The Lid is On

Dominica is described as highly disaster-vulnerable: the country is regularly hit by hurricanes and, when the last one swept through in 2017, it caused huge devastation across the island.

The government, led by President Sylvanie Burton, the first woman and the first member of the indigenous Kalinago community to be the country’s Head of State, wants to make Dominica the world’s first ‘climate resilient country’. But, as the climate crisis threatens to lead to increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes, is this feasible?

The vast majority of small island developing States (SIDS) are heavily dependent on polluting, and expensive, fossil fuels for their energy needs: some spend around a quarter of their national budgets on imported fuel. 

Like many island economies, Dominica experiences high youth unemployment, and recent events, in particular Hurricane Maria and the COVID-19 pandemic, have combined to make the search for work even harder.

A UN-backed initiative designed to improve the employment options for young Dominicans, Work Online Dominica, has been successful in helping them to overcome the barriers they face on a small, remote island.

Caribbean island nations are vulnerable to a host of extreme weather events, from hurricanes to floods and droughts, that are becoming more dangerous and intense as a result of the climate emergency.

UN News met with three of the most prominent young climate activists on Trinidad & Tobago, and learned of their frustration with current environmental legislation, and what they are doing to raise awareness of the crisis.

Dominica may have found a solution to cover all of its electricity needs, and even sell electricity abroad, without burning fossil fuels: geothermal energy. This power source is 100 per cent clean, cheap and practically limitless.

Conor Lennon from UN News meets Vince Henderson, Dominica’s Minister for Economic Development and Sustainable Energy, and Fred John, CEO of the Dominica Geothermal Development Company to find out if the country really is on its way to a clean energy future.

Small Island Developing States are particularly vulnerable to plastic pollution. As well as coping with a tsunami of waste washes up on their beaches every day, these countries – which are generally highly dependent on imports – generate a large amount of plastic waste of their own, and often struggle to manage it.

In Kosovo, where tensions remain high between the ethnic Albanian and ethnic Serb communities, the United Nations is leading efforts to promote open communication and dialogue.

The UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) was established in 1999, well before the declaration of independence in 2008, and today plays a central role in promoting peace and security, and respect for human rights, in a region where memories of the wars of the late Twentieth Century, fought between the countries of the former Yugoslavia, are still fresh for many who suffered directly or lost loved ones.

The Haitian economy may be on its knees, but the gangs that control much of the capital Port-au-Prince seem to have little trouble obtaining guns, mainly from the USA.

The country is awash with weapons: according to experts convened by the UN Secretary-General, these “deadly arsenals” mean that gangs have “firepower that exceeds that of the Haitian national police,” and the problem is getting worse.

April 7 marks three decades since the beginning of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. An almost unimaginable slaughter, which saw an estimated 800,000 people killed in just 100 days, and shocked the world.

Eric Eugene Murangwa was a football at the time, playing for Rayon Sports, one of the top teams in the country, based in the capital Kigali.

As a Tutsi, he was in extreme danger when the genocide began. But, despite being well know, he managed to survive, despite the attempts to kill as many Tutsis as possible. He says that football saved his life.

Now in its thirteenth year, the war in Syria shows no signs of letting up, and several foreign powers are active in the country, including Russia, the US, Turkey and Israel, which has stepped up its bombardments since the 7 October Hamas attacks.