Should Mercy Corps buy an Indonesian bank? Neal Keny-Guyer was uncertain at first. It was a novel – even crazy – idea that brought huge risk for the NGO he leads.

“I imagined a newspaper headline saying, ‘Mercy Corps’ Bank in Bali Fails,’” he later told BusinessWeek. “I thought of the reaction of our donors to that bit of news.”

The Caribbean is one of the most hurricane-prone regions in the world, killing people every year and making communities more vulnerable with each and every storm that hits. But it wasn’t a hurricane that put Yen Carlos Reyes at risk.

On June 16, workers around the world will mark the second anniversary of the historic passage of a global standard covering the rights of domestic workers. The International Labor Organization (ILO) “Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention (No. 189) covers written employment contracts, protection from harassment, abuse and violence, hours of work, job safety and other workplace safeguards.

Winnie the Pooh was on to something. Anyone who has squeezed a chunk of fresh honeycomb and tasted the golden sugary ooze would agree that getting one’s head stuck inside a pot is well worth the risk.

But keeping bees, and enjoying the sweet profit of their labor, requires special skills and equipment, something many producers in Ethiopia lack.

Many still rely on physically demanding and less productive methods, like setting empty logs in trees and climbing up to get the honey out.

By Deborah Espinosa

Women in Ol Pusimoru, Kenya have much to celebrate today – but it hasn’t been an easy journey.

Back in 2010, Kenya adopted a revolutionary new constitution that offered women unprecedented protections and freedoms – including equal rights to land and family resources.

World leaders gathered Saturday in London at the Nutrition for Growth summit and pledged an impressive total of $21.9 billion to be spent between now and 2020 to combat undernutrition. Just as significant as the amounts pledged was who was pledging: governments, foundations, businesses and NGOs all made commitments that resulted in billions of dollars.

The Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) recently released a report on soil transmitted helminthes (STH) infection in the Americas and Caribbean, indicating that approximately 46 million children in that region alone are infected or at risk of infection by intestinal worms. That is close to a quarter of all the children living in that region.

The UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel has released its much anticipated report on the post-2015 agenda, and initial reactions from civil society generally range from pleasant surprise to “wow.” When the panel was appointed last July, with three heads of state as co-chairs, civil society organizations were skeptical that such a high-level group could produce the “bold, yet practical” framework mandated by the secretary general.