Region: Global
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More Needs to Done for Zimbabwe to tap Climate Financing
Though the reality of climate change is widely acknowledged in Zimbabwe, the country which is currently facing socio economic challenges has limited resources to implement measures to tackle the challenge. To complicate matters, there is little to no knowledge of climate finance mechanisms that are available globally. Where knowledge of the finance mechanism exists, there…
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Detention of the ‘Istanbul Ten’ extended by seven days
The detention on remand of two trainers from Sweden and Germany hired by Hivos and eight human rights defenders, including Amnesty International’s director in Turkey, has been extended by seven days. The Istanbul Ten’, as they are now referred to in the media, are being held in a police prison in Istanbul, in five-person cells.…
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Open contracting at the Africa Open Data Conference
The second Africa Open Data Conference is being held in Accra, Ghana from 17 to 21 July 2017 at the Accra International Conference Centre. This year, various African countries will be represented through government leaders, industry executives, civil society, telecommunications organisations, researchers, data journalists, students, innovators, entrepreneurs, donors, investors, farmers, health care workers and others. The core…
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Hivos East Africa condemns extrajudicial killing of Ugandan human rights activist
Hivos East Africa has received reports about the extra judicial killing of Mr. Erasmus Irumba, Coordinator of the Twerwaneho Listeners Club (TLC). TLC is an NGO based in the Rwenzori region of western Uganda. It promotes human rights advocacy through weekly radio programmes on human rights education and social accountability. Erasmus’ day to day work at…
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Biogas has transformed my household
Wilberforce Namanya is a farmer in Bushenyi District in Western Uganda. Wilberforce and his family live on a hilly unfertile rocky land. Farming on this piece of land has been difficult for a long time. The Namanyas had always dreamt of becoming commercial farmers but this was thwarted by the nature of the land on…
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‘Bio-slurry is the life line of my farm’
James Namara is a retired public servant living in Ntungamo district. James constructed his biogas plant in 2010. Since that time, he has been using bio-slurry to fertilize his farm. He developed a lot of interest in the bio-slurry use and production that he has now become a model farmer in his district. He emphasizes…
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Human rights defenders arrested in Turkey are innocent. Take action!
On the evening of 5 July, we received the news that all the participants of a digital security training organised by Hivos in Turkey had been arrested and placed in incommunicado detention. This is the first time such a thing has happened to Hivos. The detainees include a trainer from Germany, a trainer from Sweden,…
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Workplace diversity and inclusion in the 21st Century
What is workplace diversity? This is the question we sought to answer on 5 July 2017 when we congregated in Nairobi with various stakeholders across sectors during the launch of the colorful workplaces programme. I must say I was quite nervous when we were putting this event together. I wondered how it would be received…
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Hivos condemns arrests of human rights defenders in Istanbul
On 6 July in the middle of the night, we received the news that all the participants of a digital security training organised by Hivos in Turkey had been arrested and placed in incommunicado detention. The arrestees include a trainer from Germany, a trainer from Sweden, the director of Amnesty International in Turkey, and individual…
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First Sustainable Food Systems conference held in Pretoria
From 21 to 23 June, over 150 representatives from governments, private sector and civil society gathered in Pretoria, South Africa, for the first global conference of the 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Food Systems (SFS). Hivos, together with the other co-leads of the programme (WWF, and the governments of Switzerland and South Africa),…
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Malawi: Freedom of information and public contracting
Malawi’s new Access to Information Act signifies a new dawn particularly on the road to enabling increased disclosure in public contracts. Assented in February 2017 by President Peter Mutharika, many Malawians welcomed the move and this signalled a shift in opening up public access to government information. This means, citizens can now access information from…
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Stop Child Labour signs gold chain agreement with government, companies and CSOs
Edward Huizing, executive director of Hivos, which coordinates the Stop Child Labour coalition, signed the International Responsible Business Conduct (IRBC) Agreement for a responsible gold value chain on June 19, together with Philips, Fairphone, IUCN NL, FNV and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. By signing the agreement, facilitated by the Social and Economic Council of…