Our research partnerships examine how to tackle deeply entrenched inequalities that lead to social and economic injustices.
Our work draws attention to the needs of people living in chronic poverty, identifies how religious minority groups are discriminated against, and investigates how heritage can help to build social cohesion. We have a long track record in gender and development, with a current focus on finding ways to counter the anti-feminist backlash.
Our findings shed new light on tackling inequalities, inform government and donor policy and enable activists and community groups to develop new ways of working.
The Indian government’s weaponisation of gender in Operation Sindoor
09 May 2025
Centre for Social Protection
Working to mainstream social protection in development policy and encourage social protection systems and instruments that are comprehensive, long-term, sustainable and pro-poor.
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Countering Backlash: Reclaiming Gender Justice
A six-year programme of work aiming to create new knowledge of the backlash against gender justice, to enable the co-creation of more effective and mutual ways of resisting it.
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Chronic Poverty Advisory Network
A network of researchers, policy makers and practitioners across 17 low- and middle-income countries focused on tackling chronic poverty and getting to zero extreme poverty and deprivation.
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Sustaining Power: Women’s struggles against contemporary backlash in South Asia
Research on the strategies and mechanisms that women use to retain power and sustain gains in women's rights in South Asia.
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Urban equity
Our work on towns and cities focuses on crucial topics such as displacement and migration, local governance and the impact of humanitarian interventions.
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Disability
Building empirical evidence about the concerns and perspectives of people with disabilities, especially in contexts of poverty in middle and low-income settings in the global South.
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MA Poverty and Development
Our Master’s in Poverty and Development helps you gain the interdisciplinary knowledge and cutting-edge skills to engage with the research, design, implementation and assessment of national and international efforts to get to zero poverty.
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MA Gender and Development
Study with IDS to gain the skills required to participate effectively in gender- and development-related research, policy-making and programme implementation.
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Explore our research
Find out more about our work in social and economic justice.
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Dr Sepali Kottegoda – Director Programmes, Gender and Political Economy at Women and Media Collective, Sri Lanka and IDS alum (MPhil class of 1984 and DPhil class of 1990) – recently came back to IDS…
May 2025
The paper discusses the growing interest in using social protection to address climate-related vulnerabilities and strengthen resilience, particularly in conflict-affected settings.
May 2025
Anxiety and uncertainty are core features of global development cooperation at the moment. Previous opinion pieces have highlighted the colossal fall-out of the termination of USAID, against a backdrop of declining ODA contributions. The news…
May 2025
I was coming out of a lecture that I was giving to IDS masters’ students on struggles against anti-gender backlash by women’s groups when I saw the news: 15 Palestinian medical workers brutally killed and…
April 2025