Role Tim Kelsall is a Senior Research Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), London, and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the School of Environment, Education and Development, The University of Manchester. Between 2013 and 2015 he was the Cambodia team leader for ESI

06 March 2015 By Sophie King Social accountability has become an important ‘buzzword’ among development actors seeking to understand the forms of state-society relations that may be supportive of better public services. Malena and McNeil (2010: 1) define it as: ‘the broad range of act

Role Brian Levy  is Professor of the Practice of International Development, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC and Academic Director, Nelson Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town. Brian leads the ESID South Africa

Role Kate has recently been awarded her PhD at the Global Development Institute (GDI), The University of Manchester, and is a postdoctoral Research Associate with ESID. Research Kate’s research is on the politics of social protection adoption, expansion and implementation in low and m

Bangladesh In Bangladesh, ESID is working on Political Economy Analysis (PEA), gender and a comparative study with Ghana on education. Our main partner in Bangladesh is BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD). Bolivia Bolivia is one of four countries included in an ESID pr

Programme 1: Defining and measuring political settlements Almost everyone agrees that ‘politics matters’ for development, but there is little consensus about what this actually means. At ESID we aim to understand the specific ways in which state capacity and elite commitment arise fro

Objectives This project aims to deepen our understanding of the structural underpinnings of spatial inequality from a comparative perspective. It adopts a political settlements approach to investigate the role of politics and power relations in shaping policy reforms and public invest

15 January 2015 [5 December 2014 original post]. By Niaz Asadullah and Antonio Savoia. Bangladesh’s economy has recorded remarkable economic performance in the new millennium, though its per capita income has remained low. Even more spectacular has been the steady improvement in its l

7 November 2014 By Sophie King. Political settlements analysis has been largely gender blind and, as Professor Sylvia Tamale noted at a recent Gender and Political Settlements workshop in Kampala, can read like Ancient Greek to even the most experienced feminist scholars. So what does

Role Rhoda Osei-Afful is a Research Officer with the Ghana Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana). She is a key member of CDD-Ghana’s Elections Team and has supported the implementation of a number of research projects at CDD-Ghana, such as the Transparency and Accountability P