Human Interest

Homi Kharas, John McArthur, and Krista Rasmussen explore the the extent to which, if recent trends persist, people will be left behind on meeting the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

India’s population and emissions are rising fast, and its ability to tackle poverty without massive fossil fuel use will decide the fate of the planet

Please visit my website www.unequalscenes.com Facebook: facebook.com/unequalscenes Twitter: twitter.com/unequalscenes While many communities across Sout

We applaud ourselves for spending 0.7% of GDP on aid, but it’s self-interest dressed up as benevolence, writes Guardian columnist Zoe Williams

In Kind Direct charity warns of ‘hidden crisis’ facing thousands after it distributes £20.2m of hygiene products in one year

“SUPERCOOL you’re here,” says Eugene, looking like he means it. The young Singaporean is showing visitors around his new apartment, a three-bedroom flat in one of the city-state’s many high-rise blocks. Eugene says he and his new wife can’t wait to start filling the space with babies.

Sir Michael Marmot, a former government adviser, highlights ‘miserly’ levels of spending on health and social care

The number of women leaders around the world has grown, but they’re still a small group. Check out this map to see what countries have had a female leader.

Residents of the Congress Heights section of Washington DC tell of the devastating impact the president’s plan to cut food stamps would have on their families

If capitalism is going to be globalised, it makes sense to globalise the rules and standards that protect people as well

IKEA is to open production centres in refugee camps in Jordan as part of a long-term plan to create employment for 200,000 disadvantaged people around the world.

Johnny Miller has caused quite a stir with his aerial images of South Africa’s divided communities. He explains the origins of the Unequal Scenes project

"In the garment industry, stories about workers who barely eke out an existence on 'starvation wages' are legion: Factory workers in New Delhi often describe living in makeshift hovels 'barely fit for animals.' A young woman from Myanmar might wrestle with the decision to feed her children or send them to school. In Bangladesh, sewing-machine operators frequently toil for 100 hours or more a week, only to run out of money before the end of the month. Workers have demanded higher pay in all those countries, of course, sometimes precipitating violence between protesters and police. Companies in general, however, have preferred to sidestep the issue altogether. In fact, no multinational brand or retailer currently claims to pay its garment workers a wage they can subsist on."

"In the 2016 edition of its World Development Indicators, the World Bank has made a big choice: It’s no longer distinguishing between 'developed' countries and “developing” ones in the presentation of its data. The change marks an evolution in thinking about the geographic distribution of poverty and prosperity. But it sounds less radical when you consider that nobody has ever agreed on a definition for these terms in the first place. The International Monetary Fund says its own distinction between advanced and emerging market economies “is not based on strict criteria, economic or otherwise.” The United Nations doesn’t have an official definition of a developing country, despite slapping the label on 159 nations. And the World Bank itself had previously simply lumped countries in the bottom two-thirds of gross national income (GNI) into the category, but even that comparatively strict cut-off wasn’t very useful."

Skeptics say if you hand cash to the impoverished, they'll mismanage it. But it turns out, many poor people are great at saving — thanks to this ingenious system.

Here is a guide on how to make money by setting up your own comedy website and sending it viral for profits.

Tourism, like all globalised trends, can be a force for good, but can also wreak immense localised damage

1.6 million South Sudanese have fled the country since December 2013, many to the world’s largest refugee camp, in Uganda. What’s behind the exodus? Clic

Workers complain of verbal abuse, impossible targets and ‘poverty pay’ so bad they have to live away from their children

After decades of struggle, Indigenous sovereignty has arrived in full bloom as a global aspiration and force for human good

What economists around the world get wrong about the future.

The idea that economic growth can continue forever on a finite planet is the unifying faith of industrial civilization. That it is nonsensical in the extreme, a deluded fantasy, doesn't appear to bother us. We hear the holy truth in the decrees of elected officials, in the laments of economists about flagging GDP, in the authoritative pages of opinion, in the whirligig of advertising, at the World Bank and on Wall Street, in the prospectuses of globe-spanning corporations and in the halls of the smallest small-town chambers of commerce. Growth is sacrosanct. Growth will bring jobs and income, which allow us entry into the state of grace known as affluence, which permits us to consume more, providing more jobs for more people producing more goods and services so that the all-mighty economy can continue to grow. "Growth is our idol, our golden calf," Herman Daly, an economist known for his anti-growth heresies, told me recently.

Tags: op-ed, economic, industry, sustainability, development, consumption, climate change, environment, resources.

As the world works to achieve the sustainable development goals, a recent UN report identifies six issues that challenge ambitious targets

Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled the civil war in South Sudan and resettled in Uganda. This 12-minute documentary shows the daily struggle to get water.