SINGAPORE – How to create space in South-east Asian media for reporting on social and development issues in the context of Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) regionalism was the focus of an experts’ meeting organised in early November by IPS Asia-Pacific, with the ASEAN Studies Centre as co-organiser.

Held at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore, the meeting saw a healthy exchange of views among senior journalists and editors from within the region, foreign policy experts, researchers and writers about how to get more critical, in-depth reportage around ASEAN given that much of the news coverage around it focuses on high-profile summits and gravitates toward state voices, and as its goal of an ASEAN Community in 2015 nears. Read more »

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

Inter Press Service (IPS) is sending a team of reporters from Africa and South Asia to report on the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea, and the Global Civil Society Forum that precedes it. The team will produce daily features and analysis for an IPS TerraViva online site in English and Spanish and in several Asian languages. Selected reports will feature in IPS’s global news service.

Follow the team’s coverage in real time on Twitter at @ipsnews and connect with IPS news on Facebook.

IPS reporting will reflect the agency’s focus on the South and the emergence of South-South co-operation as a powerful dimension of the aid effectiveness debate. Civil society, participating as full partners in the HLF4, and the gender perspective, will be prominent in the reporting.

The Busan TerraViva site has a useful archive that looks back to IPS coverage of previous HLFs and other international financing for development meetings. Finally, the coverage from South Korea is linked out to the concurrent negotiations in South Africa about climate change, where IPS has an African-led reporting team preparing a Durban TerraViva.

Mario Osava, IPS senior correspondent in Brazil,  has been reporting for many years about the country’s development projects, their effect in communities, on the environment and for the economy.

Mott Foundation describes Osava’s recent work in the story Brazil’s development: Is it sustainable for people and planet?

More stories by Osava are available at “Letter from Brazil“.

Follow Osava on twitter at @MarioOsava.

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)