Category Archives: Sustainable development goals

Up to 90% of 10-year-olds in world’s poorest countries struggle to read

Posted on by

World Bank targets ‘learning poverty’ as research shows major shortfall in basic reading skills among least privileged children

Nine out of 10 children in the world’s poorest countries are unable to read a basic book by the age of 10 – a situation mirrored in reverse in rich countries, where only 9% cannot do so by the same age.

Data compiled by the World Bank and the UN also shows that when low- and middle-income countries are taken together – a total of 135 states – more than half of all children cannot read a simple text at 10 years old.

Continue reading...

How do we feed the world without destroying it? | Bob Geldof

Posted on by

An international summit next year will tackle the world’s most enduring crisis – hunger. Radical action is needed

Hunger is the most awful and profound expression of poverty. It exists in every country. It is something that most people can identify with on some perhaps primordial level. It is innate. The fear of hunger is etched into our DNA, passed down the generations from hungry, scared ancestors. It is in our bones. It is in my Irish bones.

First, the good news. For several decades global hunger has been decreasing. This is mostly thanks to the sweat and ingenuity of the 500 million smallholders who produce 80% of the food consumed in the developing world. It is also thanks to the work of exceptional NGOs, to economic growth and to the innovation of businesses all along the supply chain. It’s thanks, too, to the support of governments and international organisations. And it’s to increased political stability in some places.

Continue reading...

Higher temperatures driving ‘alarming’ levels of hunger – report

Posted on by

Global hunger index finds countries affected by drought and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa have seen biggest increases in undernourished people

The climate crisis is driving alarming levels of hunger in the world, undermining food security in the world’s most vulnerable regions, according to this year’s global hunger index.

The annual report, a ranking of 117 countries measuring hunger rates and trends, shows progress since 2000 but warns that the world still has a long way to go to reach the zero hunger target agreed by world leaders by 2030.

Continue reading...

We’ve got a deadline to save people and planet – let’s start the charge

Posted on by

The sustainable development goals, which promise to end extreme poverty and inequality by 2030, are alarmingly off track. It’s not too late to act

We might seem a strange group to be writing this together – a British film-maker, a Libyan doctor and women’s rights activist, and an indigenous leader from Chad – but what we have in common is that we are all appointed by the UN secretary general as advocates for the sustainable development goals.

Some won’t have heard of these global goals – 17 objectives to which every nation signed up in 2015 – but they form the basis of a masterplan to make us the first generation to end extreme poverty, the last to be threatened by climate change, and the most determined to end injustice and inequality.

Continue reading...

Global renewable energy initiative aims to bring a billion people in from the dark

Posted on by

Worldwide commission aims to end energy poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia by driving investment in new technology

Electricity could be delivered to more than a billion people currently living without it within a decade by linking up small-scale projects into a giant, environmentally-friendly network.

According to a new global commission, advances in micro energy grids and renewable energy technologies could “dramatically accelerate change” and transform lives in rural areas of sub-Saharan African and south Asia.

Continue reading...

Leak suggests UN agency self-censors on climate crisis after US pressure

Posted on by

International Organization for Migration apparently amends programme documentation to avoid conflict with US ‘political sensitivities’

Leaked communications suggest that the UN’s migration agency is censoring itself on the climate crisis and the global compact on migration, following pressure from the US government.

An email sent by a US-based official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 28 August to colleagues around the world relayed that the US state department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) told the agency documents related to programme activities it funds “must not be in conflict with current [US government] political sensitivities”.

Continue reading...

World hunger on the rise as 820m at risk, UN report finds

Posted on by

Eliminating hunger by 2030 is an immense challenge, say heads of UN agencies

More than 820 million people worldwide are still going hungry, according to a UN report that says reaching the target of zero hunger by 2030 is “an immense challenge”.

The number of people with not enough to eat has risen for the third year in a row as the population increases, after a decade when real progress was made. The underlying trend is stabilisation, when global agencies had hoped it would fall.

Continue reading...

World leaders have ‘a lot to answer for’ over damning figures on education

Posted on by

Former prime minister of New Zealand Helen Clark condemns complacency as Unesco data shows one in six children won’t be in school by 2030

World leaders have “a lot to answer for” as new figures reveal that governments are failing to give all children an education, and that by 2030 one in six children won’t be in school.

The former prime minister of New Zealand and advocate for education Helen Clark said the figures showed “worrisome complacency on the part of countries which, just a few years ago, were so keen to hammer out an ambitious global agenda and make it a success”.

Continue reading...

Poorest countries bear the brunt as aid levels fall for second successive year

Posted on by

Experts warn of ‘step backwards’ in fight against global poverty as latest figures show 3% drop in aid to most vulnerable states

Experts have warned that the fight against global poverty has taken a backward step after the publication of new figures showing foreign aid has fallen for a second successive year.

Aid levels dropped last year by 2.7% from 2017, with the poorest countries worst hit, according to figures published by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Continue reading...