Our Stories

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Communities help manage Turkey's national parks

Turkey is home to three globally recognized biodiversity hotspots and has a system of protected natural areas in place, but half its forests are considered degraded as a result of encroachment, overgrazing and illegal logging. Forests are among the most significant of Turkey’s ecosystems in terms of more

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In Bolivia, microloans lift thousands of women from poverty

Linet Claros Yevara, a resident of Mizque, a municipality in Bolivia with an 85 percent rate of extreme poverty rate, has seen her situation improve a lot lately. “My family eats better," she says. "Every day I give them fruit.” These improvements are thanks to the Semilla, or Seed, prog more

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Woman lifts her family out of poverty in the West Bank

Starting a business with limited resources in East Jerusalem, West Bank, is a challenge — especially for women. For Inayat Nageeb, a housewife and a mother of three sons and two daughters, life has not been easy. Her husband works as a guard at a mosque, with a monthly income of approximately US $8 more

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Afghanistan: New environmental councils spur development in provincial communities

Standing at the edge of Joe-e-Projey canal in the northern town of Char-i-Kar, Mohammad Tahir, a car mechanic, rues the fate of children who drink water from the local canal. “This canal has snuffed out many, many young lives. It is a bed of dirt and disease,” he says sadly, with moist eyes. The 70- more

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Women bring solutions to waste management in Burundi

In the northwest province of Cibitoke in Burundi, Peruth Ndayiramye wakes up every morning to fetch food and water for her family, and to take her goat out to graze. “After that I wash myself, I entrust my children the house work to be done, and I’m going to work,” Peruth says. One member of a tea more

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Sierra Leone: Tackling youth unemployment

The story of Umaru Kargbo, in Sierra Leone’s northern city of Makeni, 113 miles from the capital city of Freetown, is one of resilience and of sheer determination to lift oneself out of poverty. It is also the story of how a country, once riddled by suffering and stagnation caused by years of civil more

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In Bangladesh, mobile clinics help fight malaria in remote hills

Joykumar Chakma, 28, has never been treated by a doctor. “My father was the village mendicant. If we got seriously ill, the family sacrificed a pig or a hen and he believed the illness would pass. This was the custom in my community,” said Joykumar. “So many children used to die of malaria in those more

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Iran gains ground in battle against malaria

Torah, a construction worker in search of a new job and better prospects, was travelling west into Iran from Afghanistan. His second day on the move, he was hit with fever and chills, then excruciating pain – the first signs of malaria. He asked locals for help and was referred to Sadegh, a voluntee more

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Benin: New opportunities for young graduates

Faced with the difficulty of finding new employment in Cotonou, Benin’s largest city, Philippe and Ulrich, two brothers from a poor background decided to launch their own fruit juice distribution business after finishing their university studies. Nowadays, both brothers command a salary, and recruit more

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Agriculture opens new doors for young Jamaicans

Kingston – Some 650 young and jobless women and men in four impoverished areas of Jamaica have received training in cultivation and food production skills to boost their job opportunities in local farming and agro-industries. Through a three-year programme started in January 2010 by the Government a more

2.61 years
remaining
until 2015

1990 2015
Featured Publication
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The Millennium Development Goals Report 2012

Three important targets on poverty, slums and water have been met three years ahead of 2015, says this year’s Report. Meeting the remaining targets, while challenging, is possible ─ but only if Governments do not waiver from their commitments.


More MDG-related publications