In 2005, the Guardian featured 10 newborn babies in countries across Africa. We revisited them in 2010, and again this year to speak to them and their families about how life has changed. Now aged 10, eight of the children share their daily challenges with us, as well as their hopes for the future. You can read their stories and listen to our podcast, which present an extraordinary picture of a continent undergoing dramatic change.
In Mumbai, an all-female taxi firm is helping to support women’s economic empowerment. Follow driver Dhanlaxmi Devendra in Driving Mumbai, a six-minute film about the innovative taxi service and the challenges it aims to overcome.
And a World Bank study has found women’s prospects are limited by law in 155 countries. Of the 173 countries studied for the report, 155 have at least one law limiting women’s economic opportunities, while 100 states put restrictions on the type of jobs women can do and 18 allow husbands to dictate whether their wives can work at all.
Elsewhere on the site
- Afghanistan gunmen torch UN food trucks in latest attack on aid workers
- Destitute Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon may return to warzone
- Socking it to malaria just the start for Africa’s new science alliance
- Child mortality halved since 1990, but MDG goal missed, says UN report
- Micro-insurance offers families in poorer countries protection from destitution
- Poor monitoring renders millions of elderly people worldwide “invisible”
Opinion
As world leaders prepare to adopt a new set of development goals at the upcoming UN general assembly, the toll of humanitarian crises should not be far from their minds, says Unicef chief Anthony Lake. He calls for agencies to break down the barriers between development and humanitarian response in order to reach the millions of children living in the midst of war and conflict.
On the refugee crisis, UNDP worker Mohamed Yahya described one man’s journey from Africa to Europe, which he says could signal an even bigger crisis to come. UK Labour MP Mary Creagh wrote from a camp in Lebanon about Britain’s commitments to refugees in comparison with Lebanon, where people who have fled Syria now make up more than a quarter of the population.
Multimedia
Video: Being Laxmi: ‘I belong to the hijra, the oldest transgender community’
Video: Bangalore or bust: can India’s clothing factories offer freedom to rural recruits?
Podcast: Africa’s children 10 years on: what happened next?
What you said: top reader comment
On the interactive piece Africa’s children, Global_Nomad
wrote:
We need to reflect on how recently many “developed” countries have moved out of this situation. These kind of lives were still common in the UK up to the 50s, in the US perhaps even later. So despite the wealth of empire over 200 years or so, it took a great deal of effort and slow change. Things are changing, but slowly, but in many ways they are already improved compared with the previous generation.
Highlight from the blogosphere
Overseas Development Insitute: If the SDGs are to “leave no one behind”, donors should get serious about social protection
And finally …
Poverty matters will return in two weeks with another roundup of the latest news and comment. In the meantime, keep up to date on the Global Development website. Follow @gdndevelopment and the team – @swajones, @LizFordGuardian, @MarkC_Anderson and @CarlaOkai – on Twitter, and join Guardian Global Development on Facebook.
