The Week with IPS 11/13

	Leading Powers to Double Renewable Energy Supply by 2030 Diego Arguedas Ortiz Eight of the world’s leading economies will double their renewable energy supply by 2030 if they live up to their pledges to contribute to curbing global warming, which will be included in the new climate treaty. A study published this month by the World Resources Institute (WRI) analysed the ... MORE > >
	Improved Post-Harvest Fish Handling Brings Hope to Western Zambia Friday Phiri Hadon Sichali has been in the fish trade for over 22 years. But he says only now does he feel a true businessman—but why? “Because I now make reasonable income after struggling for so many years,” said the 55-year-old entrepreneur of Mongu, Western Zambia. Until he was recently introduced ... MORE > >
	Acute Malnutrition: A Community Fights Back Stella Paul In the semi-darkness of her hut in Berdaballa, a forest village 610 km northeast of Mumbai, 28-year old Babita Mavaskar sat with her newborn baby boy watching him checked by a paramedic in an important antenatal exam. After about 20 minutes the health worker emerged from the shelter and made a ... MORE > >
	Climate Change Bites Kenyan Tea Farmers Diana Omondi You wouldn't typically expect heavy rainfall and frost in East Africa. But the Earth's climate is changing - and this is affecting one of the world's largest tea-producing regions, in central Kenya. For Joseph Mwangi and his wife, picking tea early in the morning has become more difficult ... MORE > >
Refugee Crisis May Threaten Development Aid to World’s Poor Thalif Deen As the spreading refugee crisis threatens to destabilize national budgets of donor nations in Western Europe, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Wednesday appealed to the international community not to forsake its longstanding commitment for development assistance to the world’s poorer ... MORE > >
	Latin American Legislators, a Battering Ram in the Fight Against Hunger Marianela Jarroud Lawmakers in Latin America are joining forces to strengthen institutional frameworks that sustain the fight against hunger in a region that, despite being dubbed “the next global breadbasket”, still has more than 34 million undernourished people. The legislators, grouped in national fronts, “are ... MORE > >
	El Nino Creates Topsy Turvy Weather in Sri Lanka Amantha Perera Residents in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo and outlying areas have been waking up to misty mornings of late. A decade ago, regular mist in this area just above the equator would have been a noteworthy event. These days, it is a regular occurrence in some parts north of the capital. Weather ... MORE > >
Climate Change May Increase World’s Poor by 100 Million, Warns World Bank Thalif Deen The UN’s heavily-hyped Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were approved by more than 160 world leaders at a summit meeting in September, are an integral part of the world body’s post-2015 development agenda, including the eradication of hunger and poverty by 2030. But that ambitious ... MORE > >
	Frequent Floods Intensify Migration, Food Security in Pakistan’s Mountainous North Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio Ishaq Khan shivers as he recounts an unfortunate flash flood in 2010, which covered his maize and potato crop with mud and washed away over a dozen fruit trees he planted 45 years ago. Though the 68-year-old farmer has managed to rebuild his home now in one year’s time with local earthen and ... MORE > >
	School Meals Bolster Family Farming in Brazil Mario Osava “That law should have existed since the end of slavery, which threw slaves into the street without offering them adequate conditions for working and producing, turning them into semi-slaves,” said Brazilian farmer Idevan Correa. The law he was referring to, which was passed in 2009, requires ... MORE > >
	Africa Demands for More Input to Save the Climate Isaiah Esipisu African civil society organisations championing for climate justice have criticised the Intended Nationally Determined Commitments (INDC’s) presented to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, calling them “weak, inadequate and not ambitious enough.” “If you study carefully ... MORE > >
	Parliamentary Forum to Set New Goals Against Hunger Milagros Salazar Undertaking the challenge of pushing for new legislation to guarantee food security in their countries, legislators from Latin America and the Caribbean, together with guest lawmakers from Africa and Asia, will hold the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger Nov. 15-17. The Forum ... MORE > >
	Caribbean Agriculture Looks to Cope with Climate Change Desmond Brown Climate change represents a clear and growing threat to food security in the Caribbean with differing rainfall patterns, water scarcity, heat stress and increased climatic variability making it difficult for farmers to meet demand for crops and livestock. Nearly all of the countries in the ... MORE > >