Cyclone Pam struck the developing island nation of Vanuatu in March 2015. Poorer nations are more exposed to environmental dangers so are more concerned about impacts that might increase the risk.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Who cares more about environmental issues: people in rich countries, or not-so-rich countries? A survey suggests it’s those in poorer places who are more vulnerable to issues like climate change.
Bjorn Lomborg’s cost-benefit approach isn’t necessarily the best way to look at problems with a global scope.
Simon Wedege/Wikimedia Commons
Bjorn Lomborg’s “consensus” approach involves ranking global development policies by their ratio of benefit to cost. But this hard-headed economic rationale can actually end up entrenching inequality.
Heather Hindman, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts
The relationship between Nepal and the international development industry has long been difficult. But the work of Nepalese youth groups gives grounds for hope.
A ranger looks at the skull of an elephant killed by poachers - a frequent side-effect of development projects that open up remote forests to human access.
Ralph Buij
The G20 has pledged to spend more than US$60 trillion on new infrastructure in the next 15 years, much of which will affect pristine areas. Without a solid plan, the environmental toll could be huge.
UKIP has called for foreign aid to be scaled back.
Stefan Wermuth/PA Archive
The federal government’s Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook announcement this week to cut the foreign aid budget by a further A$3.7 billion over three years is unprecedented. The current government has…
Gambian beaches are well away from the Ebola zone, but where are all the tourists?
Marina Novelli
I am writing this from the Gambia and want to appeal to everyone to spread the word: this country is open for business and it is not affected by the Ebola outbreak – otherwise I would not be here. I am…
The UK government’s Department for International Development has been severely criticised by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact for its apparent failure to tackle corruption in the countries that…
The densely populated cities like Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown, have been the worst hit.
EPA/str
The Ebola outbreak continues to rage, and the immediate need is to control the spread of the disease and to help those infected. But it is time also to plan how to rebuild a post-Ebola West Africa, whose…
The country’s capacity to treat infected patients and prevent further spread is very limited.
UN Women Asia & the Pacific/Flickr
Contemplating how Papua New Guinea (PNG) would deal with Ebola may not be that different from asking the same of Liberia 12 months ago. While PNG’s per capita gross national income (US$2,540 in 2013) is…
How one half lives: Villa Bajo Flores in Buenos Aires.
Roy Maconachie
In recent years, many films have portrayed the landscape of urban marginality and inequality in Latin America. Brazil Central Station and City of God were both popular, but few can rival the Mexican thriller…
Mining giant Rio Tinto, which has operated in Guinea for 50 years, has donated just US$100,000 to the UN Ebola fund.
EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo
The current outbreak of Ebola virus in West Africa shows no signs of halting. More than 4,500 people have died and many thousands more are infected. Despite the creation of a new United Nations mission…
The European Union has never been so unpopular among its member populations; for many political parties across the continent, the whole EU project of integration and co-operation is dying, or was a mistake…
Lower targets are easier to meet.
Gates Foundation/Flickr
During the United Nations General Assembly meetings this week, Ban Ki-Moon has convened a high-level side event on the Zero Hunger Challenge. This initiative by the UN Secretary-General bears the tag line…
There’s little consensus on how to proceed after 2015.
EPA/Yonhap
Once hailed as “the world’s biggest promise”, the Millennium Development Goals, a 14-year-old series of commitments made by governments to tackle global poverty, will expire at the end of 2014. There is…
The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is over. It brought much joy, and huge disappointment for the hosts – perhaps even worse than the Maracanazo in 1950. Now attention in Brazil will turn to hosting the next…
Protestors bust the Belo Monte Dam.
Atossa Soltani/Amazon Watch/Spectral Q
The World Cup has highlighted Brazil’s dissatisfaction with the mega-development involved in building the tournament’s infrastructure. But the football stadiums are just the latest in a long line of Brazilian…
Over the years I’ve written a lot about global north-south issues. Yet until now, I’ve never said a word about the same divide within England, my own country of birth and residence. But the two overlap…
The recent open letter of concern penned by nearly 100 academics from around the world about the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s international education rankings is more than just…
Microfinance can buy you a bucket, but it won’t feed you forever.
DFAT
In 1976, a small experiment was conducted in the poverty-stricken and flood ravaged Bangladeshi village of Jobra. Professor Muhammad Yunus, a lecturer of Economics at Chittagong University visited the…