BIODIVERSITY: A Tipping Point on Species Loss?

Humanity is destroying the network of living things that comprise our life support system. While this sawing-through-the-branch-we're-perched-on is largely unintentional, world leaders can't say they didn't know what's going on: 123 countries promised to take urgent action in 2003 but have done little to stem the rising tide of extinctions in what's known as the extinction or biodiversity crisis.

Q&A: Sweden Vows to Sustain Aid Levels to Poorer Nations

Sweden has pledged to maintain its current level of development aid to the world's poorer nations - roughly at about one percent of gross national product (GNP) - despite the global financial crisis.

MALAWI: Green Belt Initiative Taking Shape

Let the rains fail, even for several successive seasons, and Malawi should still be able to produce enough to feed itself.

NIGERIA: Lake Communities Left High and Dry

The fittest are fleeing the shores of Lake Chad: Adamu Modu, a young fisherman, is joining a stream of able-bodied men heading south to find work in the southern part of the country.

URUGUAY: Coming Together to Tackle Climate Change

Fighting the front line battle against global warming, with the participation of all sectors of society, is the cornerstone of a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) pilot project in Uruguay that is drawing attention from the rest of the world.

AGRICULTURE: Three-Quarters of Hungry Are Rural Poor

Climate change, associated with a four-fold increase in natural disasters in the last decade, and the growth of world population, which is expected to reach nine billion by 2050, pose new challenges for aid initiatives like those of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

SPECIAL OP-ED: Why Women’s Reproductive Freedom Ensures Our Survival

Fifteen years ago in Beijing, then first lady, Hillary Clinton, stated firmly, "Women's rights are human rights." Today, after eight years of non-existent U.S. support for women's reproductive rights, Secretary of State Clinton is reviving women's hopes around the globe by affirming the Obama Administration's support for the International Conference on Population and Development Action Plan.

CHILE: Eliminating Slums

Chile, touted as Latin America's great economic success story, has gone a long way towards reducing poverty and eliminating the country's slums. But a new study shows that disadvantages are still faced by 50,000 children living in shantytowns.

SOUTH SUDAN: Women’s Eyes on the Political Prize


January marks the fifth anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) which ended a bitter north-south civil war in Sudan. With important elections scheduled for April, women are debating and fighting for an expanded role in the new institutions of government.

SOUTH AFRICA: HIV Stigma Persists

HIV-related stigma and discrimination remain a key concern in South Africa, despite the multitude of HIV awareness campaigns that have been launched by government and civil society organisations throughout the years, health experts say.

URUGUAY: From Open Sewer to Green Parkway

For decades, the Miguelete, the main waterway running through the Uruguayan capital, was a virtual open sewer that the capital had turned its back on, along with its past as the site of the traditional Sunday promenade in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

KENYA: Mapping An African Slum

In early November, a group of explorers set out to map a blank space in Africa’s map. Twelve youths armed with global positioning system (GPS) devices made the rounds of the Nairobi slum of Kibera.

HEALTH-INDIA: Hunger Haunts Hospitals

As a nurse, Amita Dhaka sees much suffering, but what she finds hard to handle is inadequate nutrition and even hunger among poor in-patients.

TANZANIA: Addressing Energy Crisis Through Alternatives and Efficiency at Household Level

Tanzania's electricity grid is fed by a mixture of natural gas, diesel and hydropower; however, over the past few years the country has experienced severe blackouts and power rationing in urban areas due to drought and subsequent low-water levels.

COLOMBIA: Women Empowered by Restoring Desertified Land

Indigenous and rural women from southern Tolima, a province located in the heart of Colombia, are lending a hand to the bleak land around them, with the aim of simultaneously recovering the ecosystem and regaining their own dignity, in a community effort that is changing their environment and their lives.

COTE D’IVOIRE: Independent Candidate Pledges Reconciliation

Presidential elections in Côte d'Ivoire, scheduled for Nov. 29, were postponed until February or March 2010. Among the candidates who will try to take advantage of some additional time to campaign will be the sole independent candidate, Jacqueline Oble.

HUNGER: New Warning on Food Security for Horn of Africa

The European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) has raised a red flag over the worsening food security situation in the Horn of Africa.

URUGUAY: ‘Dry Toilets’ Provide Ecological Solution in Slums

Marisabel's modest home had no plumbing, like the rest of the dwellings in this poor suburb on the outskirts of Montevideo, the capital of this small South American country.

MALI: Mobilising in Defence of Migrants

The number of migrants being deported and returned to Mali is increasing. Civil society has mobilised to support the returnees.

SANITATION-ZAMBIA: Turning Urine Into Gold

When he ordered his colleagues at the Water and Sanitation Association of Zambia to save all their urine in a plastic bottle in the office toilet, they thought he was mad. But German sanitation specialist Christopher Kellner wanted to demonstrate why he calls urine "liquid gold".

BRAZIL: Hunger-Free Christmas Still Out of Reach

The traditional campaign for a Christmas without Hunger in Brazil is in its 17th year. But in spite of ongoing programmes, food insecurity still affects 15 million people in South America's giant, according to official figures.