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Blog post
India 2019: Catching the clickbait generation
A group of young people greater than the population of Germany will vote for the first time in India’s 17 Lok Sabha elections. LSE PhD student Tom Wilkinson explains why this segment of the Indian electorate has become such an important demographic during this year’s election campaign. The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a rap video for first-time voters a...
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Blog post
IGC Quick Clicks: DFID’s new leader and what it means for UK aid
On 1 May, UK Prime Minister Theresa May appointed a new Secretary of State for International Development. Rory Stewart, who was previously serving as Minister of State for Prisons, was appointed after a cabinet reshuffle that saw the previous Secretary, Penny Mordaunt, picked to be the country’s first female Defence Secretary. What might this new leadership mean for the...
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Blog post
Urban density and the promises of proximity
As an economist, an end of year tradition is to muse over The Royal Society of Statistics, ‘Statistic of the Year’. In 2018, the singled out stat was: 90.5% - the proportion of plastic waste that has never been recycled. An important statistic, but an area in which the International Growth Centre’s (IGC) ‘Cities that Work’ initiative has limited...
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Blog post
Improving land security through community-based organisations
Researchers and policymakers agree that secure land rights constitute a vital pillar for sustained livelihood improvements among marginalized populations, but existing solutions have been primarily top-down in orientation. Can community-based organisations help to improve land security from the ground up? Bihar state law guarantees each rural household the right to hold...
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Blog post
Don’t shoot the messenger – electricity theft and trust in Karachi, Pakistan
We assume that more information makes markets work better. Information can provide individuals incentives to act better. However, in some situations, information on poor behaviour can lead to mistrust, not just of other people, but of the institution that delivers the message. The Karachi setting Karachi is Pakistan’s largest city and industrial hub, home to 16.6...
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Blog post
Should graduation programmes replace the more conventional cash transfers?
The past decade has seen an exponential rise in social protection initiatives – mostly in the form of unconditional cash transfer programmes. In Latin America, Africa and South Asia, these emerge as promising interventions to reduce poverty. There is also a rising global trend of using conditionalities linked to such transfers to increase school enrolment, and access to...
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Blog post
Increasing religious awareness and professional training
The discovery of natural gas triggered violent extremism in Northern Mozambique. Could religious awareness and professional training quell violence? [caption id="attachment_28440" align="alignnone" width="768"] Figure 1: The Economist, Aug 9th 2018.[/caption] There is vast economic and political science literature on conflict and civil wars, which mostly focuses on the...
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Blog post
Building a capable civil service in Liberia: The role of the Performance Management System
Over the past thirty years, Liberia has encountered a mix of challenges, from negotiating civil war and an Ebola epidemic to welcoming the first democratic transition of power in three-quarters of a century. The recently elected Weah administration has made governance one of the four pillars of its ‘Pro-poor Agenda for Prosperity and Development’, including a push to...
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Blog post
Lighting up Rwanda: Assessing the demand for pay-as-you-go lighting
The government of Rwanda has successfully increased the rate of electrification, from 10% in 2010 to 43% in 2018. However, for 57% of the population without electricity, the alternative energy sources include traditional biomass, kerosene, and rechargeable lamps which can harm respiratory health and the environment. In 2017, the Rwandan government launched a universal...
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Blog post
What do we (not) know about the benefits of households' electrification?
Household electrification has recently become a controversial topic. When The Economist declared that “electricity does not change poor lives as much as was thought,” a number of non-profits and industry representatives wrote indignant responses (CEO of SolarAid, CrossBoundary) arguing that electricity, including distributed solar power, can be a game-changer for rural...
Blog post
India 2019: Catching the clickbait generation
A group of young people greater than the population of Germany will vote for the first time in India’s 17 Lok Sabha elections. LSE PhD student Tom Wilkinson explains why this segment of the Indian electorate has become such an important demographic during this year’s election campaign. The ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) launched a rap video for first-time voters a...