This paper is concerned with the recent history of microfinance, both for itself and as a case study of the evolution of development ideas and activities. Doing justice to this history, and to all those involved in it will not be easy. Rather than aiming for a full narrative this paper asks what...

The United Nation's Agenda 2030 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) pick up where the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) left off. The SDGs set forth a formidable task for the global community and international sustainable development over the next 15 years. Learning from the successes and...

A human-centered design thinking approach has been applied to a course at the MIT D-Lab on creating low-cost prosthetic and assistive devices for the developing world. Teams of students with diverse backgrounds are paired with international stakeholders and industry partners to tackle real-world...

There has been considerable debate regarding the efficacy of international aid in meeting the dual goals of human development and environmental sustainability. Many donors have sought to engage with this challenge by introducing environmental safeguard and monitoring initiatives; however,...

It has become common knowledge that international organizations (IOs) are struggling with local ownership of their peacebuilding and development interventions worldwide. This happens despite the local turn which gained momentum in recent years in peacebuilding research and practice. Drawing on...

Motivation The COVID‐19 pandemic is the most recent instance of global development problems being liable to occur anywhere, challenging the assumption of a world divided into "developed" and "developing" countries. Recent scholarship has increasingly opted for the term "global development" to...

Why does a state like Peru, dedicated to fulfilling development goals and sustained good macroeconomic performance, appear incapable of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the case of maternal mortality, this paper argues that the tremendous impact of the pandemic is rooted in the adoption...

The notion of development influences and is influenced by all aspects of human life. Social science is but one representational option among many for conveying the myriad ways in which development is conceived, encountered, experienced, justified, courted, and/or resisted by different groups at...

In recent years, policymakers across the globe have become increasingly interested in not only the revenue consequences of tax policies but also their distributional impacts: that is, their impacts on different segments of the population. Such evidence can promote a more equitable and...