London: The groundbreaking Guardian International Development Journalism Competition has now reached its final stages with the announcement of the 16 finalists.

The competition was a collaboration between the Guardian, Marie Stopes International and seven other non-government organisations (NGOs) and was launched in March with the financial support of the Department for International Development (DFID). Both amateur and freelance professional journalists were encouraged to submit articles on key development issues before the May deadline.

"The competition microsite proved to be incredibly popular; there were over 16,000 visitors who spent far longer than usual on a site of this type," said Julian Rose, head of advertising and sponsorship at Guardian Professional. "We have also been very impressed by the number of entries, especially given the nature of the competition and the length of the article required."

Douglas Alexander, International Development Secretary, said: "I am delighted there were so many entries to the competition and that the standard of articles was so high. This highlights the UK public's growing interest in global poverty and issues relating to international development. I look forward to reading the winning submissions in due course."

"We have seen a number of the submissions, including the finalists, and we were very impressed by the ability of many journalists to grasp and convey such complex issues," said Tony Kerridge, Senior Communications Manager for Marie Stopes International. "It is about time articles of this calibre were written on these crucial developing world issues and engaged a wider audience."

The 16 finalists (eight professional and eight amateur journalists) will now be given final assignments relating to international development issues and taken on trips to various countries in Africa and Asia so that they can experience and investigate these issues first hand. The two journalists who receive assignments from MSI will be travelling to either Bangladesh and India to look at family planning and sexual health in urban slum settings; or Ethiopia/Ghana to look at the unsafe abortion in Africa and the changing laws.

The overall winners - one from each strand - will be announced in November when all the final assigments are published by the Guardian newspaper in special supplements.

The other NGO partners in the project are Camfed International, HelpAge International, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Malaria Consortium, Plan UK, Sightsavers International and WaterAid.

Two of the finalists wrote about MSI issues:

Safe and Unsafe Abortion in Argentina: http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/abortion.in.argentina

No More Abortion in Nicaragua: http://www.guardian.co.uk/journalismcompetition/abortion.in.nicaragua

To view all the finalists, please visit www.guardian.co.uk/developmentcompetition/finalists.