When the rains failed to come last year in central Isiolo County, Kenya, Mohamed Dahir figured he might lose 40% of his herd of 400 sheep and goats. Like several million other pastoralists in northern Kenya and across the border in Somalia and Ethiopia, Dahir and his herd live migrating between pastures.
Dahir did indeed lose some animals, but he received a payout from an emerging kind of livestock insurance: based on predictions of vegetation growth in the area and how many animals that might harm, his index-based livestock insurance policy gave him 50,000 Kenyan shillings (about £370) in cash before the drought and its consequences really settled in. He was able to buy enough hay from distant counties to save 95% of his herd. Continue reading How Kenya’s herders got their livestock insured→
When general store owner Melchor Villanueva leans on his countertop he can see his whole world under his hands. The counter’s glass surface displays photos of his community: young soccer players, teens in their coming-of-age quince años finest, and bandanna-wearing fishermen. Many descend from survivors of Hurricane Janet, which in 1955 killed a third of the population of Xcalak, a beach town on the Mexico-Belize border, and destroyed the town’s coconut plantations. “It left only sand,” Villanueva recalls. Continue reading Trial and error in a Mexican beach town→
Cuando el dueño de la tienda de abastos Melchor Villanueva se inclina sobre el mostrador puede ver todo su mundo bajo sus manos. El vidrio del mostrador muestra fotos de su comunidad: jóvenes futbolistas, jóvenes vestidas con sus mejores galas para sus fiestas de quince años, y pescadores con pañuelos contra el sol. Muchos descienden de los supervivientes del huracán Janet, que en 1955 mató a una tercera parte de la población de Xcalak, una ciudad costera en la frontera de México con Belice, y destruyó las plantaciones de cocoteros del pueblo. “Acá dejó solo arena”, recuerda Villanueva. Continue reading Ensayo y error en un pueblo playero de México→
When pharmacologist Ravindra Ghooi learned in 1996 that his mother had terminal breast cancer, he began to investigate whether he could obtain morphine, in case she needed pain relief at the end of her life. But a morphine prescription in India at that time, even for the dying, was a rare thing: most states required four or five different licences to buy painkillers such as morphine, and there were harsh penalties for minor administrative errors. Few pharmacies stocked opioids and it was a rare doctor who held the necessary paperwork to prescribe them. Ghooi, who is now a consultant at Cipla Palliative Care and Training Centre in Pune, used his connections to ask government and industry officials if there was a straightforward way of obtaining morphine for his mother. “Everybody agreed to give me morphine,” he recalls, “but they said they’d give it to me illegally.” Continue reading Palliative care: The other opioid issue→
Journalist covering global development by way of science and technology.
