Sustainable Human Development

ADDIS ABABA, Nov 21 (IPS) - Continued violence against women is one of the focuses of a continental meeting reviewing progress made towards achieving gender equality in Africa.

LILONGWE, Nov 21 (IPS) - Civil society organisations in Malawi are keen on the newly introduced Governance and Transparency Fund (GTF) which, they hope, will provide people with more power to ensure that there is proper governance and transparency in the country.

LONDON, Nov 21 (IPS) - Forget all those Gross Domestic Product rankings for a moment. Think, as a new survey in Africa sets out, of ranking countries by how friendly they are to children.

BEIJING, Nov 21 (IPS) - The spectre of a prolonged global recession has dampened China’s wish for a world financial order less dominated by the United States and its dollar, giving way to more urgent dealings with recession worries at home.

NEW DELHI, Nov 21 (IPS) - India may be grappling with problems of basic sanitation but, at another level, its top scientists are turning their attention to human pollution in space.

JAKARTA, Nov 21 (IPS) - An exhibition of sculpture that opened here this month offers a stark reminder of the importance of the human form in Indonesian art.

CAN THO, Nov 21 (IPS) - While arguments against the development of hydropower dams on the Mekong River and its tributaries have from time to time emerged in Vietnam’s state-controlled press, rarely have government officials been as open with their criticism as they have in recent months.

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (IPS) - Capping a nearly two-year consultation involving dozens of U.S. and international leaders, a new report by three U.S. think tanks is calling on President-elect Barack Obama and other leaders to implement sweeping reforms in global governance to more effectively tackle shared regional and global threats over the next half century.

PHNOM PENH, Nov 20 (IPS) - When Gunnar Bergstrom stepped off the plane into the sweltering heat of the Cambodian capital in August 1978, he did not even begin to suspect the fate that had befallen the country whose struggle he had supported from afar.

BATTICALOA, Nov 20 (IPS) - For journalists on the job in Sri Lanka -- considered by international media rights bodies to be the third most dangerous place to work in, after Iraq and Somalia -- staying safe is a prime concern.

WASHINGTON, Nov 19 (IPS) - A bipartisan group of some three dozen senior foreign policy figures has released a statement calling for President-elect Barack Obama to make strengthening long-troubled U.S. relations with the United Nations a major priority in his new administration.

MEXICO CITY, Nov 19 (IPS) - Next year will be a tough time for the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, which means it will be more than ever necessary to avoid backsliding in the efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and journalists have an important role to play in that task, UNDP regional director Rebeca Grynspan said Wednesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 19 (IPS) - As the spreading global financial crisis threatens to cripple banks, stock markets and manufacturing industries in the developing world, the United Nations is now focusing on the outcome of a major international conference on Financing for Development (FfD) scheduled to take place in Doha next week.

LIMA, Nov 19 (IPS) - "Just imagine you’re told you have to leave your house, your livestock, the graves of your loved ones, and then they take you to an unfamiliar place without even asking you what you think about it. How would you feel?" asks Eduardo Sueldo, the local environment delegate in a highlands village in southern Peru.

BEIJING, Nov 19 (IPS) - Eight months after Tibet’s capital of Lhasa was rocked by violent anti-Chinese protests positions have hardened, casting gloom on prospects for progress on the Tibetan stalemate.

COLOMBO, Nov 19 (IPS) - Sri Lankan national flags hoisted at important locations and posters depicting army offensives against the Tamil rebels are part of week-long celebrations ordered by the government of President Mahinda Rajapakse to mark its latest battlefield victories in the north of the island.

GABORONE, Nov 19 (IPS) - Groundwater -- water located beneath the ground in soil or rock formations -- is a secure source of water that if properly managed can last for centuries. The challenge is how to locate it and monitor the effects of its use.

DHAKA, Nov 19 (IPS) - Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh, scheduled for Dec.18, are now slipping into uncertainty with former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia demanding that a state of emergency imposed by the military-backed, interim government be completely lifted first.

GENEVA, Nov 18 (IPS) - Developing countries are not safe from the damaging effects of the current financial crisis, as had initially been forecast, but so far the impact has not been "dramatic," according to UNCTAD economist Michael Herrmann.

BAMAKO, Nov 18 (IPS) - Health systems on the continent are riddled with inadequate policies, strategies, lack of institutional capacity, poor scientific review mechanisms and weak funding for research in the public and private sector, said Luis Sambo, regional director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Africa.