Development Discourses

A curated open-access library of research papers, books, and grey literature for development practitioners.

Part of ImpactMojo — free development economics & policy education for South Asia.

What is this?

Development Discourses is a searchable, filterable library of 500+ open-access resources covering the topics that matter to development professionals:

• MEAL & Evaluation — Monitoring, evaluation, accountability, learning
• Development Economics — Poverty, inequality, growth, microfinance
• Gender & Social Inclusion — Feminist economics, intersectionality, caste, disability
• Climate & Environment — Climate resilience, adaptation, just transition
• Public Health — Universal health coverage, nutrition, community health
• Public Policy & Governance — Decentralization, digital governance, accountability
• Data & Technology — Data governance, open data, AI ethics
• Livelihoods — Self-help groups, skills, migration, rural development
• Research Methods — RCTs, mixed methods, participatory research

Every resource is free to read — no paywalls.

Live Site

development-discourses on GitHub Pages

Tech Stack

• Pure HTML, CSS, JavaScript — no frameworks, no build step
• JSON data files in data/topics/ merged into data/resources.json
• Hosted on GitHub Pages

Features

• Full-text search (title, author, keywords)
• Filter by topic and resource type (paper / book / grey literature)
• Sort by title, year, or author
• List and grid views
• Responsive design
• Keyboard shortcut: press / to focus search

Project Structure

data/
  topics/                    # Source of truth — one file per topic
    climate_environment_resources.json
    data_technology_for_development.json
    development_economics_resources.json
    gender_social_inclusion_resources.json
    livelihoods_resources.json
    meal_resources.json
    public_health_resources.json
    public_policy_governance_resources.json
    research_methods_resources.json
  resources.json             # Auto-generated merged file (website reads this)
build.py                     # Merges topic files → resources.json
add_resource.py              # Helper to add entries to topic files

Adding Resources

Option 1: Edit a topic file directly

Open any file in data/topics/ and add an entry:

{
  "title": "Resource Title",
  "authors": "Author Name(s)",
  "year": 2024,
  "type": "paper",
  "topic": "Development Economics",
  "url": "https://example.com/paper.pdf",
  "description": "Brief description of the resource."
}

Then rebuild:

python3 build.py

Option 2: Use the add_resource helper

# Interactive mode
python3 add_resource.py

# Batch import from a file
python3 add_resource.py --from-file new_entries.json --topic livelihoods_resources.json

Option 3: Ask Claude to add entries

In a Claude Code session, just ask:

"Add 10 more livelihoods papers to data/topics/livelihoods_resources.json"

Then run python3 build.py to merge.

Build commands

python3 build.py              # Merge all topic files
python3 build.py --stats      # Show stats after merging
python3 build.py --validate   # Check for missing fields
python3 build.py --dry-run    # Preview without writing

type must be one of: paper, book, grey_literature

topic should match an existing topic or be a new category.

To suggest a resource, open an issue.

Local Development

Just open index.html in a browser, or serve locally:

python -m http.server 8000
# then visit http://localhost:8000

License

Content curation is CC BY 4.0. Code is MIT.