Somewhere in one of the world’s poorest countries right now a teenager is starting her first job, a farmer is putting a roof on his first home, a young mother is taking her son to be inoculated against a killer disease, and a village is preparing to open its first ever school. By the time you have read this issue of Developments, a women’s co-operative will have counted their monthly revenues and decided to expand their small business. A government official will have been arrested for taking bribes, and a baby will be falling asleep inside a newly hung anti-malarial bednet.

Disaster is not the only story to be found in the developing world, though you’d barely know it, given the gloomy cast of so many headlines. Across the planet development is really taking place. Communities and individuals – collaborating with NGOs, local government and multilateral organisations – are successfully making poverty history. It’s not fast enough, of course, but it is happening.
And, precisely because these stories do not get not told as often as they ought, in this issue of Developments we focus on some of the good news in the fight against poverty. How a micro-hydro powered ropeway can connect a mountainous Nepali community to new markets, for instance. Or, as our fashion feature illustrates, how fairly trade cotton means high street fashion can help fight poverty. And, as another of our stories shows, development is increasingly being supported by people from diaspora communities who are heading home “to share their skills in the land of their fathers”.