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Monday morning. As usual, Stéphanie, 4 years old, a kindergartener, has to go to school. At 6am, her mother Hélène goes to wake her up so that she can get ready. She finds her daughter unconscious. Panic-stricken and distraught, she tells her husband and they rush to the hospital. The diagnosis was made: Stéphanie was suffering from neuromalaria or pernicious access, the most severe form of malaria. She was taken to the intensive care unit and regained consciousness only days later, on Friday. 

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are perhaps the most ambitious undertaking for global peace and prosperity since the formation of the United Nations. Achieving the goals requires that the UN system work together within and across countries like never before.

“I can tell you, perseverance pays,” says Bernadette Gomina, who ran unsuccessfully for the legislature in 2005 and 2010. She was elected in 2015 and reelected in 2020. “[Women parliamentarians] face issues at many levels: [lack of] finances, discriminatory behaviours and mindsets, but us women … we have our part to play; we must change our mindsets and get to work, together, to change this situation.” 

It is a sunny day on the Nakai Plateau in central Lao People’s Democratic Republic, or Lao PDR. Noi has just returned from the market, where she bought a new shirt for her 3-year-old son, Seng. Seng has grown much taller in the two years since Noi left for Thailand in search of better wages.