JAPAN: Aid Cut to Hit Health Campaigns

International campaigns against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria are headed for cuts in funding assistance, now that Japan is reducing its Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) budget in the wake of the disaster that hit the country in March.

AIDS Funding Gap Threatens Treatment Targets

A staggering nine million people are still awaiting HIV treatment, yet the 22 billion dollars the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) says is needed to give them access to medicine and care has far from materialised.

INDIA: Despite Fears of a Bubble, Microfinance Needed for Growth

Sambari Naik never went to school and is determined to give her daughter Rebati an education. But 13-year-old Rebati seldom did well in her studies, often dozing over her books beside a flickering and smoky kerosene wick lamp in their house, which had no electricity.

BRAZIL: Haiti Is Here

In the powerful verses of the song "Haiti", Brazilian musicians Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil described similarities between two countries at different ends of the development spectrum in Latin America, summed up by the words "Haiti is here".

PERU-US: Washington Urged to Cooperate with Humala

The United States should seek cooperative relations with Peruvian President-elect Ollanta Humala, a number of Andean specialists urged here Monday.

SRI LANKA: Peace Dividend Skips Remote Villages

The road to Unnichchai in eastern Sri Lanka makes for a nerve-wracking journey trying to avoid large crater-like potholes, squeezing across narrow bridges, and passing by a patchwork landscape of paddy fields - both abandoned and cultivated - with not a building in sight.

World Bank Calibrating its Measurement of Sustainability

The World Bank is working to update the mechanisms it uses to measure the effects of the financing it provides, particularly in environmental and social terms, now that it is gearing up to administer the new Green Climate Fund.

IBSA: India Stakes Its Bets on Training Africa

Of the various cooperation programmes Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, plans for an India-Africa Virtual University (IAVU) take pride of place.

CENTRAL AMERICA: Boosting Small Enterprise to Fight Poverty

Small and medium-sized companies in Central America are the targets of foreign development aid programmes aimed at fighting the region's high poverty levels.

DEVELOPMENT: IBSA Fund Packs Small But Sustainable Punches*

Despite only three million dollars a year coming into the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Fund for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation, it aims to pack punches above its weight with small but sustainable projects.

BRAZIL: From Development Aid Recipient to Donor

Although Brazil's international development funds are still small compared to those of the industrialised world, the South American giant's foreign aid has grown considerably in the last eight years, and the country has gone from beneficiary of development assistance to donor.

DEVELOPMENT: IBSA Fund Packs Small But Sustainable Punches

Despite only three million dollars a year coming into the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Fund for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation, it aims to pack punches above its weight with small but sustainable projects.

DEVELOPMENT: IBSA’s South-South Funding With No Strings Attached

Development donors typically impose strict conditions on recipient countries. Now a different South-South approach to funding is taking shape through the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Fund for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation.

Swaziland’s Middle-Income Status Reflects Only King’s Lifestyle

While Swaziland struggles to alleviate its fiscal crisis with foreign aid because of its World Bank classification as a lower middle-income country, the government has increased the budget for King Mswati III, Africa’s last remaining absolute monarch and one of the richest royals in the world.

CARIBBEAN: Colonies Seek to Redefine Relationship with EU

The newly elected chair of the Overseas Countries and Territories Association (OCTA), Montserrat's Chief Minister Reuben Meade, wants "trade rather than aid" to form the basis of the future relationship between Europe and its colonies around the world.

INDIA: Engaging Africa With Software and Soft Power

India cannot match China’s massive investments in Africa, but it is using its information technology capabilities and its affordable university courses to stay relevant on the continent.

BRAZIL-US: Obama Promises “Equal Partnership”

The United States says its relations with Latin America must be "an equal partnership" - a new vision or, at least, a new discourse that will have a chance to take more concrete shape during U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Brazil this weekend.

Agricultural Policy Is Gender Policy

Eva, a Ghanian woman, was given five pigs and some training on how best to care for them. Eventually, her farm grew to 400 pigs and she was able to buy more land and a motorbike which she not only used for transporting her goods to market but for helping neighbours get to town and to hospital quicker.

TRADE: Chic Carpets Link Mozambique, Denmark and, Soon, Brazil

In two rooms in a small Mozambican coastal town, 70 women are cutting, weaving and packaging fabric carpets destined for eclectic design and homeware stores in Denmark and, soon, Brazil and South Africa.

IBSA Together in Resisting No-fly Zone

India has found backing at this week's India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) ministers meeting for its stance that a no-fly zone over Libya must follow multilateral consultations.

BALKANS: Rising Anti-EU Sentiment

Anti-European Union (EU) sentiment is growing across the Balkan countries that have proclaimed membership in the European family of nations as their highest political goal during the past decade. It is caused by prolonged economic hardships that still bite hard, failure of authorities to fight widespread corruption and political deadlock in creating stable governments.