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.
The 'ownership agenda' is concerned with the question of who controls and influences aid projects. The objective is to improve the quality of aid by giving more influence to the intended 'end users': both people and institutions in recipient rather than donor nations, and the unorganised poor in...
West Africa's transition zone is one of the world's most ecologically fragile areas and is widely assumed to be experiencing a deforestation crisis. For a century experts have held villagers responsible.
This paper evaluates the statistical performance of four commonly used econometric tests for market integration and shows that all four are statistically flawed.
The banking system in Uganda is among the weakest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Its liabilities comprise less than 10 per cent of GDP, it is highly oligopolistic and inefficient in performing many basic banking functions, and the largest bank and several smaller banks are insolvent.
The banking system in Nigeria has undergone radical changes during the 35 years since independence. Banking developed from an industry which in 1960 was dominated by a small number of foreign owned banks into one in which public sector ownership predominated in the 1970s and 1980s and in which...
For over 20 years until the early 1990s Zambia had entailed extensive government ownership and administrative controls over markets, including financial and banking markets. Interventionist policies, combined with a steep fall in the external terms of trade, led to economic decline.
Relations between NGOs and states are often characterised by conflict, since each actor is in competition for development resources. This paper looks at situations where cooperation offers benefits to both parties but where conflict remains. It argues that cooperation can offer benefits to both...
Literature on effective health management and planning is commonly inaccessible to district health managers in developing countries. This bibliography aims to direct managers towards the most useful publications.
This paper puts forward the argument for programme aid as a policy response to drought. It suggests its importance lies in the initial impact of the aid transfer, and in the additional opportunities thereby made available to carry out strategic policy.
The World Bank's new strategy for poverty reduction was launched in the World Development Report of 1990. This issue of the Bulletin re-examines the Bank's new poverty agenda focusing on three key issues: the meaning and measurement of poverty, the interaction of poverty and domestic policy, and...
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) has much to offer the policy-making process. It provides a way to give poor people a voice, enabling them to express and analyse their problems and priorities. Used well, it can generate important and often surprising insights which can contribute to policies...
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).