Institute of Development Studies

IDS Bulletin 39 - 2008

The IDS Bulletin brings together the latest thinking and research from programmes and events at IDS and presents them in an accessible way for development practitioners, policymakers and researchers. It is the flagship publication of the Institute of Development Studies.

Click on each title to take you to the abstract. For full table of contents for this volume, please visit our co-publishing partners page here.

Publications

Impact Evaluation: The Experiences of Official Agencies

IDS Bulletin Issue: 1 Volume: 39

Aid effectiveness has long been disputed, after decades of inconclusive macroeconomic analysis. Now there is a growing body of evidence from detailed, field level, microeconomic impact evaluations. The articles in this IDS Bulletin show how the design of these studies increasingly address the various sources of bias for which previous projects were criticised.




Economic Growth, Social Protection and 'Real' Labour Markets

IDS Bulletin Issue: 2 Volume: 39

The working poor contribute to, and benefit from, economic growth through labour markets and paid work, but employment generation has not featured significantly in the macroeconomic agenda. It was assumed that opening up economies to global competition and flexible labour markets would generate labour-intensive growth trajectories and secure livelihoods, leaving public measures for social protection restricted to those unable to earn their own living, but these predictions have not been borne out in practice.




Unsafe Abortion: A Development Issue

IDS Bulletin Issue: 3 Volume: 39

Abortion has become an ever more controversial issue, provoking strong reactions both 'for' and 'against'. Language used in disputes over whether or not women should have access to safe and legal abortion indicates just how polarised debates have become: pro-choice versus pro-life; pro-abortion versus anti-choice. As the anti-abortion agenda has become coupled with other conservative agendas, such as pro-abstinence, pro-chastity and anti-contraception, an increasingly assertive movement has evolved.




Poverty in a Changing Climate

IDS Bulletin Issue: 4 Volume: 39

Climate change gets attention across the world. IPCC findings call for radical limits to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations responsible for human-induced climate change. Achieving an international agreement, particularly under the UNFCCC, on emissions targets, burden sharing, trading mechanisms and technological and financial assistance remains a high priority concern for the 'mitigation' of climate change.




Children, AIDS and Development Policy

IDS Bulletin Issue: 5 Volume: 39

Across the hardest-hit countries of sub-Saharan Africa the HIV/AIDS epidemic is causing immense distress and impoverishment to children. In this region alone, some 12 million are estimated to have lost one or both parents to the disease, but this headline figure misrepresents and understates the magnitude of the problem.




Reclaiming Feminism: Gender and Neoliberalism

IDS Bulletin Issue: 6 Volume: 39

The focus of this IDS Bulletin is particularly apposite at a time when much-cherished axioms are being re-inspected and where new possibilities and directions are so badly needed. Contributors add to a growing, vibrant debate about Gender and Development. This issue arises from a conference held at IDS in July 2007 in collaboration with Birkbeck College, under the Pathways of Women's Empowerment Research Programme Consortium, where participants reflected on the relationship between feminisms and neoliberalism, in the context of international development.