The International

In recent years, Southern Africa has made notable strides to combat the disease, but there is still immeasurable progress that needs to be achieved. In an effort to advance the fight, Kenya launched its third National AIDS Strategic Plan in January 2010. The UN Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) reports that Kenya has made leaps in its HIV response: AIDS related deaths have fallen by one-third since 2002 and "HIV prevalence in the country has consistently declined over the past few years." But despite Kenya’s remarkable progress, there are still 1.5 million people living with HIV in the country. Moreover, UNAIDS estimates that in 2009, 76,300 new HIV infections developed in K…

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), deforestation causes a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to storing more than 1 trillion tons of the world’s carbon, forests purify water, protect soils, prevent floods and droughts, and are home to the majority of the world’s land-based species. With deforestation and forest degradation accounting for more global greenhouse gas emissions than the emissions from the world’s cars, trucks, ships and planes combined, forest protection has become critical to achieving environmental sustainability. In September 2008, the United Nations started a program to combat deforestation by paying develo…