Climate change is the biggest environmental threat faced by South Asia and may well be the biggest humanitarian and economic challenge that the developing world will have to face in the coming decades. While the world has woken up to the threat of climate change, the true enormity of what this (…)
The Olympic Games is both a symbolic and a practical opportunity to ensure that these global sporting games live up to the ideals enshrined in the Olympic charter and that people who enjoy the games can also know that the souvenirs and garments they wear are produced in factories where basic (…)
This document gives a brief summary of the research conducted into the situation of women workers in the African horticultural sector between 2005 and 2007. The research was conducted by local organisations in Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda and has been summarised by Women Working Worldwide. (…)
Following the first "Global Day of Action", which took place on January 26th, and after 7 years of existence, the World Social Forum is in debate. A political and strategical debate focused on the process of the FSM, the international situation as well as the anti-globalization’s movement as a (…)
So as to play a part in the information society, free software could drive the computerisation of West Africa. But although migration to free software may be a development alternative, it first has to transit via organising the world of developers and navigate through the interests of (…)
On 11 October 2007, the Sudan Liberation People’s Movement (SPLM) announced it was suspending participation in the Government of National Unity because the National Congress Party (NCP) was not implementing key aspects of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the (…)
Kjell Havnevik, Deborah Fahy Bryceson, Atakilte Beyene and Prosper Matondi look at the destructive role the world bank has played in African agriculture and food production
Agriculture’s dominant role in Sub-Saharan Africa’s local, national and regional economies and cultures throughout (…)
Fahamu and Focus on the Global South, 2008, 258pp, £16.95 / US$33.95
China’s global expansion is much talked about, but usually from the viewpoint of the West. This unique collection of essays, written by scholars and activists from China and the global South, provides diverse views on the challenges faced by Africa, Latin America and Asia as a result of China’s (…)
Across Bangladesh, the situation is much better than it was 30 years ago both in terms of the proportion of the population with access to improved sanitary facilities and in terms of absolute numbers. In the late 1970s, the national sanitation coverage was 2%, while over 300,000 children under (…)
In May 2006, after voting in the congressional elections, my family and I went up to visit some relatives up in the mountains just south of Rio San Juan. There we played dominoes and were preparing a sancocho, when my cousin walked in very proudly telling us that she had just gotten RD$500 for (…)
ILRF, along with international partners including OECD Watch, India Committee of the Netherlands, Deutsche Welthungerhilfe and Eine Welt Netz NRW, released a report focused on recent trends in employment of child labor on cottonseed farms in India. The report estimates that roughly 416,460 (…)
Untested and potentially hazardous manufactured nanomaterials can be found in food, food packaging and other products on supermarket shelves in the European Union, according to a new report released today by Friends of the Earth Europe.
’Out of the laboratory and on to our plates: (…)
On the eve of International Women’s Day, a new ITUC report, the Global Gender Pay Gap reveals that on average, women are paid 16% less than their male counterparts. The report includes detailed analysis of statistics from official sources in 63 countries around the world. Data from an online (…)
Amnesty International UK, CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Médecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save The Children UK and Trócaire, March 2008, 15 p. (pdf)
The situation for 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is worse now than it has ever been since the start of the Israeli military occupation in 1967. The current situation in Gaza is man-made, completely avoidable and, with the necessary political will, can also be reversed. Gaza has (…)
Brutal attacks on the Christian community by Hindutva forces ravaged Orissa’s Kandhamal district during Christmas week 2007. As an unconcerned and partisan administration looked on, a coordinated and well-planned series of attacks was launched on Christians and Christian institutions across the (…)
This report from the ILRF critiques the Harkin-Engel Cocoa Protocol and raises key questions about the cocoa industry’s progress in eliminating child labor since 2001.
Over 40% of the world’s cocoa, the primary ingredient in chocolate, comes from the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory (…)
There is increasing concern over the effects of import liberalisation on the viability of agriculture, particularly that practised by small farmers of food crops in developing countries.
Such concern has emerged because of the experience of many developing countries undertaking structural (…)
Venezuela has undergone profound political and social changes since Hugo Chávez assumed the presidency in February 1999. These transformations have been reflected in the fundamental pillars of the government’s economic policy. Chávez’s initially spoke about combating “savage neo-liberalism” and (…)
"Before forming part of the association, we were shut up in our houses. Now we have overcome our fear and shame of going out and seeing new places, and we are bringing money in for our families," says Nicolasa Raxtun, a 30-year-old Maya Cakchiquel Indian woman. Read more