Sustainability

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.

People

Melissa Leach

Emeritus Fellow

Lyla Mehta

Professorial Fellow

Ian Scoones

Professorial Fellow

Amber Huff

Research Fellow

Jeremy Allouche

Professorial Fellow

Lars Otto Naess

Research Fellow

Wei Shen

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead and Research Fellow

Shilpi Srivastava

Resource Politics and Environmental Change Cluster Lead and Research Fellow

Programmes and centres

Recent work

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Showing 1441–1452 of 15342 results

News

IDS in Solidarity with 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence

Starting 25 November, activists around the world will be marking 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence - an annual international campaign to raise awareness of the issue of gender-based violence (GBV) and to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and...

24 November 2022

Journal Article

International Aid Actions for Accountability: Identifying Interaction Effects Between Programmes

Aid agencies that support public accountability reforms commonly do so in the same places, and with similar state and civil society actors. However, the combined effects of their separate programmatic actions are rarely analysed. This study departs from conventional analysis of aid agency...

24 November 2022

Publication

Collective Action to Support Family Farming in Colombia

Stories of Change

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit small-scale farmers, particularly women, very hard in Latin America. RIMISP – Latin American Center for Rural Development – has been conducting participatory research to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on smallholder farmers in the department of Huila, in...

23 November 2022

Opinion

Bringing embodiment into work with girls

Considering embodiment in work with girls can help us to understand the effects of gendered oppression, as well as the potential of approaches that aim to tackle it.

22 November 2022

Book

A Development Economist in the United Nations: Reasons for Hope

This book explores the joys and occasional frustrations of a development economist working for the United Nations. From 1982 to 2000 Richard Jolly worked in senior positions in UNICEF and UNDP on assignments that were innovative, for the UN, the countries concerned and for development. The book...

22 November 2022

Working Paper

The Enigma of the Central–Local Government Relationship and its Impact on Property Tax Administration in Developing Countries: The Ghanaian Perspective

ICTD Working Paper;151

Property tax administration is the bedrock for effective revenue mobilisation, development, and good local governance for local governments. Yet administering property taxation continues to be a major problem, especially for many developing countries. Scholarly explanations for this poor state...

Frank L.K. Ohemeng

Fariya Mohiuddin

22 November 2022

Why learn with us.

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).

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