Sudanese Children 2011 report, published jointly by the National Council of Child Welfare NCCW and UNICEF Sudan, shows Sudan’s progress in childhood indicators between 2006 and 2010, and outlines specific actions for every state that need to be taken in order to meet remaining challenges. 'The report is a call to fulfill children’s rights and provide welfare, protection and other services for every child. The growing awareness of communities on the child rights will support our efforts to improve the life of our children. Strengthening the concerned institutions at national and state levels is crucial for a joint action to guarantee the child rights in coordination with national and international partners,' says Fathelrahman Mohamed Babiker, NCCW Secretary General, officer-in-charge.

African leaders should take note of the lessons learned from the Arab Spring and realise that ensuring good governance and food security will avoid crises on the continent, says Kofi Annan, chairman of the Africa Green Revolution Alliance. The former United Nations Secretary General said that food shortage was one of the triggers of the protests in North African and Middle-Eastern countries that lead to the ousting of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak in February that same year.

The European Women's Lobby with the European Network of Migrant Women have launched a documentary aimed at breaking stereotypes of migrant women. The film follows the stories of three women of migrant background living in the Europe. While struggling for their equal rights, these women, like so many others, enrich their host communities in myriad ways.

While change has swept other parts of the world over the past couple of years, Togo, an impoverished and largely agricultural nation under French rule before independence in 1960, can sometimes feel like a throwback to another era. Lingering suspicions over an alleged coup bid in 2009 have added to tensions, with the president's half-brother sentenced to 20 years in prison and 32 others to a range of jail terms over the incident last year. Opposition and civil society groups have been organising protests that the government seeks to prevent, usually with police firing tear gas.

This manual from the Association for Progressive Communications is based on success stories and challenges in communicating research for influence. APC translated their knowledge and expertise into tips that other organisations or campaigners may find useful.

For Zimbabwe’s gay community, voting season is a time of dread. As political temperatures rise ahead of expected elections next year, gays and lesbians are being targeted by police in an apparent strategy to win over voters. On 11 August 2012, police raided a book launch at the headquarters of the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ), an NGO based in Harare that promotes the rights of sexual minorities. The police arrested 44 people, and although none were formally charged, the incident followed a familiar pattern of harassment, beatings and threats against people who openly identify as gay.

Brutal attacks against bloggers, politically motivated surveillance, proactive manipulation of web content, and restrictive laws regulating speech online are among the diverse threats to internet freedom emerging over the past two years, according to a new study released by Freedom House. Despite these threats, 'Freedom on the Net 2012: A Global Assessment of Internet and Digital Media' found that increased pushback by civil society, technology companies, and independent courts resulted in several notable victories.

Kenyan fighter jets have bombarded an airport in southern Somalia, where they are fighting al-Qaeda linked al-Shabab fighters, officials have said. The strikes took place in the port city of Kismayo on Tuesday 25 September. 'Our forces have reached Kismayo with jets and they have destroyed the armoury and a warehouse used by al-Shabab at the airport,' Cyrus Oguna, a Kenyan army spokesperson, said. He could not provide figures on the number of casualties incurred.

The Millennium Development Goals may not be perfect but they are simple and straightforward - qualities diplomats and others fear could be lost in the process of crafting new targets to replace the MDGs, which expire in 2015. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon underscored this in remarks to members of a high-level panel charged with working out what comes next. 'We need a clear post-2015 development agenda - an agenda with shared responsibilities for all countries, with the fight against poverty at the fore and sustainable development at the core,' he said.

In this Peace and Conflict Monitor article, a researcher back from a trip to the Congo, shares her observations about the darker side of the peace industry in Kivu province. In a region where sexual violence is a prominent and ongoing issue, she provides a glimpse of how the UN Peacekeeping forces fuel a thriving underground sex industry.

A group of Tunisian civil society organisations last week warned that the draft law on a new electoral body might put the country's democracy on a dangerous path. 'The government's project is awash with shortcomings and gaps; something which would lead to an election that is neither democratic nor transparent,' Kamel Gharbi, representative of Ofiya coalition, said at the September 19th conference in Tunis. The Ennahda-dominated government in July proposed a set of regulations to establish a new commission to supervise next elections. According to the proposal, members of the Independent High Electoral Commission (ISIE) will be selected by the two-thirds majority of the Constituent Assembly, while its head will be named by the governing troika.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has joined the Central African Press Union (USYPAC in French) to call on DRC President Joseph Kabila to grant presidential pardon for three journalists in prison. 'We call on authorities in DRC to release our three colleagues arrested after being accused of collaboration with the armed guerillas movements. Their place is not definitely in prisons. Their release would be a great act of press freedom promotion,' said Gabriel Baglo, IFJ Africa Director.

Pan Africa ILGA, a federation of 67 LGBTI organisations in Africa, has expressed deep concern over the continued human rights violations in Cameroon, particularly towards the LGBT persons. The appeal of a Cameroonian man who was sentenced to three years imprisonment in 2011 after sending a text message, has been delayed for a further two months.

Angola's top court recently rejected appeals by the main opposition Unita and two smaller parties over alleged irregularities in an election won comfortably by the MPLA party of President Jose Eduardo dos Santos last month. The ruling by the Constitutional Court - Angola's highest legal body - means the opposition parties have run out of legal avenues to contest the vote outcome and paves the way for Dos Santos to be sworn in.

The massive hydropower dams built on the Zambezi River, the largest river system in Southern Africa, not only supply power to major economies in the region but also help mitigate annual floods. But as electricity demands grow and rising global temperatures affect rainfall patterns, the dams will be unable to meet energy needs or control floods, warns a new study. The study, 'A Risky Trip for Southern African Hydro', was conducted for the NGO, International Rivers by Richard Beilfuss, a hydrologist and environmentalist who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering in the US and the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has released initial details on its new funding model, which will change the way countries apply for money. But as the Fund works to finalize the model before next year, civil society is criticizing the process for being untransparent and rushed. The Global Fund board adopted guiding principles of the model at a mid-September board meeting in Geneva. Although the model’s finer aspects are still being developed, key elements include the allocation of funding to country groupings based on disease burden and ability to pay as well as largely foreseen changes to grant application procedures.

Traditionally women cannot own or inherit land in Mali, despite being primary workers on the land, so they have no control over the farms proceeds. However, they can control the income from small-scale processing of agricultural products, provided they buy the raw materials rather than taking them from the family granary. This Panos blog post explores the issues.

Ocean acidification is the process of decreasing pH in the Earth's oceans. This is mainly due to the absorption of carbon dioxide emitted by humans. As CO2 dissolves in seawater, hydrogen ion concentrations increase, thus lowering the ocean pH. Oceans are currently absorbing about a quarter of all CO2 that is released into the air and with the increasing acidity of these marine environments come many concerns about the future of these ecosystems. Recently, at the Third International Symposium on the Ocean in a High-CO2 World in Monterey, California, Dr. Daniela Schmidt of the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences warns us that the current rates of ocean acidification are unlike any other in the Earth's history.

Migration linked with climate change is more likely to involve a steady step-up in existing patterns of movement around the world than the sudden surges of desperate refugees many governments fear, climate and migration experts say. Many argue, in fact, that migration - if prepared for and managed – could prove one of the most effective means of adapting to climate change and building resilience to its impacts, particularly if migrants send remittances home.

Social media content platform biNu entered into a partnership with World Reader. biNu provides a cloud-based, low-bandwidth, smart-phone like service for low-end smartphones and feature-phones. It gives the user a scroll button navigable, icon-based screen. biNu created the World Reader book app. This has then been available to its 4.2 million monthly active users globally, 1 million of whom are in Africa.