IRIN - Benin
Updated everyday

• GLOBAL: No silver bullets? The online funding revolution and micro-finance sector
  NAIROBI Wednesday, December 05, 2007 (IRIN) - When Mohammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, which revolutionised credit for the poor, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, micro-finance became a household concept. Now, online lending sites such as Kiva and NamasteDirect, give everyone a chance to help fight global poverty and, in the words of one new investor, “teach people how to take a small investment, grow their business and eventually become self-sufficient”.
• WEST AFRICA: Groups call on governments to tackle violence against schoolgirls
  SALY Wednesday, December 05, 2007 (IRIN) - To improve girls’ education, West African governments must adopt national policies addressing all aspects of violence against schoolgirls - who face rape by teachers, verbal abuse by male students and forced early marriage by parents - a grouping of policy makers, teachers’ unions and civil society organisations has said.
• GLOBAL: More on hair care than climate conditioning
  JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, December 04, 2007 (IRIN) - Industrialised countries have only paid about US$163 million towards helping the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) adapt to global warming - less than what Canadians spent on hair conditioner last year - says a new report by the UK-based development agency, Oxfam. But less than $10 million of this has been dispensed so far, the UN Development Programme's Human Development Report 2007/2008 pointed out.
• GLOBAL: "Political will" needed to change climate
  JOHANNESBURG Monday, December 03, 2007 (IRIN) - Officials stressed the need for "political will" to stem the impact of global warming as the United Nations Climate Change Conference got underway on the Indonesian island of Bali on 3 December.
• GLOBAL: New tool to evaluate donors
  JOHANNESBURG Monday, December 03, 2007 (IRIN) - A unique new benchmarking mechanism that looks at the performance of humanitarian aid donors has put Sweden in the lead.
• GLOBAL: Humanitarian cost of climate change understated CORRECTION
  GENEVA Friday, November 30, 2007 (IRIN) - Massive new funding – estimated at US$2 billion a year until at least 2015 – will be needed for disaster response programmes to deal with the global food shortages and increasing frequency of natural disasters that will be caused by climate change, the UN Development Programme warns.
• WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 404 for 24 - 30 November 2007
  DAKAR Friday, November 30, 2007 (IRIN) - IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 404 for 24 - 30 November 2007
• GLOBAL: Hoping for a deal on the road to Bali
  JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, November 27, 2007 (IRIN) - The United Nations Climate Change Conference on the Indonesian island of Bali in December is not expected to achieve any dramatic breakthroughs on saving the planet from global warming, a senior official of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told IRIN. But it could well produce an important timeframe on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, predicted Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chair.
• WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 403 for 17 - 23 November 2007
  DAKAR Friday, November 23, 2007 (IRIN) - IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 403 for 17 - 23 November 2007
• GLOBAL: IRIN presents Tomorrow's Crises Today: the humanitarian impact of urbanisation - the book
  NAIROBI Thursday, November 22, 2007 (IRIN) - Co-published by IRIN and UN-HABITAT, Tomorrow's Crises Today explores the effect living in today's cities has on the millions of people who already live in metropolises, and those who are being drawn into them from the countryside every day - by the millions.
• AFRICA: Human rights watchdogs urge action against enforced disappearance
  BRAZZAVILLE Wednesday, November 21, 2007 (IRIN) - Human rights activists who gathered in Brazzaville have called on African states to do more to prevent the enforced disappearance of citizens and to end the impunity that often accompanies such crimes.
• AFRICA: And then there were no fish
  JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 21, 2007 (IRIN) - In the not-too-distant future, several African countries will face the depressing reality of collapsed fisheries and the permanent degradation of their marine environment, warned a new report.
• GLOBAL: UN emergency fund CERF and NGOs - "Progress made, progress to make"
  NEW YORK Tuesday, November 20, 2007 (IRIN) - In a January report, Save the Children UK - one of the more vocal non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on humanitarian financing reforms - criticised the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) for being “clumsy and inefficient” in its distribution of funds to NGOs. However, by September this year their view had shifted.
• AFRICA: African farmers could earn 'green' money
  JOHANNESBURG Friday, November 16, 2007 (IRIN) - Lack of information is the main obstacle to paying African farmers as an incentive to protect the environment, according to a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation official.
• AFRICA: New improved disaster response tool
  JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, November 14, 2007 (IRIN) - A new tool has been developed to help humanitarian agencies and donors analyse a disaster situation, make a comparison with another disaster that might be unfolding in a different part of the globe, and plan and prioritise their response to a particular crisis accordingly.
• WEST AFRICA: Region’s children worse off despite legislation
  DAKAR Tuesday, November 13, 2007 (IRIN) - Children in West Africa are as likely to be raped, trafficked, beaten or abused and less likely to go to school, receive proper healthcare or be properly nourished, compared to 15 years ago, despite binding legislation meant to improve children’s situation.
• WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 401 for 3 - 9 November 2007
  DAKAR Monday, November 12, 2007 (IRIN) - IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 401 for 3 - 9 November 2007
• WEST AFRICA: More funds needed to tackle drug use, NGOs say
  DAKAR Monday, November 05, 2007 (IRIN) - West and Central African governments and the UN are so focused on reducing the supply of illicit drugs they have ignored efforts to reduce demand, non-governmental organisations say.
• BENIN: Agricultural techniques adapted to the constraints of HIV/AIDS
  COTONOU Monday, October 29, 2007 (IRIN) - Experiments in new agricultural techniques by a Benin research centre could give a considerable boost to farmers living with HIV/AIDS. Comlan Houessou, head of the network of people living with HIV/AIDS in Benin, was fascinated to learn about projects by the Songhaï Centre in the capital, Porto Novo, to develop inexpensive agricultural production systems based on agrobiology.
• WEST AFRICA: IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 399 for 20 - 26 October 2007
  DAKAR Friday, October 26, 2007 (IRIN) - IRIN-WA Weekly Round-up 399 for 20 - 26 October 2007
• BENIN: AIDS stripping farmers of their land
  COTONOU Thursday, October 25, 2007 (IRIN) - Comlan Houessou certainly knows what he is talking about when it comes to the impact of AIDS on rural communities. He is a farmer in Benin who has lost everything because of HIV: the respect of his neighbours, his savings and his land. He is now fighting to rebuild his life.
• AFRICA: Slum Survivors - new IRIN film released
  NAIROBI Wednesday, October 24, 2007 (IRIN) - Worldwide, more than a billion people live in slums, with as many as one million in Kibera, Africa’s largest such settlement, in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. Slum Survivors, IRIN’s first full-length documentary, tells some of their stories.
• WEST AFRICA: New approach to malaria recommended
  OUAGADOUGOU Wednesday, October 24, 2007 (IRIN) - A World Health Organization evaluation of West African countries’ progress in controlling malaria has recommended that donors allocate more funds to indoor spraying and to helping countries purchase the latest anti-malarial drugs.