Global Development

Shobha Vakade, 28, who took a loan of rupees 18,000 ($400) from a micro finance company to start her own business, strings beads into necklaces outside her house in a slum in Mumbai October 26, 2010. India's microfinance industry, which surged to prominence when George Soros-backed SKS Microfinance raised $358 million in an IPO, faces a regulatory clampdown that could erode profits and hurt growth. Reports of dozens of suicides by poor borrowers in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the hub of India's microfinance sector, prompted the state to enact an rules against aggressive recovery practices by lenders who make loans that average about $150 to poor customers at interest rates that can top 30 percent. Picture taken October 26, 2010. To match analysis INDIA-MICROFINANCE/ REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui (INDIA - Tags: SOCIETY BUSINESS) - GM1E6AS11VO01

Progress paradoxes in China, India, and the US: A tale of growing but unhappy countries

Carol Graham and Sergio Pinto

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Pupils play during breaktime at the Senator Obama primary school in the village of Nyang'oma Kogelo, west of Kenya's capital Nairobi, July 16, 2015. U.S. President Barack Obama visits Kenya and Ethiopia later this month. His ancestral home of Kogelo is home to Sarah Hussein Obama, his step-grandmother. The Kenyan village, burial place of Obama's father, features an open-pit goldmine, a pork butcher's, a school named after their most famous son and outdoor market stalls. Villagers get around by motorbike taxi or on foot while a donkey-cart transports water. Children, some of them named Obama in honour of the President, walk to and from school together. Picture taken July 16, 2015. REUTERS/Thomas MukoyaPICTURE 17 OF 35 FOR WIDER IMAGE STORY "KOGELO, KENYA - OBAMA'S ANCESTRAL HOME". SEARCH "ANCESTRAL MUKOYA" FOR ALL IMAGES - GF10000166803

3 insights on child survival

John McArthur and Krista Rasmussen

Thursday, October 18, 2018

A policeman gestures during clashes in Kawangware slum in Nairobi, Kenya October 30, 2017. REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic - RC13DC1D37A0

Congress understands the urgency of fragility

Thursday, October 18, 2018

A man carries harvested maize stems on the Thrive Agric's farm in Jere, Kaduna, Nigeria October 10, 2018. Picture taken October 10, 2018. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde - RC19B80171A0

Africa: The last frontier for eradicating extreme poverty

Jasmin Baier and Kristofer Hamel

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Assoumpata Uwamariya works on a beetroot farm in Rubavu district, Western province, Rwanda October 3, 2018. Pictures taken October 3, 2018. REUTERS/Jean Bizimana - RC1C11560B50

World Food Day 2018: The elusive quest to end hunger

Homi Kharas and Lorenz Noe

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim delivers a speech during a plenary session at International Monetary Fund - World Bank Annual Meeting 2018 in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, October 12, 2018. REUTERS/Johannes P. Christo - RC19B03811C0

Systems thinking for multilaterals: New report on global financial governance

Amar Bhattacharya and Homi Kharas

Friday, October 12, 2018

The prototype of an autonomous weeding machine by Swiss start-up ecoRobotix is pictured during tests on a sugar beet field near Bavois, Switzerland May 18, 2018. Picture taken May, 18, 2018. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse - RC18908CB500

Farm and food policy innovations for the digital age

Juergen Voegele

Thursday, October 11, 2018

A man holds up his mobile phone showing a M-Pesa mobile money transaction page for the photographer at an open air market in Kibera in Kenya's capital Nairobi December 31, 2014. Safaricom, Kenya's biggest telecoms firm, is a model of how technology can be used to financially include millions of people with mobile telephones but without access to traditional infrastructure such as the banks that are available to the wealthy or those living in cities. Safaricom in 2007 pioneered its M-Pesa mobile money transfer technology, now used across Africa, Asia and Europe. It proved that money can be made from people who earn a few dollars a day. REUTERS/Noor Khamis (KENYA - Tags: BUSINESS SOCIETY SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY TELECOMS) - GM1EACV1IZY01

The future of inclusive growth

Shanta Devarajan

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Makeshift structures are seen at a bedouin encampment south of the West Bank Jewish settlement of Mishor Adumim in the Judean Desert August 19, 2009. Many bedouins living in Israel and the occupied West Bank retain a traditional and nomadic way of life, raising livestock and farming arid land. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (WEST BANK POLITICS SOCIETY) - GM1E58K00LD01

A quiet revolution in impact evaluation at USAID

Ariel BenYishay, Rachel Trichler, Dan Runfola, and Seth Goodman

Monday, October 8, 2018

Two women carry a bag of rice from USAID as part of food distributed by various relief agencies in Cite Soleil, Port-au-Prince February 18, 2010. France will provide 270 million euros (US$366.8 million) over two years to Haiti to help the Caribbean nation's economy recover from a devastating January 12 earthquake, France's President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Wednesday. REUTERS/Carlos Barria (HAITI - Tags: DISASTER ENVIRONMENT FOOD POLITICS SOCIETY) - GM1E62J06H202

How to consolidate the 2 US foreign assistance dashboards

George Ingram and Sally Paxton

Friday, October 5, 2018