Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Archives

Conserve Water or Perish, Warns U.N. Chief

Just 17 years from now, nearly half the global population could be facing water scarcity, with demand outstripping supply by 40 percent.

Behind Haiti’s Hunger

By Correspondents

Haiti has been receiving food aid for half a century - over 1.5 million tonnes from the U.S. alone during the past two decades.

Argentina Blindly Exploiting Groundwater, Scientists Warn

By Marcela Valente

Half of Argentina is supplied with water by invisible underground aquifers, which are crucial in the country’s arid and semi-arid regions, experts say. But Tierramérica discovered that nobody – not even the government – has any accurate scientific data on these groundwater reserves.

Energy Hits New Rocks in Mongolia

By Michelle Tolson

Mongolia, 90 percent dependent on fuel imports from Russia and vulnerable to price hikes, is seeking to develop its oil shale deposits of at least 800 billion tons.

OP-ED: Why Keeping Girls in School Can Help South Sudan

By Agnes Odhiambo

Mary K. loved to study and wanted to be an accountant. However, when she was 16 and in class six (grade eight), her father forced her to leave school to marry a 50-year-old man who paid him 60 cows.

World Bank Mulls First Strategic Overhaul in Two Decades

By Carey L. Biron

World Bank President Jim Kim has formally put forward a major new proposal to refocus both the bank’s priorities and how it pursues those aims.

Improved Seed Improves Ethiopian Farmers’ Lives

By Matthew Newsome

Ethiopian farmers are learning that seed security is the basis of food security.

Syrians Struggle with a Life of Sorts

By Shelly Kittleson

Free Syrian Army fighters stand guard over the state cable company premises to avoid looting in Khan Al-Assal, a district 14 kilometres west of Aleppo. Much of the rest of the place seems a nightmarish ghost town.

Somalis Caught Between Terrorism and a Border Dispute

By Miriam Gathigah

Somali militia groups are beginning to operate in Kenya’s remote and arid North Eastern Province, an area that borders southern Somalia – a former stronghold of the extremist group Al-Shabaab.

Pacific Pact – a Minefield for Health Care

By Emilio Godoy

The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the negotiation of which is set to conclude this year, could drive research into new drugs and improve access to medicines. Except – it won’t.

Risk Management Can Ease Poverty, World Bank Says

By Ramy Srour

Successful risk management can be a powerful tool for development, the World Bank said Monday in its annual World Development Report (WDR).

Seeding Ethiopia’s Future Food Security

By Ed McKenna

Datta Dudettu and his seven children know what is like to go hungry. They live in Woliyta, a drought-prone area in southern Ethiopia that has experienced chronic food shortages. But hopefully, thanks to the successful use of hybrid seed, that is now firmly in the past.

How to Tell the Biggest Stories of Our Times

By Kanya D'Almeida

What does gorilla conservation have in common with the provision of contraceptives to women? How does rural-urban migration contribute to global warming? What does city planning in Kenya have to do with coastal erosion in the Philippines?

Some Rice, Served With Rainwater

By Michelle Tolson

The quiet Cambodian village of Chouk, set in the beautiful forests of the Cardamom Mountains near the Thai border, seems peaceful. But things are difficult in this largely empty village of simple wooden houses, populated mainly by children and the elderly.

Homeless Again

By Inés Benítez

A police cordon kept everyone out of the Buenaventura “corrala” on Thursday after the police evicted 13 families living in the occupied building in the centre of this southern Spanish city early in the morning.

Africa’s Growth Story Brightens

By Jacey Fortin

Not far from the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Ethiopia's capital city of Addis Ababa, a young woman named Bosena, 25, sits on the side of a busy road with a baby in her arms.

Parallel Economy Keeps Indians Poor

By Ranjit Devraj

As India grapples with rising prices and a rapidly sinking rupee, attention has turned to the country's massive parallel economy that siphons wealth away from development programmes and into the pockets of a corrupt ruling elite.

Somalia Takes Teaching to the Extreme

By Ahmed Osman

Mukhatar Jama has been teaching at a secondary school in Mogadishu for the past decade. Religious education is part and parcel of the curriculum of all schools in Somalia, but he says most parents are unaware of exactly what their children are being taught – a radical form of Islam.