When we launched Daily Development in 2013, our aim was to explore global development and the people behind it. In the run up to the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we talked to people who, away from the negotiations, were working towards improving the lives of others.
An increasingly important environmental issue is plastic waste in the ocean. While a significant portion of plastic lands on shorelines, huge ocean fields of plastic debris have been recorded in different areas of the planet’s oceans, accumulating in gyres, a natural occurring system of rotating ocean currents. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, there are five gyres in the North and South Atlantic Ocean, the North and South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean. These gyres have become vortexes of plastic debris and trash, raising an alarm bell on the impact of plastic on marine organisms and human life.
To celebrate World Desertification Day, 17 June, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification launched a writing contest to promote the convention and efforts to combat desertification.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel made the bold decision recently to allow mostly Syrian refugees stuck in Hungary to proceed to Germany and seek asylum there, but what about the 4.2 million registered refugees who live primarily in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey?
Juabar is an innovative company that is expanding access to solar energy in the United Republic of Tanzania through providing solar powered kiosks to charge mobile phones. Daily Development speaks to Sachi Decou, a co-founder of Juabar, about its past and future.