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.
While social protection programs have multiplied over the last two decades across sub-Saharan Africa, these co-exist alongside humanitarian assistance in many places, calling for better integration of assistance delivered through the two channels. Progress on this front is hampered by limited...
Climate change is one of the most urgent and challenging issues faced globally and, at the 2019 IDS staff retreat, a discussion on the concerns shared by many prompted launch of the IDS Climate Action Taskforce.
The focus was on how the institute could take action to reduce its impact on...
This rapid literature review finds that humanitarian actors responded in a variety of ways to Taliban actions limiting principled aid in the country during the period of their rule (1996-2001).
The report is focused on the findings around humanitarian negotiation and the strategy of...
This article explores COVID-19 related experiences of disabled people in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria, Nepal and Uganda. Narrative interviews generated storied responses, focussing on respondents' priorities, which enabled us to hear what was most significant for them and their families. 143...
Join us for this webinar organised by the IDS-led Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development (CREID) which will share pioneering research from Iraq and Pakistan on hate speech targeting religious minorities and approaches to countering this.
Around the world hate speech,...
WTO Public Forum (virtual). A discussion of new evidence on the a) implications of current e-commerce proposals in practical terms for African businesses, particularly SMEs; b) priorities of an AfCFTA e-commerce protocol, as identified by the African private sector itself; and c) design of...
In this episode of Between the Lines, IDS Director of Research, Peter Taylor interviews IDS Research Fellows; Danny Burns and Jo Howard, and Sonia M. Ospina, Professor of Public Management and Policy at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service who edited the recently published: SAGE...
After a challenging summer of Covid restrictions, the IDS community were delighted to welcome more than 260 students from around the world to study our master’s degrees in international development.
The new master’s cohort will experience a hybrid of in-person and online teaching. Last...
A recent study found that adoption rates of improved chickpea varieties were above 90 per cent in Andhra Pradesh, India. In this paper, we use a novel perspective to reconstruct and attribute how this outcome came about. The accepted success narrative is that the public international...
What does net zero actually involve and who does it impact? IDS researchers highlight the cost to groups carrying the burden of decarbonisation and argue that pathways to achieving net zero targets must be just, fair and equitable. If not, they risk making the situation even worse for those...
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).