Southern Sudanese celebrate the formal announcement of independence referendum results. Photograph: Pete Muller/AP
The African Union summit, health, microfinance and the Sudanese referendum are among the topics that have made the headlines on the Global development site over the past fortnight.
Elissa Jobson reported on the growing relevance and prominence on the international stage of the African Union summit – despite the tendency to appoint despots to its chair. Writing from Addis Ababa, Jobson presents a round-up of the event, and reports on the Gender is my Agenda Campaign conference, running parallel, which sought to move gender issues from the margins to the centre of debate.
To mark World Cancer Day last Friday, we discuss the rise of cancer cases across Africa, questioning how, in the face of already scarce resources, African states can cope with the increasing health burden. We look specifically at Tanzania's specialist cancer hospital.
Meanwhile, Madeleine Bunting discusses a new Danish documentary that has uncovered a complex financial transaction at the Grameen bank in the early 1990s. She argues that the film is likely to fuel the existing crisis in microfinance, but warns against dismissing all other projects as a result.
And, following the official referendum results from Sudan, Peter Moszynski blogs that the two states should learn a few lessons from what is currently happening in Egypt as it goes forward with independence for the south.
Elsewhere on the site
The former president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, writes of his desire to return to Haiti to rebuild its education system.
Lawrence Haddad blogs on why it's important the international development community looks at how the development sector could change in the future in order to improve the lives of the poor.
While Afua Hirsch was sceptical about the launch of Cherie Booth's new project, the Africa Justice Foundation, which aims to strengthen the continent's legal system.
Coming up on the site
We report from the World Social Forum, taking place in Dakar, Senegal, this week. We're blogging live from the event on Thursday.
We'll also be reporting on the increasing maternal mortality rates in Argentina.
And we'll be looking back over the past 60 years of the campaigning organisation War on Want, which celebrates its diamond anniversary this week.
Multimedia
Podcast: Security and aid
What are the dangers of blurring defence and development projects? Madeleine Bunting is joined by Guardian columnist and foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele; Daniel Korski, senior policy adviser at the European Council on Foreign Relations; Mike Lewis, humanitarian, conflict and security policy advisor at Oxfam GB; and John Hilary, executive director of War on Want.
Gallery: An Indian health worker caring for her community. Sangeeta Kumari is one of an army of community health workers across India. From her home in Sanjay Colony, outside Delhi, she offers advice to her neighbours – particularly women – about health and hygiene.
What you said: Some of the best comments from our readers
Commenting on Simon Roughneen's blog on the new acronym Turkey would certainly welcome, penlan2 wrote:
Focusing on Turkey also enables us to think about what is going on in "south-south" type activity and wean us off the tendency to put Europe or the US as the centre around which the world economy operates.
On Ben Jones's blog on why aid agencies have been working in Karamoja, Uganda, for so long? jewittenator wrote:
Education is increasing: I was encouraged to meet a number of serious Karimojong university graduates when I visited Moroto in 2009. How can they be involved in the process of change, alongside the elders?
Highlights from the blogosphere
Vijaya Ramachandran, from the Centre for Global Development, argues that the African Union's choice of Equatorial Guinea's president Teodoro Obiang as its new chairman will undermine the work of the union, and will not do members any favours.
Jon Mitchell at the ODI looks at why the development industry has been slow to recognise the power of the private sector to transform the lives of poor people.
