Our interdisciplinary research explores how pathways to sustainability, green transformations and equitable access to resources such as land, water and food can be achieved and help us meet the environmental as well as human development-related goals of the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.
Our work builds on a long tradition of critical social science engagement with environmental issues and resource politics in collaboration with partners globally. It explores how pathways to sustainability are shaped by political-economic and social processes, and understands how they are driven by technology, markets, states and citizens. Our research sheds new light on how we can achieve green transformations that move us from fossil fuel to renewable energy, from throw-away to circular economies. It addresses the politics of sustainability, and understands how transformations occur at local levels as well as global, in both rural and urban settings, and be led by citizens as well as national governments. In doing so, it shines a light on how sustainable resource use, consumption and production is shaped by issues such as gender, livelihoods and politics.
The ESRC STEPS Centre (Social, Technological and Environmental Pathways to Sustainability) is an interdisciplinary global research and policy engagement centre.
A unique art exhibition exploring the responses of those living with environmental uncertainty in the Sundarbans of India is being hosted at IDS this week (5 to 10 July). It features artwork co-created by academics and community groups from the Transformation as Praxis: Exploring Socially Just...
The global distribution of malnutrition is remarkably unequal, and rates of malnutrition are also starkly unequal between population groups within countries: There are important differences between those from richer or poorer households, those with higher or lower educational attainment, women...
Last week’s blog discussed the massive growth of urban agriculture in Zimbabwe. How is this affecting the wider food system? What are the impacts on traditional sources of production in the rural areas? And what was the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in precipitating these changes?
Higher education is about knowledge and learning. Despite how simple this sounds, contestation remains within the university sector and beyond about what knowledge is valued by universities and how much space and freedom staff and students have to learn from it.
Over 30 years ago, Sandra...
This week (5 and 6 July) the UK Government hosts a major International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB). Aiming to “strengthen international efforts to ensure FoRB for all” the conference is convening events with international government ministers, faith...
How well do policy frameworks in pastoral regions respond to issues of uncertainty? Four new papers (on Europe, West Asia and North Africa, the Horn of Africa and Sahel, and Asia) reflect on the issues in global regions, identifying some major problems and challenges.
In this episode of the IDS podcast Between the Lines, IDS Director Melissa Leach interviews leading development policy analyst and IDS Emeritus Fellow Raphael Kaplinsky, author of the book Sustainable Futures: An Agenda for Action.
The book explores the determinants and character of the ongoing...
Sexual, reproductive health and rights – including the right and ability to access safe abortion – have long been among the last priorities in health systems, not least because those who benefit from them the most are often the most marginalised and vulnerable.
As social science and public...
In this episode of IDS Between the Lines, IDS Director Melissa Leach interviews leading development policy analyst and IDS Emeritus Fellow Raphael Kaplinsky, author of the book Sustainable Futures: An Agenda for Action.
The book explores the determinants and character of the ongoing...
The growth of urban agriculture in Zimbabwe has been phenomenal. Every space seems to be cultivated, with a huge array of crops. Today you see tractors, irrigation pumps, trucks carrying produce to markets, with significant investments in commercialised agriculture happening alongside...
On 7 June, a paramilitary group estimated to be around 700 people – mostly police, park rangers, military and other security forces – arrived in the Loliondo area of Ngorongoro, Tanzania. Violence followed, including the shooting and arrests of local residents protesting against the...