MAURITANIA: First Steps for Women's Cooperatives

In December 2008, a group of young women staged a protest against the common practice of fattening women before marriage, intended to make them more attractive in the eyes of men. The protest did not immediately result in the end of the practice, but it was a landmark event showing a new assertiveness among Mauritanian women in a society where men use tradition and sharia law to maintain their dominance.

SOUTH AFRICA: Fight Sexism to Help Young Mothers

"My mother was surprised that my breasts were getting bigger, and told me to go to the clinic to take a pregnancy test. The nurses told me I was pregnant and so I cried. I cried because I thought I was too young to have a baby and I thought I wouldn't manage."

HEALTH-MADAGASCAR: Eight Women Die During Delivery Each Day

Eight Malagasy women die per day while giving birth, either due to complications during the pregancny or during delivery, according to a recently-published national Demographic and Health Survey (DHS).

Q&A: Teens Wrongly Excluded From Family Planning

Nafissatou Diop has worked for decades on issues of reproductive health, HIV/AIDS and development in West Africa, including designing and implementing many studies and programmes.

PAKISTAN: Displacement Traumatic for Pregnant Women

Pregnant women uprooted by the violence in the Malakand region, northwest Pakistan, have suffered acutely in refugee camps for the internally displaced.

POPULATION: Poorest Countries to Bear Brunt of Growth

The world's population - already at least 6.7 billion people - will double in the next 40 years if current growth rates are left unchecked, warns the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

G8: ‘Just Invest in Women’

Investment in the health and the rights of girls and women can help economic recovery, civil society groups are telling G8 leaders.

G8: Financial Crisis Or No, Rich Can Help Fight Hunger

The World Food Programme (WFP) is urging G8 leaders to turn words into action and meet urgent hunger needs in Africa and other developing nations as they gather in Italy for the 2009 G8 Summit.

HEALTH: Private Sector Boosts Public Toilets in Poorer Nations

The United Nations is disappointed that most governments in the developing world have made relatively little progress in providing basic sanitation facilities to nearly 2.5 billion people who still have no access to toilets.

HEALTH: Gender Finally Moving to Forefront of AIDS Fight

With women now comprising 61 percent of all people infected with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa, international donors, governments and advocacy organisations are looking more closely at the connections between HIV/AIDS and gender inequality.

BRAZIL: Seasonal Widows

Maria Vieira dos Santos has raised her six children practically on her own. For more than a decade, her husband would be away from home nearly eight months out of the year, travelling 1,500 kilometres down south to cut sugarcane in the state of São Paulo.

WATER-MAURITANIA: Govt Needs to Invest

Ndey Sall, a resident of Sixième, one of the poorest suburbs in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, spends the equivalent of a dollar a day on water. That's almost half of her income - not much left to pay for food, rent, or medicine if a family member falls sick.

Q&A: "It’s Wrong to Burn Food of the Poor to Drive Cars of the Rich"

The world needs to overcome "the bizarre irony that rural areas, where food is grown, is home to cruel poverty and hunger," says Ismail Serageldin, former chair of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).

DEVELOPMENT: MDG Goals Face ‘Triple Crisis’

The developing world faces a "triple crisis" as global economics, food prices and the impact of climate change affect the world's most vulnerable people, a new UN report warns.

FRANCE: ‘Where Is the Burqa They Want to Ban?’

There was not a burqa in sight. On the bustling streets around Boulevard de Belleville, in one of the most diverse neighbourhoods here, women wore a variety of clothing, including summer dresses, jeans, chadors, headscarves and traditional African dress, but no burqas.

SWAZILAND: Add Water and Stir

What is the first step towards transforming life in a hardscrabble rural community? Address issues of water.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Song and Dance to Empower Women Farmers

Community theatre will be the main thrust of an innovative pilot project that aims to give women farmers stronger influence in agricultural policy-making in Southern Africa.

Q&A: “The Elites Are Like a Huge Elephant Sitting on Haiti”

Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis assumed office in September 2008. Born in the southern city of Jérémie in 1947, she left Haiti with her family in 1964 following a pogrom by dictator François Duvalier against his perceived enemies in her town.

AFRICA: Civil Society to AU: Investment Must Address Marginalisation

No gathering hosted by Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi is ever dull, and the Thirteenth Ordinary Session of the African Union, concluding in Sirte, Libya today has not disappointed.

ENVIRONMENT-URUGUAY: Invasion of the Sand Dunes

"A road used to run through here, the sidewalk was over there, and this was the neighbour’s yard. That was an esplanade where people parked their cars, and that area over there was a plaza," says Jackeline, pointing to enormous sand dunes that have swallowed up everything, even entire trees.

HEALTH-LAOS: Inadequate Sanitation Denting GDP

Poor sanitation and hygiene costs the Lao People's Democratic Republic 193 million dollars per year, an estimated 5.6 percent of gross domestic product, according to figures from the Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank.