The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Visit the archives.
Francine Mestrum -
Since the international organisations put poverty on the political agenda in the 1990s, little has been heard about inequality. This is quite amazing, since it was the income gap between rich and poor countries that gave rise to the development project after the Second World War. The first UN resolutions on development do not mention poverty, but they do refer to the huge inequalities between developed and under-developed countries.
With the new poverty agenda of the World Bank and the human...
Saliem Fakir -
A low carbon future is slowly in the making. A lot rests on the way in which the global geopolitical situation resolves itself in the next decade. There are some signposts of where things are likely to go. All of this is happening, in the backdrop of negotiations for a global deal on climate change.
As the demand for energy grows so will the competition for the last remaining reserves of fossil fuels. One will see a distinct Asia-Pacific emphasis, accounting for 87% of growth in...
Leading public figures and personalities from all around the world respond to the question of democracy and the ability of its elected representatives to respond to the global crisis of climate change. Some of their responses are captured below. Vivienne Westwood (fashion designer, United Kingdom): "It's very, very difficult to convince people to think in the long term when they've got all these short term problems, you know. 'What am I going to feed my baby?' -- if you live...
David Barsamian -
Vandana Shiva is an internationally renowned voice for sustainable development and social justice. She is a physicist, scholar, political activist, and feminist, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel Prize. She is also director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi. Author of many books, her latest are Earth Democracy and Soil Not Oil.
She spoke in New Delhi with David Barsamian, founder of...
Glenn Ashton -
Sugar is currently trading near record highs, at levels not seen for around 28 years. Industry commentators cite predicted low monsoon rainfalls affecting the Indian crop and shortages from Brazilian producers, coupled to technical trading positions as the ostensible causes.
A major cause for the price spike is being overlooked. This is the increasing profitability of ethanol production from sugar cane and the pressure this is exerting upon international sugar markets.
Ethanol is globally...
Stephen Greenberg -
An important question facing humanity at present is how to ensure enough food is produced so that everyone has enough. There is a distribution issue that is unresolved in a capitalist system: the market distributes, and those without the resources to participate in the market are excluded. This produces the reality of obesity in some countries side by side with starvation in others, and surplus production that goes to waste or is fed to animals, side by side with food deficits in other...
