Blog

GDI Phd candidate Sally Cawood talks about some of her observations during field work in Bangladesh. Read ESID research on the politics of the Domestic Violence Act in Bangladesh

6 July 2017

On a recent visit to Addis Abada in Ethiopia, Tom Lavers presented his latest research on social protection and Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme. This is his presentation.

Read the research on social protection in Ethiopia

Anthony Bebbington

4 July 2017

When a country discovers that it has valuable mineral deposits under its soil, some would say it had won the lottery. Putting aside the question of how and why it was that the country began looking for the minerals in the first place, how does it then make a series of other decisions? Whether or not to exploit these minerals? How to exploit them? Who will exploit them? What to do about the people and environments that will be disturbed by this exploitation?

Other questions will also arise. What, if any, taxes and royalties will the miners and drillers be asked to pay back to the government? How will those taxes and royalties be spent? Who will benefit from them? Who will know how much miners and drillers are paying in taxes and royalties? Continue Reading →

3 July 2017

Professor Anthony Bebbington leads the ESID research programme on the politics of natural resources and inclusive development. He tells us here about his life and work, and why he challenges the notion of ‘development’.
 

What made you want to work in development research?

The fact that I couldn’t work in ‘development’ practice.

High school geography introduced me to poverty, famines and the Green Revolution (thank you Messrs James, Jones and Hadfield), and then university forced me to think theoretically about regional inequality, the historical dynamics of capitalist development (thank you Derek Gregory) and the detailed politics of the policy process (thank you Land Economy).

Much else happened at university too and by the end I had decided I wanted to work in ‘development’ and social change. Every organisation I wrote to, however, told me (quite rightly) that I had neither experience nor skills. So, I did a PhD in order to get extended ‘field’ experience and knowledge of development organisations, so that I could be better placed to work in development. Continue Reading →

Prof Sam Hickey’s  presentation, delivered to OECD Govnet meeting on Governance and the SDGs – How politics matters for development and the implications for Sustainable Development Goal 16.