Congo-Kinshasa: Where Giving Birth Is Deadly

Her limbs flaccid, her eyes wide with fear and pain, Théthé's cries seem oddly detached from her body, as if part of her isn't lying on a brown vinyl mattress, slick… Read more »

Africa: Kickstarting Entrepreneurship and Progress

KickStart, a non-proft that promotes technology and entrepreneurism in Africa, was among those honoured at the first Innovation Award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls held… Read more »

Africa: Are Maternal Deaths a 'Right to Life' Issue?

Picture yourself in a room with 30 other women - knowing that one of you will die during pregnancy or childbirth. That's not a concept for a macabre TV show - unless it's reality… Read more »

Kenya: Slum Midwives Bridge Labour Gap

To the casual visitor, the dusty, dimly lit room may not look much like a birthing center. But many women consider their babies lucky to enter the world in this mud-walled space in… Read more »

Africa: Feeding the Planet by Leveling the Plowing Field for Women

In 1900, there were a mere 1.6 billion people on our planet. Today, there are seven billion and by 2050 we will be nine billion. One would expect that with such rapid population… Read more »

Africa: Women Scientists Face Tough Choices

Rufaro Madakadze, a horticultural scientist with the Alliance for a Green Revolution (AGRA), was visiting a student recently in northern Ethiopia to discuss her acceptance into an… Read more »

South Sudan: Striving for Equity in Health for Women

Today, March 8, marks International Women's Day, a day in which to both note the tremendous strides women have made globally over the past 100 years, as well as acknowledge the… Read more »

Africa: Farmers Shape Global Future Say World Leaders

Expanding the yield of smallscale agriculture is vital – not only to feed those in need, but to ensure global stability and preserve the environment. Read more »

Africa: Women Filmmakers Tell Their Stories

Documentary filmmaking holds a special place in the history of African women's cinema. In 1972, Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye became the first sub-Saharan African woman to make a… Read more »

Africa: Empowering Women to Fight HIV

What makes a young African doctor decide to devote her career to helping women fight HIV? Dr. Sengeziwe Sibeko is a 37-year-old medical researcher with a degree in obstetrics and… Read more »

Africa: Back to the Lab

Professor Salim Abdool Karim, director of the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (Caprisa) at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and Columbia University in the… Read more »

Africa: No Changing Mindset on Contraception 'Overnight'

Dr. Quarraisha Abdool Karim is an infectious diseases epidemiologist and associate scientific director of the Centre for the Aids Programme of Research in South Africa (Caprisa).… Read more »

Africa: No Time to 'Give Up' on HIV-Fighting Gel

Africans tracking the worldwide HIV epidemic have not found much to celebrate since Aids began ravaging the continent 30 years ago, but researchers are optimistic that they are… Read more »

Africa: AU Urged to Recognise Women's Role in Trade

Delegates who recently attended a gender summit in Addis Ababa hope the African Union Summit on Intra-African Trade that was also held there will take their recommendations into… Read more »

Africa: Addressing Climate Change as a Human Rights Issue

Twenty years after the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the promise of sustainable development will be revisited again at the 2012 Rio+20 United Nations Conference on… Read more »

Africa: Malaria Scientist Does Groundbreaking Research

At the Malaria Forum hosted by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in October, the latest findings on what is currently the most viable malaria vaccine candidate in medical… Read more »

Kenya: Young Men Bend Tradition With Fathering Skills

The repeated hooting of the Ostrich bus announces the break of dawn in Nguruman, a pastoralist village about 150 kilometers south of Nairobi near the Tanzania border. It also stirs… Read more »

Africa: Freedom Songs Sung to a Climate Change Tune

"This land belongs to women, they will never tire!" Chanted in Zulu, this South African freedom song from the anti-apartheid struggle was reworked into a protest song against… Read more »

Africa: Women Impacted by Climate Change - But Not as Victims

"I remember when we didn't have rainfall and my mother had to pay my school fees, so when there was no yield from crops she had to sell her fridge in order for me to go to school",… Read more »

Africa: In Zimbabwe, Change Like a River in Aids Fight

When social worker Charakupa Ngwerume was named by the village chief to serve as a counselor on a customary court, his first priority was to campaign for the nomination of female… Read more »

Africa: Tapping the Potential of Women Entrepreneurs

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton admits she is surprised when she speaks with male economists and government leaders who doubt the ability of women to contribute to economic… Read more »

Liberia: Collecting Stories to Heal a Nation

When journalist Agnes Fallah Kamara-Umunna returned to her native Liberia in 2003, she found a country that was a shell of its former self. As the nation sought to rebuild,… Read more »

Malawi: Engaging Local Leaders to Save the Lives of Mothers

Joyce Banda is Malawi's first female vice president. Before taking office in 2009, Banda served as a member of parliament, minister of Gender, Child Welfare and Community Services,… Read more »

Somalia: Let Somalis Manage Aid for Development, Doctor Says

Dr. Hawa Abdi is a woman of many firsts, including being Somalia's first female gynecologist and establishing one of the country's first NGOs. Along with her daughters, Deqa and… Read more »

South Africa: No More Loan Sharks

There are 10 people in Noamen Nongezi's household, including her husband and their three children, two children orphaned when her two sisters died of Aids, a child that her husband… Read more »