WASHINGTON DC, August 25 (IPS) - Chad is one of the most extreme examples of energy poverty, with just 10% of the population connected to electricity, a rural electrification rate below 2%, and a global per capita electricity consumption rate that’s just 18% of the global average. This hinders its economic development.

Some 2.2 billion people worldwide still lack access to safely managed drinking water services, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) - an increasingly urgent challenge as demand for safer access to the vital resource grows.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza following two deadly Israeli air strikes on the Nasser Hospital in the southern Strip on Monday.

Monday marks eight years since the mass displacement of Rohingya from Rakhine state in Myanmar and the United Nations is calling for greater international solidarity with the mainly Muslim minority community.

In the days leading up to the fall of Goma, the capital of North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dr. Thierno Balde slept with a helmet and bulletproof vest beside his bed as shells rattled the walls of his hotel.

One of the many ugly consequences of wars and conflict is injuries leading to a loss of limbs. Gaza, which now has the highest number of child amputees per capita anywhere in the world, is no exception.

Dr. Nouf moves briskly from patient to patient wearing her mask and gloves, with a stethoscope resting around her neck, driven by a strong passion to help the vulnerable at the Migrant Response Point (MRP) in Ma’rib in Yemen.

Victims of atrocities and freedom fighters across history can inspire future generations to build just societies, the chief of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on the occasion of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, commemorated annually on 23 August.

From Gaza to Sudan, wars are being waged on the very systems set up to protect civilian populations, with health workers, hospitals, health centres and ambulances being targeted in horrifying numbers, according to the UN agency for reproductive health and rights, UNFPA.

UNITED NATIONS, August 22 (IPS) - The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) has officially declared that there is famine in Gaza. The world’s biggest food monitoring system raised its classification to Phase 5, the highest level on its food insecurity scale.