The federal government’s announcement that it is ending the annual 8% increase in international aid in 2011, means Canada is reneging on a long-standing promise to assist countries living in

From January 27 to 31, top business leaders, international political leaders, selected intellectuals and journalists met in Davos, Switzerland, in the WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM ANNUAL MEETING 2010 to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world.

The combination of food and financial crisis trapped an estimated 50 to 90 million people in extreme poverty in 2009. How can the Millennium Development Goals for 2015 be met in the wake of the economic crisis?

Answer this and other questions watching the VIDEO "Meeting the Millennium Development Goals" at the World Economic Forum.

Government leaders cannot solve global challenges on their own any more. In today's much flatter world, it is everyday people --and, critically, their personal networks-- who have the potential to be the world's big new problem solvers. Haiti's post-earthquake emergency has vividly displayed the need for coordinated best efforts from non-profits, companies, individuals, online communities, governments and the UN system. The same mindset of partnership, urgency, and "all hands on deck" is also required to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the world's integrated targets for tackling extreme poverty by 2015.

Sometimes wishes can come true.

For months now, a coalition of 7 Canadian NGOs working with vulnerable mothers and children in low income countries, has been lobbying the government to take this on as a Canadian G8 Legacy Project.

As he prepared to depart for the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, the Prime Minister did just that…announcing that Canada would make the plight of the 500,000 million women who die in childbirth and the 9 million children who don’t make it to the age of 5 every year, a top priority for the G8.

She started a movement that has so far planted 40 million trees in her native land. She’s been to jail for her activism. She’s won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now, at the Copenhagen climate talks, Wangari Muta Maathai accepted her new status as the twelfth UN Messenger for Peace.

“I will give my all to ensure that I succeed in this mandate,” the Kenya native said to an applauding audience.

But more than anything, Maathai showed the world what a crucial role women play in the climate change debate.

I know it seems like we’re always throwing one horrifying stat or another at you, about the way the world is going to heck in a handbasket. But when I heard that 600,000 people died directly because of extreme weather related events in the last ten years, it got me thinking.

With all the focus on emissions targets for 2050, what if we’re losing sight of the urgency of the action we need to take? We only need to look at the world RIGHT NOW to see that it really is “adapt or die” for many developing nations, especially the island nations, the ones on the front line.

We really enjoyed this letter sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Environment Minister Jim Prentice by Make Poverty History supporter Larry Lalonde from Grimsby, Ont.

While everybody expected scuffles in Copenhagen's climate talks this week, a proposal leaked to the Guardian, apparently formulated by Denmark, the U.S. and the U.K., suggests a battle between rich and poor.

The stories I’ve heard first hand from Africans on a recent visit to Nairobi, Kenya make it very clear that climate change is undermining their efforts to reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

Today, December 1, 2009 is World AIDS Day and with it comes a mixed message.  Progress is being made where progress was said to be impossible just a few short years ago, but again, it is not enough and it is coming too slow. 

More than 4 million people in “developing” countries are now receiving antiretrovirals up 36% from 2008.  This also marks a ten-fold increase over five years but it doesn’t even approximate the need or come close to G8’s 2005 promise of universal access.  For every two people on treatment there are five new infections. 

Now, here are a couple quick things you (maybe) can do:

(1) The Stephen Lewis Foundation (2) Email (3) Facebook and (4) Twitter.