Aflatoxins: Poisoning Health and Trade in Sub-Saharan Africa

Aflatoxin contamination is a growing threat to trade, food and health security in sub-Saharan Africa, where smallholder farmers are challenged by food production and now climate change, researchers said.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Analysis: More Countries Want More Babies

Concerned with the consequences of demographic decline and population ageing, especially with respect to economic growth, national defence and pensions and health care for the elderly, a growing number of governments are seeking to raise birth rates. Whereas nearly 40 years ago 13 countries had policies to raise fertility, today the number has increased four-fold to 56, representing more than one-third of the world’s population.

Zimbabweans Align with Climate-Smart Agriculture Amid Food Deficits

With droughts wreaking havoc in vast areas of Zimbabwe, a majority of people here are fast falling in line with climate-smart agriculture (CSA) as food deficits continue.

Uruguay Puts High Priority on Renewable Energies

Uruguay is modifying its energy mix with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030, by means of a strategy that bolsters non-conventional clean energy sources through public-private partnerships and new investment. A majority of this South American country’s energy already comes from renewable sources.

Opinion: China’s New South-South Funds – a Global Game Changer?

South-South cooperation is usually seen as a poor second fiddle to North-South aid in the world of development assistance. Indeed, developing countries’ policy makers themselves insist that South-South cooperation can only supplement but not replace North-South cooperation.

African Experts Say the Continent Must Address Livestock Methane Emissions

Increasing calls for Africa to reduce methane emissions from livestock continue to be met with controversy, and livestock scientists say methane is a forgotten short-term climate pollutant with significant global warming potential that Africa cannot continue to overlook.

Gay Cruising Spots a Challenge for HIV/AIDS Prevention in Cuba

When night falls, young men can be seen sitting on a dismantled bus stop on a remote hill far from the centre of the Cuban capital. Later they climb uphill to have sex with other men in the thick forest.

Nepali Farmers Get Climate Smart

Bimala Bajagain, a farmer and mother of three, wears a fading red kurta and appears older than her age at 35. She offers us plates of salted guavas at the porch of her quake-damaged house.

Leading Powers to Double Renewable Energy Supply by 2030

Eight of the world’s leading economies will double their renewable energy supply by 2030 if they live up to their pledges to contribute to curbing global warming, which will be included in the new climate treaty.

Improved Post-Harvest Fish Handling Brings Hope to Western Zambia

Hadon Sichali has been in the fish trade for over 22 years. But he says only now does he feel a true businessman—but why?