POLITICS: U.N. Warns of Impending Development Emergency

The much-ballyhooed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs ) - which include the reduction of extreme poverty and hunger by 50 percent by 2015 - are being seriously undermined by food, financial and climate change crises.

BRAZIL: Parties Fielding Too Few Women in Local Elections

There are still too few women on the lists of candidates for Brazil’s municipal elections in October - another example of the distance between political parties and society which has led to the loss of credibility of political institutions.

BOLIVIA: “Twenty Families Are Obstructing Governability” – Expert

The Bolivian government's determination to hold a referendum, by presidential decree, on a new constitution that it hopes will "re-found" the nation as a "plurinational state," has ceded to pressure from the rightwing opposition. The vote has been postponed several weeks, and Congress will be setting the rules.

DEVELOPMENT-ETHIOPIA: Understanding Poverty's Impact on Children

When the school bell rings, Alemtsehay and her three younger sisters rush home to change out of their school uniforms and into tattered clothes to go out begging around Bole Road, one of Addis Ababa's smarter areas.

TRADE-KENYA: A Woman Navigating the Obstacles to the ‘Big Money’

‘‘I enjoy the trade,’’ says Sonia Gateri as she ushers me into her office next to the Yaya Centre in the Kenyan capital. It is a hot afternoon and she has been busy most of the morning, preparing for a trip to Tanzania later in the evening.

ECONOMY: Increased Nuclear Energy Demand Boosts Namibia

The worldwide scramble for energy sources due to dwindling fossil fuel reserves has placed renewed emphasis on nuclear energy as solution for future needs. As a result, Namibia in south-western Africa is experiencing a uranium boom.

AGRICULTURE-MALAWI: Going Against the Grain on Subsidies

In each of the past three growing seasons, the family of Bernadette Banda, in Chidambo village in the central region of Malawi, has doubled the maize harvest from the family plot, thanks to a government input subsidy programme.

LATIN AMERICA: Food Price Hikes Hit Poor Hard – ECLAC

The countries of Latin America have coped relatively well so far with the rising global food and fuel prices. But the main challenge they face is to focus more attention on the plight of the poor, experts said at a seminar being held in the Chilean capital.

PERU: Small Towns Face Challenge of Using Windfall Mining Revenues

Peru is enjoying a mining boom. But while some areas lacking in minerals and oil have seen very little of the windfall profits, other districts have taken in so much money that they have only been able to actually use a tiny portion of it.

DEVELOPMENT: U.N. Warns of Faltering Goals on Aid, Trade

When the United Nations approved a set of development goals on poverty, health, gender empowerment, and sustainable environment back in September 2000, it laid down a deadline of 2015 to reach these targets.

DEVELOPMENT-SWAZILAND: Don't Blame Donor Dependency

What happens to a nation whose people depend on the largesse of international donor agencies for their existence, once support is withdrawn?

DEVELOPMENT: Coming Together To Aid the Poor

In what is turning out to be hard-fought negotiations between rich and poor nations, more than 1,000 government and civil society delegates are gathered in the Ghanaian capital to agree the best ways to deliver and administer aid.

NICARAGUA: Name and Identity for Thousands of Indigenous Children

Some 250,000 indigenous children and adolescents who had no legal identity in Nicaragua are in the process of being registered - an essential step towards achieving recognition of their basic human rights.

SIERRA LEONE: Building Peace

Sierra Leone has been a major recipient of foreign aid since the end of a devastating 11-year civil war in 2002. But government, donors and citizens are all questioning how effectively this aid is being used.

DEVELOPMENT: Accra Agenda for Action – A Step Backwards?

Ahead of the Third High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3), opening in Accra on September 2nd, representatives of civil society at a parallel forum have raised concerns that the HLF could represent a step backwards in efforts to improve aid effectiveness.

WORLD-DEVELOPMENT: ‘‘It’s the Same Talking and Talking’’

About a 1,000 delegates are expected to take up their seats tomorrow at a high level forum on the effectiveness of aid that opens in Ghana’s capital, Accra. But their arrival has been met with mixed reactions.

SOUTH PACIFIC: Climate Change Refugees Look to Australia, N.Z.

With the apparent effects of global warming already being felt among Pacific island nations, Australia and New Zealand are being urged to do more to prepare for ‘climate change refugees’.

DEVELOPMENT: Peace Baskets Bring Hope to Rwandan Women

In the courtyard of a red brick home in the district of Gitarama outside Kigali, three women sit together on a bench, laughing and gossiping as they wrap lengths of crimson twine around a curl of bunched straw. While it may seem like little more then Rwandan tradition, these weavers represent an economic success the tiny landlocked country has earned by the hands of its women.

DEVELOPMENT: Towards an 'Aid-Free' World?

Imagine the dawn of a day when development aid ministries in Europe are shut down because there are no countries left in the 'South' that depend on financial assistance from the 'North'.

ECONOMY-NAMIBIA: Plans Afoot as Diamonds Dwindle after 100 years

Namibia’s once rich diamond deposits are dwindling after a century of exploitation, forcing miners to look for the hard stones offshore while the country’s fledgling cutting and polishing sector could shrink as fewer and smaller stones are found.

TRADE-AFRICA: The Struggle Continues Over EPAs

The economic partnership agreements (EPAs) are being given a bad name for nothing, according to Ghanaian parliamentarian JB Danquah.