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.
Did you know that between IDS and our partner the University of Sussex, we provide 29 postgraduate degrees under the theme of international development? This is one of the broadest and most comprehensive programmes of international development Masters courses on offer.
Development Studies Week...
Millions of children throughout Africa undertake many forms of farm and domestic work. Some of this work is for wages, some is on their family’s own small plots and some is forced and/or harmful.
This book examines children’s involvement in such work. It argues that framing all children’s...
The purpose of this guidance note is to support Ministries of Health, UNICEF, and other response partners to design and implement effective, community-centred, and data-driven community engagement for cholera outbreak response.
Afghanistan's political and humanitarian crisis has deteriorated since the arrival of the Taliban in August 2021. Several major actors, including UN agencies and large INGOs have now reached a point where they can no longer operate in the country in the current environment. This situation is...
Recent years have seen an increasing number of countries across the globe establish legal markets for the production, distribution, and consumption of medicinal or recreational cannabis. With this has come the expectation that more markets will follow suit. Malta has legalised recreational...
A rise in Mpox virus cases detected in West Africa from 2017 provided warning signs of the potential for outbreaks elsewhere. Yet it was not until the multi-country outbreak in 2022 that the disease received significant global attention and a public health emergency of international concern was...
Entrepreneur Pauline Koelbl was in the first cohort to study MA Poverty & Development. She has set up a gender lens investment fund called ShEquity, which aims to close the gender funding gap in Africa.
Watch a video of Pauline’s interview about how IDS has shaped her career, or read excerpts...
This panel considers the role of UK universities in supporting the global 15by30 goal. They examine how growing state repression has been met with resistance from students and grassroot activism, which has led to the rapid growth of the Universities of Sanctuary movement, Student Action for...
This year looks like it will be a bumper harvest, with the recently published crop assessment expecting a massive 2.3 million tonnes of maize, up 58% from last year. Maize is central to a complex web of small-scale businesses supporting production, transport, processing and marketing.
These...
In this special episode of the IDS Between the Lines podcast, IDS Researcher Stephen Thompson and IDS Research Officer Mariah Cannon interview Professor Robert Chambers who is one of the most influential and prolific scholars to write about participation, poverty, and knowledge in development...
The Women, Peace and Security agenda has sought to incorporate the voices and experiences of women into peacebuilding and conflict prevention strategies.
However, the focus within this has predominantly been to bring women into institutional and traditionally patriarchal peace processes –...
Including the most marginalised people in development research and programming is crucial to achieving the compelling global call to ‘leave no-one behind’. However, this is not always straightforward or easy to achieve. Our research to date has found that there are time and resourcing needs,...
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).