Riding Towards Sustainable Development, on Bamboo

In Ghana, a country burgeoning with traffic congestion, increasing economic growth, and a stark urban-rural divide, making frames of bicycles out of bamboo could be the key to promoting sustainable development. It also makes stronger, longer-lasting bikes.

Getting a Grip on Food Security in DR Congo

The Association for Integrated Rural Development is one of a number of rural organisations on the periphery of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which are strengthening the city's food security while demonstrating how to maximise sustainable use of agricultural land.

Shelters for Undocumented Migrants under Threat in Mexico

Two years after the massacre of 72 migrants in Mexico, shelters for undocumented migrants are facing challenges and threats, due to the rise in the number of people seeking assistance, the lack of solidarity on the part of local communities, pressure from organised crime, and a lack of adequate public policies addressing the problem of migration.

Macro Privatisations Bring Micro Benefits to Guatemalans

The suspension of the privatisation of a port company unleashed debate in Guatemala about the countless concessions granted to foreign companies in areas like oil, mining, railways and energy, where corporate interests are seen as prevailing over the common good.

Cameroonian Athletes Braving the Odds

Victorine Fomum is Cameroon’s 2005 African table tennis champion. She often used to “train without rackets, without balls, without appropriate clothing and without good tables.” But despite this, she won gold at the 2005 African Nations Championship. And as a reward for her achievement the government handed her a cheque – for 25 dollars.

Pregnant Nicaraguan Girls Forced to Become Mothers

Carla lost everything when she got pregnant at the age of 13: her first year of secondary school, her family, her boyfriend, and her happiness. She spent a year panhandling on the streets of the Nicaraguan capital before she was taken in by a shelter for young mothers.

Argentine Locals Want Power Transformers Out of Neighborhoods

Scientific uncertainty about the health impacts of electromagnetic fields is fueling worries among people in the Argentine capital who are demanding that energy power transformers be located far from their neighborhoods.

Q&A: Brazil Invited to Join U.N. Palestinian Refugee Agency

The policy of pacification of Rio de Janeiro’s violent favelas, or shantytowns, could serve as a model in some respects in Palestinian refugee camps, says Filippo Grandi, commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for Palestine refugees, in this interview with IPS.

Mauritania’s Date Palms, Cultural Heritage and Means of Survival

"The palm tree is a means of survival," said Tahya Mint Mohamed, a 44-year-old Mauritanian farmer and mother of three children. “We eat its dates; we make mats, beds and chairs from palms; the leaves are also used to make baskets and to feed our livestock.”

Hydropower Dam to Flood Sacred Amazon Indigenous Site

The Sete Quedas or “seven waterfalls” on the Teles Pires River, which runs through the Amazon rainforest states of Mato Grosso and Pará in central Brazil, are a spiritual oasis venerated by several indigenous groups.

Europe Thinks Again About Food

Present day European farming is based on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which was created over six decades ago by countries emerging from severe food shortages that swept the continent during and after the Second World War.

Cambodia’s Hydro Plans Carry Steep Costs

The Cambodian government has committed to the construction of two dams along the Mekong River in order to meet a huge demand for electricity, but environmental groups warn that severe repercussions loom for this strategy.

Millions of Jobless Desperate in Spain

The sun is shining in Spain as it does every summer. But millions of people in this crisis-stricken country are living in the shadow cast by Europe’s highest unemployment rate.

Q&A: Water and Food Security Are Inseparable

With the U.N. ominously warning of an impending food crisis following severe droughts in farmlands in the United States, Brazil, Russia and at least two rain-deprived states in India, the world will once again turn its attention to a finite natural resource: water.

Livelihoods Drying Up on Malawi’s Lake Chilwa

Fisherfolk and farmers living near Malawi’s second-largest water body, Lake Chilwa, are relocating en masse and scrambling for space around its shores as the lake has dried to dangerously low levels.

Food Activists See Portents of New and Deeper Hunger Crisis

Food rights activists from around the world will descend on the coastal U.S. state of Florida next week to protest homelessness and hunger facing millions of people in the United States and across the globe.

Belo Monte Dam Can No Longer Ignore Native Communities

A judicial order to halt construction of the Belo Monte dam in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest may be just one more battle in a long-drawn-out war in the courts over the controversial hydroelectric project.

Quotas in Brazil’s Public Universities to Democratise Education

A new law about to enter into effect in Brazil will reserve half of all admission slots in public universities for students who attended public primary and secondary schools. But the measure, aimed at expanding access to the country’s best universities, will require structural reforms.

Bangladesh ‘Fixes’ Grameen Microcredit

Laboni Vhoumik’s lingerie manufacturing unit in the Gopai village of Noakhali district, about 180 km outside the capital, is a forceful argument in favour of the Grameen Bank microcredit model that fosters female entrepreneurship and also relies on it.

Q&A: Hospitals Working to Reduce Their Ecological Footprint

Medical care is associated with images of cleanliness and good health. Today’s hospitals, however, are major sources of pollution and consume large amounts of valuable resources, like energy.

Surviving on a Meal a Day in Ghana’s Savannah Zone

In order to ensure that he and his family survive this year's failed harvest, Adams Seidu, like farmers in other rural communities in Ghana’s Northern Region, has implemented a strategy for survival. They are using what Seidu calls the "one-zero-one strategy" for children, and the "zero-zero-one strategy" for adults.