The vision set out by Cyril Ramaphosa has the seeds for galvanising South Africans to get back on the right path. But it urgently needs a plan to make it happen.
The Conversation played host to really important new ideas in 2018. Some will take years to develop. Others will never come to fruition. But they’re important.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro after his swearing-in on Jan. 1, 2019, in the capital of Brasilia.
AP Photo/Andre Penner
Brazil’s new president – often called the ‘Trump of the tropics’ for his inflammatory, right-wing rhetoric – won over poorer voters by stoking fear and resentment. Can he make them happy?
The United Nations says people “left behind” include those vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but aren’t the furthest behind those damaging the environment? Here, a man rides a bicycle through a devastated Homs, Syria. Numerous studies say climate change was a factor in record-setting drought, one of several causes of the country’s civil war.
AP Photo/Dusan Vranic
The United Nations Declaration on sustainable development stresses “leaving no-one behind,” but what about the factors that cause many to be behind in the first place?
Sahia and her husband hoped to start a life in Singpur, a village in Bangladesh. But the riverside community found climate change made putting down roots impossible.
Poverty means many kids have to go to school without the right uniform - which can lead to being ostracised.
Shutterstock
Education through to the end of high school is a birthright in Australia but many kids are missing out on important parts of that birthright in ways that leave them feeling like losers and outsiders.
The education system needs an urgent re-think to give children from disadvantaged backgrounds a better chance in life.
The largest public housing complex in the country, Queensbridge Houses, is located near the spot where Amazon plans to put a new headquarters.
AP Photo/Mark Lennihan
When large companies move into an area, the result is often gentrification. When this happens, the economic and social costs for displaced residents is typically high.
The UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty has given a damning indictment of how austerity has hit the UK. A former UN envoy explains why his calls to uphold social rights are so crucial.
Initiatives to boost South Africa’s economy could reinforce structural weaknesses without addressing the high levels of inequality.
A forest fire works its way through a wooded area in Saskatchewan in May 2018. High-income nations have benefitted enormously from fossil fuels and the wealthy should now foot the bill to combat climate change.
Joanne Francis/Unsplash
A wealth tax would put a price on past emissions and could be used to mitigate the negative effects of poverty, including vulnerability to climate change.