Aid / Development

Ethical and political dilemmas abound these days. Seems like we’re all in need of a New Internationalist perspective. Enter stage: Agony Uncle.

Wolfgang Sachs wrote a seminal series of essays for the New Internationalist in 1992 called ‘Development: a guide to the ruins’. The concept of development lives on – and takes on new shapes as it is reframed by the UN, reinterpreted by the Vatican or hijacked by authoritarian populists to serve their own nationalist agenda. But, he argues now, we need to move beyond its misguided assumptions into a new post-development era based on eco-solidarity.

Development practitioner Adesuwa Ero urges religious leaders in rural Nigeria to rethink their views on climate change before it's too late.

Photography is helping Peruvian women document life near Latin America’s largest goldmine.

A photographic account of changes over the years in: housing; water; education; health; sanitation; food and farming; technology; and women.

Technology, whether low or high, needs to be appropriate and within reach to make a difference.

Simon Trace on the skewed priorities of medical research.

Technology can be a big enabler – yet the difference in terms of what’s available to rich and poor is vast.

Peasant farmers resisting the violence of agribusiness. By Nils McCune.

The world's poor are still losing out. They need a better deal, argues Dinyar Godrej.

No development process succeeds without the participation of those it targets, argues Maggie Black.

Chris Brazier looks back at an issue of New Internationalist from 1979 on foreign aid.

Chris Lunch believes we are only just scratching the surface of video technology’s potential.

Debt is used to break nations. But resistance is fertile – and the North could learn a few lessons from the South, argues Nick Dearden.

World progress 1970-2010

In 2000, the UN summit agreed the Millennium Declaration – aspirations for the new century. Are we on target to meet them by 2015?

In 1992 New Internationalist published Wolfgang Sachs’ seminal series of essays Development: A Guide to the Ruins. Two decades on, he looks at how globalization gave the concept of ‘development’ an unexpected new lease of life – and argues that the 21st century needs to outgrow the idea for the sake of both the poor and the planet.

The founding editor of the New Internationalist, Peter Adamson, looks at how the world has changed since the magazine started – and argues for a new push against inequality.

NGO director Jamal Kidwai and activist and writer Praful Bidwai go head-to-head - read their arguments and join the debate.

Microsoft's former CEO has made massive donations to global health programmes but an investigation by Andrew Bowman reveals some unpleasant side-effects.