Last summer, Aissata Diallo watched her son leave their village in northern Mali. She did not want to let him go, but since her husband died, she had struggled to feed her four children — and at the height of the region’s hunger crisis, their situation had become desperate.

“I have no source of income and no plot to grow food,” she explained. “Often all we had is what neighbors gave me from the rest of their meal.”

So her oldest son, still far from an adult, went looking for work to help the family. She hasn’t heard from him since.

"The Conflict Management System in Karamoja: An assessment of strengths and weaknesses” (April 2013) explores the effectiveness of the conflict management system in northern Uganda’s remote Karamoja region. The report identifies formal government and customary actors responsible for managing conflict in Karamoja and the strengths and weakness in the way in which these actors work together to prevent, resolve, and respond to conflict.

Filed by: Liu Liangchuan, Disaster Management and Capacity Building Manager, China

Earlier this week, I accompanied our local partner, the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (CFPA) to the epicenter of the earthquake's impact for a joint needs assessment. The purpose was to get first-hand information to decide what emergency relief we should provide.

The 7.0 earthquake struck Ya'an prefecture in Sichuan on Saturday, killing nearly 200 people and injuring more than 14,000. Most damage was sustained in Lushan, Tianquan and Baoxing counties.

Mercy Corps team members are back in the Central African Republic after being evacuated in the days leading up to a rebel-led coup d'etat on March 24.

The overthrow of the president by the Selaka alliance sent the country into chaos. Families fled as rebels invaded towns during their advance on the capital; electricity and water were cut off, homes and NGO offices looted, and schools closed. Medical care and supplies are still severely limited.

Every week, I travel about an hour north from Amman to Mafraq, near the border with Syria, with our project assistant Ala’a Issa to see how supply distributions and home rehabilitations are going for Syrian refugees. Each day, we meet Syrian families who have lived through tragedy that no one should have to, and they persevere.

Program will provide much needed business and financial literacy skills to women and small businesses

PORTLAND, Ore. – The global humanitarian and development organization, Mercy Corps, and global technology and payments industry leader, MasterCard Worldwide, are announcing a partnership in the newly democratic country of Myanmar.

Andrea Koppel
Vice-President of Global Engagement and Policy

It's 11 p.m. on a Thursday night and a full moon shines down on two large buses crammed full of what might pass for exhausted tourists waiting outside a nondescript chain link fence. The cries of children and babies can be heard above the idling engines.

This last cold and rainy Thursday I visited with Syrian refugee families whom Mercy Corps has assisted in the northern Jordanian town of Mafraq. Neighboring the Syrian-Jordanian border, Mafraq is now hosting around 50,000 Syrians who fled their home country. Many of the families can only afford unfinished housing, some literally without kitchens or roofs.

Note: The identity of the young girl in this story has been kept anonymous to ensure her confidentiality and safety.

“In 2010, I was abducted by LRA rebels when they attacked Agoumar. I was 13 at the time. Before being taken, I went to school in my village. I loved to read and write, and I thought that I would become a teacher. And then all of a sudden one day my dream was gone. I was kidnapped by the rebels and I could not go to school or do the things I once loved.