The World Food Programme (WFP) is preparing to provide food and relief supplies to as many as 7 million people in Syria and neighboring nations by the end of the year. According to the agency’s executive director, Ertharin Cousin, this daunting task is complicated by the deteriorating security situation, which has included brazen attacks on relief workers.

Of the world’s 7 billion people, 6 billion have cell phones. Only 4.5 billion have access to a toilet.

World Malaria Day is meant to draw acute attention to the persistent problem of this disease. NGOs, corporations, governments and donors are using this opportunity to come together and raise global awareness.

While the impact of HIV/AIDS is highly publicized, what often receives less attention is the unequal effect this disease has on women. In 2011, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 30.7 million adults were living with HIV globally. Of those, approximately half were women. Yet that percentage remains far higher in certain regions.

Recently, Dr. Mark Dybul, the newly appointed executive director of The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, wrote an impassioned plea in The Huffington Post, underscoring the urgency of funding disease prevention and treatment programs throughout the world.

This week marked the two-year anniversary of zero polio cases in India. “As recently as 2010, India had the largest number of polio cases of any country in the world and was considered the most difficult place to eliminate the disease,” said Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, former director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO). “Yet, through collaboration between the government of India, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations, and with financial support from governments around the world, what once seemed impossible is now a reality.”

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) made headlines in November when its annual report referred to family planning as a “universal human right.” The report came in conjunction with two recent General Assembly votes calling for a global ban on female genital mutilation and supporting universal health coverage, thus signaling major strides toward achieving Millennium Development Goals regarding gender equality, female empowerment and maternal health.

Uganda Stove Manufacturers got into the clean cookstove business before it was trendy. The vast majority of the country’s cooking—steaming savory bananas, boiling rice, grilling meat—is done on small, porous stoves that waste heat and leak smoke into homes. The owners of the family business, commonly called UgaStove, realized there was a market for less dangerous and wasteful cooking equipment. In 2001, they started manufacturing cleaner, more efficient versions: metal cladding painted red and orange, wrapped around a simple clay liner.

The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur for food rights is calling for the European Union and United States to abandon their biofuel mandates, saying the requirements have “extremely negative” impacts at a time of volatility in commodity supplies and prices.

We may be witnessing the beginning of the end for AIDS. A recent report from UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, reveals a more than 50 percent decline in new HIV infections in 25 low- and middle-income countries over the last decade. 13 of those countries are located in sub-Saharan Africa, where this global epidemic continues to plague the population.