KISUMU/VIHIGA, Kenya, Nov 19 (IPS) - Despite the humid late October midday weather in Kisumu County near the shores of Lake Victoria, Jane Kisia is busy walking around her fish ponds feeding her fish. As she rhythmically throws handfuls of pellets into the ponds, located within her homestead, the fish ravenously gobble them up.

NEW YORK, Nov 19 (IPS) - Anna Shen is an international consultant for the United Nations, an entrepreneur, and advisor to start ups around the world.

Global poverty is undoubtedly the most critical economic and moral challenge of the 21st century. While economists debate how to raise up the world's poorest – the more than 800 million people living on less than US$1.25 a day.-- entrepreneurs are spurring innovation and growth in emerging markets.

Nov 19 (IPS) - Parents from low-income families often struggle to find the time to support their children, are alienated from educational systems themselves, and lack access to the networks that middle- and higher-income parents have.Neha is a first-generation learner. Her mother, Hema, a maid, wants her only daughter to grow up to become a government servant. This, according to her, will give her family security, stable water and electricity connections, and also an attached toilet, apart from a better living environment.

NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 19 (IPS) - Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya.That almost one in five Kenyan teenage girls is a mother represents not only a huge cost to the health sector, but also a betrayal of potential on a shocking scale.

SAN ANTONIO DEL SUR, Cuba, Nov 19 (IPS) - At a brisk pace, Marciano Calamato and Mireya Noa walk along the dry, yellow soil of their farm, where they even manage to grow onions in Cuba's unique semi-arid eastern region.

NEW YORK, Nov 16 (IPS) - A coalition of over 50 civil society organizations (CSOs), from more than 20 countries, have urged two of the world's largest multi-billion dollar E-commerce retailers – Amazon and eBay – to stop marketing "dangerous and illegal mercury-based skin lightening creams."

COX'S BAZAR/DHAKA, Nov 16 (IPS) - Thousands of Rohingya refugees in camps in Cox's Bazar, the southern-most coastal district in Bangladesh, protested on Thursday, Nov. 15, against an attempt to send them back to Myanmar.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 15 (IPS) - Kingsley Ighobor, Africa Renewal* Following the unveiling of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement in Kigali, Rwanda, in March 2018, Africa is about to become the world's largest free trade area: 55 countries merging into a single market of 1.2 billion people with a combined GDP of $2.5 trillion.

NAIROBI, Nov 15 (IPS) - Ambassador Macharia Kamau is Principal Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Kenya, also the coordinating Ministry of the Sustainable Blue Economy Conference, 2018.For many years now, the economic potential of the African continent has been discussed, promoted and hailed by everyone from economists to policymakers to world leaders – and with very good reason. After all, Africa is a vast, populous, developing continent with enormous natural and human resource riches and a raft of rapidly developing economies which are helping create prosperity and raise living standards and social opportunities through economic growth.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt, Nov 15 (IPS) - Cristiana Pașca Palmer is the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Montreal, & Anne Larigauderie is the Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Bonn.

The quality of the air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink depend directly on the state of our biodiversity, which is now in severe jeopardy. We need a transformational change in our relationship with nature to ensure the sustainable future we want for ourselves and our children.