Several Western donor countries have begun to gear their development policies towards a changing global society. The question is, will these policies be restricted by national self-interests or will they take the interests of the global poor to he...

The Aga Khan Trust for Culture is restoring historic buildings in cities across the Muslim world. While culture can be a catalyst for development, urban poverty remains a massive challenge.Interview by Ellen Lammers

The economic, food and climate crises are making it even harder to achieve the MDGs. But they also provide a unique opportunity to formulate a new narrative to guide global development after 2015.

In Dubai the scale of building construction is staggering. But progress should not be at the expense of sustainability. Thom Bohlen of the Middle East Centre for Sustainable Development talks about how research can help promote green development p...

There are less than 7 years to go before 2015. Ever since the MDG journey took off at the turn of the 20th century, their outcomes have been monitored and assessed. The interactive maps of the MDG Atlas provide some graphic insights. We need not b...

Improving access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, some argue, is the very development goal on which the achievement of all MDGs depends. Clarissa Mulders discusses the challenges facing the water sector in Uganda and how research co...

Africa’s diaspora is the continent’s greatest offshore asset. An estimated 3.3 million Africans, of whom 1 million come from sub-Sahara Africa, live in EU countries alone. They occupy a strategic position linking the developed North with their hom...

Solar panels were first introduced to Africa during the 1970s. A number of large systems were installed to power electric wire fences around game reserves and to pump water from wells. In the early 1990s, solar energy began to be used for househol...

Last year more the solar industry made record profits. The worldwide demand for PV solar systems grew from a mere 125 megawatts (MW) in 1999 to 4,500 MW in 2008. This huge increase in demand was largely due to market incentives, in particular the...