The Tokyo International Conference on African Development is more than just a conference. It has become a major global framework for Asia, Africa, and the UNDP to collaborate in promoting Africa's development. Here are five projects working to improve people's everyday lives throughout the continent. Produced by UNDP.

Soaring food prices are making life hard for people everywhere. In Mexico, many families are taking the fight against the global food crisis into their own hands. 

Throughout the world, access to safe drinking water is the most critical element of sustained good health. Clean Water focuses on the highly successful efforts of one humanitarian organization, East Meets West, to bring safe drinking water to rural communities in Vietnam -- led by staff member Richard Brogdon, a Vietnam war veteran who has special reason to help the local Vietnamese community.

Simple, innovative structures in Koraro, Ethiopia divert floods that had previously devastated farmers. Now the water is channeled to irrigate farmland. These structures were built with support from the Ethiopian government's safety net program, which supplied villagers with grain in exchange for their labor.

A new generation of leaders is rising in El Salvador, tackling some of the toughest environmental and community-driven challenges in unlikely ways. This film profiles Douglas Chica, a young wetlands ranger who is working to protect marshland. He also hopes to inspire local youth to follow his example.

Water scarcity has become one of the world's greatest challenges. In less than 20 years, nearly two billion people could face shortages. But Azerbaijan, which sits between Europe and Western Asia, has come up with an ingenious solution to its water crisis by looking to its past for inspiration.