OP-ED: Zambian TV Ads Threaten Women’s Gains

Five years since Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was elected president in Liberia, it appears there is a systematic campaign to remind African women that their place is still in the kitchen. And advertisers of detergent powders and other cleaning products appear to be the main culprits.

Educate the Girl, Empower the Woman

Picture a mother, hunching over a field with a Medieval-style hoe in hand, spending day after day tilling the soil under a beating hot sun - only to retire home to care for her family without electricity or running water.

U.N. Task Force Pushes for Investment in Teen Girls

Risk of sexual violence, limited access to education, and health issues such as HIV/AIDS and forced female genital mutilation/cutting are just a few of the obstacles adolescent girls face in developing countries, yet these girls are the key to the future and the eradication of poverty, stress experts at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

Peace Before Women’s Rights, or Women’s Rights Before Peace?

1325. It's a combination of digits that might not mean much to the majority of the world's population, but these four numbers are a crucial tool in the global struggle for gender equality.

ARGENTINA: Proposal to Go after Clients of Sex Trafficking Victims

An Argentine government proposal to crack down on clients benefiting from the trafficking of persons for the purposes of sexual exploitation has unleashed a heated debate between feminist organisations that support the idea and sex workers who are opposed to it.

Q&A: “Education Must Reach the Marginalised”

Although more girls are enrolling in school - notably in countries with the greatest gender gaps like Chad, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Yemen - two-thirds of the world's illiterate adults are still women.

DEVELOPMENT: Support Piles Up for Millennium Consumption Goals

Suggestions are pouring in from all corners of the world on how the world’s rich could reduce climate-damaging consumption habits, called Millennium Consumption Goals (MCGs), envisioned to be the flipside of the eight-point Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set for the poor.

UN Women Celebrates Launch as Leading Player in Gender Equality

After years of planning, fundraising and consultations, U.N. Women was officially launched Thursday evening to much celebration.

PERU: Nutritional Supplement Programme Big Business for a Few

Peru's Glass of Milk Programme (PVL) is failing in its aim of providing nutritional supplements to all poor children in Peru. But it has been a big business opportunity for the handful of companies that supply the programme, according to a special audit report seen by IPS.

Agro-Fuel Debate Takes Root in Central America

The debate is growing in Central America over the scope of industrial crops in forested areas or subsistence farming zones, and their impact on the source of food for the rural population.

ENERGY-DR CONGO: Small Is Beautiful – And Electrifying

While discussion of hydroelectric power on the Congo River is dominated by the massive Grand Inga project and the dream of power for the entire continent, construction of a series of smaller dams to benefit local communities may produce tangible results much more quickly.

Microcredit Critics Say Debt Doesn’t Equal Emancipation

In response to a pelting critique from academics, economists and grassroots organisers worldwide, the 2011 State of the Microcredit Summit Campaign Report plans to address the controversies surrounding a development scheme that many believe to have failed.

A World Going Hungry

In an era of mass consumption in the West, the developing world is entering its second major hunger crisis in three years, with new figures from the World Bank showing food price hikes have forced 44 million people into economic hardship since last June.

Grassroots Women Agree: Our Biggest Problem Is Gender Violence

Nearly three-quarters of activists and grassroots organisers working globally to safeguard women's rights are convinced that ending violence against women must be the top priority of the newly formed U.N. Women, according to a report launched Wednesday by Oxfam and VSO UK at the annual meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York City.

Q&A: Putting the Force of Law Behind Women’s Rights

The two-week Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations headquarters draws together a wide array of civil society leaders as well as policy-makers and U.N. development experts to compare notes on the many facets of women's empowerment.

Two Percent Price-Tag for a Green Economy

Growth-obsessed markets and governments are pillaging the planet and it must stop, a new U.N. report warns.

U.N.’s New Agency for Women Readies for Takeoff

When the 192-member General Assembly, the highest policy- making body at the United Nations, decided to create a special agency last July to promote the advancement of women, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed it as a "historic" decision.

Men Slowly Evolving from Breadwinners to Bakers

The domestic role played by half of the world's population has long been overlooked by policy-makers, with research and reports on gender roles focusing almost entirely on women.

U.S. House Pushes Through Deep Aid Cuts

With a 2015 deadline fast approaching to meet a collective global promise to tackle poverty and improve education, health and environmental sustainability around the world, development and humanitarian advocates are up in arms over conservative lawmakers' proposals to slash and burn entire chunks of the United States' foreign aid budget.

MEXICO: Peanuts in Times of Food Crisis

Yandi Condado and a small group of farmers in the southern Mexican state of Puebla decided a few years ago to process their peanuts as an economic boost -- and to defend this traditional crop against the advances of more profitable options.

PERU: Rural Girls Face Barriers to Education

"My classmates from Utupampa had to walk an hour to get to school," said Yasmín Sena, a young woman from a village in Peru's highlands. "That community is way up in the mountains; no cars can go there."