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 report undertakes a rapid review of some recent, high quality syntheses and reports to summarise the evidence on the effectiveness of different types of non-state schools in reaching the marginalised and providing quality education to them.
Non-state provision has risen dramatically over...
The new IDS Bulletin, Courting Catastrophe? Humanitarian Policy and Practice in a Changing Climate, argues that humanitarian aid and climate change sectors need to work together to support adaptation to climate change in the long-term and not solely focus on short-term responses.
The literature uncovered by this rapid review regarding the effectiveness of behaviour-change communication (BCC) states that certain approaches and tools can and do succeed in improving maternal dietary practices, breastfeeding, as well as complementary feeding when used in health and nutrition...
This report focuses on Agenda 2030 and the challenges of delivering the Global Goals and the implications of trends for the UK’s international development work.Section 2 focuses on the Global Goals for Sustainable Development (SDGs/Global Goals) and the challenges of delivering them. These...
This helpdesk provides an introduction to international development, UK aid and Official Development Assistance (ODA) spending. It was developed over five days. Unlike previous helpdesk reports, the current paper does not provide a summary of relevant evidence, but rather it was designed to...
The aim of this paper is to contribute to debates about how governments and other stakeholders can influence the application of ICTs to increase access to safe, effective and affordable treatment of common illnesses, especially by the poor.
How does research and knowledge impact on attitudes, behaviours, policy and practice? Whether you are a researcher, development studies student, NGO campaigner, policy wonk or research donor, here are some links that I’d recommend on this subject.
Jonathan Fox argues that we need to be aware of how accountability terms can and have been politically constructed, and encourages us to search for terms that do a better job of communicating the key steps on the path to accountability-building.
There are increasing criticisms of dominant models for scaling up health systems in developing countries and a recognition that approaches are needed that better take into account the complexity of health interventions.
This report integrates the findings of five years of research and evaluation conducted by Operations Research and Impact Evaluation (ORIE) on the Working to Improve Nutrition in Northern Nigeria (WINNN) programme. The purpose of the report is to provide a high-level summary of WINNN’s...