Child helplines around the world enable children to share their problems and seek assistance. Alice Kubo of the global network of child helplines talks about how research can help identify more effective ways to prevent the maltreatment of childre...

Attaining women’s rights is central to addressing broader issues, such as ending poverty. Shareen Gokal of the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) talks about the negative impact a rise in religious fundamentalism is having on wom...

What are the problems facing smallholder farmers in drought-prone areas in India? And how can research contribute to solutions? Dr. Y.V. Malla Reddy of Accion Fraterna (AF) Ecology Centre argues that agricultural research should change its vantage...

It is often assumed that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can contribute to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but the evidence for that conclusion is weak. No one would dispute that knowledge equals power. But the...

What are the dilemmas facing practitioners in the field of international cooperation? How can researchers help resolve them? Koos Richelle, head of EuropeAid, wants researchers to deliver more accurate analyses of what is happening in the developi...

In June, 450 development researchers met in Geneva at the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) conference entitled ‘Global governance for sustainable development: the need for policy coherence and new partner...

The Broker is launching a new series that will take a close look at the field of development in different European countries: hot issues in political and public debate, policy choices, research priorities and NGO voices. This issue gets the ball r...

Simon Maxwell is the director of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) in London. He was one of the initiators of the ERD.

In the late 1990s, the development bureaucracy in Brussels was the target of heavy criticism. The different branches of European foreign policy devoted more time to infighting than to finding solutions to the new challenges in the world. Things ar...