What We’re Reading 10/1/09

Oct 1st, 2009 6:35 PM UTC
By Chris Scott

Happy October! Here’s what we’re reading today:

Washington Post—Number of People Getting Lifesaving HIV Drugs Rises
More coverage today of yesterday’s UN report announcing that more than 4 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS in low- and middle-income countries are now on lifesaving antiretroviral drugs. The report found that at the end of 2008, 2.9 million Africans were on the lifesaving therapy, up by more than one-third from the previous year.

The Guardian—Cheap drugs could cut deaths in childbirth in Africa, say researchers
The lives of a third of the women who die in childbirth could be saved if cheap and common drugs were readily available in their villages, according to a paper published in one of the world’s top medical journals, the Lancet. In remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa, where the healthcare facilities are inadequate, badly stocked or too distant, thousands of lives could be saved if efforts were made to ensure the basic, cheap drugs were accessible, researchers say.

Christian Science Monitor—Act now to prevent future world hunger
The Christian Science Monitor editorializes that climate change will drastically reduce wheat and rice production if nations don’t take steps now to prepare, but solving this problem is doable. The paper backs the call for an additional $7 billion annually in adaptation aid to farmers until 2050, especially to small-scale farmers in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which will be hardest hit by a changing climate.

Washington Post—IMF Sees Reason for Hope, Caution in World Economy
The world economy has “turned the corner” toward recovery, but substantial regulatory reform is needed to prevent a return to the edge of the abyss, the International Monetary Fund said Wednesday in its semi-annual report on global financial stability. In the five months since the IMF’s last stability report, “financial markets have rebounded, emerging market risks have eased, banks have raised capital and wholesale funding markets have reopened,” the report reads.

Huffington Post—At CGI and Beyond, World Leaders Say Girls Are the Key to Progress
Maria Eitel, president of the Nike Foundation, writes on the Huffington Post about the need to invest in women and girls in the developing world and how world leaders are increasingly coming to see women as an essential solution to global poverty. Eitel attended last week’s Clinton Global Initiative meeting, which focused on solutions for empowering women and girls in the developing world. (ONE was at CGI, too! Check out our reports from on the ground here.)

TAGS: What We're Reading