VENEZUELA: Budgets Take On a Woman’s Face

As Venezuela increasingly incorporates a gender perspective in its public budgets, issues like the paving of roads and the construction of schools are being joined by new priorities such as teen pregnancy and domestic violence prevention programmes when it comes to spending.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Adolescents in No Man’s Land

The recent murder of a man allegedly at the hands of teenagers has sparked a heated debate in Argentina between advocates of lowering the age of criminal responsibility and those in favour of a juvenile justice system in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

PARAGUAY: The Struggle for Land

The government of Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo is facing its first big challenge: providing solutions for the age-old dispute over land ownership between peasant farmers, large landholders and Brazilian settlers.

SOMALIA: Women 'Keep Life Going' in Violent Streets of Mogadishu

On the fifth day of every month a group of women entrepreneurs gather to share their experiences and discuss matters of trade. What makes this exceptional is that the women are from south-central Somalia and they meet in Mogadishu, one of the world's most devastated and dangerous cities.

ECONOMY-MAURITIUS: Textile Manufacturing Goes Green and Clean

‘‘The cost of production is high in Mauritius as we are far away from our main markets. Our island is so small that at times our clients do forget us. We no longer benefit from any trade preferences. We don’t have any natural resources but we have plenty of sunshine and wind and we have decided to use these resources.’’

LATIN AMERICA: Campus Party to Bridge Digital Gap

Seeking solutions for closing the digital and technological gap and sharing innovative experiences are the aims of the Ibero-America Campus Party, which is being held parallel to the 18th Ibero-American summit of heads of state and government this week in El Salvador.

Q&A: "We Must Rethink the International Economic System"

Archbishop Desmond Tutu is South Africa's first black Anglican bishop. An elder statesman whose moral voice and advocacy against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa first brought him to the world stage in the 1980s, Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

RIGHTS: Landmark U.N. Resolution on Equality Stuck on Paper

Civil society groups are urging the U.N. to fully implement a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for greater women's participation in conflict prevention, resolution and peace-building.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Water and Improved Livelihoods

"Sanitation may hold the key to success or failure of the MDGs. It is really a time bomb in terms of health and the environment, waiting to be detonated," Professor Damas Mashauri told participants at a seminar on water and sustainable development taking place in Johannesburg, South Africa.

POVERTY: Governments Still Don’t Do Enough

More than 116 million people in 131 countries across the world participated in the global "Stand Up and Take Action" campaign that became the biggest mass mobilisation on a single issue. Activists criticised the fact that the gap between the rich and the poor continues to increase, while governments refused to make poverty alleviation a priority.

EDUCATION-KENYA: Nomadic Schools for Mobile Girls

Five years after the introduction of free primary education (FPE) in Kenya, the enrolment of girls in schools continues to lag behind in Garissa, in Kenya's North Eastern region.

ENVIRONMENT: Massive Shift to Clean Energy Could Start Tomorrow

An aggressive shift towards renewable power generation and energy effiency could save the world from the most devastating impacts of climate change, and at the same time create a multi-billion-dollar industry and save trillions of dollars in future fuel costs, experts say.

HEALTH-NEPAL: Meeting MDG on HIV/AIDS – A Dream?

Shibu Giri, programme officer at the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nepal, who tested positive in 2000, believed he was fit and fine as his CD-4 count stayed normal.

HEALTH-DR CONGO: Malaria Remains Biggest Killer

With almost 200,000 people dying of malaria each year in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the disease remains the country's biggest killer.

WEST AFRICA: Primary Health Care Key to MDGs

None of the 16 nations of West Africa will achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of reducing child mortality or improving maternal health without serious efforts to improve their health care systems, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

AFRICA: Financial Crisis May Increase Pressure for Debt Repayment

The collapse of the financial markets may force the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to come down hard on African countries to repay their debts because the huge rescue packages for collapsing banks will need to be recuperated.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: More Debt But Still No Development

Shupikai Machinya, a Zimbabwean cross-border trader who attended the recent Southern Africa Social Forum in Manzini, Swaziland, is one of the many delegates who wanted to understand just how a country ends up in debt.

HEALTH: The Global Killer You Never Heard Of

Although a safe and effective vaccine has been available for eight years now, 1.6 million people still die from pneumococcal diseases every year, making it the number one vaccine-preventable cause of death worldwide. More than half of the victims are children.

RIGHTS: A Home Shouldn't Be a Luxury

Increased reliance on private banks to provide housing will cause more homelessness in cities across the world, warns a top U.N. expert on rights.

PHILIPPINES: 'Women Take the Brunt of Climate Change'

Filipina farmer Trinidad Domingo views the coming rice harvest season with trepidation. A typhoon destroyed much of her crop and Domingo estimates that her two-hectare plot will produce less than the usual 200 sacks of rice.

INDIA: Water Privatisation – 'No Need For Costly Consultants'

The Indian corporate conglomerate, Tata, says it is ready to provide water services in this vast country and also prove that privatisation does not have to involve expensive foreign consultants and providers.