Category Archives: Global development

The Activist: reality TV show to be ‘reimagined’ as documentary after backlash

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CBS says it will drop X-Factor-style competition from celebrity-fronted show after widespread criticism

A reality TV show that planned to pit activists against each other in an X-Factor style contest judged by celebrities is to be drastically “reimagined” after it sparked a backlash from campaigners.

The Activist, which had been due to air in the US in late October, prompted incredulity among many campaigners and elsewhere when its format was revealed last week, with many labelling it a “tone-deaf” distortion of true activists’ values.

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‘He saw the panic’: the Afghan men who fell from the US jet

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One was a young footballer, another a dentist. Their shocking deaths haunt the families who could not stop their desperate bids to escape

When Zaki Anwari scaled the fence of Kabul airport, he was determined to escape. The 17-year-old footballer with the Afghan national youth team had taken a break from studying maths for his exams to accompany his brother as he tried to catch a flight. Zaki had always told his family he was not interested in going abroad, unless he could return to Afghanistan.

But the Taliban takeover had changed things. Zaki did not have a passport but, as night fell on Kabul after the Taliban took control of the city, he told his brother Zakir that he wanted to leave. Zakir did his best to talk him out of it, but he would not let go of the idea.

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UK aid cuts make it vital to address anti-black bias in funding | Kennedy Odede

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Covid-19 has shown the effectiveness of local partners. If the sector is to respond and rebuild, it must redistribute power

The UK’s cut to its aid budget comes to about £4bn a year. Such a dramatic reduction is a blow to many, but most of all to the local organisations who perpetually find themselves last in line for funding.

New research by the Vodafone Foundation reveals that, too often, only a small proportion of philanthropic funding earmarked for African development reaches local, African-led civil society organisations. Instead, most development funding favours intermediaries in the global north and international organisations.

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The Activist: ‘tone-deaf’ new TV show has activists compete to lobby G20 leaders

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CBS programme has caused a social media storm for its crass choice of format and ill-qualified judges

Producers have billed it as an exciting new twist on reality television: an X-Factor style competition between campaigners that will give them the chance to lobby world leaders at the G20.

But The Activist, a show announced last week by the American network CBS, has already learned to its cost that people power can be unpredictable, ruthless and highly effective.

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Drought puts 2.1 million Kenyans at risk of starvation

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National disaster declared as crops fail after poor rains and locusts, while ethnic conflicts add to crisis

An estimated 2.1 million Kenyans face starvation due to a drought in half the country, which is affecting harvests.

The National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) said people living in 23 counties across the arid north, northeastern and coastal parts of the country will be in “urgent need” of food aid over the next six months, after poor rains between March and May this year.

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#DoNotTouchMyClothes: Afghan women’s social media protest against Taliban

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Women around the world are sharing pictures of themselves in traditional colourful clothes in a campaign against the new strict dress code for female students

After street demonstrations across major cities in Afghanistan, women have now taken to social media to protest against the Taliban’s hardline policies towards them.

An online campaign has seen Afghan women around the world share photos of themselves wearing traditional colourful clothes, using the hashtag #DoNotTouchMyClothes.

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Yemen at war: conflict, chaos and rare joy – in pictures

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Over the past four years, photographer Giles Clarke has reported from Yemen for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), documenting the tragedy of a country devastated by war but also the resilience of its people. The photojournalism festival Visa pour l’image is featuring his work at an exhibition in Perpignan, France

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Taliban’s return ‘a catastrophe’ for journalism in Afghanistan

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Head of International Federation of Journalists says ‘future is black’ for 1,300 journalists still in country

Journalism in Afghanistan is in danger of disappearing, according to the head of the International Federation of Journalists, who said that reporters trying to continue working under the Taliban have been subjected to beatings and imprisonment.

“The Taliban don’t want to make too many waves right now, but they will want to take control of everything, including the foreign press in Afghanistan,” Anthony Bellanger, the IFJ secretary general, told the Guardian. “And as often happens in such situations, foreign journalists will be considered agents of foreign governments.

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‘Every man was drinking’: how much do bans on alcohol help women in India?

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Women’s protests led to prohibition in Bihar but can alcohol bans end domestic abuse and harassment?

Holding sticks and brooms, the women marched to the liquor shop in the centre of Konar village. It was a rare ambush in the staunchly patriarchal Bihar state in eastern India. But they were at breaking point.

“In every village women were troubled by alcohol. Men harassed them on the streets. Husbands beat them at home,” says Sunita Devi, 52, a former seamstress who led the crowd. “When they saw us they gained courage that we can come together and fight.”

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The battle for Mekelle: Ethiopia’s civil war over Tigray goes on – in pictures

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An estimated 2.2 million people have been forced from their homes and thousands have been killed in the civil war that broke out in Ethiopia last November when government troops entered Mekelle, capital of the Tigray region. Witnessed by photographer Sergio Ramazzotti, the city was retaken by the Tigray Defence Forces in June, but peace in the region seems a long way off

  • All photographs by Sergio Ramazzotti/Parallelozero

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‘A very cruel exit’: UK’s aid cuts risk rapid return of treatable diseases

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£200m project to eliminate avoidable blindness and disfigurement in Africa ends after funding is prematurely axed

A chandelier sparkling in the background, the grandeur of Downing Street gleaming behind him, Boris Johnson looks into the camera and speaks with solemnity. He is marking World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day, he says, to raise awareness of these “terrible afflictions … which impose an immense burden of suffering in developing countries”.

Huge progress has been made, he says, in the fight against the diseases, not least as a result of British aid to some of the poorest parts of the world. But there is more – much more – to be done: more than a billion people are still at risk, he warns, and that is why the UK “fully supports” the World Health Organization’s big elimination push over the next decade.

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The Taliban are not the only threat to Afghanistan. Aid cuts could undo 20 years of progress

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The most vulnerable people will bear the cost of sanctions, as services and the economy collapse

Watching Afghanistan’s unfolding trauma, I’ve thought a lot about Mumtaz Ahmed, a young teacher I met a few years ago. Her family fled Kabul during Taliban rule in the late 1990s.

Raised as a refugee in Pakistan, Ahmed had defied the odds and made it to university. Now, she was back in Afghanistan teaching maths in a rural girls’ school. “I came back because I believe in education and I love my country,” she told me. “These girls have a right to learn – without education, Afghanistan has no future.”

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The disappeared in Mexico, Afghan female footballers and a giant puppet: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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A roundup of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms from Thailand to Texas

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Criticism of animal farming in the west risks health of world’s poorest | Emma Naluyima Mugerwa and Lora Iannotti

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In the developing world most people are not factory farming and livestock is essential to preventing poverty and malnutrition

The pandemic has pushed poverty and malnutrition to rates not seen in more than a decade, wiping out years of progress. In 2020, the number of people in extreme poverty rose by 97 million and the number of malnourished people by between 118 million and 161 million.

Recent data from the World Bank and the UN shows how poverty is heavily concentrated in rural communities in Africa, Asia and Latin America where people are surviving by smallholder farming. This autumn there will be two key events that could rally support for them.

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‘Tomorrow they will kill me’: Afghan female police officers live in fear of Taliban reprisals

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With at least four women, including a pregnant mother, targeted and killed by Taliban fighters, female ex-officers feel abandoned by the world

Negar Masumi, a female police officer with 15 years of experience, was determined not to flee when the Taliban took control of her home province of Ghor in central Afghanistan.

On Saturday night, gunmen, who called themselves Taliban mujahideen, stormed Negar’s home. They took her husband and four of her sons into another room and tied them up. Then they beat Negar with their guns and shot her dead, according to a family member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

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‘£3k just to hold the bed’: Exorbitant Covid care costs push Indians into poverty

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A struggling healthcare system and inflated prices mean hospital treatment can result in a lifetime of debt for many

Anil Goel remembers the night in May when he received a call from his desperate nephew asking for money for his Covid treatment. The nephew had been admitted to a private hospital with his wife and four other family members with Covid complications but had used up all of his savings.

“I was shocked by the request as this was a young man who was doing well in life otherwise. But the high hospital bills and the black marketing just exhausted all of his savings within days. After all, six family members were on life support,” said Goel.

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Pfizer accused of holding Brazil ‘to ransom’ over vaccine contract demands

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Leaked supply document reveals clauses to protect US pharma company from legal action in the event of serious side-effects

Pfizer has been accused of holding Brazil “to ransom” over demands to shield itself from possible vaccine side-effect lawsuits in its contract to supply the country with 100m Covid jabs.

In its $1bn (£700m) deal with Pfizer Export BV, signed in March, despite its prior complaints, the Brazilian government agreed that “a liability waiver be signed for any possible side-effects of the vaccine, exempting Pfizer from any civil liability for serious side-effects arising from the use of the vaccine, indefinitely”.

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Afghans at risk of near-universal poverty, UN report warns

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Study suggests a worst-case scenario where 97% of Afghans would sink below poverty line by 2022

Afghanistan’s population of 38 million people risks being plunged into near-universal poverty faced with a “catastrophic deterioration” of the country’s heavily aid-dependent economy, according to a warning issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The study, which examines a series of scenarios facing the already impoverished country under the Taliban’s new hardline rule, suggests a worst-case scenario where as many as 97% of Afghans would sink below the poverty line by next year – a staggering increase of 25%.

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‘Chaotic’ UK response criticised as Afghan babies wait for milk and donations turned away

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Volunteers ‘operating blind’ about refugees’ needs, while hotels left with no staff to distribute aid

The government’s response towards families evacuated from Afghanistan to Britain has been “chaotic and uncoordinated”, hampering volunteers’ efforts to help, charities have said.

One hotel where 50 babies were in quarantine with their families after fleeing the Taliban had no formula milk, they said. In other hotels, supplies of clothes, toiletries and nappies donated by the public were turned away by managers who had no staff to distribute them.

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Mexico activists celebrate abortion ruling as a sign of culture change

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Justices decision to decriminalise abortion was based on human rights arguments and will mean fewer criminal investigations

Activists in Mexico have hailed a supreme court decision to decriminalise abortion, saying it would stop the legal prosecution of women who terminate their pregnancies – and those reported to the authorities after suffering miscarriages.

The decision, handed down unanimously on Tuesday, declared that criminal sanctions for abortion in the northern state of Coahuila were unconstitutional. The decision sets precedent, according to lawyers involved in abortion cases, and will be applicable across the country.

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