News that foreign consultants in Malawi are lavishly spending British aid money on hotels and meals has ignited controversy. The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that over a period of four years, some £586,423 (US $1 million) of a £3 million ($5.3 million) donation by the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) to a project aimed at strengthening Malawi's parliament and civil society was spent on hotels, while another £126,062 ($226,395) went on meals. The UK's National Audit Office was reportedly contemplating an inquiry into DFID's use of foreign consultants.

Aid agencies handing out emergency food in Niger are urging donors to keep the contributions flowing, so help won’t fizzle out just as Nigeriens begin to rebuild their livelihoods and their means to avert deadly food shortages in the future. The World Food Programme (WFP) is appealing to the international community not to turn away from Niger, after donations suffered a sharp drop from almost daily pledges during July to just three in the past fortnight.

"From the 16-19 of August, 2005, organisations of civil society from across Africa, comprising trade unions, farmers organisations, women's organisations, faith-based organisations and non-governmental organisations, met in Accra under the umbrella of the Africa Trade Network to deliberate upon the challenges posed to African countries in the on-going negotiations at the WTO, particularly in the preparations for the December Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong. We adopted the following conclusions and demands." Read the full statement by clicking on the link provided.

Ahead of the United Nations Millennium +5 review Summit, 25 African and International civil society organizations from different regions of Africa met in Nairobi, Kenya to study the draft outcome text and formulate messages for Governments and regional institutions. Read the statement from the meeting by clicking on the URL provided.

The United Nations summit next month on promoting the millennium development goals could end up delaying progress, a leading British charity says. The UN summit has been called at its headquarters in New York September 14 to 16 to review action on the millennium development goals (MDGs). A draft declaration for a UN text on the MDGs was produced Aug. 5 following proposals made earlier in June by China and other developing nations. "Very few of those amendments were incorporated in the draft text," Peter Hardstaff from the World Development Movement (WDM) told IPS. The review summit next month will now consider several amendments from the United States ''which sound like a complete reversal of even what is in the draft declaration,'' Hardstaff said.

"There is a direct and critical link between environmental degradation and rural poverty. Our groups on the ground and the communities they work with can also bear witness to the fact that neoliberal economic globalization has increased environmental devastation and poverty among natural resource dependent people." This is according to a new Friends of the Earth report that looks at the role the environment can play in dealing with poverty.

Walden Bellow from Focus on the Global South writes that civil society groups that regard the coming WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong as condemned to producing a deal that can only be detrimental to the interests of developing countries were cheered by the failure of the recent World Trade Organization (WTO) General Council meeting in late July to arrive at substantive agreements in any of the critical areas of negotiations: agriculture, non-agricultural products, and services. Indeed, most observers, including the media, have largely characterized the inability to produce the "July Approximations" as a significant setback to securing a successful ministerial in Hong Kong in December, he writes.

Despite the fact that trade between China, India (Asian Drivers) and Africa has grown significantly since 1990, it is only recently that attention has been paid to their impact on the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, China and India have also emerged as sources of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). This paper published by the Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN) focuses on the impacts that these links have on poverty in sub saharan Africa. Through analysing 21 African countries (accounting for four-fifths of the total population of Sub-Saharan Africa) it aims to set the context for the poverty implications. The authors argue that the likely impact of trade changes on the poor will partially depend on the types of goods involved and the conditions under which they are produced.

Over the past decade there has been a significant growth in the use of voluntary codes of conduct and certification schemes as a way of strengthening NGO accountability. Current estimates suggest that self-regulatory initiatives such as these are in operation in over 40 countries worldwide. This paper from the One World Trust examines their rise and investigates the debate that surrounds them. The paper is particularly concerned with developing an understanding of under what conditions self-regulation initiatives can increase NGO's accountability to their beneficiaries.

Nestle has a serious image problem because of its on-going aggressive marketing of baby foods, according to a report by the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN). "Instead of making changes required to bring its practices fully into line with international marketing standards, Nestlé invests heavily in Public Relations (PR) initiatives intended to divert criticism. But Nestlé makes demonstrably untrue claims which have resulted in further damaging publicity." National groups have launched boycotts against Nestlé in 20 countries because of its unethical and irresponsible marketing of breastmilk substitutes, says the report. Nestlé is singled out for boycott action because independent monitoring conducted by the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) finds it to be the largest single source of violations of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent, relevant World Health Assembly Resolutions worldwide.

One of the world's biggest mining companies has been given permission to open up an enormous mine on the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar which will involve digging up some of the world's most unique forest, reports the UK Observer. The decision has outraged campaigners at Friends of the Earth, who had opposed the plans from the outset. It is all the more poignant because one of their leading directors, Andrew Lees, died 10 years ago in the same forest while investigating the controversial plans for a mine.

This brief from the Center for Global Development is based on the Report of the UN Millennium Project Task Force on Education and Gender Equality. The paper discusses how both developing countries and donors can foster and support bold action to achieve the education MDG. Developing countries that are falling short can transform their education systems through: a strong national commitment to education; greater local control; more and better quality information about school performance and learning outcomes; and use of special interventions to reach poor children, including girls in rural areas and other marginalised children.

September 23rd to 25th 2005, the weekend of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund's annual meetings, holds great importance for millions around the world. This year, the Mobilization for Global Justice, a Washington DC-based activist group, will join our allies in the global South, Europe, and the U.S. as well as with those in the anti-war community to demand an end to the international system that uses economic and military might to extract resources and serve corporate interests.

Current TB vaccines are flawed and will fail to protect people living near the Equator, warn UK experts. While boosting a person's natural immunity works in richer Western countries, in poorer nations this approach does not work, they say. According to the University College London team, a better way would be to suppress inappropriate responses by the body that allow the disease to thrive.

Over the ten-year history of the World Trade Organization (WTO), distrust and misinformation have controlled the relationship between human rights advocates and trade experts. Yet it is now evident to both 'sides' that trade-facilitated globalisation has profound human effects, as explicitly acknowledged in the Doha "Development Agenda." Adopted at the fourth WTO Ministerial Conference in 2001, the Doha Ministerial Declaration establishes a framework for negotiating WTO agreements that respects the human dimensions of development. The interactions between trade and human rights are complex: bidirectional, direct and indirect, and positive and negative. A July 2005 International Federation of Human Rights report examines this relationship.

"Because of the depth and scope of its influence, the issue of the G8's accountability is crucial. Currently, it exercises its influence in a vacuum of adequate checks and balances. The activities and even existence of many of the G8's bodies are not known to elected national representatives. Its activities take place largely hidden from public view. The G8 is the most vivid example of unaccountable power at the international level."

Corruption is about far more than an envelope stuffed full of fivers in someone's back pocket. At its most extreme whole economies are destroyed by its pernicious influence. Oil rich Nigeria is a case in point, it is virtually impossible to life a normal live there without encountering corruption. As a result the economy is gravely affected, crime is rife, politics is a sick joke and at the top, people aren't just skimming off enough to top up their inadequate salaries, they are literally stealing billions. Western companies help developing countries to do this, Transparency International found that the most corrupt industries are arms, construction and oil.

Globalisation is the cliche of our times. Its proponents use it to sing paeans to the efficiency of markets. Its opponents decry it for bringing misery to ordinary folk around the world. In terms of its economic ramifications, globalisation essentially means the breakdown of national barriers against trade and finance. Proponents of globalisation would like us to believe that the ongoing process of globalisation is unprecedented. However, those who place a stronger emphasis on history argue that globalisation has always been an abiding feature of capitalism.

Just prior to the G8 Summit, President George W. Bush said he would double US assistance to Africa, and announced several new programs totaling $1.65 billion. The largest component is for malaria prevention and treatment ($1.2 billion), with smaller portions for education ($400 million) and programs to combat sexual violence and abuse against women ($55 million). A closer look at Bush's actual spending proposal shows that only 9% of it consists of new money ($800 million of the $8.8 billion committed between 2004 and 2010). Bush did announce $674 million in what he said was "additional" spending for humanitarian emergencies in Africa, but the fine print showed this was not actually new spending.

"First, I would argue that the G8 Summit was not a breakthrough; it was, in fact, a disappointment. I would argue that we got caught up in the music, and the spectacle, and the spin and the celebrities, and we all applauded before applause was justified. Take debt. The cancellation of multilateral debt for eighteen countries, fourteen in Africa, was a start, but Africa still carries the insurmountable burden of over $200 billion of debt, debt that cripples the battle against poverty and the pandemic. Take trade, which everyone agrees is the centerpiece of economic revival. The G8 offered only sonorous words about agricultural subsidies, and could of course offer nothing, because everything rests on the negotiations at the World Trade Organization in its meeting in Hong Kong this December. So far the negotiations are not going well." This is according to a speech by Stephen Lewis, UN Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa at the opening of the 3rd International AIDS Society Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.