According to a new report from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, the Fund's efforts have contributed to saving an estimated 4.9 million lives by December 2009. The coming years will see even more results, as half of the total disbursements by the Global Fund were delivered in 2008 and 2009. Much of the US$ 5.4 billion of financing approved in Rounds 8 and 9 will reach countries in 2010 and 2011, and will continue to significantly boost health outcomes.

Educational inclusion relates to all children accessing and meaningfully participating in quality education, in ways that are responsive to their individual needs. The terms ‘inclusion’ and inclusive education’ are often used in relation to children with disabilities and/or special needs and emerged partly out of debates to reduce their segregation from mainstream schooling.

The World Cup is wreaking havoc with a key millennium development goal in South Africa: as the football tournament hit its stride, not a single child across the nation attended school. It's temporary, of course: the winter holiday has been extended so schools are closed during the month-long tournament.

African countries should deepen their tax bases to collect more revenues to finance their development, build state institutions and to improve national dialogue and, more generally, their social contracts with citizens. These are some of the conclusions in two new studies on the taxation systems in Africa.

"Instead of moaning all the time, why don’t you create your own (political) party?" some men asked Brigitte Rabemanantsoa Rasamoelina, a female politician from Madagascar. She accepted the challenge and in February formed Ampela Mano Politika, a political party which started with only 22 female members and now has over 5,000 female members ... and 10 men