With pupils limping to school on empty stomachs and dressed in tatters, Malawi may not realise her ambition to increase the number of citizens who are able to read and write. Experts have always pointed at poverty as the main reason for the escalating rate of school drop outs. Many of the children are absorbed in the child labour market to help their poor families earn additional incomes to finance basic requirements.

Delegates at the Global People's Forum called for governments to make sure that children have access to health, education and clean water. But for the world's 100 million street children a 2015 implementation date might just be out of reach.

Four Burundian rebel movements have said they must be included in all ceasefire negotiations with the government.

At least four out of over 600 diarrhoea patients reported in the Liberian capital, Monrovia, since July were suffering from cholera, according to government health officers.

A rupture in a pipeline belonging to oil giant Royal Dutch/ Shell has resulted in a major oil slick in Nigeria’s southern Niger Delta, local residents reported last Friday. Residents of Rumuekpe community, near the Nigeria’s oil industry capital, Port Harcourt, said oil from a broken pipe, 20 inches diameter, was spreading through creeks and streams in the area, seeping into farmland and destroying plants and trees.

Struggling with one of the highest child-mortality rates in the world, Malawi has launched an unconventional care programme aimed at saving the lives of newborn babies. Malawi has a childhood mortality rate of 104 deaths for every 1,000 live births. The Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) programme intends to halve that rate.

Miatta Sheriff and Maima Kromah are six-year old Liberian children. They have lived for several months in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and have no idea where their parents are. Sheriff and Kromah are among thousands of Liberian children separated from their parents by fighting between government troops and rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) since 1998.

The International Press Institute (IPI), the global network of editors, media executives and leading journalists, has strongly condemned the seizure of issue number 219 of El Qalem, an Arabic-language weekly newspaper.

This position is in the Alternatives to Slash-and-Burn (ASB) Programme (www.asb.cgiar.org) whose objective is to identify, develop and implement innovative policies, institutions and technologies that can reduce poverty and conserve tropical forests.

Of the 21 million deaths from AIDS to date, three quarters were people living in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS in Africa is fuelled by poverty, and it is causing a humanitarian and economic crisis in which children orphaned by the disease are growing up without parents, schooling or adequate food. What should African governments and the international community be doing to tackle this growing catastrophe?

The lives of more than six million children are at immediate risk in Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique due to a crippling combination of drought, hunger, illness and HIV/AIDS. UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, toured drought-stricken Southern Africa before attending the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

The Watchman International Network is organizing two international conferences on "The role of NGOs in the current political climate".

High levels of corruption continue to persist in Kenya despite various efforts made to fight the phenomenon, according to two newly released reports.

The last two and half years of elected civilian government in Nigeria have witnessed an alarming spate of violence and gross human rights violations. In over 50 separate and documented incidents, over 10 000 Nigerians have reportedly been victims of extra-judicial executions, says a new report from the World Organisation Against Torture.

Traffic police are the most corrupt, a new report on corruption reveals. Traffic officers were found to have developed numerous creative ways of soliciting for bribes, giving the entire police force a bad name.

About 300 state accountants will be trained under a scheme to prevent fraud and mismanagement launched by the Ministry of Finance and the Finnish Embassy. The training is part of a project to strengthen financial controls in Namibia. It has been sponsored by the Finnish government to the tune of 488 000 euros, about N$5,2 million, between 1998 and 2002.

Set up in 1985, Comic Relief exists to tackle poverty and promote social justice. In seven Red Nose Days, we have raised over £170 million, every penny of which is now hard at work helping some of the poorest people across the UK and in Africa. We are looking for experienced and enthusiastic people to join our Africa grants committee, which advises our Trustees on spending this money as effectively as possible.

The study, published by UNICEF's Innocenti Research Centre, draws on nine country case studies from Africa and Asia to examine the damage caused by HIV/AIDS to the well-being of children and families and to the smooth functioning of the societies in which they live.

This course, taking place between 3 and 16 November in Kampala, Uganda, is intended for service providers in youth centers, teachers, and tutors/wardens in educating institutions, and will equip participants with skills to assist adolescents in managing their reproductive health lives.

Are you looking for a job where you are an integral part of a forward thinking innovative development agency in Africa? Do you believe that people are the primary actors in their own survival and development? Do you want to be part of an organisation that works in common cause to enable people living on the margins of African societies to exercise their rights?