This report examines the latest progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Fourteen years ago, the Millennium Declaration articulated a bold vision and established concrete targets for improving the existence of many and for saving the lives of those threatened by disease and hunger. There has been important progress across all goals, with some targets already ...» more
Library
This e-library contains more than 4500 external publications on governance, social development, conflict and humanitarian issues. It includes academic and grey literature selected for its basis in good quality research and coverage of a range of perspectives. Policy-oriented summaries of each document are provided, plus links to the full text.
Development entrepreneurship: how donors and leaders can foster institutional change
This paper describes the practice of what has been called development entrepreneurship and explains some of the ideas from outside the field of development that have inspired it. It briefly indicates the range of reforms to which the method has been applied in the Philippines, and identifies five distinguishing features of development entrepreneurship.Key findings:Practical ...» more
Citizen-Led Accountability and Inclusivity in Pakistan
This paper examines the experiences of citizens' groups seeking to hold Pakistan’s elected representatives and governance institutions accountable. A recent citizen-led accountability programme across both conflict-affected and peaceful constituencies has reported significant success in mobilising volunteer groups to demand the resolution of local issues. This paper examines ...» more
World Disasters Report: Focus on culture and risk
Culture and beliefs, for example, in spirits or gods, or simple fatalism, enable people to live with risks and make sense of their lives in dangerous places. This paper looks at different aspects of how culture affects disaster risk reduction (DRR) and how disasters and risk influence culture. It assesses the effects of religion and other beliefs and the culture of DRR ...» more
Authoritarianism, democracy and development
This paper reviews the evidence on authoritarianism and development from the perspective of a policy-maker providing advice to an ostensibly developmental authoritarian regime. It finds that the cross-national statistical evidence on regime type and development is inconclusive, and argues that varying experiences of development under authoritarianism are better-captured by ...» more
What evidence is available and what is required, in humanitarian assistance?
This paper investigates the current landscape of evidence in the humanitarian sector, with particular emphasis on evidence from impact evaluation. This is in an attempt to identify areas in which actionable evidence is available and those where more evidence is needed, so as to direct research to where it will be most valuable. It finds a paucity of evidence in most areas, ...» more
Do Governance Indicators Explain Development Performance? A Cross-Country Analysis
This study uses the World Bank's worldwide governance indicators to examine whether a country with governance 'surplus' in a given base year (1998) grew faster on average in a subsequent period (1998-2011) than a country with governance 'deficit'. Governance is defined in several dimensions, including government effectiveness, political stability, control of corruption and ...» more
Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment: What Works?
This article reviews the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of actions that have direct, near-term impacts on women’s economic outcomes, while recognizing the importance of complementary investments in women’s human capital and inclusive policies and legal frameworks over the long term. The interventions covered in this review include providing women with access to capital ...» more
Human Development Report 2014 – Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience
The 2014 Human Development Report— Sustaining Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience—looks at two concepts which are both interconnected and immensely important to securing human development progress. It shows that overall global trends are positive and that progress is continuing. Yet, lives are being lost, and livelihoods and development undermined, by ...» more
Technologies to Support Climate Change Adaptation in Developing Asia
The 2013 Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) restates the inevitability of significant and continuing climate change impact in Asia. The report is organized by sector and deals separately with climate change impact, vulnerabilities, and technology needs in the following six sectors:agriculture, coastal resources, human health, ...» more
From Principle to Practice: A User’s Guide to Do No Harm
This book contains the lessons learned from the Do No Harm Project over the past twenty years. These lessons are largely techniques that allow practitioners to work in complex environments with confidence and effectiveness.Key Findings: The six overarching lessons learned by the Do No Harm Project form the basis of understanding how interventions have impacts. They outline the ...» more
World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society, and Behavior
Every policy makes assumptions about human behaviour. Public policy typically subsidises and publicises activities worth encouraging and taxes those to be discouraged. Underlying this approach is the notion that human behaviour arises from “rational” choice: individuals carefully weigh their choices, consider all readily available information, and make decisions on their own. ...» more
Policy advocacy for women’s unpaid care work: comparing approaches and strategies in Nepal and Nigeria
This article focuses on policy advocacy programmes in Nepal and Nigeria, instigated by ActionAid International with local women's rights organisations and non-government organisations, and supported by the Institute of Development Studies, UK. These programmes aimed to challenge women's unequal responsibility for care work and to influence policymakers to understand the ...» more
Transforming gender roles in domestic and caregiving work: preliminary findings from engaging fathers in maternal, newborn, and child health in Rwanda
This article draws on Promundo and RWAMREC's programmatic experiences in Rwanda of implementing MenCare+, a gender transformative approach to engaging young and adult men (ages 15–35) in caregiving, maternal, newborn, and child health, and sexual and reproductive health and rights. The paper presents initial results from fathers' groups with more than 600 men, including the ...» more
World Survey on the Role of Women in Development 2014: Gender equality and sustainable development
This World Survey focuses on gender equality and sustainable development, with highlights on the green economy and care work, food security, population dynamics, and investments for gender-responsive sustainable development. The report uses three criteria to assess whether policy actions and investments for sustainable development adequately address gender equality. Do they ...» more
Women’s participation in peace and security: Normative ends, political means
This briefing draws on recent ODI research and evaluation to review opportunities to promote women’s political participation and leadership in transitional and post-conflict settings, assess current international efforts to do so, and provide recommendations for policy and programming in this area. Key findings: Post-conflict and transitional settings provide real opportunities ...» more
Why women participate less in civic activity: Evidence from Mali
This paper finds that a randomly assigned civic education course in Mali widened the gender gap, when it increased civic activity among men while decreasing that among women. Qualitative evidence reveals mechanisms by which the intervention generated perverse consequences for women. In a place where women are traditionally unwelcome actors in the public sphere, the course ...» more
Hungry for peace: positives and pitfalls of local truces and ceasefires in Syria
This report presents in-depth academic analysis to both top down attempts and more than 35 different local negotiations in different parts of Syria, between October 2011 and October 2014. It uses information gathered by field researchers inside Syria and from 45 interviews. It includes case studies on Homs, the Damascus countryside, Ras al-Ain and the provision of services in ...» more
Strengthening social justice to address intersecting inequalities post-2015
The people most likely to be left behind by development are those facing 'intersecting inequalities', or economic deficits intersecting with discrimination and exclusion on the grounds of identity and locational disadvantage. The experiences and relative successes of seven countries reviewed in this report suggest that there are a small number of 'key ingredients' required to ...» more
Global and regional supermarkets for producers and workers in Kenyan and Ugandan horticulture.
Comparative case studies were undertaken in Kenya and Uganda to examine the economic and social implications for FFV producers and workers supplying global, regional and domestic supermarket value chains. Research was undertaken in Kenya between May 2011 and June 2012 focusing on FFV value chain actors. A mapping was undertaken of the FFV value chain, including links to global, ...» more
