Call for Pitches
Word count: 2,000-4,000 words
Payment: $2,000 per piece
Deadline for pitches: July 1, 2026 (likely publication October 2026)
Please do not include this call for pitches in aggregators like studyhall.xyz.
About In Development
In Development is a magazine dedicated to exploring how progress actually happens in the developing world. We publish narrative-driven essays on ideas, policies, and technologies that have the possibility to, or are already, improving global well-being. Our first issue is available here.
Our mission is to expand the conversation about development. We’re interested in stories that are intellectually serious, empirically grounded, and a pleasure to read - pieces that a policymaker in Nairobi, a donor in New York, or a grad student in Delhi could all find illuminating.
We also take a “yes, and” approach to development - we think NGOs and aid are a key part of the picture, but so are governments, entrepreneurship, infrastructure, innovation, and institutional reform.
What We’re Looking For
We’re commissioning 2,000–4,000-word longreads that:
Tell a compelling story about how something works - or fails to work - in the developing world
Combine deep subject knowledge with accessible storytelling.
Surface important but underreported trends, people, or institutions.1
We’re especially interested in:
Unexpected success stories: projects, entrepreneurs, or policies driving real change.
Comparative or historical insights: what can we learn from how different countries tackled similar challenges?
Technological innovation: how will AI affect developing countries?
Institutional and policy experiments: from land titling to regulatory reform.
Who Should Pitch
We welcome pitches from journalists, researchers, and practitioners with deep knowledge of their subject area. First-time contributors are welcome - what matters most is clarity, originality, and intellectual curiosity.
We especially value contributions from people based in developing countries.
What to Include in Your Pitch
Please send a short document (no more than one page) outlining:
The core idea: What question or problem does your story explore?
The angle: Why this story, now? What makes it surprising or illuminating?
A brief bio. Include 1–2 links to previous work if available. This may be essays, academic work, or other example writing.
Please submit your pitch here.
Unfortunately, we won’t be able to respond to every pitch with feedback; if your pitch is accepted, we will be in touch by the end of July.
AI Policy
We understand that AI tools have become a critical part of the research process for many writers. We welcome use of AI to brainstorming different angles, headlines, and structure or other copy-editing support.
However, AI may not be used to invent, fabricate, or “fill in” facts, quotes, citations, datasets, or references, produce numbers, tables, or empirical claims without verifying them against primary sources, or generate ideas or text wholesale.
The final text of both the pitch and article should be something you are confident in saying you wrote, with all ideas coming from you.
Do you have some cool descriptive statistics that journals keep rejecting because it’s not novel enough? Send them to us.