Publications

Managing Seasonality in West African Informal Urban Vegetable Markets: The Role of Household Relations

Seasonality influences African informal agricultural markets, but existing literature inadequately explores its interactions with market actors' social relations and livelihood outcomes. Thus, agricultural commercialisation policy ineffectively supports such actors to manage seasonality. Across...

Imogen Bellwood-Howard & 3 others

China–Africa Economic Zones as Catalysts for Industrialisation (accessible version)

IDS Policy Briefing 182

Chinese-sponsored Economic and Trade Cooperation Zones offer African countries opportunities for new sources of investment, employment, skills transfer and technology transfer that promote industrialisation.

Chris Alden

Jing Gu

China–Africa Economic Zones as Catalysts for Industrialisation

IDS Policy Briefing 182

Chinese-sponsored Economic and Trade Cooperation Zones offer African countries opportunities for new sources of investment, employment, skills transfer and technology transfer that promote industrialisation.

Chris Alden

Jing Gu

Rural Youth Employment in Africa: An Evidence Review

Most of the world’s poor today are found in rural Africa, and forecasts suggest that this concentration might become more pronounced if current trends continue. Despite increasing urbanisation, there are projections that around half of Africa’s new jobseekers will need to find employment in...

Thomas Yeboah

Justin Flynn

Youth and the Rural Economy in Africa: Hard Work and Hazard

This book unites recent findings from quantitative and qualitative research from across Africa to illuminate how young men and women engage with the rural economy and imagine their futures, and how development policies and interventions can find traction with these realities. Through framing,...

The Current Landscape of Research on World Health Assembly Targets in West Africa: Two interdependent Review Outputs

The WHA 2025 nutrition targets have been used to track countries’ nutritional situations, measure progress in reducing malnutrition, and guide decision making. With a little more than five years remaining to attain the WHA targets, it is a critical time to coordinate the nutrition community...

Enhancing China–Africa Cooperation in the Renewable Energy Sector

IDS Policy Briefing 176

Access to affordable and sustainable electricity is of fundamental importance to development in much of Africa. But, while access to electricity is improving, contributions from non-hydropower renewable energy sources remain small.

Seife Ayele & 3 others

COVID-19, Public Authority and Enforcement

Medical Anthropology 39

The securitization of health is not a new phenomenon. However, global responses to the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa reveal the extent to which epidemic preparedness and response is now shaped by geopolitical concerns. UN Security Council Resolution 2177 epitomizes this. The...

Melissa Parker & 2 others

Channeling Contraband: How States Shape International Smuggling Routes

Although smuggling is commonly assumed to happen in remote and difficult-to-access borderlands, in reality, smuggling is most prevalent in areas that states tightly control, including at formal border crossings. To understand this puzzle, this article explores the relationship between states...

Max Gallien

Florian Weigand

Critical Transitions from Pastoralism to Ranching in Central Africa

Current Anthropology 62.1

The goal of this paper is to explain why and how increasing commoditization and incorporation in the market economy are only now leading to a critical transition from pastoralism to ranching in Central Africa. While there are similarities between pastoralism and capitalism—in both systems,...

Ian Scoones & 3 others

Stories of Change in Nutrition from Africa and Asia: an Introduction to a Special Series in Food Security

Food Security 13

Malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a massive global challenge, and the past decade has seen a growing political attention to addressing malnutrition in different contexts. What has been largely missing so far, and is in growing demand from countries, is tangible, practical and...

Stuart Gillespie & 3 others

Newly Evolving Pastoral and Post-pastoral Rangelands of Eastern Africa

Over the past two decades, the rangelands of Eastern Africa have experienced sweeping changes associated with growing human populations, shifting land use, expanding livestock marketing and trade, and greater investment by domestic and global capital. These trends have coincided with several...

Jeremy Lind & 4 others