Governments far from meeting biodiversity funding promise for low income countries
22/5/2024: A coalition of environmental organizations is calling on governments in the developed world to make good on their commitment to deliver at least $20 billion a year in nature finance to the developing world by 2025 to protect biodiversity globally.
Source: Greenpeace
ICC move to seek warrants for Israel’s leaders triggers backlash from US
21/5/2024: The International Criminal Court’s decision to seek warrants on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has triggered a strong backlash both from the Biden administration and a group of pro-Israeli Senators in the US Congress. The names in the ICC arrest warrants also include leaders of Hamas.
Source: Inter Press Service
Number of internally displaced people reaches record high
14/5/2024: Conflict in Sudan, the Palestinian territories, and beyond drove the number of internally displaced people to 75.9 million by the end of 2023, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Of these, 68.3 million were forced to flee their homes due to conflict, the remainder due to disasters.
Source: Devex
Mali talks propose junta rule for three more years
11/5/2024: Participants in Mali's national dialogue have recommended extending the military-led transition to democracy by three years. An alliance of political parties and civil society organisations refused to participate in the national dialogue. The substantial delay is likely to deepen concerns about democratic backsliding in West and Central Africa, where there have been eight coups over the past four years.
Source: The East African
Chad declares interim President Deby winner of disputed vote
10/5/2024: Chad's junta has become the first of the coup-hit countries in West and Central Africa to stage a return to constitutional rule via the ballot box. But the International Crisis Group has said that “several problems in the run-up to the balloting cast doubt on its credibility”.
Source: The East African
Kenya calls for sustainable peace in South Sudan as talks begin
10/5/2024: Kenyan President William Ruto has launched mediation talks, dubbed the Tumaini Initiative, between parties in South Sudan's peace process. He said that the initiative exemplifies the pan-African policy of African solutions to African challenges.
Source: The East African
Gender activists want more philanthropic funding for maternal health
9/5/2024: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation reports that the Sustainable Development Goal for reducing maternal mortality and ending all preventable deaths under 5 years of age is worryingly off track. Total official development assistance to maternal, newborn, and child health stagnated between 2017 and 2021 at around $10 billion annually.
Source: Devex
IMF, DR Congo reach agreement on $1.5bn loan deal
9/5/2024: Recent progress in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund takes the Democratic Republic of Congo one step closer to completing an IMF programme for the first time. A loan agreement will be conditional on transparency relating to the finances of the country's joint venture with Chinese companies developing vast cobalt mines.
Source: The East African
How to stop Western theft of developing countries’ IP wealth
8/5/2024: Developing countries have struggled to stop industrialized nations from co-opting and patenting products based on the knowledge and culture of local peoples. A new UN pact, to be facilitated by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) at a conference later this month, could help them stop so-called biopiracy.
Source: DW
Summit of the Future: A historical pivot or mere footnote?
7/5/2024: Four major initiatives are emerging through negotiations on drafts of the Pact for the Future, to be presented to the UN Summit of the Future in September. Much work remains to be done to overcome great-power tensions, especially over Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, that risk paralyzing the intergovernmental negotiations.
Source: PassBlue