Children in the developing world face increased risks to their well-being from the effects of catastrophe, disease, war and poverty. Services to support the health and development of children in the global South are therefore discussed here in the context of these risks as well as in the context of how children cope with even the most inauspicious of circumstances. Interventions in the case of risk are evaluated.

Dwan Kaoukji is a Social Research Unit researcher at Chapin Hall in the University of Chicago, USA. Najat M'Jidis the director of BAYTI in Casablanca, Morocco which is a non-profit organisation dedicated to housing street children and preventing the illegal migration of children to Europe.

Contents: Introduction; Part I Catastrophe, War and Disease: The impact of war on the mental health of children: a Salvadoran study, Joan Riley Walton, Ronald L. Nuttall and Ena Vasquez Nuttall; School and neuropsychological performance of evacuated children in Kyiv 11 years after the Chernobyl disaster, Leighann Litcher, Evelyn J. Bromet, Gabrielle Carlson, Nancy Squires, Dmitry Goldgaber, Natalia Panina, Evgenii Golovakha and Semyon Gluzman; Psychological distress amongst AIDS-orphaned children in urban South Africa, Lucie Culver, Frances Gardner and Don Operario. Part II Coping with Poverty and Poor Health: How do carers of disabled children cope? The Ugandan perspective, S. Hartley, P. Ojwang, A. Baguwemu, M. Ddamulira and A. Chavuta; Cultural teaching: the development of teaching skills in Maya sibling interactions, Ashley E. Maynard; Beginning street life: factors contributing to children working and living on the streets of Khartoum, Sudan, Mary L. Plummer, Mustafa Kudrati and Nassrin Dalla El Hag Yousif. Part III Coping with Ordinary Stressors: Socioeconomic causes of child labor in urban Nigeria, 'Dimeji Togunde and Arielle Carter; Conceptions of success: their correlates with prosocial orientation and behaviour in Chinese adolescents, Ping Chung Cheung, Hing Keung Ma and Daniel T.L. Shek; Depressive symptoms among rural Bangladeshi mothers: implications for infant development, Maureen M. Black, Abdullah H. Baqui, K. Zaman, Scot W. McNary, Katherine Le, Shams El Arifeen, Jena D. Hamadani, Monowara Parveen, Md. Yunus and Robert E. Black. Part IV Young People's Perception of Risk: Perceptions of child labour among working children in Ibadan, Nigeria, F.O. Omokhodion, S.I. Omokhodian and T.O. Odusote; Attitudes toward family obligation among adolescents in contemporary urban and rural China, Andrew J. Fuligni and Wenxin Zhang; Where the boys are: attitudes related to masculinity, fatherhood and violence toward women among low-income adolescent and young adult