Global development 2012: a year in pictures

South Sudan's Gendrassa camp, August 2012, where Oxfam dug trenches and laid pipes to provide thousands of refugees with water. See more images in our gallery Photograph: Alun McDonald/Oxfam

Girls wash their clothes under a flyover in Bengaluru in Bangalore. Major construction projects are underway across the city in an attempt to tackle road congestion. Our gallery explored the other side of India's IT capital Photograph: Simon Murphy/INSP

Farmers in northern Rwanda prepare land for planting. Our gallery explored whether climbing beans could improve life for Rwandan farmers Photograph: Neil Palmer/CIAT

Workers on the edge of a water tank in Buenos Aires village, Santa Barbara, Honduras. Global development readers shared their pictures for world water day Photograph: Action images

Members of the Single Women’s Association take part in a literacy class in Udaipur, Rajasthan. We created a gallery of pictures of inspirational women, sent in by our readers, for international women's day Photograph: Christian Aid Images/Action images

Distribution of identity cards in al-Hodeidah governorate, Yemen, to help people access aid. The country is experiencing a humanitarian crisis, with NGOs reporting alarming levels of malnutrition Photograph: Wolfgang Gressmann/Oxfam

Flooding caused by torrential rain has paralysed parts of the Philippine capital, Manila, this year Photograph: Matthew Gonzalez-Noda/Action images

Cyclone Aila caused widespread devastation in south-west Bangladesh when it struck in May 2009. We looked at how the area is faring three years on Photograph: Peter Caton/Oxfam

More than 92% of the population of Afghanistan lives without proper sanitation. We profiled the work of NGO Medair as it tries to improve the situation Photograph: Kate Holt/Medair

Women carry water from a capped spring near their village in Kotoba, Ethiopia. The essential task of fetching water usually falls to women and girls, interrupting education. Our gallery told some of your water stories Photograph: Action images

Men and boys pull jerrycans full of fuel out of the Gulf of Guinea in Togo. Photographer Daniel Hayduk documented the illegal trade in oil Photograph: Daniel Hayduk

Men, women and children dig for gold in Burkina Faso. Our audio slideshow shed light on their search for survival Photograph: Andy Hall

Polio vaccination proved to be a controversial topic in development this year. But in January, India launched an anti-polio drive Photograph: Saurabh Das/AP

Mercy Womeh is a Liberian woman who missed several years of education as a result of the 14-year civil war. She gave an insight into her struggle to go to school, as she breaks rocks to fund her studies Photograph: Andrew Esiebo/Panos London

Billy Briggs, from the International Network of Street Papers, reported on the thousands of girls and women who are trafficked from Nigeria to the African hub of Ouagadougou each year, lured by promises of jobs as hairdressers or nannies, but instead often forced to work as prostitutes Photograph: Angela Catlin

Under the shade of an acacia tree, children are weighed as part of efforts in Kenya to tackle high levels of malnutrition in rural and urban areas Photograph: Gideon Mendel/Action images

Aminata Yero, president of a co-operative of women farmers in Mauritania, is using her hands to make mud channels, allowing water to flow and irrigate the land, helping to alleviate the effect of the country's severe drought Photograph: Pablo Tosco/Oxfam

The biofuel legacy: a plantation in the Kisarawe region of Tanzania, where NGOs are helping local people to assert their land rights Photograph: Tom Pietrasik/ActionAid

Despite India's economic growth, the country faces widening inequality. In October, thousands of people marched for a fairer share of land and resources Photograph: Simon Williams/Christian Aid

A Tuareg nomad, carrying his traditional sword, walks past a handler in blue shoes pulling sheep to their new owner. Our gallery of Niger's nomads gave an insight into their lives Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP

A group of young mothers listen to Pahari Tharu, a community health worker, during a visit to Bhaishahi village, in our gallery looking at how family planning is changing lives in Nepal Photograph: Suzanne Lee/Save the Children

Our audio slideshows on the fall of Goma and attempts to ease serious humanitarian problems highlighted the situation for people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who have been displaced by fighting between government soldiers and M23 rebels Photograph: Kate Holt

A female soldier in the Sudan People's Liberation Army rests before undertaking scouring operations along the border with Sudan. South Sudan's first year of independence was marked by oil and border conflicts with its northern neighbour Photograph: Fabio Bucciarelli/LUZphoto

Women march holding a banner that reads 'Women's World March' in a rally for women's rights. There was lots of colour but few concrete reached at the Rio+20 UN summit on sustainable development Photograph: Felipe Dana/AP