Opinion

Evidence-handling skills improve policymaking in Zanzibar

In much of our work, it takes time to discover if we have achieved the impacts hoped for. Just occasionally, that feedback comes more swiftly – as in the case of our capacity-building activities on evidence use in Zanzibar, where the impacts on policymaking appear to be almost immediate. Read...

Alan Stanley

Knowledge brokering must accompany research from the start

Impact support services that try to build the capacity of researchers and broker knowledge between academia, policy and practice need to be built into programmes from the start. This is one of the key messages coming out of a new review commissioned by the UKRI. Over the past decade we have...

James Georgalakis

IDS research shapes enterprise development action in Africa

This past year has seen IDS expand our wide portfolio of long-term research on the private sector through dedicated work for the German development agency GIZ. We provided evidence to assess and shape its programme on enterprise development in East Africa – and in the process, stimulated...

Jodie Thorpe

A pathway to include the most marginalised in policymaking

If the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to be meaningful, the knowledge of people in the world’s most marginalised communities must be included and new understandings generated. To that end, we have seen encouraging signs in planning and policy circles in India, following an IDS-led...

Jackie Shaw

Pakistan: sanitation workers’ protection in the wake of Covid-19

The majority of sanitation workers in Pakistan are from religious minorities, primarily Christian and Hindu. Sanitation work is low-paid and low-status, and street and sewer cleaners work daily to clean hospitals, clinics, streets and sewers without any personal protective equipment (PPE),...

Religious minorities still fall between the cracks

On July 9th 2020, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) launched its recent report ‘Protecting and Supporting Vulnerable Groups Through the Covid-19 Crisis.’ The report offers insights into how some of the most vulnerable populations have been affected by...

Lasse Morthorst

Our work strengthens responses to epidemics

Integrating social science perspectives into epidemic responses is now an established area of IDS expertise. Our work has helped to shape the Global Task Force on Cholera Control, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) R&D Blueprint process, and UK government and international agencies’...

Hayley MacGregor

Still debating land tenure reform in Zimbabwe

Ian Scoones

How did UK media get the threat of Covid so wrong?

A cultural and sociological bias may have prevented some media, including BBC news online, from adequately exploring the West’s preparedness for Covid-19. Now that we face the uncertainty of further waves of Covid, not to mention the purported increased likelihood of future pandemics, what...

James Georgalakis

The Covid-19 pandemic: reflections from pastoral areas

Ian Scoones

The last days of Indian democracy

India marks its 73rd year of freedom from colonial rule on August 15th, still claiming the mantle of the world's biggest democracy and a secular state where citizens’ constitutional rights are guaranteed. But those who have been paying attention to India are not celebrating. Covid-19 has given...

Naomi Hossain & 4 others

Why do Ahmadis Muslims in Pakistan not have a vote?

In many countries around the world, religious minorities face discrimination, marginalisation and violence. On the anniversary of Pakistan’s Independence, Siobhain McDonagh MP, Chair of the UK All Party Parliamentary Group for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, highlights how Ahmadi Muslims are...

Siobhain McDonagh MP