LESOTHO: Cultural Beliefs Threaten Prevention of Mother-Child HIV Transmission

A health centre in one of Lesotho’s poorest districts has scored significant success in implementing a prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) programme, but health experts warn that a number of factors, including cultural beliefs and stigma, threaten to derail it.

CLIMATE CHANGE: 200 Days to Copenhagen

With exactly 200 days to go before December’s crucial climate talks in Copenhagen, progress is steadily, though slowly, being made. Some issues, however - namely financing and the relative roles of industrial and developing countries - are likely to remain on the table until the end of the year.

Q&A: Timor’s “Extreme Poverty Is Centuries-Old”

Seven years after winning its independence following nearly five centuries of foreign domination, East Timor is firmly and proudly building its future, despite the heavy burden of widespread, deep-rooted poverty.

PHILIPPINES: Fish Farming to Reduce Protein Deficiency in Uplands

Like most upland dwellers in the Philippines, the Higaonon indigenous people in the southern town of Sumilao are living in extreme poverty. There are no jobs available and members of the tribe barely scrap by on subsistence farming, mainly root crops.

Q&A: Women Suffer ‘Hidden Genocide’ in Latin America

Counting cases of machista or sexist violence separately shows that "what is happening is practically a genocide, and a hidden one at that," says Susana Chiarotti, coordinator of the Committee of Experts on Violence (CEVI) which is following up on implementation of the Convention of Belém do Pará.

POLITICS-MALAWI: Poverty Uppermost in Voters’ Minds

When Malawians go to vote on May 19, they are expected to put their cross next to the party they believe will do most to reduce poverty. Political campaigns in the run-up to the presidential and parliamentary elections have centred around poverty, agriculture, food security and employment.

HEALTH-SWAZILAND: New Effort To Control TB

Swaziland saw a 5.6 percent increase in tuberculosis cases between 2008 and 2007. Out of a population of one million, 10,000 are infected with TB, one of the highest rates of TB infection in the world.

AGRICULTURE-AFRICA: Knowledge Is Power for Farmers

Following training by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, a hundred farmers in central Kenya, armed with an improved understanding of their local markets are commanding higher prices for their bananas.

PERU: Microbusiness Helps Women Weather Crisis

Microenterprise is an escape valve for social tension at times of crisis, and microbusinesses do a better job of weathering the storm than bigger companies because they are used to overcoming difficulties – a positive effect that is further multiplied when it involves women.

LIBERIA: Rural Women Confront Hunger Gap, Their Own Way

Three brightly-clothed women walk slowly around the fallen, charred trees strewn haphazardly across the blackened clearing, each carrying snail shells filled with indigenous rice seed to bury in the rich soil.

AGRICULTURE-GHANA: Few Signs of Concern as GM Crops Advance

Ghanaians are daily consuming genetically modified (GM) products imported by various traders without much care. However, as the government prepares to allow the planting of GM crops locally in a bid to boost food production, one non-governmental organisation, Friends of the Earth (FoE) Ghana is sounding the alarm.

HEALTH-KENYA: Contraceptives: Stock-Outs Threaten Family Planning

Kenya's new national plan for reducing maternal mortality recognises the importance of a steady supply of contraceptives across the country. In principle, contraceptives are already available for free or heavily-subsidised at government clinics and hospitals, but for women who rely on public health system, the reality is somewhat different.

POLITICS: ‘Women Are Born Leaders’

When Margaret Mensah-Williams walked down the steps after presiding over the Namibian parliament for the first time, male parliamentarians rushed to ask her how she became so good at chairing the house.

MADAGASCAR: Education Hampered by Lack of Clean Water

Because most schools in Madagascar have no access to running water, lack of hygiene and sanitation have become a major problem for children on the Southern African island. Many pupils fall sick regularly, are unable to attend classes and hence don’t perform well at school.

BRAZIL: Flooding Highlights Lack of Disaster Prevention

Several weeks of unusually heavy rainfall and flooding that has affected nearly one million people in 10 of Brazil’s 26 states have revealed a problem that only becomes news when tragedies occur: the lack of public investment in disaster prevention, experts warn.

HEALTH: Killer Diarrheal Diseases Eclipsed on Donor Agendas

Interest in reducing the harm caused by diarrheal diseases has waned among the global health and aid communities, said two new reports released Tuesday in Washington.

POVERTY-MOZAMBIQUE: Researchers Ponder Value of Cash Transfers

Their mud huts perch precariously on the eroded, high embankment of the Zambezi river, in the provincial capital of Tete, in central Mozambique. But watching their homes be washed away by erosion or floods is just another risk for the residents of Matundo and Matheus Sansao Muthemba bairros. Their lives are as precarious as their homes.

EDUCATION: Illiteracy Rising in Parts of Europe

A global event to promote literacy has drawn attention to the fact that an increasing number of Romanian and Bulgarian children are not getting minimal education.

HEALTH: WHO Shifts Away from DDT for Malaria Control

While much of the public health community’s attention is consumed by the H1N1 human swine flu outbreak, efforts are quietly being made to plug away at the continued threat of malaria.

ARGENTINA: Tobacco Treaty Unratified, Six Years On

Six years after signing the global World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, Argentina is the only Latin American country that has not ratified it, for fear of losing tens of thousands of rural jobs in seven provinces.

U.S.: Obama Boosts Foreign, Development Aid Spending

True to his promises to bolster Washington's "soft power" abroad, President Barack Obama released details of his fiscal year (FY) 2010 budget that included significant increases in development assistance and other civilian-oriented tools of U.S. foreign policy.