Every night, one in eight people go to bed hungry. It's simply crazy that we are burning food for fuel in our petrol tanks whilst this persists - something that I have blogged about before, including whilst seeing the impact for myself in Tanzania.

Over in...

Tax avoidance doesn't just damage the UK. It hurts ordinary people across the globe, wherever they live. A new piece of research by ActionAid has shown the activities of one British food company to be leeching vital funds from Zambia, one of the world's poorest countries.

The UK...

Yesterday in a poor area of south Delhi, I met some girls who were very clear that if the world is serious about development, women must be prioritised. They all agree with the data that shows that without progress on women's rights it will be impossible to make any significant...

The House of Commons International Development Committee has just released a new report into development in Afghanistan. It made the headlines because of its not very surprising conclusion that it will make take more than aid to build a properly functioning democratic Afghan state. The report sensibly suggests that UK...

Recent headlines about rising food prices are just the latest in a succession of reports illustrating how our daily staples are becoming increasingly expensive. The effects of this are hitting people hard - not just poor people in the UK but in parts of the world where almost one billion...

The ability to plan when we want to have a family is something that most of us in the UK take for granted. Until we decide that the time is right to have children we can access a wide range of contraception with accompanying advice free of charge, thanks to...

Some things just seem too good to be true, don't they? Letters which promise that you could be a millionaire (just call this number at £3 per minute for 20 minutes to find out if you're a winner). Or those e-mails from a "dear friend" (you've never met) promising a...

On Tuesday evening, a special BBC Newsnight programme saw an audience of unemployed young men and women speak about their search for work and the hopelessness that they feel about their situation. It was depressing viewing. On Wednesday, unemployment amongst 16-24 year olds in the UK rose above one million....

As the tenth anniversary of the US/ UK military intervention in Afghanistan approaches this Friday 7 October, there will be much reflection on what has been achieved. Thousands of lives have been lost and billions of dollars spent. Yet the future of Afghanistan remains far from certain.

In the next...

For the second year running, talking tough on tax dodging was a big theme of the Liberal Democrat party conference. Danny Alexander warned those who don't pay what they owe that he "will find you and your money", and Vince Cable criticised "those British billionaires who demonstrate their patriotism by...

You don't have to be an international development expert to be shocked by the suffering of the women, men and children affected by the East African famine. The images in the media distributed by TV stations and aid agencies alike paint a vivid picture of the full horror of starvation....