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Since Afghanistan now grows the opium poppies that provide more than 90% of the world’s opium, the raw material for the production of heroin, it’s not surprising that drug-trade news and war news intersect from time to time. More surprising is how seldom poppy growing and the drug trade are (...)

As much as those who identify themselves as social progressives would like to believe otherwise, writes Dale McKinley, ‘the reality is that South Africa is a bastion of social conservatism’. One of the most glaring contradictions of South Africa’s post-apartheid ‘transition’, says McKinley, (...)

This week, California will host the Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention Technologies. The conference follows hearings last week in the US House of Representatives and a report from the UK Committee on Science and Technology, as well as a recent report from the Government (...)

Whenever gender empowerment is a vibrant topic of discussion internationally, some of the countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America are invariably singled out for their success stories in politics, education, health care or civil liberties even as Africa is mostly left out of political (...)

What does it mean to be poor in 2010? In monetary terms, the number of people living below the official extreme-poverty threshold of $1.25 per day in developing nations has declined. In fact, according to the World Bank’s benchmarks, the extreme poverty rate worldwide has tumbled from about 50 (...)

A UNEP report forecasts rocketing sales of cell phones, gadgets, appliances in China, India, elsewhere. Proper e-waste collection, recycling is the key to recovering valuable materials, protecting health, building new green economy. Read more. Also here

IPS - TerraViva reports on Beijing+15 Conference with articles on the situation of women and women’s rights worldwide as well as reports on women’s issues progress in international institutions. Read more

Jason Hickel asks whether ‘environmental determinism’ – the theory that Africa’s development has been hindered as a result of ‘the environmental conditions that Africans inhabit’ – accurately explains Africa’s poverty. While he commends its attempt to stop blaming underdevelopment ’on the (...)

Something important is happening in Cleveland: a new model of large-scale worker- and community-benefiting enterprises is beginning to build serious momentum in one of the cities most dramatically impacted by the nation’s decaying economy. The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL)—a (...)

A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy (...)

With the government incapable of designing Nepal’s school education, bilateral and multilateral donors are forced to step in. As a result, Nepali education has for decades lurched from one internationally assisted mega-project to another. Read more

Under the title “Haiti: Microcosm of the crisis of development”, issue 467 of Pambazuka News, "the authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa", features several articles on the Haiti quake, its causes and the political lessons to be drawn from this (...)

Four years on from nef’s “Growth isn’t Working”, this new report goes one step further and tests that thesis in detail in the context of climate change and energy. It argues that indefinite global economic growth is unsustainable. Just as the laws of thermodynamics constrain the maximum (...)

This report takes a new approach to looking at the value of work. We go beyond how much different professions are paid to look at what they contribute to society. We use some of the principles and valuation techniques of Social Return on Investment analysis to quantify the social, (...)

This report outlines lessons learnt regarding the principal effects of climate change on 15 cities in low-income countries, and what makes them vulnerable to these effects. Coastal cities are susceptible to a rise in sea level and are made vulnerable by the low-lying land they are often built (...)

While the achievement of universal ontological rights in South Africa has been a marvellous step forward, writes Jason Hickel, the paradigm of a rights-based revolution is seriously and fundamentally flawed, and cannot serve the ends that South Africa intends it to. Cautioning that the state (...)

Kenyan researcher Joseph Juma Musakali asks what African research institutes can do to exploit the open access movement. Read more

SciDev.net publishes a spotlight on the challenge of improving nutrition in the developing world.
More than a billion people in developing countries suffer from malnutrition, increasing the risk of disease and death, and reducing long-term economic productivity and development. But (...)

The countries and regions of the world are becoming increasingly polarised in spite of their international commitments to fight poverty. This is what emerges from the 2009 Basic Capabilities Index (BCI) published today by Social Watch, an international network of citizens’ organizations whose (...)

Twenty two per cent of Orissa’s population are tribals, and another 16 per cent are dalits, both highly vulnerable communities. Therefore, proper mapping of BPL (Below Poverty Line) families is important, as it serves as the lifeline for many. But the BPL politics at the central level is (...)