17 must-read stories for the weekend

1. 7 reasons why water is vital for a sustainable future. It’s one of life’s fundamentals and at the heart of many of the greatest global challenges.

2. How to achieve a quality education for all. Following global advances in health, the time has come to focus on education, argues Jeffrey Sachs.

3. All eyes on Greece. Again. Europe should stop playing the blame game, says Greece’s finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. Meanwhile, Swedish economist Anders Borg believes Greece doesn’t have a moral right to be rescued by European taxpayers – but they should do it anyway.

4. How we shape our cities – and how they shape us. “A city’s possibilities are not only determined by its social and political make-up; its spatial configuration also has a profound influence.”

5. What does Africa’s economic growth mean for its wildlife? Fresh thinking is required to protect valuable ecosystems from the side-effects of the drive for development.

6. Ebola has awakened the world to a sobering fact. We are simply not prepared to deal with a global epidemic, says Bill Gates.

7. How does will.i.am support people in some of America’s poorest districts? Find out in this week’s podcast.

8. Costa Rica powered itself for 75 days almost entirely from renewable energy. After experiencing drought conditions last year, heavy rainfall has put the country’s hydroelectric plants into overdrive. Cites Forum research. (CNET)

9. “Build the future in Africa” WEF tells its Young Global Leaders. (YGL)

10. Sweden is adding a gender-neutral pronoun to its official dictionary. The country ranks fourth in The Global Gender Gap Report 2015. (Quartz)

11. The racial wealth gap. Or why in the United States, a typical white household has 16 times the wealth of a black one. (Forbes)

12. Bangladesh wins Women In Parliament award. Based on findings from The Global Gender Gap Report 2015. (Dhaka Tribune)

13. Why everyone is joining the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The media focus has been on what this says about US global power. But new partners see a huge need for another development bank.

14. Must we endure excessive drug prices to encourage pharmaceutical R&D? Alternative models include annual subscriptions, deep discounts for poorer nations, and perhaps accepting there are limits to medicine.

15. The assumptions of Thomas Pikkety. The rock-star economist won fame by showing how the accumulation of capital increases income inequality. But a 26-year-old graduate student has challenged his calculations.

16. Global trade volumes falls most sharply since 2011 as a result ofweakness in emerging markets.

17. Why didn’t Bulgaria end up like Greece? The countries are neighbours and have a lot in common, but Bulgaria has handled the post-2008 crisis far better.

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Author: Adrian Monck is Managing Director and head of Public Engagement at the World Economic Forum.

Image: Children play in a fountain in the late afternoon sun in the Lower Manhattan borough of New York August 25, 2014. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri