2011 in Global development – in pictures

Independence Day celebrations in Juba, South Sudan, on 9 July. The year began with an overwhelming vote from the south for secession from the north, with many people returning to relatives in the south to vote in the referendum on independence. The world's newest country, South Sudan, was born in July. It is one of the poorest, as we discovered when we looked at key development indicators for both north and south. In June, we debated the challenges that lie ahead for the new state in our Global development podcast Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features

Visitors walk past a sculpture of the African continent in Dakar, Senegal, as 75,000 activists, trade unionists and others descended on the city for the World Social Forum in February. Protests in Tunisa and Egypt provided an emotive backdrop to the event. Taoufik Ben Abdallah, a member of the organising committee, said: 'It [the forum] opened with the joy of revolution in Tunisia and is closing with honouring the Egypt revolution. We hope in the future that we will be able to celebrate other African revolutions' Photograph: Rebecca Blackwell/AP

Korean women celebrate the centenary of International Women's Day in Seoul on 8 March, in a year when women's rights and gender equality became more high profile. The Global development site marked IWD with an interactive reflecting women's experiences around the world. In July, the new agency, UN Women, dedicated its flagship report to women's access to justice. We tracked when women got the right to vote around the world. The World Bank's world development report, published in September, outlined the economic benefits of gender empowerment Photograph: Truth Leem/Reuters

Displaced earthquake victims pack into an evacuation centre in Kesennuma, Japan, in March. Almost immediately after the earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, more than 90 countries offered assistance - including many developing countries that were still recovering from disasters themselves. Asian countries that receive aid from Japan soon expressed concern that aid budgets could be cut as the country recovers, and some questioned whether it was right that international NGOs set up emergency appeals for Japan - one of the world's major economic powers and top aid donors Photograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

A midwife talks to a new mother at a health centre in Tanzania. A report by Save the Children in April highlighted the global shortage of midwives. The NGO found that the world needs 350,000 more midwives to reduce deaths in childbirth. A conference in Bangkok highlighted the worldwide shortage of health workers: the Global Health Workforce Alliance – an umbrella group uniting governments, NGOs, professional organisations and others – said 3.5 million more health workers were needed if some of the poorest countries were to achieve the millennium development goals by 2015 Photograph: Kate Holt

Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus announced in May that he was stepping down as head of the pioneering microfinance institution, the Grameen Bank, after a long dispute with Bangladesh's government. Microfinance has long been a golden child of development policy, offering the simple idea that lending small amounts of money to very poor people can help them get themselves out of poverty. But recent scandals have rocked that belief and resulted in closer scrutiny of these claims Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP

Children attend lessons in a makeshift classroom at a UN camp for Ivorian refugees in Liberia, in May. The violence following the November 2010 presidential elections in Ivory Coast continued into the new year, resulting in the displacement of thousands of people. We looked at the impact of the violence on women and explored what the future might hold for the country. The year ended with the arrest of former president Laurent Gbagbo, who is to stand trial for crimes against humanity
Photograph: Jane Hahn for Save the Children

Jean-Marie Tushabe sits where he says his brother's house once stood. He says the house was burned down as thousands of people in Mubende district, Uganda, were made homeless after their land was sold to a private company. International attention on "land grabs" grew in 2011. Researchers estimate that more than 200m hectares of land – more than eight times the size of the UK – have been sold or leased between 2000 and 2010, most in Africa Photograph: Simon Rawles/Oxfam

A family moves into a camp at Dadaab refugee complex in northern Kenya. The camps at Dadaab have existed for more than 20 years, but after famine was formally declared in Somalia on 20 July, thousands of new arrivals streamed across the border. More than 400,000 people now live in the refugee complex, making it Kenya's unofficial third-largest city. In 2011, the UN appeal for Somalia raised $1bn – 80% of what it had requested for relief efforts. In 2012, the UN says it will need $1.5bn Photograph: Sven Torfinn/Guardian

A displaced Pakistani girl stands in flood water in September. Pakistan was still recovering from severe flooding in 2010 – in which 10 years worth of rain fell in three weeks – when monsoon rains brought flash flooding in the south. More than 9 million people have been affected by this year's flooding and more than 1.58m homes in Sindh and 26,000 in Balochistan have been destroyed or damaged. In November, aid agencies warned flood relief programmes in Pakistan could soon be forced to close because of a lack of funds Photograph: Muhammed Muheisen/AP

In October 2007, the Guardian began tracking a development project implemented by Amref in Katine, north-east Uganda. For three years we covered the highs and lows of development work and tried to explain processes. Our full-time coverage of the project ended in October 2010, but we have returned to the sub-county twice this year, and plan to do so in coming years to monitor how the community fares as Amref withdraws. Catch up on the latest news from Katine on our Return to Katine page Photograph: Guardian

People crowd into a market in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, which is set to overtake Cairo as Africa's largest city. In 2011 the world's population topped 7 billion, reigniting debates about the impact of an exploding global population Photograph: Lekan Oyekanmi/AP

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi speaks during an event marking World Aids Day at the National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon on 1 December. It is 30 years since the first reports of what is now known as Aids emerged from the US. We marked the occasion with an interactive timeline of a global crisis, a gallery highlighting the impact of HIV on women in Uganda, and an interview wtih Eric Goemaere, a Médecins Sans Frontières doctor who led the early battle against Aids in South Africa Photograph: Soe Than Win/AFP/Getty Images

In December, donors from around 160 countries gathered in Busan, South Korea, for the fourth high level forum on aid effectiveness. After some tricky discussions, a new aid partnership was drawn up that sought to merge the principles of traditional donors with those of the emerging Bric economies - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Jonathan Glennie wrote that the role of the Brics had been critical in forging this new global partnership, although what this will mean for the world's poorest 'will depend more on the actions of the international community than words on a page' Photograph: Jung Yeon-je/AFP

Debris hangs on a electric post in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines, on 18 December, a day after Typhoon Washi wrought havoc in the city. Flash floods and landslides swept through a region of the south, killing around 1,000 people and leaving thousands more homeless. Survivors spoke of the panic and chaos after the floods struck Photograph: TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images

Millions of people in west Africa are facing a food crisis in 2012, the EU and UN anounced in December, unless immediate action is taken. Erratic rainfalls have resulted in poor harvests and could mean around 7 million people may not have enough food in 2012. The traditional 'lean' season (the period between harvests) is predicted to begin in March, rather than June next year. People believed to be most at risk are in Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad. Aid agencies claim it is not too late to prevent a crisis Photograph: Irina Fuhrmann/AFP/Getty Images