Extreme heat is increasingly threatening pregnant women and newborn babies around the world, with almost all maternal health professionals surveyed across five continents saying they have cared for women or infants whose health was affected by high temperatures.
Post-harvest losses, particularly in rural areas, threaten the gains Africa is making in agricultural production and export capacity.
CIVICUS discusses life as a refugee with an exiled Sudanese civil society activist who has asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.
From a distance, an island nation can appear to possess everything: pristine waters, a thriving tourism industry and a strong cultural identity. Its income figures may suggest prosperity.
Fatuma Makame learned to farm seaweed in the shallow water where her parents worked. These days, she grows it farther from shore.
Agricultural, land, forestry, environmental and trade policies in the Congo Basin remain compartmentalised at country levels, leaving proven agroecological models trapped at pilot stages due to a lack of advisory services, organic inputs, market outlets and sustainable financing.
World leaders have warned that the most vulnerable people have been left behind as the right to development has promised more than it has delivered, with development seemingly the preserve of the superrich and powerful.
As Norway undertakes
Vendepunkt, or “Turning Point,” its reflection on the future of Norwegian development policy, it is critical that oceans remain a priority. Donors around the world are running similar audits, deciding which long-term partnerships to keep, and why. Norway has decades of expertise to offer, but also something significant at stake: healthy and well-governed oceans underpin food, livelihoods and economic activity in partner countries while supporting global seafood supply chains in which Norway itself participates.
After decades in which the high seas were too often treated as a distant frontier—vast, ownerless and beyond meaningful protection—the High Seas Treaty entered into force on 17 January 2026.
I was born in Rwanda, but my family soon became refugees in Uganda during the conflict and unrest on the cusp of independence. My father was a teacher and went to great lengths to make sure I was well educated. My parents were also smallholder farmers, and I saw firsthand the challenges my parents and other refugee families faced.
Africa is emerging as the world’s fastest-growing technology market, with its innovation ecosystem attracting increasing global investment. The European Investment Bank’s recent
€40 million commitment to the sector underscores this growing confidence.
Sudan’s civil war grinds on. It’s close to three and a half years since the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia began their battle for supremacy, and the two forces and their allies continue to slaughter civilians with impunity. As a
recent UN report makes clear, the killing is enabled by numerous foreign powers that continue to supply weapons, personnel and logistical support. They have made a civil conflict their proxy war, and their self-interest is sustaining the killing.
Migrants now send home more money than foreign aid, and this is pulling rural families out of poverty, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
When a child is diagnosed with cancer, their chances of survival should not depend on where they live, yet according to the WHO, more than 80 percent of children with cancer in high-income countries are cured, compared with fewer than 30 percent in many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
CIVICUS discusses renewed conflict and a growing crackdown on independent media in Ethiopia with Yonas Kedir, Editor-in-Chief of the independent news outlet Addis Standard, who was recently abducted and detained by government forces.
Agriculture remains underfunded in Africa as governments struggle to deliver on decades-old promises to dedicate 10% of national income to agriculture.
At least 124 land and environmental defenders were killed around the world in 2025 while protecting forests, rivers, farmland and Indigenous territories, according to a
new report by Global Witness that warns violence against activists remains widespread even as recorded killings have declined from previous years.
In Mali, an estimated nine out of ten women and girls have undergone
female genital mutilation (FGM). And for years, Sidi Haidara, a father and recognized leader in his community, believed the practice was simply part of life.
When the African continent experiences erratic rains, crops fail, leaving millions of people facing hunger.
A 12-year-old male lion slipped out of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park one winter morning and killed a 7-year-old boy in a village it wandered into.
Tonight, thousands of women across Africa will give birth. Whether they survive to see daylight will largely depend on where they live, how quickly they reach care, and whether the health system around them is ready to respond.