Indigenous peoples can play a critical role in the fight against hunger, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Given their invaluable traditional knowledge, the FAO says indigenous peoples can be key partners in alleviating food insecurity, as well as the attainment of some of the other sustainable development goals.
Women in 250 villages in Pakistan provide literally the light of their communities.
They have been trained to operate solar lanterns which they then rent to their neighbours, thus allowing the women to earn an income while providing a much-needed service.
Fiza Farhan is co-founder and CEO of the Buskh Foundation which is addressing energy needs in rural Pakistan through women’s entrepreneurship.
The non-profit is one of several winners of a UN-backed award that celebrates innovation.
A political vacuum leading to a “climate of paranoia” helps encourage religious persecution and violence.
That’s according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Heiner Bielefeldt.
He has been reporting on abuses committed in the name of religion, during the past year, especially as they affect religious minorities, women and children.
May Yaacoub asked Mr Bielefeldt what kinds of human rights issues he had encountered over the past year.
Duration: 4’24”
Europe can’t be divided and leave refugees to fend for themselves in winter, said the president of the European Union on Sunday night.
Jean-Claude Juncker was speaking at a special summit of European leaders along with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the EU border agency.
The meeting of eleven EU countries and Balkan neighbours agreed to create reception centres for 100,000 refugees along the east-west corridor between the Middle East and western Europe.
Matthew Wells reports.
Negotiations aimed at ending the bloodshed in Yemen will soon get underway, aimed at restoring peace to the beleaguered country.
That’s according to the UN’s Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheik Ahmed, who briefed the Security Council late last week on the situation there.
The conflict is taking “a dreadful toll” on civilians, with the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen reporting more than 2,500 deaths over the past seven months. Meanwhile, millions of people are in desperate need of food aid.
A surge in attacks has been reported against people with albinism in several African countries in the run-up to national elections, a UN human rights expert has warned.
Ikponwosa Ero, the first UN independent defender of the rights of persons with albinism, whose skin, hair and eyes lack colour because of a genetic disorder, has called for political parties to distance themselves from such violations.
Ms Ero said that people with the condition live in constant fear of attack, sometimes by their own relatives.
Coffee farming is helping indigenous people in the Philippines to protect the environment, preserve their ancestral lands and secure their financial future.
They are doing so through an organization called Coffee for Peace, one of the winners of a UN-backed award that celebrates innovation.
Coffee for Peace began eight years ago on the southern island of Mindanao, where Islamic rebel groups have been fighting for self-determination for decades.
The political dynamics in the areas that once made up the former Yugoslavia remain “extremely complicated”.
That’s the assessment of Serge Brammertz, Prosecutor of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, who recently returned from a visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The trip was part of the preparatory work ahead of the Prosecutor’s twice-yearly report to the Security Council. He will also visit Belgrade next month.
Poverty has fallen dramatically in Belarus, but some groups remain vulnerable, particularly single-parent households, families with more than three children and the elderly.
That’s according to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Around 14% of the Belarus population is 65 or over.
UNFPA says these older people are particularly susceptible to domestic violence.
The agency’s Elena Kaso explained to Ahniya Asanovich what steps are being taken to protect them.
Duration: 3’37”
Rural women in Afghanistan’s Bamyan province are using a traditional craft to weave a brighter future for their families.
By making rugs for which they receive a decent income, the women have been able to “lift their families from poverty” as well as change attitudes about women’s value to the community.
That’s according to Connie Duckworth, the American founder and CEO of Arzu Studio Hope which sells the women’s rugs and provides them with access to literacy programmes and health care services.
