Africa’s Food Crisis Caused by the West

By Asad Ismi While the COP 27 environmental summit ended without significant achievements, Africa is in the grip of its worst food crisis ever, driven by a perfect storm of climate crisis conditions— drought and floods—along with raging armed conflicts and spiraling grain import prices. A record 278 million Africans— one in five—are facing hunger. […]

The Possibilities for Buen Vivir

By Asad Ismi You may have heard the term “Buen Vivir” when it was made part of the constitutions of Bolivia and Ecuador (in 2009 and 2008 respectively), the first countries to give rights to nature. Buen Vivir (BV) is an Indigenous-led philosophy and movement spreading throughout Latin America and beyond that presents an alternative […]

Brazil: Bolsonaro’s Clearcut Populism

Resistance to environmental and social reforms is growing among Indigenous peoples, teachers, students and organized labour “The barbarism has begun,” declared the Pankarurú Indigenous nation after Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s neofascist president, won fraudulent elections in October 2018 amidst accusations of breaking financing rules and shamelessly spreading fake news. The Pankarurú inhabit a northeastern part of […]

Colombia Peace Deal Inches Forward: Indigenous, Afro-Colombian Leaders Fear the State Has Not Shed its Violent Past

By Asad Ismi The peace accords signed in November 2016 by the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, Colombia’s largest guerrilla army) ended a half-century-long conflict that killed 260,000 people and displaced another six million. Under the terms of the deal, the FARC was supposed to hand over […]