LATIN AMERICA: South-South Cooperation to Fight Child Malnutrition

Cooperation between Latin American countries, which is cheap, efficient and horizontal, could fast-track the fight against child malnutrition, Nils Kastberg, the regional director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said at a conference held in the Chilean capital.

DEVELOPMENT: NGOs Pressure AsDB to Strengthen Safeguards

Behind-the-scenes lobbying by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) paid off by the end of the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) concluding here Tuesday. Leading financial officials from a host of European countries came out in favour of the strong "safeguard policies" that activists are championing.

DEVELOPMENT: Food Crisis Escapes Security Council Scrutiny

The food crisis that has triggered street demonstrations and riots in nearly 30 countries - including Haiti, Indonesia, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Mozambique, Senegal, and most recently in Somalia - continues to escape the scrutiny of the most powerful body at the United Nations: the Security Council.

LATIN AMERICA: 60 Years On, ECLAC Still Has Key Role to Play

Among the tasks facing the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, is to contribute to the design of a development strategy to make the best use of the region’s current bonanza.

DEVELOPMENT: AsDB Soliciting Private Investments

When he was not attending seminars at a conference centre in the Spanish capital, the Asian Development Bank’s (AsDB) Seethapathy Chander was trying to broker deals to attract European investors to developing regions of Asia.

EUROPE: Warnings Against Biofuels Get Louder

European efforts to promote biofuels should be rethought because of the contribution they have made to rising food prices, according to Jeffrey Sachs, a top economic advisor to the United Nations.

MALAYSIA: Food Futures Behind Rising Prices

With stock markets and the property sector in the United States weakening, speculative investors are turning to fuels and the food sector as a "safe haven", driving up prices in the process, say some food security activists.

ENERGY: World Bank, IFC Seek Investors in Off-Grid Africa

An international campaign to bring modern lighting to one-fourth of Africa's people enters a new phase this week with talks to draw investors to markets beyond the reach of the continent's outdated power grid.

DEVELOPMENT: U.N. Bodies Under Fire for Food Crisis

As the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) readies for a summit of world leaders next month, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Monday defended the Rome-based U.N. agency, which has come under fire for its failure to help meet the growing challenges of hunger worldwide.

DEVELOPMENT-ZAMBIA: Counting the Cost of Recent Floods

Samson Mwenda, a farmer from Namwala in Zambia’s Southern Province, recalls with bitterness the massive floods of the 2007/2008 rainy season and the harsh consequences they had for his life.

DEVELOPMENT: Food Crisis Rises To Forefront At AsDB Sessions

Three words - high food prices - emerged like a gatecrasher at an event hosted by the Asian Development Bank (AsDB) here that was originally billed as a celebration of the bank’s new vision for poverty eradication in Asia.

IRAQ: Corruption Eats Into Food Rations

Amidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now face a cutting down of their monthly food ration – much of it already eaten away by official corruption.

MEXICO: No Place for Small Farmers at the Supermarkets

A Mexican coffee grower receives about three dollars per kilogram of unprocessed coffee beans, and the consumer here pays 11 dollars. That price difference, in large part, is the result of the growing power of a handful of supermarkets.

RIGHTS-BOLIVIA: Guarani Families in Forced Servitude

Efforts by Bolivia’s land reform authorities to free 167 Guaraní families living in servitude in Alto Parapetí, a rural area in the eastern Bolivian lowlands province of Santa Cruz, have brought to light a phenomenon that had remained largely hidden and ignored until now in the country’s vast Chaco plains region.

MOZAMBIQUE: Officials Master Floods – But Battle To Contain Diseases That Follow

More people have died of cholera following recent floods in Mozambique than the number of those who perished in the rising floodwaters. Most rivers in central and northern Mozambique burst their banks after heavy rains in December, January and February, and as a result of Cyclone Jokwe - which hit in early March.

EUROPE: Tax Havens Cheating the Poor

Tax havens in Europe are depriving poor countries of more money than they receive in development aid, it has been alleged.

Q&A: Circumcision an “Opportunity To Take Great Strides Forward” Against HIV

Results from trials in South Africa, Kenya and Uganda in 2006 showed that male circumcision reduced the transmission of HIV from women to men by up to 60 percent. On the basis of these results, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organisation have recommended that countries encourage men to be circumcised.

TRADE-RUSSIA: Ethiopia Seeks Preferential Treatment for Coffee

After several months of trade negotiations in the joint Russian-Ethiopian economic commission, Russia is considering allowing Ethiopia to bring in its different brands of aromatic coffees on a preferential basis.

LABOUR-CAMBODIA: US Recession May Hit Anti-Sweatshop Campaign

Recession in the United States is endangering a unique experiment that has seen Cambodia become a leading player in the campaign to eradicate sweatshops in the textile industry.

HEALTH-SOUTH AFRICA: Where Have the Piglets Gone?

Each psychiatric patient leaving Tower Hospital in the Eastern Cape Province under a new project to integrate patients into the community is sent home with two piglets. While at the hospital, patients are trained to raise pigs, the hope being that they will use the piglets for breeding to develop a sustainable source of income once discharged.

DEVELOPMENT: Food Crisis May Get Worse Before it Gets Better

The spreading food crisis - triggered primarily by rising prices, declining outputs and growing scarcities worldwide - is threatening to impact heavily on the most vulnerable in society: women and children.