In ten years, the living conditions of the poor have been improving—but not necessarily because of the UN’s goals EVEN at 70, Jiyem, an Indonesian grandmother, gets up in the small hours to cook and collect firewood for her impoverished household. Her three-year-old grandson is malnourished. Nobody in her family has ever finished primary school. Her ramshackle house lacks electricity; the toilet is a hole in the ground; the family...

Swaths of the world inhabit a modern dark age, with lack of electricity and modern cooking facilities condemning billions to deep poverty, the top UN energy body said Tuesday. According to the International Energy Agency, more than 20 percent of the global population, or 1.4 billion people, lack access to electricity, while about 40 percent rely on the likes of wood stoves for cooking. "This is shameful and unacceptable," the IEA said...

While global food prices declined for the first half of this year, they have spiked in recent months, according to a new World Bank publication, and this volatility could in turn push up the local food prices of the world's poorest and most malnourished countries. The Bank's grain price index had declined by 16 percent over the first six months of 2010 before rising that same amount between mid-June and August....

A United Nations-backed intervention involving cook stoves holds the promise of saving lives, uplifting health, improving regional environments, reducing deforestation, empowering local entrepreneurs, speeding development, and helping to stem global climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has joined international efforts to dramatically boost the efficiency of some 3 billion cook stoves across Africa, Asia and Latin America, with the aim to protect women’s health and provide significant environmental...

The India, Brazil and South Africa (IBSA) alliance have been honoured with the 2010 UN Millennium Development Goals (MDG) award for their efforts in the fight against poverty. The award recognized India, Brazil and South Africa Facility for Poverty and Hunger Alleviation (IBSA Fund) for their hard work in using innovative approaches to share, replicate and scale up successful development experiences for combating poverty and hunger in other parts of the...