08 Jun 2020 Upgrading digital infrastructure to serve all people everywhere
Ownership of mobile phones, especially smartphones, is spreading rapidly across the globe. Yet, there are still many people in emerging economies who do not own a mobile phone, or who share one with others. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2019 mobile divides were most pronounced in Venezuela, India, and the Philippines, countries where three-in-ten adults do not own a mobile phone.
01 Jun 2020 Advocating freedom from fear
At a time when the world is rightly focused on the coronavirus pandemic and its long-term consequences, under-reported news includes how far down the road we are (or not) toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. The report “Enough is Enough: Global Nuclear Weapons Spending in 2020”...
25 May 2020 Journalists are key workers in a chaotic world
It’s a familiar story. Toe the government line – any government – and survive. Criticize the government, or its cronies, or policies that benefit the few rather than the majority, and risk censure or worse. Investigative journalism examines questions of public interest: crime and corruption, certainly, but also deceit and failure. Fair and balanced coverage of issues that impact ordinary people distinguishes good journalism from bad journalism, genuine news from fake news.
18 May 2020 Migrant voices in the time of Covid-19
With the onset of the current pandemic, things are bound to get a lot more challenging for many migrants and refugees, as well as for the societies that host them.
The number of forcibly displaced people worldwide was already the highest it had been in decades even before the global coronavirus crisis. In 2016, about 40 million people became internally displaced persons (IDPs) and 22.5 million, refugees.
Most migrants are extremely vulnerable both to the health and socio-economic effects of COVID-19. They are constantly on the move, work in the service economy, and have limited access to public services. Women migrants are particularly affected.
We have read stories of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants violating the government-imposed quarantine in Colombia by trying to return to Venezuela at all costs, where they hope to at least they access the country’s precarious health system and look after their families.
Most had been working in Colombia’s informal economy and, after the lockdown, were unable to earn a living.
17 May 2020 Media Development 2020-2 online magazine and pdf
[caption id="attachment_23088" align="alignleft" width="190"] MD 2020/2[/caption] Media Development 2020-2 Traditional Knowledge and Climate Change: Bridging the Gap Traditional knowledge held by Indigenous Peoples may provide essential responses to the current climate crisis. It is crucial, therefore, to work in solidarity with often vulnerable and marginalized Indigenous communities to assure our collective future...
17 May 2020 MD 2020-2 Editorial
By Philip Lee Many believe that an essential element of ways of responding to the current climate crisis lies in the traditional knowledge held by Indigenous Peoples. The way they think about life and death, natural resources, and the intimate and intricate relationship they have with land, ought to offer pertinent answers to pressing questions of mitigation, adaptation, and survival.
17 May 2020 Tending the garden
By Lila Pine All my relations. The land. The songs. The language. The stories. The people. The dances. The plants and the animals. The sun and the moon. The water. The earth. The climate changing. To understand these things from Indigenous perspectives it is necessary to begin at the beginning. The Creation Stories.
17 May 2020 Why traditional knowledge holds the key to climate change
By Gleb Raygorodetsky The very identity of indigenous peoples is inextricably linked with their lands, which are located predominantly at the social-ecological margins of human habitation – such as small islands, tropical forests, high-altitude zones, coasts, desert margins and the circumpolar Arctic. Here at these margins, the consequences of climate change include effects on agriculture, pastoralism, fishing, hunting and gathering and other subsistence activities, including access to water.