Full Coverage: Development

31.03.2004 Investing $100 per person over the next seven years in the rebuilding of Afghanistan could bring the country close to where it might have been without 20 years of conflict--which probably cost 10 times more than the $27.5 billion donors meeting today in Berlin are being asked to pledge for reconstruction, according to World Bank calculations.

31.03.2004 At the end of a two-day meeting in Berlin, Afghan civil society groups concluded that the key to building lasting peace lies in the acronym DDR: Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration. "Without DDR there will be no security, and hence no environment for sustainable democracy in the country," they said, defining the steps they view as fundamental.

30.03.2004 Les médicaments de première ligne utilisés aujourd'hui pour traiter la tuberculose ont été mis au point entre les années 1940 et 1960. Les médecins soignant les patients atteints de TB sont contraints de recourir à des tests diagnostiques et des médicaments obsolètes. Cependant, l'industrie pharmaceutique semble peu disposée à développer et commercialiser un nouveau médicament contre la TB destiné à un marché constitué essentiellement de patients à faible pouvoir d'achat. MSF appelle donc les gouvernements et l'Organisation mondiale de la santé à intervenir.

29.03.2004 WASHINGTON, D.C., Mar 29 (OneWorld) - On the eve of a meeting this week of Afghanistan's major international donors, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in the war-battered country are calling on wealthy countries to devote more attention to human rights, security, and the growing threat posed by opium production.

26.03.2004 Richard Jolly charts the progress of the Millennium Development Goals towards access to water and sanitation. The challenges are not easy, but the situation is far from hopeless.

26.03.2004

© WWF

To preserve the ecological integrity of the waters surrounding a string of small, biodiverse islands off the coast of Tanzania a leading environmental group is carrying out an innovative program featuring small loans to local fisherman allowing them to invest in new, more sustainable fishing gear.

26.03.2004 A burgeoning network of NGOs is emerging in Iraq--where the sector was virtually unknown during the Saddam Hussein era--but most have only a vague idea of how the nonprofit aid sector works. Meanwhile, some international aid workers active in Iraq over the past year question the effectiveness of their work, given the climate of insecurity.

26.03.2004 The World Bank has denied criticism that its policies have limited the capacity of governments to provide adequate social services to people in developing countries. Addressing delegates at the biennial world assembly of CIVICUS, an umbrella body of civic organisations, in Botswana, Bank Vice President Ian Goldin noted that the institution was the largest single source of outside funding for education, health and the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

25.03.2004 UNITED NATIONS, Mar 24 (IPS) - Simple and cheap measures, similar to fortifying salt with iodine, could help control vitamin and mineral deficiencies that afflict up to a third of the world's people, particularly children, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said in a study released Wednesday.

25.03.2004 An international water management body has launched a virtual network, connecting experts from India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, to tackle the devastating effects of drought in the southwest Asian region.

25.03.2004 The United Nations’ World Food Programme has launched an emergency appeal for funds to bring relief to over 600 000 people needing emergency food aid, as a result of HIV/AIDS, unusual weather patterns and extreme poverty.

25.03.2004 The inhabitants of Vanister village in the Dropull Commune opened the new water supply system realized in collaboration with the Regional Office of UNDP. Thanks to the 3 million leke project, assisted with contributions by the populations of Dropull and Vanistra village, the local communities will have 24 hour water supply in their homes.

24.03.2004

Partnerships make aid work © InterAction: American Council on Voluntary International Action

"The duplication, waste, and inefficiencies of the worldwide aid business are largely a consequence of unilateralism--that is, of the unwillingness of many donor countries, including the United States, to coordinate development projects within the countries they aid." Washington should learn to "adapt to the new world of foreign aid, in which going it alone is not the best way to help the poor" write D.C.-based development experts Nancy Birdsall and Brian Deese.

24.03.2004 In January the ActionAid family all over the world joined hands to form ActionAid International. Ramesh Singh of ActionAid UK took on the role of CEO of the new organization, based in South Africa. Allavida's Alliance magazine asked Singh about the process of "internationalisation" that has been going on at ActionAid for some five years.

24.03.2004 Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) has said the glaring failure revealed in the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) report on Zambia justifies the call for more investment in the social sector. Commenting on the contents of the MDG report that was released recently, CSPR assistant co-ordinator Gregory Chikwanka said the report's revelations heralded the need for the government to revisit the resource allocation procedures.

23.03.2004 The U.S. Census Bureau reported today that although AIDS is holding down population growth rates, fertility rates in developing countries continue to fuel increases in many parts of the world. Yet developed countries have only provided half of the funding they pledged to provide reproductive health information to women in developing countries, says the head of the UN Population Fund.

23.03.2004 At a meeting Monday to mark World Water Day in India's parched capital New Delhi, experts from government bodies and nongovernmental organizations formed a people's front to counter growing water privatization by multinational companies (MNCs).

23.03.2004 An Indian NGO says that the country is paying a heavy ecological and social price for the highways that are being built all over.

19.03.2004 Imagine an Africa free from conflict, developing rapidly through an equitable and sustainable relationship with the rest of the world. In this Africa there is an entrenched culture of respect for human rights. Populations are healthy and governed by fair, transparent and accountable governments. This is the vision, but African parliamentarians gathered in Addis Ababa this week will be only too aware of the steep slope the continent faces in overcoming its many
challenges so that all its people may live in harmony.

18.03.2004

Haiti

Neither the U.S. nor the UN seem to have a strategy for bringing stability to Haiti, writes Peter Gantz of Refugees International, although the U.S. has guidelines for addressing conflict and post-conflict situations. Trouble is, no one is using it. Gantz offers recommendations to help "get it right" in Haiti.