Feature

By LAURA D. ORTIZ/GSDM  According to the Happy Planet Index in 2012, Colombia is positioned as the 3rd happiest country in the world. The HPI results, that...

“That’s not to say that microfinance won’t help the very poor, rather that there needs to be a recognition that microfinance isn’t the only thing that can work", argues Oxford Microfinance Initiative’s President Vicente Solera Deuchar.

Contrary to traditional relief and rehabilitation models, in the wake of Nepal’s devastating earthquake, a Kathmandu-based start-up, Ecoprise, has started distributing solar-powered lamps and mobile chargers in earthquake affected areas.

He set up a new cooperative vegetable farm that is estimated to benefit over 15,000 beneficiaries. Mr. Barsabas also started working for the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and trained over 300 women in conflict management.

By Mike Levin As of 2015, Translators Without Borders (TWB) is translating 800,000 words a month for 160 humanitarian organizations. Except for a small paid team in Nairobi, all work is done by volunteers. The demand is growing fast, which makes one wonder why it took so long for a global translation NGO to arrive.

By Tony Spence

Children are often attracted to mining due to a lack of regulation and the promise of easy money. As a result, thousands of children in Tanzania work in difficult and dangerous conditions for little money in which their education, safety and wellbeing is compromised.

Recent statistics do show that south-south cooperation has reeved up, but there is still a long way to go. Statistics also show that the 29 member countries of the OECD’s development assistance committee account for 90% of global development aid and have decades of experience behind them; and south-south cooperation is certainly not going to replace these figures soon. For many, south-south cooperation is an ideological boost rather than something concrete in practice.

By Adil Khan The Western Sahara dispute is ‘one of the world’s least reported crises’. For almost 40 years a forgotten conflict has ensued in a forgotten region. Contested by Morocco and the rebel organisation known as the Polisario Front, it is the cause of ethnic tensions, a diaspora, and a terrain contaminated with 9 million landmines. Will this conflict be allowed to continue, or will the international community intervene?

By PETER IRUNGU 

A recently published UNSCO report shows that all 5 countries of the East African Community (EAC)- Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda,Tanzania and Uganda, failed to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on access to Universal Primary Education and Education for All targets.

By Nikola Jovanovic I asked myself so many times: Isn`t it already too much? Do we really need to go to wars after all these natural disasters? Haven’t floods, earthquakes and Tsunamis taken enough lives and added enough human suffering?