By Farai Shawn Matiashe

MUTARE, Zimbabwe, 5 March 2023 (IDN) — Every morning, Mercy Mubatsa fetches water from a tap outside her home in Penhalonga, a mining area 263 kilometres (163 miles) outside the Zimbabwean capital Harare, her anxiety is heightened.

In March last year, mercury and cyanide deposits from artisanal gold mines in Penhalonga were detected in Lake Alexander, about 32 kilometres from the mines, that supply water to her home.…

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SYDNEY, 04 March 2023 (IDN) — Education contributes to many of the Sustainable Development Goals. It reduces poverty, drives sustainable economic growth, prevents inequality and injustice, leads to better health —particularly for women and children—and helps to protect the planet.

The COVID-19 pandemic has, more than ever, put the education of children, adolescents and young people at risk and has caused the largest education disruption ever in history. The pandemic is exacerbating pre-existing challenges in access to education and quality learning and skills, and the impacts of the crisis continue to disrupt the education of millions of children and adolescents across the globe.…

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA, 4 March 2023 (IDN) — Multiple crises including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, growing inequalities, rising debt burdens and economic shocks are strongly affecting world’s 46 Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

They face the challenge of high debt costs because they do not have sufficient cash to provide essential services. In the last decade, debt service costs in LDCs have increased from around 5% in 2011 to over 20% today.…

By Jeffrey Moyo

CAPETOWN, South Africa, 01 March 2023 (IDN) — Thirty-seven-year-old Lwandile Zwane of Khayelitsha and her two daughters have their super by 4 pm to beat the six-hour electricity outage across Capetown.

Characterized by slum settlements, Khayelitsha is a township in South Africa’s Cape Town where power outages have not spared many poor South Africans as the African country contends with energy shortages.…