One out of every 122 people is internally displaced, seeking asylum or a refugee, according to new figures. The annual global trends study by the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, warns that the world is failing people in an “age of unprecedented mass displacement”.
The Syrian conflict has led to a significant increase in refugees globally, with nearly four million Syrians living in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and Iraq. A new campaign called Everyday Heroes of Syria is paying tribute to Syrian refugees and members of host communities who are banding together to support one another.
In the latest instalment in our series reviewing the millennium development goals (MDGs), the focus turned to goal six, which aims to combat HIV and Aids, malaria and other diseases. You can learn more about how far the world has come in reducing the spread of disease in this explainer and a list of 15 achievements. There are also stories of hope from Ethiopia, where more children of HIV mothers are being born free of the virus, as well as in Kenya where progress on tackling malaria has been made but threats from climate change persist.
Elsewhere on the site
Opinion
While many environmental campaigners welcomed Pope Francis’s encyclical calling for action on climate change, others thought it did not go far enough. John Vidal argues the encyclical glosses over the role of population growth and family planning in developing countries. In Turkey, women’s rights campaigner Semanur Karaman writes that following the election which resulted in more female MPs being elected than ever before, the country is on the threshold of a gender revolution.
Multimedia
Pictures: ‘I know I’m too young to be a mother’: child marriage in Ethiopia
Pictures: Farmers in Burma swap opium poppies for coffee crops
Pictures: Taluorumana, the Colombian village dying of thirst
Podcast: Financing the sustainable development goals
What you said: top reader comment
On the piece William Hague’s summit against warzone rape seen as ‘costly failure’, TSJones wrote:
I think the issue revolves around “what the UN can and can’t do”. The UN is, after all, simply a collective of nation states. Thus it is only as powerful as the states that comprise it allow it to be. The goals it had when it was set up were not to solve all the world’s problems – that had been tried by the old League of Nations and was a dismal failure. As someone once said, law without force is no law at all – and as the UN cannot enforce any of its principles or initiatives then it is and will always be a paper tiger.
Highlight from the blogosphere
Overseas Development Institute: Politics and megacities: what does political transition in Nigeria mean for Lagos?
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.
