider for his parents, brothers and sisters, in addition to his own four young children.
But continuously harassed by police and city officials, who confiscated his stock, the 28-year-old began accumulating debt.
Continue reading...George Clooney ‘saddened’ by alleged child labour on Nespresso coffee farms
Brand ambassador pledges ‘work will be done’ after children are filmed toiling on Guatemalan farms believed to supply company
George Clooney has said he is “surprised and saddened” by the alleged discovery of child labour on farms used by coffee giant Nespresso, the brand for which he has long served as ambassador.
The Oscar-winning actor and director, who during school holidays worked on his own family’s tobacco farm in Kentucky, vowed that “work will be done” to improve conditions after a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, due to air next week, filmed children picking coffee beans and hauling sacks on six Guatemalan farms believed to supply Nespresso.
Continue reading...Set them free! The judge who liberates Nigerians forgotten in jail
Ishaq Usman Bello is shaking the conscience of the courts – and nearly 4,000 wrongly detained prisoners are grateful for it
In a crowded prison courtyard in Suleja, Nigeria, a judge flipped through a battered folder detailing the case against a young woman who stood quietly before him in a faded pink dress.
She was charged with “issuing a dud cheque”, a crime that carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. But she’d already spent three years in prison awaiting the outcome of her trial.
Continue reading...Uganda’s ‘locust commander’ leads the battle against a new enemy
The army has been called in to eliminate the insects swarming across Africa, but their mission is dangerous and unending
- Photographs by Edward Echwalu for the Guardian
Sitting at a plastic table in the garden of Timisha hotel in Soroti, eastern Uganda, Major General Samuel Kavuma takes a drag of his cigarette and looks down at his phone, which has barely stopped ringing for the past hour.
A military figure for nearly 40 years, Kavuma fought the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgent group. Now, he’s become the “locust commander”, the man leading the fight against the country’s worst locust outbreak in decades.
Continue reading...Coronavirus in a war zone: Afghanistan braces for outbreak after first case
Lone Kabul laboratory preparing to treat patients in the midst of political turmoil and tentative peace talks, as border with Iran closed
Preparations for an outbreak of coronavirus were underway in Afghanistan as the country confirmed its first case in the western province of Herat, which borders Iran.
Seven more suspected cases have been identified in Herat, and three cases in the nearby provinces of Farah and Ghor.
Continue reading...‘No justice’ for Tanzanian journalist freed after seven months in jail
Erick Kabendera, a known critic of the government, faces steep fine after pleading guilty to tax evasion charges in case widely seen as part of President Magufuli’s media crackdown
An investigative journalist known for holding the Tanzanian government to account has been released from prison after pleading guilty to charges widely discredited as politically motivated.
Erick Kabendera, who has written for the Guardian and various other publications, was arrested by plainclothes police officers in July last year. This week he has been ordered to pay 275m Tanzanian shillings (£92,180) on charges of tax evasion and money laundering.
Continue reading...Conversations from Calais: the posters sharing migrant voices with the world
A poster project aims to re-humanise those affected by the refugee crisis by sharing conversations between migrants and volunteers
All photographs courtesy of Conversations from Calais
Continue reading...The contraceptive helping refugee women plan their families
Instead of becoming ‘factories for babies’, women who’ve fled South Sudan to Uganda are trying new options for managing their reproductive health
Christine Lamwaka and her husband gathered their six children and fled. It was April 2017 and their town in South Sudan had just been attacked. They walked for two days from Eastern Equatoria before crossing the border into Uganda.
“It was hard to flee with the young children. We struggled to run. I thought we couldn’t make it alive,” says Lamwaka, who was 22 at the time of the attack.
Continue reading...Against the grain: why millet is making a comeback in rural India
Nagaland farmers are bringing back the ancient crop – said to have near-miraculous powers – as a less water-intensive alternative to rice
- Photographs courtesy of NEN Nagaland
Whülü Thurr is a staunch believer in ancient farming traditions. “There is an old adage,” she says, “which goes ‘even a single stalk of millet can revive a dying man’.”
The 65-year-old farmer, from New Phor village in Nagaland state, north-east India, is a devotee of the ancient grain millet, and is well versed in its nutritional benefit. She is one of the few farmers here who has stayed with the traditional crop over the decades. Many other farmers in Nagaland, the majority of whom are women, have stopped growing it due to a lack of demand.
Continue reading...Coronavirus: South Korea to test 200,000 sect members as pandemic fears hit markets
Nation brings in ‘maximum measures’ to contain outbreak at secretive church
South Korea has stepped up its “maximum measures” to contain the coronavirus with plans to test around 200,000 members of a secretive church believed to be at the centre of the country’s outbreak.
Along with an emergency budget and a crackdown on the hoarding of face masks, the government in Seoul will test members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus after its founder agreed to provide authorities with the names of all its members in the country.
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