Category Archives: Global development

Lesotho activist arrested after video on unemployment rates angers prime minister

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Tšolo Thakeli had long campaigned on youth joblessness, but a post questioning Sam Maketane’s promises on work creation landed him in prison

It took a single video complaining about Lesotho’s unemployment rate to turn Tšolo Thakeli into the prime minister’s enemy. Within a day of posting there were armed police at his door.

It was Father’s Day, and the 31-year-old father of two was in his pyjamas when they arrived. He had no idea his post would land him in trouble; after all, he had campaigned for a long time, under different governments, for action on jobs for young people.

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Rising poverty in conflict zones ‘causes a billion people to go hungry’

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In first assessment since pandemic in 2020, World Bank urges other countries to step up support

Extreme poverty is accelerating in 39 countries affected by war and conflict, leaving more than a billion people to go hungry, according to the World Bank.

Civil wars and confrontations between nations, mostly in Africa, have set back economic growth and reduced the incomes of more than a billion people, “driving up extreme poverty faster than anywhere else”, the Washington-based body said.

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Scientists criticise cut in UK funding for global vaccination group

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Five-year £1.25bn pledge to Gavi is 40% cut in real terms, which experts say will cost lives in developing countries

The UK has cut its funding to a leading global vaccination group by a quarter, a move that experts say will directly lead to the avoidable deaths of many thousands of children in developing countries.

The Foreign Office billed the £1.25bn commitment over five years to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi) as a major boost to the group’s work as well as to the UK’s status as a developer of vaccines. A series of aid agencies praised the decision.

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£5bn UK overseas aid cuts cannot be challenged in court, say government lawyers

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Claim comes in legal exchange with advocacy group ahead of judicial review of decision to slash support to 0.3% of gross national income

Cuts of £5bn to the UK overseas aid budget cannot be challenged in the courts, government lawyers have said, even though ministers have no plan to return spending to the legal commitment of 0.7 % of UK gross national income (GNI).

The assertion by Treasury solicitors that ministers are immune from legal challenge over aid cuts comes in preliminary exchanges with the aid advocacy group One Campaign. It is the first step in what could prove a highly embarrassing judicial review.

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Ordinary Zambians lose out twice: to global looting and local corruption | Letters

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Emmanuel Mwamba and Fiona Mulaisho respond to an editorial on US aid cuts to Zambia and huge sums taken out of the country by multinationals

Your editorial (The Guardian view on Zambia’s Trumpian predicament: US aid cuts are dwarfed by a far bigger heist, 10 January) highlights research by Prof Andrew Fischer, and the exploitation of Zambia’s commodity resources via illicit financial schemes. Many Zambians have raised the issue of this looting for years, but have met coordinated resistance. Consequently, Zambia’s treasury loses billions of dollars in revenue. These losses are driven by well-known multinationals working in concert with certain insiders close to the Zambian state.

Your editorial also says: “The US decision to cut $50m a year in aid to Zambia … is dreadful, and the reason given, corruption, rings hollow.” Alas, I disagree and wish to place this in context.

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India illegally deporting Muslim citizens at gunpoint to Bangladesh, say rights groups

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There are fears the crackdown against ‘outsiders’ is driving widespread persecution as expelled Indians are returned by Bangladesh border guards

The Indian government has been accused of illegally deporting Indian Muslims to Bangladesh, prompting fears of an escalating campaign of persecution.

Thousands of people, largely Muslims suspected of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, have been rounded up by police across India in recent weeks, according to human rights groups, with many of them deprived of due legal process and sent over the border to neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

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Send in armed UN troops to protect aid convoys or risk ‘dystopia’, says expert

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UN rapporteur calls for move as food deliveries are attacked and starvation becomes a weapon of war in Gaza and Sudan

UN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.

With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations.

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Toll of Trump’s USAID cuts on Australian aid revealed, with projects to help children among hardest hit

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International development council describes consequences as ‘dire’ as 120 Australian projects affected by loss of more than $400m

The Trump administration’s gutting of foreign aid has seen a $400m hit to Australian projects, with 120 projects affected, at least 20 offices closed and people left without crucial support for health, education, humanitarian and climate change issues, the Australian Council for International Development (Acfid) has found.

Acfid has surveyed its members and their partners, who deliver projects on the ground, on the impact of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) cuts, which took effect when the president, Donald Trump, froze funding for 90 days from 20 January.

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‘Multiple casualties’ reported after attack on UN aid convoy in Darfur

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Trucks carrying food for 2m people in famine-threatened El Fasher targeted in RSF-controlled Al Koma, western Sudan

A UN aid convoy carrying critical food supplies to a famine-threatened city in western Sudan has been targeted in an attack that killed five people and injured several others.

Trucks belonging to the UN’s food and children’s agencies were struck as they headed towards El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, which has been besieged by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) for more than a year.

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Women and girls ‘not safe anywhere’ as Darfur suffers surge in sexual violence

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Médecins Sans Frontières report sparks calls for Sudan’s warring parties to be held to account for rapes and attacks

As Sudan’s Darfur region has been overrun by militias, women are facing the constant threat of sexual violence, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reported.

The medical charity said in the South Darfur region alone its workers treated 659 sexual violence survivors between January and March this year, more than two-thirds of whom had been raped.

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Gaza is ‘hungriest place on Earth’ with all its people at risk of famine, says UN

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Mission to deliver help is ‘one of most obstructed aid operations in recent history’, humanitarian agency says

Gaza is “the hungriest place on Earth”, according to the UN, which has warned that the Palestinian territory’s entire population is at risk of famine.

Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the territory was “the only defined area – a country or defined territory within a country – where you have the entire population at risk of famine. One hundred per cent of the population at risk of famine,” he said on Friday.

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Sidi Ould Tah named African Development Bank president

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Mauritanian economist who led Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa will succeed Akinwunmi Adesina

The African Development Bank has chosen the Mauritanian economist Sidi Ould Tah as its president-elect after three rounds of voting on Thursday afternoon.

The election took place in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, at the end of the annual meeting of the continent’s biggest multilateral lender.

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Uganda accused of ‘state bigotry’ and attacks on LGBTQ+ people

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Report from Human Rights Watch criticises Museveni regime for arbitrary arrests and detentions, violence and extortion since draconian new law enacted

The Ugandan authorities have “unleashed abuse”, perpetrating widespread discrimination and violence against LGBTQ+ people in the two years since the world’s harshest anti-gay laws were enacted, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The government’s policies in Uganda had encouraged attacks and harassment against people and organisations seen as being supportive of gay rights, said researchers from the rights group.

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Malawi battles mpox as cases of the infectious disease surge in Africa

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Medicine shortages plus limited testing and hospital capacity exacerbated by withdrawal of USAID as outbreak gathers pace across countries in the region

Malawi’s ministry of health has announced three new cases of mpox in the capital, Lilongwe, bringing the number of confirmed cases to 11 since the country’s first was reported in April.

Malawi is one of 16 countries in Africa reporting mpox outbreaks as health officials battle with vaccine shortages as well as limited testing and hospital capacity.

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Case of mother who died during forced sterilisation in Peru to be heard in court

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Celia Ramos was one of thousands of women subjected to government’s brutal policy in the 1990s. A ruling by the inter-American court of human rights could open way for reparations

The case of a forced sterilisation carried out in Peru in the 1990s will be heard by an international court on Thursday, 28 years after the procedure – one of many thousands – resulted in a woman’s death.

Celia Ramos was 34 when she died in 1997, 19 days after surgery for a tubal ligation caused respiratory failure. The mother of three was “harassed” into accepting the procedure, which was part of a nationwide family planning programme.

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Palestinian paracyclist who lost leg in 2014 airstrike killed in Gaza

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Israeli strike on Khan Younis kills Ahmed al-Dali, 33, a father of four and member of Gaza Sunbirds cycling team

A Palestinian cyclist who lost his leg in an Israeli airstrike more than a decade ago was killed by another missile attack this week, after spending his life trying to defy his disability.

Ahmed al-Dali, 33, was a member of the Gaza Sunbirds, a paracycling team formed in 2020. He was also a keen para-footballer.

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Ten dead in ‘brutal’ attacks by Isis-linked militants on Mozambique wildlife reserve

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Thousands have been displaced and conservation work halted as series of killings jeopardises decades of work in Niassa, one of Africa’s biggest protected areas

One of Africa’s largest protected areas has been shaken by a series of attacks by Islamic State-linked extremists, which have left at least 10 people dead.

Conservationists in Niassa reserve, Mozambique, say decades of work to rebuild populations of lions, elephants and other keystone species are being jeopardised, as conservation operations grind to a halt.

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Almost 300m people at risk of death through starvation – report

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Aid cuts, conflict, climate and economic shocks contribute to sixth consecutive rise in numbers facing ‘high levels of food insecurity’

Acute food insecurity continues to rise at an alarming rate, with almost 300 million people at risk of death through starvation, new analysis reveals.

Escalating conflict and cuts to humanitarian aid along with climate and economic shocks forced an additional 13.7 million people into chronic food insecurity last year.

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Pressure grows on Fifa as reports warn of serious risk to workers amid Saudi World Cup building boom

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Two reports published today catalogue ‘gruesome yet avoidable accidents’ on construction sites despite the Gulf kingdom’s claims that work-related deaths have fallen

Thousands of migrant workers are likely to die in Saudi Arabia as a result of a building boom fuelled by the 2034 Men’s World Cup and other major construction projects, human rights groups have warned.

The Gulf kingdom has seen a surge in demand for cheap migrant labour, with a significant increase in foreign workers since 2021, as it starts preparations for hosting the World Cup and drives forward projects including the futurist megacity Neom.

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Trump’s aid cuts blamed as food rations stopped for a million refugees in Uganda

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UN World Food Programme says $50m is urgently needed amid fears that Uganda may now begin forced repatriations

Food rations for a million people in Uganda have been cut off completely this week amid a funding crisis at the United Nations World Food Programme, raising fears that refugees will now be pushed back into countries at war.

The WFP in Uganda warned two weeks ago that $50m (£37m) was urgently needed to help refugees and asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Sudan.

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