Countries where the most people are killed defending the environment

Colombian natives and activists during a protest in Bogotá, Colombia, on 23 August 2019. Photo: RAUL ARBOLEDA / AFP / Getty Images

October 21, 2022

Countries where the most people are killed defending the environment

By Angelo Young 15 October 2022 (24/7 Wall St.) – As the world comes to the realization of the profound damages human beings are causing to natural environments worldwide, groups across the globe have long been trying to protect the local land and environment. In some places, these struggles are not always peaceful, and last […]

Maps showing poverty impact hotspots as percentages of countries’ population that could fall into poverty as a result of soaring food and energy prices. Among those countries likely facing high poverty impacts across all poverty lines are Armenia and Uzbekistan in the Caspian Basin; Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and Sudan in Sub-Saharan Africa; Haiti in Latin America; and Pakistan and Sri Lanka in South Asia. In these countries, around 3 percent of the population, on average, could fall into poverty. In Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Yemen, the impacts could be particularly hard at the lowest poverty lines, whereas in Albania, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Ukraine, the hits could be hardest at $5.50 a day.7 Clear geographical hotspots, depending on the poverty line, emerge in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly in the Sahel region, the Balkans and the Caspian Basin. Graphic: UNDP

July 7, 2022

Cost-of-living crisis drives 71 million people into extreme poverty in three months – “This cost-of-living crisis is tipping millions of people into poverty and even starvation at breathtaking speed”

By Marc Jones 7 July 2022 LONDON (Reuters) – The global cost-of-living crisis is pushing an additional 71 million people in the world’s poorest countries into extreme poverty, a new report published by the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) on Thursday has warned. Achim Steiner, UNDP administrator, said an analysis of 159 developing countries showed that […]

Map showing the March-to-May (Gu) 2022 rainfall as percent of average in the Horn of Africa. The March/April to June 2022 Gu season rainfall was below average across the country, worsening the existing drought conditions in Somalia. The seasonal rains, which started in mid to late April appear to be ending early by late May/early June 2022. The rains were characterized by heavy storms lasting a few hours and were concentrated within a short period. Heavy downpours led to high runoff and limited replenishment of pasture and water resources. The poor spatial and temporal distribution could not sustain crop growth nor replenish the water sources adequately. This map compares the 2022 Gu seasonal rainfall with the long-term average for the same season. Northern parts of Somalia recorded 30 percent to 60 percent of the average rainfall while central and southern regions received 45 percent to 75 percent of average. This is also consistent with observed rainfall data from rain-gauge stations. Data: CHC / CHIRPS. Graphic: FAO

June 26, 2022

Somalia faces grim humanitarian catastrophe – “When we lost our livestock, we lost our minds”

By Mariel Müller 17 June 2022 SOMALIA (DW) – In January 2022, Hirsiyow Mohamed and her three children left her drought-stricken village of Drumo in Somalia. But after 15 days of walking through the hot desert with almost no water and food, she arrived with only one child at the newly built camp for displaced people near […]

Esther Elaar, a pregnant mother living in Loima, Turkana County, Northern Kenya, fetches and carries 20 litres of water for her family to use every day. Photo: BBC Media Action

June 26, 2022

Is the world running out of freshwater? “A lot of women have miscarried in this area while going to look for water”

By Simge Eva Dogan 1 June 2022 (Wellcome) – More than half of the world’s population faces water scarcity for at least one month a year. Safe water is a basic human right and essential for our health, whether we use it for drinking, food production or hygiene. But it’s also a finite resource. Only […]

Rescued elephant calves at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary dust bathe to cool down during the heatwave in May 2022. Photo: Reteti Elephant Sanctuary / The Sunday Times

May 29, 2022

Elephants are attacking humans as climate change pushes them to the brink – Elephant calves orphaned by drought fill Kenya sanctuaries

By Robyn White 27 May 2022 (Newsweek) – Elephants are known for being gentle giants. But climate change is beginning to take its toll, with attacks on humans increasing as global temperatures rise. In India, 500 people are thought to be killed by elephants every year, mainly in crop-raiding incidents. In 2021, India Today reported that 3,310 […]

Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in Africa in 2019 (left), and top eight wheat importers in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 (right). Challenges for food security in Sub-Saharan Africa will increase as Russia’s war on Ukraine persists. Graphic: IMF

May 7, 2022

Russia’s war on Ukraine dims global economic outlook as inflation accelerates – Africa faces new shock as war raises food and fuel costs – “This crisis unfolds even as the global economy has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic”

By Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas 19 April 2022 (IMF) – Global economic prospects have been severely set back, largely because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This crisis unfolds even as the global economy has not yet fully recovered from the pandemic. Even before the war, inflation in many countries had been rising due to supply-demand imbalances and […]

Estonian cargo vessel the Helt sinks off Odessa, Ukraine, 3 March 2022. Reports claimed the Helt was captured by Russian forces on 2 March 2022 and scuttled. Photo: Andrii Klymenko

April 30, 2022

Russia’s war destroys Ukraine’s economy, spurs global food and economic crisis – “The war in Ukraine can throw more than 1/5 of humanity into poverty, destitution, and hunger on a scale not seen in decades”

25 April 2022 (Euromaidan Press) – February 23 was an ordinary workday for the thousands of employees on two very different facilities: Chornobayivka chicken farm near Kherson and Azovstal, a giant steel mill in Mariupol. Now, after two months of the war, they are equally jobless due to the destruction of both enterprises: either by […]

The bodies of cattle killed by devastating drought in Ethiopia, South Omo, 23 Feburary 2022. In the vast lowland part of the country in South Omo, communities have suffered high death rates among their cattle as a result of the severe drought. Photo: Michael Tewelde / WFP

April 21, 2022

Drought pushes up to 20 million people across horn of Africa closer to catastrophe each day – WFP has warned since 2021 that this drought will be disastrous without immediate action

NAIROBI, 19 April 2022 (WFP) – Desperately needed rains across the Horn of Africa have so far failed to materialise, almost a month into the current rainy season, and if these conditions continue, along with stagnant and even decreasing humanitarian aid, the number of hungry people due to drought could spiral from the currently estimated […]

Concurrent shocks affecting the food security of households in the Horn of Africa in 2022. Graphic: FAO

April 17, 2022

New data show how drought in the Horn of Africa is driving up acute hunger – “The scale of the devastation in terms of hunger and lost livelihoods will be appalling”

ROME, 12 April 2022 (FAO) – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) today warned that dire new hunger data out of Somalia sheds additional light on extended drought’s crippling impacts on the Horn of Africa region and underscores the criticality of large-scale agricultural aid to keep rural families self-reliant, fed, and […]

Regional Trends of Negative Affect and Stress, 2006-2021. Negative affect as a whole was highest and rising in MENA and South Asia, with the increase greatest in South Asia. All regions have more negative affect now than ten years ago, except for Eastern Europe. Graphic: SDSN World Happiness Report

March 20, 2022

Amid war and disease, World Happiness Report 2022 shows bright spot, but anger grows in South Asia

18 March 2022 (McGill University) – In this troubled time of war and pandemic, the World Happiness Report 2022 shows a bright light in dark times. According to the team of international researchers, including McGill University Professor Christopher Barrington-Leigh, the pandemic brought not only pain and suffering but also an increase in social support and benevolence. As the […]

Desdemona Despair

Tag: Kenya