Diana Banda* is quickly running out of excuses to give her six-year-old son about why he has to take a schedule of drugs every day. Her son David* is HIV-positive and has been on anti-retroviral treatment (ART) for two years. But he may not learn the truth about his HIV status anytime soon as his mother thinks up one excuse after another as to why he has to religiously take the drugs.

USAID administrator Rajiv Shah recently gave a speech to the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) in Washington, DC entitled Achieving High Impact Development: A Vision for USAID. Shah's idea of high impact development was a "distinctly American" contribution: the "culture of risk-taking and entrepreneurship." In a speech heavy with platitudes about American diversity, dedication

The former ruling ZANU-PF party of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has accused Western governments of trying to sabotage the country's troubled constitutional revision process. ZANU-PF's governing partner, the Movement for Democratic Change, has accused war veterans and other groups aligned with ZANU-PF of disrupting the ongoing public outreach program or suppressing views other than those they favor.

The Urgent Action Fund – Africa (UAF-Africa)invites all to be a part of an historic project to immortalize the amazing stories of amazing women in you life. We are publishing the stories of women loved, honoured and celebrated by the people whose lives they have inspired in a beautiful Coffee Table Book. The book is titled, “Extraordinary Lives: the story of amazing women”. Through this venture we are raising funds which we will invest in the empowerment of women and girls in Africa, so that they too can believe in their own power, possibilities, worth, equality, dignity and the opportunity to inspire the lives around them.

Durban - Situated not that far from the FIFA World Cup competition, the Durban informal settlement has seen more than its share of strife and hard times. A press release from the Abahlali baseMjondo, an organization made up of residents of informal settlements in South Africa, stated July 4th that 3 people had died in a fire Monday that swept through the Kennedy Road settlement; destroying some 800 homes. About 3,000 people are now homeless.

The global food crisis of 2008 may have been superseded by the global financial crisis of 2009, but the jump in basic commodity prices that it brought about bodes ill for the developing world. In a bid to stave off a worst-case scenario of empty shelves and ration queues, many nations which rely on food imports have switched to a new strategy for food security — buying or leasing farmland overseas.

Binti Omar waits anxiously for her HIV test in a tent erected as part of a testing drive being conducted by the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya (CIPK) in the coastal city of Mombasa; Omar is accompanied by her fiancé, Abubakar Ismael, and his two wives. "I'm about to be part of Abu's larger family, so we found it necessary to come here and get ourselves tested so that we can plan our future much better," Omar said. "Life nowadays is so risky... It would be good for us all to get to know each other's HIV status."

When Sabah Ismail Ali, a social worker in Somalia's self-declared republic of Somaliland, first started working with children, truancy and aggression were common, especially among children from families with problems such as extreme poverty and displacement. "I started off as a child protection officer, then I later trained as a psycho-social worker, qualifying by December 2007. I realized right from the start that many children who showed aggression were being caned by teachers who had no idea of the social problems such children were dealing with."

A major report that reveals how vulnerable the internet as we know it is, has just been published in French and Spanish by two global civil society organisations. The annual report, called Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch), was in November by the Association for Progressive Communications and Dutch-funder Hivos. GISWatch 2009 is entitled Access to online information and knowledge – advancing human rights and democracy.

New laws should be in place in Europe by the end of this year obliging timber importers to ensure the wood they buy has been legally produced - and Ghana will become the first exporting country to be able to offer such a guarantee. The timber trade is a huge business. In Cameroon, where timber exports rank second only to oil in value, it is worth more than US$700 million a year. Indonesia earns nearly $3 billion a year from wood and wood products, but Greenpeace says that as much of 80 percent of the logging in Indonesia is illegal.

Small-holder farmers, who make up almost all of Africa’s agriculture sector, need more support to reduce over-dependence on increasingly costly food imports, states a new report. Policymakers should “strengthen the competitiveness of small-holder farmers, thus avoiding a rural exodus that would put pressure on the cities and lead to more food imports”, according to the 2010 technology and innovation report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development.

As part of its Network of networks project for a free and open internet, the APC is conducting a survey to examine how funding is changing within the ICT for social change arena. The survey will also examine the possibilities for creating an annual civil society summit on ICT public policy. The survey only takes about ten minutes and results will be shared with the community.

Without a major breakthrough in preventing and treating diabetes, the number of cases in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to double, reaching 24 million by 2030, according to the Brussels-based International Diabetes Federation (IDF). A recent study, Diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa, led by the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon and published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, said inadequate donor attention and national prevention programmes were creating a global "public health and socioeconomic time bomb".

Reform of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KPCS) is becoming more urgent as controversy over Zimbabwe's diamond sales pushes the international initiative designed to stem the flow of conflict diamonds towards paralysis. At the KPCS meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel, on 21-24 June, Zimbabwe dominated proceedings, and delegates were given a rude reminder of the growing disillusionment when diamond business magnate Martin Rapaport embarked on a three-day hunger strike to protest against "corrupt governments [that] have turned the KP on its head; instead of eliminating human rights violations the KP is legitimizing them".

Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Tendai Biti says his government so far has been unable to do anything to fight the endemic corruption in the country. Corruption had become part of culture, he complains. Minister Biti, representing the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in government, says he is close to powerless when it comes to fight corruption in Zimbabwe.

Ongoing clashes between various armed groups in western Sudan have intensified since May, displacing 725 households from Jebel Mara to Hassa Hissa camp in Zalingei, West Darfur, aid workers said. An inter-agency verification exercise, conducted on 27 June, followed an appeal by the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) to the parties in the conflict to cease hostilities. On 24 June, UNAMID reported casualties in clashes between the Rizeigat and Misseriya communities in Bugulay and Tereij villages, 28km southeast of Zalingei.

The spread of digital technologies in the Middle East and Africa has generated the view that 'new media' open up political spaces for dissent, activism and emancipation. Cambridge University's Centre of Governance and Human Rights is convening a conference entitled 'New media, alternative politics' (14-16 October 2010) that will bring together researchers, academics, activists, journalists and policy makers to discuss whether and how new media empower an alternative politics and mobilise political change. A call for papers (and presentations) is now out, and can be found at

Tens of thousands of Congolese Tutsi refugees living in Rwanda for more than a decade are preparing to return to North Kivu province. But longstanding and unresolved tensions over land threaten to upset their homecoming. More than 53,000 registered refugees have been living across the border since the chaos surrounding the 1997 ousting of President Mobutu Sese Seko by Rwanda- and Uganda-backed rebels.

African democracy institute Idasa is to hold a conference in Nairobi, Kenya, from 8-10 November, on "Governance and Small-scale Agriculture in West Africa". It will examine governance and public investment processes and how these are shaping small-scale agriculture in the region.

Across some of South Africa’s most impoverished neighbourhoods, a youth photography programme is helping students document their lives – while also raising wider awareness of their communities’ struggles. The Umuzi Photo Club is run entirely by a volunteer staff of dedicated teachers and organizers. The innovative organization integrates technical and creative skills with organic community development, helping young people see their communities – and find solutions to problems – in new ways.