Inter Press Service (IPS) has assembled a contingent of largely African journalists to report from the “African COP” – COP 17 in Durban, South Africa. The team will produce daily features, analysis and podcasts for TerraViva and material in English, Spanish and French for IPS’s global news service and Tierramérica.

Follow the team’s coverage in real-time on Twitter at @ipsenvironment and @ipsafrica and connect with IPS Environment and IPS Africa on Facebook.

IPS reporting will reflect the agency’s focus on the South and the role of civil society, with particular emphasis on the activity of non-governmental organisations, adaptation in poor countries and the gender dimensions of climate change.

The COP17 TerraViva site has a useful archive that looks back to IPS coverage of previous COP conferences. Finally, the coverage from South Africa is linked out to the concurrent negotiations in South Korea about Aid Effectiveness and the preceding Global Civil Society Forum, where IPS has a reporting team preparing a Busan TerraViva

IPS will be reporting from the Global Microcredit Summit (Valladolid, Spain – 14-17 November, 2011), the world’s largest microfinance gathering which assembles a full range of stakeholders including practitioners, advocates, investors, UN agencies, donors, domestic government agencies, and many more.

IPS correspondents will provide special daily coverage from the Summit, in English and Spanish, beginning Monday, Nov. 14.

Articles can be found on the IPS mini-sites focused on micro-finance:

- Microfinance: Can Micro Loans Make a Macro Difference? (English)

- Microfinanzas: Microcréditos con macro resultados (Spanish)

IPS, the Secretariat of Information and Communication for Development of Paraguay (SICOM), the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are organizing an international seminar on “Public Media and Society: the Global Experience and the Latin American Path”, on 26 October 2011, in Asuncion, Paraguay. Read more »

IPS director general Mario Lubetkin, Claudia Antunes, Editor, Folha de S. Paulo and GCIS deputy CEO Vusi Mona discuss how to prmomote the IBSA story. Photo: IPS/Zukiswa Zimela

IPS partnered with the South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) to bring together Indian, Brazilian and South African media leaders to discuss issues of mutual concern ahead of the IBSA Summit in Pretoria, South Africa in October.

About 40 editors, media stakeholders and observers attended the IBSA Editors Forum on Monday, October 17, 2011 in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was held with the support of the Government Communication and Information Services (GCIS) of South Africa and the World Bank. Read more »

IPS held its 2011 annual meetings in Helsinki, Finland from the 13th – 16th October.

A public seminar on the theme of “Migration and Communication: Re-balancing information flows and dialogue”, jointly organised with the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), took place on the morning of October 13th.

Latest estimates from IOM suggest that international migrants could number 405 million by 2050 if migration continues to grow at the same pace as during the last 20 years. In the context of these projections much of the public discourse around the issue has been negative. Read more »