Our research on governance, power relations, participation and citizen engagement, informs change processes in pursuit of social justice and social change. With power and politics central to our analysis, we support the generation of new evidence that contributes to improved processes for good governance, citizen engagement, empowerment and accountability.
We pioneer new ways of working with governments, communities, activists and academics, to understand the complex relationships and processes that exist across states, markets, and citizens, and between formal and informal institutions, to tackle issues such as digital inequalities, women’s participation and empowerment, decentralisation and local governance, rapid urbanisation, migration, taxation and domestic resource mobilisation, food security and hunger and nutrition. These draw on our extensive expertise in complex approaches to how change happens. Through our research and policy partnerships we are also bringing new insights on the role that rising powers and emerging economies such as China and Brazil have in relation to global governance and tackling development challenges such as sustainability and poverty. Our world-renown participatory research has a particular emphasis on systematic social exclusion facing women, people living in extreme poverty, people with disabilities, slaves bonded labourers, indigenous peoples and others. We advance cutting edge methodological development in action research, participatory visual methods, participatory mapping, participatory statistics, participatory Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) amongst others.
In alignment with the ‘leave no one behind’ framing of the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development, the PMA programme is working with groups of people living in poverty and marginalisation to strengthen processes of citizen-led accountability.
The International Centre for Tax and Development (ICTD) provides research evidence that supports developing countries in raising domestic revenues equitably and sustainably, in a manner that is conducive to pro-poor economic growth and good governance.
Sexuality can bring misery through sexual violence, HIV/AIDS, maternal mortality, female genital mutilation, or marginalisation of those who break the rules, such as non-macho men, single women, widows who re-marry, sex workers, people with same-sex sexualities, and transgender people.
The social regulation of rights to allocate and use land is of critical importance in the development of the predominantly agrarian economies of West Africa. Increasing conflict over land takes place within a context of legal pluralism, where customary systems are still dominant, but have...
This paper is about civil society participation in two contexts of chronic violence: Colombia and Guatemala. It explores the extent to which civil society organisations can build citizenship in such contexts and simultaneously address violence
This paper explores civil society advocacy on the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) and how it influences the trade policy process and facilitates citizen engagement in the Indian context.
This paper summarises the policy implications of a growing debate about the connections between taxation and the quality of governance in developing countries. Taxation or the absence of tax impacts on the quality of governance through two main channels.
This paper is set to examine the developmental impact of international Codes and Standards (C&S) as they are applied to the banking system in Brazil. It is driven by the questions: to what extent has compliance with international C&S affected, or may affect in the future, credit to the SMEs and...
This report identifies the main channels through which China's growth is affecting the region and undertakes a preliminary analysis of the impacts that it is having on development.
HIV/AIDS is both driven by and entrenches gender inequality, leaving women more vulnerable than men to its impact. This report - consisting of an overview, annotated bibliography, and contacts section - considers the specific challenges faced by women and girls who are living with HIV and AIDS....
This booklet gives a quick insight in to the STEPS approach as the Centre seeks to grapple with two of the most pressing challenges of our times: linking environmental sustainability with poverty reduction and social justice, and making science and technology work for the poor.
This paper analyses how prevailing narratives of technological change and economic growth have come to dominate key food and agriculture policy debates.
The challenges of designing new frameworks for social appraisal aimed at sustainability and social justice are reviewed by this paper. Here, 'social appraisal' refers to the ways society gathers knowledges to inform policy decisions and discourse and a number of key features of potentially more...
In an extraordinary time of challenge and change, we use more than 50 years of expertise to transform development approaches that create more equitable and sustainable futures. The work you do with us will help make progressive change towards universal development; to build and connect solidarities for collective action, locally and globally. The University of Sussex has been ranked 1st in the world for Development Studies for the past five years (QS World University Rankings by Subject).