While the past decades have seen a foreign aid field dominated by the world's wealthy countries who are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and its Development Assistance Committee (DAC), a new form a donorship has emerged, or more accurately, re-emerged. Aid funding from prosperous, yet still developing countries to other developing countries has drawn international attention, much of it from a critical perspective. A 2007 article in Foreign Policy labeled aid from China, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia as both generous and toxic, while a recent cover of the Economist labeled China The New Colonialists. However, an increase in global aid to the poorest countries, delivered with fresh perspectives and an intensified spirit of South-South cooperation has many potential benefits.

A generation has passed since the onset of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. During this time, 65 million people have been infected with HIV and more than 25 million people died of AIDS. Despite the devastation, many countries, using a variety of interventions, have been successful in slowing the spread of the virus. The interventions that have been most successful are those that are congruent with the local epidemiology. With the overall HIV/AIDS epidemic being composed of a series of smaller local epidemics interconnected by space or time, a range and mix of responses in the fight against HIV/AIDS is necessary. And the relative impact of each response will always depend upon the level, stage and pattern of the epidemic in each locale. Therefore to be effective, interventions should respond to local needs.

Britain's recent pledge of US$15 billion to fund education in developing countries over the next ten years comes as good news for the estimated 493 million school-age children who are not enrolled in school, the majority of whom are girls. The gender gap-the difference between boys' and girls' school enrollments-is an indicator of gender equity and of a country's level of development. The gap is widest among countries in sub-Saharan Africa and a few Asian countries, including Yemen and Pakistan. Education has a profound impact on the future course of women's lives, influencing employment opportunities, earning potential and political participation. Access to quality education is also one of the best defenses against HIV infection, providing young people with the skills and knowledge to make informed decisions. Education is especially critical to HIV prevention in girls, as it reduces the power imbalances and social and financial dependencies that typically make females more vulnerable to infection. Moreover, a large body of evidence suggests that education of girls is associated with their roles in family decision-making and patterns of childbearing, resulting in improved maternal and child health, improved childhood nutrition, higher educational attainment among children, and a lower likelihood of experiencing unwanted and high-risk pregnancies.

In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report recognized climate change as a global issue with the potential for catastrophic environmental effects. Likewise, by the late 1980s HIV/AIDS was identified as an undeniable pandemic that would affect all countries. The similarities between climate change and HIV/AIDS extend beyond the global nature of these issues, though. Both have complex etiologies, the scientific bases of which are difficult to translate to the general public, and neither is fully understood, even by experts in their respective fields.

With the largest population in Africa, Nigeria's political and economic developments reverberate across the continent. Nigeria chairs the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and is the eighth largest oil exporting country in the world. More than 40 percent of the region's gross domestic product is accounted for by Nigeria's economy, and the petroleum industry is responsible for about two-thirds of national revenue and a great deal of international interest in the country. Yet the government maintains a delicate hold on democracy, and the country has recently experienced political instability. Throughout 2006, militant rebels angry about the distribution of oil revenue have conducted a series of attacks against the industry, including kidnapping foreign workers, which resulted in the country's petroleum output dropping by 25 percent.

A recent report by an independent task force enlisted by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR, More Than Humanitarianism: A Strategic U.S. Approach toward Africa, 2005) recommends that the U.S. government step up funding to international family planning programs in sub-Saharan Africa as part of a strategy to increase U.S. engagement and prioritize assistance to that region (see p. 16, pp. 119-120).1

Population growth is one of the driving forces behind the growth of greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, along with economic growth and technological change. Rapid population growth also hinders socioeconomic development and increases human vulnerability to the devastating impacts of climate change. Population Action International’s new working paper “How Do Recent Population Trends Matter to Climate Change?” is the first in a three-part series that will deepen understanding of the relationships between population and climate change.

The West African nation of Niger was propelled to the headlines several months ago over reports of starving and dying children amid denials by its government that the country was enduring a sustained food emergency (seasonal fluctuations in the availability of food are not unusual in the arid Sahel region, they argued). Niger is perhaps better known as the country falsely accused by the Bush Administration of selling uranium to Iraq  an issue that later became the object of the Valerie Plame scandal. But Niger is confronting a genuine scandal: one-quarter of its people are facing yearly food shortages. Meanwhile, its population is set to double in less than 20 years and contraceptive use among Niger's men and women remains at one of the lowest levels of any country in the world.

This Population Action International Working Paper analyzes the five principles of aid effectiveness- country ownership, alignment, harmonization, managing for results, and mutual accountability-from a family planning and reproductive health perspective. It also describes how the Paris Declaration has changed the ways of managing and delivering aid; highlights entry points and obstacles for champions working to improve funding and policies; and makes recommendations for civil society organizations, governments and donors.

Country stakeholders  governments, parliamentarians and civil society  have always been challenged by a limited ability to influence decisions made at the international level. With international donors now seeking to move decision-making and ownership to the country level, we have a remarkable opportunity to establish a transparent, participatory and inclusive process. This is particularly critical to the SRHR community which, due to the often controversial nature of the work, requires institutionalized processes as well as strong, well-informed champions, to ensure that its concerns are adequately funded in development strategies.