Category Archives: Global development

Locked out of school: Pakistan’s digital divide has students struggling

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When Covid shut schools, fees still had to be paid even if rural pupils could not access online lessons

Iqbal Khan works as a chauffeur in Lahore. His children are in his home village in a rural area north of Peshawar. Both of these very different areas of Pakistan have the same problem for many of their young people: no means of getting access to an education.

Online learning was not an option for Khan’s children as the pandemic locked down schools across cities and countryside. Even as he worked to pay the school fees, his two sons, aged 16 and 13, were unable to access any lessons as their schools went digital.

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Petra Diamonds pays £4.3m to Tanzanians ‘abused’ by its contractors

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Firm settles over allegations claimants were shot, stabbed and beaten by guards at mine that produced one of Queen’s favourite gems

The British mining company Petra Diamonds has agreed to pay £4.3m in compensation to dozens of Tanzanians who allegedly suffered serious human rights abuses at a mine famed for producing a flawless pink diamond for one of the Queen’s favourite brooches.

The 71 Tanzanian claimants, represented in the London high court by the British law firm Leigh Day, alleged grave violations by the company, among them being shot, beaten, stabbed, assaulted, detained in cramped and filthy holding cells, and handcuffed to hospital beds.

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‘Urgent. Oxygen needed’: Nepalis mobilise to take charge in Covid crisis

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Amid political turmoil and an overwhelmed health system, young activists are stepping up in response to the pandemic

A ping and: “ICU bed needed. Please it’s urgent.” Another ping: “Where can I find Remdesivir. EMERGENCY.” Ping: “Very urgent oxygen cylinder needed, patient at last stage.” The messages never let up; a constant stream of posts pleading for hospital beds, oxygen, plasma and medicine.

It’s not Nepal’s government helpline, but an online group set up by a 24-year-old public health graduate.

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‘On bad days, we don’t eat’: Hunger grows for thousands displaced by conflict in Chad

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As war forces more to flee, humanitarian organisations facing funding shortfalls and increasing demand are unable to keep pace

The number of people having to leave their homes in the Lake Chad region of central Africa has more than doubled over the past year with agencies warning they are struggling to feed people.

The fighting, which last month claimed the life of the president of Chad, Idriss Déby, has displaced more than 400,000 Chadians, according to the International Organization for Migration, a rise from 169,000 at the start of 2020. More than 65,000 people were displaced in the first quarter of this year.

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Yanomami beset by violent land-grabs, hunger and disease in Brazil

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Indigenous people in the grip of a humanitarian crisis as Bolsonaro gives encouragement to wildcat miners with designs on their rainforest territory

A photograph of an emaciated Yanomami girl, huddled listlessly in a hammock beside an empty cooking pot over an unlit fire. Shaky footage of indigenous people screaming as they flee in panic to a soundtrack of gunfire.

Shocking images shared on Brazilian social media this week have cast a spotlight on a spiral of violence, malnutrition and disease that threatens fresh devastation for the Yanomami people and their ancestral territory in the Amazon state of Roraima.

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UK must reverse aid cuts ‘as soon as possible’ to help educate girls – Julia Gillard

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Former Australian PM wants Boris Johnson to make ‘ambitious pledge’ to support girls at Kenyan summit

The former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard has called for Britain to return its aid budget to pre-cuts levels “as soon as possible”.

Gillard, who now campaigns for education in lower-income countries as chair of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), said she wanted the British government to step up with an “ambitious pledge” for global education when it co-hosts the G7 summit next month.

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Iranian asylum seeker cleared of Channel smuggling charges

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Man who took turn steering boat ‘because he didn’t want to die’ freed, with case opening way for others to appeal their sentences

An asylum seeker jailed on smuggling charges for helping to steer a boat filled with migrants from France to England has had his conviction overturned at a retrial after spending 17 months in jail.

Lawyers and campaigners say the verdict could lead to other migrants currently in jail on smuggling charges being freed, allowing the Home Office policy of prosecuting asylum seekers who play a role in piloting boats across the Channel to be challenged more widely.

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Rights group fear for migrant activist ‘disappeared’ in Qatar

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Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan who blogged about migrant workers’ plight, detained by Qatari security services

A Kenyan security guard in Qatar who has written about the plight of migrant workers has been “forcibly disappeared”, human rights group say.

Malcolm Bidali was detained by the Qatari security services over a week ago and is being held in an undisclosed location, according to a coalition of rights groups, which include Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

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‘A game-changing moment’: Chile constitution could set new gender equality standard

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Chileans to elect 155-strong assembly made up of equivalent men and women to set out new framework and enshrine equal rights

Women’s rights activists in Chile say that the country’s new constitution will catalyze progress for women in the country – and could set a new global standard for gender equality in politics.

In a two-day vote this weekend, Chileans will elect a 155-strong citizens’ assembly to write a new constitution for the country – the first anywhere in the world to be written by an equal number of men and women.

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‘Bodies are being eaten by hyenas; girls of eight raped’: inside the Tigray conflict

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A nun working in war-torn Tigray has shared her harrowing testimony of the atrocities taking place

The Ethiopian nun, who has to remain anonymous for her own security, is working in Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, and surrounding areas, helping some of the tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting who have been streaming into camps in the hope of finding shelter and food. Both are in short supply. Humanitarian aid is being largely blocked and a wholesale crackdown is seeing civilians being picked off in the countryside, either shot or rounded up and taken to overcrowded prisons. She spoke to Tracy McVeigh this week.

“After the last few months I’m happy to be alive. I have to be OK. Mostly we are going out to the IDP [internally displaced people] camps and the community centres where people are. They are in a bad way.

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‘Hosnia had dreams’: grief in Kabul as girls’ school targeted

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Hazara community in mourning but defiant after more than 60 people killed in school bomb blasts


Latifa and Hosnia had been sharing a wooden bench in their classroom at Kabul’s Sayed Al-Shuhada school for the past three years.

When Latifa transferred to Sayed Al-Shuhada, the two girls were immediately drawn to each other and became best friends, always together in their free time, studying side by side, walking home together after school. They found comfort in each other’s presence; support in a place that has never been easy for girls and women.

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Rape is being used as weapon of war in Ethiopia, say witnesses

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Ethiopian nun speaks of widespread horror she and colleagues are seeing on a daily basis inside the heavily isolated region of Tigray

Thousands of women and girls are being targeted by the deliberate tactic of using rape as a weapon in the civil war that has erupted in Ethiopia, according to eyewitnesses.

In a rare account from inside the heavily isolated region of Tigray, where communications with the outside world are being deliberately cut off, an Ethiopian nun has spoken of the widespread horror she and her colleagues are seeing on a daily basis since a savage war erupted six months ago.

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Campaigners lose court case to stop Ugandan forest clearance

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Court ruling gives go-ahead for sugar plantation in Bugoma forest, home to endangered chimpanzees

Conservationists in Uganda have condemned as “shallow and absurd” a court ruling that authorised the government to allow swathes of a tropical forest to be cleared for a sugar-cane plantation.

Three environmental groups had taken the government to court over a decision to allow Hoima Sugar Ltd to build on 5,500 hectares (13,500 acres) in the Bugoma Forest Reserve.

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Violence against women ‘a pandemic’, warns UN envoy

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A decade after Istanbul convention was drawn up to end gender-based violence, activists report decline in women’s rights and safety

A decade after the launch of the Istanbul convention, the landmark human rights treaty to stop gender-based violence, women are facing a global assault on their rights and safety, according to campaigners.

This week marked 10 years since the first 13 countries signed up to the convention, seen as a turning point in efforts to address violence against women.

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‘Weak’ US let Saudis jail more dissidents, says rights group

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Lack of US sanctions on crown prince led to harsher sentences for critics of regime, Grant Liberty reports

The Biden administration’s failure to impose sanctions on Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has led to a increase in severe sentences for political prisoners in the kingdom, the Guardian can reveal.

The UK-based human rights organisation Grant Liberty found that twice as many harsh sentences had been meted out to Saudi prisoners of conscience in April than in the first three months of this year combined. It followed the Biden administration’s decision on 26 February to publish an intelligence report that showed the crown prince, “approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey, to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi”.

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Thousands of Cambodians go hungry in strict lockdown zones

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Rights groups say government and UN inaction has left people lacking food and medicine for weeks

Tens of thousands of Cambodians are going hungry under the country’s strict lockdown as Covid cases continue to rise amid criticism from human rights groups that the government and the UN are being too slow to act.

The south-east Asian country had recorded one of the world’s smallest coronavirus caseloads, but infections have climbed from about 500 in late February to 20,695 this week, with 136 deaths.

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Two transgender women jailed in Cameroon over homosexuality law

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Social media celebrity Shakiro and friend given five-year sentences as rights groups fear crackdown on LGBT+ community

Two transgender women in Cameroon have been convicted of “attempting homosexuality” and sentenced to five years in prison, in a case feared to be part of a growing campaign against sexual minorities, according to rights groups.

Shakiro, a popular social media figure, and Patricia were convicted on Tuesday. The charges included public indecency and non-possession of a national ID card, an offence rarely prosecuted in Cameroon.

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EU states cooperating informally to deny refugees asylum rights – report

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Beatings, thefts and dog attacks are just some of the border police practices migrants say they face when pushed back from Europe’s frontiers

Informal cooperation between states has prevented thousands of women, men and children from seeking protection in Europe this year, according to a report released by nine human rights organisations.

The Protecting Rights at Borders (Prab) initiative has recorded 2,162 cases of “pushbacks” at different borders in Italy, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Hungary carried out on the basis of bilateral agreements between countries, which resulted in them circumventing their responsibilities and pushing unwanted groups back outside the EU.

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Why is the world still being hit by wave after wave of Covid when we know how to stop it? | Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

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Leaders failed to act fast enough when Covid-19 appeared. They must not keep making the same mistakes

Death and illness from Covid-19 is steadily rising once again. In the last week of April, more than 93,000 people died – approaching the worst of the global second wave. How can this still be happening? How can some countries still be experiencing wave after wave of infection when we know how to prevent them?

For the past eight months, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response has been rigorously reviewing the evidence of what happened to allow Covid-19 to take a firm grip – and why. The panel spoke to hundreds of experts and people on the frontline of the response, and conducted extensive original research and numerous literature reviews.

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Price of gold: DRC’s rich soil bears few riches for its miners – photo essay

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As the value of gold reached new heights last year, those mining it continued to face crippling deprivation and dangerous conditions

  • Produced as part of Congo In Conversation, with the support of the Carmignac photojournalism award. Text and photographs by Moses Sawasawa, a photographer based in Goma and co-founder of Collectif Goma Oeil

The muddy slopes surrounding the eastern Congolese gold-mining town of Kamituga hold vast wealth and crippling deprivation.

In South Kivu province near the borders of Rwanda and Burundi, Kamituga has mineral resources estimated to be worth $24tn (£17tn) in untapped deposits. Yet the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has one of the lowest levels of GDP per capita in the world and people work in dangerous conditions with little hope of scratching out anything more than a meagre existence from tough and dangerous work.

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