SWAZILAND: Sunshine Brings the Gift of Water

It is break time. A handful of pupils of Sitsatsaweni Primary School are crowded around a 25-litre bucket to wash their hands before tucking into a meal of samp and beans.

RIGHTS: U.N. Approves Long-Awaited New Women’s Agency

After more than three years of political foot-dragging, the 192-member General Assembly adopted a historic resolution Monday aimed at creating a new U.N. agency for women.

EDUCATION-BRAZIL: Public Schools Fend Off Invasion of New Ideas

Two non-governmental initiatives managed to penetrate the walls around public education in Brazil, temporarily assuming responsibility for the administration of schools where they left their seeds planted. But ultimately they discovered how resistant the school system is to innovation.

HEALTH-KENYA: A Glove To Save a Mother’s Life

The need for gloves for health workers assisting with childbirth may be obvious, but in Yala Sub-District Hospital in western Kenya, obvious does not mean available.

HEALTH-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Learning From Criticism, U.S. Committed to AIDS Fight

The United States has embarked on a mission to restore Africa's trust in U.S. commitment to global AIDS relief.

NIGERIA: Investment in Primary Education Must Include Teachers

Nigeria has over the past 10 years recorded high enrolment and completion rates in primary school education.

MOZAMBIQUE: Local Leadership On Environmental Sustainability

Tucked away in the remote northwest corner of Mozambique is some of the most rugged and least developed terrain in the country. It was in this area that some of the most intense fighting took place during the civil war, which ended in 1992.

HEALTH: WHO Data Underscores Pneumonia’s Deadly Toll

New data released by the World Health Organisation (WHO) sheds light on the leading causes of pneumonia and provides the first country-level information about the effects of pneumonia, the world's leading killer of children under five.

GUATEMALA: Malnutrition Killing Children Again

The deaths of 25 children from severe malnutrition this year in Guatemala, mainly in the eastern province of Jalapa, shows that the specter of hunger is still haunting the country, aggravated by the global economic crisis and drought.

ECONOMY: Speculators Undermining Recovery, Report Says

The current economic meltdown will continue for years if the world community does not take firm and coordinated action to regulate the flow of capital, say researchers who have just concluded a new study for the United Nations.

SOUTH AFRICA: Redouble Efforts to Reduce Maternal Mortality

For Katriena Anthony, being four months pregnant comes with hazards particular to her living conditions.

HEALTH: Diabetes Wreaks Havoc in Mauritius

Every year 400 Mauritians undergo amputations, another 400 have heart surgery; 175 people's eyes are under the knife every week - all due to a disease that is easily prevented, Type 2 diabetes.

BRAZIL: From Learning Circle to Flights of Artistic Imagination

Slender, small and long-haired, 11-year-old Higor Fonseca sounds much older when he talks. He has a great deal to tell, in spite of living in this small, sleepy town in the interior of Brazil, where most workers are employed as seasonal migrant labourers in other parts of the country.

Q&A: 'Princess Corps' Cracks the Glass Ceiling

Kuniko Tanioka is the woman to watch in Japanese politics.

BRAZIL: Changing Lives Through the Power of Dance

"My family’s lives changed," said Maria Erilma da Silva, a mother of three girls and a teenage boy, listing a whole series of transformations, from changes in eating and personal hygiene habits to "the security of knowing where my daughters are" and even an end to her husband’s frequent drinking binges.

ENVIRONMENT-CHINA: What Makes A Good Dam?

The Chinese government needs to engage local communities in harnessing its vast water and hydropower resources and pursuing sustainable development, says environmental advocate Yu Xiaogang, recipient of the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Participatory Social Impact Assessment for Watershed Management.

EDUCATION-ZAMBIA: Bicycles Help Girls Go Further

Nine kilometres each way, rain or shine: That's how far Suzanne Chisulo has to travel to school each day.

URUGUAY: A Chance to Leave Poverty Behind

Nilda Barboza gets up at 3:00 AM every day to make it on time to her new job in an upscale neighbourhood in the Uruguayan capital from her home in an outlying area. But she does so with a sense of pride, for being one of tens of thousands of people who is no longer among the ranks of the poor, thanks to a government anti-poverty programme.

ECONOMY: CAADP: The African Solution for Net Export

Rodger Phiri is a wealthy man. And the most amazing thing is that he made his money through farming.

DEVELOPMENT: Dying at Childbirth Every Minute

Fifteen years after 179 nations agreed to implement a plan of action on sexual health, a woman still dies every minute because of inadequate pregnancy and birth services, according to the World Health Organisation.

HEALTH-NIGERIA: Maternal Mortality, a Rural Community’s Example

Women, their children strapped to their backs, defy the mid-morning sun and converge on the Primary Healthcare Centre, located on the outskirts of Farasinme village, the Badagry West Council Development Area of Lagos State.