Donate

Sustainability

Portrait photo of a woman

Microfinance was meant to help the world’s poor, but in Cambodia, it’s plunging people deeper into debt

Business, Economics and Jobs

Microfinance was hailed as a way to change the lives of hundreds of millions of people without access to credit. It worked so well that Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus was awarded a Nobel Prize. But then, banks jumped in to get in on the profits. To manage high debt levels, Cambodians are migrating for work, eating less and even pulling their children out of school.

a man standing in front of a colorful bottle cap mural

Venezuelan artist uses recycled bottle caps to create large eco-murals

Arts
Pakistanis shops in a weekly pet market in Lahore, Pakistan, Nov. 13, 2022.

As Earth surpasses 8 billion people, ‘the planet can feed and sustain billions more,’ demographer says

Lifestyle
Empty green desks and chairs in a classroom with a chalkboard at the front

Gunmen abduct 150 schoolgirls in Nigeria

Top of The World
Mossbrae Falls in the Shasta Cascade area in Dunsmuir, California. In many spiritual traditions, like the Lakota in the US, water represents “the living relationship between you and I and all things."

Spiritual leaders seek to spur an ‘ecological conversion’

Belief
Tell us about your experience accessing The World

We want to hear your feedback so we can keep improving our website, theworld.org. Please fill out this quick survey and let us know your thoughts (your answers will be anonymous). Thanks for your time!

Building reads "climate emergency" with flares of red and orange hues on the front of the building

UN climate chief on coronavirus and climate change: We must ‘address these two fundamental, existential crises together’

Climate Change

Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, continues to wrangle world leaders to make and meet ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions — even amid the pandemic.

Rep. Castor tours National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Global response to COVID-19 should be a model for action on climate

Environment

As Washington starts to talk infrastructure as a way to put people back to work during the COVID-19 pandemic, a team led by congressional Democrats is working to develop long-term solutions to climate change that will help rebuild the economy.

farmers

After Maria, Puerto Rican women farmers work together to build resilience

Environment

Hurricane Maria decimated many of Puerto Rico’s small farms. But soon afterward, a group of mostly women farmers came together to start helping each other learn how to farm more sustainably.

Recyo

What Munich’s coffee houses learned about waste from beer culture

Environment

Take-out coffee cups are a popular American import that are filling up the country’s trash bins. Now there’s an effort in Munich to replace throwaway cups with cups you borrow and return, inspired by the longstanding practice at the city’s famous beer gardens.

Members of environmental groups hold up banners calling for renewable energy at the United Nations climate talks that took place in Bonn, Germany in 2015. Bonn was the site of the last United Nations Climate Change Conference in November 2017, in which co

As latest UN climate change summit looms, delegates have plenty of work to do

Climate Change

Creating the Paris Agreement in 2015 was a monumental accomplishment. Establishing an actionable work plan has proved to be an even tougher task, but that is the goal at the latest United Nations climate summit to be held in Poland in December.

We respect your time, attention and privacy

This is a news website, not a click casino. We do NOT employ deceptive behaviors, display annoying ads or use third party cookies and trackers to monetize your visit or help advertisers track you across the internet.

Simply, we ask that you would consider a donation to support the journalism we produce every weekday. Thank you.

This is The World

The World is a public radio program and podcast that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter.

Follow The World

Subscribe to The World’s Latest Edition podcast for free using your favorite podcast player: