ZAMBIA: Malaria Prevention Pays Off

Huge investments in malaria control and prevention have prevented as many as 75,000 child deaths over the past five years.

INDIA: Most Live Donors Are Wives or Mothers

Here's a statistic that reveals the truth about gender relations in India.

AFRICA: Plant Trees To Boost Agricultural Output

The outlook for food security in East Africa is looking bleak this year following poor rains, underscoring the urgency of raising farm productivity while adapting to a changing climate in Africa. Agroforestry experts have put forward planting trees as a possible solution.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Financial Crisis Scapegoat for ARV Stockouts?

Shortages in supply of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs are caused by lack of political will and bad supply management, not by the global economic crisis, health experts say.

G20: Stiglitz and Sen Come In Too Late

A new report on Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress presented earlier this month in Paris by Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen is a late, and quite modest contribution to an old debate, many experts say.

MADAGASCAR: Poverty Forces 2 Million Children into Hard Labour

Poverty has increased dramatically in Madagascar since January, when a national protest movement to end the regime of former president Marc Ravalomanana plunged the country into a socio-economic crisis. Since then, the number of child labourers has risen by a whopping 25 percent.

ZAMBIA: Farmers Resort to Human Waste for Fertiliser

The economy's down, the price of fertiliser's up. And Zambian farmers are stealing sewage for their vegetable gardens.

LAOS: What People Cannot Eat is of Great Importance to Women – Part 2

"When I was born my mother could not eat anything but tiny fish and tea made from herbs for one whole year," says Dr Bhounsouane. "She was so weak that she could hardly walk. Post partum food taboos (phit kam) are a major problem in Laos for women," he said.

LAOS: Land Legislation Disempowers Women – Part 1

Ki is seven years old but looks more like three. His legs are bowed and skull misshapen. He looked at me with a blank stare. The health worker, Kheo, suggests rickets.

ARGENTINA: Women Judges Not Enough; Gender Awareness Training Needed

For Argentina’s justice system to truly incorporate a gender perspective, more important than overcoming the male-female imbalance in the higher rungs of the judicial branch is providing gender-awareness training for judges of both sexes so that it is reflected in their rulings, experts say.

MEXICO: The Goal: Not a Drop Wasted

In his novel "México sediento" (Mexico in a Drought), author Francisco Moreno postulated that drought would lead to war in 2010, just as water shortages helped trigger the fight for Mexico's independence from Spain in 1810 and the Mexican Revolution in 1910.

LATIN AMERICA: Desertification – an Invisible Cancer

"Desertification is the cancer of the earth," Argentine geographer Elena Abraham told IPS. "It is a process of degradation that does not manifest itself in spectacular ways but furtively advances, and by the time it is visible there is nothing to be done, and people have to move away, in search of an alternative."

Q&A: ‘Stiglitz-Sen Moving in the Right Direction, but Slowly’

Hazel Henderson is a futurist, an economic iconoclast, founder of Ethical Markets Media, and author of the books Building A Win-Win World, Beyond Globalization, Planetary Citizenship, and Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy. Her main focus is exploring the "blind spots" in conventional economic theory.

PARAGUAY: Health Insurance for All (Registered) Domestics

It took 42 years for social security health care coverage for domestics to extend beyond the limits of the Paraguayan capital.

FINANCE: Aid Losses Prompting “Development Emergency”

A new U.N. report warns that the world is likely to suffer more economic and environmental disasters if the richest countries fail to shoulder their share of development aid to poorer nations.

MOZAMBIQUE: Building Awareness to Reduce Maternal Mortality

In the Niassa province of northwest Mozambique, one doctor has been working with local communities to overcome the delays responsible for three-quarters of maternal deaths each year.

ANGOLA: Rich and Poor – One Country but Worlds Apart

A chauffeur guides a shining 4x4 BMW out of a gated condominium, ferrying a smartly-dressed executive and her three uniformed children out into another morning in the Angolan capital, Luanda.

SWAZILAND: Educating Angels

It is not a typical classroom setup where pupils sit in rows facing the front with a teacher lecturing before them.

FINANCE: World Bank, NGOs Exhort G20 Not to Forget the Poorest

The World Bank and major non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are calling on leaders who will gather for next week's Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Pittsburgh not to forget the needs of the world's poorest countries, which have been severely affected by the last year's financial crisis.

ENVIRONMENT: U.N. Seeks Political Boost for Climate Summit

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, one of the strongest proponents of next week's summit on climate change, is confident that world leaders will provide a high political profile for an impending environmental crisis threatening to cause devastation worldwide in the next few decades.

MALAWI: Questions Over Water Stats

A set of new research data contests the Malawian government's claims that nearly all of the country’s urban citizens have access to clean water and sanitation.