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Tuesday, June 2, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Changing Lives: Making Research Real
DEVELOPMENT: Signs of Hope for Ethiopia’s Children
Amid the hardship facing Ethiopia's children, there are signs that conditions may be improving and that children's lives are changing for the better.AFRICA: Research and Tradition Could Save Environment
Africa risks losing up to 50 percent of its indigenous species over the next century due to global warming.KENYA: Predicting Weather With Science and Spider Webs
When the magungu bird flies higher in the sky than usual and seems to float in the air in its passage from south to north, the Abasuba people living on the islands of Kenya's Lake Victoria and on the highlands near the lake know the rains are on their way and that it is time to plant.ENVIRONMENT-KENYA: Threat to Pastoralists' Way of Life
Ole Kaparo works as a school teacher in Nairobi, though his family still herds cattle in the Masai pastures of the north Rift Valley province. Five years ago, during a prolonged spell of drought, he left this traditional life to seek work in the city.
EGYPT-REFUGEES: Stepping Stones Across the Desert
"When I left Darfur, I left the hell of death and entered the hell of life. That is the only difference," said Galoud*, one of the many Darfuri refugees who have escaped to Egypt.
DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: Lighting Up Women’s Lives
Anneth Laizer shoved her kerosene lantern onto the top shelf and switched on the lights after her home in Tanzania's third-largest city, Arusha, was connected to electricity earlier this year.
DEVELOPMENT-ETHIOPIA: Understanding Poverty's Impact on Children
When the school bell rings, Alemtsehay and her three younger sisters rush home to change out of their school uniforms and into tattered clothes to go out begging around Bole Road, one of Addis Ababa's smarter areas.Q&A: Finding New Ways To Reach Farmers
When beekeepers in central and eastern Uganda got vouchers to go online at internet cafés, their most popular query was how to treat bee stings. A local agricultural information provider replied in Baganda, the local language.SOUTH AFRICA: Measuring the Carbon Footprint of Fruit and Wine
In an effort to stay competitive in a global market where increasing demands are made by consumers for 'green' products, South African fruit and wine farmers have launched an initiative to determine the environmental impact of their industries. The research could challenge the idea that exported products from the developing world have a higher environmental cost.
DEVELOPMENT: Escaping the Poverty Trap
What do they have in common - the landless widow with a deaf son in Bangladesh, the 12-year-old miner in Kyrgyzstan, the Ugandan farming couple with 12 children and the South African domestic worker who loses her home when her husband dies and her job when she breaks a leg? They, and their children, are trapped in chronic poverty, even as their countries show economic growth.
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Digging for Hope in Land Reform
Through the difficulties facing the land reform process in Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia, glimmers of hope are emerging. The challenge now is to seek lessons which enable newly settled farmers to create a livelihood.
POPULATION-KENYA: Women's Choices Change Cities
This year the world reaches an invisible but momentous milestone: for the first time in history, more than half its population will be living in urban areas. In Kenya, rapid urbanisation is creating deepening poverty among urban residents.
HEALTH-SWAZILAND: AIDS Creating a Society in Distress
In a narrow and still winter-brown valley, little more than a crevice between rocky mountains, Gogo Ndlovu looks after her five young orphaned grandchildren.ENVIRONMENT-SOUTH AFRICA: Western Cape Farmers Expect the Unexpected
The Western Cape region attracts millions of tourists who come to this part of South Africa to enjoy its famous Table Mountain and beaches, and to experience some of the world's best wines and deciduous fruits. But changes in the region's climate could be threatening these industries.
Q&A: Denying Antiretrovirals To Migrants Hurts Us All
South Africa has become a destination for people from across the continent and beyond. But in spite of migrants having a legal right to free antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV, they are being turned away from government clinics.Q&A: Is Democracy Dangerous in Multi-ethnic Societies?
The Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity (CRISE) would seem to have its work cut out for it in a world racked by brutal and enduring conflict. The centre's goal is to explore the links between ethnicity, inequality and conflict in order to identify policies that could lead to more inclusive multi-ethnic societies.HEALTH-KENYA: Malaria Rises to Highland Areas
The end of June marks the start of the malaria season in East Africa. After the long rains, conditions in lowland swamps and coastal regions are more conducive for mosquito breeding. But in recent years malaria has also appeared in the highland areas where it was previously unheard of.HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Free To Go Where I Like – Life Outside a Psychiatric Hospital
The wind has picked up and blows the sand, swirling in patterns, across the dirt roads and barren yards of Madadeni township. It batters relentlessly against the walls of Joseph Gumede’s* iron shack, rattling the windows, and he has to raise his voice to be heard above the din. But sheltered from the dust storm. Joseph feels that he has at last found his way home.HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Children in the Path of the Pandemic
There is barely a path leading down the steep incline and through the dense bush to the Mabuyakhulu homestead. It would be easy to pass by without finding 13 year old Zanele* and her eight year old sister Andiswa who stay there on their own.
DEVELOPMENT-KENYA: Water Studies – But Where Are the Water Supplies?
The road leading to the informal settlement of Korogocho is narrow and winding. Here, in Nairobi's third largest slum, up to 150,000 people are crammed into an area of just over one square kilometre, their shanties made of cardboard, wood or metal.Q&A: Circumcision an “Opportunity To Take Great Strides Forward” Against HIV
Results from trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda in 2006 showed that male circumcision reduced the transmission of HIV from women to men by up to 60 percent. On the basis of these results, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organisation have recommended that countries encourage men to be circumcised.« Previous Page — Next Page »
Research findings may be widely published in scientific journals, peer-reviewed and academically admired -- but are they filtering through to the public, and bringing about tangible improvements to everyday life? In partnership with www.research4development.info, IPS is seeking to answer these questions, enliven the debate about research, and help to ensure that it does indeed change lives.
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