Skip to main contentSkip to navigation
Print subscriptions
Sign in
Search jobs
Search
The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Global development

Supported by

About this content
  • Screenshot of women celebrating

    Female genital mutilation
    Sierra Leone has banned child marriage – to truly set women free it must end FGM

    Josephine Kamara
    Marrying young girls may now be illegal, but lawmakers seem reluctant to put a stop to genital cutting, and the two go hand in hand
  • Women and children sit among washing drying on the line at a camp for displaced people in Burkina Faso

    Burkina Faso
    ‘They live with fear in their stomachs’: increasing violence deepens crisis in Burkina Faso

    About 10% of the population is displaced and 40 of the west African country’s cities are cut off from aid – but agencies say they have only 17% of the funding needed to help
  • Young people gather on a hilltop called the 'roof of Tehran' to watch the sunset. Photo: Stefanie Glinski

    Education
    ‘Nothing compensates for the stolen years’: the Afghan women rebuilding shattered dreams in Iran

    More than 1,000 days after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, women and girls are reluctantly seeking education elsewhere
  • Men in dark suts gather around Angelina Jolie, who is wearing a dark dress and speaking from behind a metal lectern.

    Sexual violence
    Ten years after a celebrity summit promised to end rape as a weapon of war, is there any change for the women of South Sudan?

    Guardian investigation reveals conflict-riven country received little funding or support and that high-profile perpetrators remain in public office
    • A wall mural on a street in Kabul shows protesting women. The foremost woman has her arms raised, but her open mouth has been spraypainted black. Writing in Arabic reads: 'Afghan women will not be silent anymore'

      Afghanistan
      Video appears to show gang-rape of Afghan woman in a Taliban jail

    • Actor and model Stella Chuisse impersonates Angélique Kidjo, a singer, songwriter and composer from Benin

      Photography
      Women behind the lens: ‘I Want to Be Like Her is my way of paying tribute to 10 exceptional Africans’

    • A man wearing a tuxedo stands on a red carpet. Behind him three dancers in saris kneel, smiling and making gestures with their arms, and behind them a group of people smile and throw rose petals.

      India
      What does a Bollywood star have to do with Indian women’s wellbeing? Everything

      Shrayana Bhattacharya
    • A brass sign reading Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office shows a reflection of a brick building.

      UK general election
      From conflict to the climate – what are the UK parties’ international plans?

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Explore

  • A man at the front of a crowd smiles and waves

    Under threat of jail, microfinance pioneer vows to keep lending to poorest Bangladeshis

    Muhammad Yunus tells the Guardian charges against him are politically motivated, and expresses concern about personal attacks from politicians
  • Director Rungano Nyoni, left, and actor Susan Chardy at a photocall in Cannes for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl.

    Where was African joy at Cannes or African humour at Sundance? The big film festivals need to look beyond stereotypes

    Oris Aigbokhaevbolo
  • A woman wearing a brightly pattered top and a beaded headband plus bead necklaces and bracelets smiles at the camera

    ‘Africa has zero PR in the west’: the Nigerian influencer using sarcasm on the clueless

  • Adela Rubiano Hurtado and her granddaughter, Adriana, in their living room.

    A sense of optimism and the chance to chat: how Bogotá is giving respect to unpaid carers

  • A black man sits alone with his head bowed

    My embarrassing condition needs a simple operation – but in Nigeria few can afford it

    Michael Adebisi
  • A construction crane alongside a stack tower at the Dangote Industries oil refinery in Lagos

    ‘There is nowhere to fish any more’: life in the shadow of Nigeria’s biggest industrial complex

  • ‘We want to forge ahead’: grief and defiance as Dom Phillips’ widow journeys to site of his death

  • ‘A small respite in the face of horror’: Sudanese artists fleeing war find a safe haven

  • Celebrate, remember and reframe: the therapy sessions healing South Africa’s women

  • Bob Marley is a national hero in all but name. So what are Jamaica’s politicians waiting for?

    Kenneth Mohammed

  • Rise of drug-resistant superbugs could make Covid pandemic look ‘minor’, expert warns

  • Children of Vietnam war’s rape survivors unjustly bear the burden of others’ crimes

    Tran Thi Ngai

  • ‘The Body Shop held our hand’: how the troubled British firm helped a recycling startup in India

  • ‘We all share the same pain’: can the Israeli-Palestinian peace movement rebuild after 7 October?

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Rights and freedom

  • Afghan women in Islamabad hold up posters and placards in a protest demanding to boycott meeting with Taliban in Doha.

    Let Afghan women join the UN talks next week. It’s what the Taliban fear most

    Fawzia Koofi
  • A mural showing a woman in a blue headscarf looking away and holding up her hands defensively.,

    Afghan girls accuse Taliban of sexual assault after arrests for ‘bad hijab’

  • Two rows of bearded men sit at a conference table.

    Shutting Afghan women out of key UN conference to appease Taliban ‘a betrayal’

  • Marchers at Kyiv Pride 2024 in central Kyiv, Ukraine

    First Pride march since Russian invasion takes place in Kyiv

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

A common condition

  • Elizabeth Odondi standing by a bridge in a garden

    I told my high school friend we’d battle sickle cell together. But she didn’t make it past 18

  • Portrait of a black woman sitting in a chair next to a computer with a screensaver reading: 'Brain Health Initiative Nigeria'

    ‘They wanted her to confess to witchcraft’: ending the chilling effects of dementia stigma in Nigeria

    • The Food Security and Agriculture Cluster team team distributes dry food rations. April 2023

      ‘There was no other option’: the aid packages feeding diabetes and heart disease in the Pacific islands

    • Sayed Ahmed with his arm around his wife Amena Khatun by the Rupsha River in Khulna, Bangladesh

      ‘It’s in our rivers and in our cups. There’s no escape’
      The deadly spread of salt water in Bangladesh

    • A woman seen in silhouette with a cigarette in front of the Philip Morris International logo

      Experts condemn US tobacco firm’s sponsorship of doctor training as ‘grotesque’

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

In pictures

  • A muscular bare-chested young man seen from behind in this black and white photo almost seems to blend into the pile of tyres he is standing on as he lifts them out

    ‘In Nigeria, a tyre never quite dies’: reinventing the wheel in Lagos

    The photographer Andrew Esiebo travelled around the city capturing how car tyres otherwise destined for the dump are finding second lives as seats, fences and swings
Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Southern frontlines

  • Antonio Calpanchay, now 45, has cut and sold blocks of salt from the Salinas Grandes, in northern Argentina, since he was 12.

    Battle lines redrawn as Argentina’s lithium mines ramp up to meet electric car demand

  • Pastor Rómulo and a group of his most trusted recovering alcoholics are loading up alcoholics from the streets onto the back of the pickup to bring them to the centre. 20.04.2024 Intibucá, Honduras

    ‘They die like flies’: Intibucá in Honduras has an alarming alcohol problem – can prohibition and tough love fix it?

  • A bird's eye shot of a woman squatting on a rocky beach, sorting through plastic using a pink sieve.

    ‘Your plastic is here’: how Easter Island copes with 500 pieces of rubbish an hour washing ashore

  • A woman with a paddle in her hand looks out from her small boat to the misty water with trees at its edge

    ‘Without them, the city would be lost’: the art of preserving Mexico City’s ancient floating gardens

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Explainers

  • Families arrive on a beach in Mozambique carrying belongings wrapped in fabric bundles on their heads

    At risk: 10 ways the changing climate is creating a health emergency

  • A man in a balaclava holding a rifle looks back at the camera while walking along a dirt street

    What caused the civil war in Sudan and how has it become one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises?

  • Photo of the World Health Organization (WHO) logo displayed on screen with medical syringes and vaccine vials

    What is the pandemic accord and why have negotiations been so difficult?

  • A Rohingya family reaches the Bangladesh border after crossing a creek of the Naf river

    Who are the Rohingya and what is happening in Myanmar?

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Multimedia

Multimedia

  • Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips on a boat
  • Shireen Abu Akleh
  • Still of a migrant labourer The Great Abandonment documentary
  • Still image from documentary, The 'Spider-Man' of Sudan
  • Chris is a reproductive health advocate in the Phillippines
  • Eyewitness: hell on high waters - video

Get involved

  • Her stage newsletter banner (global development team)

    Her Stage newsletter
    Hear directly from incredible women from around the world on the issues that matter most to them

  • Composite for the sign-up page for Global Dev’s new global dispatch email

    Global Dispatch newsletter
    Sign up for a different world view

  • Follow us on Twitter

  • Follow us on Facebook

Most viewed