Malaria can climb mountains when temperatures rise
A study in Science by Siraj and colleagues this week showed malaria occurs at higher altitudes in warmer years. Their modelling predicts that a one degree Celsius temperature rise in the Ethiopian highlands could lead to 2.8 million more cases in children each year in current malaria areas and over 400,000 cases in new areas.…
International Women’s Day 2014: Women in agriculture
by Rachel Hill with contributions from Abigail Rumsey, Claire Curry, Emily Palmer and Léna Durocher-Granger. For over a century countries globally have celebrated International Women’s Day as a day to reflect on the role of women in society. In honor of International Women’s Day 2014 we are giving a special focus to women in agriculture.…
How mobile phones could make a difference to maternal health
Mobile technology is revolutionising health and health care in developing countries enabling health promotion campaigns, reminders about therapy and data collecting. To women it could provide a lifeline for them during pregnancy and birth. But what evidence is there that mobile messages are accessible to women in these situations and that they could change women’s…
World NGO Day – 27 February
February 27th 2014 was World NGO Day. It was marked by an international conference held in Helsinki, Finland, across the 27th-28th February entitled ‘Your NGO day: a generation of new NGOs’. The conference agenda reflected some of the roles and values of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) with speakers covering health, education, social welfare and the empowerment…
Illegal wildlife trade – Focus of first ever World Wildlife Day
At the sixteenth meeting of the Conference of Parties to CITES in March 2013, the Thai Government recommended the adoption of a resolution to declare March 3 as World Wildlife Day, which was later agreed at the United Nations General Assembly in December. The date marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on…
2014: the International Year of Family Farming
Did you know that there are 1.5 billion people worldwide who are estimated to be involved in family farming? The United Nations has declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to recognize the importance of family farming in reducing poverty and improving global food security. So what is family farming?
IPPC and Plantwise lead successful workshop for coordinated plant protection in East Africa
From Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, key representatives of agricultural institutions gathered in Nairobi last week for the first ever joint workshop led by CABI’s Plantwise programme and the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) Secretariat. The workshop was convened in an effort to exchange national experiences in plant protection and pave the way for renewed…
CEO Trevor Nicholls live at The Economist’s Feeding the World 2014
Bringing together key players in food security from the private, public and civil society sector, the Economist’s annual Feeding the World conference yesterday in London also highlighted CABI’s efforts to level the playing field for the smallholder farmer. Invited to speak on the afternoon panel focused on trade and supply chain resources, CABI’s CEO Dr…
Water water everywhere…but is climate change to blame?
It is perhaps not surprising that the latest statistics from the Met Office in the UK show that this winter has been one of the most exceptional periods of rainfall in England and Wales in at least 248 years, thanks to a sequence of low pressure weather systems making their way across the Atlantic. As…
Could Climate Change threaten the future of the Winter Olympics?
As Russia prepares to host the 22nd Olympic Winter Games, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has begun to release the findings of its Fifth Assessment Report. If the climate projections of the IPCC report prove accurate, only six of the previous 19 host cities will be cold enough to host a…