Publications

Power, Poverty, and Knowledge – Reflecting on 50 Years of Learning with Robert Chambers

IDS Bulletin 54.1A

Robert Chambers is one of the most influential and prolific scholars to write about participation, poverty, and knowledge in development studies. His writing and thinking have revolutionised the discipline, inspiring both participatory processes and more inclusive practice. His work continues to...

Stephen Thompson & 4 others

Process Tracing Innovations in Practice: Finding the Middle Path

CDI Practice Paper 25

This CDI Practice Paper draws on comparative learning from applying three different types of process tracing in international development initiatives. It argues in favour of a ‘middle path’ of applying evidence tests and rubrics to structure evaluative judgements rather than formal Bayesian...

Tom Aston

Alix Wadeson

Arts Interventions for Sustainable Sanitation and Resource Recovery (accessible version)

IDS Policy Briefing 209

Many countries in the global South declare regions to be open defecation free, but they must still address significant sanitation, wastewater, and faecal sludge management challenges. Climate uncertainty, water shortages, and weak infrastructure mean that ‘flush and forget’ systems are not...

Hannah Macpherson

Arts Interventions for Sustainable Sanitation and Resource Recovery

IDS Policy Briefing 209

This briefing describes how art interventions can help people reimagine alternative sanitation futures. Drawing on research in Nepal, it describes how activities such as dance workshops, humanure planting, song competitions, and radio jingles can generate new knowledge about sanitation...

Hannah Macpherson

Researching Governance in Difficult Times and Places: Reflections from Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria and Pakistan

Fragility and closing civic space present significant challenges for research, making research processes more onerous and difficult, particularly on social and political issues. And yet these contexts may be those that may most need to be researched to understand the trend in democratic...

Shandana Khan Mohmand

Colin Anderson

Understanding Accountability in Practice: Obligations, Scrutiny, and Consequences

Attempting to increase authorities' accountability for their actions has become a mainstay of development practice in recent decades. Yet commentators suggest that these efforts have reached an impasse, in part because of conceptual fuzziness regarding the core ideas of public...

Colin Anderson

Pandemic Preparedness for the Real World

Why We Must Invest in Equitable, Ethical and Effective Approaches to Help Prepare for the Next Pandemic The cost of the Covid-19 pandemic remains unknown. Lives directly lost to the disease continue to mount, while related health, livelihood and wellbeing impacts are still being felt, and the...

Annie Wilkinson & 9 others

The Alternatives to Universal Tax Registration in Sri Lanka

This note argues that the Sri Lankan government’s recent proposal to implement universal tax registration is neither a viable nor effective strategy to increase the country’s tax revenue. Instead, the note proposes four alternative measures that are more feasible, while still serving the...

Mick Moore

Nishan de Mel

How Might the National Revenue Authority of Sierra Leone Enhance Revenue Collection by Taxing High Net Worth Individuals?

ICTD Working Paper; 156

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, increasing domestic revenue mobilisation has become even more of a priority for low-income countries. One of the commonly untapped sources of revenue across many of these countries are high net worth individuals, who usually manage to avoid contributing...

Jalia Kangave & 2 others

Mandating Digital Tax Tools as a Response to Covid: Evidence from Eswatini

ICTD Research in Brief; 83

To reduce physical contact, Covid-19 forced many tax authorities to embrace digital technologies for filing and payment. Pandemic control aside, e-filing and e-payment hold great promise in facilitating taxpayer compliance, increasing transparency and curbing opportunity for collusion...

Fabrizio Santoro

Razan Amine

The Case of MUVA Assistentes: Beyond Income Generation to a New Approach for Women’s Empowerment

MUVA Paper Series 5

This paper highlights the case of MUVA Assistentes, a public works programme (PWP) that provided training and mentoring to young vulnerable women (YVW) in urban Mozambique. Our paper draws out the main learnings from the MUVA Assistentes project to inform the design of other PWPs that have...

Deepta Chopra & 4 others

Assessing the Contribution to Market System Change of the Private Enterprise Programme Ethiopia

An impact evaluation of a pro-poor market system development programme, ‘Making Markets Work for the Poor’ (M4P), poses several methodological issues for evaluators. M4P interventions intend to change the contextual conditions in which stakeholders take business decisions so that it triggers...

Giel Ton & 2 others