LATIN AMERICA: While Women Pull Double Shift, State Looks the Other Way

Little does it matter if they’re black or white, rich or poor, young or old. Neither does it matter if they work or hold a degree. In Latin America, women bear the brunt of household chores, child-raising and care of the elderly, while the state looks the other way.

HEALTH-AFRICA: Maintain Funding for HIV/AIDS Prevention

Health experts and scientists have accused the world's wealthiest countries of abandoning the goal of universal access to HIV prevention, care and treatment by 2010.

Q&A: Burkina Faso Moving Towards Food Security

Burkina Faso was one of several countries that where a rapid rise in food prices led to rioting in the streets in 2008. Policy-makers had sensed a crisis developing, but the country was not able to build up sufficient reserves of imported commodities such as rice, wheat and oil to avoid it. There is now an emphasis on achieving food security.

Q&A: Defending Women’s Rights Under New Land Policy

After years of delays, Kenya's cabinet has finally adopted a draft National Land Policy (NLP), which is now awaiting debate in parliament.

RIGHTS-UGANDA: Women Press for Domestic Violence Bill

"Man forces wife to breastfeed puppies," screams one headline. "Police boss shoots wife," shouts another; and a third: "Man batters wife over meat". These are typical headlines in Uganda’s newspapers today. Women daily report surviving different forms of violence in their homes: physical, sexual, emotional or even economic abuse.

FINANCE: Congress, Activists Push for Conditions on IMF Funding

Development groups and some U.S. lawmakers are urging the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama to use its power on the governing board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to make the global financial body more transparent, democratic and responsive to the needs of its poorest borrowers.

ENVIRONMENT-NIGERIA: Playing With Fire

Nigeria's gas flare-out date has once again been extended - this time to 2011. The decision follows 25 years of political procrastination by the federal government and illegal behaviour on the part of major oil multinationals engaged in flaring associated gas (AG), the byproduct of oil production in the Niger Delta.

EDUCATION: Mother Tongue Absent in Thousands of Classrooms

Millions of children across the world fail to receive a basic education not only because they are born into poverty, but because local authorities do not allow them to read and write in their native language at school.

ZAMBIA: Conservation Agriculture Gaining Ground

Not even the least alert of drivers can miss the sign along the busy road 30 kilometres south of Lusaka: "Look, Conservation Farming Pays!"

DISARMAMENT: Inching Toward a Global Arms Treaty

The United Nations concluded an open-ended working group for an international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) Thursday, part of a lengthy and politically contentious process to nail down a basic framework for curbing deadly illegal weapons sales.

DEVELOPMENT: Social Enterprise in the Swazi Highveld

In 2006, faith-based charity organisation Bulembu Ministries Swaziland took over management of an all-but abandoned mining town, situated on a 1,700 hectares in northwestern Swaziland.

SWAZILAND: Resurrecting Bulembu

In 2005, Bulembu was a ghost town. The once-prosperous mining town's population had fallen from 10,000 to just 100. The beautiful houses that used to accommodate company staff and their families, schools that had been among the best performers in the Kingdom, shops, clinics - all fell quickly into disrepair when the asbestos mine closed.

PERU: Going to School Still a Feat for Rural Girls

María Belén Sabio, a 30-year-old Awajun woman from Peru’s northeastern Amazonia province, was able to complete a teacher training programme despite having five children to raise. "Life here in the countryside is not easy, and I’ve had a hard time getting ahead," she told IPS.

CUBA: What Schools Can and Cannot Do for Equality

They are sisters, just two years apart, and had the same upbringing and education, but they have completely different aspirations. While Ana, the younger, dreams of going to university and following a professional career, Marlén is only interested in boyfriends, getting married and living happily and quietly at home.

U.S.: Clinton Orders Review to Enhance “Smart Power”

In a new initiative designed to reduce the imbalance between "hard" and "soft" power in U.S. policies abroad, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has launched a planning process designed to better coordinate U.S. foreign and development policies in pursuit of what Clinton has called "smart power".

MEXICO: Int’l AIDS Funds Necessary but Not Sufficient

For the first time, Mexico is eligible for a grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. But even if its application is successful, resources for HIV/AIDS prevention among high-risk sectors of the population will fall short.

DEVELOPMENT: India, China Fight Poverty, Population Growth

The world's two most populous nations - India and China - are placing a high priority on reproductive health and poverty alleviation as part of their efforts to meet the U.N.'s much-touted Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and its 2015 deadline.

Q&A: Geopolitics Antithetical to Human Development

Sam Worthington is the president and CEO of InterAction, a coalition of 175 U.S.-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that focus on aiding the world's most poor and vulnerable people.

EAST AFRICA: Raising the Bar for Gender Equality

Mention of the East African Community (EAC) usually elicits thoughts about regional trade, but a campaign is under way to use the regional body to promote gender equality.

BRAZIL: Electoral Reform “Just a Sop” to Women

The Brazilian government is congratulating itself on the first-stage approval of a draft electoral law that increases women's participation in party politics. However, the women's movement says it introduces no changes to a power structure that excludes women from politics.

RIGHTS: No Safe Haven for Ugandan Girls

A year ago, a mother in Kashari County took the law into her own hands and castrated a man she caught raping her seven-year-old daughter.