Smart Technologies Key to Youth Involvement in Agriculture

She is only 24 and already running her father’s farm with 110 milking cows. Cornelia Flatten sees herself as a farmer for the rest of her life.

German Development Cooperation Piggybacks Onto Africa’s E-Boom

In a major paradigm shift, the German government is now placing its bets on digitalisation for its development cooperation policy with Africa, under what it calls a Strategic Partnership for a ’Digital Africa’.

Opinion: Ethical Challenges to Advertising

Challenges to advertisers and marketers arose in the past century. Critics deplored the role of cigarette marketers who exploited the aspirations of women by associating smoking with liberation. 

Africa Primed to Take Advantage of Internet Opportunity

There has been robust growth in Internet access and usage over the past few years and Africa is now primed to take advantage of the social and economic opportunities that Internet can bring to people across the continent, according to Kathy Brown, President and CEO of the Internet Society.

OPINION: Patent Examination and Legal Fictions: How Rights are Created on Feet of Clay

Industry’s demands and political pressures exerted by developed countries to expand and strengthen patent protection worldwide have been based on the argument that patents promote innovation and thereby contribute to achieve social, political and economic well-being, independently of the level of development of the country where they are granted and enforced.

SMS for Healthy, AIDS-Free Babies

In rural Zambia and Malawi, new mums face long delays finding out if they have passed HIV on to their babies.

Sustaining the Future Through Culture

International experts working in the creative sector are calling for governments to recognise the integral role that culture plays in development and to ensure that culture is a part of the post-2015 United Nations development goals, to be discussed next year.

OPINION: Tackling the Proliferation of Patents to Avoid Limitations to Competition

The steady increase in patent applications and grants that is taking place in developed and some developing countries (notably in China) is sometimes hailed as evidence of the strength of global innovation and of the role of the patent system in encouraging it. 

Mongolia’s Poorest Turn Garbage into Gold

Ulziikhutag Jigjid, 49, is a member of a 10-person group in the Khan-Uul district on the outskirts of Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, which is producing brooms, chairs, containers, and other handmade products from discarded soda and juice containers.

Zimbabwean Girls Venture into Technological Innovation

For 22-year-old Moselyn Muchena, a final year computer science student at the University of Zimbabwe, it seemed obvious to create a mobile application offering easy access to services in the local catering industry, largely because of the huge number of female entrepreneurs in that sector.

DR Congo’s Red Light to Invention

"There are several robots in the world, but that one which regulates traffic is made in Congo," Thérèse Izayi, a female engineer and the Congolese inventor of two very unusual traffic signals, tells IPS.

New Policies Beyond Austerity and Stimulus

It is time to move the global policy debate beyond the binary options of “austerity” versus “stimulus.” Both these macroeconomic policies have caused untold harm to millions and produced dangerous policy stalemates in Europe and the U.S., Japan and other countries.

Living Laboratory for Coping with Drought in Brazil

The first surprise on arriving at Abel Manto's farm is how green it is, in contrast with the dry brown surroundings. His beans and fruit trees seem oblivious to the persistent drought in the semi-arid hinterland of northeast Brazil, the worst in 50 years.

Q&A: Innovation Key to Sustainable Development Goals

Innovation, as the fruit of science and technology, will play a fundamental role in the Sustainable Development Goals that could go into effect in 2015, says Néstor Osorio, president of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Occupation Can’t Stifle Innovation

Afnan Hamad stands proudly in front of a booth at the Ramallah Cultural Palace exhibition hall, three plastic bottles filled with discoloured liquid on the table in front of her.