ECONOMY: Speculators Undermining Recovery, Report Says

The current economic meltdown will continue for years if the world community does not take firm and coordinated action to regulate the flow of capital, say researchers who have just concluded a new study for the United Nations.

SOUTH AFRICA: Redouble Efforts to Reduce Maternal Mortality

For Katriena Anthony, being four months pregnant comes with hazards particular to her living conditions.

BRAZIL: From Learning Circle to Flights of Artistic Imagination

Slender, small and long-haired, 11-year-old Higor Fonseca sounds much older when he talks. He has a great deal to tell, in spite of living in this small, sleepy town in the interior of Brazil, where most workers are employed as seasonal migrant labourers in other parts of the country.

Q&A: 'Princess Corps' Cracks the Glass Ceiling

Kuniko Tanioka is the woman to watch in Japanese politics.

BRAZIL: Changing Lives Through the Power of Dance

"My family’s lives changed," said Maria Erilma da Silva, a mother of three girls and a teenage boy, listing a whole series of transformations, from changes in eating and personal hygiene habits to "the security of knowing where my daughters are" and even an end to her husband’s frequent drinking binges.

ENVIRONMENT-CHINA: What Makes A Good Dam?

The Chinese government needs to engage local communities in harnessing its vast water and hydropower resources and pursuing sustainable development, says environmental advocate Yu Xiaogang, recipient of the 2009 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Participatory Social Impact Assessment for Watershed Management.

EDUCATION-ZAMBIA: Bicycles Help Girls Go Further

Nine kilometres each way, rain or shine: That's how far Suzanne Chisulo has to travel to school each day.

URUGUAY: A Chance to Leave Poverty Behind

Nilda Barboza gets up at 3:00 AM every day to make it on time to her new job in an upscale neighbourhood in the Uruguayan capital from her home in an outlying area. But she does so with a sense of pride, for being one of tens of thousands of people who is no longer among the ranks of the poor, thanks to a government anti-poverty programme.

ECONOMY: CAADP: The African Solution for Net Export

Rodger Phiri is a wealthy man. And the most amazing thing is that he made his money through farming.

DEVELOPMENT: Dying at Childbirth Every Minute

Fifteen years after 179 nations agreed to implement a plan of action on sexual health, a woman still dies every minute because of inadequate pregnancy and birth services, according to the World Health Organisation.

HEALTH-NIGERIA: Maternal Mortality, a Rural Community’s Example

Women, their children strapped to their backs, defy the mid-morning sun and converge on the Primary Healthcare Centre, located on the outskirts of Farasinme village, the Badagry West Council Development Area of Lagos State.

URUGUAY: Development from the Ground Up

Putting people, not the economy, at the centre of development by coordinating and designing initiatives based on the interests of the target populations themselves is the goal of the Support to Territorial Networks (ART) programme, which is growing year after year in Uruguay.

ENVIRONMENT: Climate Change a Decisive Threat to Development

When the world's policy-makers of a bygone era were painfully slow in reacting to the economic crisis in the early 1920s, the British economist John Maynard Keynes famously warned: "In the long run, we're all dead."

MOZAMBIQUE: Technology Could Increase Food Harvest and Reduce Poverty

In rural Mozambique, increasing numbers of families are growing their own food and lifting themselves out of poverty.

SOUTH AFRICA: Law Failing Lesbians on “Corrective Rape”

"Women are getting killed in the Western Cape," says Ndumie Funda, who runs LulekiSizwe in her "cabin" in the township of Gugulethu near Cape Town.

CUBA: Will Legalising Multiple Jobs Bring Real Change for Women?

With a good job as a professional in Cuba’s public sector, Mariela Sánchez takes advantage of the flexible hours to take on another, part-time job and collaborate with a specialised publication.

MOZAMBIQUE: Markets Too Far For Farmers’ Profit

August is peak tomato season in the Niassa province of northwest Mozambique, and farmers are bringing bucket-loads of tomatoes to sell to Nkwichi Lodge, one of the few buyers of local produce in the region.

SWAZILAND: Bringing Men on Board to Reduce Maternal and Child Mortality

Swazi men have very little involvement in caring for newborns and mothers, yet they are critical partners in ensuring their well being.

Q&A: “Sanitation Is Inextricably Linked to Human Rights”

Some 1.6 million people die each year due to water and sanitation related diseases, millions of girls do not go to school because of lack of toilets, and prison detainees are denied access to adequate sanitation in some countries as a form of punishment, clear violations of the rights to health, education, and many other human rights.

BRAZIL: Music Education Opens Doors to Social Inclusion

"It takes us an hour and 20 minutes to get there. We have to walk, because we can't afford the 30-minute bus ride. But the girls never miss their music classes, not even when they have to go without lunch because they don't have time to eat after school," says their mother, Maria da Cruz.

CHILE: Activists Demand Humane Treatment for Women Who Abort

Some 30 members of the Chilean Health Ministry's Consultative Council on Gender and Women's Health have asked the government to enforce a directive ordering humane and compassionate treatment for women who have had an abortion.