Opinion: Will the SDGs Serve to Bridge the Gender Gap?

Increasingly gender equality, rooted in human rights, is recognized both as a key development goal on its own and as a vital means to helping accelerate sustainable development. And while the field of gender has expanded exponentially over the years, with programmes focused exclusively on women and girls and greater mainstreaming of gender into many development activities, a range of challenges remain.

Zimbabwe’s Forest Carbon Programme Not All It Seems

The efficacy of attempts to sustainably manage forests and conserve and enhance forest carbon stocks in Zimbabwe is increasingly coming under scrutiny as new research warns that the politics of access and control over forests and their carbon is challenging conventional understanding.

Prepaid Meters Scupper Gains Made in Accessing Water in Africa

While many countries appear to have met the U.N. Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, rights activists say that African countries which have taken to installing prepaid water meters have rendered a blow to many poor people, making it hard for them to access water.

Opinion: World Leaders Lack Ambition to Tackle Climate Crisis

World governments expect to agree to a new global treaty to combat climate change in Paris in December. As the catastrophic impacts of climate change become more evident, so too escalates the urgency to act.

Decent Employment Opportunities for Young People in Rural Africa

Over half of the African continent’s population is below the age of 25 and approximately 11 million young Africans are expected to enter the labour market every year for the next decade, say experts. 

High-Tech to the Rescue of Southern Africa’s Smallholder Farmers

Agriculture is the major employer and a backbone of the economies of Southern Africa.

Empower Rural Women for Their Dignity and Future

Rural women make major contributions to rural economies by producing and processing food, feeding and caring for families, generating income and contributing to the overall well-being of their households – but, in many countries, they face discrimination in access to agricultural assets, education, healthcare and employment, among others, preventing them from fully enjoying their basic rights.

Zimbabwe Battles with Energy Poverty

Janet Mutoriti (30), a mother of three from St Mary’s suburb in Chitungwiza, 25 kilometres outside Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, frequently risks arrest for straying into the nearby urban forests to fetch wood for cooking.

Starvation Strikes Zimbabwe’s Urban Dwellers

As unemployment deepens across this Southern African nation and as the country battles to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) ahead of the December 2015 deadline, thousands of urban Zimbabweans here are facing starvation.

Giving Villages the Technology They Want

Mobile broadband services are seen as a key tool of development communication the world over, but people in rural Asia and Africa say telecom companies should cater to their needs and not simply impose technology on them.

Q&A: “The Real Target Is Zero Hunger”

Under the leadership of Brazilian Director General (DG) José Graziano da Silva, the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has been engaged in a process of deep reform meant to make the organisation leaner and more effective in the fight against hunger. 

Malawi Checks China’s African Advance

The move in Malawi to close down Chinese businesses outside of the four major cities has been condemned as xenophobic by rights organisations. A new law enforced Jul. 31 barred foreigners from carrying out trade in Malawi’s outlying and rural areas.

Liberia’s Baby Blues – No Policy for Pregnant School Girls

Patricia Kollie should be at school today but instead she is at home in Gbarnga, Liberia, pounding a pile of cassava leaves in a wooden mortar. Her entire body is slightly swollen. Her dress fits a little too snug at the stomach.

Market Gardens Key to Autonomy for Niger Women

Four figures bend intently over their work in one corner of the large vegetable garden near the western Niger village of Dioga. Months after the village's main harvest has been brought in – and eaten up – the irrigated green of the garden is welcome relief in a part of the country where hunger never seems far away.

Poverty Encourages Early Marriages in Tajikistan

When she was 16, Kibriyo Khaitova’s parents told her that if she didn’t marry, she’d soon be a spinster. So, like many girls from Tajikistan, Khaitova married a man her family found for her. Now 20, she has two children, no husband and is fending for herself.

MALAYSIA: Privatisation of Healthcare Turns Election Issue

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26 (IPS) - A plan by the Malaysian government to privatise its public healthcare system and get consumers to pay for it through salary cuts is rapidly turning into a major election issue.

Instant Infant HIV Diagnosis to be Rolled Out in Rural Kenya

Jesse Mtembe, a nursing officer at the Akithenesit Health Centre in Teso North, in Kenya’s Western Province, cannot wait for his centre to be connected to a new software system for diagnosing HIV in infants that is being developed in the country’s leading private university.