Poverty and politics are inextricably linked. The new Netherlands Minister for Development Cooperation, Bert Koenders, sees it as one of his main challenges to ‘bring back politics’ into international development cooperation. At a meeting with ministry staff in June 2007, Koenders stated that ‘If we want to make a real difference on the ground in terms of poverty alleviation…

With a new Global Peace Index countries can be ranked according to their ‘state of peace’.

In solving complex problems involving many different stakeholders, interdisciplinary research is indispensable. But cooperation between disciplines is not always easy. Since 2000 Wageningen University has funded a series of interdisciplinary research programmes. This article looks at the lessons that have been learned.

Codes of conduct are supposed to regulate working conditions in garment and sport shoe factories all over the world. Efforts to coordinate these voluntary initiatives have so far not been effective. Stronger and more binding initiatives are needed.