Publications

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...

Leah Salm & 6 others

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

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

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

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

Policy Pollination: A Brief History of Social Protection’s Brief History in Africa

IDS Working Paper 543

The relatively recent emergence and sustained rise of social protection as a policy agenda in Africa can be understood as either a nationally owned or ‘donor-driven’ process. While elements of both can be seen in different countries at different times, this paper focuses on the pivotal role...

Stephen Devereux

COVID-19 and Pastoralism: Reflections from Three Continents

The Journal Peasant Studies;

Focusing on pastoralism, this article reflects on five diverse cases across Africa, Asia and Europe and asks: how have COVID-19 disease control measures affected mobility and production practices, marketing opportunities, land control, labour relations, local community support and...

Giulia Simula & 5 others

External Evaluation of Mobile Phone Technology-based Nutrition and Agriculture Advisory Services in Africa: Final Ghana Mixed Methods Evaluation Report

This final mixed methods report forms part of the external impact evaluation of mNutrition in Ghana. The evaluation was conducted by a consortium of researchers from Gamos, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) between 2016 and...

What is Wrong with African Tax Administration?

ICTD Research in Brief;63

National tax administrations in sub-Saharan Africa have undergone considerable reform in recent decades. In a number of respects, they are, on average, more reformed and more efficient than tax administrations in other low income regions of the world. They have responded effectively to a number...

Mick Moore

Africa’s ‘Youth Employment’ Crisis is Actually a ‘Missing Jobs’ Crisis

Brooke Shearer Series 9

Opportunities for employment, or the lack of them, have long been a central interest of African governments, young people, and their families. Youth employment is also currently the subject of considerable policy, research, and practitioner interest (e.g., CTA et al., 2014; Filmer and Fox, 2014;...