He may not have won the Nobel peace prize, but Ugandan youth activist Victor Ochen says his nomination for the prestigious award felt like it was “already a win”. Ochen gained the nomination for his work helping victims of war, including people affected by the onslaught of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda. “This has opened for us more space; it has given us the recognition that does not come easily,” Ochen said of the nomination.
We spoke to another inspiring young Ugandan, Polline Akello, who was abducted by the LRA at the age of 12. Akello was feared dead by her parents, but managed to escape six years later. She is now a human rights activist, standing up for others whose rights have been abused. Read her story here.
And to mark International Day of the Girl, eight teenage girls from around the world tell of the challenges they face and of their hopes for the future.
Elsewhere on the site
- Aid agencies back call for investigation into ‘horrific’ US attack on MSF hospital
- Eritrea faces day of reckoning as UN weighs choice between sanctions or aid
- Migration can help to forge a more prosperous world, says World Bank
- Ukraine could destroy 3.7m polio vaccines despite risk of major outbreak
- Uganda’s test and treat HIV programme hauls in fishermen of Lake Victoria
Opinion
The World Bank has adjusted its definition of extreme poverty, from living on or below $1.25 a day to $1.90 a day. Claire Melamed, of the Overseas Development Institute, argues that the World Bank’s estimates focus too much on finding neat definitions of poverty, instead of analysing how extreme poverty can be overcome.
This month marks the 15th anniversary of the landmark UN security council resolution 1325, which called for greater representation of women in peacebuilding and conflict resolution. But, as Glenys Kinnock writes, progress in implementing the resolution’s priorities has been slow. “It is vital that we uphold women’s right to participate in peacebuilding and end the denial of such fundamental rights as access to justice,” she says.
Multimedia
Podcast: Can Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran and Coldplay make the global goals famous?
Gallery: A visionary quest to bring eye care to Rwanda’s 15,000 villages
Gallery: Tanzania – children with albinism receive new limbs after vicious witchcraft attacks
What you said: top reader comment
On the piece Describing poverty is no substitute for producing hard evidence to help end it, Fiona Brooke wrote:
Having read the Report on the millennium development goals only yesterday, I feel qualified to comment here. Ending poverty can only happen when we also work towards supporting improved agriculture and access to clean water. Once people have enough to feed themselves and their children, then they look for other ways to improve their lives and send their children to school for the education that they hope will take them further away from poverty.
Supporting improved agriculture and water needs aid and advice – pity Australia has just cut back severely on that in the last two budgets. There is no simple solution, but we can help support people to find their own solution and we should.
Highlight from the blogosphere
Overseas Development Institute: After Kunduz, we must end impunity for those who break international law
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.
