In principle, generic pharma production could supply developing countries with all the drugs they need. In practice, matters are more difficult. Zafrullah Chowdhury shed light on this complex matter in an interview with Hans Dembowski.

Multinational pharma producers are based in rich nations and demand high prices, thus hampering supply of medicine to the developing world. Globally enforced patents serve to protect high prices. At the same time, few new medicines are being developed for the health problems that mostly affect poor countries.

Micro health insurance schemes in Bangladesh face a number of challenges. They include financial and institutional sustainability. Apart from challenges the authors assess the importance, evolution and models of micro health insurance in the country.

In the general election 0f 2009, India

Most shoes and leather goods sold in rich countries come from factories in developing and newly industrialising countries, where production costs are low. At first sight, this arrangement serves all parties involved: consumers in the wealthy nations get cheap products, and jobs are created in poor countries. However, there is a risk of race to the bottom.

Because of climate change, water will become even more scarce in many arid parts of the world. The implications for sanitation, health and agriculture are serious. No doubt, this precious resource must be used efficiently. Doing so will help to reduce poverty, prevent epidemics and save energy, says Thomas Kluge of the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) in Frankfurt.

Within few decades, climate change has quadrupled the number of natural disasters. Especially in Asia, more and more people are affected. Bangladesh is one of the countries where disaster risk reduction works fairly well. And Burma (Myanmar) is trying to enhance the crisis management after the bad experience with cyclone Nargis.

The world

The long-term trends in global damage statistics leave no doubt that weather disasters have increased dramatically

Many of the developing world