Kommani Lalitha poses with her microfinance 'loan recovery book' at her residence in the outskirts of Hyderabad in India. Photograph: Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images
Is microfinance good news for the poor? It's a question that has cropped up several times on the Global development site over the last month, and it's one we seek to address in our latest Focus podcast.
Cambridge economist Ha-Joon Chang, microfinance adviser at the NGO Care International Ajaz Khan, and senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development David Roodman took part in our podcast debate, and we also heard from Vikram Akula, founder of SKS Microfinance.
Readers' questions posted on our talk point were fed into the discussion, and is still open for comments.
Elsewhere on the site
Economist Jayati Ghosh argues that development banks have an important role to play, something that is often ignored in discussions on development, and points to BNDES in Brazil as an example of success.
We also debate the future of development in a series of blogs. Contributions come from Madeleine Bunting, who imagines what aid would look like in 2031, Jonathan Glennie, who presents a roadmap to 21st century equality, Duncan Green, who outlines the challenges ahead, and Lawrence Haddad, who waves goodbye to aid and the MDGs and says hello to global goods and wellbeing.
Claire Provost writes that the collapse of Madonna's plans to build a school in Malawi highlights the deeper debate in development about whether a top-down approach works.
Meanwhile, Cheick Sidi Diarra, the UN under secretary general and high representative for the least developed countries, shares his optimism for these states over the next 10 years.
We're also collecting suggestions of key events, lectures and conferences taking place in April to put in our interactive Global development calendar.
Coming up on the site
Later this week, we're setting up a Flickr group on global health to collect your thoughts and messages on the issues and from the ground. We set up something similar in February to mark International Women's Day.
Jonathan Glennie begins a series of blogs looking at development progress across Latin America, starting with an introductory piece on the rise of the New Left.
Following the Japanese earthquake, we'll be looking at whether Japan will be cutting or postponing aid budgets and projects in Africa and Asia.
Multimedia
Video: The true cost of Mother's Day flowers
Roses for Mother's Day are top sellers. But who really benefits from the trade in flowers grown in Africa? Felicity Lawrence reports on Kenya's horticulture industry
Video: India's Dalit community fights disaster in India
India's east coast communities suffered from the tsunami of 2004, which made headlines around the world. Less well covered in the news are the annual cyclones that hit this coast, when the lives and homes of the most vulnerable have to be rebuilt. What can be done to stop this cycle of disaster and debt?
In pictures: Is pastoralism in crisis?
Pastoralists face insecure livelihoods, but depictions of them as victims of forces beyond their control and dependent on handouts fail to tell the whole story, say organisers of the Future of Pastoralism conference.
What you said: Some of the best comments from our readers
On Nicholas van Praag's blog on why aid agencies must listen to the people they're helping, emilycavan wrote:
"The agenda of development aid should not be set by people so far removed from the uncertainty of life that has dominated human existence for the majority of time."
On Claire Melamed's blog asking what poor people want, katefromcanada wrote:
"Climate change, international crime and trade are all issues that wealthy interests cannot fully insulate themselves from, so of course they would be interested in global action on those issues."
And on Andrew Darnton's blog on why we're still stuck in the 1980s when it comes to perceptions of aid, TerribleLyricist wrote:
"I think we have to recognise that the whole concept of 'aid' needs to be re-thought. Where people are in dire emergency we should help, of course, but otherwise, apart from specialist charities and projects, aid – especially government aid – only creates dependency and stifles incentive."
Highlights from the blogosphere
Lawrence Haddad, from the Institute of Development Studies, shared some of the findings from Irish NGO Trocaire's report, Leading Edge 2010, looking at what INGOs should do differently in the next five years.
Twaweza's Rakesh Rajani guest blogged for the Centre for Global Development, stating five reasons why he's a fan of the cash-on-delivery model of aid as a response to a presentation given by Nancy Birdsall to the UK's Department for International Development (DfID).
Following the publication of his report on the UK's emergency humanitarian response, Lord Ashdown, the former leader of the UK's Liberal Democrat party, blogged for DfID on what his review will mean for Britain's response to and prevention of disaster.
