ZIMBABWE: Children Crossing Borders in Search of HIV Treatment

A new type of migration is taking place in Zimbabwe. While in the past people crossed the borders into South Africa and Botswana seeking work and fleeing from their repressive circumstances, now a silent migration of HIV-positive children seeking antiretroviral treatment (ART) is taking place.

Gender Equality Goals Miss the Mark, Women’s Groups Say

A month ahead of the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) review summit at the United Nations, some women's groups are voicing concern that member states' commitment to women's issues is insufficient and slowing progress towards gender parity worldwide.

Civil Society Watchdogs Crucial in New Global Order

Six hundred delegates from more than 80 countries flocked to Montreal Aug. 20-23 for the CIVICUS World Assembly in search of innovative ways to approach global challenges like poverty and climate change.

HEALTH-KENYA: Attempts to Modernise Traditional Circumcision Rites

During every year that ends in an even number, the month of August is a special occasion for young men in Kenya’s Western Province. During this month thousands of boys aged between 10 and 18 undergo male circumcision – something that is seen as an important rite of passage into manhood among their communities. But it is also a time were nearly half the young men circumcised will have to fight for their lives.

CUBA: Expansion of Self-Employment Poses Challenges for Socialist Model

The announcement of a plan to expand the practice of self-employment in Cuba as an alternative for the "excess" workers who are to be slashed from the public workforce presents several challenges to the socialist model that the government is seeking to modernise.

Q&A: “Democracy Deficit Is the Biggest Obstacle to Development”

Three scenarios were laid before the delegates here attending the CIVICUS World Assembly, a venue that attracts civil society, donors, government and business leaders from every region of the world.

Death of Smallpox Holds Clues to Stop Viral Killers

The stories of Dr. Ciro de Quadros' work in eradicating smallpox read like the stuff of global health legend.

ZAMBIA: Water Committee Prospers in Lusaka

Residents of Lusaka's George Compound remember the bad old days in the early 1990s, when the area suffered ugly outbreaks of waterborne diseases.

COLOMBIA: The Violent “Agrarian Counter-Reform” Conspiracy

An unknown number of agribusiness owners and public employees at all levels, as well as far-right paramilitaries, have a common link with rural people who have been forced off their farms or killed in Colombia: the land stolen from the latter group in the armed conflict.

HEALTH-UGANDA: Breastfeeding Dilemma for HIV-positive Mothers

The new World Health Organisation (WHO) recommendation that HIV-positive mothers on antiretroviral therapy (ARVs) can exclusively breastfeed their babies for up to twelve months without infecting them has created confusion among HIV-positive mothers in Uganda as information about the new guidelines struggles to reach them.

AFRICA: Maputo Protocol a Work in Progress

Kenyans are still euphoric over the referendum endorsing a progressive new constitution; but the heat generated by its opponents around their main rallying point - abortion rights - is a reminder of the wide gap between law and implementation in Africa, particularly when it concerns women's rights.

BOTSWANA: Acquiring a Taste for Recycled Water

Many Batswana are quick to recoil at the mere mention of drinking treated wastewater.

Burkinabe Women’s Economic Empowerment Key to Girls’ Education

An initiative to keep girls in school by supporting income-generating activities for their mothers is bearing fruit in Burkina Faso, where poverty and cultural values still deprive many girls of an education.

Q&A: “Feminism Doesn’t Bite”

After more than a century of existence, feminism is still around in Latin America and the world, but the history of this ideology that seeks equality for women is like a succession of breaking waves, with peaks and troughs.

DEVELOPMENT-AUSTRALIA: It’s Not Just About More, But Better, Aid

Australia’s foreign aid budget is likely to double by 2015, but civil society groups say this is far from enough if it is to keep to its "fair share" of commitments to poorer countries.

Q&A: “We Must Move from a Masculine to a Feminine Economy”

It is necessary to move from a "masculine" economy based on competition and a win-lose mentality to a "feminine" win-win economy based on the concept of collaboration, says writer Rose Marie Muraro, one of the pioneers of Brazil's feminist movement.

SWAZILAND: Finding Ways to Care for HIV Orphans

In the poor, drought-stricken community of Kangcamphalala, AIDS orphan Nomvula Dladla* is in tears. The 17-year-old has been told that her aunt, the only surviving relative she could live with, passed away a few hours ago of an HIV-related illness. And if she had been living anywhere else in the country, it would have made Dladla destitute.

Niger Facing Growing Food Crisis

In April, the United Nations World Food Programme estimated it would need 190 million dollars to respond to a food crisis threatening more than 7 million people in Niger. By July, the WFP had revised the amount needed upwards to $371 million: a month later, the U.N. agency has been forced to scale back aid for lack of funds.

KENYA: Poor Women Beset On All Sides By Violence

"My daughter had repeatedly tried to describe to me what her step-father would do to her when I was not home," says Wanza*, a 28-year-old mother resident of Nairobi's Mathare slum. "On this particular night I pretended to be asleep and watched as he left our bed and went for my eight-year-old daughter."

RWANDA: Improving the Lives of Small-Scale Farmers

Joelle Nsamira Kajuga, a female agricultural researcher has a ready answer to describe which modified crop will produce a higher yield, which will be resistant to bacteria, and which will ensure food security and generate a higher turnover for poor small-scale farmers in different regions in Rwanda.

MALAWI: Local Management the Tonic for Water Woes

Hop over a seep of filthy sludge behind a bathroom screened with ragged sacks, turn past the toilet with battered cardboard walls, crab between mud-brick shanties roofed with rusty metal... There: emerge into a small, neat yard where a dozen women and girls are filling plastic buckets from five water taps sticking out of concrete wall.