Carter learned that half the village’s population was hobbled by the disease. The grotesque vision prompted him to expand the mission of his center, founded in 1982 to advance human rights, to public health. Nearly 25 years later, the Carter Center’s success in pushing the parasite to the brink of extinction is one of several [...]

One-third of the world’s population lives in countries with insufficient freshwater to support the population, according to the UN Environment Programme. For that reason, desalination plants that extract drinking water from seawater are increasingly popular across the world. But many water-poor countries cannot afford the conventional desalination technology—reverse osmosis—because of its relatively high cost. Menachem [...]

UNICEF officials, parents, and local and military leaders celebrated the demobilization of 250 youngsters from armed forces and groups in Southern Sudan last week. The release was the largest of its kind since a peace accord ended two decades of civil war in January 2005, and committed the two sides to child demobilization throughout the [...]

Child labor is on the decline — especially in Latin America — and its most egregious forms could be eliminated within the next decade, a U.N. agency said Thursday in a report it called “cautiously optimistic.”
The International Labor Organization report, titled “The End of Child Labor: Within Reach,” states that between 2000 and 2004 the [...]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank economists estimate almost a six percent growth for 2006 in sub-saharan Africa, the highest rate in 30 years. Speaking on the eve of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington, economists said the growth could be attributed to higher commodity prices, stronger agricultural output and [...]

In a move to eliminate child labour, 80,000 working children will be integrated with mainstream education by 2007 under an Indo-US project.
The three-year-long INDUS project, launched in February, 2004, as a follow-up of a joint statement on ‘Enhanced Indo-US Cooperation on Eliminating Child Labour’, is aimed to ensure elimination of child labour from hazardous occupations, [...]

In any big town you just have to look around and there will be a boy within hailing distance ready to sell you a top-up card.
Girls are less likely to be scampering about in traffic jams with strings of cards. But give them a picnic table, a red, yellow or green umbrella, and a “make [...]

The case studies prove that the conservation and sustainable management of species and their habitats means better protection of forests, freshwater and marine areas. As a result, the rural poor who depend on these areas will have more access to goods and services they provide. This not only increases incomes, but access to freshwater, health, [...]