Foreign Direct Investment inflows and outflows of poor countries are unequally concentrated in a few geographical areas. With Africa hardly participating in FDI flows and Latin America recovering from its economic crises, Asia receives and provides the biggest stake of FDI flows among poor countries.

The Economics Education and Research Consortium (EERC) is now accepting applications for the Spring 2006 round of the economics research grant competition. Grants will be awarded for policy-relevant economics research projects in five priority areas.

From oil fields in Sudan to farms in Zimbabwe, China’s presence in Africa can be seen and felt everywhere. In recent times, writes Stephen Marks, China’s relationship with Africa has shifted from Cold War ideology to a more classical pursuit of economic self-interest. But its not all negative – as the global economic giant bulges, opportunities also arise for Africa.

Small-scale poultry farming and wild birds are being unfairly blamed for the bird flu crisis now affecting large parts of the world. A new report from GRAIN shows how the transnational poultry industry is the root of the problem and must be the focus of efforts to control the virus.

The past year has shown increasing recognition by funding bodies that higher education has an important role to play in fulfilling the international development agenda. Examples of these new initiatives and funding schemes will be covered at this one-day conference put on by the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK, which aims to provide a concise, yet comprehensive, briefing of current opportunities. Bringing together funding bodies, UK universities, potential overseas partners and academics, there will be an emphasis on creating collaboration with developing country institutions. 24 March 2006, London, UK Application Deadline: 15 March 2006. For further information on registering for this event, contact r.day@acu.ac.uk.

Google launched on Thursday a service that lets people create their own Web pages hosted by the Internet giant. Google Page Creator, which is in beta, has sample layouts and lets people type in content, upload images and publish their pages, without knowing HTML. People can create multiple linked pages and are allowed 100MB of storage on the service.

One hundred and fifteen million primary school-age children are out of school according to a joint UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS)/ UNICEF global estimate. This number equals 18% - or almost one in five - of the children worldwide in this age group. And many of the children who are in school may never complete their primary education or finish it without attaining even basic literacy skills.

Last year, the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) established four key policy demands: debt cancellation, trade justice, a major increase in the quantity and quality of aid and national accountability - focusing mainly on accountability of national governments with regard to realising the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). In this context, several civil society coalitions have produced MDG shadow reports alongside those of National Governments which were prepared for the United Nations World Summit in September 2005. The civil society reports, which were produced in an exemplary consultative manner, have observed amongst others things that many National MDG Reports had failed to consult with civil society organisations which deal directly with communities.

Plans by the Kenya government to engage private-sector lawyers to prosecute cases arising from the Goldenberg and Anglo Leasing financial scandals have turned the spotlight on the Attorney-General's procurement procedures, after it turned out six lawyers were paid Ksh72 million ($1 million) to handle a five-day case arising from the constitutional review crisis. The advance payment of Ksh72 million by the Office of the Attorney General last year to a group of six private lawyers has sparked a controversy within the legal fraternity, with questions raised about the manner in which the lucrative contract was shared out and how it was procured.

Kenya has signed an agreement with the Venezuela government to enhance bilateral co-operation between the two countries. The bilateral agreement would also include technical assistance in oil exploration. The deal could also allow Kenya to buy crude oil at lower prices from the South American country, the world’s fifth largest oil exporter. Foreign Affairs minister, Rafael Tuju and Venezuela’s Deputy minister for Foreign Affairs for Africa, Reinaldo Bolivar, signed the agreement in Nairobi.

Amnesty International has called on all governments to adopt without delay the draft resolution on the Human Rights Council presented today (February 23) by the President of the General Assembly as the first concrete step in meeting the 2005 World Summit’s commitment to strengthen the United Nations' Human Rights machinery. "This is an historic opportunity that governments must not squander for selfish political interests. It is time for those that have imposed so many tawdry compromises to allow the General Assembly to establish the Human Rights Council", said Yvonne Terlingen. "Still, this is only a first step. Governments must now show the political will to make the Council an effective human rights body," said Yvonne Terlingen, Amnesty International's UN representative.

A new fund will support women's health organizations around that world that have been cut off from US aid because their stance on abortion is not in line with the Bush Administration's. The UK has already pledged $5 million. While the rest of the world is working to mediate the harm of the Global Gag Rule, the United States continues to march down a destructive path by cutting funding to foreign assistance programs that benefit the health and empowerment of women and children.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan commissioned a study by a US consulting firm into outsourcing a UN department. This Business article asserts that the UN has drawn up plans for privatizing the bulk of its staff at its New York headquarters and to outsource their work overseas. With Washington pressuring the UN to cut costs, the study explores possibilities for privatization from the conservative to the radical.

Most demographers agree that by 2050, the world's population will rise to at least 9.2 billion. It will take an increase to the world's agricultural land the size of Brazil to feed this population - far more than is available. Horizontal farming is destructive of ecosystems, habitat, and water and is a significant cause of climate change. Advocates of vertical indoor farming believe that - if practiced on a large scale in urban centres - it has potential to: sustainably feed the world. A single building 30 stories high with a city block footprint could feed 10,000 people.

Provided economic growth remains on track, it is anticipated that global poverty will fall to 10% of the population by 2015, achieving the target. However, worldwide figures mask the true picture. Asia is making good progress, driven by growth in China and India; but there is little movement elsewhere and many countries in sub-Saharan Africa have gone backwards, seeing an increase in the proportion of people in extreme poverty. During the 1990s, millions more people fell into extreme poverty in Sub Saharan Africa, according to the report by DFID.

The Bamako Appeal, issued from a meeting just before the World Social Forum, Bamako, January, 2006, has now been launched for signature, in French, English and Spanish, by the Dakar-based Forum Tiers Monde/Third World Forum. “The Bamako Appeal and the proposals for a plan of action included in the document were adopted by the Assembly of Social Movements of the World Social Forum which met in Caracas on January 29, 2006, in the frame of the polycentric WSF 2006.”

UNAIDS has launched a new version of its website complete with a new navigation, branding and logo. The website, which will also be available in French, Spanish and Russian, provides content specifically chosen for each audience group; business and labour; civil society; donors; media; people living with HIV/AIDS; policy-makers; researchers; the UN family; and women as well as an easier more intuitive navigation structure.

The Executive Secretariat of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has announced the freezing of the web-pages of both the Geneva and Tunis phases of the summit. This is coming as it has taken a firm step in updating media professionals on the post-WSIS related information by maintaining its 'WSIS E-Flash' medium.

Any not-for-profit, civil society or non-governmental organisation based anywhere in the world can enter to win this annual US$1 million prize for their contributions to addressing and progressing economic, environmental and/or social sustainability.

Since 1976, Tides Foundation has worked with donors committed to positive social change, putting resources and people together to strengthen community-based nonprofit organizations and the progressive movement through innovative grantmaking.