A man delivers his goods through a flooded street in Mumbai, India. Photo: Hussain_Quantum (flickr)

It should be no surprise that armed conflicts force millions of people from their homes each year. In fact, 4.6 million people were displaced by conflict and war in 2008. But I was shocked to learn that the number of people displaced by climate change is four-times greater than those displaced by conflict. That's about 20 million people — roughly the population of Australia — that have been forced to relocate because of natural disasters like flooding, earthquakes and storms.

This figure comes from a joint study by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and is the first large-scale look at how climate change is effecting human populations. It provides data on exactly how carbon emissions have affected human lives, and it offers a somewhat harsh glimpse into what will happen if the situation is left unchecked.

A new fundraising source for poverty reduction? Photo: freedryk (flickr)

How do you make up a yawning gap in funding for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria? By asking airline passengers to pay an extra two bucks when they book their ticket. Time reports that UNITAID, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to combating those diseases, believes new funding approaches are needed as traditional aid funding can't keep up with the demand.

Thanks to a partnership with ticket reservation services, UNITAID will ask nearly everyone who buys an airplane ticket in the U.S. to donate two dollars to fight the diseases. UNITAID will then pass on the money to UNICEF, the Clinton Foundation and other organizations which will use the money to address the spread of disease, as well as to improve women's health and reduce child mortality.

Of course the program isn't likely to raise all the money needed to prevent the spread of disease, but McKinsey & Co estimates it could eventually raise $1 billion a year.

Point-of-sale donations are gaining momentum, with companies like Safeway and Hollywood video asking customers to donate the few cents necessary to round up to the next dollar or to donate a dollar. It isn't surprising that technology leaders like Expedia and Travelocity are the latest adopters.

A man cooks over a wood-burning fire in Kibera. Over 1 million working poor live in Kibera, with few opportunities to make a comfortable living. Photo: Crissy Olson (flickr)

Even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was surprised by the large number of people who greeted him in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. But his surprise quickly became concern when he was told so many young people came to see him because they couldn't find work.

Inspired to act, Ban donated $100,000 of his own money to a UN-sponsored program that helps unemployed youth acquire vocational skills like carpentry, masonry, electrical wiring, plumbing and management. It's called the Youth Empowerment Program (YEP).

Students learn their trade through hands-on activities as they build a training facility that will allow YEP to expand its participant ranks. After graduation, many of the youth are placed in jobs or apprenticeships with private companies or UN-sponsored construction projects in Kibera.

The training program is part of a greater state- and UN-sponsored initiative to upgrade services and infrastructure in Nairobi's slums. Youth skills training also complements another UN-funded effort, the Urban Entrepreneurship Program, that helps to establish construction collectives and aid them in bidding on contracts.

Linus Sijenji, a youth coordinator in Kibera, notes that the combined efforts of the two programs are inspiring the youth and have opened up opportunities for them.

Our aim is to form our own companies that could competitively bid for such contracts on equal level with big companies. Much as this might seem far fetched, the idea is viable, especially with more training opportunities and resources like bank loans.

If these programs work as advertised, Ban will get an even bigger reception next time he comes to Kibera.

Keeping with a UN target of committing 0.7 percent of national income to alleviating poverty and hunger, Jose Luis Rodriquez Zapatero the prime minister of Spain has pledged 1 billion euros to strengthen food security around the world.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says the global food crisis has increased the number of hungry people to "an intolerable 1 billion."

Spain is giving a billion for a billion. Check out how other countries measure up at the Millennium Development Goals Monitor.

It’s too soon to tell exactly how the U.S. financial crisis will impact the rest of the world, but, according to a report in The New York Times, the U.S. has just lost some free-market street cred.

In extending a last-minute $85 billion lifeline to American International Group (AIG), the troubled insurer, Washington has not only turned away from decades of rhetoric about the virtues of the free market and the dangers of government intervention, but it has also probably undercut future American efforts to promote such policies abroad.”

The shock waves from the U.S.'s financial woes are already being felt around the globe, with Russia suffering from “one of the worst market falls” since 1998 and Asian stocks hitting a three-year low.

The world's poorest countries will especially feel the pain of the crisis. This week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he feared that the crisis could seriously hurt poverty-fighting efforts in developing countries. These efforts depend heavily on rich donor countries and if these countries’ capacity for funding development efforts shrinks, many will suffer. Resuming the collapsed world trade talks, Ban said, is even more important in the wake of the financial turmoil.

As of Friday, the U.S. government's nearly unprecedented bailout has stabilized the market, prompting worldwide stock rebounds, but causing skepticism that the action is only a temporary fix.

If worldwide confidence in the free market drops as The New York Times article suggests, could it hinder future world trade talks — and development efforts — to an even greater extent?

Photo: Henry McInnis for Mercy Corps

Along the banks of the Nile River in Sudan is some of the most fertile land in Africa. In fact, “Sudan could be self-sufficient, it does have the potential to be the breadbasket of Africa,” notes Kenro Oshidari, director of the UN World Food Program in Sudan.

Despite a harsh humanitarian situation in Darfur, and being the recipient of the most food aid, Sudan is actually a major exporter of sorghum, wheat, beans, peanuts, and tomatoes, among other crops. Just last year the U.S. shipped 283,000 tons of sorghum to Darfur — almost the exact same amount of sorghum exported by Sudan, UN officials told the New York Times.

Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times explores the complexity of food aid in Sudan in his revealing article; "The Food Chain: Darfur Withers as Sudan Sells Food."

December's United Nations climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia could have ended in a logjam of indecision until Kevin Conrad, spokesperson for Papua New Guinea, took the floor challenging the United States to take the lead or get out of the way. In a recent interview, Conrad explains why the success of this agreement is vital to smaller countries like Papua New Guinea:

“I think collectively we as humanity have become more mature in this climate battle, and we understand collectively that we’ve got to turn off all the emissions sources in order to win,” he said. “The climate doesn’t know whether it came from a factory or from Papua New Guinea’s deforestation. We’ve really got to get all hands on deck and tackle all of the issues.”

Mr. Conrad said the potential breakdown in the session’s final hours was particularly vexing to him because New Guinea and other forested tropical countries were finally getting attention for a proposal of payments by rich countries for preserving tropical forests. Deforestation currently contributes about a fifth of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

He said the rich-poor divide in the talks, which crystallized in the final clash in Bali, is a distraction from the reality that all countries have agreed, by the end of 2009, to do something new: define a threshold for greenhouse gases beyond which the world will not go.

Mr. Conrad's willingness to stand up for his cause will hopefully have positive results in furthering global cooperation on vital climate change issues, but in the very least, his willingness to speak out has brought greater heed to his country’s situation.