A remarkable revolution is taking place in finance, not in the City, but under the shade of large communal trees in villages across Africa and the developing world. It's a savings revolution, and one with the potential to pump $157 billion into the global economy, and particularly developing nations, if the 2.7bn adults worldwide who are 'unbanked' participate in savings-led microfinance programmes.

David Cameron has joked that in contrast to the perhaps more noble ambitions youngsters in poverty stricken west Africa, British children simply want ...

A child's right to protection is everything - and the Millennium Development Goals, agreed at the turn of the century with ambitious development targets for 2015, have achieved much we should be proud of.

This week, David Cameron sets off to Liberia's capital, Monrovia, for influential UN talks on what should replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they expire in 2015. The cynics would say this is another talking shop, an opportunity for the great and the good to come together and pontificate on poverty. I am not one of them.

Former prime minister Tony Blair suffered an awkward few minutes in an interview alongside Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, when he refused t...

Rwanda, which suffered a brutal genocide in 1994, is the only Sub-Saharan African country on track with its Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people lacking in water and sanitation services by 2015.

Today we celebrate the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Two weeks ago on Armistice Day we remembered those who died in the wars of last century and this. In just over two weeks' time the Nobel Peace Prize will be presented in Oslo to three women. The connection is this. A century ago 80% of the casualties in war were soldiers, 20% were civilians; today that ratio is reversed. In war zones such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, the death toll has reached more than 5 million - the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II - where one of the main weapons of war is rape.

I came back to Liberia to vote in our general and presidential elections for the first time in my life, and discovered a politically charged milieu.

A child born in Africa today will be eligible to vote by 2030. I hope, with the spread of stability and democracy, that they will be able to exercise that right. And I believe, with appropriate support externally, and enough political will internally, they will vote for a government which sets its own agenda, and delivers it from its own resources.

As the results of the 2011 election begin to emerge, Ellen and Liberia are about to embark on the next step in their future. But whatever the outcome, Merlin is committed to doing everything in our power to save lives and improve the health of a wonderful nation.