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.
This is the fourth blog in a series summarising new research on Zimbabwe’s land reform. In this blog, I look at newly published material on agricultural commercialisation and the shifting political economy of command politics and capitalist expansion.
The land reform from 2000 overturned the...
Philanthropists must step up their funding for gender and women’s rights activists and organisations, against a well-organised anti-gender movement rolling back rights of women and LGBTQ+ people globally, worth $1bn in the USA alone and growing across Europe, warns a new report.
The new...
This report provides an overview on the Covid Collective research platform, how it was operationalised, and the learning which emerged from the three-year programme. The foundation of the Covid Collective’s theory of change was the network and relationships that were established and developed...
Backlash from conservative, patriarchal, religious and political forces is often seen as ‘the cost of doing business’ by feminist or LGBTQ+ activists. Yet how do philanthropic institutions who support gender justice respond to the scaled-up, well-financed and globally coordinated anti-gender...
Countries have the potential to tax the digital economy through a combination of at least these four measures, which can be incorporated into their industrial policy and revenue collection strategies.
We highlight that overly zealous tax targets can be actively counter productive to tax administration and suggest five concrete ways to set better targets.
Gender backlash is continually gaining momentum across the globe, and social and political institutions and policies are being dismantled. Gender justice activists and women’s rights organisations are having to mobilise quickly to counter these attacks.
Organised by the Countering Backlash...
This working paper explores how philanthropic institutions with a history of supporting women’s and LGBTQ+ rights and democracy are seeing and responding to anti-gender backlash, and the background dynamics shaping the struggle.
It is based on a scan commissioned by the IDS-led Countering...
As explicit biases become increasingly rare, this policy brief argues that the implicit and explicit bias framework is no longer fit for guiding policy towards improved tax equity and gender equality.
New research published today in the IDS Bulletin reveals the extent to which gender and sexual rights are being reversed in a global wave of gender backlash.
The research, based on evidence from Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Uganda, and the United Kingdom, explores the...
Far from seeing continued steady progress on gender equality, we are currently witnessing significant backlash against gender and sexual rights. Limited and hard-fought gains for some are being reversed, co-opted, and dismantled – all amplified through new social media and digital...
This event will launch the new IDS Bulletin ‘Understanding Gender Backlash: Southern Perspectives’. It will address the urgent question of how we can better understand the recent swell of anti-gender backlash across different regions, exploring different types of actors, interests,...
7 March 2024
Why learn with us.
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).