In the partnerships-for-development arena, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is one of the largest and most complex. It launched with fewer than 20 partners and now has 700 around the world. Devex Impact asked the Alliance’s executive director, Radha Muthiah, how the small secretariat manages such a complex alliance and what other “mega partnerships” can learn from the alliance’s experience.

Tell us about how the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves came to life?

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations forecast Thursday that the world's population will increase from 7.2 billion today to 8.1 billion in 2025, with most growth in developing countries and more than half in Africa. By 2050, it will reach 9.6 billion.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, welcomed efforts by Asian countries at a United Nations-backed regional forum this week in addressing the role of transportation in the effort to fight climate change and achieve sustainable development.

In his message at the opening of the Seventh Regional Environmentally Sustainable Transport Forum in Asia and Global Consultation on Sustainable Transport in the post 2015 Development Agenda, the Secretary-General commended delegates for discussing next-generation transport systems for the 21st century.

Interactive map: "Your warming world"

Call it the new normal. Last year was the ninth warmest on record across the globe, according to NASA's annual analysis of surface temperatures. But by recent standards, it was nothing special: all but one of the hottest 10 years have happened since 2000.

HONG KONG — Air pollution has worsened markedly in Asian cities in recent years and presents a growing threat to human health, according to experts at a conference that began on Wednesday.