Changing Lives: Making Research Real

Sum Gino at his market stall:

HEALTH-SAO TOME: The Forest is the Pharmacy

By Mercedes Sayagues
If you live in São Tomé, a good investment in your health is to plant a po-sabom tree (Dracaena aroborea) in your backyard. Leave space: it can grow up to 20 metres high, with sword-shaped leaves.
Processing shea butter in Ghana: women in the region are building on traditional knowledge to improve production. Credit: Kenneth S. Yussif

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Women in Pursuit of Knowledge

By Koffigan E. Adigbli
While Africa is still far from having adequate capacity for scientific innovation, women are more and more present in the field of research for the continent's sustainable development.
Mvuselelo

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Returning Sick – HIV, Illness, Death and Migration

By Siyabonga Kalipa and Brenda Nkuna
It's a Wednesday afternoon at the Joe Gqabi bus terminus in Philippi, Cape Town, and ticket touts scramble to recruit passengers wanting to travel to the rural Eastern Cape, a 1,000 kilometre, 16-hour haul away.

DEVELOPMENT: World’s Poor Offer Lessons in Bank Study

By IPS Correspondents
To be successful, poverty-reducing programmes must be informed by the lives and experiences of the millions of poor people around the world and emphasise economic opportunity, says a study released Wednesday by the World Bank.
Inshore catches are dwindling, putting the survival of fishing communities at risk. Credit: Patrick Burnett/IPS-WCN

ENVIRONMENT: Climate Change Threatens Livelihoods Along Africa's Coast

By Miriam Mannak
Environmental experts warn that climate change will lead to oceanic acidification and increase surface water temperatures, especially around the African continent.
T-shirt designer Eric Bidwell fights the power. Credit: Enrique Gili/IPS

TECHNOLOGY: Fab Labs Channel Your Inner Scientist

By Enrique Gili
Inside the confines of a modest 275-square-metre office space in this southern California city, the human imagination is running wild.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Who Is To Blame for the Crisis?

By Kristin Palitza
Health systems on the continent are riddled with inadequate policies, strategies, lack of institutional capacity, poor scientific review mechanisms and weak funding for research in the public and private sector, said Luis Sambo, regional director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Africa.

KENYA: Failing Grade For Free Primary Education?

By Najum Mushtaq
When in 2003 Kenya followed its neighbours Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi in introducing free and compulsory primary education for all, the response from the public as well as international donors was overwhelming.

RIGHTS-EGYPT: New Family Laws: A Success Story?

By IPS Correspondents
It was a love story of sorts and one that led to marriage. But 18 months later Nayrouz filed for divorce, making her part of a growing number of Egyptian women who are leaving their marriages. One in three marriages in this highly traditional and predominantly Muslim society fails within its first year, according to government figures.
Children's wellbeing is closely related to their socioeconomic status and parents' backgrounds. Credit: Kadire Nomoro/YoungLives/PhotoVoice

DEVELOPMENT: Signs of Hope for Ethiopia’s Children

By IPS Correspondents
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

By Stephanie Nieuwoudt
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

By IPS Correspondents
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

By Najum Mushtaq
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.
Unlucky in Egypt: finding integration difficult, thousands of refugees risk their lives to move on. Credit: Martina Fuchs/IRIN

EGYPT-REFUGEES: Stepping Stones Across the Desert

By IPS Correspondents
"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.
Researchers are studying how a shift from wood or coal to other energy sources affects women. Credit: Kimberly Haugen

DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: Lighting Up Women’s Lives

By IPS Correspondents
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.
Just 34 percent of Ethiopian children attend school. Instead, many work to support themselves and their families. Credit: Sisay Abebe/IPS

DEVELOPMENT-ETHIOPIA: Understanding Poverty's Impact on Children

By IPS Correspondents
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

By IPS Correspondents
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

By Stephanie Nieuwoudt
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.
A new report suggests guaranteeing a basic income is a route out of poverty. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

DEVELOPMENT: Escaping the Poverty Trap

By Mercedes Sayagues
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.
Strong demand for land for subsistence farming is not yet recognised by government policy in Southern Africa. Credit: Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Digging for Hope in Land Reform

By Stephanie Nieuwoudt
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.
Researchers are asking how education affects women's family planning choices Credit: Rose Oronje/IPS

POPULATION-KENYA: Women's Choices Change Cities

By IPS Correspondents
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.
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