Rebuilding Haiti and
reshaping Africa
As Haiti since the quake shares the headlines with political change in Ivory Coast and Sudan, we bring you the best live coverage, news and analysis from the world of development
- guardian.co.uk, Thursday 13 January 2011 13.34 GMT
A woman and her child arrive at a polling station in Juba to vote on independence for southern Sudan. Photograph: Mohamed Messara/EPA
The Haiti earthquake and events in southern Sudan and Ivory Coast have dominated content on the global development site so far this year.
To mark the first anniversary of the earthquake that killed more than 230,000 and devastated an already fragile infrastructure in January 2010, Robin Cross, from the charity Article 25, emphasised the need for local people to be involved in the reconstruction process, while Oxfam's Martin Hartberg was live online from Port-au-Prince to answer readers' questions on how re-building is going. A blog from our data team showed how much money countries had given in aid.
We also saw Haiti through the eyes of teenagers in a gallery and a video showing how nine-year-old Andrise is coping after a year living in a tent.
As with all anniversaries, one year on from the earthquake, a plethora of progress reports on the country's progress have been published by NGOs. We've summarised a selection, but are happy to hear your suggestions on those not included.
The referendum on independence in southern Sudan began on Sunday. Morri Francis, a student and broadcaster with Cafod, shared his experience of voting in Juba on Monday, while Peter Moszynski warned of the problems southern Sudanese people living in the north could face if the vote favours secession, while Madeleine Bunting blogged that the outcome of a new oil revenue sharing agreement will have a huge bearing on future stability in Sudan.
On Ivory Coast, Paul Collier suggested that the international community could work with the Ivorian army to force Laurent Gbagbo from power, and we charted the events since the disputed election in November in a gallery.
Elsewhere on the site
Ugandan journalist Richard Kavuma blogs on the impact of the Ivory Coast presidential crisis on other elections involving Africa's "strongmen", such as Yoweri Museveni.
Madeleine Bunting blogged on whether India should continue to receive aid from the UK and if the country was in a position to reject it.
Meanwhile, Ally Carnwath wrote about a new project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that seeks to rein in the violent excesses of some of its soldiers.
Coming up on the site
We'll have further coverage on the south Sudan referendum and on the situation in Ivory Coast, and will begin to report on African elections taking place over the next few months. Richard Kavuma will be looking closer at the Ugandan presidential elections due to take place next month.
We'll be looking again at the impact on rising food prices on low-income countries, and will blog a work scheme being introduced in India.
Six months on from the floods in Pakistan, we'll find out the reconstruction taking place.
And we'll have the latest progress report on the development project in Katine that the Guardian has tracked full-time for the past three years.
Multimedia
Audio slideshow: Southern Sudan students with high school dreams. At Juba Technical high school, the NGO Plan International is retraining former child soldiers and other young people in skills such as building, mechanics and carpentry so they can build new lives. Pupils and other young people share their stories.
Video: Ghana's young city street porters. At 13, Katumi left her rural home in Ghana to work as a street porter – carrying goods for people – in the city to earn money for her schooling. Away from her family, she was vulnerable to financial and sexual exploitation. Follow her story.
What you said: Some of the best comments from our readers
On Peter Moszynski's blog on fears for minorities in north Sudan if south votes to secede, SelmaAlRasheed: said
I am Nubian and the Nubian people have suffered under successive Arab/Islamic rulers in Sudan. Leaders in the Communist party and others are Nubian, many jailed and tortured by this and previous regimes. Two dams have destroyed our land and our way of life, our language is banned from schools, formal and informal. Attempts to teach it in the Nubian Club in Khartoum was met with threats.
On a piece on tax in poor countries, MariaFarrell said:
Another area of real progress is that, instead of the big institutional players trying to control, copy or contain crowd-sourcing initiatives like Ushahidi, CrisisCommons or Random Hacks of Kindness, you get the World Bank, Google, and US state department offering support that lets these initiatives evolve independently and define themselves.
Highlights from the blogosphere
The director of the Institute of Development Studies, Lawrence Haddad made some predictions for 2011, which prompted a response from Harvard University's Calestous Juma, which he posted.
On Aid Watch, Laura Freschi analysed the USAID transparency site and found it wanting.
While the Centre for Global Development's director Nancy Birdsall proposed 10 ideas for development progress that won't cost a dime in budget terms.
