'I'm very much in love with you.' The words that made Roger Jean-Claude Mbede famous. And the words that, in a roundabout way, led to his early death. In 2011 Roger Jean-Claude Mbede texted someone to tell them he loved them. Because he was texting in Cameroon, and because it was to another man, Roger was arrested.
As the 2015 end-date of the MDGS draws near, a puzzle remains: why has the target on clean water been surpassed, while progress on sanitation has been so poor? Surely water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) go together? This question goes to the heart of the MDG worldview, and the problem of measuring development generally.
Globally, although the indigenous peoples represent only about 5 per cent of the world's population, they occupy one-fifth of entire earth's territory from the Arctic to the South Pacific. Despite their hold over vast swathes of land, indigenous peoples make up 15 per cent of the world's poor and one-third of the world's 900 million extremely poor rural people.