Related News Headlines

International Policy

Food Rights

  • Sep 19, 2008 EU aid study finds goals to halve global poverty have to be changed
    A food crisis and economic turmoil are threatening to scuttle U.N. goals to halve extreme poverty around the world by 2015, according to an EU report released Friday.
  • Jul 17, 2008 Mandela's 'Elders' call for solutions to food crisis
    Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan and other members of Nelson Mandela's global crisis task force with ActionAid turned their attention to world hunger on Wednesday, focusing on soaring food prices.
  • Jul 8, 2008 G8 Promises Help for African Agriculture
    Leaders from the world's largest industrial nations are promising more food aid and agricultural assistance for Africa to help ease the impact of rising food costs.
  • Jul 7, 2008 G8 Again Betraying Africa, ActionAid Says
    As the G8 leaders meet African heads of state today (Monday), ActionAid voices fears that smallholder farmers who provide the backbone of African food production are being ignored once again.
  • Jul 3, 2008 G8 Accused of Backtracking on Promises to Africa
    The G8 summit opens next week in Hokkaido, Japan. The meeting brings together the leaders from the United States, Japan, Germany, Russia, France, Italy, Britain and Canada, and comes amid concerns over soaring food prices and shortages and global warming. One of the groups following the G8 developments is the humanitarian organization ActionAid.

Women's Rights

  • Oct 13, 2008 Sierra Leone: ActionAid holds Hunger Free Women Charter
    ActionAid Sierra Leone has conducted a two-day HungerFREE women charter orientation meeting at the young women Christian association hall in Freetown.
  • Oct 6, 2008 Shedding indignity in India
    A marriage at 16 ended her schooling. By 18 she was carrying human excreta, collected from dry toilets; detesting it each day, yet doing it, as women in her community had done for generations. Fortunately, those days are behind her now.
  • Sep 18, 2008 Rwanda: African Gender Activists Applaud Female Dominated Parliament
    The just ended parliamentary elections held in Rwanda have dealt patriarchy a heavy blow. Rwandan women now dominate the legislative assembly with a historic figure of 56.25 percent.
  • Aug 19, 2008 Pakistan: Home-based women workers to launch union
    To claim and advocate for their rights more effectively, home-based women workers plan to launch a registered union at the national level on August 22. Under the name of ‘Home-based Aurat Workers Union Pakistan (HBAWUP)’, the union will be the first of its kind in the country. The announcement in this regard was made at a press conference organised at the ActionAid Pakistan office.
  • Aug 4, 2008 Uganda: The Wretched Women of the Aids Struggle
    Ms Ann Asokot, of Gogonyo village in Pallisa District thought that by revealing her HIV status to her husband, she would be supported. Little did she know that this was the beginning of a violent relationship and stigma. ActionAid supports members of the National Community of Women Living with HIV /Aids to empower victims of violence to claim and demand for their rights.

IMF Project

  • Oct 11, 2008 Why does IMF want to ratchet up pressure on poor?
    ActionAid Senior Policy Analyst Rick Rowden letter published in The Financial Times regarding unnecessarily restrictive IMF policy on low-income countries
  • Jun 23, 2008 Africa: Civil Society Blames World Bank, IMF and WTO
    The food crisis being experienced in Africa is due to the failure of three decades of market deregulation by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation's agricultural sector development model, a group of international NGOs have stated.
  • May 24, 2008 As Global Wealth Spreads, the IMF Recedes
    The economy in Ghana turned as hot as the local pepper soup earlier in the decade, with soaring global demand for the nation's riches -- gold, cocoa and bauxite -- sparking a rush to modernize Ghana's decaying roads, rails and power grid. But when the government hatched a plan last year to rebuild the national infrastructure by selling $750 million worth of bonds, its minders at the International Monetary Fund balked. As in so many other developing countries, the IMF had for years served as banker, bean counter and financial consultant to Ghana, its authority stemming in part from the $1.3 billion over 20 years it lent this once financially troubled country. In dire need of that cash, officials here had cooperated with the fund's requests, agreeing to slash gasoline subsidies, trim spending and open markets to cheaper foreign imports. But this time, there was a big difference.
  • May 9, 2008 Africa: More Policy Freedom Or Belt-Tightening?
    Rather than "graduating" from the much-criticized economic reform programmes promoted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a number of African countries are opting to sign on to an extended version.
  • Apr 15, 2008 IMF - The Times They Are A-Changin'
    There is overwhelming evidence of the failure of the IMF's policy agenda. Mass privatization has led to enormous concentrations of wealth and encouraged corruption. Deregulation has contributed to financial crises, including those that foreshadowed the current global crisis centered in the United States. The overall economic model had impoverished tens of millions and left developing countries poorer. And government budget ceilings and inflation targets have prevented countries from expanding desperately needed investments in healthcare and education.

Education

  • Sep 16, 2008 ActionAid Nigeria calls for Government to Invest in Adult Literacy
    The Federal Government and other levels of government in the country, have been called upon to invest in adult literacy, as a boon to skills acquisition and rapid development. The call was made by ActionAid Nigeria, an international non governmental anti-poverty agency, which noted with dismay the total neglect of adult literacy programmes by different levels of government in Nigeria.
  • Sep 15, 2008 ActionAid donates sewing machines to graduates at Breman Asikuma
    ActionAid International, a non-governmental organization (NGO) has presented sewing machine each to seven graduates of Christian Vocational Center, at Breman Asikuma in the Central Region.
  • Jun 3, 2008 Nigeria: ActionAid Egbenn Tackles Girl-Child Education
    ActionAid took its advocacy campaign to the North Western States of Zamfara, Sokoto and Kebbi in Nigeria. The project's main thrust is to address gender inequality and its attendant negative factors which affect girls' education in the North of Nigeria
  • Apr 23, 2008 The 'World's Biggest Lesson' Held Today
    Children in no fewer than 100 countries are today teaching decision makers, education stakeholders and journalists, a lesson about those who miss out on education. The lesson, tagged, 'The World's Biggest Lesson' is attempt to get officials, decision makers and media back to school and get the largest number of individuals taking the same lesson at the same time.
  • Mar 4, 2008 Chad: Education and Protection from Sexual Violence – Key Priorities for Refugees in Cameroon, says ActionAid
    Giving children access to school and protecting women from sexual violence must be urgent priorities in the response to assist up to 20,000 refugees arriving in Cameroon.

Emergencies

HIV/AIDS

  • Aug 4, 2008 Uganda: The Wretched Women of the Aids Struggle
    Ms Ann Asokot, of Gogonyo village in Pallisa District thought that by revealing her HIV status to her husband, she would be supported. Little did she know that this was the beginning of a violent relationship and stigma. ActionAid supports members of the National Community of Women Living with HIV /Aids to empower victims of violence to claim and demand for their rights.
  • Jul 29, 2008 Politics of Prevention: A Global Crisis in AIDS and Education
    Preventing HIV has become so political that young people are being denied their right to life saving education, according to the Politics of Prevention, a controversial new book to be launched at the 17th Global AIDS conference in Mexico, August 4th-8th 2008
  • Jul 28, 2008 New Book says Tens of Millions of Young People Face AIDS Risk Due to Lack of Sex Education
    At the conference, the anti-poverty agency ActionAid is releasing a new book entitled: Politics of Prevention – A Global Crisis in AIDS and Education. It says tens of millions of young people are at risk due to a lack of comprehensive sex education.
  • Jul 11, 2008 Liberia: Government Response to HIV Unacceptable - ActionAid
    The Liberian Government has been challenged to seek more acceptable means of responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the country. In a statement issued early this week at the start of a 10-day rights-based training on HIV/AIDS programming at Cuttington University, ActionAid Liberia Country Representative Ernest Gaie, said the HIV situation in the country has a 'woman face' and little is being done to address it.
  • Mar 10, 2008 Senate Foreign Relations Committee Expected To Discuss PEPFAR Reauthorization Draft Bill This Week
    The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday is scheduled to consider a draft bill (S 2731) to reauthorize the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, CQ Today reports. The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved its version of the bill late last month, and the bill is expected to reach the full House in April.