TRADE: Africa Still the Odd One Out

While globally trade agreements are more and more about linking production chains between countries and continents, Africa remains locked in a struggle to overcome the colonial legacy of fragmentation, trade experts say.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Nepali Women Sow a Secure Future

Learning a lesson from crop failures attributed to climate change, Nepal’s women farmers are discarding imported hybrid seeds and husbanding hardier local varieties in cooperative seed banks.

DEVELOPMENT: ‘Boomerang Aid Enriches Donors’

Development aid is ineffective mostly because it is tied to contracts worth billions of dollars awarded to firms in developed countries in a phenomenon called boomerang aid, a new study says.

MALAWI: Government Becomes a One-Man Show

For the last two weeks, Malawi’s president has been running the country’s 22 ministries on his own after firing his entire cabinet. But political and economic analysts say that his delay in appointing a new cabinet is detrimental to the country’s development. Some analysts say government has come to a standstill because of this, while others say the situation shows that the president has lost control.

TRADE: Free Trade in Africa, For Better or Worse?

It is not certain that an African free trade area will further regional integration or deepen the existing inequality between countries.

NEPAL: Fasting Against Corruption Spreads

Inspired by Indian socialist leader Anna Hazare’s celebrated public fast against corruption in the Indian capital of New Delhi, starvation protests have sprung up in Nepal to press for a timely new constitution.

GHANA: Struggle to Prevent Import of Counterfeit Drugs

Counterfeit medicines have flooded the market in Ghana and have even made their way into government hospitals as the country’s drug regulator struggles to control the importation of drugs.

KENYA: Poor Struggle as Inflation Soars

As Kenya's inflation rate reached 15.53 percent, compared to 3.18 percent in October 2010, the country's poor have been struggling to afford the most basic of essentials. In some areas families can no longer rely on regular meals and have reduced them to one a day, others mostly eat potatoes to get by, and in one Rift Valley slum, poor families now buy toothpaste by the drop.

CONGO: Many Indigenous Women Still Give Birth in the Forest

Marguerite Kassa feared she would find herself alone in the small crowd of a dozen other pregnant women at the integrated health centre in Mossendjo, in the southwestern Republic of Congo. "I am six months pregnant already, but I hesitated to come here before now, because there is so much contempt for us," the thirty-year-old indigenous woman tells IPS. "Yet I was warmly welcomed."

SOUTH SUDAN: Inter-Ethnic Clashes Become More Frequent and Deadly

Thousands of women and children are being abducted and over 1,000 people have died this year as communities in oil-rich South Sudan war over a precious commodity – cattle.

ECONOMY-ZIMBABWE: Good Policies Make for Good Business

With effective political and economic policies, Africa can be a haven for multinational companies (MNCs) even in the continent's least developed countries.

KENYA: Lime Improves Maize Harvest

As the world’s worst food security crisis continues across the Horn of Africa, including in Kenya, some smallholder farmers in the western part of the country are still feeding their families with last year’s abundant harvest.

SOMALIA: Massive School Dropouts As Famine Continues

Jamaal Abdi, an eight-year-old boy at the Badbaado camp on the outskirts of Mogadishu, would like to have an education. He has his own dreams for the future.

MALAWI: Giving Up on Tobacco

Malawi is reducing the production of tobacco following huge losses by smallholder tobacco farmers and commercial estates trading the crop on the country’s only official tobacco markets, the auction floors.

GHANA: Guidelines for Unregulated Microfinance Sector

When Andrew Poku's mother passed away he needed help to pay for her funeral. So the 35-year-old teacher from Accra turned to one of the country's several loan companies for a 670-dollar loan.

AFRICA: Emerging Trend Towards Establishing Offshore Tax Havens

As several African governments examine the possibility of setting up their own "offshore" financial centres, the trade name for tax havens, campaigners are calling for transparency and fair tax regimes.

MOZAMBIQUE: Climate Change Threatens Smallholder Farmers

Long after the wintry sun set over her patch of crops outside the Mozambican capital Angelina Jossefa keeps pulling out weeds. Much of her lettuce, carrots and beetroot died during a cruel winter, which means she has to work harder to feed her three children.

NEPAL: Adapting to Climate Change Can be Simple

Saraswoti Bhetwal’s terraced fields stand out in the sub-Himalayan Lamdihi village as a mosaic of shapes and colours formed by beans, bitter gourd, chilly, tomato, lady’s fingers and other crops.

SOMALIA: City in Need of More Aid

The shelling and gunshots, once a common sound in Mogadishu, no longer ring out in the city's streets. The surprise withdrawal on Aug. 6 of the Islamist extremist group Al Shabaab from their stronghold in Mogadishu has meant that people now move about the city, for the first time in two years, without fear of constant attack.

SWAZILAND: Disagreement on How South African Loan Should be Spent

Despite the 2.4 billion emalangeni (342 million dollar) loan from the South African government to its cash-strapped neighbour, Swaziland is sinking deeper into debt.

NAMIBIA: No Option but to Adapt to a Changing Climate

Extreme weather conditions predicted because of climate change in Namibia are likely to have a tremendous effect on the 70 percent of the country’s people who live in rural areas and depend heavily on agriculture.