Development & Aid

In Pakistan, Militants Wear Aid Workers’ Clothing

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Muhammad Tufail, a 22-year-old resident of Mardan, one of 26 districts that comprise Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, has recently become a volunteer aid worker.

India Stands Firm on Protecting Food Security of South at WTO

By Ravi Kanth Devarakonda
The failure of the two major players in global trade negotiations to bridge their differences has put paid to the adoption of the protocol of amendment for implementation of the contested Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) for the time being. 

Nicaragua Pins Hopes for Progress on Grand Canal

By José Adán Silva
Víctor Sánchez doesn’t want gold or the comfortable future income he was promised. He just wants to live the life he has always lived on his farm along the Banks of the Las Lajas river – but the river is slated to become part of the route followed by the Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal.

How Farming is Making Côte d’Ivoire’s Prisoners ‘Feel Like Being Human Again’

By Marc-Andre Boisvert
François Kouamé, prisoner Number 67, proudly shows off a sow and her four piglets. Dressed in his rubber boots, he passes by two new tractors as he happily makes his way to a field where pretty soon cassava and corn plants will start growing. “Look at those sprouts. It is a lot of work!”

Politics Complicates Education in Lebanon’s Refugee Camps

By Shelly Kittleson
The Shatila Palestinian camp has no library, nor does adjacent Sabra or Ain El-Hilweh in the south. And, after recent statements by Lebanon’s foreign minister, some fear that the thousands of Syrian refugee children within them will soon have even slimmer chances of learning to read and write.

Time Running Out for Refugees Seeking Asylum in Italy

By Silvia Giannelli
His journey started four years ago in Conakry, Guinea. Now that Mamoudou* has finally reached Italy, he hopes this will be his final stop.

Human Rights Low on U.S-Africa Policy Summit

By Julia Hotz
As the White House prepares to host more than 40 African heads of state for the upcoming U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, civil society actors from the U.S., Africa and the international community are urging the Barack Obama administration to use the summit as an opportunity to more thoroughly address some of Africa’s most pressing human rights violations.

Cash Transfers Drive Human Development in Brazil

By Fabiola Ortiz
Every day, Celina Maria de Souza rises before dawn, and after taking four of her children to the nearby school she climbs down the 180 steps that separate her home on a steep hill from the flat part of this Brazilian city, to go to her job as a domestic. In the evening she makes the long trek back up.

Cameroon’s Muslim Clerics Turn to Education to Shun Boko Haram

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
Motari Hamissou used to get along well with his pupils at the government primary school in Sabga, an area in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s North West Region. In the past, Hamissou also lived in peace with his neighbours. No one was bothered by his long, thick beard or the veil his wife, Aisha Hamissou, wore, or the religion they followed.

World Bank Board Declines to Revise Controversial Draft Policies

By Jim Lobe
A key committee of the World Bank’s governing board Wednesday spurned appeals to revise a  draft policy statement that, according to nearly 100 civil-society groups, risks rolling back several decades of reforms designed to protect indigenous populations, the poor and sensitive ecosystems.

Land Grabbing – A New Political Strategy for Arab Countries

By Mona Alami
Food price rises as far back as 2008 are believed to be the partial culprits behind the instability plaguing Arab countries and they have become increasingly aware of the importance of securing food needs through an international strategy of land grabs which are often detrimental to local populations.

China’s ‘Left-Behind Girls’ Learn Self-Protection

By IPS Correspondents
A normally quiet second-grade student, Yuan Yuan* suffers from a mild mental disorder that impacts her ability to learn and communicate. Her father, also mentally disabled, left her several years ago to find work in the city and his family hasn’t heard from him since. Unable to support the family, her mother also left and never returned.

Bill to Fight Discrimination Against HIV-Positive Venezuelans

By Humberto Márquez
Venezuela is gearing up to pass a new law to combat discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS, in a country where the epidemic claims nearly 4,000 lives and infects 11,000 mainly young people every year, including increasing numbers of women.

Is Europe’s Breadbasket Up for Grabs?

By Kanya D'Almeida
Amidst an exodus of some 100,000 people from the conflict-torn eastern Ukraine, ongoing fighting in the urban strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk between Ukrainian soldiers and separatist rebels, and talk of more sanctions against Russia, it is hard to focus on the more subtle changes taking place in this eastern European nation.

Israel Lobby Galvanises Support for Gaza War

By Mitchell Plitnick
Pro-Israel activists assembled a huge crowd and a long list of congressional leaders and diplomats to declare their unconditional support for Israel’s military operations in the Gaza Strip on Monday, largely downplaying  tensions between Jerusalem and Washington.
Next Page »