Home gardens for food security

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Written by Rhiannon Meaden, Journal Development Editor, Agriculture & Food Security

Home gardens can be used to alleviate hunger, malnutrition, economic hardship and disease. These are the findings of a comprehensive literature review by Galhena et al., published today in Agriculture & Food Security, which investigates the uses of home gardens in the context of food security, and specifically in post-conflict situations.

The use of home gardens is a longstanding and effective strategy for coping with the daily threat of food and nutritional insecurity in many developing countries. Home gardens comprise of small areas of land close to the homestead, where a family can grow subsistence produce in order to supplement their diet, as well as to buffer socio-economic hardships. These …

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Improving access and relevance of research in the developing world

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On Thursday 6th June, the Guardian Global Development Professional Network hosted a live chat on improving access and relevance of research in the developing world. Ruth King, a Publisher at BioMed Central and Open Access in the Developing World advocate was on the panel. See below for a selection of tweets from the debate:

For more information and to view the whole debate, please visit the Guardian website or alternatively  search for relevant tweets by using the hashtag #globaldevlive.

The extent of arsenic pollution in contaminated groundwater

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Written By Rhiannon Meaden, Journal Development Editor, Environmental Evidence.

Technology is inadequately assessed for effectiveness to reduce arsenic contamination in groundwater finds a new systematic review published in Environmental Evidence today. Many investigations into the effectiveness of these intervention strategies are poorly devised and thus cannot be relied upon to provide an evidence base for policy making.

In a number of developing countries worldwide, groundwater provides an alternative to drinking visibly polluted surface water. However, Arsenic is colourless and odourless and therefore is often ingested accidentally through drinking contaminated groundwater. Arsenic poisoning poses a  threat to public health, and is a serious environmental hazard in many developing countries worldwide.

There are several methods available for removing arsenic from contaminated …

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Women Deliver: Invest in girls and women – it pays

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Over the next three days, thousands of participants will be partaking in the largest global event of the decade to focus on female health and empowerment. Women Deliver 2013, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, will hold more than 120 concurrent sessions from 28th – 30th May and will include high level plenaries, skills-building workshops, and ministerial and parliamentarian forums. This event aims to serve as a global platform  for ensuring that the health and rights of females across the world remain top priority now, and for decades to come.

Women Deliver was founded back in 2007 by Jill Sheffield, a global educator and advocate for maternal, reproductive, and sexual health rights.  This global advocacy was created to generate …

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Mosquito survey identifies reservoir of disease

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Written by Ben Johnson, Senior Acquisitions and Development Editor, BioMed Central

Mosquito borne viruses are a major cause of mortality and morbidity, especially in the developing world.  As warmer weather increases the habitat for these disease vectors the problem is spreading to the developed world. A five-year study published today in Virology Journal shows for the first time the extent of mosquito-borne viruses (known as arboviruses) in diverse regions of Kenya.

The researchers surveyed almost half a million mosquitoes from varied habitats including savannah grassland, semi-arid Acacia thorn bushes, and mangrove swamps, and sequenced the genomes of the viruses they found. 83 different viruses were discovered, both known and unknown species that cause disease in humans and livestock. Predominant virus …

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Earth Day 2013: The Face of Climate Change

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The seventies was a decade defined by its free-loving, environmentally aware, “hippie” culture, so it comes as no surprise that Earth Day, a day dedicated to environmental awareness, was created in the spring of 1970.  Founder Gaylord Nelson, U.S. Senator (1963 to 1981),  was so appalled by the ravages of the 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, California, he decided that it was time for a change. Along with support from Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman and Denis Hayes, who became the national coordinator, he announced to the media  the need for a “national teach-in on the environment.”

Initially motivated by the student anti-war movement, Nelson believed that if he could inspire the same …

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More than just a text: mobile phones & developing worlds

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Written by James Balm, Social Media Intern, BioMed Central

In our culture, we use mobile phones everyday with little thought to the benefits they may provide outside of socialising. Yet in developing countries, mobile phones may be the key to improved healthcare and education. With the recent increase of mobile phone usage in developing countries, these areas may help influence the handheld market. Recent studies identified a good 64 per cent of users worldwide are from developing countries, and in Africa, mobile phone sales have increased by 550 per cent due to growing popularity.

According to a study in Malaria Journal by Wasif A Khan from iccddr,b, in a rural district of Bangladesh, mobile phones have proved …

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Young people in the developing world

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Young people all over the world face challenges, but in the developing world there are additional pressures.  According to UNESCO 20% of young people in developing countries fail to finish primary school and consequently lack the necessary skills for finding employment and improving their lives. Despite this, many young people are forced to work to survive and end up working for very little money. Many are essentially self-employed.

The 2013 meeting of the International Labour Organization found that even though apprenticeships are available in developing countries, they are frequently unpaid with no certainty of employed work after training is completed.

In contrast, the World Bank note that it is becoming easier for entrepreneurs in the developing world to set …

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Links between Diabetes and Tuberculosis – a big problem for Ethiopia

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World Tuberculosis Day was on the 24th March  and this year’s focus of the Stop TB Partnership, a collective force of 1000 partners in more than 100 countries including the WHO, is to prevent the deaths of the 4000 people who lose their lives to Tuberculosis (TB) every day.

 

TB is an indiscriminate disease affecting people all over the world. Globally  a third of the world’s population is thought to be infected. According to the CDC year on year decreases mean that there were 3.4 cases per 100,000 people in the US in 2011, and the equivalent NICE statistic for the UK in 2008 was 14.1 per 100,000 people. However in Ethiopia, according to the World Health …

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The importance of Ugandan wetlands for food security

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Wetlands contribute significantly to strategies mitigating for food insecurity in Uganda, finds a new study published in Agriculture & Food Security today. Wetlands provide vital nutrients for crop farming and ensure water availability during dry seasons which is important for irrigation.  Because of this Ugandan wetlands have seen an influx of people using these resources over the last few years while climate has become increasingly unstable. Furthermore, wetlands are also used for income generation, for example by providing clay for pottery, reed and palm mats, baskets, beehives and cultivation of cash crops.

A lack of food security is a daily problem faced by nearly 1.4 million people in Uganda, with changing climate and continuing socio- economic …

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