Opinion

Achieving climate justice in South Asia’s Sundarbans delta

An IDS research project in the Sundarbans delta of South Asia is showing how partnerships with local communities can yield new knowledge and ideas for more climate-resilient livelihoods. This year, the TAPESTRY project offered lessons for policymakers, practitioners, researchers and civil...

Associations and mafias: the role of associational politics in deepening democracy

What is the role of associational politics in deepening democracy? A recent panel discussion organised by the Mahbub-ul-Haq research centre at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) with the Institute of Development Studies, attempted to answer this question from a comparative lens,...

Umair Javed

Yuan Longping, the ‘father of hybrid rice’: A people’s scientist

Yuan Longping, internationally known as the ‘father of hybrid rice,’ passed away on May 22, at the age of 91. Tributes have been pouring in from across China, where Mr. Yuan is a national celebrity, and from across the canonical international scientific community who regard him as an...

Lídia Cabral

Xiuli Xu

West African governments must increase taxes on tobacco for better health and public finances

Camel milk is going global. How can it grow while benefiting pastoralists, animals and the environment?

How land reform transformed small towns in Zimbabwe

Ian Scoones

Trade, human rights and EU-India negotiations

There is now an increasing recognition that the effects of trade and trade policy are far too great to be treated separately from other development goals such as human rights. Over 80 per cent of all trade agreements signed since 2013 include labour provisions, and more than 40 per cent of...

Amrita Saha

Sangeeta Khorana

Cultural diversity: the key to humanitarian work

In this blog, Pamela Hajal argues that humanitarian organisations and interventions need to take a “localisation” approach to ensure appropriate cultural integration in their programmes and improve their effectiveness and sustainability. If you want to preserve the forest, should...

Pamela Hajal

Collective impact: Children and young people as partners in social change projects

Representations of Nomadism

Did women respond differently to Covid-19? A view from Quetta, Pakistan

In the third and final blog sharing findings from a survey of attitudes towards the Hazara Shia in Quetta, Pakistan (following government broadcast messages referring to ‘the Shia virus’), Mohammad Aman and Sadiqa Sultan compare and contrast the responses of men and women and postulate what...

Muhammad Aman

Sadiqa Sultan

In Covid times, what can we learn from the Impact Initiative?

Covid-19 has had a profound impact on low- and middle-income countries, undoing many years of progress for the world’s poor. As they try to reverse these losses, governments, civil society, and international organisations urgently need good research to guide decisions and make the best...