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.
The Bangladesh Initiative to Enhance Nutrition Security and Governance (BIeNGS) project is funded by the European Commission and is a collaboration between World Vision UK (WVUK), World Vision Bangladesh (WVB), World Vision Australia (WVA), the International Food Policy Research Institute...
This background paper presents considerations on how the Covid-19 pandemic is accentuating existing vulnerabilities of populations forcibly displaced by war (refugees, asylum-seekers, internally-displaced and stateless persons), in settings across East Africa and the Middle East.
In addition to...
Across the Middle East and East Africa, Covid-19 is compounding vulnerabilities already experienced by populations forcibly displaced by war (refugees, asylum-seekers, internally-displaced and stateless persons).
In addition to the devastating health threat the pandemic poses, lockdown measures...
The appearance of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) marked the first time a global body has attempted to manage the planet’s future in its entirety, linking together urgent, overlapping and contradictory existential threats. The goals newly treated the world as an interlinked...
From forest fires in Australia and California to record floods in Jakarta and the UK, it is clear that no area of the world is immune from the effects of climate change. Many countries and cities have woken up to this fact and have declared climate emergencies. Mainstream discourses are...
Monday 6th July 2020 marks World Zoonoses Day 2020. This year, the 150 partners in the One Health Poultry Hub will observe a two-minute silence of private reflection on those who are known, and those who remain unknown, who are suffering from endemic and emergent zoonotic diseases. These...
A recent online event organised by the Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development (CREID) highlighted global trends of discrimination and violence experienced by religious minorities and marginalised communities during Covid-19
Informal settlements in Tanzania accommodate more than 70% of the urban population. Owing to this, the Tanzanian government has undertaken several initiatives to address the growing size and number of informal settlements.
One such initiative is regularisation which addresses security of tenure...
New department must retain approach and expertise built over decades, says Melissa Leach.
Prime minister Boris Johnson’s 19 June announcement that the UK Department for International Development (DFID) is to be merged with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has raised many concerns....
Although cash transfers are now widely used within development and social policy, there is still limited discussion over how (and indeed whether) cash
transfer trials and research on them can respect ethical standards. This Working Paper assesses the latest ethics-relevant literature and...
Brazil is being severely struck by Covid-19. The soaring number of deaths, rising unemployment, and food insecurity, together with baffling negligence by the federal government, paint a bleak picture. Yet, there are uplifting stories of solidarity and innovation in food provisioning propping up...
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).