I can never accept that girls grow up with extinguished dreams

- When families fall deeper into poverty, it is the girls who have to pay the price, writes Jennifer Vidmo, Secretary General of ActionAid Sweden, on International Girls' Day. Pictured: Naima, 7 years old (left), and Mushtak, 8 years old (right), in Burao, Somaliland. Photo: ActionAid, Karin Schermbrucker.

Of: Jennifer Vidmo

Today is International Girls' Day. A day to celebrate all the girls? No, a day to stand up for girls' rights - which is violated and diminished every day and exposes young girls to a life that we can all agree on is completely unreasonable. In poverty and not least in the wake of pandemics where families are destitute and without hope, girls are most at risk of being hit the hardest, writes ActionAid's Secretary General Jennifer Vidmo in a guest column.

October 11, 2021, Guest chronicle

Vaccine nationalism - a postcolonial power game

Photo: RF._.studio, Pexels

Of: Jasmine Ashne

Vaccine nationalism is a word that, along with corona distance, herd immunity and hobby epidemiologist, has been added to my vocabulary over the past year. Vaccine nationalism refers to when high-income countries sign agreements with vaccine manufacturers to ensure that their own population is vaccinated as quickly as possible. Protecting one's own is a natural and human behavior, but the problem […]

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May 23, 2021, Think piece

Capital means power and power means responsibility

If you own the profits from a polluting business, you also have a responsibility to deal with those negative consequences. Photo: Ryan Lackey, Flickr.

Of: Marcus Karlén

Capital pollutes the environment, not people. The environmental and climate debate therefore requires a new division of responsibilities based on the world's extreme climate inequality, says Marcus Karlén, who is involved in FUF's local group Stockholm Södra.

May 11, 2021, Think piece

It is not time to back down with aid

The state budget

Of: Frida Hjärtman

Recently, the financing of development assistance has been a current theme in both Sweden and the world. On 13 April, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published statistics showing that Sweden takes the lead in the development assistance phase with 1,14% of GNI for 2020. Thus, Sweden is the largest donor in the world in percentage terms. At the same time, the one percent target is being debated at home by, among others, SD and the Moderates, who want to reduce development assistance. Own domestic problems are weighed against the global goals and the fact that Sweden is one of the world's most well-developed countries, in the question of whether it is reasonable for Sweden to be the world's most generous donor.

May 4, 2021, Think piece

Is the general perception of Swedish development assistance realistic?

Photo: TLC Jonhson, Flickr

Of: Melanie Alphonse

Sweden has dedicated its development aid budget to fighting poverty and creating better conditions for people living in poverty to change their lives. I have heard of people who think that the development assistance budget goes to corrupt countries, but what is the general perception of development assistance in Sweden?

April 13, 2021, Think piece

More than 250 people have been killed since the military coup, and now activists are leaving Yangon

Of: Christina Jelmin

- Why do I feel like a criminal on the run? We have not done anything wrong and yet we are forced to flee. These monsters, they should be ashamed. My friend writes to me at the same time as she gets in the car that will take her away from the violence in Yangon to the relative security in the countryside. Next to her she has her mother, it is to her home village they are on their way. If they are stopped in a roadblock, the official explanation is that she will escort her mother home. But the truth is that she herself must get out of Yangon in order not to risk being caught.

March 22, 2021, Guest chronicle

That is why it is important to spread knowledge about the world

Johanna Wolf, non-profit active in FUF Stockholm

Of: Johanna Wolff and Max Ericson

The world is getting smaller with digitalisation. At the same time, we also see how complex the world is and that the challenges can be difficult to solve when we are not working together or towards the same goal. But why is it important that we have knowledge of the world and all the challenges we face? Read more about what our two non-profit active members from FUF think about this. They talk about the importance of finding their glow and getting a platform to express themselves.

February 8, 2021, Think piece

We are not in the same boat - feminist organization during the pandemic

Many IKFF sections have reshuffled their political work during the pandemic to help stop the spread of infection in their countries. IKFF DR Congo has sewn up mouth guards that they hand out.

Of: Tove Ivergård

New year new tag! 2020 was the year that no one had been able to imagine in advance would change as much as we had previously taken for granted; to go to work or school, hang out with friends or hug a grandmother. The year has been interspersed with hope, disappointment and many times even hopelessness. The definition of a pandemic is an epidemic […]

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January 25, 2021, Think piece