As someone who has been a runner-up too many times, once even getting a second-place certificate with my name spelled wrongly, I’m very much of the view that winning isn’t everything.

But I’m also inordinately proud of the team here on Global development and across the Foundations desk, who have been busy scooping up armfuls of awards all year. So we decided to dedicate our last Global Dispatch of 2025 to some of the stories that international judges and juries have thought worthy of trophies over the year.

The person with the byline on a story is the one who picks up the award, but journalism is a team sport. The ideas for stories come from the editors as often as the reporters, and there are very few writers who do not benefit from having their words silvered a little and their sentences jiggled. No one is above having editing discussions over more information, stronger quotes or a rethink on the intro.

Subeditors iron out clunky grammar and check that facts are as sacred as they should be. Production editors go further with the spit and polish, pulling out the best quotes, working on a headline that marches confidently between being intriguing yet not swinging into clickbait or making reading redundant by telling the whole story.

There are in-house developers – the IT gang, the graphics, visuals and social media folks – chipping in their expertise, and while our photographers are world class, it is picture editors who research images and pick out the best that can speak to the text and headlines.

Then there are the experts, activists, families, victims and a whole host of other people who trust us enough to share their stories.

Finally, most importantly, without whom the rest is redundant, there is you, caring enough to be here and reading our articles.

So congratulations to our intrepid reporters who deservedly hoisted awards this year, and commiserations to those runners-up (you already won the Orwell prize once before, Mark Townsend). And a massive thanks to you for being part of the team.
Tracy McVeigh, editor, Global development
Photograph: Musuk Noltes

Spotlight

Sarah Johnson’s report on a former child bride who was due to be executed this month in Iran helped draw international attention to the planned hanging of Goli Kouhkan for allegedly participating in the killing of her abusive husband. Kouhan had her life spared after her husband’s parents were paid £70,000 in blood money. Financial contributions from Guardian readers were key to saving her life.

Top picks

• The brutal truth behind Italy’s migrant reduction: beatings and rape by EU-funded forces in Tunisia – Mark Townsend won the Amnesty Award for written investigation

• ‘It’s in our rivers and in our cups. There’s no escape’: the deadly spread of salt water in Bangladesh – Thaslima Begum won the Covering Climate Now journalist of the year award

• ‘Russia is targeting us deliberately’: how attacks on maternity hospitals fuelled a birthrate crisis in Ukraine’ – Liz Cookman won feature writer of the year at the British Journalism Awards

• Our Uncontacted people series, in partnership with O Globo, won the best investigative piece at the Grupo de Di Diários América (GDA) awards

In pictures

• The year the rainforest dried up: how the climate crisis beached Brazil’s floating communities – Musuk Noltes won the World Press Photo award for South America – stories

• How the Taliban are erasing Afghanistan’s women – Kiana Hayeri won the Amnesty photojournalism award

Watch this

Some of the most powerful films on the shortlist for the best international feature film Oscar explore the impact of political repression on ordinary people. They include The Secret Agent, a thriller centred on a mild-mannered researcher who becomes the target of a mercenary killer during Brazil’s military dictatorship; The President’s Cake, a portrait of life set in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s regime through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl; Belén, based on the true story of an Argentinian woman accused of infanticide after miscarrying; and three films centred on Palestinian stories, including the horrifying ordeal of five-year-old Hind Rajab who was killed by Israel Defense Forces while begging for help from a car full of her dead relatives.