Through multidisciplinary research and policy engagement we bring new understanding and action on critical issues around health and health systems, and how they overlap with other systems such as food, as well as nutrition, sanitation, epidemics and zoonotic diseases. Enhancing understanding of how to ensure healthy lives for all is a vital part of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030) and has been an integral focus of IDS’ work since its inception.
Our research and analysis on innovations in health services and systems – including work on identifying effective strategies to address the challenges of antimicrobial resistance – is accelerating progress towards achieving universal health coverage in Asia and Africa. Our work on nutrition spans the spectrum from dietary transition and globalisation of food systems, through to responding to the ways that marginalisation and inequity drive high child malnutrition rates. We bring vital social knowledge to aid effective preparedness and response on pandemics. We show how direct impacts on the spread of diseases such as Ebola can be achieved by bringing learning from research on social issues and contexts to the right people in the right organisations at the right time. Together with our global partners, we are generating and sharing new knowledge and evidence to identify the underlying causes of poor health and social inequalities, and the progressive policies and practices that can help bring about transformative change.
Questions about rigour, validity and credibility are central concerns of all evaluation practice. So too should be how we pay attention to meaningful participation to enable greater equity, especially when embracing complexity and seeking to achieve systems change.
Yet many evaluators and...
The Food Equity Centre and the People Centered Food Systems project are curating a set of webinars in 2024 on the topic of human rights for equitable food systems. The big question for the webinar series is: How do rights move us forward in achieving equitable food systems?
Our first talk...
In an era of hashtag campaigns and online organising, politicians and corporations are spending billions to disrupt dialogue and drown-out dissent online across Africa. Join this event to discuss these issues and more, explored in the new book Digital Disinformation in Africa: Hashtag Politics,...
In this special event to mark the culmination of Melissa Leach’s tenure as Director of IDS, a panel of experts will debate the future of development and development studies, offering their thoughts on where development has come in the last 10 years and crucially, where it might be...
Advocacy for public accountability aims to produce reactions from government officials or service providers. But it is not always clear to advocates how to interpret diverse government reactions and decide on next steps. This panel will share and reflect on a framework to help achieve this,...
In this special episode of the IDS Between the Lines podcast produced with the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI). Andy Sumner, President of EADI and Professor of International Development at Kings College London interviews Professor Melissa Leach who...
Are optimistic tax targets helpful or hurtful? How can we make them better? Join us on April 17 as a panel of researchers and practitioners discuss the role that targets can play in building tax capacity.
At the end of April I finish my ten year term as Director of the Institute of Development Studies, the wonderful, extraordinary Institute which has been my base for more than a third of a century. Here, in part one of two blogs, I reflect on my time at IDS.
I joined as a Fellow in 1990 to...
Two of ICTD’s PhD students, Adrienne Lees and Sripriya Srivatsa, recently spent three days at Gladstone’s Library in North Wales on a writing retreat. The library was built in 1902, following a bequest from William Gladstone, and has hosted a long list of distinguished writers and...
This paper gives preliminary insights into the challenges surrounding the taxation of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) in Nigeria – first in general terms, and then with a specific focus on Borno State.
This policy brief speaks to the broader challenges of translating investments in DPI into improved development outcomes – and the potential for investments in strengthening digitalisation of tax systems to be a catalyst for digitalisation of the public sector more broadly.
In common with many other African countries, the Republic of South Sudan is increasingly experiencing devastating floods linked to climate change. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) and El Niño regulate the climate of Equatorial Eastern Africa. In 2019, a dipole warming in the western Indian Ocean,...
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).