Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Jacqueline Burton, Program Associate, Equitable Development Ford Foundation republished from the Ford Foundation website here World leaders will gather in Quito, Ecuador this October to agree on an international framework for sustainable development at the Habitat III conference. The conference outcome document – the New Urban Agenda (NUA) – is expected to be a complementary framework that will drill into what it will take to achieve a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but particularly the goal to: “make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.”  Although the SDGs and NUA are agreements negotiated and adopted by national governments, it is regional and local authorities – governors, mayors, and leading officials – who will bear much of the burden of what gets laid out in these types of intergovernmental agreements. That’s because they work most closely with communities, so they know the needs of their residents a...

Guest blog from: Lourdes A. Rivera ,  Senior Program Officer, Gender, Racial, and Ethnic Justice Ford Foundation “The post was originally published on the Ford Foundation’s Equals Change blog ." Forty-three years after the US Supreme Court legalized abortion, the mainstream debate about reproductive rights still rages—and still focuses overwhelmingly on abortion. There is good reason for this: Almost every day brings news of reckless, self-righteous attacks on Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health providers, and on the women from all walks of life who seek these services. But as important as it is to protect abortion rights (especially as they are increasingly under attack), it’s equally important to understand that this debate is about much more than abortion. In fact, it is a proxy for a whole range of issues tied to women’s self-determination and status, in both public and private. That’s why now as much as ever, we need to put the fight for reproduct...