DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Groundwater: Protecting a Hidden Resource

Groundwater - water located beneath the ground in soil or rock formations - is a secure source of water that if properly managed can last for centuries. The challenge is how to locate it and monitor the effects of its use.

EDUCATION: Zimbabwe’s School System Crumbles

Glen View 5 Primary School in one of Harare's high-density suburbs is deserted. Classrooms are empty, desks and chairs are piled up in corners and instruction charts are peeling off the walls. Yet, the school's third term is in full swing.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Who Is To Blame for the Crisis?

Health systems on the continent are riddled with inadequate policies, strategies, lack of institutional capacity, poor scientific review mechanisms and weak funding for research in the public and private sector, said Luis Sambo, regional director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Africa.

POLITICS-ANGOLA: A Tradition of Strong Women

She was orphaned by Angola's liberation struggle against Portugal, but through it she found a new family and a life-long inspiration.

EDUCATION-NEPAL: Increasing Budget Not Enough to Meet Goals

While the new Maoist government has dramatically increased the outlay for education in the annual budget to meet the goal of Education for All (EFA) by 2015, a visit to remote, mountainous Limi village in mid-western Nepal shows that the goal will be hard to reach.

Q&A: "Wanted: A New Global Deal"

A United Nations conference on Financing for Development (FfD) is scheduled to take place in Doha, Qatar, next week against the backdrop of a devastating global economic crisis that has threatened to undermine the basic foundations of Anglo-Saxon capitalism.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Gender Budgeting Still Finding Its Feet

With the world slightly past the halfway mark to the Millennium Development Goal deadline of 2015, pressure is mounting to promote gender equality. Goal Three is to promote gender equality and empower women - but in fact, every goal relates directly to women's rights.

RIGHTS-ZIMBABWE: Activists Demand Justice for Politically-Motivated Rapes

"I was raped by four Zanu PF militias at night, just outside their base, during the elections. They took turns to rape me, accusing me of supporting the opposition, MDC [Movement for Democratic Change]", said Pauline Moyana* from Mutasa, a community in Zimbabwe’s eastern Manicaland province.

ZAMBIA: New Spending On Rural Health

In an attempt to drastically reduce child mortality rates and boost maternal health, the Zambian government last year allocated a substantial budget to the public health sector. This move has resulted in a notable drop in child deaths, researchers say.

DEVELOPMENT: Watch That Gender Space

It is rather obvious that women are about half the population; it's just as obvious that in underdeveloped places they carry more than half their share of the burden. So how much of development aid gets to women? The unfortunate answer to that question is another question: who knows.

AGRICULTURE: Swazi Input Trade Fairs Falling Short

Mary Ntshangase sits under a big umbrella - a packet of beans in one hand and a packet of peanuts in the other - wooing customers to her stall.

BOOKS: Finding Humour and Tragedy in That Daily Ritual

We each spend, on average, three years of our lives going to the toilet - assuming we have one, that is.

CHILE: 512 HIV-Positive People Not Notified

Chilean Health Minister Álvaro Erazo reported Thursday that 512 people who tested positive for HIV were not notified by the public health system.

DEVELOPMENT: U.N. Seeks Bailout Package for World’s Poorest

The buzzword in the international community these days is "bailout" - the multi-billion-dollar economic rescue packages aimed at helping a rash of faltering investment banks and insurance companies, mostly in the United States and Western Europe.

FILM: Swazi Grandmothers Shore Up a Crumbling Society

In a country barely the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey, a disease has taken hold. Nearly 40 percent of Swaziland's population is HIV-positive, and the other 60 percent lives at constant risk for the disease.

DEVELOPMENT: A Global Health Model, Village by Village

Working for sustainable development in Kenya, which ranks 148th out of 177 countries on the United Nations development index, is a daunting task. The country not only has a 6.1 percent rate of HIV/AIDS infection among its 37 million people, but nearly 60 percent of Kenyans live on less than two dollars a day.

HEALTH: Europe Ignoring TB Research

Funding from the European Union's Brussels headquarters for research into tuberculosis stands at about a fifth of what it should be given the EU's enormous wealth, a new study has found.

Q&A: Major Challenges Will Be Met

When Barbara Hogan replaced South African health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang in September, her appointment was praised from all quarters. Hogan, who previously chaired Parliament’s finance portfolio committee, is known as an intellectual who stands up for what she believes in and finding hands-on approaches to solving difficult political issues.

RIGHTS: Women Leaders Reject "State of Living Death"

United in their fight against discrimination and inequality, three women from crisis-struck countries received the 2008 Gruber International Women's Rights Prize - Yanar Mohammed from Iraq, Sapana Pradhan Malla from Nepal, and Nadera Shalhoub-Kervorkian, a Palestinian woman living in the state of Israel.

DEVELOPMENT: UNFPA Battles “Norm” of Gender Inequality

Despite a slew of U.N. conventions and international agreements against discrimination of women, gender inequality is widespread and remains deeply rooted in many cultures, according to the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

EDUCATION-BRAZIL: Pockets of Illiteracy, Despite Strides

Staying illiterate even after going to school is the plight of thousands of boys and girls in Brazil and is proof of the shortfalls of the country’s educational system, in particular in poverty-ridden areas. But the tide is beginning to turn, as can be observed among the country’s youngest children.