CORRUPTION-HONDURAS: International Aid Hanging by a Thread

The Honduran government of Manuel Zelaya has not been able to overcome the country’s reputation for corruption, to the extent that it is on the point of losing millions of dollars in aid from the Millennium Challenge Account, a fund set up by the United States to help extremely poor countries.

DEVELOPMENT: A New Breed of Hero

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders came together and agreed to a set of time-bound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.

Q&A: EU Promoting Democratic Globalisation

The European Union (EU) is a world power, the largest import market, and the biggest donor of development aid, which puts it in a position to promote democratic globalisation characterised by peace and social justice, according to Enrique Barón Crespo, a member of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee.

ENVIRONMENT-CUBA: Reforestation Renews a Barrio

Every morning Mario Véliz makes his way through the streets of Pogolotti, a low-income neighbourhood in the Cuban capital, to the milk shop. Those who only know him because he works there are unaware that this thin, wiry man with a face seamed with age is the life and soul of local reforestation.

MIGRATION: Caribbean Swamped With U.S. Deportees

In 1999, a Jamaican convict was deported to Guyana from the U.S. State of Texas after assuming the identity of a Guyanese mechanic who had lost his residency card on the streets far away in New York months earlier.

MOZAMBIQUE: Agriculture Input Fairs – A Chance to "Live in Dignity"

Despite a chain of misfortunes, 75-year-old Gonçalves Mandlate faithfully works his plot soon after sunrise each day, hoping that his life, and those of the five grandchildren who live with him, will improve.

MEDIA: Poverty, Development Goals Hard Subjects to Tackle

Water used to be carried home, usually by women, in large jugs, as is still the case in many poor countries. But now that many people around the world have piped water, they go to the supermarket to buy bottled water.

CARIBBEAN: Canada Looks Far South

As he winged his way back to Ottawa, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was no doubt satisfied that his six-day trip to the Americas, especially the Caribbean, was worth it.

DEVELOPMENT-WEST AFRICA: History Just Waiting to Repeat Itself

Two years ago, several West African states found themselves in the grip of severe food shortages - with some three million people affected in Niger alone. Children died, aid officials wrung their hands, people marched in Niger's capital, Niamey, to demand food...But were lessons learned - really learned - to ensure that the crisis does not recur?

CARIBBEAN: Putting People Before Economics

Years after issuing its 1989 Declaration of Grand Anse that serves as the blueprint for a Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), regional leaders have come to the realisation that it will take more than economics to drive and deepen the integration process.

POLITICS: Global Compact with Business ‘Lacks Teeth’ – NGOs

The U.N.'s Global Compact with international big business "at the moment is so voluntary that it really is a happy-go-lucky club," says Ramesh Singh, chief executive of ActionAid, a non-governmental organisation.

ECONOMY-ASIA: Decade After Meltdown IMF Less Relevant

As the Asian financial crisis struck 10 years ago, beginning in Thailand and then spreading rapidly to eight other economies in the region, the desperate call for help was answered from the West.

RIGHTS: Global Compact Expands, Impact Still Hazy

The upcoming Global Compact Leaders Summit this Thursday and Friday in Geneva seems to be getting more attention from various stakeholders in the global community than ever before.

CUBA: Women Combating Shortage of Decent Housing

Juana Hilda Naranjo no longer worries when it rains. For the last three years she has been living in a modern apartment out of reach of the water and wind, thanks to the efforts of the Taller de Transformación (Transformation Workshop) in the poor, predominantly black Havana neighbourhood of Pogolotti.

DEVELOPMENT: NGOs Demand Human Rights Approach to Poverty

A major civil society meet here was clear on what has been missing so far in the development dialogue - a ‘human rights approach’ to poverty and hunger.

Q&A: &#39&#39ICT Can Flatten Hierarchies&#39&#39

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) offers the best hope of rapidly empowering the poor and involving civil society in the development process.

DEVELOPMENT: Can Growth Ever Be Pro-Poor?

‘Pro-poor Growth’ sounded impressive as the title for a plenary at a major civil society meet here, but after the idea was explored, toyed with, taken apart and viewed from every possible angle it seemed as distant as ever from addressing poverty in the world.

DEVELOPMENT: When It Comes to Aid, All Power to the People

Aid to the developing world is effective when it empowers the community and the government of the recipient country, and they have learned to design a strong development strategy. Otherwise the effort is in vain, and hunger and exclusion only become more deeply rooted, say activists at a development forum under way here.

AFRICA: Food for 12 Billion. So Why Did 854 Million Go Without?

"As you are suffering from over-consumption, I am suffering from under-consumption. We need to strike a balance," said Mary Wahu Kaara from the Kenya Debt Relief Network with reference to the North and the South.

DEVELOPMENT: Civil Society – Window Dressing For the UN?

Is global governance the sole domain of governments or are they willing to share what has traditionally been their preserve? Has civil society finally inched its way into the United Nations system and made its presence felt?

POLITICS: U.N. Unveils Plan for Peacekeepers in Somalia

The United Nations is preparing a contingency plan for a possible 20,000-strong new peacekeeping force in one of the political hotspots in the Horn of Africa: Somalia.