Hunger Heralds Climate Change’s Arrival in Botswana

A perfect storm of lower rainfall and a growing population beckons for Botswana. But others find climate change is already in the fields and paddocks. “As climate change ushers in more stress on the water sector, it is increasingly a concern that losses in rangeland productivity will result in food insecurity, especially in rural areas,” a country analysis report unveiled recently on Botswana states.

Gay Rights Activists Hope for The Pope’s Blessings in Uganda

This week Pope Francis is making his first trip to Africa in his as leader of the Catholic church. While mass excitement is building in the three host countries, Kenya, Uganda and the Central African Republic (CAR),among people of all religions not everyone is in the mood to celebrate.

Searching for Nutrition in South Africa’s Food Maze

Every Tuesday, there is something unusually exciting at no 7 Cwango Crescent, The Business Place, in Philippi, near Cape Town.  Here, ​ dozens of chemically free green vegetable crate loads are visible. So are the unlabelled rows of empty packets. It’s the packing day.

Analysis: Are Young People the Answer to Africa’s Food Security?

Are you young, energetic, creative, ambitious and need a job? Africa's agriculture sector needs you!

Cubans Seeking the American Dream, Stranded in Costa Rica

Thousands of Cubans heading for the United States have been stranded at the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border since mid-November, waiting for the authorities in Managua to authorise their passage north.

Global Hunger and Undernutrition Could End by 2025

The United Nations aims to help eliminate hunger and undernutrition – described as two of “greatest scourges” facing humankind -- by the year 2030.

Private Nature Reserves in Latin America Seek a Bigger Role

Private voluntary nature reserves in Latin America should be seen as allies in policies on the environment, climate change mitigation and the preservation of biological diversity in rainforests, say experts.

Bewildering Biodiversity – A Success Story of Food Security for Indigenous Peoples in India

The 2013 National Food Security Act of the Government of India seeks, according to its preamble, to “provide for food and nutritional security by ensuring access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices to people”. Despite rapid economic growth and gains in reducing poverty, India has with among the highest levels of hunger and malnutrition in the world.

Where Technology and Medicine Meet in Rural Zambia

When health officer Kennedy Mulenga was faced with a male patient developing breasts at the remote Ngwerere Clinic 30km north of the Zambian capital, Lusaka, he logged onto Virtual Doctors to get help solving the medical mystery.

The Challenge of Climate Change: an Indian perspective

Few countries in the world are as vulnerable to the effects of climate change as India is with its vast population (of over 1.2 billion) that is dependent on the growth of its agrarian economy, its expansive coastal areas and the Himalayan region and islands.

Latin American Legislators Find New Paths to Fight Hunger

With eight specific commitments aimed at pushing through laws and policies on food security and sovereignty, family farming and school feeding programmes, legislators from 17 countries closed the Sixth Forum of the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Open Defecation to End by 2025, Vows UN Chief, Marking World Toilet Day

The state of the world’s toilets reveals the good, the bad and the ugly – but not necessarily in that order.

Opinion: Progress Against Undernutrition, But Uneven

At the end of 2014, an estimated 795 million people – one in nine people worldwide – were estimated to be chronically hungry. All but 15 million of the world’s hungry live in developing countries, i.e., 780 million are in developing countries, where the share of the hungry has declined by less than half – from 23.4 per cent in 1991 to 12.9 per cent.

Solar Power Keeps the Midnight Oil Burning at the University of Dodoma

Power cuts wreak havoc on most lives, but when you have an exam the next day and you have to do well, without light to study by you are stuck. But those dark days in the dorm may soon be over.

UN Advisory Board Seeks Powerful New Global Arena for Water and Sanitation

A 21-member UN Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB), which has just completed its 11-year mandate, is calling for a complete overhaul of how the United Nations and the international community deals with two unresolved socio-economic issues on the post-2015 development agenda: scarcity of water and inadequate sanitation.

Paris, the Refugees and Europe

The focus on terrorism is obscuring the issues of refugees, and it is important to consider its impact on Europe, after the shock of Paris.

Jamaica’s Aging Water Systems Falter Under Intense Heat and Drought

This past summer Jamaicans sweltered through their third consecutive year of reduced rainfall resulting in wild fires, a crop-killing drought and daily water cuts.

“Jasmine Revolution” Challenges Male Domination of Tea Trade Unions

Until September this year, Lissie Sunny was not a name known to the Indian public. All of this changed when this lean and dark woman, working for over a quarter century plucking tea leaves in the misty mountain slopes of southern India finally had enough and took on one of the most powerful tea companies in the world.

Civil Society May be Snagged at Paris Climate Talks

The rising security concerns, following the terrorist attacks in Paris last week, are threatening to unsettle civil society participation in the upcoming landmark international conference on climate change in the French capital.

Latin America to Push for Food Security Laws as a Bloc

Lawmakers in the Parliamentary Front Against Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean decided at a regional meeting to work as a bloc for the passage of laws on food security – an area in which countries in the region have show uneven progress.

Africa Clinches Mega Development Prospects

The Week of the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, focusing on the continent’s infrastructural development ended today with resolutions that could catapult huge advances for Africa.