16 October 2017 – The world’s poor are at disproportionate risk of torture, arrest, early death and domestic violence, but their civil and political rights are being airbrushed out of the picture, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston has warned in a hard-hitting statement to mark International Day for the Eradication […]

Technology has had an undeniable impact improving living standards and increasing productivity. But with the rapid technological advancement of recent years, computers are increasingly encroaching on domains that were previously considered exclusively human. There are concerns that technological innovation will lead to increased unemployment, […]

Pollution has become the biggest killer of human’s on earth, with more than 1 in 4 deaths of children under 5 years of age linked to environmental risks and 6.5 million people dying from air pollution every year. The global threat of the pollution from chemicals, waste and other sources is visible in different forms in our air, land, fresh […]

11 October 2017 - “I am a Muslim, but before Muslim I was born human.” These are the words of Maria Toorpakai Wazir, a Pakistani girl whose squash career is a symbol of the struggle for women’s rights in the Taliban stronghold of Waziristan. Whilst there are no legal grounds for women and girls to be excluded from playing sport […]

How to make our cities more liveable and more sustainable?  The implementation the "new urban agenda" to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals was the topic of the annual Urban Breakfast event which took place at the Residence Palace in Brussels on 9 October. The high-level panelists agreed that success would depend on a combination of […]