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.
Global challenges need collective action: Why bright spots matter
06 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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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
A poverty line of $6.85 a day, as used by the World Bank, indicates a substantial level of deprivation, impacting the lives of billions globally. Indeed, nearly half of the World’s population falls into this…
April 2025
One woman dies in Afghanistan every two hours while trying to give birth and 167 children die in Afghanistan from preventable causes every day. In this bleak context, IDS alumna Tanjila Mazumder Drishti shares more…
April 2025
Anti-feminist discourse has long been present among groups across the political spectrum in Türkiye. Erdoğan has explicitly stated that he is against gender equality, that abortion is murder, and that using contraception undermines the nation.…
April 2025