Institute of Development Studies
Annual Report 2011
Governance
We use evidence-based research to challenge and refine ideas and practice, engaging with citizens, decision-makers and power-holders across the globe and at all levels of public authority (from local to global). The Team exhibits a unique blend of thematic and geographic expertise that enables us to achieve these goals.
Established scholars and experienced policy analysts are working with global networks of partners on topics ranging from taxation, public service delivery, administrative and justice reform, and social accountability to post-conflict reconstruction, peacebuilding, and international crime and narcotics control. Our research and policy work both reflect IDS’ vision that positive change is possible, and conflict and crises can be prevented and transformed if knowledge is grounded, sharply problem-focused and co-constructed.
Research Centres
Highlight
Building New Relationships:
A new International Centre for Tax and Development is launched
The International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD), established in November 2010, is administered from IDS and funded by DFID and the Government of Norway. Five years ago, mention of the need for more government revenue was typically a prelude to a discussion of aid. Today, it is far more likely to lead to debates about raising revenue within developing countries. The next challenge is to raise that revenue efficiently and fairly, and in ways that will improve the quality of governance. This requires researchers to work closely with the people who collect taxes, the civil society organisations that mobilise around tax issues, the journalists who shape public understandings of them, and those aid agencies that take these issues seriously. The consortium that founded the Centre, the largest member of which is the African Tax Administrators Forum, represents all these perspectives.
Viewpoint
Vladimir Bartenev PhD
Associate Professor, Department of World Politics, Lomonosov Moscow State, University
Along with other academics from the leading Russian universities, I cooperated with IDS on the preparation of the modular training course on international development aid for the World Bank ‘Russia as a Donor Initiative’. My personal experience with this cooperation has been truly positive. Both my counterparts, Marc Berenson and David Leonard, demonstrated a genuine willingness to contribute as much as possible to the development of the curriculum. By suggesting the most relevant literature on the topic, providing swift and detailed feedback on the content and encouraging me to think about how to present the lectures to two distinct audiences (policy practitioners and academics), they ensured a timely delivery of the final product which will hopefully help strengthen Russia’s potential as a donor.
Highlight
Being present where it counts:
Our research reaches even the most fragile states
Last year, members of the Governance Team conducted pioneering research with partners in some of the most fragile states in sub-Saharan Africa, including the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Mozambique, Puntland, Sierra Leone and Somaliland. Their work is concerned with human security and the processes by which countries that have collapsed into civil war may be able to recover it. The programme has demonstrated the critical importance of bottom up approaches, which are usually neglected, as well as stressing that the restoration of peace and security involves multiple actors outside the usual channels of formal state authority. Programme researchers have provided advice on these issues to well-placed policymakers in bilateral and multilateral development and foreign relations agencies in Africa and Europe including the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in the Horn of Africa, the UK Foreign Office and the EU Office for Somalia.
Highlight
Being present where it counts:
Supporting researchers in a new Russia
As Russia emerges as a new international aid donor, Governance Team Research Fellow Marc Berenson and Director of Teaching and Alumni Relations Robert Nurick have been working with the World Bank and 12 leading Russian development studies scholars to
provide technical assistance and advice to the Russian Federation in their bid to develop courses, curricula and learning materials on development aid. By providing start-up training programmes for Russia’s university educators and bureaucrats, the project has also provided IDS with a series of further opportunities in the areas of development studies research and development aid training with several new academic and institutional partners in Russia.
Download the Governance section of our Annual Report.